Juno First - Final Version (Atari 2600)

[+Nathan Strum]

Even if it doesn't ship with a box I'd love to see a mockup of what it might look like.

Easy enough. Once Chris gives the okay for the artwork to be revealed, I can post a box mock-up.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Even if it doesn't ship with a box I'd love to see a mockup of what it might look like.

Easy enough. Once Chris gives the okay for the artwork to be revealed, I can post a box mock-up.

 

Yeeees!

[vdub_bobby]

 

This is really great; I must confess I haven't played a version of this for a long time - it's fantastic!

[espire8]

Chris, I know that you may want to keep the ship as is since nobody else has mentioned this.

If you like, I have a hack of the graphics in the game as an example of what I'm talking about that I can post here since it's alot easier and faster for me to do than to make a GIF version. that ok with ya?

 

Interesting idea, though I'm not sure I have enough space left to fit in the extra frames. Feel free to post your hack here as I would like to see what you have done (and get opinions from others).

 

Chris

Thanks Chris. I'll post it for you later; btw- it's just a few slight graphic and color alterations.

 

You won't need to add extra frames, it's already there.

 

2 forward thrusting frames, 2 backward thrust frames and a single still frame.

 

All the frames were using the same ship image, so I modified the frames to simulate very slight movements of the ship leaning forward and pulling back whenever the ship moves in that direction.

 

I kept Nathan's ship design but I moved a few pixles around so it can animate more smoothly.

 

 

Since the playfield is an over-head 3/4 view, I think the ship's sprite should have some fore-shortening when moving forward and backward for some improved realism.

The sprites are based on the arcade game, which doesn't change when moving left-right.

but I'm not suggesting left/right animation, only the up/down (forward-reverse).

 

I'll post the bin shortly tonight and you'll see what I mean.

 

I do understand your aim is to make it look exactly as the arcade, but the ship is also flat and static there too.

 

Besides, as gameplay goes, this translation is already missing some stuff from the original, and I see nothing wrong with sprucing up other aspects that are'nt found in the original, to at least balance out any trade offs - cosmeticaly even.

 

Yeah, the coinop is like 2.1D. Like the way the laser shots go straight out instead of moving in a diagonal towards the horizon. It's all the way it's supposed to be. Really just a vertical defender with some scaling added. But I love it.

Ah, so do I, but I would still like to have the player ship be a little more than just a moving single static frame if that were allowed.

JMO.

 

Still a great game even as it is.

[espire8]

Juno_hack_BETA4_NTSC.bin

Here you go Chris, guess I'll just hear from you later if you like what you see, and your target audience approves, and Nathan gives the okay (since it's his gfx work).

[almightytodd]

Hey, I LOVE this game! Great job! The aspect of the enemy ships getting behind you is really interesting. As to the newly added graphics for my ship, I find that I'm so focused on the targets ahead of and behind me, that I don't really have time to look at my ship and see what it is doing when I stop and reverse or go forward. I suppose for someone watching while I play it is an enhancement. But anything more you add to the game is just extra icing on the cake of and already great game.

[mos6507]

OK, spent some more quality time beta testing...

 

Some constructive criticism:

 

The high pitched melody that comes in halfway through the theme song is so out of tune it sounds like something got messed up during composition. Is it supposed to sound that way?

 

During the attract mode, could you make it so if you nudge the joystick it will flip back and forth between the high score and the score legend?

 

Also, during attract mode, can you make it so that when you press game select it will cycle through the waves with the ship ready to start? Right now you have to start a game with the fire button first and when you press select the game autostarts. But you should probably just cycle through the waves and still wait for the fire button to be pressed (or game reset). That is a more traditional 2600 way of doing things.

 

Do the difficulty switches do anything? How about it toggling on and off the rapid fire?

 

Can you use the AtariVox more extensively? How about calling out waves the way Stratogems does? How about throwing out a taunt every time your guy dies? How about the astronaut saying "help!" when he pops out, and "thanks" or "yeah" when you catch him, or "hey!" when you miss him?

