131 replies to this topic

[bjk7382]

Thomas Jentzsch said:

bjk7382 said:

And I have put about 60 games down, some ranging from screwing up right from the beginning, and most of the time I get over 2000.

Since you are definitely playing this game even more than I do, any suggestions about the physicals and controls?

BTW: Are you memorizing the platforms?

I am not finding the physics to be terribly differeny from the previous version. The second version might be a little easier and faster, like you said. But I like how the platforms are different and a little smaller. But i don't think memorizing them is possible. I don't think it is possible to go thru the game the same way twice. It is all pretty random, depending on how you start and how fast you go. I usually hold it forward most of the time and then pull back if I see a hole to miss. I think every game is different.

I like it the way it is, and can't give any real suggestions on making the gravity different. I guess it isn't like Cave 1k, where changing the gravity had major effects on gameplay. You said you changed the controls in the second version, but I really didn't notice. I like the scroll effect in the beginning, and the little "bleep!" right at the end of the level. I don't think it needs to scroll smoother. If you go fast enough the screen doesn't stop scrolling, so what are they bitching about. Great game, I think I will go play a few rounds right now......

Yours is the ONLY game that I know of where you get points for dying.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

bjk7382 said:

But I like how the platforms are different and a little smaller.

That's just a side effect of the different random generation. The next version might switch back to larger platforms again.

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But i don't think memorizing them is possible. I don't think it is possible to go thru the game the same way twice. It is all pretty random, depending on how you start and how fast you go. I usually hold it forward most of the time and then pull back if I see a hole to miss. I think every game is different.

So a completely random mode wouldn't be a bad idea, right?

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Yours is the ONLY game that I know of where you get points for dying.

Yup, you get 100 points for each new life and 100 points for each new level. There are two reason for this:
1. I didn't want to end the game when you once get down to 0000 points
2. It saves some ROM space

[bjk7382]

Thomas Jentzch said:

So a completely random mode wouldn't be a bad idea, right?

I don't know I like how after some practice you can know where not to go on the earlier levels and then that helps you get farther and therefore, play longer. I wouldn't mind seeing a random version of it though. I figured that would take more rom space, unless you use some kind of algorithm or somthing to generate them randomly.

Still a good game, maybe it could be better with changes. But you'll never know until you experiment.

Make sure you fix the high score thing too.

[Video]

bjk7382 said:

I don't think it needs to scroll smoother. If you go fast enough the screen doesn't stop scrolling, so what are they bitching about.

Well, just for the sake of experimentation, I just held down right on startup. I found, the ball bounces the exact same place each time, and falls off in the exact same place about four screens over. And the screen does stop scrolling even holding over, yeah, it's a short time and your most the way across the screen once the scrolling stops, but if the scrolling rate was slowed, just slightly, it could constantly scroll.

I don't see what the deal is, how it scrolls onto the screen looks smooth enough to me, and that is background pixels at the time, isn't it, or is that a text sprite scrolling on the screen?

Oh, and I did notice a differance in 90 and 91 version (besides the smaller platforms ). The 90 one was really hard to stop (or impossible, I never managed it). The guy would move very slow, but would still be moving. The 91 version, the guy, assuming he doesn't fall into a hole or something, will slow and stop on it's own, if you simply stop pressing over. I do like 91 better than 90 myself.

Yeah, after posting my previous post, I did think about that, the guy bounces pretty high at the top of the screen, and two players would make him only have two or three lines to jump on instead of the 16 or so. It might be cool, for someone to expiriment with later on, but it would be impracticle at the moment.

[Kuddy]

Well bjk, after much struggling and yelling profanities at the game, I've finally managed to beat your high score. XD

Sadly, though, I bet you've probably beaten this already =(

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[bjk7382]

Actually, NO, I haven't beaten my old one yet Now I have a bigger one to beat, that is if he doesn't come out with a new version first.

