Hi everyone,

The development of the Mayan Mystery is a strange one. Originally being developed by myself, I was offered the chance to partner up and work on making the game available as DSiWare (the thread can be found through this link: http://www.nintendolife.com/forums/dsiware/introducing_the_ad... ). We dove into the project and very nearly had everything ready to go, but hit several bumps towards the end, and the DSiWare dream was derailed. I didn't give up on completing the game though, and went to work on a PC version of what would have been the DSiWare game.That was back in December 2011.

Fast forward to today, and after a lot of late nights in the corner my dingy little room, I present to you the Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery (Demo)!You play as Mitch, a young monkey who must stop Horatio Hawk from escaping from a Mayan temple with a magical artifact (While the exact use of this artifact is unknown to Mitch, there is no doubt that it will be made to serve some evil purpose)!

Being a demo version of the game, you are able to play four of the planned six levels of the game, but there should be a decent amount of game time involved. Some features of the game are:-Over 60 rooms to explore-Multiple weapons and abilities to use against the bad guys-3 evil/scary/mean bosses, guaranteed to keep you on your toes-Lots of relics and coins to seek out and collect for extra lives-A dialogue system to get little tips and hints if you lose your way

If you liked the older games in the Metroid series, I'm pretty sure you'll have fun playing the Mayan Mystery. Heck, it has monkeys and guns!! If that point alone hasn't sold you on the game, perhaps some screenshots might be in order:

There is a whole bunch of stuff to check on on the links in my signature, but if you want to go straight to the source, here is a link to the download page:

http://www.adventureapes.com/downloads.html

I do hope you'll give my game a shot. It's something that I've worked on for four years now in one form or another, and it's been a big personal step to finally have something to present to you! If you've got any questions, opinions or feedback, I want to hear it! It is after all a big factor in making the game what it is today

Kind regards,ScaryPotato

Oh that's a shame, I hope you better luck with your future DSi/3DSware projects!

It looks pretty good! I'll try it when I get home.

Thanks Morpheel, it's a bummer for sure, but the most important thing is to keep moving. Maybe at some point in the future another attempt at handheld systems will be made, but for now I'd really like to finish this project and see where it takes me!

I hope you enjoy the game

Will definitely check this out and support you folks

Would love to kill that nasty giant spider.

Hi L4DYK0M1C and thanks, I could use all the support available! If you do try it out (and maybe even beat the spider), let me know what you think!

Oh, I remember this! I was really looking forward to seeing this on DSiWare. May I ask why it didn't make it on there? Oh well, things happen and life must go on.
I'll download this when I get the chance. Sounds fun.

@ScaryPotato
I've only had a chance to check out the demo for a few minutes, but i like it so far. I think before i play some more, i'll use Joy2Key to map the controls to my SNES-style gamepad for maximum retro-ness.
Once i have time to play through the demo for real, i'll pop back in with some more impressions, but as i said, i'm liking it so far — kudos!

Hi Retro_on_theGo, glad to hear there was at least one fan from back in the day! The big reason that this game didn't see the light in the DSiWare store is that at the time, it was just two of us plugging away on the game after hours. Life outside the project got a little too hectic, and it just wasn't possible to continue at that time. It's really too bad, but I didn't want this thing to die, so I'm giving it a go on the PC side of things:)

Hey the_shpydar, that would definitely be the way to go. I'm too accustomed to playing it with the keyboard controls, but having a gamepad handy would be perfect!

Huh! You're using Game Maker to create this?
That's awesome , I love Game Maker.
Anyways, I found out because the game maker error window showed up after I tried to grab an item from a statue (where have I seen this before?). I think it has to do with the fact that I started the game directly from the zip file
I could also see some GML code on the error message xD sorry.

From what I could play, it's pretty good, though I found it much easier to jump using the up arrow than the x button.

GameMaker is a nice easy way to get into making games that's for sure:) Still have a long way to go before I'm really proficient in it though! The error was indeed caused by playing the zip file directly. That little floating gem is a save location, and was looking for a folder to save your progress to. It's nice to see how far and wide Game Maker has spread, the fact that at least two of us know it on this site is kind of cool! I left the 'z' and 'x' buttons active, but should probably get rid of that at some point since they're not mentioned in the control scheme at all, just a confusing alternate

Oh I'm sure more people in here know about Game Maker, it's a great tool (and it will be even better when I get Game Maker Studio [one of these days...]).
You're making professional games with it, believe me, you're part of the 5% of game maker users that use it correctly.

The x button was actually kind of frustrating because I had to stop to jump I'll unzip the game and try again to see how far I can get.
By the way is there a way to play it in full-screen (I tried F4 but it didn't quite work)? (sorry if it's mentioned in-game, I just skipped all the text )

Yep, game Maker Studio is going to be huge. I think everyone is eagerly awaiting its release too.
You pretty much sold me on getting rid of the z/x options now, heh! There's no way to do a true fullscreen unfortunately. I tried to find a happy balance (it's set at 200%), I tried 100%, but thought it was a hassle to have to always go and resize the screen when you start, and 300% seemed just a bit too big. So far, I haven't had many complaints about the resolution, but that's a nice simple fix if need me:)

Oh it's just that it looks kinda small on my computer but it's not that much of a big deal, I guess you'll add an options menu or something on the final version.

By the way, Game Maker Studio is already out! You can start to make iOS and Android games for the humble price of $596 dollars (plus $99 for the iOS developer licence)

Sweet. I love Metroid and I love monkeys, so I will definitely check this out!

Morpheel - I picked up a copy of Game Maker Studio with HTML5 and Android options, but no Mac module (don't own one). Any how, it opens things up for future games on different platforms, so I'm pretty excited!

SMW - Monkeys make everything better, it's true I hope you enjoy the game!

Right now, I'm putting together an illustrated instruction booklet that you'll be able to download from the site. Am hoping to get it done by the end of the weekend...here are a few of the drawings done so far (click on it for a bigger version, as well as a few other drawings!)

The instruction booklet is done! There are plenty of illustrations and information (along with some old school maps), to help you through the game
I've updated the download link so the game comes with the instruction booklet in the same zip file, but if you want to check out the instruction booklet on its own, right click on the example pages below. Hope you like it!

Hey everyone,
I thought I'd post a quick little update here to let you know that after countless hours of slaving away, the game is done! I've got a couple applications pending to have it hosted on different sites, and you can get a nearly complete version off the Adventure Apes site in my signature.

One thing that I did recently was put together a little video going through all the levels in the game with some narration to give you insight on different aspects of each level. Feel free to have a look!

What's up guys and gals? Well, it took a little longer than expected, but it's with some relief (and disbelief!) that I released the game on my website today!

The full version comes packed full of adventuring awesomeness, along with the illustrated instruction booklet, and even a super secret free bonus goody, and the demo has been updated to feature 30fps playback, 40 rooms to explore and 2 boss battles, with an option to get the full game afterwards.
All-in-all, my heart and soul went into creating this project, so even if you don't opt for the full version, I hope that you have fun playing the demo and reminiscing of the good ol' days of video games!

Here's where you can get a copy of the game, watch videos, read bios on the characters, or just veg out for a little while. What you do with your time is none of my business!
http://www.adventureapes.com/downloads.html