mickmuze

September 24

1UP.png.72b791e6639ea17814205ce3d0fc5286.png

Is 1Up owned or copyrighted by anyone? (the big N?) I have put this in Tober's Nightmare for an extra life item and got to thinking. Does anyone own 1Up when used in games? I googled it and found that it was a phrase that began in the Pinball era and was used in many games. However I also seen people get take down notices from Nintendo for designing shirts that had no mention of Nintendo but just had 1Up on the shirt.

I really like the nostalgia of the term 1Up and would like to put it in my game but I do have a (Not as satisfying) backup if this is something that is frowned upon (which seems ridiculous to me if that is the case)

September 7

Will Atari 2600+ ever be able to play DPC+ games?

September 7

Congratulations Al!!

Happy for you and hoping this is a positive change for the community.

I’m curious however, do I still own my game that is being sold by AtariAge? If I wanted to sell it somewhere else digitally (itch.io or something, no plans to do that anytime soon or at all really, I would much rather sell it digitally through atariage when that becomes available) Do I have the right to do this? I always kinda assumed I did.

October 24, 2022

On 10/21/2022 at 2:17 PM, LatchKeyKid said:

Late to the homebrew party (as always it seems as a noob to the scene!) but just wanted to pop in and say the game looks great. I saw a mention of this possibly being released as a download for emulators and was curious if enough time had passed for that to be a possibility. Regardless, it looks like a blast!

Thanks for your interest in the game. Albert is planning to have downloading roms a purchasable option on AtariAge. I believe he said he was going to set it up after the forums were updated and PRGE was over. So hopefully this will happen soon.

October 6, 2022

I like the ideas about switching between different difficulty. I seen somewhere about game design that through a level you should aim more for a wave than just a straight line of getting more difficult, which definitely makes sense.

On 10/3/2022 at 6:41 PM, vitoco said:

If the game gives you back some lives or power during a level or after completing it, you can disable that feature when iterating in the most difficult level(s), giving less chances to remain in that/those level(s) to the infinite.

I like this thought too and did that in my first game.. I believe after floor 50 it is no longer possible to gain health or free lives, but it definitely a big challenge to get that far. However I also made a limit to the enemies speed as well. Was never sure if that was the right direction.

On 10/3/2022 at 10:43 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

If a game is all about points (or levels) and there's no end state planned then I don't see an issue with increasing the speed to beyond human abilities. This prevents burn out from marathon, unending sessions and expert players possibly quitting midgame after mastering the hardest level. For the casual player it won't matter much as they'll never reach those high levels where only the few will make it to so that's no problem.

Good points, I think I agree with you here. Would definitely want to avoid marathoning and I like the idea of reaching the human limits but still going back to push further in game to find ways of reaching the highest possible score within those limits. I think I’ll go this route with this game, in that game mode at least.

On 10/3/2022 at 10:43 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Given that, I think the most important things to concentrate on are a difficulty ramp up that's fun for new players but not boring for skilled players while also maintaining a decent length of gameplay before it gets too hard for humans to play.

That’s the trick right there. The hardest part is finding that perfect balance.

I find when developing and testing a game, you become very skilled in it yourself, without really noticing. I think that might be why a lot of the early games were so difficult at times. Probably from developers bug testing and playing their game so much that they lose track of what the game is actually like for a new player who doesn’t yet know how to play or what to expect.

October 3, 2022

Something I’ve been thinking about and was hoping to get some opinions.

For a game that never ends… Is it fair to continuously increase the speed of the enemies over time to the point where it is basically humanly impossible to go any further. If the game is all about points?

Or should there be a limit to the enemy speed so that there is always a possibility of the player outrunning the enemy if they are skilled enough.

The latter sounds like the correct answer but then comes the question of where to set the speed limit, and if the player is so skilled to always outrun the enemy, should the game really be set up so that skilled player can play basically forever, racking up points, and then only gets game over from exhaustion?

I’m sure this has probably been discussed a ton, I’ve looked before but had a hard time finding any thoughts on the issue.