 

When the game ends, can you cut the background audio off? It looks like it leaves the rumble going if you don't have an Atarivox.

 

When entering initials, can you make the letter cycling faster?

 

I'm getting consistent read errors on the AtariVox. Not sure if it's my board or not. It looks like the EEPROM is getting zapped.

[cd-w]

Thanks for testing the game and for your comments.

 

The high pitched melody that comes in halfway through the theme song is so out of tune it sounds like something got messed up during composition. Is it supposed to sound that way?

The Silkworm music was composed by moderntimes99 - I rather like the way that it sounds even though some of the notes are not completely in tune (due to 2600 limitations).

 

During the attract mode, could you make it so if you nudge the joystick it will flip back and forth between the high score and the score legend?

Yes this is easy to do - I have now added it to the game.

 

Also, during attract mode, can you make it so that when you press game select it will cycle through the waves with the ship ready to start? Right now you have to start a game with the fire button first and when you press select the game autostarts. But you should probably just cycle through the waves and still wait for the fire button to be pressed (or game reset). That is a more traditional 2600 way of doing things.

This would make sense, but the SELECT feature is just for debugging and will be removed from the final game.

 

Do the difficulty switches do anything? How about it toggling on and off the rapid fire?

The left difficulty switch should already change between fast firing and (slower) autofire.

 

Can you use the AtariVox more extensively? How about calling out waves the way Stratogems does? How about throwing out a taunt every time your guy dies? How about the astronaut saying "help!" when he pops out, and "thanks" or "yeah" when you catch him, or "hey!" when you miss him?

I would like to do this very much, but I don't have the 8 spare scanlines necessary in the game. I will take another look and see if there are any more optimisations that can be done.

 

When the game ends, can you cut the background audio off? It looks like it leaves the rumble going if you don't have an Atarivox.

I will look into this - it looks like the audio is killed at the end of the game but there may be some path where this isn't happening.

 

When entering initials, can you make the letter cycling faster?

Done - this will be in the next release.

 

I'm getting consistent read errors on the AtariVox. Not sure if it's my board or not. It looks like the EEPROM is getting zapped.

This definitely shouldn't be happening. Do you have one of the older AtariVox units (without a case), and are you using a joystick extension cable to the AtariVox? You can wipe the scores by holding right and fire during the scrolling AA text - can you try this and see if it helps?

 

Thanks,

Chris

Edited May 14, 2008 by cd-w

[cd-w]

Here you go Chris, guess I'll just hear from you later if you like what you see, and your target audience approves, and Nathan gives the okay (since it's his gfx work).

 

Thanks for posting this. I'm not completely sure about it yet - I will see what other people say here before I include this change.

 

EDIT: OK, I have has a good look at this now, and I'm afraid that I'm not too keen on it. The ship graphics that you have drawn look good, but the effect is too exaggerated. The main problem is that the ship appears to nosedive and rise, which is confusing as the ship never actually changes height. I don't want to give people the impression that they can fly over or under the aliens, so I'm just going to stick with the flat version for now.

 

Chris

Edited May 14, 2008 by cd-w

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Here you go Chris, guess I'll just hear from you later if you like what you see, and your target audience approves, and Nathan gives the okay (since it's his gfx work).

 

Thanks for posting this. I'm not completely sure about it yet - I will see what other people say here before I include this change.

 

Chris

 

I prefer the original (not animated) version!

[vdub_bobby]

Can you use the AtariVox more extensively? How about calling out waves the way Stratogems does? How about throwing out a taunt every time your guy dies? How about the astronaut saying "help!" when he pops out, and "thanks" or "yeah" when you catch him, or "hey!" when you miss him?

I would like to do this very much, but I don't have the 8 spare scanlines necessary in the game. I will take another look and see if there are any more optimisations that can be done.

:!:

You can safely bump the scanline count up to 270 with no problems.

