r_type2600

Nathan Strum · July 23, 2014

Thanks for the inspiring review (as always), sounds like one movie to check out.

Talking about positively weird scifi films - ever heard of "The Quiet Earth"?

Stumbled across this by chance, and it really left a lasting impression on me.

A New Zealand post-apocalyptic film that carries that typical early 80es vibe and has aged rather well.

Nathan Strum · March 13, 2012

"I was welcome as a kind of exotic star, it was really nice and fun.

as for the proper interaction with Disney Studios - it's a huge company, it's something completely amazing, I was...

Were you really the star?

I was star in the sense that I was very well received, I was well paid, I had a car, I had an apartment, even a mansion, etc...it was a thing of dreams, for two months I really lived the dream of a hollywood star.

But workwise, there really is no stardom - it's super efficient teamwork"

:-)

cd-w · April 9, 2011

Looks and sounds awesome :-)

Cybergoth · September 13, 2010

Punkrock is coming back with a vengeance btw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zi5HK6L3Ao

:lust:

There must be something in that Düsseldorf air..

Cybergoth · October 17, 2009

Thanks for unearthing this one !

Really one overlooked gem. One of the few original and memorable games of the ST/Amiga era.

Like those other 16bit classics (Sundog, Dungeon Master, Oids, Lemmings - can't think of many more), it did actually also integrate addictive gameplay and did not simply rely on impressing through its audiovisuals like so many publishers started to do in that period.

What's particularly impressing about this one is the very well thought out control mechanism, making best use of the unusual serial controller,e.g. the mouse, delivered with those computers.

(Thinking about it - the same applies to the other games mentioned above.)

In short, a perfect blend of audiovisuals/gameplay/control: an integral entertainment experience!

Cybergoth · September 12, 2009

Same here - bought the CD for that song back then.

I remember it was the most "upbeat" song of the whole CD :ponder:

Cybergoth · April 14, 2009

Thanks for the link, didn't know much about that "Grauzone" singer. The song is pretty avantgarde for the time, but I don't think it aged that well....

And the singer seems to have gone through a funny metamorphosis in latter years - looks like he was trying hard to copy Michael Bolton (ok, that was in the 90's ) :thumbsup:

Here's a song that kept all his vibe: Fels in der Brandung

And here's another timeless one from a badly missed poet genius, written in 92' :

Like most of his texts and interpretations, it works on several layers and hits the nail on the head...

Little known gem, but has generated quite a few cover versions: Unknown cover artist (Lost)

Cybergoth · April 7, 2009

BTW: Since you're from Austria, I'm sure you can tell me what song is here in this video from 0:55 to 1:03?

=>

If it helps any, I remember the video starting with a line like "She threw my TV out of the window" (unless I'm confusing it with something else) and I know the guy is called "Mo"

Wow, you really got a soft spot for obscure, long-forgotten musicians

I remember him, though not that song. Looks to be Wild, Wild, Wild .

Actually he is extremely talented (and appears to have built up a successful existence judging from his website), but failed to achieve popularity due to his over-the-top vanity... :thumbsup:

btw, here are the translated lyrics for Kamchatka

Cybergoth · April 5, 2009

Didn't realize at first that's the band's real name !

On hindsight, quite fitting for a 80's glamour-punk group :thumbsup:

Talking about Russian music...

Tuned in onto a report on Kamchatka on ZDF-doku the other day - and they were playing a catchy song in the background all the time.

Had to find out and it turned out to be an '84 cult Russian song from the good old cold war days

Very peculiar song, has a bit of Kraftwerk, Major Tom and "Eisbaer" feeling to it

Love it - listening to it is like a time voyage, even though the singer was from the other side of the curtain and I only heard it for the first time a week ago:

Kamchatka

Thomas Jentzsch · August 31, 2008

Sincere condolences, Thomas.

Cybergoth · July 23, 2008

I wouldn't call NES Ninja Gaiden an action-adventure. There isn't any exploration and you don't "level up" your character or acquire any items other than temporary powerups.

It is vastly different from the coin-op version, though.

Quite right! What I meant to point out (in lack of a better term) is that it has more depth than the coin-op with more levels and a cinematic story line.

