67 replies to this topic

[ScumSoft]

EggVenture 2600
This game is currently on hold till further notice

RC3 introduces major changes from RC2, download the RC3 beta attached below.

The game is playable to the end, however the Adventure minigame isn't completed 100%. Also the pitfall minigame is not implemented in this build and will be included in the next testing release. There is no special ending just yet, but there is an end of game indication.

Adventure is triggered by taking the key to the hero
Pitfall will be triggered by taking the gold to the harry statue. I'm attempting to implement the entire original(recreation by me) game of pitfall, there will be some compromises, but the objective is to have enough gameplay to augment a higher score. You will also want to retrieve the Golden Eggs from the Adventure and Pitfall minigames as they double your score.

The game currently crashes on the Harmony when bringing the key to the Hero, however the game plays fine on Stella 3.4.1
Have fun and let me know what you think of the changes!







[INSTRUCTIONS]

• You play as an alien Egg hunter named Beezo, equipped with the latest PSGS(Poultry Solar Glide Suit) allowing you free flight on all worlds.
  
• Your mission is to collect all 8 Golden eggs from a dangerous cave bringing any you find back to your ship.
  
• Your ship will spawn items after collecting Golden eggs, these items will be used to solve basic puzzle elements found in the cave.
  
• Your PSGS power meter is constantly running down and will increase every time you bring an Egg back to your ship.
  
• It is the goal of all PSGS users to have the highest power rating. More Golden Eggs = more power and glamour.
  
• Beezo can bounce off walls and enemies but this causes harm, watch your red life meter, if it goes to zero then you will respawn back at your ship.
  
• Your ship can heal any wounds you have if you bring it an Egg.
  
• Your ship can only respawn you five times before it's fuel cells wear out, in which case the PSGS will kindly turn into a tombstone to commemorate your failure.
  
• Player is controlled with the joystick
  
• Fire button will make the player flap its arms
  
• Joystick down will make you fall a bit faster than normal
  
• Pickup items and Eggs by touching them
  
• Good Luck

[Special Thanks]

• Philsan thank you for L.E.M which gave me the Knowledge on how to assemble this game.
  
• RevEng thanks for being a dev supporter and helping me squish DPC+ issues, also with play testing.
  
• PAC-MAN-RED thanks for making extremely well done sprites and allowing us to use them, game wouldn't look the same without them.
  
• Random Terrain a BIG THANK YOU for setting up your batari Basic site, it's been an invaluable reference time and time again!
  
• A very special thanks to Batari, you've open the doors to many and even allowed myself to develop a working 2600 game, your Harmony cart is second to none and also an invaluable resource.
  
• Stephena without Stella, I don't know how I would have managed to crank this game out in a little over a months time. Thanks for your continuing support and making sure Stella is the best damned VCS emulator to date.
  
• Also Jeff Wierer, Visual Batari is a great IDE to program in, the internal editors alone make it worth using.
  
• Thanks to SeaGtGruff for his Adventure template and introduction to using data types for room layouts
  
• and a thank you to everyone who've I've forgotten.

The roms are playable on Harmony cart or Stella Stella 3.4.1

Attached Files

•  EggVenturePAL(RC2).bin   32K   66 downloads
•  EggVentureNTSC(RC2).bin   32K   97 downloads
•  EggVentureNTSC(RC3)beta.bin   32K   98 downloads

Edited by ScumSoft, Tue Nov 8, 2011 5:02 PM.

[dwane413]

ScumSoft, on Thu May 26, 2011 9:48 PM, said:

 
 rem -hit the pad to hard and you bounce off wasting fuel trying to land

I think that should be "hit the pad too hard".

I like the title screen, but I haven't tried the game.

[Philsan]

Very nice physics!

Not just a Lunar Lander clone (like my L.E.M. - Lunar Excursion Module) but a funny parody.

[ScumSoft]

They better be nice, they are modified based on your LEMs physics code. Which of course I will credit once a credit page it done for it

[Philsan]

ScumSoft, on Fri May 27, 2011 5:04 AM, said:

They better be nice, they are modified based on your LEMs physics code. Which of course I will credit once a credit page it done for it

Very modified!
I really like the way your character moves!

My L.E.M. for Atari 8-bit computers has physics, VCS version hasn't physics!
But I am happy if my program in some way has inspired you!

[ScumSoft]

Yep, I've learned a bit from your code. Didn't know bB supported floats till I saw your source and then looked it up on Random Terrains site. It's a learning experience for sure. Game design isn't my forte but I've always wanted to do this, so I'm working diligently on completing this game before the month ends.

It can be done! I think been pulling all nighters lately. Seeing the sun rise was a rare thing for me you know.

[RevEng]

Really solid start ScumSoft!

To throw a few ideas out there, maybe you could have the playfield be always destructive, with your goal being to rescue a chick that's walking back and forth on part of the level.

The chick would only grab hold if he's nearby and you're hovering near his level. Once he's onboard, you need to take-off again.

There might even be multiple chicks, ala Flicky, which would make navigating the ascent even harder, though they might flicker a bit.

The other players might be used as roving enemies or dynamic parts of the playfield.

[ScumSoft]

Neat idea, I might be able to do level based mini-games ala Wario Ware style instead of focusing on landing pad repetition.

I'll see what I can come up with. But for now my coding day has ended and it is time for some sleep. I'll cya in a couple hours or so.

[yuppicide]

I totally remember playing this. That Space Quest was hilarious.. was it #5? I forget. I remember you got a decoder ring.

[ScumSoft]

Daily build posted, fixed a few issues and cleaned up the source code a bit.

