Thought Police (was: Logan's Run game)

[~llama]

I'd like to see what kind of a 2600 game I could develop based on the 1967 novel (and more famous 1976 movie) Logan's Run... but I'm having a hard time coming up with good ideas for gameplay that could be tied to the storyline, other than having Logan and Jessica running through the ice prison from Box (Some sort of a maze game I guess, but the 2600 doesn't really need another one)...

 

Is this a sign that I should give up and try something else with a more solid basis for gameplay, or am I just not thinking hard enough?

 

Has anybody here even read Logan's Run?

Edited September 13, 2005 by ~llama

[+Nathan Strum]

Has anybody here even read Logan's Run?

 

I did, but to be honest it's been so long I'm not sure if it was the original book, or a novelization based on the movie (probably the latter).

 

Of course, this is just screaming to be an AtariVox title. There has to be a point in it where Logan runs back into the city, and yells, "No one has to DIIIIEE!! You can LLLIIIIIIVE!" Classic sci-fi camp moment there.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Just an off-topic note here, but when seeing "The Island" lately, I thought it was inspired a lot by "Logan's Run"

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[~llama]

Hi there!

 

Just an off-topic note here, but when seeing "The Island" lately, I thought it was inspired a lot by "Logan's Run"

 

Greetings,

Manuel

930335[/snapback]

 

Haven't seen it, but I do think that Logan's Run is very underrated as an influence on a lot of popular culture.

 

I really don't think I'm going to be able to do a specific Logan's Run-based game, but I will probably be doing one with a big complicated dystopian sci-fi backstory isn't that where all the fun is?

 

The basic game is this: You are in a stolen car, running from the Thought Police. They had held you in a prison to be "reprogrammed," but you saw through their plot and escaped when you had a chance. Now they're hot on your trail as you race through the streets of Llamagrad. It's rush hour and there's a lot of traffic on the streets.

 

How long can you run from the Thought Police? Their car stays hot on your trail, and occasionally fires a missile at you. You have to either dodge the cars in your way or blast them, but blasting them uses up your fuel faster. The volume of traffic is steadily increasing, as is the speed of the missile fired by the Thought Police, and you have to shoot the pink cars and run over the wreckage they leave behind to pick up their fuel. Can you make it to the city limits?

 

This mockup isn't intended to be very representative of the game's graphics, I'm in a computer lab right now (technically I'm in class) and all I have to work with is MSPaint. Hopefully it gives some idea of the layout of the screen. There should never be more than four cars on the same scanline, and I figure a 30Hz flicker on the cars on the road will probably be acceptible if needed. I want to avoid a 15Hz flicker if possible... The Thought Police's car doesn't move a whole lot, just stays on your trail and shoots at you.

 

Does this look doable? The only thing I'm not sure about is all of the color changing going on... Is the sci-fi backstory complicated enough? I haven't started on a kernel yet, as I have class from 8am to 11am and 1pm to 6pm today, but I should have one started this week.

Edited September 13, 2005 by ~llama

[Jacob Rose]

I'd like to see what kind of a 2600 game I could develop based on the 1967 novel (and more famous 1976 movie) Logan's Run... but I'm having a hard time coming up with good ideas for gameplay that could be tied to the storyline, other than having Logan and Jessica running through the ice prison from Box (Some sort of a maze game I guess, but the 2600 doesn't really need another one)...

930299[/snapback]

 

You could have a time limit at the beginning of the game where there are no opponents and you can gather supplies from around the domed city. Then your disc starts blinking black and the Deep Sleep men come after you...

 

...of course that's assuming a Raiders style, big scale game.

[Retro Archaeologist]

Sounds very cool and most likely will be better than most of the Licsensed spin offs Atari ever did. Krull anyone ? or how about Porkeys ? damn those games sucked

 

RA

[s0c7]

Change the location to "outside", with appropriate obstacles. Change your car to the hovercraft. Make the end goal Sanctuary. Pick up pieces of the dismantled REM for extra points. Make the enemy car the car-thingy the sandmen used. And voila..... Logan's Run - The TV Show. It did have a few decent episodes. I liked the one where they brainwashed him and he went back to the city to be a sandman again.

