Background
The year is 2019. Twitch streamer, developer, and coding extraordinaire Simon Jameson aka (Shallan) hosts the debut episode of his streaming series, “Let’s Make a video game”, marking the start of a 21-month journey spanning 70 episodes. This was super laid back series, often alcohol fueled. Many of these episodes were marathon sessions, some spanning nearly five hours.
The end result was “Pik n Mix”, a high-quality, single-screen platformer for the Commodore 64 drawing inspiration from arcade classics like Bubble Bobble. This was a coding stream. Part of the reason the series was stretched out so long was that he thoroughly explained every concept from the beginning and welcomed community questions, which often sparked helpful sidebar tutorials.
While Shallan led the project, the final outcome was a massive collaborative effort, with community members providing ideas, graphics, music, and many of the game’s challenging levels. Eighteen months after the streams completed, the game remained incomplete. In 2022, the developer Arlasoft stepped in as a quasi-publisher to add finishing touches and an enhanced single-player experience. I’ll list the other games contributors toward the end of the video.
Before I go more into the game play, I just wanted to mention that during this development process, Shallan hosted several additional community challenges designed to push participants coding skills. Some of you may recall the “Spiral Challenge”, “Decode Base64 Challenge”, “Optimization Challenge”, the “Mega 65 basic 10 Challenge”, and the “Cycle-Counting Challenge” to name a few. He also generously donated several Nexus A7 FPGA boards along with some other swag.
Gameplay
The name of the game, “Pik ‘n’ Mix” is a play on the traditional British term for an assortment of candies. The name was chosen to reflect the game’s sweet-themed levels and its unique weight-based gameplay. Players must stun the enemies using paintballs and then “eat” them. Consuming enemies causes the players to gain weight. To progress, players must reach a minimum weight threshold. Once attained, stepping onto the platform opens the door to the next level. In multiplayer mode, both players must stand on the platform to unlock the exit. The first player to reach the open exit door wins the level and receives a bonus.
Title Screen
I wanted to take a minute just to speak to what a technical achievement the title screen alone is. Rarely do you see two, make that three scrolling elements on the title screen. As I recall these were done with a combination of a sprite multiplexer and complex raster techniques. The text scroller near the bottom is actually a bunch of sprites with the text ‘blitted’ into them. The games name “Pik n Mix” is floating around at the top. The center area toggles between multiple screens including instructions on how to play the game, the power ups, the calorie counter IE. high score table, and the developer credits. On the developer screen I love how the headings are labelled to follow the games sweet candy theme.
Game Description
Pressing the space bar or the fire button will start the game. Upon doing so, you will see the first glimpse into the amazing transition effect Shallan coded into the game. The same transition occurs between all levels.
This is a single screen arcade platformer style of game. The game includes both single and two player modes. The heads up display or HUD, located at the bottom of the screen, is split into two main sections: the left side tracks the score and remaining lives for player one, while the right side displays the score and lives for player two.
Additionally, this area features weight bars indicating when the player or players have consumed enough enemies to trigger the level exit door to appear. Again, keep an eye on these bars to have an idea of how close you are to completing the level. You will notice several platforms in the game some of which are attached to pipes or tubes. When the tubes start to bulge this is the indication enemies or power ups are making their way through them. Some of the enemies on level one resemble walking pickles but were intended to resemble jelly beans. You may notice there is a crown randomly placed on the map. The player wearing the crown is immune to head shots and will receive a 10,000 point bonus upon level completion. The crown will fall off the player when consuming enemies or if the player loses a life. Randomly placed on the map is a pressure switch which can only be activated once your player has gained enough weight. In two-player games both players must stand on the pressure switch to activate it. Doing so will reveal the exit door. When it appears, it is a race to see which player can make the exit first for the bonuses. The player that wins the race will automatically start the next level wearing the crown.
Controls
Holding left or right on the joystick will move the player in that direction. Pressing up will cause the player to jump. Tapping the fire button will throw a paint ball. If the paint balls hits the enemy it will temporarily stun them allowing time for them to be consumed via long pressing the fire button.