I’m currently leaning towards having the speed increase with no limits for Tober’s Nightmare for the infinite levels game mode, unless you think this is the wrong way to go and feel it is unfair. Because at some point it will become impossible to outrun the green flame and tracking enemies, though most players will probably not make it far enough to get to the “game is now impossible” point.

September 14, 2022

Thanks SpiceWare! I appreciate that

August 24, 2022

24 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Just out of curiosity though, what is left to do with this game coding-wise? It seems pretty complete to me.

So far I have already added an end boss and a little end game sequence for one of the game modes. I have also added a green flame that behaves much in the same vein as Evil Otto when the player runs out of pumpkins. Oh, and I added an Easter egg into the game.

I need to decide what I am going to do with the other two game modes exactly and actually do that as well lol. Probably nothing too crazy here, just one with an ending and one that goes on forever for high score purposes.. and maybe just a more difficult game mode?

I also plan on adjusting some of the later levels to make them more possible and fair.

I’d like to add some sounds to the title screen, currently it is completely silent.

I’m running low on space but I do have some ideas on adding a new item, but this may be cut back depending on what I am able to pull off. I really hope I am able to get this idea in there though. I may try to rewrite things to fit this. We’ll see 🤷🏻‍♂️

August 24, 2022

22 hours ago, Prizrak said:

This game came to mind today and just wanted to remind folks how awesome of a game this is.

Thanks Prizrak glad you enjoy it

20 hours ago, Karl G said:

It is. By chance is it getting released at PRGE this year?

Unfortunately no, I had some personal events come up that kept me away from coding or anything enjoyable for the last two months. Things seem to be improving now though and I just began work on this project again. I’m excited to be able to get back into it however this break did set this back for Halloween this year

April 6, 2022

Just seeing these screenshots now, this is beautiful! Great work!!

April 6, 2022

Thanks for taking part in this, fun watching

February 14, 2022

I’d like to fill the entire cart, there is about 1kb left, I think, the last I was working on it. Currently working on a small win game animation for game 1.

I’m hoping I am able to finish everything for a boxed release this Halloween. Got a lot of work ahead of me (I’d like to do all the box and manual design myself too, really enjoy that part).

thanks for your interest in it

February 14, 2022

Thanks @sramirez2008! I appreciate it

December 16, 2021

Oh cool, thanks for the heads up. Didn’t know he tried it.

November 11, 2021

I wasn't aware of that way of doing it, thanks again SpiceWare!

November 9, 2021

There will be a PAL60 release once I’m happy with where the project stands

November 9, 2021

Squashed right between two awesome games ?? Looking forward to this one

November 8, 2021

Released version 0.4

These are the bugs I have found:

If the player went into the house without grabbing the heart when it was on the screen and all the enemies were dead, the next level wouldn't load the second row of enemies. It would still be the heart in its place.
Say your pumpkin hit an enemy right below the 200 point mark. It would sometimes show you got the 200 points but only give you 150 points. It shows the correct amount now.
When you die you would still collect a heart while you are twirling to your grave lol. You would then have one heart but still get game over since the game over sequence was already set in motion. You could also collect hearts as you lost a life and twirled back to the house. Now you just can't collect hearts if you are twirling around for any reason ?
If the heart is on the screen when you get game over and you then start a new game, the heart would return on the screen instead of the second enemy
On real hardware I noticed the screen would jump during screen transitions from a black screen. This would not be that noticable except when the score was also on the screen after you get game over. The score would jump slightly.

Version 0.4 has all of the above fixed.

November 7, 2021

Release version 0.3

This is mainly a bug fix release.

Score should be working perfectly now
Hearts are slightly more frequent but are now worth 75 points
Adjusted the enemy and fire speeds slightly on both beginner and advanced difficulty
Enemies movement is more consistent. In v0.2 the enemies would seem to randomly speed up and slow down slightly. They were all sharing the same fractional portion of a fixed point variable for their speed. They all have their own variables for that now.
If you had all three hearts and got a heart it would take away a heart, this is now fixed.

