66 replies to this topic

[GroovyBee]

Its looking good but you might want to put a "WAVE nn" in the middle of the screen when you move to the next level. At the moment it looks like it hangs for a few seconds.

[GreenDayRlz]

Yes, it waits for the splashes to complete before advancing the wave and spinning on the wait for the button press for the next one to begin. I don't think I'll add that, it's not a number you really care about and would just slow down the game and be intrusive, but I'll not drop all consideration, never. Thanks for the idea!

[GroovyBee]

OK. How about displaying an encouraging phrase selected at random instead? It just needs "something" to make it a smooth transition and to give the player a bit of a breather.

[GreenDayRlz]

I dunno, I don't see how it will help the gameplay out to do any of that, but still, I'll still consider something. I don't like having the player to wait for anything though, it's just not good as it is a fast paced game, I've always wanted to blast through the first 6 levels on the original, then on the 7th just get prepared for it by pressing the paddle button. Anything in between might make it frustrating because you'll slow down and the time between levels will take away the "zone" you may get in just by blasting through all the levels directly after each other. That's mainly what I'm afraid of mainly.

[GroovyBee]

Breaking it up into bouts would work as well.

[Trebor]

Hi Green,

The port looks great so far. In my humble opinion, compared to the Atari 2600 port:

-The distance between where the bombs first drop and your top bucket is too close.
-The distance between the three buckets seems slightly further apart.
-Playfield is narrower and objects (especially bombs) relatively larger.



It all makes things considerably easier on the NES than the Atari 2600 port.

[GreenDayRlz]

I have the ability to make the spacing of the buckets down to closer than the 2600 version just by changing one variable, I'll bring the space a little closer and see how it plays. I have noticed when you lose paddles the game does get a little harder than the Atari version, that may help a lot with it. But the narrow playfield doesn't hurt that badly, there's still tons of back and forth, and the bombs come down at a speed that makes it as just hard from my playing. But I'll be sure to post a demo to help you guys out with telling me what need re-balanced to make it as close difficulty wise to the original. I'll make the buckets closer from now on until we get a final test, as that's probably a good balancing pointer. Thanks for the evaluation!

[BigO]

Glad to see this project is still alive and kicking.

Out of pure curiosity and total ignorance of NES programming, is the narrowness of the playfield due to a limitation of the machine or a personal choice. It looks like it plays pretty well regardless.

[GroovyBee]

The NES has a horizontal resolution of 256 pixels. Assuming that the characters in the font at the top of the screen on that video are each 8 pixels wide the playfield is larger than 160 pixels. However, I could be wrong on that assumption.

[GreenDayRlz]

I don't really know what you mean, but it's not a limitation of the machine at all. The sprites are just a little bigger to get more details in. It uses the whole vertical resolution of the screen, so it should have about the same play field size as the Atari version. I'll try to get the final version put together quick to post a demo ROM so you guys can really try this for yourself and see what you think of it hands on, that'd help a lot.

ETA: Yeah, the above is correct. The bomber sprite is 3 sprites wide (24 pixels) and the paddles are 4 sprites, so 32 pixels for those. All sprites are 16 pixels tall, so the bomber is 32 pixels tall and the buckets are16 pixels tall each, and the bombs are 16 pixels square. The bombs hit area is only on the bombs it's self, on the black part. How about I post a screenie of the game so you can measure it all out if you'd like?

Edited by GreenDayRlz, Sun Feb 12, 2012 6:57 PM.

[BigO]

So, it's not narrower by comparison with the 2600 playfield, it's taller. That's simple enough. Keep up the good work and I'll keep my stupid questions to myself now.

Edited by BigO, Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:27 AM.

[GreenDayRlz]

Demo ROM posted now: http://nintendoage.c...&threadid=64106

[GreenDayRlz]

Bump, check first post for "preorder" stuff. It's not needed, but I'd REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate posting on there, here will work too though if you don't want to join although I'd like it there. Thanks guys!

[GroovyBee]

You might want to start a separate pre-order thread for your game because not everybody comes into the homebrew section. That will give you a much wider AA audience.

[GreenDayRlz]

Okay, I will do that. I guess since it's done now, this can be locked possibly, or this'll just be the last post. Thanks, will separate now.

[lapetino]

GreenDayRlz, on Sat Mar 24, 2012 5:54 AM, said:

Okay, I will do that. I guess since it's done now, this can be locked possibly, or this'll just be the last post. Thanks, will separate now.

Is this a separate post here at AA? Can you link to it?

[GreenDayRlz]

http://www.atariage....reserve-thread/

Yep. Also, when the bomber gets the shocked face in the original, does he smile when you miss the bombs for the split second then?