[sometimes99er]

Okay, we’ll make a game based on arcade games like Depthcharge (Gremlin) and Destroyer (Atari) both 1977.



So we’ll basically need some sea and sky. Here’s a few mockups. I even tried to do the Red Sea (Black Sea has apparently been done).

This post has been edited by sometimes99er: Today, 10:50 AM

[sometimes99er]

We choose dark blue waters and somewhat dark skies setting the atmosphere of battle zone. We google a picture of a battleship (in fact a destroyer), decrease the color depth, resize and fiddle around until we get this wonderful and manageable silhouette (64x16 pixels).

[retroclouds]

Nice. Looking forward to this one

[InfernalKeith]

Have I mentioned lately that you're my hero?

[Chris Leach]

Looks like Sea Hunt? Maybe not but the destroyer says "I destroy THINGS!" Good work so far

[sometimes99er]

Hey, thanks for all the feedback.

1979 saw an arcade game from Sega named Deep Scan. Same principle. You manoeuvre a ship and try to hit submarines below. Deep Scan had colors. And then it had a radar.



I’m not going to add radar, but I was thinking about letting the subs travel through to the other side of the screen. Well, we’ll evaluate challenge, chance and realistic factors later.



I’ll add score, meter, time, lives, level or stuff to the top line. Next two lines will have some menacing thunderclouds.

[retroclouds]

Are you planning to let the clouds move or change slowly? Or will they be static?
Either way, I like the color combinations

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:45 AM, said:

Are you planning to let the clouds move or change slowly? Or will they be static?
Either way, I like the color combinations

The clouds were googled too, decreased etc. They’re not final. They will be at least 384 pixels in width. Will detour later and try to generate clouds from software (9900 in cartridge). And yes, it was going to be a small surprise ... but clouds will move.

Been working on submarine graphics. They’re definitely not final.



Today I will do some experimental animation of depth charges. I think the graphics/pixels will be as in the old arcades, so it’s more a thing of getting the timing right.

And don’t worry. Explosions will add a bit of color.

[retroclouds]

ok, got inspired a little and just had to this mockup for the title screen.



You could have the destroyer ship being black and move it slowly from left to right over the logo.
Ofcourse the "PRESS ANY KEY TO PLAY" font should match the SCORE font and perhaps some more useful text
would be better (like points for destroying submarine).

As this will be an 8K rom, don't know if you will still have room for a title screen (compression?)
How about sound effects?

This is great stuff, it was fun doing this quick mockup

[sometimes99er]

Whauh, that’s indeed very cool. I had already experimented with big capital letters and reuse of graphics in much the same way.



The big capital letters only consist of 14 characters (defined for the above purpose only). It’s based on a free font called Armor Piercing from Blambot.



Yes, I plan for a few soundeffects and title music. The subs will of course fire back at you with torpedoes, missiles and mines - otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a game. And I still intent for it all to fit in 8K. I can’t afford hordes of different submarine types. I might sacrifice the instructions and the funny idea about settings. I haven’t got any good uncompress routines (other than simple RLE), so I’m not counting on compression for now.

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Fri Dec 11, 2009 4:45 PM, said:

You could have the destroyer ship being black and move it slowly from left to right over the logo.

Oh yes, that is a nice effect. Will use it in a future project.

[sometimes99er]

Okay, the animation of depth charges is a bit different than with the 3 arcades mentioned earlier. This animation has a maximum of 30 frames per second. Even that might be a bit too fast. I think I will end up with moving and animating the depth charges only every third or fourth frame.



I should probably try out white water splash pixels instead of those dark blue ones.

[retroclouds]

have to say, the dept charges look very cool

[TI99Kitty]

Want! ^_^

[sometimes99er]

Preliminary sprite layout

#1 - Helper for no. of depth charges used (to have both black, white and red within one character)
#2-3 - Top of Destroyer (clouds move behind ship)
#4-11 - Depth charges and explosions
#12-17 - Mines (drifting)
#18-21 - Torpedoes

Much like the arcade Time Pilot (Konami 1982), the player stays fixed on screen (everything else moves).

[sometimes99er]

Managing velocity

Vertically depth charges moves a bit faster thru the air and slows down thru the water. Mines and torpedoes have constant speed.

Horizontally the destroyer stays fixed, but you can move it anyway. You move to the left and everything else but the destroyer moves to the right and vice versa.

The clouds move slowly (in one direction), but will be affected by your movement.

Also the destroyer accelerates to a certain speed and then deaccelerates to a halt. Of course depending on input from the player. This makes it possible to dodge mines and torpedoes, but also making it somewhat harder to hit those deep sea submarines.

I better start coding ...

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Tue Dec 15, 2009 11:22 PM, said:

Managing velocity

Vertically depth charges moves a bit faster thru the air and slows down thru the water. Mines and torpedoes have constant speed.

