Cannonfire-cart release survey

[espire8]

Welcome to

Cannonfire

 

 

I've been working on this sprite for some time.

Well this game is about 99.99% complete and ready for a spin.

I'm sure plenty of people will have a good idea of what type of game this is.

 

Cannonfire_v1.2.bin

 

Here's how to play -

- A dragon is hovering above ready to incinerate the ground below which you must keep from happening. You must position a cannon to catch all the fireballs that come sailing down before you are engulfed in a rising lake of fire! Afterward, use your cannon to fire the flaming balls back at the dragon! The action gets progressively harder and missing one fireball with raise the lake of fire to dangerous levels until your cannon is submerged in flames and it's game over.

 

If any one can play test this on real hardware to report any color problems please do so. I think the red may be too dark for normal televisions but I'll wait for a responce before making any changes.

Comments are also welcome.

 

Enjoy the game!

 

-David

Edited November 12, 2007 by espire8

[+SpiceWare]

Cool

[Gregory DG]

That looks very cool! The dragon has character, which is something missing from many 2600 sprites!

 

Is this a hack of Kaboom! or a new homebrew?

[espire8]

That looks very cool! The dragon has character, which is something missing from many 2600 sprites!

Thanks, I always try my best to create character sprites with that kind of attention to detail -despite the 2600 limitations. It all comes down to design technique really. You can see more characters I created like this for another game, actually a homebrew rpg by s0c7 called Paladin. His programming style simply accommodated my character designs to a T!

 

Is this a hack of Kaboom! or a new homebrew?

Well,... I wont say yet as I do perfer for everyone to at least play the game first and then figure from there. Certain programmers out there may already know the answer (one certainly does ), but I hope they let the non-programmers guess on there own for the time being.

Edited April 19, 2007 by espire8

[Krytol]

That's awesome. I like the cannon design as well.

[espire8]

That's awesome. I like the cannon design as well.

Thanks. Btw- I forgot to mention the difficulty switch controls the size of the cannon's rim from narrow for experts to wide for beginners. The narrow cannon looks better to me, but the wide makes playing much easier.

Edited April 19, 2007 by espire8

[neotokeo2001]

Is this a hack of Kaboom! or a new homebrew?

 

Well,... I wont say yet as I do perfer for everyone to at least play the game first and then figure from there. Certain programmers out there may already know the answer (one certainly does ), but I hope they let the non-programmers guess on there own for the time being.

 

I know. But I won't tell.

 

I can't play it until I get home tonight but it is a very cool idea.

[lucifershalo]

tried on a real 2600 with CC1

but pal so cant tell you about the colors

I wasnt able to play none of the controllers were working

I tried joystick and paddle

in left and right input

[Gateway]

Don't know how I missed this thread before.

 

I recognize this game based on the gameplay you described.

 

Very nice graphical work! I recently got Medeival Mayhem from AA. It is nice to see the dragon making an appearance there and in this new game.

[vdub_bobby]

This is beautiful! And it isn't too hard to figure out what the original game is, if you are at all familiar with it...

 

Clue: It made an appearance in the High Score Club a year or two ago.

 

EDIT: Extra Clue: I score 4422 in the HSC that week.

Edited April 19, 2007 by vdub_bobby

[PressureCooker2600]

that game looks awesome, espire.

 

any idea on a cart release?

[Gregory DG]

Wait. I got it. Dunno why I didn't think of it sooner.

[supercat]

This is beautiful! And it isn't too hard to figure out what the original game is, if you are at all familiar with it...

 

I'd have egg on my face if I couldn't figure it out.

[espire8]

Don't know how I missed this thread before.

 

I recognize this game based on the gameplay you described.

 

Very nice graphical work! I recently got Medeival Mayhem from AA. It is nice to see the dragon making an appearance there and in this new game.

Thanks for the complements. I was'nt planning to mention it, but yes, you figured it out! This happens to be Scarlet's first appearance in a game hack before I used her in Darrell's Medieval Mayhem, so in my own mind I like to think of this hack as a sort of prequel to MM though I never finished it to have it posted until just recently. But it's nice to know that you recognized her on your own, so congrats .

