Dr. Maria (C64)
A downloadable game
Short Futures present Dr Maria, a pill flipping puzzling production for the Commodore 64! Now featuring faster gameplay, second button support and slicker controls.
Experimental viruses have mutated and are trying to escape from the research lab. Help Doctor Maria use her pills to destroy all the viruses before they spreadInitially released on the ZZAP! 64 issue 14 cover disk.
Getting Started
Use Joystick in Port 2. After you load the game the following menu options are available.
Start: Start playing
Level: Select the virus level from 1-20.
Speed: Controls the speed at which the pills drop. Select from LOW, MED, and HI.
Music: Select the in-game tune, either Chill or Fever, or None for sound FX only.
Playing the game
Dr. Maria destroys viruses by throwing colored pills into the bottle. As the pill drops you can rotate them. Match four of the same color vertically or horizontally to clear them. When all of the viruses in a bottle are cleared, you progress to the next level.
If the bottle gets filled all the way to the top, the game is over. Viruses can be Blue, Yellow or Red. Due to production issues at the Lab, pills are allocated randomly to Dr Maria. There are six types of pills each consisting of two colors:
| Blue | Blue |
| Red | Red |
| Yellow | Yellow |
| Blue | Yellow |
| Red | Blue |
| Yellow | Red |
Controls
Joystick
Use Joystick in Port #2
* Fire: Rotates pill to the right (clockwise).
* Up / Second Button: Rotates pill to the left (counter clockwise).
* Left: Moves pill left.
* Right: Moves pill right.
* Down: Speed up pill descent.
Keyboard
* 'P': Pause the Game
* 'Q': Quit to main menu
Scoring
Points are awarded when you destroy a virus. Points depends on the Speed setting and the number of viruses destroyed.
Destroyed Viruses | LOW | MED | HI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 200 | 300 |
| 2 | 300 | 600 | 900 |
| 3 | 700 | 1400 | 2100 |
| 4 | 1500 | 3000 | 4500 |
| 5 | 3100 | 6200 | 9300 |
| 6 | 6300 | 12600 | 18900 |
Credits
Programming, graphics and sound effects by Ant Menasse
Music by Andrew Fisher, based on the NES soundtracks by Hirokazu Tanaka (Main Menu, Chill and Fever)
Virus Design by Cal Skuthorpe
In game font Cushion by Damien G
Title font adapted from Franxurter Totally
Download
Development log
- Dr Maria update12 days ago
- Dr Maria now available for downloadJun 03, 2023
Comments
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Cool version of Dr. Mario !
Congrats for your developments, its a really awesome Dr. Mario clone. Dr. Maria (2023, sysantmin)
I loved her brother & his pills - love the sister too ... great game & virus protection for my C=64 ....
Good update in V1.1. The somewhat jerky control of the falling pills, is now smoother. Only wished, there would be a possibility, to play against another human player (splitscreen) and also against a cpu player. That would be fantastic, especially the latter. Maybe sometime in the future in an upcoming V1.2? Nice puzzle-game for the C64 definately.
Really nice updates! Would be nice if you could add save highscore to disk
Thanks ! Will try adding high score saving if I find time to work on this again.
Love it!
Wow I didn't realise the C64 supported a second button ! I haven't had a chance to work on this lately, but if i ever get back to it will investigate adding this.
Some discussion on games that support secondary button here:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2499/which-c64-games-support-...
Now there are tons of games with second fire: http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/DE-9_Joystick#C64
and look at this thread; https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=970366
Finally got around to adding second button support !
Game appears to freeze as soon as the Dr throws a pill but the viruses keep moving and the music keeps playing
This is bug on NTSC, for now it's PAL only. I will clarify this on the download page.
Ok, you and I are enemies now until the bug is fixed *shakes fist* I’ll also donate when it is fixed.
It now works on NTSC!
Awesome, the main interrupt was on a scan line outside the NTSC range, so easy fix
Very nice conversion of the Gameboy and NES Original. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 03:51:51. Automatic subtitles should be available soon (switch on, if necessary). Subscription to our YouTube or Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
someone is getting a physical: https://ibb.co/vPMjcKJ
This is really nice game!
Thanks Saberman, appreciate the play through video !
Do you mind adding a link on the video to this itch.io page ? I tried adding a comment on youtube but for some reason its not working (I think its getting marke as spam )
Hello,
Of course it's totally okey for you to post the video.
Cheers,
Saberman
Good port and i am really happy to see a good version of this famous puzzler on the C64 now, because i play the SNES, GBA and N64 versions regularly and really love them, especially the N64 version is a highlight, with all it's different play-modes. Three suggestions/questions for the new C64 version, i would have.
(1) When the player speeds up the pill descent, the pill could fall a little bit faster (compared to other versions of the game, where that is the case) and the pill also falls jerkily.
(2) These somewhat jerky movements of the pills are also my second point, because this sometimes make it difficult, to turn a pill correctly in time, when you are at the beginning of higher levels (lv19 or lv20 for example). Would it be possible, to implement this falling movement of the pills a little less jerkily, i mean in a more smoothly movement?
(3) An integrated "2-player mode" and additional CPU-players for this mode, would have been fantastic. Is there a chance, that this comes in a later v1.1 of "Dr Maria"? Playing the 1-player levels already is fun, but the best you can get out of this puzzler, when playing it against another human player or against a good CPU-player, like it is possible for example in the SNES, GBA and N64 versions of "Dr. Mario". I know, that this is stronger hardware, but maybe something like this could also be realized on the C64 version?
Thanks for the feedback Sparky-D. I'm not familiar with the N64 version will check it out. I did want to implement a 2 player mode but cut it in order to get the game out the door. I may do an updated version in the future with 2 player mode. Will investigate making the pill drop smoother.
That sounds great, thanks for that. Looking forward to an updated version in the future. At least a 2-player mode, in which the user can play against a human friend, would be great to have.
Even better of course would be, when CPU-players could be chosen too, because often you don't have a human friend within reach, when you want to play *LOL*. But i can imagine, that it might can get problematic, to add a good playing A.I. here on the C64, because "Dr. Mario" is a complex game, when an A.I. should play it really well. On the N64 for example, i have played the game so often and improved, that i now can compete against the A.I, when they is on level "superhard" and on "fast" for the falling-pieces speed.
The N64 then really plays very good, don't know, if something like that is possible on the C64 too, because the N64-console is two generations ahead in technical terms, but it would be fantastic. :) There is a "Puyo Puyo" clone on the C64 named "Oy Up" and there the player can compete against CPU-players and they play pretty well in the higher levels, but "Puyo Puyo" is not as complex as "Dr. Mario", when it should be played really good from an A.I.
This is really cool, nice work!
Thanks !
Nice game !
Splendid Game ! Hope to see more Fantastic Titles from you in the Future Ant !
Cheers Wayne !
A very nicely done version of Dr. Mario😁
Thanks RetroChop !
Dr Maria is now available on the ZZAP! 64 issue #14 cover mount
https://www.patreon.com/zzapmagazine