6 replies to this topic

[Chainclaw]

I recently finished (well, more or less finished) a pair of 2600 games in assembly (nothing of interest, just a buggy pair of Kaboom clones), and I figured I would do my next project in Batari Basic to speed the process up.

I made a list of game ideas, which included "Pirate Simulator", "Extreme Mustache Farmer", "Weightlifting Gophers", and down-porting a few modern games.

One down-port that came to mind were Gears of War. For this one, I was thinking have it be a side-scroller like Keystone Kapers, with various bits of "cover" on a map that you would automatically duck behind, pressing towards the cover would vault over, while pressing shoot from behind cover would have you pop up to fire off a shot. Would kind of be like Blackthorne.

The other game was Portal. My initial thought was, either side-scroller, or top-down. I decided top-down pretty quick, the controls would work out better. The basic concept for the game fell into this :
Top down, single-screen game (so you don't lose track of your portals).
Two portals (currently I'm using missile 0 and missile 1), when the player collides with one, he is teleported to the other.
When the player presses the joystick button, and neither missile is moving, he fires out a missile. This lets the player get around areas he could not normally.
Playfield serves as a boundary for the game, it stops player movement.

That is what I've already implemented. My plan going forward was:
Use the ball as a "goal", that when reached, brings the player to the next map
Adjust the playfield as the game runs to create hazards for the player (such as a wall that only slides out of the way if the player is standing far away)
multiple maps of increasing difficulty
Use the second player sprite for some sort of other hazard, such as a turret or something.
No score, but instead track the time it takes for the player to complete each level. At the end of each set of levels, the player is presented with a score-screen, listing their times for each level in that section.
Use the game select switch to skip forward a set of levels, for those who want to start on the harder levels.

However, I've sort of lost inspiration for this project. Now that I have a guy running around, shooting missiles that teleport him, I'm having trouble seeing how I can pull some fun out of this project.

Obviously there are little tweaks to be done, such as slow the player down. I can also handle anything a little more complicated than the default kernel for Batari Basic can handle, basically write my own standard kernel mixed with the multisprite kernel. The big thing I'm dreading is generating enough maps to make a game of sufficient length.

I guess what I'm looking for is, should I keep going forward with this project? Would I be better off building one of the other game ideas I've listed?

I've attached the source, and compiled binary.

Attached Files

•  Transportal.bas   4.77K   22 downloads
•  transportal.bas.bin   4K   37 downloads

[A Sprite]

Random idea: What if you limited the amount of shots the player can fire? Make it so each stage plays out like a puzzle version of Berzerk, but with portals that can allow you to run/fire through walls, or enemies to shoot each other instead of you. Include a reset switch somewhere in the room in case the player screws up the goals you set.

Or

Make it so the ammunition ricochets, once you fire it at the beginning of the stage, and it's a race to make sure the portals lead it to where it needs to go, instead of killing you.

[Random Terrain]

Looks like it might be fun once you figure it out and fix it so the portals can't be hidden inside of the walls.

One idea might be to make the portals shoot much faster and then have an object pop up randomly that you have to get to before it disappears. You can use the portals to get to it faster than you can run there. After you touch a certain number of those objects, then you can move to the next room where it gets a little harder and it goes on from there.

[yuppicide]

Metal Gear Solid!

[Chainclaw]

I've decided to can this project, as I came up with what I think can be a really good shooter game, and I am far more inspired for that, I've already made a bunch of "concept art" for it. It'll also all be in assembly, no batari basic. Nothing against BB, it's just it's not right for me. It feels like I'm cheating or something when I use it.

[Random Terrain]

Chainclaw, on Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:20 PM, said:

I've decided to can this project, as I came up with what I think can be a really good shooter game, and I am far more inspired for that, I've already made a bunch of "concept art" for it. It'll also all be in assembly, no batari Basic. Nothing against bB, it's just it's not right for me. It feels like I'm cheating or something when I use it.

You know, using assembly, a keyboard, and a monitor is cheating too. Those pampered classic Atari 2600 programmers had it easy. It's better to use pure machine language and punch cards. Keyboards, monitors, and high-level languages such as assembly are for wussies.

[Chainclaw]

Random Terrain, on Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:42 PM, said:

Chainclaw, on Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:20 PM, said:

I've decided to can this project, as I came up with what I think can be a really good shooter game, and I am far more inspired for that, I've already made a bunch of "concept art" for it. It'll also all be in assembly, no batari Basic. Nothing against bB, it's just it's not right for me. It feels like I'm cheating or something when I use it.

You know, using assembly, a keyboard, and a monitor is cheating too. Those pampered classic Atari 2600 programmers had it easy. It's better to use pure machine language and punch cards. Keyboards, monitors, and high-level languages such as assembly are for wussies.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with it, and I'm sure you could also consider things like using a local Perforce server to make backups of games as cheating, as well.