Very nice score though, Kurushimi. It won't last long

*loads up the supercharger, once again*

[Gateway]

This is a great game, Thomas! ( Cave1k is too, of course! I enjoy them both. )

I was wondering, you mentioned earlier that you get 100 points after you die. I noticed that when I slow down to plan my jumps, I lose points then, too.

So to get more pointsa you have to be constantly bouncing.

Also, Does the smiley player change colors for a reason, or is that just for fun?

I don't have a great score to post here yet.

More practice needed!

[bjk7382]

Gateway said:

This is a great game, Thomas! ( Cave1k is too, of course! I enjoy them both.    )

I was wondering, you mentioned earlier that you get 100 points after you die. I noticed that when I slow down to plan my jumps, I lose points then, too.

So to get more pointsa you have to be constantly bouncing.    

Also, Does the smiley player change colors for a reason, or is that just for fun?

I don't have a great score to post here yet.

More practice needed!  

I think when you are bouncing straight up and down you will be orange and lose 5 pts. every bounce. and if you start to go backwards you will turn red, then you are yellow (i think, not playing it right now) when going forward.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

bjk7382 said:

I think when you are bouncing straight up and down you will be orange and lose 5 pts. every bounce. and if you start to go backwards you will turn red, then you are yellow (i think, not playing it right now) when going forward.

Yup, that's just an indicator in which direction you are currently going. I might (have to?) delete that in the final version.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Video said:

Well, just for the sake of experimentation, I just held down right on startup.  I found, the ball bounces the exact same place each time, and falls off in the exact same place about four screens over.  And the screen does stop scrolling even holding over, yeah, it's a short time and your most the way across the screen once the scrolling stops, but if the scrolling rate was slowed, just slightly, it could constantly scroll.

The scrolling rate is equal to the maximum speed of the ball. And it can't be any lower since then the ball might eventually get over the right border (and you don' t see anything in front of you).

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I don't see what the deal is, how it scrolls onto the screen looks smooth enough to me, and that is background pixels at the time, isn't it, or is that a text sprite scrolling on the screen?

That's the blocky playfield graphics. The only reason why it looks smooth is, that they scroll at 30 fps (fast enough to fool the human eye).

When you move forward slower than at maximum speed, the game start and stops scrolling. With pixelwise smooth scrolling it can always scroll at the speed of the ball. Wait a few days until I can show the new version.

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Oh, and I did notice a differance in 90 and 91 version (besides the smaller platforms ).  The 90 one was really hard to stop (or impossible, I never managed it).  The guy would move very slow, but would still be moving.  The 91 version, the guy, assuming he doesn't fall into a hole or something, will slow and stop on it's own, if you simply stop pressing over.

Yup, I have added some friction to horizontal movement. This should make stopping much easier.

[bjk7382]

So is it going to look like Cave 1k where the ball stays at one vertical spot and just moves up and down. And the screen scrolls as fast or as slow as you go. That would be a smoother way of scrolling I think.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

bjk7382 said:

So is it going to look like Cave 1k where the ball stays at one vertical spot and just moves up and down. And the screen scrolls as fast or as slow as you go. That would be a smoother way of scrolling I think.

Almost, but you can also go back to the very left of the screen. The maximum ball position (before the game starts scrolling) will be about 1/3 from that border.

Just in case you missed a move there.

[NE146]

I just tried this out (why am I always late in doing so ) and I like it a lot! It's very similar in concept to a minigame in WARIO WARE for the GBA. Come to think of it, I'll bet there's a lot of cool Wario Ware minigames that could be adapted to the 2600. Interesting.

Thanks for the cool game Thomas

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Well, here (see 1st post of thread) is the long announced smooth scrolling version of Splatform 2600.

While the scrolling works really good (IMO making the game easier now), I am not very happy with the platfrom generation anymore. Since only one platform/row is allowed the generator behaves different now and tends to group many platforms together instead of spreading them over the whole screen. I am not sure if I can fix this problem, so I might have to switch back to the old type of scrolling.

