Silhouette

[CurtisP]

I always like to show my work in progress.

 

This game is called Silhouette. I'll let you guess as to how gameplay runs.

 

So far I got all my sprites defined and the code just cycles throuh the characters.

 

The Policeman, The Professor, The Young Lady, Louie, Red, and Slim.

 

Three are good guys and three are bad guys, can you guess which is which?

Silhouette.bas.bin

[CurtisP]

Here's the title Screen with Music. After the music plays, press fire on Joystick one and the first building scrolls into view.

 

Now I just have to write the actual gameplay logic.

Silhouette.bas.bin

[CurtisP]

It's all done! I even wrote an instruction manual. Now I just have to try it on real hardware.

Silhouette.bas

Silhouette.bas.bin

Silhouette.pdf

[SeaGtGruff]

It's all done! I even wrote an instruction manual. Now I just have to try it on real hardware.

Good job! I lost half of my lives before I figured out who to shoot. Perhaps you could have the game speed up a little every few buildings, so the player has to respond faster and faster?

 

Michael

[CurtisP]

Good job! I lost half of my lives before I figured out who to shoot. Perhaps you could have the game speed up a little every few buildings, so the player has to respond faster and faster?

 

It does speed up, but only by a 60th of a second each level (set of buildings), which basically gives you 90 levels, since it starts out at one and a half seconds. You did read the manual to see who are the good guys and bad guys, right?

[Gregory DG]

Nice effort! But you do need to check on the scoring. It seemed to be in hex codes. I was getting scores like "3C8" and such.

[SeaGtGruff]

You did read the manual to see who are the good guys and bad guys, right?

Yes-- *after* I tried to play it without reading the manual.

 

Michael

[CurtisP]

Nice effort! But you do need to check on the scoring. It seemed to be in hex codes. I was getting scores like "3C8" and such.

 

What emulator were you using. I've been testing in Stella all along and never got Hex Characters in my score.

 

I got out my Supercharger tonight and loaded up the game (from MP3 player of all things) and the game runs flawlessly, except the score was showing as hex codes there too...

 

Ok, I checked the manual and I'm not adding a BCD compliant number to score. But I wonder why Stella didn't show the problem?

Edited April 19, 2007 by CurtisP

[Gregory DG]

Nice effort! But you do need to check on the scoring. It seemed to be in hex codes. I was getting scores like "3C8" and such.

What emulator were you using. I've been testing in Stella all along and never got Hex Characters in my score.

I'm using z26.

[CurtisP]

Ok. I added some BCD conversion code. Can you try ot again, and let me know if you still get the BCD?

Silhouette.bas.bin

[Gregory DG]

Ok. I added some BCD conversion code. Can you try ot again, and let me know if you still get the BCD?

That one works better. No codes, just numbers for the score.

[CurtisP]

Ok. I added some BCD conversion code. Can you try ot again, and let me know if you still get the BCD?

That one works better. No codes, just numbers for the score.

 

Sweet, I ran it on my Supercharger and got the same results. How do you all like those cool multcoloered sprites?

 

Does anyone have a lightgun, I thought that might be a cool option...

[CurtisP]

Exactly one month later, I have added the last little bit and am calling the game complete.

 

I added code to cycle colors after about 3 1/2 minutes of inactivity. Since redefining player1colors requires some brute force code, this ended up taking a good 400 bytes.

 

I now have 15 bytes left after compiling, so I pretty much have to stop.

 

Now I just have to play it a lot on the actual console, to make sure there's no bugs.

Silhouette.bas

Silhouette.bas.bin

[CurtisP]

When I was playtesting today in Z26, I got the BCD Score Problem again, so I completely rewrote that routine to use a bruteforce the score up with a loop.

 

So here is the even more latest.

Silhouette.bas

Silhouette.bas.bin

[SeaGtGruff]

When I was playtesting today in Z26, I got the BCD Score Problem again, so I completely rewrote that routine to use a bruteforce the score up with a loop.

 

So here is the even more latest.

Good job! I keep wanting to shoot the gray-suited man, though. I've yet to get all the way through.

 

Michael

[+Atarius Maximus]

When I was playtesting today in Z26, I got the BCD Score Problem again, so I completely rewrote that routine to use a bruteforce the score up with a loop.

 

So here is the even more latest.

 

Excellent work. I haven't gotten all the way through yet either...but I find myself trying again and again.

 

Steve

[CurtisP]

I haven't gotten all the way through yet either...but I find myself trying again and again.

 

Well since all the way through is 999,999 points, that will take some doing.

[Impaler_26]

I just tried this out, very nice game! I'll have to play it some more later.

[CurtisP]

Ok, I made a label for the cartridge. Now I guess I just have to make some cartidges...

 

[Albert]

Just played the game for a few minutes. I like how you have to use the diagonals to shoot at the targets, since those are a bit harder than the left, right, up, down joystick directions. Some suggestions:

 

- Maybe a crosshair instead of a block when targeting?

- Different color buildings?

- Do two or more people ever appear at once?

- Fire button to start new game after game over?

- The game starts out slow, which is fine the first few times you play but would be nice if there was a way to start at a higher difficulty for better replay value.

 

I also had the game crash on me once in Stella. After a new building scrolled in (a building with three windows), the game went a bit wonky and then went to a black screen. I had to reload the binary to continue.

 

..Al

[CurtisP]

Just played the game for a few minutes. I like how you have to use the diagonals to shoot at the targets, since those are a bit harder than the left, right, up, down joystick directions. Some suggestions:

I am using the singleplayer kernel, and both players to achieve the multicolor player effect (which I thought looked pretty good for the 2600). I'm also using some kernel options in Bb, that limited me:

- Maybe a crosshair instead of a block when targeting?

I'm using the Ball as the crosshair, since both sprites are used up, missile 0 is unavailable in no_lines mode, and missile 1 would be multicolored.

- Different color buildings?

I could make the top and bottom different colors. but not the left and right. Also, the crosshair will be the same color as whatever building it's in. I could play with the foreground colors to do day and night.

- Do two or more people ever appear at once?

No, it takes two sprites to make one person. In the original version, there was a part of the game where three people appeared at once and you had to shot only the good guys, but since I can only show one guy at a time, I had to leave it out.

- Fire button to start new game after game over?

I didn't put that in there? That I can add easily enough.

- The game starts out slow, which is fine the first few times you play but would be nice if there was a way to start at a higher difficulty for better replay value.

If you set the left difficulty to B the silhouettes move faster, if you set right to B they don't last as long. You also score higher in this mode. I made A=easy, B=hard, since this is what I found online, but I think many of the games were the opposite. Can anyone confirm this?

I also had the game crash on me once in Stella. After a new building scrolled in (a building with three windows), the game went a bit wonky and then went to a black screen. I had to reload the binary to continue.

I haven't had any other reports of this. I think some more playtesting is in order.

...Al

Also I'm bumping up against the 4K limit, if I add anything else to it, I will have to go 8k, which means I won't be able to test it on my Supercharger.