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Lead (1k)


seemo

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It has sound...:?

 

No SFX, is that what you mean?

 

Very good (really only 1K!?), though a few issues:

-bullets sometimes go through the enemies, which is kind of a cheap way to die

-the music is awesome, and hypnotic, but SFX (over simpler music?) would be better.

-the gameplay basically consists of holding the button down and moving back and forth from side to side, occasionally varying the pattern. Something to make it more interesting would be nice.

-the graphic garbage should go.

 

All in all, very impressive for 1K!

Edited by vdub_bobby
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That's awesome!

 

I like the music! That's what makes the game unique - having the game in sync with it, and the melody stopping when you die. Very cool idea. Forget the sound FX. ;)

 

Gameplay-wise, I agree with Bob - you don't really have to track the enemies. You're pouring out so much firepower, you can simply just move back and forth to the left and right extremes, and you'll hit pretty-much everything. (And I also noticed my shots passing through some aliens.)

 

A few suggestions:

  • This has a lot of possibilities for a larger game. Different levels, different enemies at different speeds, different fire-rates and different music for each level.
  • If you weren't allowed to touch the sides, you'd have to be a lot more careful, and just couldn't slam the ship from side-to-side while firing. Maybe this could be something that changed over the course of the game. If the borders changed color to indicate when they were "safe" to touch or not.
  • Just had a thought... what if the borders were integrated more into the game? For each color, they'd do something different. Blue would be normal, red you'd die if you touched them, green would increase your fire-rate, yellow would slow you down, that sort of thing.
  • Can you get two aliens on a line? Given the speed of the game, they'd probably have to be right next to each other for you to hit them, but that would be good for breaking up the "back and forth" shooting technique.
  • Related to that, how about having the aliens move back and forth as they descend?

Odd thing... the first couple of times I played it, the aliens were red, but after reloading the ROM, they're brown. I'm guessing this has something to do with NTSC/PAL, but I can only get Stella to recognize it as PAL, now. Under NTSC it won't work. :ponder:

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No SFX, is that what you mean?

SFX yes. Though with the current gameplay they wouldn't make much sense, since shooting and hitting SFX would be constantly on.

 

I agree with Bob, the gameplay needs some tweaking. How about making the enemies coming down in a pattern like Kaboom! but are also moving horizontally on their way down. Plus a lower fire rate and the player is forced to follow the enemies movement.

 

Too much for 1K?

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Hi,

thanks to everybody for the great feedback :)

 

Here's an updated version, with horizontally moving enemies : this should make the game less predictable, I hope :)

 

As about the PAL/NTSC problem: I used z26 to test my binary, and it worked ok.

I'll try this on Stella and see if it shows some sign of deterioration (is this the 'graphic garbage' that should go ?)

 

Simone

lead_1k.bin

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and see if it shows some sign of deterioration (is this the 'graphic garbage' that should go ?)

 

Simone

Yes, I think so. For some reason Stella is misinterpreting how many scanlines you are displaying, so it runs slower and shows garbage at the bottom of the screen.

 

On another note, are you willing to share your code?

Edited by vdub_bobby
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Hi,

thanks to everybody for the great feedback :)

 

Here's an updated version, with horizontally moving enemies : this should make the game less predictable, I hope :)

 

As about the PAL/NTSC problem: I used z26 to test my binary, and it worked ok.

I'll try this on Stella and see if it shows some sign of deterioration (is this the 'graphic garbage' that should go ?)

 

Simone

The scanline count doesn't seem to be consistent. Sometimes Stella detects it as NTSC, other times as PAL. The autodetection isn't the issue per-se; it might be the TIA emulation, or it might be a ROM bug. But even when forced to NTSC format, there's still the issue of the onscreen garbage. Can anyone test this on a real system? At this point, I don't know if it's Stella, z26 or the ROM that's causing a problem.

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Odd thing... the first couple of times I played it, the aliens were red, but after reloading the ROM, they're brown. I'm guessing this has something to do with NTSC/PAL, but I can only get Stella to recognize it as PAL, now. Under NTSC it won't work. :ponder:

You can force NTSC format by editing the properties for that ROM. But having to do this is only masking the problem. The scanline count is inconsistent, and I don't know if it's a bug in Stella or the ROM. But I'm reasonably sure the autodetection isn't the problem.

