140 replies to this topic

[sometimes99er]

This is how it looks with the hearts ...



I then tried and change it for something like Lifemeter ...



Gotta find something better ... What goes for a destroyer ? Stamina ?

And maybe something like this when your ship has blown up ...

[GroovyBee]

sometimes99er, on Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:49 AM, said:

Gotta find something better ... What goes for a destroyer ? Stamina ?

How about "damage"?

[sometimes99er]

GroovyBee, on Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:24 AM, said:

How about "damage"?

That’s good input. Would something like this work ? Eh, it’s a sliding pointer on top.



Maybe with penalty on player speed and/or number of depth charges, when you get into the danger zone. Or maybe just an annoying alarm sound.

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:01 AM, said:

GroovyBee, on Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:24 AM, said:

How about "damage"?

That’s good input. Would something like this work ? Eh, it’s a sliding pointer on top.



Maybe with penalty on player speed and/or number of depth charges, when you get into the danger zone. Or maybe just an annoying alarm sound.

I like the "DAMAGE" indicator a lot. Dunno, would be cool if the indicator starts blinking slowly/fast when you get into the yellow or red area

[GroovyBee]

sometimes99er, on Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:01 AM, said:

Would something like this work ? Eh, it’s a sliding pointer on top.

Personally I'd just go for the bar getting shorter and shorter rather than a slider on top of it. Its much easier to take a quick glance at and know exactly where you are at.

Quote

Maybe with penalty on player speed and/or number of depth charges, when you get into the danger zone. Or maybe just an annoying alarm sound.

I'd say a penalty on speed would be best out of those choices. How about having the annoying noise increase in volume/tone for every step into the red (if possible - I know nothing of the TI99 hardware ). That would increase the sense of urgency to splat as many subs as possible in the time remaining.

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:22 AM, said:

I like the "DAMAGE" indicator a lot. Dunno, would be cool if the indicator starts blinking slowly/fast when you get into the yellow or red area

Thanks. Good idea. An increasingly faster blinking indicator would surely get your attention.

GroovyBee, on Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:47 AM, said:

Personally I'd just go for the bar getting shorter and shorter rather than a slider on top of it. Its much easier to take a quick glance at and know exactly where you are at.

Typically bars move left when they get shorter. One could start out with one all green, and then, as it gets shorter, change the color accordingly. And then introduce blinking when it got yellow and red.

The indicator is easier to do and takes less bytes, but then that’s not really an issue now. I’ll worry about size later (compression is our safety net). I’ll make some sample animations.

GroovyBee, on Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:47 AM, said:

I'd say a penalty on speed would be best out of those choices. How about having the annoying noise increase in volume/tone for every step into the red (if possible - I know nothing of the TI99 hardware ). That would increase the sense of urgency to splat as many subs as possible in the time remaining.

Maybe penalties add too much to frustration, when trying to beat one owns high score. I think I’ll go for an alarm. And then maybe just having one volume for yellow zone and another for red. There are 15 levels of volume (in steps of 2 dB) on the TI. And then of course volume off.

This bring my attention to the old arcades. Some of these had a timer. You would only get 90 seconds of play, and then maybe one single bonus of 45 seconds extra. This might be a formula for making all kinds of people play and go for a high score (maybe sharing on a website). Maybe this could be the standard mode, and then “settings” would allow for “trainer” and “hardcore gamer” – both without time limit ?



PS. Thanks for feedback. This kind of interactivity surely inspires.

[sometimes99er]

Well, I like them both.

[Bill_Loguidice]

Wonderful, wonderful work, though I must admit I would like to see the ship be a different color (perhaps some dark grey if its in the pallette) over the subs. Regardless, great job and I'm looking forward to the final version.

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:31 AM, said:

Well, I like them both.

that is real nice. I must say, I also like them both.
This make it almost impossible to pick the best one.
I would go for the one that takes less code space

[jrok]

sometimes99er, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:31 AM, said:

Well, I like them both.

The bottom one seems more intuitive to me, especially for when the action is furious. The one with the indicator arrow is a bit of an unnecessary distraction. It just seems like one more connection my brain needs to make (the position of the arrow) during gameplay, when it should be thoroughly focused on blowing up subs.

Great work so far!

