Plim

[TooSlowGamer]

I think the problem may be that it's too hard to hit him when you are in the portion with the lumps, and you only have to jump over a gap a couple of times.

[+atari2600land]

Changed a few things: First off, I made the lump smaller so you can shoot the alien with it. Second, I made it so you have to jump on or over the lump or else you lose a life. Whether a lump or hole appears is random every time, so I guess TooSlowGamer wasn't experiencing holes a lot of the time.

plim9.bas.bin

plim9.bas

[TooSlowGamer]

That's better. Also, I like the new level, but when you press the button, the game stops responding for too long. Also, I think the chance of shooting to the position you are at needs to be a little higher.

[yuppicide]

The new version is a lot better.

 

One kind of bug.. maybe not.. when you die, you appear at the top of the screen and fall down. Problem is twice I fell down in a hole.

 

I like the new space ship level.. is that level working yet? The first game I was able to fire 4 or 5 times and no more. The second game was weird.. I got all the way down to 00, then it had some letters.. I got past the letters and got more letters.. i got past that some more.. then some funky characters.. then it counted down from 9, then went from 99.

[+atari2600land]

Level 2 is semi-working. I have yet to finish it because I didn't know what to do afterwords. Now I have an idea and I think it's doable, seeing as how I did the exact same thing in the DK3 demo... Yes, there are letters in the score once you get down to zero because I was going to use the same font for the title screen to Alien Greed 4, but then decided not to. By the way, if you're getting tired of seeing the beginning animation over and over again, you can always press fire to skip it and go to the title screen. I'm going to work on this more tonight.

[yuppicide]

Oh yeah, I only watched teh intro once.. I always skip it.

[+atari2600land]

Hey gang, I'm back working on this game again. I fixed a few bugs that were haunting this one. If anyone has a level idea, please tell me because I have no idea what I'm going to do for level 3. I want this to be at least 32k (I wish bB would support 64k games), so that'd mean with an average of one level per bank, about 6-7 levels in the whole game.

plim10.bas

plim10.bas.bin

[+atari2600land]

I made a little cosmetic change, not enough for a new release, but I just wanted to show you.

[+Propane13]

Ok, some ideas:

 

First, the cinematic intro is neat. Something like that doesn't exist on the 2600, so these are things that I think will make the game interesting.

This might be the only game to feature "multiple cutscenes", if you were into that. And, I think the storyline could be a good one.

However, the gameplay may need a bit of work. But, we can come back to that.

 

Here's a way I could envision the story going:

0) Opening scene (already done)

1) Chase scene-- the grass (in progress)

2) Custcene-- alien runs into barn

3) Boss scene-- Firefight in the barn against mini-boss 1.

4) Cutscene-- alien dives into the water, and starts to swim for it. Hero pursues.

5) Chase scene-- water

6) Boss scene-- cotopus-alien (minboss 2).

7) Cutscene-- alien jumps out of water, gets onto ship. Hero pursues. (already have the getting into ships scene done)

Chase scene-- ships in space (in progress)

9) Boss scene-- fighting the armada

10) Cutscene-- flying into the mother ship

11) Chase scene-- chasing the alien down the alien corridors. This should look really creepy.

12) Cutscene-- alien morphs into a super creepy HUGE BOSS

13) Final fight-- tiny hero vs huge freakin' alien

14) Cutscene-- end of game, ship destroyed, hero comes home.

 

Now, as far as gameplay, just running and shooting, letting the screen scroll is ok, but there's not much challenge.

I'd say, make it bigger. Jack and the beanstalk has multiple playfield "puzzles" to get past.

Maybe here, we need multiple paths (like in reindeer rescue), i.e. a top and a bottom.

And, sometimes, the top dead-ends, or the bottom. You could have to memorize a pattern.

Adding that could add another dimension.

Honestly, to free up a sprite, you could have the alien run off, and then use the P1 object for something else.

The alien only need appear from time to time.

As long as there's more than just a hole or a bump to jump over, it could be more fun.

Actually, if the player was moveable from side to side, then this could even be re-imagined like moon patrol.