[vdub_bobby]

Does this look doable? The only thing I'm not sure about is all of the color changing going on...

Your mockup looks completely doable. You could probably add some elements to it. Actually, since the chase car doesn't interact with your car except by firing missiles at it (is that correct?), you could put the chase car offscreen, freeing up another sprite. Or maybe use the playfield to draw the chase car. Or you could fix the horizontal position of the chase car and your car and use the same sprite, doubled, for them (think Freeway).

 

Anyway, the idea sounds doable, and fun.

[~llama]

Does this look doable? The only thing I'm not sure about is all of the color changing going on...

Your mockup looks completely doable. You could probably add some elements to it. Actually, since the chase car doesn't interact with your car except by firing missiles at it (is that correct?), you could put the chase car offscreen, freeing up another sprite. Or maybe use the playfield to draw the chase car. Or you could fix the horizontal position of the chase car and your car and use the same sprite, doubled, for them (think Freeway).

 

Anyway, the idea sounds doable, and fun.

930481[/snapback]

 

I'll probably use the Freeway method for them, then... I'd forotten about that way of doing things. The horizontal position of the chase car will be fixed. I don't really want to put it offscreen, even though I could...

 

What would you add? I was thinking of every now and then having Thought Police roadblocks that you have to blast through...

 

And I don't think I'll make it too blatantly Logan's Run-themed... I hear they're doing a remake of the movie and I want to steer clear of any copyright trouble.

[vdub_bobby]

What would you add? I was thinking of every  now and then having Thought Police roadblocks that you have to blast through...

I wasn't thinking of anything specific. Roadblocks are a good idea.

[~llama]

OK, maybe I'm not the smartest 2600 coder on Earth, but past a few demos this is my first real 2600 kernel. How do I position all the traffic cars? I get how to do it, in theory... I understand all the tricks, in theory, but I really don't understand how to translate what I want to do in theory into code. Would it be better to write it out in pseudocode and then translate, or should I just keep reading disassemblies? I'm pretty confused at this point. I spent most of last night getting the playfield set up, which is the easy part. I even understand horizontal positioning, but... not how to get all of those cars that will make up the traffic on the road to, well, exist. Maybe this question goes in the "2600 for newbies" forum.

[vdub_bobby]

OK, maybe I'm not the smartest 2600 coder on Earth, but past a few demos this is my first real 2600 kernel. How do I position all the traffic cars? I get how to do it, in theory... I understand all the tricks, in theory, but I really don't understand how to translate what I want to do in theory into code. Would it be better to write it out in pseudocode and then translate, or should I just keep reading disassemblies? I'm pretty confused at this point. I spent most of last night getting the playfield set up, which is the easy part. I even understand horizontal positioning, but... not how to get all of those cars that will make up the traffic on the road to, well, exist. Maybe this question goes in the "2600 for newbies" forum.

931259[/snapback]

Would I be correct in assuming that the non-player-controlled objects (except the chase car), like the other cars, roadblocks, etc. cannot move vertically, but only horizontally? I.e., they stay in their lanes?

 

If so, then your kernel could possibly look like this (pseudo-code):

Outer Loop
  Start new line
  Draw chase car and player's car
  Position NPC Object
  Reset inner loop counter
Inner Loop
  Start new line
  Draw all objects
  decrement inner loop counter
  while inner loop counter is greater than zero, goto Inner Loop
  decrement outer loop counter
  while outer loop counter is greater than zero, goto Outer Loop

The main problem will be drawing the chase car and the player's car while repositioning the NPC objects.

To make objects appear, they need a visible color and graphics data assigned to them.