This is beautiful! And it isn't too hard to figure out what the original game is, if you are at all familiar with it...

 

Clue: It made an appearance in the High Score Club a year or two ago.

 

EDIT: Extra Clue: I score 4422 in the HSC that week.

I don't think it's a hard guess either since there are fewer paddle games and I don't know if this is the very first hack of this particular title. It could be. I'll have to see if I can top that score.

that game looks awesome, espire.

 

any idea on a cart release?

That's a good possibility if there's enough interest. The hack may get one more tweaking with the colors before that happens.

 

Has anyone else out there played this on a normal television to check on those colors

[espire8]

 

I'd have egg on my face if I couldn't figure it out.

 

Best clue so far!...

Edited April 20, 2007 by espire8

[Omegamatrix]

Very nice hack. I won't give away what the original program was. I did test the hack in an emulator and did poorly. Then I loaded it up in my Krok and did much better on real hardware. It was much more fun then. I do have a few gripes with the original program that have transferred over to the hack though:

 

- When you miss a fireball the lava starts to fill up. The higher the lava gets the more it blurs the displayed score below while it is flickering. Is there anyway to stop that?

- You have to hit the dragon in a certain spot, and I sort of found it frustrating picking out the exact spot. A lot of times I thought I made a fair hit only to see it keep moving. Does the animation have to be at a certain spot (ie wings up or down before a hit registers?). Maybe a bigger zone for collision detection or a more marked target would be better? I feel the dragon looks beautiful as it is personally.

- One thing I liked about Kaboom! (no this is not a hack of Kaboom!) was that as you moved the difficulty switches the buckets would change size. Here in this game though you can only change the size of the cannon in the select stage, which is fine, but the cannon doesn't actually change size until you begin! For people beginning with the Atari it makes it harder to tell if they are selecting Novice or Expert. For example a lot of six switchers are just labelled A & B. It's frustrating to begin the game and realize that you are on the wrong setting.

- Finally speaking of beginning the game, I hate the wait period before you can start. I want to be able to hit my fire button and have it start right away on the difficulty switches I have selected. This goes back to the programming of the original though where you have to see the copyright, then the company name, and finally the player selection before it will accept the fire button. I must be an impatient person as stuff like that pisses me off.

 

 

As far as colors they were just fine on a real TV. The sprites in this game are top notch. Actually simply amazing. I'm so impressed by the graphics of this game and can only hope someone takes up the challenge to make it even better if they can. I'm don't know how much you can do espire8, but if it gets down to rewriting the code significantly there are good people out there. This game is really, really, good so far and can get a lot better. I even have visions of new music. I look forward to it.

[+SpiceWare]

can only hope someone takes up the challenge to make it even better

[+Nathan Strum]

Very nice! Great animation, and nice idea for a hack!

 

A couple of suggestions:

 

Red or orange lake of fire. It looks too yellow right now. Reminds me of egg yolk. Or something worse... (Also, it would be neat if flames or sparks could jump out of it periodically.)

 

Can you add any animation to the fireballs? Even just one extra frame so there was a little movement would be cool.

 

The old music needs to go, if at all possible. It's too cutesy.

[PressureCooker2600]

The old music needs to go, if at all possible. It's too cutesy.

 

But that dragon is so durn cute!!!!

[Nukey Shay]

Here's a disassembly if you want to try code hacking. There's a routine that was never executed (and a couple of RTS's as well), so I removed those and added fireball animation just by flipping the sprite based on what the framecounter held. The fireball sprite was 7 pixels wide, so I reduced it to 6 (so this sprite flip would not cause an onscreen wobble).

 

Also...

The original game ran at 263 scanlines. I killed a scanline just below the dragon to make it an NSTC-standard 262. The bottom of the display showed a jagged line when overscan began, so I added a WSYNC there to complete the line.

