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NANOMAN is a WIP


MausBoy

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Here's a little really early sample of the new Maus Games WIP Nano Man, a scrolling platformer 32k superchip 2600 game. That's kinda a mouthful...

 

This demo has a static playfield, the next version I post will have an early level design, and some bad guys (with really decent AI). I know it's nothing special, but that's why I'm having fun making it. No headaches, no limitations, and no going over on cycles :)

 

One question I have is what you all think of the bi-directional scrolling. I started out with Mario style, where the sprite stays centered when scrolling, this one is more like Sonic, where there is an open range in between. I don't know which is preferred.

 

Also what type of player physics do people like best in platformers. This is a really rought draft I'm posting, but I can make the player move more like Mario, or Sonic, or even MegaMan.

NanoManBETA1.bin

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I'm surprised nobody else has commented on this yet!

 

I like your character design and the score font( reminds me a bit of Russ Wetmore's work?,IIRC. He did games like Preppie and SeaDragon( a submarine game for the Atari 8bits ))

 

The bi-scrolling is a nice feature. :)

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You're insane. I mean compared to insane people. Edmund Hillary had Everest, Captain Ahab had his Freudian whale, and you have the Atari 2600 again acting 10 years younger.

 

As far as the scrolling goes, it's really better to base it on your stage design. Mario's like chess, every square is there for a reason, so you need to be in perfect control at all times, even if seems kinda sedate by comparison.

 

Sonic's world design is more open, a hybrid of Mario and Enduro. The twists and turns keep it from feeling too empty but here's a longer time passing between enemies and jumps unless you build up a lot of speed - if you make a mistake, it's less likely to kill you. The camera can move a little freer.

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I'm surprised nobody else has commented on this yet!

 

I like your character design and the score font( reminds me a bit of Russ Wetmore's work?,IIRC. He did games like Preppie and SeaDragon( a submarine game for the Atari 8bits ))

 

The bi-scrolling is a nice feature. :)

 

Thanks, it's the best I could do but I figure (hope) some sprite genius will see some potential and spruce it up a little.

The scrolling is pretty much a requirement, because with limited sprites and playfield interaction, requiring backtracking is one of the few things I can do to make the levels interesting. Plus all the level information is stored in tables so it's just as easy to read the data in reverse.

 

Wow! Very cool. Looks like a really nice game in the making.

 

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

This is the best Batari Basic game I have ever seen! :lust:

Is there ASM involved or is it all bB?

I prefer the character be in the center of the screen, IMO.

 

Thanks :) I think there are better and definately more innovative though. It's 100% bB so far but that might change. I think I like the character centered too, but the gameplay and level designs seem like they work better Sonic style hotspots.

 

That's one fancy title screen!

 

I like the "sonic style" scrolling.

 

Did you mean the Maus Games intro? I'm always dissapointed that I can't do anything even close to as nice as the MM title/menu. I forgot to put the title screen into this demo.

 

Just checked it out....

 

This is really impressive...

 

:thumbsup:

 

Thanks, I figured that was the last thing anyone would say.

 

Very nice! This could become a great game, i like the concept and the graphics.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks, and I will. I've been working on this everyday because like I said, I'm not dealing with any system limitations in implementing the original idea - a really nice change!

 

You're insane. I mean compared to insane people. Edmund Hillary had Everest, Captain Ahab had his Freudian whale, and you have the Atari 2600 again acting 10 years younger.

 

As far as the scrolling goes, it's really better to base it on your stage design. Mario's like chess, every square is there for a reason, so you need to be in perfect control at all times, even if seems kinda sedate by comparison.

 

Sonic's world design is more open, a hybrid of Mario and Enduro. The twists and turns keep it from feeling too empty but here's a longer time passing between enemies and jumps unless you build up a lot of speed - if you make a mistake, it's less likely to kill you. The camera can move a little freer.

 

I do like the free Sonic style scrolling a lot better. For one thing, the horizontal scrolling is course, so it's best to not scroll the other sprites every time the player moves, makes everything look chunky.

