Posted September 07, 2023 by rwx designs
This brief video shows the introduction of Boomerang Boy from The New Zealand Story arcade game. The purpose of this video is just to test the walking animation frames. In the next few weeks Boomerang Boy will be throwing his boomerang should Tiki jump onto his platform.
Boomerang Boy is one of the more complicated characters to animate in the game - he has some 32 frames of animation and another 8 for his boomerang. The main difference is the colour of the boomerang compared to the arcade, which is cyan, as opposed to red of the arcade.
I've tried to mimic closely how he looks to the arcade original, but it is extremely difficult given his height on the arcade is a lot taller in many frames than the 21 pixels high that the C64s sprites allow for. In the final game - he won't appear on level 1 (like in this test), but probably will appear from level 2 or 3 onwards.
I've also slowed down slightly his walking animation, too fast and it will motion blur which is not a great look on the C64, but overall I think he looks the part.
Hope you like the work so far!