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Rules of the Game


SpiceWare

2,786 views

In order to finish writing Draconian, I need to figure out the Rules of the Game. Information gathered from StrategyWiki, Gaming History and by playing in MAME. Sometimes StrategyWiki differs from what I see in MAME, most likely due to how the dip switches are set.

If you spot something that's incorrect, can fill in any blank spots, or answer any questions, please do so in the comments below!

Anything in green has been implemented in Draconian.
Anything in strikeout will not be done in Draconian.

 



Star Fighter

 

blogentry-3056-0-65170600-1497479162.png
Information

  • At the start of a new game there's an opening tune played. After it concludes the phrase "Blast Off" is heard. When the phrase ends the Star Fighter will gradually ramp up to full speed
  • shoots fore and aft simultaneously
  • can have 4 shots onscreen at once


Enemy Base

blogentry-3056-0-98195000-1497321636.png blogentry-3056-0-66033400-1497321642.png

Information

  • The Enemy Base is a green station comprised of
    • 6 Cannons around the outside
    • Core in the center
  • Intact cannons can fire at player.
  • Destroying all 6 cannons destroys the station.
  • Station core can open/close.
  • If player shoots an open core, even if partially open, the station is destroyed.
  • In later levels an open core will contain & launch an E-Type missile.
  • The E-Type missile will face towards the side of the station the player was on when the core opened. It will not change direction.
  • Destroy all stations to advance to next level. When last station is destroyed the player's ship will freeze, all onscreen enemy & shots will disappear, and a tune will play.
  • Station shots will destroy asteroids, mines, and even the various missiles - and the player earns points.
  • Station shots are always slower than the player's ship at full-speed.
  • Station will not shoot through itself, so it will not shoot at the player if all pods have been destroyed on the side facing the player
  • Station shots are aimed at the player (as opposed to being randomly directed)
  • If player collides with station, both are destroyed

 

Round(level) Progression

  • 1 - cores are always open
  • 2 - cores open/close
  • 3 - cores open/close
  • 4 - cores open, launch an E-Type, then close
  • 5+ - ???

Note: Progression is for Difficulty = Normal, others will be different

 



Missiles

 



I-Type

 

blogentry-3056-0-68137500-1497321614.png blogentry-3056-0-62644200-1497321609.png(right image as Formation Leader)

  • Shows up individually or in formations.
  • Appears to be more aggressive than P-Type ship.
  • Appears to always go towards player's ship* - can think of them as being an Interceptor.


P-Type

 

blogentry-3056-0-86444300-1497321627.png blogentry-3056-0-58055000-1497321623.png (right image as Formation Leader)

  • Shows up individually or in formations
  • Appears to fly around without regard to Star Fighter's location* - can think of them as being on Patrol.

 



E-Type

 

blogentry-3056-0-59663300-1497321586.png blogentry-3056-0-76990800-1497321581.png (right image as Formation Leader)

  • Launched from stations or shows up in formations
  • When launched, faster than player's ship


Information

 

  • Missiles can pass through stations but are destroyed if they collide with an asteroid, mine, player shot, or station shot.
  • If the player moves in such a way that a missile ends up offscreen, the missile is removed from play (no points are earned). If a station's showing an E-Type missile that gets moved just offscreen, the energy field will be shown instead if the player changes direction and moves the core back onscreen.
    Note: The offscreen removal does not occur for missiles in formation with an intact leader.
  • Missile explosions maintain the trajectory of the destroyed missile

 

 

* further testing revealed that the I-Type and P-Type are randomly assigned to both Intercept and Patrol duty. I've decided to keep the division of labor as is as the Interceptor and Patrol names jive so well with I-Type and P-Type.

 

Questions

  • How many can attack at once during normal gameplay?
  • How many can attack at once during a red-alert scenario?

 

Round(level) Progression

  • 1 - I-Type slightly slower than player(on normal difficulty level), ??
  • 2 - I-Type slightly faster than player(on normal difficulty level), ??
  • 3 - I-Type speed increases, ??
  • 4 - I-Type speed increases, ??
  • 5+ - I-Type speed increases, ??


Formations
blogentry-3056-0-11203600-1497321592.png blogentry-3056-0-27857100-1497321596.png blogentry-3056-0-45072500-1497321600.png blogentry-3056-0-62200200-1497321604.png
Information

  • Enemy Formations launch from a randomly selected offscreen station. As such, if there's 1+ stations left and the player flies back & forth with all those stations onscreen then no formations will be launched.
  • Formations will fly towards the player's ship.
  • Formations take on 1 of 4 arrangements
    • Arrow
    • Diamond
    • Line
    • X
  • The position of the Formation Leader does not change based on direction of flight - ie: in the line formation the leader is at the top even if the formation is flying downward.
  • If Formation Leader is destroyed, remaining ships of the formation will scatter in different directions.
  • If all formation ships are destroyed the player earns bonus points.

 

Round(level) Progression

  • 1 - ??
  • 2 - ??
  • 3 - ??
  • 4 - ??
  • 5+ - ??

