We first released Prideworld during Pride Month (June) of 2020. After a couple of months of development we now had a reliably working game engine (apart from the flickery graphics as the camera moved around the 3D world and misjudged which objects were supposed to be in front of which others) and just one mission for people to play! Since then we've improved the rainbow mission by reducing the flicker as much as possible (doing this for every subsequent mission has taken so many hours of work and we never perfected it), filling in the missing back wall and roof sections on the building that's right in front of you at the start, and adding the flying camera animation as a reward when you complete the mission. To the game as a whole, we added sound effects, touch screen control and graphics detail options, and eventually lifts and steps for the later missions. All those improvements were much needed, but here you're still basically seeing how Prideworld all started!
Red objective Turn right, go down onto the ice (try using a bit of reverse thrust on your way down the ramp to avoid excessive speed across the ice). Either take an entirely ice-based path very slowly, or use the sloped floor sections to go a bit faster but beware of rolling downhill and off the edge! Go to the far end and collect the red key. Return the same way, to the city square, go left up the ramp and turn right - the key will now let you go straight through the section of red wall. Drive over the first switch (red square) which will go green to tell you it's switched on. Some parts of the city will now be in the red pride colour! Also there's now a bridge for easy access to the far side of the ice maze you've just crossed, so use it to go back to where you got the red key from, and pick up 3 extra lives.
Orange objective Return to the city square, turn right and head for the conical 'hopper' to the right of the main building. Beware of ice again, and also flickery unstable floor which you must get across as quickly as possible to avoid it collapsing beneath you! Drive onto the yellow hexagonal teleporters to beam yourself around this maze. On the 3rd floating platform there's a junction where it looks like the options are straight on or turn right... but there's more to it than that. The usual thing to do is take the right turn (lining yourself up carefully for the corner because there's ice on it and dodgy floor after it) and take the next teleporter up to the highest platform. Alternatively you can turn left on the ice at that junction, keep trying to drive into the flickery wall there for about a minute until it eventually gives way and you drop down into a lone teleporter where you'll collect a black master key (which opens all locked walls in this mission) before being teleported back to the start of this section. With this key you can now go back to the switch area in the town square, past the red switch you already pressed, and through the orange locked wall to the orange switch, and press that...
But if you don't want to go for the master key cheat, instead take that right turn mentioned in the last paragraph, and teleport to the highest platform. The pink floor areas are sticky, limiting your speed, so just go dead ahead as fast as it lets you, jumping the gap and collecting the orange key and more lives, before coming to another teleporter which takes you to the top of the hopper. Either just fall down the hopper and from the bottom, teleport back into the floating platforms and get back the way you came (being careful with the flickery floor as you've already weakened it last time you were here, and slowing down before reaching each teleporter as these ones don't have walls to stop you going too far). Alternatively, press the switch at the top of the hopper, which will replace the black rubber at its bottom with a more bouncy version. While sitting on the switch, rotate to point directly towards the middle of the hopper - and the route back to the city square will also be dead ahead. From there, take a low-medium speed jump down through the hopper, bounce off the rubber and you should land on the floor on your way back to the city square. Go up to where you switched on the red pride colour earlier, but keep going - you can now get through the orange wall to the orange pride switch!
Yellow objective Look behind you! The orange switch has opened a wall to a ramp and a jump - with bouncy rubber at the bottom again. This time the correct direction and speed are critical, but easy when you know how. It's actually easiest to go backwards because you can see the line down the middle of the ramp! Position yourself near the top of the ramp, pointing towards the orange switch. Get yourself exactly on the middle line of the ramp, then very slowly move onto the ramp itself. Just allow gravity to do all the work, fall off the end of the ramp and after a couple of bounces you should land on a narrow floating pink platform at the end. If you miss, use the teleporter at the narrow end of the rubber mats - it'll take you up to another floating platform from which you'll be able to drop back down to the top of the big ramp; don't be tempted to try to jump to anything else from up there! Once you manage to land on the floating platform above the far end of the rubber mats, pick up the extra lives and use the teleporter there to beam yourself to the raised walkway at the front of the main building. Go to the opposite end of the walkway and drop down onto a roof section of the building. Collect the yellow key and press the yellow pride colour switch. Now, find the gap in the wall around this roof. It's under the walkway you came in on. Take a reasonably fast runup towards this gap, and jump down into the city square below.
