51 replies to this topic

[yuppicide]

Yeah, I didn't think the ball seemed to get faster, but maybe that's because I could only get through a few levels before losing all my lives. I can get down to the last block on the scree and it takes me forever to get it.

You know what would be cool.. 2 players.. one controls one paddle, the other controls the other.. or a game like Warlords for up to 4 players and you have to attack the blocks in the middle. Whoever misses the ball on "their" part of the screen loses a life. Once that person dies their part of the screen is covered with a wall so the ball will just bounce back.

[Cootster]

The game has English and ball control, it's just hard to pull off because the paddles are so darn big.

Reminds me of Off The Wall (the Bally/Sente arcade version, not the 2600 game of the same name). I like it.

[Thelbane]

yuppicide, on Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:43 AM, said:

You know what would be cool.. 2 players.. one controls one paddle, the other controls the other.. or a game like Warlords for up to 4 players and you have to attack the blocks in the middle. Whoever misses the ball on "their" part of the screen loses a life. Once that person dies their part of the screen is covered with a wall so the ball will just bounce back.

So, you didn't like the competitive/cooperative two-player modes already in the game?

Your suggestion gives me an idea for another two-player variation where you take turns controlling both paddles... The paddles would start blue and player 1 would have control... when ball hits a paddle... both paddles turn red and player 2 would have control... etc... (Isn't this a game variation for some other breakout-type game or even the original Breakout for the Atari?)

I might be able to implement it without too much pain.

-Lee

[Goochman]

A+ - Nice job - this could get addicting

[moycon]

Man what a sweet game.
I don't think it's too easy at all.
Of course I haven't played very much.
So far I can get past....zero screens!
LOL
But I love it. Very professional.
If you had been around during the 2600 hey-day, you'd be a millioniare.

[kencrisis]

Can you earn an extra ball at some point? If not, that would be a great feature to add if possible.

[MegaManFan]

Bruce Tomlin, on Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:11 PM, said:

At vgExpo, I was actually tempted to buy a copy... until I realized it wasn't released yet.

That makes two of us!

[Thelbane]

kencrisis, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:25 PM, said:

Can you earn an extra ball at some point? If not, that would be a great feature to add if possible.

Good suggestion and it's something that I've been considering for a while. If you've played a few games... can you recommend the "extra life" score?

I'm leaning towards every 10000 pts or so, but I can barely get past 3000. Maybe every 5000 pts...

-Lee

[kencrisis]

Thelbane, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:45 PM, said:

Good suggestion and it's something that I've been considering for a while.  If you've played a few games... can you recommend the "extra life" score?

I'm leaning towards every 10000 pts or so, but I can barely get past 3000.  Maybe every 5000 pts...

-Lee

Well, I'm all for making a game friendly and ongoing rather than a ball buster. (After all, it's not an arcade game where you're looking for a player to pump quarters in -- you're just trying to create a satisfying experience.) I think the perfect example is Seaquest, where it's quite easy to earn an extra life. I play Seaquest all the time since I get a sense of "getting somewhere" with it because of the easy extra lives. I've been playing Reflex every day since I found out about it (and I reiterate: I can't wait for the cart!) and getting past 3000 points is still pretty dang hard for me, or near impossible. I'd like to see an extra life come along even before that marker.

Of course, I'm sure some of our better gamers here may be unhappy with this. I admit that, although I play Atari all the time, I'm a pretty lame gamer.

[vdub_bobby]

kencrisis, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:36 PM, said:

Thelbane, on Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:45 PM, said:

Good suggestion and it's something that I've been considering for a while.  If you've played a few games... can you recommend the "extra life" score?

I'm leaning towards every 10000 pts or so, but I can barely get past 3000.  Maybe every 5000 pts...

-Lee

Well, I'm all for making a game friendly and ongoing rather than a ball buster. (After all, it's not an arcade game where you're looking for a player to pump quarters in -- you're just trying to create a satisfying experience.) I think the perfect example is Seaquest, where it's quite easy to earn an extra life. I play Seaquest all the time since I get a sense of "getting somewhere" with it because of the easy extra lives. I've been playing Reflex every day since I found out about it (and I reiterate: I can't wait for the cart!) and getting past 3000 points is still pretty dang hard for me, or near impossible. I'd like to see an extra life come along even before that marker.

Of course, I'm sure some of our better gamers here may be unhappy with this. I admit that, although I play Atari all the time, I'm a pretty lame gamer.

Accomodate all types of gamers: default to an extra life that is attainable for the casual/lame gamer, but give the gamer the option of selecting less-frequent extra lives, or no extra lives.

[Godzilla]

sounds neat, can anyone post some screen shots? thanks!

[Thelbane]

Godzilla, on Fri Sep 2, 2005 1:46 PM, said:

sounds neat, can anyone post some screen shots? thanks!

Hey Godzilla, there are some recent screenshots on the development page. If you're able to, give it a try in an emulator and tell me what you think!

Regarding the score for extra lives: My hope is that the difficulty setting will make the game appealing to both novice and expert players. A variable extra life score shouldn't be necessary because novice players should be able to achieve that score without too much trouble, and expert players will actually need those extra lives at regular intervals to survive. The real challenges are to 1) tune each difficulty setting to suit novice and expert players, and 2) find a single score that "works" at each of those settings.

Suggestions on how to achieve those things are more than welcome!