[sometimes99er]

Bill_Loguidice, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:51 AM, said:

Wonderful, wonderful work, though I must admit I would like to see the ship be a different color (perhaps some dark grey if its in the pallette) over the subs. Regardless, great job and I'm looking forward to the final version.

Thank you. This is the TI-99/4A palette ...



The first color being “transparent” for external video input (genlock), but it’s never been used much. The real hardware and most emulators render it black. Sprites basically have one color and transparent (just showing characters beneath).



I was intentionally making up the ship as a silhouette (lighting from behind somehow), and then using only one color. I don’t think the gray available is good with the background sky as is, one could then chose a night theme instead etc.

Again thanks for input. I appreciate it.

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:20 AM, said:

sometimes99er, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:31 AM, said:

Well, I like them both.

that is real nice. I must say, I also like them both.
This make it almost impossible to pick the best one.
I would go for the one that takes less code space

I’m thinking about using the last one (choosing the bar over the indicator), and then changing the word from damage to health. It is after all a decreasing bar.

[GroovyBee]

sometimes99er, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:07 AM, said:

I’m thinking about using the last one (choosing the bar over the indicator), and then changing the word from damage to health. It is after all a decreasing bar.

Nah! Ships take "damage" and not "lose health" in my opinion .

[sometimes99er]

jrok, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:53 AM, said:

sometimes99er, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:31 AM, said:

Well, I like them both.

The bottom one seems more intuitive to me, especially for when the action is furious. The one with the indicator arrow is a bit of an unnecessary distraction. It just seems like one more connection my brain needs to make (the position of the arrow) during gameplay, when it should be thoroughly focused on blowing up subs.

Great work so far!

Thank you.

Well, if we choose the keyword damage over health, then an increasing bar would seem more correct ? Maybe just all red in color (aka no color changes) ? I think I’ll leave out any blinking, but then having an alarm with increasing volume.

[sometimes99er]

GroovyBee, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:17 AM, said:

Nah! Ships take "damage" and not "lose health" in my opinion .

I hear you. You’re right. More dramatic too. I’ll make a new mockup animation later (Christmas is taking over here).

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:59 AM, said:

Bill_Loguidice, on Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:51 AM, said:

Wonderful, wonderful work, though I must admit I would like to see the ship be a different color (perhaps some dark grey if its in the pallette) over the subs. Regardless, great job and I'm looking forward to the final version.

Thank you. This is the TI-99/4A palette ...



The first color being “transparent” for external video input (genlock), but it’s never been used much. The real hardware and most emulators render it black. Sprites basically have one color and transparent (just showing characters beneath).



I was intentionally making up the ship as a silhouette (lighting from behind somehow), and then using only one color. I don’t think the gray available is good with the background sky as is, one could then chose a night theme instead etc.

Again thanks for input. I appreciate it.

I think the destroyer should be black, black as the night.
From all the colors it fits best. In my opinion the other colors let the destroyer look like .... a candy ship

[GroovyBee]

You could use "morale" too. The indicator could be green, yellow and red (as before) and the ship could take longer and longer to load new depth charges because the crew are getting tired of being attacked and/or killed.

[Opry99er]

sometimes99er, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:45 AM, said:

GroovyBee, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:17 AM, said:

Nah! Ships take "damage" and not "lose health" in my opinion .

I hear you. You’re right. More dramatic too. I’ll make a new mockup animation later (Christmas is taking over here).

Man... This is looking awesome. I might not even enter my piece of crap XB offering now. You really do some nice stuff, man.....

[Bill_Loguidice]

sometimes99er, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:59 AM, said:

Thank you. This is the TI-99/4A palette ...



The first color being “transparent” for external video input (genlock), but it’s never been used much. The real hardware and most emulators render it black. Sprites basically have one color and transparent (just showing characters beneath).



I was intentionally making up the ship as a silhouette (lighting from behind somehow), and then using only one color. I don’t think the gray available is good with the background sky as is, one could then chose a night theme instead etc.

