ScottHuggins Posted March 13, 2007 Author Share Posted March 13, 2007 (edited) Nice idea. I have some sounds (low bass rhythm...thumps like in SI). I might try that. It would be an easy addition. I will do it for the next binary...just to see how it may (or may not) enhance the gameplay. I tried it last night on MESS at home. It played great, the sounds are really good particularly the little bit of music at the end of the game. I kind of wish it had some kind of low level sound during the game play though. Like a Space Invaders type 'dum dum dum dum' or the Asteroids 'bum bum'. It's not really necessary but it just feels like this game would have something similar. Edited March 13, 2007 by ScottHuggins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Nice idea. I have some sounds (low bass rhythm...thumps like in SI). I might try that. It would be an easy addition. I will do it for the next binary...just to see how it may (or may not) enhance the gameplay. I love the idea, but I know you're already having ROM space problems, so you better fix your graphic bugs first and then see how much space you have left for extra sounds... Just my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Lookin' good, Scott! JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share Posted March 14, 2007 Jess, thanks! You workin' on anything? Lookin' good, Scott! JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeybastard Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 (edited) First pass, not the right size and needs a lot of tweaking but here's how I'm leaning on this one. The towers need to be bigger, a little more detail and obviously I didn't add logos, the SH presents line, etc. Edited March 15, 2007 by joeybastard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 First pass, not the right size and needs a lot of tweaking but here's how I'm leaning on this one. The towers need to be bigger, a little more detail and obviously I didn't add logos, the SH presents line, etc. Wow! That looks superb! Nice work! It would be nice to add a couple of cannons (with at least one firing a missile) and some ground explosions. Also, if you can, you should add a ground network that links the green towers together. They seem a bit lonely, all detached like that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 15, 2007 Author Share Posted March 15, 2007 VERY nice, Joe. Really captures it nicely. Very retro...very early looking space, shoot 'em up. Exactly what I hoped for. I can just picture it sitting in a box on the shelf of KAY BEE TOYS in 1983 catching some kids eye and comvincing him to buy it! I see the cross hairs on the graphic above...speaking of, I have the cross hairs thing working. It's a nice touch. Also, the low thumping bass line during game play is in...it also adds a nice, "frenetic" touch to the game play. Now, the final bug with the UFO (occasionally) staying in place needs to get fixed then I'll post another binary. First pass, not the right size and needs a lot of tweaking but here's how I'm leaning on this one. The towers need to be bigger, a little more detail and obviously I didn't add logos, the SH presents line, etc. Wow! That looks superb! Nice work! It would be nice to add a couple of cannons (with at least one firing a missile) and some ground explosions. Also, if you can, you should add a ground network that links the green towers together. They seem a bit lonely, all detached like that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 Just played through all the rounds; I didn't realize that there were different kinds of enemies! Very cool! Good frantic shooting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 15, 2007 Author Share Posted March 15, 2007 (edited) Thanks, Bob!!! That's the reason the .rom size is so darn big. I tried redefining the different enemy shapes for each level. I'm trying to optimize the assembly code even more so that I can *hopefully* have everything change EXCEPT the wave of ufo's at the beginning of each level. I figured the UFO's are kinda the central theme.... we'll see. I've got a question for you gurus: would you sacrifice game sounds and/or music to add extra visual features? At what point do you think you're compromising stuff by doing this? Just played through all the rounds; I didn't realize that there were different kinds of enemies! Very cool! Good frantic shooting! Edited March 15, 2007 by ScottHuggins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeybastard Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 Wow! That looks superb! Nice work! It would be nice to add a couple of cannons (with at least one firing a missile) and some ground explosions. Also, if you can, you should add a ground network that links the green towers together. They seem a bit lonely, all detached like that... Thanks, I'm still mulling over what to add. I kind of don't want to add an actual cannon for 2 reasons. For 1 it will make the crosshairs seem out of place. Obviously they belong to a different cannon but if you've never played the game you wouldn't know that so