Green objective Turn left, go all the way to the opposite end of town, past the 'bunker' building, through the yellow wall and up the ramp. You now need a green key to reach the switch that completes the walkway to the bunker roof, and a blue key for the walkway itself. Keep away from the enemy robots as much as you can though: they won't notice you unless you get too close. Follow them in the same direction they go, as they patrol their octagonal areas, trying to stay on the opposite side of that area, as far away from them as possible. Pick up the green and then the blue key as you do this. Finally make a run for the extra lives in the middle of each area - from where you won't be able to escape detection. But if you're quick and accurate you might avoid being pushed off an edge. These robots are a bit clumsy, but they each have 99 lives. The taller paler one can move faster; It's less likely to make an accurate job of chasing you, but if it succeeds, at its speed it's got more chance of pushing you off an edge! Once you've got both keys and as many lives as you could, use the keys to get to the walkway switch and then the walkway itself, up to the top of the bunker. Press the green pride colour switch.
Blue objective Follow the sun to the south end of town. The green switch you just pressed has created a ramp that allows you to jump to the right side of this triangular junction. Jump across, then drop down onto the platform on a dark grey embankment over the lava. Press both switches ahead, which will enable you to get up the narrow ramp to the far platform. When you arrive, do a U-turn then press the switch to your left to make more ramps appear very low over the lava between the two platforms. Now go back down to the first platform and U-turn again. Switch off the switch to your right, to rotate the walkway you've just crossed back into the position where you'll need it later. Now return to the second platform for a final time, using the new pink ramps down and low over the lava. There are 7 switches on the platform and not all of them will help you. You might as well set all of them to on... except for the one that's just to your right as you look back down the ramp to the first platform - this one must be off. The long winding walkway all the way to the upstairs level of the first platform should now be complete, so make your way up there and press the blue switch. Drop off the end of the walkway in front of you, back down to where you entered this section of the game (take this jump moving fairly slowly and if possible pointing to the left a bit).
Purple objective At the triangular junction, another ramp has appeared, allowing you to jump to the final part this mission. Jump across, press the switch here to make some necessary jump landing areas appear in this section, then go to the end and drop down among the purple triangles. These indicate the strength and direction of the forcefields in this section of the game. First take a run-up out of the first octagon towards the second, but it's safer if you can stop before you get sucked in by the second octagon's stronger forcefields. Next try to enter the second octagon and use reverse thrust to stop in the middle of it, then turn right 45 degrees. The switch here flips the direction of the forcefield in front of you - carefully press it and you'll see. You now want to line yourself up in the same direction as this new forcefield, and position yourself a bit to the left or right of the switch so you won't hit it again by accident as you take this jump. Now go forwards at mid speed and allow the forcefields to give you the extra speed needed for this jump. You'll bounce again on the rubber mats from earlier in the game, and land on a new area of floor the other side. It has forcefields to stop you going too far, but you could easily get thrown backwards and off the edge of the landing platform. So once you start to get pushed back, use some forward thrust to bring yourself to a stop.
Now go into the big square maze with forcefields everywhere. Just letting yourself be pushed round the outer parts of the maze by the forcefields would have been safe enough... but the big enemy robot will drop down from its raised platform, follow you and try to knock you off the edge! Try to cut across through the middle, quickly and cleanly, to get the purple key. Now be especially careful because, with the purple key in your possession, the purple walls at the edges will no longer prevent you flying off! Once you've managed to get the key, stay away from the middle as much as possible because the more powerful forcefields there can push you further than you expect. Now you're looking for the teleporter near the opposite corner from where you entered this maze. As the forcefields push you along this side of the maze towards the teleporter, keep pointing yourself in the direction you're going and use some backwards thrust to reduce the speed you get pushed at. Careful with the steering while doing this, so that you don't get pushed off the edge or back into the middle. As you approach the teleporter which is now on your right, turn left just a tiny bit (yes really, left) which with the combined effect of forcefield and reverse thrust will actually make you drift sideways to your right and onto the small area of floor that leads to the teleporter. You'll have to do all this with the robot still following you of course! Be ready to cut that reverse thrust the instant you move out of the forcefield, or you might push yourself over the edge! Finally take the teleporter up to another raised area in the city square and press the purple pride colour switch to complete the mission!
Mission info
Pride flag colour switches: 6
Keys: 7 (one for each pride flag colour plus a master key)
Extra lives: 18
Friendly robots: 0
Enemy robots: 3
Switches: 19 (total including pride flag colour switches)
Lifts: 0
Teleporters: 19
Hazards: ice, flickery floor & walls, rubber, lava, forcefields
Secret areas: 1 (see master key under orange objective, above)
Complexity: 821 polygons, average 3.91 vertices per polygon, 318 walls, 2 vertices per wall
Published: 20-06-2020 (we released the game with just this first mission as soon as it was ready, during Pride Month)