 

Well, it'll slow the game down very slightly (~3%), but probably not noticeably.

 

Several homebrews and other games display more than 262 scanlines without any issues.

 

Elevators Amiss is 270 scanlines; never heard any complaints or issues. Reindeer Rescue is also 270 scanlines - likewise, no complaints or issues. IIRC, Thrust+ is 270 scanlines also (cart version only).

[cd-w]

This is really great; I must confess I haven't played a version of this for a long time - it's fantastic!

 

Thanks - that means a lot coming from you!

 

Chris

[cd-w]

Thanks to everyone who has been testing my game. Here is the fifth beta version for your enjoyment! The main changes this time are:

1. Collision detection bug fixed (so you no longer die if an alien or bullet hits your flame trail).
   
2. Lots of tuning to make the wave progression better, and simplify some of the really hard waves.
   
3. Moving the joystick during the titles flips between screens.
   
4. The initials change faster when entering your name.
   
5. Lots of little code clean-ups to fix minor glitches and optimise the code.
   

I think I am (really!) done adding features to the game now, as every change seems to cause unexpected breakage. Can everyone test this version hard? If there are no more bugs found, then I plan to make this the release candidate.

 

Chris

Juno_First_BETA5_NTSC.bin

Juno_First_BETA5_PAL60.bin

Edited May 14, 2008 by cd-w

[r_type2600]

Sorry to drop a few polish comments at this late stage, but I feel they should be reasonably simple to implement (if considered) ...

 

1) wave transitions: the short jingle that plays before each wave is a good indicator, however it is too feeble IMO to really be noticed - maybe you could you raise its volume (and perhapts pitch)? Not only should that mark the transitions much stronger, but also increase the adrenalin factor.

 

2) horizon colors:

..not sure whether they were chosen in analogy to the arcade version, but:

Could you swap the Red signaling hyperspace with the Blue for the game over? It's odd that hyperspace, in principle a bonus phase, gets marked by red, the alarm color.

Incidentally, red would be much better fitting to signal the end/ game over.

 

3) next life starts: might just be me, but it feels awkward that you have the choice to continue playing whenever you like. That tends to break the high intensity of the game, and takes away from its arcade feel, IMO. The game should carry on automatically after a short while, like the arcade version. At least as a default setting. (The pseudo-pause life break could be provided as difficulty switch option)

 

- ship animation: my vote's also for the more authentic original version.

The only thing I noticed watching the

video, is that the cockpit of the ship seems to flash. Maybe that could be emulated to provide for some extra animation? Just an observation.

 

Awesome game anyway, programmed to climb the homebrew charts quickly

[cd-w]

Thanks for your comments - small tweaks like this are perfectly fine.

 

1) wave transitions: the short jingle that plays before each wave is a good indicator, however it is too feeble IMO to really be noticed - maybe you could you raise its volume (and perhapts pitch)? Not only should that mark the transitions much stronger, but also increase the adrenalin factor.

Good point - the jingle is a little feeble at the moment - I will raise the volume in the next release.

 

2) horizon colors:

..not sure whether they were chosen in analogy to the arcade version, but:

Could you swap the Red signaling hyperspace with the Blue for the game over? It's odd that hyperspace, in principle a bonus phase, gets marked by red, the alarm color.

Incidentally, red would be much better fitting to signal the end/ game over.

These colours were taken from the arcade version (although in the arcade the whole background changes colour). It would be easy enough to change the colours, but I'm not sure that it makes much difference?

 

3) next life starts: might just be me, but it feels awkward that you have the choice to continue playing whenever you like. That tends to break the high intensity of the game, and takes away from its arcade feel, IMO. The game should carry on automatically after a short while, like the arcade version. At least as a default setting. (The pseudo-pause life break could be provided as difficulty switch option)

Ah - there is a good reason for doing it this way. It is possible for the ship to come back on screen on top of an alien, resulting in instant death. I couldn't work out a good way to prevent this from happening, so I just leave it up to the player exactly when they want to reappear!