might look look weird. The 2nd reason is that Astro Invader has the cannon firing at floating ship with ground explosions thing already so even though they are similar shoot-em up themes, I'd like to go a different route with this. It's a first pass so it may end up changing drastically anyway. I never really plan this stuff, it just sort of falls together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeybastard Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 I've got a question for you gurus: would you sacrifice game sounds and/or music to add extra visual features? At what point do you think you're compromising stuff by doing this? I'm no guru but I'll chime in anyway Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For instance I'd rather have good sounds in a game than a super elaborate title screen. But it wouldn't bother me in the least to can(or edit or whatever) the end music for cooler visual effects overall. So that's not really helpful at all is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 (edited) I see the cross hairs on the graphic above...speaking of, I have the cross hairs thing working. It's a nice touch. Also, the low thumping bass line during game play is in...it also adds a nice, "frenetic" touch to the game play. Now, the final bug with the UFO (occasionally) staying in place needs to get fixed then I'll post another binary. Cool! I'm looking forward to trying it! I'm trying to optimize the assembly code even more so that I can *hopefully* have everything change EXCEPT the wave of ufo's at the beginning of each level. I figured the UFO's are kinda the central theme.... we'll see. Would it be a lot of trouble to change the color of the UFOs? Having red and green UFOs (depending on the wave number) would add further variety. I've got a question for you gurus: would you sacrifice game sounds and/or music to add extra visual features? At what point do you think you're compromising stuff by doing this? I think it's always a balancing act, especially for consoles with limited capabilities like the ColecoVision, and it's always a different story for each game. For example, I would settle for two types of background sounds in Terra Attack, one for regular waves, and the other, higher pitched, for the mothership wave. But for another game with different gaming features, I could say something totally different. Edited March 15, 2007 by Pixelboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 (edited) I wouldn't sacrifice sound effects for visual features but I would sacrifice music. Especially for a game like this, where really complex music isn't necessary (unlike, say, SMB/Zelda/Pitfall II/etc. - more narrative games). Some music, of course, is very nice and probably shouldn't be completely cut; something very simple (think Space Invaders or Asteroids) is plenty. But sound effects are another story, I'd say they are as important as the graphics! Edited March 15, 2007 by vdub_bobby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 15, 2007 Author Share Posted March 15, 2007 Interesting replies...thanks. Definitely opens up a lot of possibilities for freeing up rom space. I wouldn't sacrifice sound effects for visual features but I would sacrifice music. Especially for a game like this, where really complex music isn't necessary (unlike, say, SMB/Zelda/Pitfall II/etc. - more narrative games). Some music, of course, is very nice and probably shouldn't be completely cut; something very simple (think Space Invaders or Asteroids) is plenty. But sound effects are another story, I'd say they are as important as the graphics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 17, 2007 Author Share Posted March 17, 2007 New version has been added on the first post of this thread. * added Joe's suggestion of the low "thump" sound through out the gameplay. It gets much faster during the "mother ship" wave. For some reason, I'm not 100% sold on this. It seems almost annoying??? Perhaps there needs to be more of a delay between the "thumps"? * cross hairs are there now. Are they helpful? Should the y-position be higher up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 (edited) New version has been added on the first post of this thread. * added Joe's suggestion of the low "thump" sound through out the gameplay. It gets much faster during the "mother ship" wave. For some reason, I'm not 100% sold on this. It seems almost annoying??? Perhaps there needs to be more of a delay between the "thumps"? I can hardly hear the "regular thumps" when using Meka, and the other sound effects tend to cover the thumps, so it doesn't add much to the gameplay. I like the thumps for the mothership though. * cross hairs are there now. Are they helpful? Should the y-position be higher up? Actually, I would position them just a tad closer to the turrets. You should also work on the placement of the crosshairs in terms of rotation: When you rotate a crosshairs from 0 to 180 degrees and back, you can see it doesn't follow a very nice "arc". It's easely fixed, I'm sure. Now that the crosshairs feature is