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Cool game, I really like the music! My high score on the 2nd build is 99.

 

 

When I first turned on the Atari the screen rolled. Once I started the game the screen problem cleared up.

 

In Stella the score gets garbled after dieing - it does not do that on the Atari.

 

 

I recommend you name the BIN files differently when you post new builds so it's easier to tell which version is being played. When I developed Medieval Mayhem I used a date code. If I released more than one per date I then added A, B, C and so on after the date.

Edited by SpiceWare
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When I first turned on the Atari the screen rolled. Once I started the game the screen problem cleared up.

 

In Stella the score gets garbled after dieing - it does not do that on the Atari.

Is it supposed to roll? This could be indicative of what's causing a problem in Stella. I just tested in Stella a number of times. Sometimes it comes up in NTSC, sometimes in PAL. On at least one occasion, I force NTSC, but the scanline count indicated PAL, so emulation was slow and flickery (normal for PAL ROMs run in NTSC mode). When it does run as PAL, I've noticed that the scanline count isn't always the same. Sometimes it's 298, 308, 312, etc. Other times it's 275 or so, which Stella detects as NTSC.

 

Assuming this isn't the ROM, it sort of smells like a TIA emulation bug. If so, I'll forward it to Brad as a test case.

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When I first turned on the Atari the screen rolled. Once I started the game the screen problem cleared up.

 

In Stella the score gets garbled after dieing - it does not do that on the Atari.

Is it supposed to roll? This could be indicative of what's causing a problem in Stella. I just tested in Stella a number of times. Sometimes it comes up in NTSC, sometimes in PAL. On at least one occasion, I force NTSC, but the scanline count indicated PAL, so emulation was slow and flickery (normal for PAL ROMs run in NTSC mode). When it does run as PAL, I've noticed that the scanline count isn't always the same. Sometimes it's 298, 308, 312, etc. Other times it's 275 or so, which Stella detects as NTSC.

 

Assuming this isn't the ROM, it sort of smells like a TIA emulation bug. If so, I'll forward it to Brad as a test case.

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Cool game, I really like the music! My high score on the 2nd build is 99.

402 here. :)

 

It's an almost hypnotic game. Very fun! I'd love to see it expanded upon.

 

I recommend you name the BIN files differently when you post new builds so it's easier to tell which version is being played. When I developed Medieval Mayhem I used a date code. If I released more than one per date I then added A, B, C and so on after the date.

I agree. It makes it much easier for those of us who test games to refer back to previous builds when things change (Dave Neuman also did this with Space Battle).

Edited by Nathan Strum
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I traced the code with Stella's debugger and I think I see part of the problem - this is your RAM-initialization code:

Loop
  ldx #$FF
  tsx
  lda #$00
  sta VSYNC,X
  dex
  bpl Loop

There are a couple of problems here. First off, you want to use a TXS there, not a TSX :!::!:

Second, even if you fix that, your BPL will never be taken since when you decrement X the first time it will be $FE - which is negative! You also aren't clearing the decimal flag, at least not here, which is possibly dangerous on a real 2600.

 

Since RAM is not completely cleared in any case (actually, the TIA *may* be cleared depending on the start-up status of the stack pointer, but no more than one byte of RAM will ever be cleared, if that), the initial scanline count depends on the status of RAM at startup. Based on the debugger, Stella fills it with a bunch of (random?) values; I'm guessing that z26 clears RAM before starting the ROM. And, of course, an actual machine will give you random values in RAM at startup.

 

I strongly recommend using the CLEAN_START macro found in the standard macro.h, which will not only successfully clear RAM and the TIA, but also clear A, X, Y, set the stack pointer to $FF, set the interrupt flag, and clear the decimal flag, all in 11 bytes (only one byte more than your buggy initialization routine).

Edited by vdub_bobby
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Hi,

first of all, I'd like to apologize for having put out such a buggy initialization code :dunce:

 

Here's another update, it uses CLEAN_START, and it's named more properly.