Pro tip: The player does not have to be flat on the platform in order to consume the enemies. Likewise, the enemies do not have to be stationary. In other words, as long as an enemy is stunned, it can be consumed even while falling. Similarly, players can consume stunned enemies even while jumping or moving through the air.
If the paint ball hits the platform it will paint the floor the same color as the player. As the enemies traverse the platforms they erase the players paint. The idea is to paint as many of the platforms as you can for bonus purposes. For multi-player games this can create a competition to control the most territory before the level is completed. As the players consume enemies their weight increases, eventually causing a visual “screen shake” effect. In addition once the weight is put on, the player moves slower and cannot jump quite as high.
Scoring
Painted areas and consumed enemies are worth 250 points each. Completing the level while wearing the crown is worth 10,000 points. In single player games, there are time based bonuses between 1,000 to 9,000 points can be earned for rapid completion, while in two-player modes the first player through the exit wins the race and earns 5,000 points. You are not awarded points for picking up power-ups.
Spare player:
Players start with five lives and are granted extra lives every 200,000 points.
Power Ups
The title screen outlines six power ups. Each power up is temporary, lasting only a few seconds. They are; sprint mode, invincibility, swap color tags, jump boost, bonus points and freeze time. Effectively the crown is also a power-up, because while wearing it the player is immune to headshots.
Strategy
Try to tag the enemies together in the same spot in order to consume more of them in one gulp. Another strategy would be to aim your paint balls at the tubes when the enemies are about to pop out to quickly stun them. On later levels, go after the flying enemies first as they are the most unpredictable. Don’t hang out and eat the enemies while positioned under the tubes as new enemies could spawn there. Remember you can eat stunned enemies without being on the same platform as long as the player is within a fairly close circumference. Be aware you can drop through the bottom of a level and re-appear at the top in order to escape a pursuing enemy. You may also lob your paint balls while falling. To increase your points, be sure to paint as many of the platforms as you can before consuming the final enemy and make sure you are wearing the crown to receive the 10,000 point level completion bonus.
Graphics
I love the colorful graphics in “Pik n Mix” which are as a result of the candy or sweets theme of the game. It has been described as being cartoonish. The levels utilize the full color palette the Commodore 64 has to offer. The platforms on each level are assembled from various candy shapes. Shallan coded a sprite multiplexer in order to place more than the eight built-in Commodore 64 sprites on the screen at any given time. He also built a level editor for the community so they could submit their own level designs. You may also notice Shallan coded in a character based software sprite system for the paint balls. There is a nice status bar or weight bar featured in the center of the HUD which visually indicates your level progress. In addition, your character will physically gain weight and the screen will shake when you are close to completing the level. There are many different enemy types some of which are not revealed until deeper into the game. Each of the enemies have their own “behaviors” as Shallon described them. Some are shaped as candy canes, marshmallows, gummy bears, jelly beans, to name a few. Some simply move back and forth while others can fly around the screen. Some move around unpredictably. I appreciate all the visual touches that went into the levels, such as the pipe bulges and the floating sprite text that appears when the enemies are consumed, such as “burp”, “Yumm” or “mmm”.
Sound
The music and sounds effects in the game are community driven and many are credited to Phaze101, Stepz and Mike Richmond. There are a total of eleven music tracks in the game. Overall they are subtle but in a good way. Let me explain. During my playthrough of the game, which took me several hours to complete, at no point was the music grating to me. I never felt like I needed to turn off the music or turn the volume down, which is a testament to the music and sound in “Pik n Mix”. The game starts out with the swish transition sound effect as the title screen draws in. This ushers in the title screen music to begin playing. The music itself is lowkey, sort of playful and for whatever reason never grows old. The music cycles to new tunes upon level completion. There is a separate tune that plays while on the bonus screen.
As for the sound effects, there is a pipe or tube sound effect when the enemies are making their way out and a separate one for once they are expelled out of the tubes. Theres a sound effect for consuming the enemies and power ups.
There’s a sound effect for shooting paint balls and a separate one for stunning the enemies. All simple, yet effective.
Level ramp ups
The game does steadily get more difficult as you progress. The enemies become more aggressive and increase in numbers. The levels design also plays into the difficulty. In the beginning the walking enemies such as the Jelly Beans simply walk back and forth. As you progress some of the enemies can fall off the platforms. Some of them jump in odd ways and some of them fly through the air. The sheer number of the enemies and how frequently they respawn increases as you progress through the game.
