242 replies to this topic

[vdub_bobby]

TheHoboInYourRoom, on Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:01 PM, said:

*listens to the title music over and over again while ogling that wonderful "wave" effect*

Absolutely excellent work!

Thanks!

Gotta credit Alex H for the wave effect, though.

[vdub_bobby]

Ok, latest version.

Changes:
All music now in. Though probably half of it will be changed soon.
Should be less waiting
Difficulty level/curve should be better/smoother. Starts out very easy, gets pretty difficult about halfway through and, as far as I can tell, it is impossible at the highest difficulty. Well, not literally
The main thing is I added the ability for the enemy fishies to move in any one of 16 speeds, from 60 pixels/second down to ~4 pixels/second. Previous versions only allowed about 5 different speeds in that range. This makes it look better, I think, and also will make the PAL conversion easier.

Lots still to do!

Attached Files

•  GoFish.zip   4.72K   123 downloads

[Emehr]

Thumbs up! Love the new difficulty curve. I was trying to think of death animations. How about having the fish that eats you grow one size bigger, he says, "Gone Fish!" (with text and/or AtariVox), and zooms off the screen.

Or have an all out feeding frenzy where an even bigger fish eats the fish that ate the player. Then an even bigger fish than that comes from the opposite direction to eat THAT fish, etcetera. Lastly, the biggest fish finishes the job. Each fish would come from the opposite direction as the fish before it and they would swim pretty fast to their target with a possible half second delay before the next fish comes. The sound of each successive bite could be one step lower than the previous. Maybe I've thought on this too much... The label contest entries got me thinking of that one.

Anyway, here's my high score.

- Jason

Attached Thumbnails

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[vdub_bobby]

Emehr, on Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:16 PM, said:

Thumbs up! Love the new difficulty curve. I was trying to think of death animations. How about having the fish that eats you grow one size bigger, he says, "Gone Fish!" (with text and/or AtariVox), and zooms off the screen.

Hmmm...I kinda like that idea. Plus, as an added bonus, that would be amazingly easy to code

Well, except for the AtariVox speech. Takes a LOT of trial and error to get speech that sounds good. At least, for me it does

[Nathan Strum]

The new version plays much better! Less waiting around, and the faster growing really helps the pace of the game.

Animation-wise, I'd still like to see mouths open when the fish are about to eat something. I think it would add more life to them. And I'd love to have a "dart out of trouble" button. You hit it, and you gain a speed boost for a few seconds. The penalty for using it would be that afterwards you'd slow down to half-speed for a few seconds in order to recover from it.

[vdub_bobby]

Nathan Strum, on Sun May 1, 2005 6:13 PM, said:

The new version plays much better! Less waiting around, and the faster growing really helps the pace of the game.

Thanks!

Quote

Animation-wise, I'd still like to see mouths open when the fish are about to eat something. I think it would add more life to them.

Good idea. We'll see if there is time/room to implement something like that. Don't hold your breath

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And I'd love to have a "dart out of trouble" button. You hit it, and you gain a speed boost for a few seconds. The penalty for using it would be that afterwards you'd slow down to half-speed for a few seconds in order to recover from it.

That's interesting. Earlier I toyed with the idea of activating a speed boost with the trigger but I didn't come up with a way to do it that wouldn't have players holding down the button constantly. Have to think on that

[batari]

vdub_bobby, on Mon May 2, 2005 10:24 AM, said:

Nathan Strum, on Sun May 1, 2005 6:13 PM, said:

And I'd love to have a "dart out of trouble" button. You hit it, and you gain a speed boost for a few seconds. The penalty for using it would be that afterwards you'd slow down to half-speed for a few seconds in order to recover from it.

That's interesting. Earlier I toyed with the idea of activating a speed boost with the trigger but I didn't come up with a way to do it that wouldn't have players holding down the button constantly. Have to think on that

How about making it a "panic" button, meaning it will allow you to increase speed briefly but also go in a random direction? This way there's a 1 in 8 chance that using it will send you right into whatever you're trying to get away from. Kind of along the same lines of hyperspace in Asteroids that can sometimes kill you or put you in harm's way, but it's better than certain death.

Edited by batari, Mon May 2, 2005 4:10 PM.