Good points and I agree 100% about the ship being in silhouette. What I was really getting at was that since the subs are under water, they should look different (cast a different hue) from the ship. If that means making the subs a different color, so be it. Obviously, the colors available are limited and it may not look quite right, unfortunately. Perhaps the subs could be a darker blue (and the water a lighter blue, or vice-versa) so they're just a bit harder to "see" under water. Another option would be to ignore the silhouette concept on the ship and add some detail to it (with the grey that's available, maybe), so it's clear that since it's above water it's easier to see (make out the detail) versus the subs (no detail, just black shapes). Again, even as-is color-wise, it still looks dynamite and really doesn't need "fixing" all things considered, so you should probably just ignore these comments.

[retroclouds]

Quote

Man... This is looking awesome. I might not even enter my piece of crap XB offering now. You really do some nice stuff, man.....

Hi there!

Seeing your previous game "Lemonade Stand", I'm sure your new game won't be anything like a piece of XB crap.
Even within XB limitations, it's important to see new homebrew games pushing the TI forward.

I for one, would love to see your entry in the RGPC competition

Why not just post your progress here at AtariAge. This is the place for getting user feedback,
which I know helps pushing the motivation.
At least it did for me, while working on Pitfall

retroclouds

[Opry99er]

Thanks Filip. I appreciate your kind words. I will try to finish it and submit it. I do need to start posting on here more... Perhaps I will start a thread on my game. One question, how did Karsten add all those videos? Is that an available feature on this forum?

[sometimes99er]

retroclouds, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:47 AM, said:

I think the destroyer should be black, black as the night.
From all the colors it fits best. In my opinion the other colors let the destroyer look like .... a candy ship

Yep, I think I’ll keep it black.

[sometimes99er]

Bill_Loguidice, on Fri Dec 25, 2009 12:46 AM, said:

Good points and I agree 100% about the ship being in silhouette. What I was really getting at was that since the subs are under water, they should look different (cast a different hue) from the ship. If that means making the subs a different color, so be it. Obviously, the colors available are limited and it may not look quite right, unfortunately. Perhaps the subs could be a darker blue (and the water a lighter blue, or vice-versa) so they're just a bit harder to "see" under water. Another option would be to ignore the silhouette concept on the ship and add some detail to it (with the grey that's available, maybe), so it's clear that since it's above water it's easier to see (make out the detail) versus the subs (no detail, just black shapes). Again, even as-is color-wise, it still looks dynamite and really doesn't need "fixing" all things considered, so you should probably just ignore these comments.

At first the ship was going to be made up of 4 sprites (64x16 pixels) aligned horizontally. This is the maximum number of sprites horizontally, and then the ship could only have one color. Sprites would make it very easy to move the ship in any direction, maybe even let it lay low in the water and eventually let it sink. Later I got the idea to let the world move around the ship, so the design got somewhat stationary with only 2 sprites for the top of the ship to allow clouds to move behind.

I also wanted the ship and the subs to be different colors, but now I’ve gotten used to the dark idea of the scene. I did experiment with more acid waters and dark skies (dark blue over light green). Anyways, when you look at this Type 45 Destroyer from a distance, it’s pretty much just one color (greyish). If the ship is going to be “upgraded” with more detail, I think it will have to be base grey with some black here and there. I would then have to change the color of clouds too.

Thanks for your input.

[sometimes99er]

GroovyBee, on Thu Dec 24, 2009 7:48 AM, said:

You could use "morale" too. The indicator could be green, yellow and red (as before) and the ship could take longer and longer to load new depth charges because the crew are getting tired of being attacked and/or killed.

I like it. Very nice ideas.

[retroclouds]

sometimes99er, on Fri Dec 25, 2009 1:16 PM, said:

At first the ship was going to be made up of 4 sprites (64x16 pixels) aligned horizontally. This is the maximum number of sprites horizontally, and then the ship could only have one color. Sprites would make it very easy to move the ship in any direction, maybe even let it lay low in the water and eventually let it sink. Later I got the idea to let the world move around the ship, so the design got somewhat stationary with only 2 sprites for the top of the ship to allow clouds to move behind.

I also wanted the ship and the subs to be different colors, but now I’ve gotten used to the dark idea of the scene.
....

Yeah, letting the ship lay low in the water would have been cool. But the game will be nice without that feature nonetheless.
Perhaps the ship could start burning when it takes too much damage or you could change the shape of the ship.
Looking forward seeing the explosions.

Hope this doesn't all sound to cruel being in the X-mas spirit and such