 

Questions

  • Do the different formation arrangements attack different?
  • Do the different formation ships attack differently?


Spy Ship

blogentry-3056-0-39669500-1497321633.png

Information

 

  • Will make a number of passes at player, if it gets away a Red-Alert Scenario will be triggered. For first pass the Spy Ship starts at one side of the screen and exits another. For second pass the Spy Ship enters from side it just exited from, then exits another.
  • Number of passes is determined by the selected difficulty level:
    • Kids - 4 passes before Red Alert
    • Easy - 3 passes
    • Normal - 2 passes
    • Hard - 1 pass
  • Scoring is random

 

 

Round(level) Progression

  • 1 - ??
  • 2 - ??
  • 3 - ??
  • 4 - ??
  • 5+ - ??

 

Questions

  • Are a Spy Ship & a Formation ever onscreen at same time? - YES


Red-Alert Scenario

 

Information

  • Triggered if Spy Ship gets away.
  • During Red-Alert Scenario I-Type and P-Type missiles will come onscreen from side of screen player's ship is pointing at (directly in front of ship with a random +/- offset)
  • Up to 4 P/I types will attack at a time

 

Questions

  • 4 of each (so 8 total), or 2 of each?
  • Do the P-Type still patrol during a Red-Alert, or do they target the Star Fighter like the I-Type does?
  • Formation can attack during Red-Alert


Speech
Information

  • Blast Off! - Launch of ship (new round as well as new life)
  • Alert! Alert! - Enemy missile in vicinity.
  • Battle Stations! - Formation has left a station
  • Spy Ship Sighted! - Spy ship in view
  • Condition Red! - Red-Alert Scenario

 

Note: Current samples are just placeholders. We need to finish the rest of the program so we'll know how much space we'll have for them.

 

Questions

  • Unclear on when Alert! Alert should be said.


Inert Objects

blogentry-3056-0-30341200-1497321566.png blogentry-3056-0-84602300-1497321570.png blogentry-3056-0-47636800-1497321576.png (asteroids) blogentry-3056-0-85066600-1497321619.png(cosmo-mine)

Information

  • The player's ship, Spy Ships, and Missiles will be destroyed if they collide with an Asteroid or Cosmo-Mine.
  • The debris from an Asteroid is safe to pass through.
  • The debris from a Cosmo-Mine is deadly to both player and enemy missiles.


Condition
Information
There are 3 conditions:

  • Green - No Enemy threats in your vicinity
  • Yellow - you are near enemy base and it's firing at you
  • Red - Spy Ship got away, or you've been in the sector for too long

 

Condition is visually indicated by the horizontal line above the score, and the ticks that make up the corners of the radar.

 



Scoring
Information

  • Points
    • 10 Asteroid blogentry-3056-0-30341200-1497321566.png blogentry-3056-0-84602300-1497321570.png blogentry-3056-0-47636800-1497321576.png
    • 20 Cosmo-mine blogentry-3056-0-85066600-1497321619.png
    • 50 I-Type blogentry-3056-0-68137500-1497321614.png 100 formation leader blogentry-3056-0-62644200-1497321609.png
    • 60 P-Type blogentry-3056-0-86444300-1497321627.png 120 formation leader blogentry-3056-0-58055000-1497321623.png
    • 70 E-Type blogentry-3056-0-59663300-1497321586.png 140 formation leader blogentry-3056-0-76990800-1497321581.png
    • 200/400/800 Spy Ship blogentry-3056-0-39669500-1497321633.png
    • 200 Destroy Station Cannon
    • 1500 Destroy Station
    • 500 Destroy all ships in I-Type formation
    • 1000 Destroy all ships in P-Type formation
    • 1500 Destroy all ships in E-Type formation
  • Player earns points regardless of how object is destroyed
  • Formation points and Spy Ship points are briefly displayed after the explosion finishes.
  • highest score for taking out station is 2700 points (hitting all 6 pods, 6*200 + 1500)
  • Bonus for no-miss clear - if arcade unit is configured for difficulty level of "auto", the player will earn bonus points at the end of each round the player does not lose a life on.


Extra Lives
to be determined

  • Like 5

54 Comments


Recommended Comments



I can make the Arcade "Blast Off" the same size as your "Blast Off".

It would just have to be the same duration as yours, in other words, the Arcade speech would be sped up faster (but you can speed up speech and keep the same tone -- it doesn't have to sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks!

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Changing the frequency value should prove useful in balancing between quality and size. I haven't done any experimenting with it, I just used the 200,000 value that cd-w used in an early speech demo from creating the BUS driver. If you where, for example, to change it to 180,000 then a 20% smaller sample would play back with the same duration.

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Interesting tidbits here:

https://www.arcade-history.com/?page=detail&id=320

Like us old farts would be good enough players to succeed in this: ;)

"Bonus for no-miss clear (completing a round without dying) - this bonus is given only when the game is set to auto difficulty : multiplier x number of bases, the multiplier starts at 100 points and increases by 100 points each time you get the bonus up to 1,000 points."[/size]

 

Cool... never knew about that setting. You can rack up some nice bonuses with that...