It was in space quest 3 at monolith burger

[ScumSoft]

Latest build posted, all game mechanics are in place and playable albeit buggy in some situations.

Still doesn't work on the harmony for whatever reason. Anyone have ideas what might be causing this?

[RevEng]

I gave it a run-through. Some observations...

• I like the "bacock" graphic. Nice touch!
  
• The titlescreen shading is nice.
  
• The score seems to get messed up at certain values.
  
• On the level with upper and lower paths to the landing pad, the chicken seems to float up on it's own when you start.

I'll take a look at the DPC bouncing tonight. I tried the first bB DPC beta and it ran smooth in harmony, but I haven't tried the second beta on real hardware... it's possible your scanline bounce is an issue with the beta itself.

[ScumSoft]

I reversed the gravity on that level for a different touch, it may or may not appeal to many though.

It's odd, since none of the binaries I've posted worked on my harmony. I've tried many different DFxFRACDATA values for the playfield and different playfield heights, but they all bounced. I'm sure it's most likely some oversight of mine.

Thanks for helping me test.

[RevEng]

ScumSoft, on Wed Jun 1, 2011 2:15 PM, said:

I reversed the gravity on that level for a different touch, it may or may not appeal to many though.

It's not a bad idea, but there should be some sign that something is different... an upside down chicken or inverted colors or glowing purple walls or whatever.

Another spitball idea - you could have stuff that effects sideways velocity too, like the electric fans in Bubble Ghost.

ScumSoft, on Wed Jun 1, 2011 2:15 PM, said:

I'm sure it's most likely some oversight of mine.

Not at all - I reproduced it with very simple code, and the first beta definitely wasn't doing that.

I submitted the bug report, so for now just stick to Stella.

[ScumSoft]

Ok found a workaround for the bug, you just update the DFxFRACINC pointers every frame and it won't bounce.
[edit] Batari fixed this in his latest release.

Edited by ScumSoft, Sat Jun 4, 2011 10:13 PM.

[ScumSoft]

Changed from Lunar Cluckerz project to EggVenture.

Updated first Post

Edited by ScumSoft, Sat Jul 9, 2011 12:21 AM.

[ScumSoft]

Any suggestions or critiques are completely welcome. So let me know what you like and dislike.

[Philsan]

Excellent!

Regarding Harmony problem, perhaps someone here could help you (RevEng?).

[RevEng]

I played for a while, and I'll be playing it again. This is very interesting!

Some of the screens, like the castle, have a very thin bit of playfield at the bottom - to the beginner it's not entirely obvious if those are barriers or not until they kill you.

Phil, from ScumSoft's description it sounds like a DPC+ issue, so I'm not going to be able to be a great help. I'd raise it with batari... the fact that Stella differs from Harmony makes it sound like either a bug or some undocumented behavior.

[ScumSoft]

The issue:
Player sprites start to get erased or misaligned.
Score color changes to a random color, mostly purple.
Background changes to same shade as score color.

My pointers are set as such:
DF0FRACINC = 32
DF1FRACINC = 32
DF2FRACINC = 32
DF3FRACINC = 32
DF4FRACINC = 64
DF6FRACINC = 64

Playfield size = 23 lines, 22 causes graphic artifacts in the score region, 23 seems to fit okay though, but there is that slim playfield line right above the score region.
Also at the top right of the screen.
PlayfieldColor and bkcolors tables are set to 23 bytes.

I make any changes to the pointers and things go wonky, this looks the most stable. I might just have everything set incorrectly. Close but no cigar. Stella seems to handle the pointers differently.

Scorecolor is missing for current release (waiting for fix from batari in next release), so I set the bkcolors all to $00 except byte 23 which falls in the score region, and reflects the difficulty setting.
Green = easy, Blue = hard

Edited by ScumSoft, Sat Jul 9, 2011 9:02 PM.

[TrekMD]

I missed this when originally posted. Looks nice. I'll give it a spin.

[abaudrand]

the concept is very good!!! yet a bit difficult for me. I only regret to crash even I'm flying at very low speed. I've tested it on my 7800 pal and all color are blue but its still playable.

[Philsan]

After final version release, I hope you will convert it to PAL60 using this tool:
http://www.randomter...olor_conversion

[ScumSoft]

I'll do the conversion now before final release, so I can launch both versions at the same time once done.

Is there a PAL limitation in batariBasic? Setting the kernel to PAL doesn't position the score at the bottom of the screen and it still only produces 262 scanlines.
DPC+ support only for NTSC right now?

@abaudrand
This is something I've debated at length about, and I've decided due to the bugs collision against the playfield would cause that it's best if colliding simply kills the player instead of bouncing off the walls at low velocities. You can though safely bounce in your Home Tree.
Mostly because the player at max velocity is moving 2 pixels at a time, the player embeds themselves into the playfield far enough that my collision code would cause the player position to float through the playfield, thus causing issues on screen wrapping. Also allowing the player to gather the final egg before your supposed to be able to.

[edit]
Okay I posted a PAL version, but it is stuck to 262 scanlines right now.

Edited by ScumSoft, Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:02 PM.

[RevEng]

ScumSoft, on Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:20 PM, said:

Is there a PAL limitation in batariBasic? Setting the kernel to PAL doesn't position the score at the bottom of the screen and it still only produces 262 scanlines.
DPC+ support only for NTSC right now?

Yes, I believe the bB DPC+ kernel is NTSC/PAL60 only at the moment.

I think PAL60 is good enough for most people with PAL sets. If you decide to go regular PAL your titlescreen will look more flickery and you'll need to adjust the internal speeds all around. (or let the game play at 83% of the NTSC speed)

In my second session I finished the game, though my score was pretty low - damned bat!