[Paul Slocum]

Seems like Logan's Run would translate into a cool RPG...

[~llama]

Would I be correct in assuming that the non-player-controlled objects (except the chase car), like the other cars, roadblocks, etc. cannot move vertically, but only horizontally?  I.e., they stay in their lanes? 

 

If so, then your kernel could possibly look like this (pseudo-code):

Outer Loop
  Start new line
  Draw chase car and player's car
  Position NPC Object
  Reset inner loop counter
Inner Loop
  Start new line
  Draw all objects
  decrement inner loop counter
  while inner loop counter is greater than zero, goto Inner Loop
  decrement outer loop counter
  while outer loop counter is greater than zero, goto Outer Loop

The main problem will be drawing the chase car and the player's car while repositioning the NPC objects.

To make objects appear, they need a visible color and graphics data assigned to them.

931269[/snapback]

 

The NPC objects (besides the chase car, which may dodge traffic too or more feasibly just shoot it) do stay in their own lanes. It seems like your outline is a good place to start from-- is this inner loop/outer loop all taking place on one scanline? (or two scanlines, if I go with a 2LK)

[supercat]

The main problem will be drawing the chase car and the player's car while repositioning the NPC objects.

931269[/snapback]

 

If you have ten blank scan lines between enemy objects, you can avoid having to do any RESPx's mid-screen. Otherwise, you'll need to have different cases in your code for displaying opposing cars on the left half and right half of the screen.

[~llama]

The main problem will be drawing the chase car and the player's car while repositioning the NPC objects.

To make objects appear, they need a visible color and graphics data assigned to them.

931269[/snapback]

 

I'm thinking of having the NPC objects (the traffic cars and fuel cars, etc. but not so much the roadblocks) have different HMOVE values and thus wrap from the left side of the screen to the right after getting passed. Maybe when they reappear they'll have a different speed, or perhaps something like Frogger where they're all moving on continuous loops, and when you get through a roadblock the speeds all change. Would this require very complex repositioning code? I've got the kernel almost totally planned out on paper, except the repositioning part. I'm thinking of using FlipDraw...

[mos6507]

It's probably too late to propose this, but a game like Logan's Run really would translate best into an Adventure/Superman style engine.

 

What would make this game different is you have the element of the everpresent pursuer that you have to try to stay ahead of. Francis would also not necessarily reveal himself to you but will hide behind pillars and stuff and then pop out and try to shoot you if you didn't keep moving, adding an element of suspense.

 

You also have the added element of having to protect Jessica who would be like Lois in Superman as far as being an NPC but she would mostly follow you but sometimes lag behind or get lost and have to be rescued.

[~llama]

It's probably too late to propose this, but a game like Logan's Run really would translate best into an Adventure/Superman style engine.

 

What would make this game different is you have the element of the everpresent pursuer that you have to try to stay ahead of.  Francis would also not necessarily reveal himself to you but will hide behind pillars and stuff and then pop out and try to shoot you if you didn't keep moving, adding an element of suspense.

 

You also have the added element of having to protect Jessica who would be like Lois in Superman as far as being an NPC but she would mostly follow you but sometimes lag behind or get lost and have to be rescued.

933695[/snapback]

I'll add this to my project list. Once I finish Thought Police I may start work on this kind of RPG-ish engine. I actually do have a to-do list, it's just not one that's going to get done any time soon.

[gambler172]

Hi

is there any bin for downloading?

greetings Gambler172

[~llama]

Hi

is there any bin for downloading?

greetings Gambler172

937732[/snapback]

 

ehh... There should be one in the [stella] archives of a simple sprite test I was working on, which just has the playfield and a single user-controllable sprite moving around. I haven't really got anything more to show for the programming effort than that at the moment... The code itself is in the middle of a rewrite and not everything is working. I'm working on the kernel still. Once I get something a little more interesting done, I'll post to [stella] with source and a binary, and I'll probably post a bin here too.