Coin-op Rygar just isn't a very good game IMO. Boring level design is mainly what drags it down.

Guess that's a matter of taste :ponder:

I personally love both the Lynx and Arcade versions. The game really starts to shine when you play for a good score, since it offers a lot of bonus scoring opportunities to be discovered, keeping you coming back to it again and again. Once you focus on that, you really can appreciate how well designed and challenging the levels are.

I'd call it one of the "missing" links between the golden age arcade games, where skillful gameplay and high scores were the main challenge/reward factors, and the later 80's slew of side-scrollers, where patient exploration and graphical pizza (new levels) took over as the excitement formula.

Cybergoth · July 22, 2008

I wonder if the original arcade version has that explorative map as well, or wether it is more linear and organized into stages? I somehow got a feeling the game was NESified like Bionic Commando or Strider. How is the Lynx version in that regard?

The Lynx version is an excellent straight port of the arcade, though cutting quite a few corners here and there (due to memory limits). A great, very addicting game nevertheless :ponder:

Btw - the Ninja Gaiden conversions on NES/Lynx got a similar treatment, with the NES treated to a full-blown original action adventure and the Lynx getting a simplified arcade conversion.

cd-w · March 23, 2008

Awesome! :lust:

Juno First is set to become for shooters what Lady Bug is for maze games on the 2600. :cool:

One observation on the Juno18 version: I noticed that at times enemy shots seem to follow the player's movements - don't know whether that's intentional or a bug? Feels a bit odd, but does not distract much, actually.

Just a couple of additional polish comments:

- you earlied had asked about the hummering sound. I find it rather cool, adding tension to the atmosphere - it could IMO however be a bit louder to optimize that effect.

- the alternating blue and red background colors (I've seen so far) provide some very welcome and enjoyable visual variation - any chance to introduce more background colors in later levels?

- just wondering if there is/will be opportunity to collect an additional life at some score? (must admit I havn't really played too far into the game..)

cd-w · March 2, 2008

...the only jump I noticed is after losing your last life. I guess you will add some game over message before returning to the title screen, later in the development?

In view of your obvious drive for perfection, I'm sure this has already been looked at before, but just in case, this might be the right time to drop a small wishlist of polish features. None of these are essential, nor very original, but would be nice to see (if implementable):

- score amount displays after an alien has been shot, like in the arcade game.

(btw, I stand corrected, I finally realized the arcade indeed has changing level colors :lolblue: )

- the attract mode could be pushed to 150% perfection if it also included a (gameplay) demo screen: the sequence then going: title/demo/title/highscores/...repeat

Since I havn't done it before - a big thumbs up, great to see another spectacular arcade conversion gracing the 2600 soon!

cd-w · February 28, 2008

Beautiful - glorious, arcade quality title screen/sequence! :lolblue:

I specially like the cycling logo colors - a simple effect which adds a lot of life to the whole sequence!

In that vein (not sure if that has already been considered): would'nt it be cool to apply the color cycling to the game itself ? e.g. change the "planet" colors every new(/few) levels, to avoid monotony?

Sure the arcade game itself sticks to the same color all the time (at least as far as I got), but here's a spot the 2600 could easily outshine its inspiration

Nathan Strum · November 24, 2007

Wow, love that label!

Something different from your other work, as you mentioned, and a complete success!

One can imagine the difficulty to come up with something fitting for such abstract game concepts, and I think you found the golden path here. I find it in the tradition of classic modern (Mondrian, Delaunay, Bauhaus, etc.), and as such a perfect messenger for the combination of pure gameplay and simple graphical elegance found in Simone's games.

The beautyful title logo being the icing of the cake, adding life to the "intellectualy" cool basic label.

Also great to see the homebrew scene continually expanding into new territories, not only regarding the games themselves, but also their presentation and "branding"

Hope to see more homebrewers moving towards building "brand" identities for their work, as seen with the Xype/Cybergoth or Champ games...

Cybergoth · November 20, 2007

Great! Happy to see the GameOver tune is gonna make it as well!

I like the tune, perhaps you could just stretch the notes some more?