Enjoy! Let me know if you come across anything else that seems off

November 4, 2021

Hey Splendidnut, just wanted to say that this is such a great game and incredibly cool to have running this well on the Atari! To me, this is a very memorable project. I hope you do keep going with it, not sure if you’re feeling stuck, or burnt out but stick with it! I remember playing a lot of burger time as a kid at my cousin’s house on her NES and this version you are developing is spot on

November 4, 2021

On 11/2/2021 at 9:58 AM, Al_Nafuur said:

sometimes this can happen when a constant is defined with "dim" instead of "const", so if you use constants for adding to the scores you should check them.

Thanks for the tip, was unaware of that! I checked the code but didn’t see anywhere I have done this though.

I may have already fixed the problem by clearing the stack. I also went through the code and optimized some of it, saving a couple hundred bytes, not a lot but I’ll fill them up the for a future release. Since there isn’t a lot of space left I doubt any additions will be very major now but I think I should be able to pull off a couple things I thought this game needs.

I plan on releasing a minor bug fix update this weekend after I test this version on actual hardware again.

November 1, 2021

56 minutes ago, alfredtdk said:

Tested with the latest Unocart update and... Sorry.

I don't believe the Unocart supports DPC+. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about that

October 31, 2021

21 hours ago, Prizrak said:

Love the game and the animations are awesome. There's a lot of 2600 games developed every year and not too many make me go wow, this one certainly did. What gets that reaction from me is the level of care and detail to the game and the ability to do amazing things with very limited hardware.

Thank you very much, I'm very glad you enjoyed it!

20 hours ago, SpiceWare said:

Hmm - maybe make it so holding down the firebutton would cause the Phantom Gardner move at 2x or 4x speed?

Not a bad idea. I'll look into that and see if I can make it fit ??

14 hours ago, r_type2600 said:

One immediate idea would be to further enhance the (already great) Game Over to Title Screen transition by adding a triumphing grinning to the big Halloween face at that occasion. I guess a couple of additional frames to his mouth would serve that nicely.

Also, it would be great to have a brief interlude between each level, informing of the upcoming level.

For example a crow sitting atop the lawn during normal gameplay, maybe with a couple of animation frames to his head expressing him curiously observing the action below.

Once a level is finished he would then briefly fly down displaying the next level number under his claws for a couple of seconds and then return to the top of the lawn.

Just another storytelling element that would add further polish to your creation that already impresses with the many lovable arcade-style touches (like the display of score points or the great gardener character).

Such a creepy silent observer would also add to the atmosphere during gameplay.

A gameplay suggestion: adding time pressure. I guess the squarish white "globe" is representing the moon - how about having it wander slowly diagonally from the fence to the top of the sky area, thus displaying the elapsing time. Once the moon has left the screen, the player would lose a heart, or perhaps a life. It would introduce an element of stress, that would boost the gameplay excitement. A nice additional atmospheric element as a side-effect.

I agree with others that this game would much deserve a boxed physical release. Maybe for next Halloween. Since you marked this version as Alpha, I have hopes that you'd be open to further enrich it, as it shows such great potential ?

All great ideas. Would be easily doable if I wanted to go over the 32k limit. These ideas definitely have me thinking though. I like the idea about time pressure and I really like the observing crow idea. Not sure about making it display the level number. But these are all nice things to have in my head when I dive back into it.

4 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Wow @mickmuze!

Thank you so much for this amazing surprise Halloween game for Friday's ZPH stream! You really knocked it out of the park with Tober's Nightmare on the gameplay, graphics and animations. It plays like a finished game, there's so much polish to everything in it.

There's some great suggestions above, I also like the idea of a moving moon across the sky for added pressure so the player doesn't just sit around safely at the top or the bottom dodging projectiles. You could also make it so when the screen is cleared of all the enemies, the character automatically and very speedily, runs back home to the top since there's no danger anyway. I also like speeding up, a little bit, the ghost that waters the pumpkins.

This is 100% worthy of a cart release and would be great timing for just before next Halloween, it should coincide well with PRGE if it's held before Oct 31, 2022?