Cf.zip

Edited April 21, 2007 by Nukey Shay

[Nukey Shay]

Oops...score was flipping while the failure tune played. Corrected:

Cf.zip

[Omegamatrix]

Good job Nukey!! Looking at the disassembly it's kind of cool how you can see the sprites. Never would have guessed it took up so much of the game. I see this project has indeed been getting some Spiceware involvement.

[espire8]

Hey Nukey, that's excellent fireball animation, it sort'a gives it a KABOOM! flavor with the animated fuses. Did'nt even know that was possible or even that quick to do! Great job!

Very nice hack. I won't give away what the original program was.

Well, anyone who opens up the zip files Nukey has posted w/ the fireball anime will see the title of the game in the disassembed file. It's okay though, I'm happy with what he did .

I do have a few gripes with the original program that have transferred over to the hack though:

 

- When you miss a fireball the lava starts to fill up. The higher the lava gets the more it blurs the displayed score below while it is flickering. Is there anyway to stop that?

I'm not sure. It's definately beyond my scope. If Nukey could'nt address that while doing the fireballs I don't think anyone can.

- You have to hit the dragon in a certain spot, and I sort of found it frustrating picking out the exact spot. A lot of times I thought I made a fair hit only to see it keep moving.

I noticed that too at first but figured it was done that way so as not to make it too easy. I think the fireball has to connect while the dragon is running into it, that's how it always seem to register when I play tested often for the torched dragon sequence.

you can only change the size of the cannon in the select stage, which is fine, but the cannon doesn't actually change size until you begin! It's frustrating to begin the game and realize that you are on the wrong setting.

Well, at least you can visualy see the difference before getting too far in the game.

I hate the wait period before you can start.

It's no worse than waiting for games to load on my playstation which takes alot longer.

 

As far as colors they were just fine on a real TV.

That's what I needed to hear.

I'm so impressed by the graphics of this game and can only hope someone takes up the challenge to make it even better if they can.

That call was certainly answered by Nukey!

I'm don't know how much you can do espire8, but if it gets down to rewriting the code significantly there are good people out there.

I admit I'm not a programmer and I think it's great that others are able to help realize another persons dream to everyone's benefit.

This game is really, really, good so far and can get a lot better. I even have visions of new music.

Thanks, I'm glad I were able to take it as far as I did but alot better must come from without especialy if there's going to be new music.

 

Guess there's an open house here for any music composers out there want to take a look at Nukey's disassembly?

 

 

 

A couple of suggestions:

 

Red or orange lake of fire. It looks too yellow right now. Reminds me of egg yolk. Or something worse... (Also, it would be neat if flames or sparks could jump out of it periodically.)Can you add any animation to the fireballs? Even just one extra frame so there was a little movement would be cool.

Anime fireballs are complete. The color change of the lava is possible, I don't know about the sparks and flames though, but 2 out of 3 is pretty good to me!

 

 

 

The old music needs to go, if at all possible. It's too cutesy.

 

But that dragon is so durn cute!!!!

You mean the one with the shed scales?

[BigO]

Very nice hack. I trust you retained the annoying, strutting, victory dance.

 

I had momentarily considered hacking that game to be themed as dropping Oreos into a glass of milk, which seemed an appropriate sort of thing when considering a certain aspect of the original game. I realized that I didn't stand a chance of doing a reasonable representation of either the cookies or the milk.

 

I have a really thrashed copy of that original game. Would be fun to burn a ROM and install the hack in the original cartridge.

[Nukey Shay]

Didn't look at it much, other than to fill in the missing vectors that Distella misses...and throw in the animation. But here's an assembly with 100 bytes free (so far). An easy solution to the burning ground idea would be to grab frequently-changing values from ram memory and store them to the playfield gfx as it's drawing the cannon. Playfield is currently being used for the yellow color (but this could just as easily be done by changing the background color instead). With PF0-2 free, some random pixels could be used on every scanline that the yellow color appears on. Setting player priority would keep the cannon visible, so you'd have 2 colors to fill in the ground fire.

Cf.zip