-Lee

[vdub_bobby]

Thelbane, on Fri Sep 2, 2005 7:31 PM, said:

Regarding the score for extra lives:  My hope is that the difficulty setting will make the game appealing to both novice and expert players.  A variable extra life score shouldn't be necessary because novice players should be able to achieve that score without too much trouble, and expert players will actually need those extra lives at regular intervals to survive.  The real challenges are to 1) tune each difficulty setting to suit novice and expert players, and 2) find a single score that "works" at each of those settings.

Suggestions on how to achieve those things are more than welcome!

One way, used by a lot of old arcade games, is to have the 1st extra life awarded at an easily attainable number of points and subsequent extra lives awarded at bigger intervals.

Like, 1st extra life at 1000 points, then every 5000 points thereafter.

I think Q*Bert (arcade) does something like this, among others.

[kisrael]

Heh. I always thought Pac-Man and the Mrs' giving one extra life early and then not again was a little mean spirited.

[supercat]

vdub_bobby, on Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:54 AM, said:

Accomodate all types of gamers: default to an extra life that is attainable for the casual/lame gamer, but give the gamer the option of selecting less-frequent extra lives, or no extra lives.

How about having extra lives at power-of-two intervals. Depending upon the game's scoring, have them at, say, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000, 32000, etc. Then a player wouldn't have to be too good to get one or two extra lives, but few players would get all ten of the possible extra lives (the last of which would be at 512000).

[Thelbane]

kisrael, on Sun Sep 4, 2005 10:34 AM, said:

Heh. I always thought Pac-Man and the Mrs' giving one extra life early and then not again was a little mean spirited.

That's funny. Ms. Pac-Man was the first game that popped into my mind when the thread turned to extra lives. Probably because it's one of the (very) few games that practically hands you an extra life on a silver platter right out of the gates.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback so far. I'll try to implement something and have another ROM out soon. I've been ultra-busy at work... In fact, I'm at work right now... On a Sunday... at 7PM...

-Lee

Edited by Thelbane, Sun Sep 4, 2005 6:12 PM.

[mitsubachi]

That's so much fun - the two "paddles" are pretty challenging. I found myself taking too long deciding which one would be best to use and then watching the ball slip in between them.

Completely love it.

[kencrisis]

Thelbane, on Sun Sep 4, 2005 8:12 PM, said:

That's funny.  Ms. Pac-Man was the first game that popped into my mind when the thread turned to extra lives.  Probably because it's one of the (very) few games that practically hands you an extra life on a silver platter right out of the gates.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback so far.  I'll try to implement something and have another ROM out soon.  I've been ultra-busy at work...  In fact, I'm at work right now... On a Sunday... at 7PM... 

-Lee

I think the power-of-two scheme sounds pretty solid. I'm looking forward to my free cart for coming up with the extra-life idea!

Edited by kencrisis, Tue Sep 6, 2005 12:40 AM.

[cd-w]

This is a great game - it attracted a lot of attention at the Philly vgXpo last week (until the driving controller stopped working ). Will there be a cart release of this soon, or are you planning to add some more features?

Chris

[Albert]

cd-w, on Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:47 AM, said:

This is a great game - it attracted a lot of attention at the Philly vgXpo last week (until the driving controller stopped working ).  Will there be a cart release of this soon, or are you planning to add some more features?

Chris

I didn't know one of the driving controllers stopped working--it's possible that someone changed the controller options to joysticks (the game supports both), rendering the driving controllers inoperable. I had to fix this several times throughout the show. And yes, there will be a cart release soon. The version you played in Philly is the final version.

..Al

[cd-w]

Albert, on Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:03 PM, said:

I didn't know one of the driving controllers stopped working--it's possible that someone changed the controller options to joysticks (the game supports both), rendering the driving controllers inoperable.  I had to fix this several times throughout the show.    And yes, there will be a cart release soon.  The version you played in Philly is the final version.
..Al

Thanks - this was probably the problem. It is a great game, and I am looking forward to getting the cart version soon.

Chris

[kencrisis]

Albert, on Sat Nov 19, 2005 2:03 PM, said:

And yes, there will be a cart release soon.  The version you played in Philly is the final version.

So what's different from the version of the ROM that was available when this post started? I've been playing that ROM to death on my computer, can't wait for the cart! Will it be out in time to slip into my stocking for Xmas?

[Thelbane]

kencrisis, on Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:30 AM, said:

So what's different from the version of the ROM that was available when this post started? I've been playing that ROM to death on my computer, can't wait for the cart! Will it be out in time to slip into my stocking for Xmas?

Scrubbing through code and comments, here's what's different between the posted ROM and the "gold" ROM:

• Improved responsiveness of driving controllers
  
• Extra life rewarded every 2000 points
  
• Fire button sets the ball in play between lives/levels
  
• Ball swaps positions in two-player modes
  
• New level designs, including player-submitted designs

And, yes, the plan is to have the cartridge available on AA before Christmas!

-Lee

[ginnidog]

Sorry for being extremely late in posting a response..I new to the Atariage forums, and only first heard of
Homebrew titles joining the Forum..

Was this game ever releases on cart ??

very addictive, playing on the Z26

Paulie

[Omegamatrix]

No it never got released. Very good game with a catchy rift. I hope the programmer comes back someday. Sometimes life just gets in the way.

Edited by Omegamatrix, Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:04 AM.