[ericd]

How about something simpler, like you get 1 "speed boost" credit for every time you grow the fish. This way you have a finite amount of bursts and you can't just go wild using them. Plus you earn them only as you do better (and you'll never have a ton of them stored up.)

The only thing I wish you couldn't do in 2 player mode is eat the other player (or maybe have an option to not do that - difficulty setting?) As soon as you get larger than your opponent you can just keep eating them until you win (it's pretty easy when you always start off at the bottom.) It would be nice if you had the option to prevent that.

Anyway, this is a really great game. I've even got my wife to play (and she NEVER plays video games.) I'm really game you decided to share your work with everyone. Thanks!

[vdub_bobby]

ericd, on Mon May 2, 2005 6:18 PM, said:

The only thing I wish you couldn't do in 2 player mode is eat the other player (or maybe have an option to not do that - difficulty setting?) As soon as you get larger than your opponent you can just keep eating them until you win (it's pretty easy when you always start off at the bottom.) It would be nice if you had the option to prevent that.

Thanks for the comments, not many people have mentioned the 2-player mode and I am a little curious to know how well it works. I'll see if I can think of something to address that issue.

Quote

Anyway, this is a really great game. I've even got my wife to play (and she NEVER plays video games.) I'm really game you decided to share your work with everyone. Thanks!

Thank you! It's very motivating to get comments like that!

[DominiRican05]

This game is awesome! I love the wave effect on the credit screen with the "Go Fish!"
It's very smoove! The beginning credit music and the game music is addicting, and it's nice to see a 2600 game with music during gameplay. I had lots of fun playing this game and can't wait for it to come out. I plan on getting my 2600 modded, and getting a new game for the first time in over 8 years. It's new titles like this that have led me to make a comeback. :-)

[vdub_bobby]

Latest version.

Changes:
Rewrote music routine for, hopefully, the last time.
A bunch of new music.
Wave noise that plays when game is over
Death sound effect
Death "animation" (screenshot)
End-of-two-player-game sound effect

I think all the main coding is done now - all that is left is a lot of music/sound/graphic/color tweaking and the AVox code. Plus optimization!

Oh, and since we can edit our posts now, I will try to keep the latest version in the initial post of this thread.

Attached Thumbnails

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Attached Files

•  GoFish.zip   4.96K   83 downloads

Edited by vdub_bobby, Thu May 5, 2005 5:37 PM.

[Jess Ragan]

Wow, this is MUCH better than the early build you'd posted on the forum a few months ago. Nice job! It's definitely up to the standards of a commercial release now. The added variety makes the game a lot more entertaining.

JR

[mojofltr]

Jess Ragan, on Fri May 6, 2005 1:51 AM, said:

Wow, this is MUCH better than the early build you'd posted on the forum a few months ago.  Nice job!  It's definitely up to the standards of a commercial release now.  The added variety makes the game a lot more entertaining.

JR

The difficulty really ramps up as your fish gets bigger!

[vdub_bobby]

Thanks for the nice words, guys

[vdub_bobby]

And the hits just keep on coming...

'nother version out today.

Changes:
-more changes to music

-in response to this:

Quote

The only thing I wish you couldn't do in 2 player mode is eat the other player (or maybe have an option to not do that - difficulty setting?) As soon as you get larger than your opponent you can just keep eating them until you win (it's pretty easy when you always start off at the bottom.) It would be nice if you had the option to prevent that.

After someone gets eaten (in two-player mode) he is immune to attacks from the other player for a brief period. This has always been in there, actually, but I increased the safe-harbor time from 2 seconds to 4 seconds. Note that you are not safe from the non-player-controlled fishies! I don't want to take away the option of one player eating the other; I think it adds a little something to the two-player game, it forces a choice: do you play it safe near the bottom and hope the other player commits multiple suicides or do you run around in the dangerous waters trying to grow in order to just eat the other guy? At least, that's the idea

Attached Files

•  GoFish.zip   4.95K   96 downloads

[Gateway]

This is looking great!

One comment about the death sequence: I haven't tried the new version yet( my computer is still packed up from my move, so I haven't tried it yet, but my first thought when I saw your screengrab of the "skull and crossbones" was:

"Wow, that's cool, but it looks like a human skull"

Maybe you will be changing this to look like a fish skeleton?