Easter eggs
I am not aware of any traditional easter eggs having been inserted into the game. Some of the levels and perhaps the game itself is considered as an homage to Bubble Bobble and there is a community tribute scroller should you make it through to the end of the game.
Suggestions for Improvements
There’s not a whole lot that I would suggest to improve this game. At this point anything I mention would be things I would call knit picking. It would have been nice to maybe have sightly larger tube bulges. I would have liked for the paint bullets to have been able to wrap around to the other side of the screen. I would have liked the power-ups to last a little bit longer. For single player games, I believe tweaking the spare man score threshold down a bit to about maybe 75,000 points would have made the game a lot easier, IE. fewer rage quits. Either that or have some sort of built in difficulty system (Easy/Medium/Hard).
Bugs
During my playthrough of the single-player version of the game I did take some notes on few issues and questions I observed while playing. Firstly, Phase101 is credited for every level. I believe this is giving credit for the music track. I am not entirely sure if this is incorrect or not. Similarly, the level names are repetitive and don’t seem to match the actual stages; Shallan had actually mentioned during his streams that he was using placeholder names while he worked out the final 33-level sequence. On the gameplay side, there is a minor collision issue on the first level where the player cannot move left in a specific position. I didn’t notice that particular issue on any other level. Lastly, if you are skillful enough to beat the game, while the final credits scroller is running there is no way to enter your initials and record your high score.
Podcasts / Other Video Review coverage
“Pic n Mix” was showcased at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne Germany. It was presented on the Retro Stage as one of the best two-player releases of the prior year. During the presentation, volunteers from the audience played the game live. It was featured on several gaming youtube channels and on the Indie Retro News website. It was also featured in the Zzap! 64 Micro Action magazine issue 15 in 2023, where it received an overall score of 75. By the way these Zzap Mini Mags are really cool, they are released every other month and I highly recommend subscribing.
Packaging
Although a physical release was once planned for 2023, it never received a physical release but you can pick it up over on itch.io for free.
Conclusion
In total, “Pik n Mix” features 33 challenging levels that offer a wide variety of visual themes, distinct enemies, and tunes. Beyond the technical feat, the project embraced a philanthropic mission, with all digital donations directed to Great Ormond Street Hospital in memory of Aurora Richmond, the daughter of music contributor Mike Richmond.
Ultimately, “Pik n Mix” evolved from unfiltered Twitch sessions into a polished hit which was showcased at Gamescom 2023, proving that development on 40 year old hardware is still thriving. I sometimes refer back to the 70 game streaming series for key insights. Had there been an arcade release I could have imaged investing many quarters playing it. “Pik n Mix” stands as a premier example of what a dedicated community can achieve.
Game Credits
The game’s creation was a massive community effort involving may contributors. I am going to list those names I am aware of, but understand there were many people that contributed ideas, concepts, and code fixes that may not be listed here:
- Simon Jameson (aka Shallan50K) : Lead developer and streamer.
- Arlasoft (Nick Sherman): Quasi-publisher who added finishing touches, graphics, and bug fixes.
- Prince/Phaze101 and Crain/Phaze101: The music and sound effects. I also have Mike Richmond and Stepz as contributors
- I have, Sp175, Zigzag, Russell Mills, Decorix, & Andy the Magic Knight for Level designs.
- Jason Oakley, Ollie Doughty, Roy C. Riggs, Simon Jameson, Stoker64 for Graphics
- Eric Akeson: Quality assurance and testing and finally
- Stepz: Quality assurance, tester. Just a few months after completing his own game, Rambler, a challenging and highly enjoyable game, Stepz sadly passed away in early May 2023.
I extracted this fitting tribute from Andy the Magic Knight on Shallans discord channel:
“Stepz was the life and soul of the stream chats, whether his crazy schemes to exploit the stream games or his incredible knowledge of C64 games he always left us laughing. He was also a talented musician and left us with one of the most fun and frustrating new C64 games. He has left a huge hole in this community, much loved and deeply missed. RIP Stepz.”