implemented, I've spent a little more time playing the game than before. One thing I can say for starters is that the difficulty ramps up too quickly. At level 2 (or in other words, after destroying the mothership once), the UFOs attack like they're on level 4 or 5! Even with crosshairs, it's hard to keep up, with tons of enemy torpedoes flying down from every angle! I would expect that kind of hectic blast-athon later into the game... Did you work on the "hovering UFO remains" bug? It seems to crop up less often now... But I still spot it every once in a while. EDIT: Would you care to explain why sometimes a UFO shoots a laser straight down at my right-most tower instead of a regular star-like torpedo? There's just no way I can stop that laser, and I lose my tower every time... It's happened to me twice already. Edited March 17, 2007 by Pixelboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 I like it! The crosshairs really help, much more than I thought they would - they mostly give a nice indicator of which turret I'm controlling! I think the difficulty ramps very well. OTOH, I saw a lot of graphic glitches, mostly stray pieces of enemies lingering on the screen. Saw it in the first wave (UFOs) and the 2nd wave. Made it to the 2nd boss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share Posted March 19, 2007 Despite being an ace programmer, I'm noticing you are an ace player as well. You always seem to score very well on games in general. Yep, Pixelboy turned me on to those glitches. I fixed them last night (it was an interrupt timing issue). Also redefined even more enemies (you have to get to the third and fourth levels to see them). But...I woke this morning and noticed my PC was down. I think the power supply or hard drive failed. It powers on for about 2 seconds and then turns itself off. I hope it's not the hard drive...as I ......umm... have no backup of the code. Stupid me. I like it! The crosshairs really help, much more than I thought they would - they mostly give a nice indicator of which turret I'm controlling! I think the difficulty ramps very well. OTOH, I saw a lot of graphic glitches, mostly stray pieces of enemies lingering on the screen. Saw it in the first wave (UFOs) and the 2nd wave. Made it to the 2nd boss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 Could also be a defective RAM chip, or a roasted CPU. Is the CPU cooling fan running? Does the PC-Speaker morse something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 Ouch! Hope you can recover your code... ... Forgot to mention the thumps: I think they are pretty good, though like Pixelboy wrote, you can barely hear them in the regular stages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 But...I woke this morning and noticed my PC was down. I think the power supply or hard drive failed. It powers on for about 2 seconds and then turns itself off. I hope it's not the hard drive...as I ......umm... have no backup of the code. Stupid me. Shuts off after two seconds, eh? Well, it could indeed be the power supply, or perhaps a virus (or a hardware defect, like Cybergoth suggested) that causes a shutdown signal to be sent to the hardware during startup. Note that I'm not even sure if such a virus is possible, but I've heard about all kinds of malignant buggers... Do you have any anti-virus protection on your PC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottHuggins Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share Posted March 19, 2007 Luc, I do have Norton Antivirus that is up to date... >Could also be a defective RAM chip, or a roasted CPU. Is the CPU cooling fan running? Does the PC-Speaker morse something? Hmm... interesting. It does do just what you are describing. I took the cover off and when I power it on, the fan comes on and blows very briefly, the PC Speaker beeps something and then it goes off. It happens so quickly that I don't think the hard drive has had a chance of starting. I have been getting alerts the past two weeks saying my CPU temperature was running hot and that my fan was exceeding the max RPM's (this came from a process called Intel Monitor???). Manual, I am starting to think you might be right about a roasted CPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 What the beep code means is depending on the BIOS. If you have the motherboard manual, you might find clues detailing what went wrong. This page also details some standard BIOS beep codes: http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 Well, if the hard disk is undamaged, you know what to do when your PC is up and running again: Make a frickin' backup! (Incidently, I made a backup of my own last night. I love my 1GB USB key! Fast and easy!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted March 19, 2007 Share Posted March 19, 2007 Jess, thanks! You workin' on anything? You mean like games? Nah, I've retired from Batari BASIC for the moment. I might go back to it over the summer, but I've got plenty of other things I need to either start or finish. JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.