- James

Thank you James! This is what it's all about man, sharing these games. Had no idea I was going to have so much fun with this when I decided to finally give it a shot on my first game. As always, thanks for what you do as well, really helps the motivation for developers I think to actually have a platform to show our projects.

I do hope to make a cart release. I'll wait till I'm happy with it and go from there. ??

2 hours ago, Fierodoug5 said:

Here are my results testing on real hardware:

The game does not work on a UnoCart? I just get a black screen on a 4 switch and a jr.

On a harmony cart on my 4 switch all is well, no issues

On a harmony cart on my 2600jr. it loads to title screen, 1 and 3 game select are switching back on forth on their own, try to start game, 1 and 3 are overlaid on top of one another, death comes and pushes the number off screen, then just black screen.

Hmmm... Very odd. I don't own an UnoCart and kind of assumed it didn't support DPC+. There isn't much I can do about getting it to run on one of those if that is the case. I was only able to test it on my 4 switch with Harmony. Kind of assumed it would work on a jr though, that is weird?

1 hour ago, SpiceWare said:

The other issues sound like a missing # from an immediate mode instruction, such as using LDA $08 instead of LDA #$08. It's an easy mistake to make, as most systems will work OK due to how the 2600 was designed. I've even fallen prey to it.

Thanks for the tip SpiceWare! There are places I used assembly but I wouldn't say I understand assembly yet lol. Mainly used it when dealing with the score. I went through and added the pound symbol anytime I personally loaded the accumulator, ran it and it still runs fine on the emulator lol. I'll release a bug fix version soon and hopefully Fierodoug5 would be kind enough to test it for me again on his jr.?

I was looking for that score bug last night (just while playing, not code) and have a general idea of where the problem lies. I keep the score stored in the stack. I'm pretty sure I need to clear the stack when a new game starts and when you press down on the reset switch. Sometimes I find if you play multiple games in a row, whether you get a game over or reset, the game will sometimes keep the old score and add onto it for your new game. Pretty big bug for a game that is currently all about scores. I'll fix this as well when I get a chance.

I'm not sure what more as far as features I can fit into this game. Going to take some time and make some code more efficient where I can and see what I can do. I definitely want 3 game modes. Anything else would be a great plus. Will probably tweak the game balance as well. I would love to add an ending to one of the game modes. That might be asking too much. I shall see....

October 30, 2021

Oh cool, how do I go about getting my game to run through javatari through a link like Kev's Cone Ball? Is it just a matter of uploading the binary on the forums alone? Does Javatari support DPC+?

October 30, 2021

Thanks for all the kind words everyone Sure makes the struggle of getting this out on time feel worth it.

9 hours ago, r_type2600 said:

What I would hope for are a couple of fitting tunes for in-game and title screens. I think that would spice up the atmosphere even more.

Maybe a few more animation touches here and there, but in any case this game has great promise.

Thanks for this sweet treat!

I agree the title screen needs more. I tried to write a little a little song for it but I wasn't happy with it. It actually made me feel kind of angry when listening to it lol, that is not the effect I was going for. So I decided there were more important things I needed to spend my time on to get this out before Halloween and set it aside. There isn't much space left now, but I'll take a look into it later.

Is there specific animation touches you were looking for? Or did you mean just in the title screen in general?

4 hours ago, Karl G said:

Thanks for sharing it! Any plans for a cart release?

Also, I personally enjoy the phantom gardener sequence as it is now.

I would love to release this on cart. However there aren't any plans yet. I'd like to spend a bit more time with the code and maybe if Albert is willing and people are interested in getting it on cart then we'll see. Would be a lot of fun doing the label and box artwork for this game.

1 hour ago, Sohl said:

I will try on my real hardware later today/tomorrow!

Thanks! Let me know how it goes.

I did notice one small bug last night that I need to go in and fix. At some point in the game I noticed that my score ended with a 1. That should never happen since all the points given are 50, 100, 150, and 200. I have a feeling that this was caused by the score being cut off when it rolls up. I think it might be when you get a heart and run into the door of your house before the score is finished adding up. I'll have to look more into that when I have time to make sure.

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