More later, when I get a chance to d/l the latest version and playtest it.

[vdub_bobby]

Gateway, on Fri May 6, 2005 3:13 PM, said:

This is looking great! 

One comment about the death sequence: I haven't tried the new version yet( my computer is still packed up from my move, so I haven't tried it yet, but my first thought when I saw your screengrab of the "skull and crossbones" was:

"Wow, that's cool, but it looks like a human skull"

Maybe you will be changing this to look like a fish skeleton?

More later, when I get a chance to d/l the latest version and playtest it. 

I toyed with making a fishie skeleton - and maybe I'll try again - but my drawing skillz sucked that day. Think Frogger, or, er, something.

Thanks!

[Nathan Strum]

vdub_bobby, on Fri May 6, 2005 10:11 PM, said:

I toyed with making a fishie skeleton - and maybe I'll try again - but my drawing skillz sucked that day. 

How's this?

Edited by Nathan Strum, Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:16 AM.

[dm4714]

You willing to post the source to the game so us mortals can learn something from it? Seems nice.

Also, what did you use for the music? How did you draw the sprites?

[vdub_bobby]

Nathan Strum, on Fri May 6, 2005 10:59 PM, said:

How's this?

It's pretty nice! Thanks. It might make it's way in...

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You willing to post the source to the game so us mortals can learn something from it? Seems nice.

I am willing, except it is so sloppy right now that I am too embarrassed to release it. Once I clean it up a bit.

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Also, what did you use for the music?

I used Paul Slocum's guide to 2600 music and E Stolberg's (sp?) compleat note guide. And I gave them to my brother and he has written all the music.

Quote

How did you draw the sprites?

Kirk Israel's wonderful tool: http://www.alienbill.../playerpal.html

[kisrael]

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Kirk Israel's wonderful tool: http://www.alienbill.../playerpal.html

Hey, all right!

Actually at the end of last week I started looking to making it more wonderful, letting you "paint" with mouse drags rather than click on each square, based on some javascript code by Lee Fastenau

Hmm, maybe I can work on that functionality without the full rewrite I was thinking of.

Though really, PlayerPal is the easy one...it's all the fiddling w. the Playfield that's the tricky part, flipping the bits to and fro. (and that one was pretty dumb, I should have let you edit both sides at once.)

Edited by kisrael, Sun May 8, 2005 6:28 PM.

[cd-w]

kisrael, on Mon May 9, 2005 12:28 AM, said:

Actually at the end of last week I started looking to making it more wonderful, letting you "paint" with mouse drags rather than click on each square, based on some javascript code by Lee Fastenau
Hmm, maybe I can work on that functionality without the full rewrite I was thinking of. 

Excellent - I use your PlayerPal and PlayfieldPal tools all the time.
It would be great if it didn't delete your work when you do a resize!

Chris

[vdub_bobby]

Latest version. Getting very close to completion now...

Changes:
-Now jellyfish will turn around in an attempt to eat you
-Changed scoring completely. Now each size fishie is worth a constant number of points.
-(Finally) added AtariVox support! Well, kinda... I added the code that makes it speak - however, I haven't been able to add the speech data yet. Should have that in sometime next week. There won't be a lot of speech in the game, but there will be some.
-Optimization and memory reorganization

Still to do:
-Add high score saving to AVox.
-Color/graphic/sound/etc. tweaking
-Optimization

Attached Files

•  GoFish.zip   5.08K   105 downloads

[tmont]

Quote

-Now jellyfish will turn around in an attempt to eat you

Actually, the eels turn around and try to eat you. And that's a pretty cool twist to the gameplay. Makes it a bit more interesting. You can't just hide behind a slow moving eel, anymore!

I like the new scoring system, seems to make a bit more sense.

And easily the best music I've ever heard in my entire life. But then, I'm a little biased.

[vdub_bobby]

HeckYesIDid, on Thu May 12, 2005 2:17 PM, said:

Quote

-Now jellyfish will turn around in an attempt to eat you

Actually, the eels turn around and try to eat you.

D'oh! Whoops; typo