27 replies to this topic

[atari2600land]

This is a game I'm working on for the Odyssey² called "Fatso!" I'd like your input on what I have here so far (which isn't very much.) And also things to add or changes that should be made, etc. This version now works with O2EM v 1.20 (previous versions did not since I didn't know about the latest O2EM version!) If you miss a cookie or a pretzel, the game ends, at which point press fire (L if you haven't modified the key layout.) Also, if anyone has a flash cart for the Odyssey², please test this on there, I want to see if it works on real hardware or not.

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Attached Files

•  fatsojanuary262012.zip   3.3K   15 downloads

[save2600]

I knew this was going to be a 2600 Fast Food type clone!

Cool to see some Odyssey homebrews lately.

[atari2600land]

The mouth now has animation! It's biting.
Zip file contains code and ROM.

Attached Files

•  fatsojanuary292012.zip   3.88K   14 downloads

[thegoldenband]

Looks like a great start! I assume you'll be adding lateral motion, like the original Fast Food.

One note -- when I reached 100 points, the food started coming a lot faster (too fast to catch, actually) but I was able to miss 4-5 items without consequence. Actually it seemed like the item patterns would repeat until I caught them. Then after a few misses, the game would end. I'm guessing that you have something in mind once 100 points are reached, and it just isn't fully implemented yet.

[atari2600land]

Actually I haven't played it long enough to get to 100. It does seem like there's a pattern to the y positions of the food. I don't know why. Actually, I wasn't going to add horizontal movement to the game. Well, I'll keep working on this.

[atari2600land]

Just played the game to the 100 point mark. Yeah, that's a pretty nasty bug alright! If it doesn't fix itself, I'll look into it. It's definitely not supposed to change to all cookies and the score is not supposed to reset. Argh.

[atari2600land]

I've added a deadly pickle to this version. Because of this, I can't really tell if it goes crazy once you reach 100 points...because I can't get that far! Maybe you can, and if you're able to, please tell me what you experience (are you able to miss pretzels and cookies without dying, does all the food turn to cookies, etc.)

Attached Files

•  fatsojanuary312012.zip   1.34K   11 downloads

[thegoldenband]

atari2600land, on Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:49 PM, said:

I've added a deadly pickle to this version. Because of this, I can't really tell if it goes crazy once you reach 100 points...because I can't get that far! Maybe you can, and if you're able to, please tell me what you experience (are you able to miss pretzels and cookies without dying, does all the food turn to cookies, etc.)

Well, it's definitely harder now, and I haven't done better than 30-40 points after a few attempts.

I notice that you've moved the mouth rightward, which you would think would make the game easier since you have more time to see things coming -- but because the back of the mouth is right on top of the "failure line", it actually makes the game more frustrating since, because you can't move horizontally, there's actually less margin for error now. I've lost a bunch of times where the right edge of the food is just past the right edge of the mouth, and the mouth's just one pixel above or below the food. It's a little too unforgiving IMHO, and the mouth should probably move back left a bit.

Personally, I think you'll want to incorporate horizontal movement. Otherwise, there's no real strategy, and a fair bit of frustration since you can end up totally screwed if a food item and a pickle enter your space at the same time. Lateral motion is a big part of what makes Fast Food fun, since you can push ahead if you want to "lead" certain items, and pull back to desperately try to catch ones you've missed.

I don't know whether you'll want to incorporate Fast Food's six-pickles-and-you're-dead system (which allows you to miss food items), or go in another direction. Odyssey^2 games usually have just one life, so there's that. BTW is the pickle supposed to be red, or is my O2EM just being weird? I have to use v1.1, since v1.2 isn't available for Macintosh yet (and frankly the Mac port is sort of crummy anyway, with no support for The Voice).

I think the Odyssey^2 suits you well! Even at this early stage of development, Fatso is one of the most polished titles I've seen from you so far. I know you had some help from René, but I get the sense that the platform works well for you.

[thegoldenband]

thegoldenband, on Wed Feb 1, 2012 12:24 AM, said:

Well, it's definitely harder now, and I haven't done better than 30-40 points after a few attempts.

Never mind, I made 100+ points, and the bug's still there: the food turns to cookies, starts going a lot faster, and I was able to miss one without dying (I then got hit by a pickle).

