Inflicting pain and suffering

It was time for Nixy to face the consequences of her actions (actually more like our actions).

Check the image below. First of all, the spikes are in. They ping-pong through six frames of animation.

Secondly, falling into water and other hazards costs her one life. The "fade out" animation is made of thirteen frames, which are displayed in the reverse order for the "fade in". The same effect is used for fall damage.

And last but not least, touching the other hazards makes Nixy take damage. You can see the effect when she touches the falling gates.

Luckily, there are hearts to grab in various parts of the map, which give her a bit of a health boost.

The stars of the show here are the partially-displayed hearts when she takes damage. This is achieved by sliding a small black 8x12 sprite over the hearts.

Since all C64 characters are 8x8 pixels, and so are the hearts, why not use an 8x8 sprite instead you might ask? Because the screen shake effect sometimes made the heart sneak out from behind the sprite, and it looked a bit naff. The devil is in details as the say.