That might help to add further gravity to the "final curtain": player

(it's always a good thing to generate emotions in a game)

Cybergoth · October 29, 2007

Oh... and check out
- the best part is when Maya takes evasive action!

Hah, that's an original and thoughtful spoof - nails down the depth of the series to the spot

Just goes to show the inspirational power of good background music

This is another good one... the
.

Did see that one before actually - a great collection of mesmerizing scenes (those monsters.. the freaky yeti costume - unbelievable!).

Best of all though was the stapler monster!

Cybergoth · October 28, 2007

That woman who turned into a bee is real: for the second season they introduced an alien "shapeshifter" character who was able to mute for a short time into other beings through psychic powers - kinda Spock counterpart. Just hilarious! :

They should have stuck with the first season's titletrack though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DF9nDJZrdA

It's actually surprising how influential these series apparently were in Japan, as testified by this:

Made by Konami!

And doesn't this Namco Moonbase look suspisciously similar to the UFO moonbase?

Returning to Colony7:

My vote goes to colour-coding, as the game is on the easy side right now anyway. Also, I don't find the final red really conflicts with the aliens indicators bar - since it's the last life, it feels natural that it would express a similar level of alert as the aliens gauge.

It'd be great to see the repair UFOs idea materialize, that would add a tactical dimension and more depth to the game.

Cybergoth · October 28, 2007

Nice new version!

Thanks for the color-coding, I think it really does help and add to the game.

Moonbase Alpha 1

name suggestion for the green level: "Outpost FEMA" (sorry for being politically uncorrect )

I also like that the enemies now only shoot in the lower half of the screen - works better than expected!

Besides making things fairer, the gamer now really gets incited to apply some tactics in playing, e.g. hunt down the lower aliens first. Enriches the gameplay!

Also, having the enemies adapt a different behaviour depending on their position, somehow makes them appear a bit more intelligent!

Cybergoth · October 27, 2007

Oh Dear, you guys are really killing me!

(Cyber)Goethe: „Die ich rief, die Geister, / Werd' ich nun nicht los."

(eng.: "The spirits that I called" from the Sorcerer's Apprentice)

For example are certain variables either dedicated to music in the intro, or SFX in the game. The siren for example uses the intermission timer as index into its music data, etc, etc.

That's just the usual struggles of not enough ROM/RAM/cycles that lead to some rather ugly descissions, which in return will make some very simple sounding tweaks next to impossible.

Got your point, though I can't pretend I fully understand the technical issues yet. But will try! (sooner or later)

Thanks for listening anyway

Maybe you could make it one or two cycles longer? The siren itself should be a bit longer than the "switch on" sound (that's at least how I interpret the first few bits of sound)..IMHO

That's the first of them. If it helps any, the Build-Up to Up time is already 3:5

I like that build-up actually!

It opens the door to another trademark of classic games: creative storytelling. One could blame it on the badly trained alarm unit of Colony 7, who is just way slow to react.

It would require adding a third ("Victory!") screen to the in-between-levels sequence, which'd also add another 128 frames to the pause inbetween levels. I may consider this when there's some ROM left in the end, but I bumped this to the end of the "ideas" block.

Keeping fingers crossed!

This also falls under the problems described above, I'm sorry. => Why not just memorize the last stage?

'cause players have a short attention span per default

Hmm, another approach: maybe there would be some way to display the last stage (and score) of the last game during the title/attract screen(s)?

...just continuing dumping ideas

Cybergoth · October 24, 2007

Ok, I attached a version with a siren
Next I will try the bonus count and the Game Over jingle as suggested by Nathan.

Great siren - .. much better than I would have hoped for!

Somehow reminds me of that cheesy 70's UFO series - perfect fit for the game!

Maybe you could make it one or two cycles longer? The siren itself should be a bit longer than the "switch on" sound (that's at least how I interpret the first few bits of sound)..IMHO

I don't think a victory jingle is required, since inbetween levels there's already the bonus counting and the siren then.

Hmm, don't know...I just feel it would round up a level nicely.

I think it's a bit comparable to a good movie, that does not finish by suddenly displaying the credits, but has either the classic "The End" or some other dramatic effect to mark the ending (fade out, still shot, etc.)

