Great Exploitations

Actually, I was going to say it looked more like a capybara.

Best music I've heard in a Batari BASIC game yet.

I don't think this is a batari BASIC game. Batari, yes. BASIC, no.

I don't think this is a batari BASIC game. Batari, yes. BASIC, no.

It's a bB game. But it has a hacked kernel (for the water) and some inline asm.

That's pretty impressive! Haven't messed with batari BASIC since Deathstar Break in. I don't think my nephew's done anything else with it

Okay, I like this, except the last level is very frustrating!

 

If the fox doesn't get me, the bird is right there! Am I supposed to stand on the fox's back? because so far that isn't working. Even his tail kills me.

 

I kill the bird with the flying green disc, then the bird comes back! Also the disc doesn't seem to work on the fox.

 

The water keeps rising so should I just stay on the top level and dodge the bird until the fox is high enough? I swear that bird seems to know right where I am!

 

Other than that, this game is fun! Also, I hope you plan to change the color of the gingerbread man. On my screen he is a slimy green color.

Okay, I like this, except the last level is very frustrating!

 

If the fox doesn't get me, the bird is right there! Am I supposed to stand on the fox's back? because so far that isn't working. Even his tail kills me.

 

I kill the bird with the flying green disc, then the bird comes back! Also the disc doesn't seem to work on the fox.

 

The water keeps rising so should I just stay on the top level and dodge the bird until the fox is high enough? I swear that bird seems to know right where I am!

 

Other than that, this game is fun! Also, I hope you plan to change the color of the gingerbread man. On my screen he is a slimy green color.

The final boss level is supposed to be really hard, as you would normally only see this screen after clearing 19 previous screens, so this is probably good news. If you've beaten all of those previous screens, the final level probably wont seem as hard. I've beaten it once myself, so I know it's possible. Yes, you throw the disc at the fox 3 times within the same game (i.e. this resets after a continue). There should be a noise when you hit the fox, and he should speed up slightly. You can't jump on his back - I abandoned that idea a while ago.

 

This is the color in Stella but it's possible that real hardware or other emus display colors differently. If it's consistently green on other consoles, I'll change it.

looks fine to me.

Wow... I'm impressed! I didn't realize it was a bB game at all. This really shows off what can be done with it.

 

Regarding the colors, the gingerbread man does look slightly greenish on my TV. I'd suggest playing it safe, and making it more on the brown side, just to cover the inevitable variations in TVs.

This game is great! I really like the theme of the game and the challenging gameplay, although IMO it could be a bit easier.

Also pretty impressive to see what's possible with bB! Keep up the good work

I hope you plan to change the color of the gingerbread man. On my screen he is a slimy green color.

Regarding the colors, the gingerbread man does look slightly greenish on my TV. I'd suggest playing it safe, and making it more on the brown side, just to cover the inevitable variations in TVs.

Looking at the 2600's color palette in Stella, it seems that making the player more brown means picking a color between $F0-$FE, but this row is closer to what are supposed to be the 2600's greens than the row I picked from in this version.

 

I whipped up a quick binary that shows the full color palette of the 2600. The hex number on each row corresponds to the upper nybble of the color and the 8 colors in each row are 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, A, C, and E of the lower nybble. So maybe some can run this on real hardware and we can get a consensus (or a compromise) of which color might work best.

Right now, it looks as if you're using 14 correct? That's actually very close to E6, which is definitely in the green end of the spectrum.

 

 

Row 1 is based on yellow, and dark yellows always take on a greenish hue, unless some warmer value (red) is mixed in to compensate.

 

I'll check it on real hardware tonight, but just a quick glance makes F4 or F6 a likely candidate. F4 has a nice toasty gingerbread brown to it. F6 may be a little bit too light to have good contrast with the background.

 

Screenshot from game:

 

Using F4 instead:

 

Using F6 instead:

Yes, I'm using $14. The colors in the F row look good, but I'm worried they will be even greener than $14 on real hardware. Hopefully our hero won't need to be orange, but better that than green IMO.

I also noticed you are talking the colors out of the palette - I assume because picking a good color is better done when it's isolated from others. Here's an updated binary that allows you to select a color and display it full-screen.

I moved them out of the palette because color perception is affected by surrounding colors. Ideally, you'd compare colors in the target environment that the color will be going into. Otherwise, if you're just picking a color for color's sake, you want it against a neutral background.

 

So for your game, you'd want to see what the gingerbread man's color looked like on top of a gray background, since that's the constant color throughout the game that he has to be paired with.

 

If a TV's color is misadjusted so that gray wasn't neutral, it would affect the perception of all of the other colors in the game, shifting them towards one end of the spectrum or another. Of course, it doesn't help that NTSC is notoriously referred to as "Never Twice the Same Colors".

 

By the way, that's a really nifty color binary.

Well, on a real TV, 24 or 26 looks best. I tested it on a stock 2600 and one with a CyberTech mod. With the CyberTech mod, F4 and F6 looked pretty good, but on the stock one the F row is indeed in the green end of things. I think row 2 is the safest bet. 14 still looked greenish on both systems.

 

The ideal test would be a binary of the game where you could cycle through the colors for the gingerbread man, and have the numbers show up in the score area.

To try out the final boss level, for now you can hit select during gameplay. I know the swimming fox looks more like a rat, so instead of criticism, design a better fox sprite for me *cough* Nathan *cough*

 

How do these look? (The original is the pinkish one on the left.)

 

 

#1 and #7 are the same, except for the ears, as are #2 and #8. The same ears could probably be used on any of these.

 

#2, #8 and #9 look the most fox-like to me.

 

#3 and #4 could be used as two frames of animation, as could #5 and #6, and #9 and #10.

 

#5 and #6 are the same as #3 and #4, but use a missile as the nose for a 9th pixel (not sure it that's possible here).

 

#9 and and #10 also use a missile as the nose.

 

There are some possibilities for animation - mouth opening and closing, head moving up and down, that sort of thing.

From Nathan's post above, F4 looks the best, IMHO

 

Looking forward to getting this game on cart!

I just had a chance to try this one out. It's pretty fun, if not a little difficult from the start. It has the feel of one of the early computer platformers that always kept me coming back to beat one more level.

 

Cheers!