Sure he has to jump over the hole and shoot, but there could be meteors falling from above as well.

That could add a little something (and actually, maybe that's what's missing).

 

-John

[+atari2600land]

Thanks for the inspiration. I now have an idea.

After you hit the UFO in level 2, it crashes into the ocean. That way, I can do a 2D water scene (much like GoSub, only the walls aren't deadly, you just bump into them.) This will provide a maze-like structure, where you have to memorize mazes. I shall get to work on this.

[+atari2600land]

This version has an ending to level 2. I made level 2 easy so you can see it, in the final version, the ship will have more hit points. There is a beginning to level 3, but you can't move in it yet because I haven't programmed that far yet.

 

plim12.bas

plim12.bas.bin

[+atari2600land]

You leave the spaceship and brave the icy waters in search of the alien race that made you miss the rest of that episode of "Green Acres." There are only three screens so far, and I plan to put some enemies in here later. This build starts at the beginning of level 3. I just want to let you see a preview of what level 3 will be like. If you haven't noticed, the game is now at 16K, even though I could fit all of this into 8k (so far.)

plim13.bas.bin

plim13.bas

[+atari2600land]

Added a shark. To be fair, if you touch the shark for less than a half-second, you won't lose health. I tried to make it not go through the playfield, but gave up after realizing it was too hard for me to do. Also, if someone would like to design a better shark (or for that matter a better swimmer) for me, go right ahead.

plim15.bas

plim15.bas.bin

[PAC-MAN-RED]

Added a shark. To be fair, if you touch the shark for less than a half-second, you won't lose health. I tried to make it not go through the playfield, but gave up after realizing it was too hard for me to do. Also, if someone would like to design a better shark (or for that matter a better swimmer) for me, go right ahead.

 

I pulled these sharks out of my hat. Perhaps you can use them.

 

 

atari2600land Sharks.zip

 

One swimmer... coming right up... I guess that means he's also on the menu.

[PAC-MAN-RED]

I added a few more animated frames to the swimmer, hope you don't mind.

 

 

atari2600land Swimmer.zip

[+atari2600land]

When going straight the swimmer's head is green! So to fix this, I made player1 naked, and added shorts using the ball, which means I changed the sand to coral (orange to bright red.)

plim16.bas

plim16.bas.bin

[PAC-MAN-RED]

When going straight the swimmer's head is green! So to fix this, I made player1 naked, and added shorts using the ball, which means I changed the sand to coral (orange to bright red.)

 

Hey, that does make the swimmer look much nicer. Good job!

[+atari2600land]

I worked on this a little more. Added the "Jaws theme" in, the closer the shark is to the player, the faster the two notes play back and forth. If there is a collision, the high strings come in, and at 3/4 of a second, CHOMP! The player loses a life.

plim17.bas.bin

plim17.bas

[+atari2600land]

An oldie but a goodie. I've decided to resume work on Plim. Something was obviously missing from the previous version: SOUND! So I put in some sound effects, which should liven up the game a bit.

plim18.bas.bin

plim18.bas

[+Random Terrain]

Have you thought about having collision detection/prevention so the guy doesn't stick on the walls?

[+atari2600land]

I didn't know the guy stuck on the walls.

[+atari2600land]

After about 10 hours of coding and about only 4 hours of sleep last night, this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think.

plim19.bas.bin

plim19.bas

[+Random Terrain]

He's not sticking now as you grind him against the walls, but it looks like you'll have to play with the numbers a little so the distance he stops away from walls is more consistent.

[+atari2600land]

He's not sticking now as you grind him against the walls, but it looks like you'll have to play with the numbers a little so the distance he stops away from walls is more consistent.

I tried playing with the numbers and it only made things worse! Kinda looks like version 19 is good enough to continue with, at least IMO.

[+Random Terrain]

I tried playing with the numbers and it only made things worse! Kinda looks like version 19 is good enough to continue with, at least IMO.

 

I didn't look at your code yet, but when I did it, left and right needed different numbers. Check out the slightly simpler code I posted here:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/211997-wallobject-collision-and-multiple-screen-help/#entry2749720