Opinions?

[rasty]

Hi Thomas!

Thomas Jentzsch said:

Well, here (see 1st post of thread) is the long announced smooth scrolling version of Splatform 2600.
<snip>
Opinions?

That's great!!
Yes the game feels indeed a bit easier now, just got to the 4th level for the first time. But that's a very good thing IMO, since the incresed easyness comes from a much more responsive control, making the game even more fun!
Maybe as a consequence, you could make the difficulty level increase a bit faster..?

Thanks for the update and ciao!
Rasty.-

[Video]

Perfect, That's exactly what I had invisioned. That is so cool. I still suck ass at it, but man, who cares? It's fun, and looks awesome with the smooth scrolling. Great game man.

[bjk7382]

I noticed a few things. Good and bad.

Good:

-Smooth scrolling looks good.
-Lot easier = Longer play = More fun


Bad:

-High score still doesn't save from game to game
-No orange and red colors when bouncing straight and back.


Other than that it is turning out to be a pretty strong game with good replay value. I am sure ver 1.0 will have more bugs worked out, I bet you just wanted to get the scrolling implemented.

Although I did notice what you said earlier about the platforms being all bunched together.

[Kuddy]

I love this. Will the new version still work on the Supercharger? I just recently won one, and it's been getting a lot of use lately, if you know what I mean. ;)

[bjk7382]

Kurushimi said:

I love this. Will the new version still work on the Supercharger? I just recently won one, and it's been getting a lot of use lately, if you know what I mean.

Any version of a 1k game he comes out with will work with a SC. I have one and it is modified so it doesn't ever crash while loading.

The SC has 6k of RAM so as long as this 1k game doesn't go over 6k you should be okay

[Thomas Jentzsch]

rasty said:

Maybe as a consequence, you could make the difficulty level increase a bit faster..?

Maybe. But first I have to find a solution for the platform generator problem. Else higher levels will have large gaps, making them impossible to solve.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Kurushimi said:

I love this. Will the new version still work on the Supercharger? I just recently won one, and it's been getting a lot of use lately, if you know what I mean.

Yes!

Though I can not test it, it should work even on unmodified SCs.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

bjk7382 said:

Good:  

-Smooth scrolling looks good.  
-Lot easier = Longer play = More fun

IMO maybe a little bit too easy now (except for the platform genrator bugs)?

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Bad:  

-High score still doesn't save from game to game
-No orange and red colors when bouncing straight and back.

I haven't checked the highscore saving problem yet.
The colors had to be removed due to space restrictions. And with smooth scrolling it's IMO much easier to see if the ball still moves or not.

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Although I did notice what you said earlier about the platforms being all bunched together.

This is my biggest concern, I really hope I can find a solution. But first I have to find out why this happens at all.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I have solved the platform grouping problems!

Please have a look at the updated version (0.96, see first post of thread).

I'm am currently wondering if it would be a good idea to change the bouncing physics so that you get some extra height when jumping from a higher platform to a lower one. Currently you always bounce with a constant speed. This would become the lower limit for the new variation, but you would get a bonus of ~50% extra height.

This would give you some advantage for jumping over larger gaps or reaching higher platforms, but you'd have to hurry, because that advantage is reduced with every bounce.

What do you think?

[Tom]

Thomas Jentzsch said:

This would give you some advantage for jumping over larger gaps or reaching higher platforms, but you'd have to hurry, because that advantage is reduced with every bounce.

Yes, this might be a good idea, the new version became somewhat hard to play, higher jumps would make it a bit more playable.
Yet it wouldn't make the game too easy if you lose height the longer you bounce around.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Tom said:

Yes, this might be a good idea, the new version became somewhat hard to play, higher jumps would make it a bit more playable.
Yet it wouldn't make the game too easy if you lose height the longer you bounce around.

Ok, here is a test version (0.97) for the new physics.

EDIT: Removed binary, see 1st post.