 

0000.png

 

0001.png

 

0002.png

 

0003.png

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If the player moves in such a way that a missile moves offscreen, the missile is removed from play (no points are earned). If a station's showing an E-Type missile that gets moved just offscreen, the energy field will be shown instead if the player changes direction and moves the core back onscreen.

 

The offscreen removal does not occur for a formation with a leader.

 

Added as comment because editing the blog entry on the iPad tends to screw up the formatting.

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Changing the frequency value: Is this in the audio file, or in one of the conversion files.

SampleFrequency's in sfx.asm, after the ORG $6600 and above the SampleTable. At the moment there's a single frequency for all samples. If you'd like I could change that so each sample has its own frequency setting(which would make it easier to compare changes).

 

;===============================================================================
; 6600-66FF
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Sample Table
;   each pair of word values points to a sample and its size
;===============================================================================

    ORG $6600
    RORG $6600
    
SampleFrequency:        ; freq / 256 so value fits in 16 bit value
                        ; C code will do a * 256 when it uses value
    ;.word 100000 / 256
    .word 200000 / 256  
    ;.word 300000 / 256  
    
SampleTable:
    ;       sample                  size
    .word   sample_alert,           sample_alert_size
    .word   sample_battlestations,  sample_battlestations_size
    .word   sample_blastoff,        sample_blastoff_size
    .word   sample_conditionred,    sample_conditionred_size
    .word   sample_spyship,         sample_spyship_size
    ; 0, 0 denotes END OF TABLE
    .word   0,                      0         
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The stupid things you notice...and now will bug me forever...

 

bosco Or

Compare the horizontal base vs the vertical.
They rotated the missile launcher bay but they didn't rotate the pods...now the pod window orientation is screwy on the vertical shooting base
  • Like 2
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:lol:

 

Work is progressing slowly but surely on the station missile rewrite. The routines up until now would in 1 of 8 directions. New routines support 32 directions. They detect closest pod, then which angle to fire from that pod. I still have some fine-tuning to do on the angle-to-fire logic, should have that done this weekend.

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Is It possible to make the speech more grandiose and big sounding? Think of a carnival announcer..

 

BATTT-UHHLLLLL STATIONNNZZZ!!

 

With a little bit of echo.. I would have shaped the text to indicate extra emphasis but I'm on this iPad thing here..

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Current speech samples are just placeholders I created. iesposta's working on sound effects and converting the arcade samples. One issue with samples is we don't yet know how much space we'll have for them, so they'll be one of the last things we finish.

 

I did notice the speech was getting overwhelmed by the sound effects and sent him this:

I've noticed it's hard to make out "battlestations" over the sound effects; as such, I suspect we'll need to lower the volume of the sound effects. Maybe it would work to just lower the volume if a sample is playing? I could do that with a simple divide by 2.

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One suggestion, if there's enough room. The alert was more like the word "Alert!" repeated twice, rather than two words, one sample. So it wouldn't take more space than it should...

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Regarding the Spy Ship:

 

playing in MAME confirms this:

Identifying and destroying Spy Ships is especially important. If Spy Ship sees you (which occurs whenever you see a Spy Ship), and manages to get away, you will typically end up in a red-alert scenario, with massive amounts of P-Types and I-Types coming after you. If you miss a Spy Ship the first time that you notice it, don't worry. It will typically pull a 180 and do another run or two past you. Do not let it get away during this time. The only other thing that can prevent a red-alert beside you shooting the Spy Ship, is if the Spy Ship inadvertently collides with an Asteroid or a Mine.

 

from:

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Bosconian/How_to_play#Spy_Ship

 

 

and it looks like the Spy Ship scores randomly 200, 400 or 800 with no pattern that I can see.

When the massive amounts of Red Alert P-types and I-types come at you they spawn just off screen in front of your ship (ie if you are heading straight up then they attack from the top, directly in line with your ship, but with some randomness as to how directly in line they are.

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When in Condition Red, I've seen up to 4 P/I types come at me in quick fashion. A Battle Station Alert can still be called and once the formation in on the screen, the kamikaze Condition Red ship don't spawn

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Formations seem to come from random bases. I turned cheats on and basically waggled back and forth in the same spot/hovered in the top left section of the map, 9 successive formation launches came from random of the 4 remaining bases, noted same random behavior on 3 rounds.

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Question - if you hit an E-Type Missile that's docked in the core, does the station also explode or just the E-Type missile?

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How is it even possible to touch the missile while it's inside the base?

The doors to the inner core open. When they're open far enough, you can shoot the missile.

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Oh I thought they meant touch it with your ship! :lolblue:

 

Kamikaze attacks work, but you'll waste all your ships on the first stage! :rolling:

 

FYI, for what it's worth, when I played the arcade game on my Namcio PNP, I tried crashing my last ship into the last station on stage 1. It played the victory music on the Game Over screen, and selecting continue started on the stage 2.

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