42 replies to this topic

[Junosix]

Hi folks, here's a one-level sort-of demo of a game I've been working on (in straight assembly language) - The Wicked Father.

You play the unconsionable character of the title who has locked his family in the basement and flooded his 15 storey (or 20 or however much room I have left in 4K) mansion. Life insurance + house insurance = PROFIT!!! Make your way to the top of the house to escape or you will die with them!

In this demo, you control the player with the left and right directions on the joystick, pressing fire to jump. Standard Mario-type controls, when you want to jump over a wall you must take a running jump to clear it, and when in water you'll need to hammer the fire button to get him to move. The aim in this demo is to make it to the "door handle" in the top right before you drown (although I haven't added the check which detects if you've got to the door handle or not).

Let me know how it drives! Merry Christmas

Attached Thumbnails

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Attached Files

•  wicked.bin   4K   121 downloads

[Junosix]

YouTube video of it running on a CRT TV.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Fun, can't wait to see more! I like how the smiley looks insane

[RevEng]

Nice start! Can't wait to see where you take it.

Any chance to delay that COLUBK write so it doesn't happen on screen?

[Junosix]

Thanks chaps!

Sadly I can't find a way of moving that COLUBK, my display kernel only has 2 spare cycles left and no room for shifting things around that I can see. Did try to hide it behind PF0 on the right but couldn't find a way.

Hopefully going to get some time over Christmas to get some levels sorted!

[R. Jones]

Neat beginning. Looking forward to seeing more.

Junosix, on Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:53 PM, said:

Thanks chaps!

Sadly I can't find a way of moving that COLUBK, my display kernel only has 2 spare cycles left and no room for shifting things around that I can see. Did try to hide it behind PF0 on the right but couldn't find a way.
[ . . . ]

Changing the player color midline to create the submersion immersion looks quite nice. I think having crooked water is a somewhat minor tradeoff, if the levels are clever. (The playfield has to be using up a bit of your of your time.

[Pioneer4x4]

Looks promising, neat idea for a game!

[Atari_afternoon]

Funny stuff! Lots of stress when the walls get narrow...

[Junosix]

Another little video of the progress, now has levels (though they're yet to be designed), a title screen (and will also have a definite end screen). Managed also to shunt the display kernel around to lose the jagged bit in the water and save 4 cycles so I can have a gradient background. Major gameplay difference now is that he can swim in the water rather than just jump, which has actually transformed how it plays a lot.

To do: title music (written, just got to shove the code in there), design levels.

YouTube Video.

Edited by Junosix, Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:39 AM.

[Junosix]

Release candidate here: http://junosix.adsl2...secandidate.bin

Grab the Stella emulator from http://stella.source...t/downloads.php

There is one small bug that will either be a showstopper or glitchy curiosity that the odd player may occasionally get. Don't know which because I can play it from start to finish without making too many errors (obviously). Let me know if you come across anything.

[GroovyBee]

Are you sure you want to call something with a "show stopper glitch" a release candidate?

[Junosix]

GroovyBee, on Thu Mar 3, 2011 6:57 PM, said:

Are you sure you want to call something with a "show stopper glitch" a release candidate?

Yeah! I don't know if it is a proper showstopper, or an endearing glitch. If no one finds it, great. If someone finds it, then there'll be a release candidate 2

[Trekker_1138]

Fiendish Father?
Diabolical Dad?

alliteration junkie, I am. Cool game!

[abaudrand]

Nice game (I die at level 3) but why not changing the title of the game like "Titanic" or "The Poseidon". Playing a such negative character is really not fun for me, especially when you know people who barely escaped a wicked father in the real world...

[Wickeycolumbus]

Nice progress! It appears that the break vector is missing, making the ROM 2 bytes short of 4K. You should probably add an extra two bytes, even if you don't use brk in the program

Also, sometimes for seemingly no reason, the player is thrown across the screen and passes through walls.

[the.golden.ax]

Yikes. Are you sure you don't want to include more back story here? Perhaps he committed incest and is trying to do away with all the offspring as well.

Dark. Very Dark.

I'm going to go lighten up my mood by playing the panda game with the missing penis...

AX

[Junosix]

Wickeycolumbus, on Fri Mar 4, 2011 3:27 PM, said:

Nice progress! It appears that the break vector is missing, making the ROM 2 bytes short of 4K. You should probably add an extra two bytes, even if you don't use brk in the program

Also, sometimes for seemingly no reason, the player is thrown across the screen and passes through walls.

Cool, I'll pad it out another 2 bytes in that case.

The passing through walls thing is the showstopper. It seems to only happen when you're by a wall and you quickly switch from turning right to turning left (can't replicate it the other way around though). Anyway, I think I figured out the solution (thought about it when I was doing the washing up a few minutes ago), so time for an RC2 in due course

[Junosix]

Okay, think I've crushed that bug, so I think this could very well work out to be the final version: http://junosix.adsl2...ecandidate2.bin

It's also 4096 bytes

[save2600]

Yikes! The platform jumping, as far apart as they are, look to be an exercise in tolerance and frustration. Designed on purpose that way to make it that much more difficult I know... but maybe instead of making that the focus of the game, narrow the jumping and place random household objects (think Keystone Kapers) you've got to jump over instead?

[Junosix]

Keep practising, some of the platforms are pixel perfect (but you'll get the hang of them), however sometimes careful use of swimming is better than trying to keep your head above the water. There's a couple of ways to complete some of the levels which might not be obvious at first glance.

In the later levels, button mashing underwater is your friend

[save2600]

Junosix, on Fri Mar 4, 2011 5:29 PM, said:

Keep practising, some of the platforms are pixel perfect (but you'll get the hang of them), however sometimes careful use of swimming is better than trying to keep your head above the water. There's a couple of ways to complete some of the levels which might not be obvious at first glance.

In the later levels, button mashing underwater is your friend

So antique radios, phones, TV's, dressers, flower pots and insurance adjusters to avoid are not going to be an option then?

Just kidding of course. Nice effort!

[Junosix]

Heh heh

It was a very tough call with the platforms, they are difficult but lowering them by a line would have made it too easy, then the game would be over a lot quicker. There's 19 rooms in total, keep at it!

[Wickeycolumbus]

Junosix, on Fri Mar 4, 2011 5:00 PM, said:

Okay, think I've crushed that bug, so I think this could very well work out to be the final version: http://junosix.adsl2...ecandidate2.bin

It's also 4096 bytes

It appears you added the bytes in the wrong spot, you should add them after the reset vector, so the reset vector is at 1FFC/1FFD and break is at 1FFE/1FFF. This is causing it to start wrong in stella 3.3, and will cause it to crash on a real machine.

Other than that, looks great! I haven't run into any more issues moving through the wall

Not sure if this is intentional, but it seems that the life meter is carried over from level to level, so you almost always die going from level 3 to 4.

[Junosix]

Yeah, just realised that I'd uploaded the wrong file! Did a cheeky reupload a few minutes ago (same filename).

The life meter thing is all part of the puzzle (something you'll find is vital to be very careful of further on). You'll find as you play it a few times you'll pick up speed on the earlier levels and have more in reserve for starting each new room.

[Koopa64]

Ah crap, I died right after the 4th level started up. I was too slow in getting to the door on level 3, my air ran out.