 

- ship animation: my vote's also for the more authentic original version.

The only thing I noticed watching the

video, is that the cockpit of the ship seems to flash. Maybe that could be emulated to provide for some extra animation? Just an observation.

The arcade cockpit does indeed flash. There isn't an easy way to do this on the Atari, though you do get a partial flashing effect as the grid lines are visible through the holes in the ship I've now decided to keep the original ship design.

 

Chris

[Cybergoth]

Can everyone test this version hard? If there are no more bugs found, then I plan to make this the release candidate.

 

Uihjah, lotsa progress here this week regarding my favorite project in the works!

 

I missed these recent versions so far (...everything's going so quick all of a sudden! ), but I'm reserving tomorrow night for catching up

(I'll go and test the PAL version without Vox/Key on the CC1)

 

I think I am (really!) done adding features to the game now, as every change seems to cause unexpected breakage.

 

You've done a marvellous job so far. This final phase is always the hardest part, but it can make all the difference. Keep up the amazing work and thanks for finally finishing this masterpiece!

[r_type2600]

Good point - the jingle is a little feeble at the moment - I will raise the volume in the next release.

Cool!

 

These colours were taken from the arcade version (although in the arcade the whole background changes colour). It would be easy enough to change the colours, but I'm not sure that it makes much difference?

I suspected that...still, even if it's directly taken from the arcade, it seems like a design error IMO (for the reasons given). The red horizon during the "bonus" phase just feels contradictory and unnatural.

Certainly this is a matter of taste - maybe test it out in an alternate bin and gauge the reactions?

 

Ah - there is a good reason for doing it this way. It is possible for the ship to come back on screen on top of an alien, resulting in instant death. I couldn't work out a good way to prevent this from happening, so I just leave it up to the player exactly when they want to reappear!

Thought there must a be technical reason for that

Hmm, maybe an alternative approach would work?:

Have the player re-enter right away but disable the collision routines until the player starts shooting. That way he would have a chance to dodge any overlapping alien. Automatically reactivate the collision detection after a few seconds. The player's ship could eventually also be marked in white to signal the "shielded" status.

Edited May 14, 2008 by r_type2600

[+stephena]

I'm getting consistent read errors on the AtariVox. Not sure if it's my board or not. It looks like the EEPROM is getting zapped.

This definitely shouldn't be happening. Do you have one of the older AtariVox units (without a case), and are you using a joystick extension cable to the AtariVox? You can wipe the scores by holding right and fire during the scrolling AA text - can you try this and see if it helps?

Confirmed with the latest version of Stella with AVox/SaveKey emulation. If I start up Beta2 with a non-existent EEPROM file (simulates an EEPROM that has never been written to), the scores all come up zero with name 'AAA'. Playing a game and saving the highscore works, as does exiting Stella and restarting; the highscore is still there.

 

However, starting with a non-existent/empty EEPROM in Beta3, the scores are coming up really weird, somelike like FFCDFE and variations, and the names seem to be randomized as well. I can never save a new score in this case, since I can never get higher than FFxxxx! However, if I don't erase the EEPROM after running Beta2, then Beta3 sees the data just fine, and works just as well as Beta2.

 

I think you must have been doing some EEPROM initialization in Beta2 that was removed in Beta3/4/5. So if you've ever run Beta2, you wouldn't notice the issue. But anyone trying Beta3 for the first time (and never running a previous version) would get garbled data.

 

BTW, wiping the EEPROM as you suggested does work, but it wasn't required before Beta3. Attached is a snapshot of the scorelist from Beta3 before wiping.

 

I guess the AVox/SaveKey emulation in Stella will turn out useful after all

[mos6507]

This would make sense, but the SELECT feature is just for debugging and will be removed from the final game.

 

Why don't you leave it in, since it has no other game variations (except for the rapid fire speed you mentioned)? As people get better at the game I think that feature will be sorely missed.