 

The demo posted is kind of a lie compared to the next version, as the playfield will probably always only consist of single 3-pixel-thick lines. With this setup, everytime the playfield scrolls I have to remove three pixels from one side and add three to the other. Any more than that and I'm using up a lot of cycles. Plus this way each column of playfield only takes up one entry in a data table, which allows for very long levels; 512 pixels wide normally and 1024 if I halve the horizontal resolution on some levels.

 

There are also vertical levels, and completely random bonus levels (if you can find them) that can be any lenght I want them to be. :)

The only thing I don't like about this project so far is the loss of PF0, it looks like the scrolled-on playfield appears out of nothing instead of scrolling onto the screen.

 

 

EDIT: I'll post an updated demo sometime this week. In the process of making the scrolling playfield less of a cycle hog.

Edited by MausBoy
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Well, I've had the flu for the last week, so not a lot of progress. I'm starting to feel a little better though, and I'm itching to finish the scrolling level engine.

 

Did anyone notice the horrible background music? I'm really hoping someone creates a good music engine for bB...

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That's one fancy title screen!

 

I like the "sonic style" scrolling.

 

Did you mean the Maus Games intro? I'm always dissapointed that I can't do anything even close to as nice as the MM title/menu. I forgot to put the title screen into this demo.

I guess it is a splash screen instead of a title screen, but yeah - I like the mouse sitting on Maus and the color scheme. Though it does seem like the right side of the G should be narrow like the A and M.

 

Thanks! The MM title/menu did take about 6K of ROM.

Edited by SpiceWare
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I'm surprised nobody else has commented on this yet!

 

I like your character design and the score font( reminds me a bit of Russ Wetmore's work?,IIRC. He did games like Preppie and SeaDragon( a submarine game for the Atari 8bits ))

 

The bi-scrolling is a nice feature. :)

 

Thanks, it's the best I could do but I figure (hope) some sprite genius will see some potential and spruce it up a little.

I'm surprised I missed this tread myself!

 

Nanoman sound like a very tiny character, but resembles more like Spongebob Nopants.

 

Ha! don't mind me. I'm just pok'in fun is all. :D

 

Anyway, the control is there and I perfer the sonic style movement but as far as the character, only thing I like is that he animates well and the detail of the occasionaly blinking eye and the pupil. Is this guy merely a temporary placeholder gfx? There's nothing intresting about him to relate to and I don't like his colors.

I can see plenty that I can spruced up based on the way the character can look like graphicly, but I need more info about this nanoman.

Looking at him for the first time make me wonder what he's suppose to be.

What is he? What's the story here with this character?? What does he want? His goals? motives? desires?

I have always tried to design sprites as characters with personality that players can relate to and care about in all my hacks and homebrew involvements.

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Thanks for taking a look espire8. The sprite is just a placeholder, I needed to animate something with a decent number of frames so I could get a feel for how much space/cycles that would take. I agree that the colors are horrible, I was trying to find something that would contrast well with any background though.

 

Nanoman is a nanobot, so there will probably be multiple powerups that completely change the way he looks/animates, and because of his scale he'll be fighting mostly bugs, water, magnetic devices, etc. The goal of the game is for Nanoman to escape from the lab in which he was created, travel across a military base, and find a way to destroy the evil supercomputer he was designed to maintain. The screenshot shown is from the design phase of the "anthill" level, so far no luck animating decent looking 8 pixel ants.

 

I'd love it if you'd take a shot at designing something that is recognizable as a tiny robotic man, it dosn't have to be cartoonish either. I was just hoping to be able to pull off something different from the standard stick men.

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  • 1 month later...
I want a Nanoman update! This game looks too promising for you to just quit on.

Holy smoke! I forgot about this thread until it was just bumped up now.

 

Been quite busy and I still would like to fill Maus' request for a sprite design. I'll tackle it soon, just need to study the the way the missle can be used in the design. :D

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post-9377-1195791816_thumb.jpg

 

I'm still plugging away at this project. I've spent weeks trying to get the scrolling to work, and I just can't get it. Here is my latest build with a sample level, and it only scrolls to the right until I can figure out what I'm doing wrong. Pushing up on the joystick right now makes you fly upward; that's just for testing and not part of the final game.

 

You can reset to the beginning with the reset switch. Anyone who tries this demo, I'd love some feedback and suggestions.

NanoManC.bas.bin

Edited by MausGames
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