 

I solved the 'missing hits' bug... but this aggravated the problem: holding fire and moving full right/full left back and forth completely killed the gameplay... :x

 

Here's what I came up with: hold fire and you shoot a burst of missiles, after that you have to press fire again.

 

I tried to tune up the parameters according to the new gameplay, and I think this is quite ok (and more challenging).

 

Thanks for your feedback/testing,

Simone

lead_1k_20070125b.bin

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Now I am hammering my fire button. :)

 

IMO it would be better to make the player movement much slower. The enemies should come down also slower but in formation and move left and right (about half speed of the player). And single shots.

 

Then you have a gameplay which doesn't rely on frantic joystick wiggeling and a lot of luck.

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IMO it would be better to make the player movement much slower. The enemies should come down also slower but in formation and move left and right (about half speed of the player). And single shots.

Yeah, but then you end up with Threshold. :ponder:

 

I'd like to see the bursts of missiles be longer at this speed.

 

Also, the "missing hit" bug actually helped the game before, by making you have to shoot some aliens twice. So, why not throw in an alien every once in awhile that required two hits? It could be glowing, or a different color or shape to differentiate it. That would prevent you from just moving back and forth all the time, since you'd have to stop and focus in on the two-hit aliens. (You would also be able to reinstate the steady stream of missiles, which I really liked. It gave the game a great rhythm.) You'd just have to space them out so you'd never get two onscreen at once (otherwise it may be impossible to hit them both).

Edited by Nathan Strum
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IMO it would be better to make the player movement much slower. The enemies should come down also slower but in formation and move left and right (about half speed of the player). And single shots.

Yeah, but then you end up with Threshold. :ponder:

 

I'd like to see the bursts of missiles be longer at this speed.

 

Also, the "missing hit" bug actually helped the game before, by making you have to shoot some aliens twice. So, why not throw in an alien every once in awhile that required two hits? It could be glowing, or a different color or shape to differentiate it. That would prevent you from just moving back and forth all the time, since you'd have to stop and focus in on the two-hit aliens. (You might also be able to reinstate the steady stream of missiles, which I really liked.)

I think slowing the game down *very slightly* might help it a bit. And agreed: please reinstate the steady stream of missiles. :)

 

Making the play area wider might also help prevent the constant back-and-forth motion.

 

Here's another thought: make the enemy's initial horizontal position depend, a little, on the one that came before it. I.e., x2=x1+c where c is randomly picked from a table that looks like this:

1,1,1,2,2,2,3,8

You'd want to randomly make that value positive or negative also, but the idea would be that mostly the enemies follow each other (in formation?) but occasionally they surprise you and come from the other side of the screen. Something like this:

*=enemy
|=wall

|	*   |
|	 *  |
|	 *  |
|	  * |
|	*   |
|	 *  |
|   *	|
|  *	 |
|  *	 |
|   *	|
|  *	 |
|*	   |
|*	   |
| *	  |
|	   *|
|	   *|
|	  * |
|	   *|
|	 *  |
|	  * |

In this scenario, the player wouldn't want to use a back-and-forth pattern, since it is more likely that the next enemy will be behind the previous one, so (in theory :ponder:) the best strategy would be to hold your position steady, making small adjustments, being wary for the occasional discontinuity.

 

It's a thought, anyway. :ponder:

Edited by vdub_bobby
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Ok,

here's another update :)

 

I followed Nathan's advice and now every enemy requires a variable number of hits.

 

The color of the enemy indicates the number of hits it has to take before it is eliminated.

 

To compensate for this, I obviously re-introduced the continuous fire, removed enemy horizontal movement, and slowed the enemy advancing pace... this now looks like a survival shooter .

 

full left/full right cheat has now a reduced impact... I think :)

 

Simone

lead_1k_20070126.bin

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Great! Way better. :thumbsup:

 

Does the difficulty increase at all? I couldn't tell; my best is 139 after a few minutes of playing.

 

Also: big kudos for saving the high score! This is a really impressive 1K game; lots of features, graphics, sounds, and gameplay in 1K. :)

 

EDIT: I think the horizontal movement of the enemies could be added back in. Or add it in once you reach 100 pts (or some other milestone).

Edited by vdub_bobby
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