As for a victory jingle - why not just apply the same approach as for the "Game Over" jingle and scavenge the title tune? I find the cheerful last bits of the title tune would nicely fit that role

Uh... how wrong I was. The intermission sequence screens are so hardcoded to display two lines of text, I decided to not even try to entwine that ever again

Maybe a trick around it would be to alter between "Game Over" and "Stage X" for a while?

Or a shorter version: display "Game Over" first for a few seconds, then "Stage X", before returning to the title screen.

A request for future builds - could you add the date to their names? It's easier to keep track of them, which is often handy when trying to compare them with previous builds.

Maybe if I manage to write a script/batch for that one day, I'm too lazy to do that manually

Add me to those looking forward to this

Cybergoth · October 21, 2007

- besides a smartbomb indicator, it would also be good to have a "remaining-life" indicator during play.
A possible approach would be to color-code a static feature of the screen, for instance the ground or, better, the score (or its background). An obvious code would be green/yellow/red for 3/2/1 lives remaining.

You're sure that this is required? Since it didn't fit on the screen I'm already printing the number of tries on the intermission screens.

That's an interesting point. It should indeed be sufficient, however I found that while playing I tend to forget how many lives are still left.

I guess that's because a life is basically made out of two chances (two bases), so once you lost one and consequently things start to get intense, your attention focuses on the single base and the memory page in your brain where you had stored the life numbers gets erased.

Well, Freud, I'm not - not sure whether that makes sense...

- play a short "requiem" jingle a the game over screen.

I'm not good at all at doing jingles, so here is a deal: If I get a good jingle submission from someone, I'll use it

I guess my wording gets too pompuous at times

A two or three tones sound would perfectly do the job actually.

Same applies to the earlier proposed "jingles": just some accoustic effect to enforce the emotion of loss (game over), alert (siren at wave begin) and relief/clearance (end of wave) ...

That should also lessen ROM headaches

Cybergoth · October 19, 2007

Autofire:

(controls are much easier now, without affecting the game difficulty. Interestingly, I also felt much more "drawn" into the game now)

Shield-destruction SFX:

More suggestions/comments:

- besides a smartbomb indicator, it would also be good to have a "remaining-life" indicator during play.

A possible approach would be to color-code a static feature of the screen, for instance the ground or, better, the score (or its background). An obvious code would be green/yellow/red for 3/2/1 lives remaining.

- after losing a life, the game should continue from where it stopped (e.g. the same amount of remaining enemies). I find it rather irritating to have to restart the same level from start. This does break the flow of the game, IMO. (like commercial breaks on TV)

- play a short "requiem" jingle a the game over screen.

- display the last wawe number at the game over screen.

- tweaking the enemies speed, patterns, etc. should work fine to steadily increase the difficulty.

...I would however avoid increasing the difficulty through the enemies shots behaviour, as that's something the player could hardly react to and primarly create frustration, IMO.

Cybergoth · October 14, 2007

The Advisor variant would work great, I think!

Would actually add more depth to both the repair idea as well to the gameplay as a whole!

Main design challenge would be to finetune the length of the different colour stati and their effects to maintain a well balanced and challenging game. No worry here though - I understand you've developed a Pro hand for such things working on Crazy Balloon

Regarding the speed-up design fallacy, it's certainly true that that alone is a perfect recipee for boredom.

On the other hand, those videogame pioneers of the 70's/80's quickly discovered a simple yet highly efficient way to keep players addicted even after they topped the difficulty curve: eye candy. Be it Missile Command/Centipede's simplistic changing of color patterns (some of those combinations made for hypnotizing effects) or Namco's universally adapted bonus fruits approach. The underlying principle of course is to keep the player motivated by offering him new things to discover - it doesn't need to be sophisticated at all, as long at it offers a minimal surprise factor.

It worked beautifully then, as it still does today!

Thinking about it, wouldn't this trick benefit Colony7 as well?

Applying the Missile Command approach: changing the colour patterns for ships/ ground objects/ etc. every 8th or 10th wave, or so. A skillfull design of a set of different colour palettes may provide a strong motivation for players to try to discover the next beautiful combination...

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