Actually, other than the score resetting (and the food all becoming the same), it almost seems like a gameplay feature. The faster speed isn't unreasonable, and earning a spare "miss" for every 100 points would be fair. Maybe you'd want to reach that speed after the third cycle of 100 points, since an intermediate speed would be appropriate first...

[atari2600land]

OK, how about now?

Attached Files

•  fatsofebruary0112.zip   1.34K   11 downloads

[GroovyBee]

If you want to get beyond 100 points why don't you temporarily disable the code that kills you off in your development version and then play it?

[atari2600land]

I did and everything is fine, I just wanted to make sure it didn't go weird after I put the death back in.

[atari2600land]

The change you all want is here: Horizontal mouth movement has been implemented! Tell me what you think.

Attached Files

•  FATSO12.zip   1.45K   15 downloads

Edited by atari2600land, Wed Feb 1, 2012 6:13 PM.

[thegoldenband]

Looking good! I made it to 165 pts. with no sign of a score reset or unwanted speedup. Being able to move laterally is definitely nice, though you can do well most of the time by just staying put.

If you want to differentiate this game from Fast Food, you might consider using the horizontal axis as a scoring element -- food is worth twice as much if you're left of point X, or even a combo system where you score x2 points for eating 10 consecutive items in the left-hand side of the screen, x3 for 20, and so on. That could work really well on the O^2.

So what's next? More food types? BTW the pickle looks like a red telephone receiver on my system, maybe it's different in O2EM v.1.2...

[atari2600land]

Yeah, I was thinking about the pickle's looks too. It's the same in v1.20. And I had to make it red because purple isn't an available color apparently. It was either that or make it pink. Anyone want to make a pickle sprite for me, the largest sprite on the Odyssey² is 8x8 pixels. Thanks for the feedback and compliments so far. The pretzels didn't change into cookies once you reached 100, did they?

Edited by atari2600land, Wed Feb 1, 2012 7:02 PM.

[atari2600land]

FINALLY!!!!
I made it past 100 points and everything seems to be working fine.

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[atari2600land]

Anyone have any ideas what I should do to the game now? Or is it finished?

[thegoldenband]

Well, I've given you some suggestions, as have some folks at Videopac.nl. It's up to you whether you want to follow them, or go in a different direction.

To be honest, right now it's basically just a demo. If you want to make something awesome and addictive, it'll take a lot more work. To use a 2600 analogy, do you want it to be Activision- or Imagic-quality, or are you satisfied with just Mythicon-quality? Some people are happy to stop when their work reaches Mythicon quality, but I think this game has more potential than that.

[Nerf Herder73]

Adding level breaks like those in Fast Food or Kaboom! might help give the player a sense of accomplishment. Maybe have a break every 25 points. Is there a way to add non-food items that cost points if caught? Since this is the Odyssey2, it would seem natural to have KC Munchkin in place of the chomping jaws.

Edited by Nerf Herder73, Wed Feb 8, 2012 10:26 AM.

[atari2600land]

Updated the way the game looks (to be more in line with Fast Food.)

Attached Files

•  fatsomarch052012.zip   4.49K   15 downloads

[atari2600land]

Oh holy hell was that hard! Added a "Getting Fatter" message for every 50 points. Press fire to resume the game if you get the message. I spent hours and hours sitting here working on this non-stop and finally! Let me know if you find any bugs.

Attached Files

•  fatsomarch062012.zip   5.26K   10 downloads

[atari2600land]

Here. Minor changes are:
noise added before and after each break
I changed it from a 3k ROM file to a 2k binary file.

Attached Files

•  fatsomarch082012.zip   5.29K   10 downloads

[atari2600land]

I changed the way the pretzel looks. I think I'm finished with this game since I'm apparently running out of room to add new stuff. Unless there are bugs or someone comes up with a change that I can work in. That and I'm burned out from it. Now I'd like to get it on a cart just for me. Can anyone here do that?

Attached Files

•  fatso17.zip   5.27K   12 downloads

[atari2600land]

Fought for several hours with the code again. You'd think it would be easy to put "YOU DIED." on the screen once you die. I opted for this message instead of "GAME OVER" because I was tired of seeing "GAME OVER" all the time.

Attached Files

•  fatso18.zip   5.3K   9 downloads

[Nerf Herder73]

Very good job! A bit hard for me, but that's mostly my lack of skill.