 

Do you have one of the older AtariVox units (without a case), and are you using a joystick extension cable to the AtariVox?

 

I reseated the chips on my board and it's working again. Yes, I have an Atarivox with the old board design so it has no case. I should ask Richard for a board swap some time.

[mos6507]

The player's ship could eventually also be marked in white to signal the "shielded" status.

 

The mid 80s approach is the have the sprite flicker to indicate a temporary "protected" status for a few seconds coming back from the last death. Since flicker is so prevalent already, color cycling or pulsing the brightness would work.

[mos6507]

You've done a marvellous job so far. This final phase is always the hardest part, but it can make all the difference. Keep up the amazing work and thanks for finally finishing this masterpiece!

 

Yes, I always get worried when homebrews are almost done because I know that:

 

a) The developer is burnt out and wants it done, so he's always on the edge of proclaiming a code freeze for release version, whether or not people are still asking for tweaks.

 

and

 

b) The changes that determine whether it will go down in the annals as a good game or a great game are all made during this time.

 

 

I remember that back and forth when Piero said he could do no more with Oystron and other developers freeing up bytes to enable those changes. That game was not finished until no further optimizations were possible, which just so happened to coincide with all of the change requests being granted.

 

The last homebrew here that I tracked closely was Medieval Mayhem, a game that spent a very very long time in final tweak mode. It's no surprise that it's been the best received homebrew of late.

Edited May 14, 2008 by mos6507

[+Nathan Strum]

Regarding the colored backgrounds: red makes perfect sense to me, since it serves as a warning that you have limited time to pick up bonus points. That's more crucial than green (when you have to pick up the astronaut) or blue (after you're already dead, and warnings don't matter anymore).

 

Regarding being able to select a starting wave: I wouldn't make it every wave. Maybe every fourth wave. Other than for testing, cycling through 32 possible starting waves is a bit much. Maybe even every eight wave.

 

Two other notes:

1. I think the scoring can go back to its original values. If you wanted to safeguard a little against rolling the score, you could use the 1's digit to represent millions.
   
2. Timer bonuses. Currently, there's no bonus for clearing a wave out early. Not sure if this can be added this late in the game (so to speak). But it's part of the arcade version, and adds an extra incentive to play fast and recklessly. Also, having it add the bonus up between waves could give the player a slight breather.
   

[+Random Terrain]

Timer bonuses. Currently, there's no bonus for clearing a wave out early. Not sure if this can be added this late in the game (so to speak). But it's part of the arcade version, and adds an extra incentive to play fast and recklessly. Also, having it add the bonus up between waves could give the player a slight breather.

I hope that's possible. It seems like the game is missing a little bit of something and that might be it. A little extra boost to get the player moving along at a faster pace should increase the fun. It won't make the game any harder for slow players and it will give score junkies a reason to live.

[+Nathan Strum]

Best I've been able to manage on the latest build: 9,410 ending at level 10 (one alien to go, and I ran out of time).

 

11,630 - level 13. Man... those orange saucers are fast!

 

(Yes... I could skip ahead with Select to find this stuff out. But this is more fun.)

Edited May 15, 2008 by Nathan Strum

[cd-w]

However, starting with a non-existent/empty EEPROM in Beta3, the scores are coming up really weird, somelike like FFCDFE and variations, and the names seem to be randomized as well. I can never save a new score in this case, since I can never get higher than FFxxxx! However, if I don't erase the EEPROM after running Beta2, then Beta3 sees the data just fine, and works just as well as Beta2.

 

Aha - thanks for finding this. From Beta3 I assume (incorrectly) that an empty EEPROM will be initialised to all zeros. I'll put in some extra checks to ensure that the score table is actually valid.

 

I guess the AVox/SaveKey emulation in Stella will turn out useful after all

 

Yes it's going to be very useful for testing this kind of thing. It would be great to have a linux version that I could use

 

Thanks,

Chris