Horizontally the destroyer stays fixed, but you can move it anyway. You move to the left and everything else but the destroyer moves to the right and vice versa.

The clouds move slowly (in one direction), but will be affected by your movement.

Also the destroyer accelerates to a certain speed and then deaccelerates to a halt. Of course depending on input from the player. This makes it possible to dodge mines and torpedoes, but also making it somewhat harder to hit those deep sea submarines.

I better start coding ...

sounds very nice.
So, do you think a cartridge run could be made for Destroyer?
That would be really cool. A real new game on cartridge

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:56 AM, said:

sounds very nice.
So, do you think a cartridge run could be made for Destroyer?
That would be really cool. A real new game on cartridge

I’m not taking orders as of now. I had Sudoku, Cockroach (see picture below), The Castle and Tic Tac on cartridge as 8K prototypes. Destroyer might be part of a later special multicart project. Other than that I’m looking into a manual for Destroyer and some cartridge case redesign.

[sometimes99er]

Most of the static character patterns are in place. Title screen constructed. Next up ... Joystick and keyboard driver. Title screen selection.

This post has been edited by sometimes99er: Today, 10:51 AM

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:09 PM, said:

Most of the static character patterns are in place. Title screen constructed. Demo attached. Extract bin from zip or rename extension to rpk. Next up ... Joystick and keyboard driver. Title screen selection.



0015.zip

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more
Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Fri Dec 18, 2009 8:04 PM, said:

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more
Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

Thanks for trying it out. Feedback is important.

He heh, I have no idea. Other than maybe setting up the keyboard to substitute the joystick. This is probably more useful on the real deal. I was originally thinking about having different sets of colors, but that’s a no go today. Then you might set the difficulty or starting level here. Could set something stupid like volume of sound. I wasn’t going to have in game music, but if the title music works out fine, which it shouldn’t, because there’s not room for any lengthy musical score there. The title music is probably either going to be military drums or a song which recently peaked at chart position 3 around the world. I’m practicing both tracks on my piano synthesizer to get a just a bit of human touch. Will transfer later using MIDI. Maybe a trainer mode with immortality and no scoring.

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Fri Dec 18, 2009 11:35 PM, said:

retroclouds, on Fri Dec 18, 2009 8:04 PM, said:

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more
Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

Thanks for trying it out. Feedback is important.

He heh, I have no idea. Other than maybe setting up the keyboard to substitute the joystick. This is probably more useful on the real deal. I was originally thinking about having different sets of colors, but that’s a no go today. Then you might set the difficulty or starting level here. Could set something stupid like volume of sound. I wasn’t going to have in game music, but if the title music works out fine, which it shouldn’t, because there’s not room for any lengthy musical score there. The title music is probably either going to be military drums or a song which recently peaked at chart position 3 around the world. I’m practicing both tracks on my piano synthesizer to get a just a bit of human touch. Will transfer later using MIDI. Maybe a trainer mode with immortality and no scoring.

Hope you will be able to fit it all in just 8K

Here are some some ideas:

1. I don't think it's a big issue scanning both joystick and keyboard.
Having that, there is no big reason for doing a keyboard setup.
In terms of code size the 'keyboard' configuration will most likely take more
space as scanning joystick and keyboard. I guess most folks will be fine with default keys anyway.

2. Trainer mode with immortality and no scoring would definitly be very nice.

3. At first I was thinking about a code for entering a specific level, but I dunno if codesize will permit that.
However if code size permits, you could also generate a code that identifies your score/level/difficulty level.
On a small companion website you can then enter that code and you will be added to the "hall of fame".
Would be nice for a gaming competition.

4. Looking forward to the sound effects

[sometimes99er]

0.
It should all fit with 8K. Otherwise I’ll have to make it fit.

1.
For this game “standard” keyboard (I think it’s ESDX.) is alright, but with future games I was thinking of TFGHAL (left- and righthand support). I’ll leave keyboard out for now to save some bytes.

2.
Trainer mode would be easy to implement. And I probably would want one for tuning anyway.

3.
I’m still not sure what the levels are about, so I might introduce lives or a life meter. Life meter with slow repair until score is 100000 (then there’s no repair). I like your idea about entering a code online to share high scores.

4.
I guess I’ll spend an entire day, on and off, trying to get them right.

This morning my son had a Christmas Sunday Advent gift from his grandma. “Puslespil” is jigsaw puzzle. What are the chances of this being exactly the same font that I chose to use on the title screen. Man, I mean, what are the chances !?!!

[sometimes99er]

Joystick, menu selection, initial game and exit routines added. Level changed to Lives and for now with small hearts. The hearts really won’t do it for the scene.

This post has been edited by sometimes99er: Today, 10:52 AM

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Sun Dec 20, 2009 7:32 PM, said:

Joystick, menu selection, initial game and exit routines added. Level changed to Lives and for now with small hearts. The hearts really won’t do it for the scene.



0017.zip

Looking forward giving this a shot tonight when I get home from work