[Albert]

http://www.blarworld.com/incom.htmBen Larson has sent us word about a new 2600 game he's developing called Incoming! Anyone familiar with the classic-style artillery game Artillery Duel will appreciate what Ben is doing with Incoming! However, Ben hopes to address many of Artillery Duel's shortcomings with Incoming! Here are some features to look forward to:

[*]Full 160 x 192 resolution (not half height 160 x 96 resolution, as in Artillery Duel)
[*] One player (vs. the computer) and two player modes
[*] Varying levels of computer difficulty in one player mode
[*] Randomly generated, asymmetrical playfield terrain and random starting positions - never the same game twice!
[*] Vector based velocity-acceleration-gravity physics model
[*] Proximity damage caused by near-miss explosions (a la Scorched Earth) and player health meters
[*] Terrain damage

For more information, screenshots, and a work-in-progress binary, please visit Ben's Incoming! Development Page.

[ubersaurus]

Are you going to make it where you choose the angle of attack numerically? if you did, it would be smarter to use the keyboard controllers, and draw an overlay for download off the comp.

[Genki]

Why use the icky number pad? Driving controller would be quicker. You could use the knob to raise and lower the angle value. The press the button to fire. Still a bit easier to read than the paddle controller too.

[Genki]

Why use the icky number pad? Driving controller would be quicker. You could use the knob to raise and lower the angle value. The press the button to fire. Still a bit easier to read than the paddle controller too.

[Mindfield]

Personally I think the standard joysticks are fine for control mechanism. Artillery Duel sort of worked, though it didn't allow for the most precise aiming.

What I'd like to see is a single player mode, something Xonox's game lacked. I love artillery games, from Scorched Earth to Warheads to Blast Doors on the PC... it's about time there was a decent one for the VCS -- and this one looks quite decent. :-)

[Ze_ro]

Damn! This looks sweet! I loved Scorched Earth, and I'm going to be looking forward to this when it comes out... hope I'll be able to get it without driving cross-continent in search of CGE or something...

--Zero

[moycon]

We had discussed this game a few days back. Wow!! It looks better than I was expecting Ben!! Great job. I do hope you'll be able to put some kind of upgrades in. Maybe just bigger explosions? I realize choosing the different upgrades might be a pain to work in. No biggie tho. Even if it doesn't include these the game still looks awesome. My father and I spent many a night playing Artillery Duel and this game will give me a reason to kick the old mans a** again!

[Nostalgic]

I was a big fan of Scorched Earth back in college and could usually rustle up a friend or two to join in the fun. I really liked the interesting weaponry and the variety in computer opponents.

I'm glad to see something of this sort pop up on the 2600.

Joystick control should be fine - left and right to change angle, button to fire, and up/down to change weapons (if such an option will exist).

Also,Ben is a brave soul tackling physics in assembly language.

[Zeptari]

Is there another game like this on the Atari
or maybe even the Colecovision? I don't remember playing artillary duel back then, but I do remember playing a game alot like it. I had blast with an old friend at his house.
Another game I played like this maybe 6 or 7 years ago on the Amiga computer. It was awesome! 3 or 4 of us playing the game taking turns. What a blast!

Yes I'm very excited about Incoming! I hope it's released as a .bin on the internet. Heck if it's as good as TPS or Thrust I might buy it! Of course I still havn't bought those yet. But I plan on it!

[StanJr]

Another great looking homebrew! I declare an official Atari Renaissance! Put me down right now for an advance copy! (Unless your looking for more than like 25 bucks)

It is a great time for Atari fans!

Great looking work Ben! Rock on!

Happy Stan

[ubersaurus]

I remember playing the old qbasic game Gorilla with my friends, quite recently, at his birthday party. It was cool, and is basically the same thing.

[Ben_Larson]

Wow I didn't expect this many people to be interested...

Anyway, first things first...I plan to just use the joystick for control. I'm thinking up-down will control elevation and left-right will control power. Then the button will fire, of course.

As it stands right now, I don't think I'm going to support power ups like in Scorched Earth, mainly because I don't think there will be enough space in a 4K game. There will definately be terrain damage, like in Scorched Earth, though, and tank damage from near-misses.

As far as the physics go...the math itself isn't too bad. I did a lunar lander game not too long ago for my website in Javascript that uses the same principles. The fact that the Atari 2600 doesn't support floating-point (decimal) numbers or harware multiplication makes it more difficult though.

Anyway when I'm done, I'll definately be releasing the game in ROM format...I don't even know how to make a cartridge.

Later,
Ben

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Wow........I never knew that it took so long to release Incoming!

[Pyromaniac605]

Wow didn't know you could bump a thread this old.

[Albert]

iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin, on Sat Mar 6, 2010 10:06 PM, said:

Wow........I never knew that it took so long to release Incoming!

Did you search for "incoming" to find this ancient thread?!

..Al

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Albert, on Sun Mar 7, 2010 5:55 PM, said:

Did you search for "incoming" to find this ancient thread?!

..Al

Nope! I started to read those early threads while "View New Content and Search" was off, so I stumbled across it!