Short and Sweet (SSGC) contest

[Opry99er]

BTW, if any if you SSGCers out there want docs put with your game, please attach them to this thread. Many of you have already included them in your zipfiles for the entries, and that's great... But those of you who haven't written docs or would like to update/add to your docs, please do so and attach to this thread. A nice storyline makes a small game with limited memory alot more fun. Thanks!!!

[unhuman]

Inaccurate Invaders

By: unHUman

 

They're back. Everyone is tired and not really up to the fight. Alas, the continued existence of civilization is on the line, so you've gotta work with the remaining supplies from the old war. Fortunately, the Invaders are also tired and with limited resources.

 

What they have: Seemingly endless hordes of suicidal robots but no missiles.

 

What you have: A single missile base that has repaired with the power steering system extracted from a 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood. It's soft, mushy, and not responsive at all. We also have a huge stockpile of missiles. They're old, so sometimes they don't detonate.

 

All of this leaves you sorta well prepared for the not-so-exciting battle to the death. If the Invaders reach earth, all hope is lost and the destruction of humanity will ensue. Should you destroy all the aliens, peace and tranquility are yours. Seriously, if you make it that far, you deserve what you get.

 

Controls:

Joystick Left - Move your base left

Joystick Right - Move your base right

Fire Button - Fire a missile. If a missile is already in flight, it is aborted and replace with another one.

 

Godspeed.

[Opry99er]

BRILLIANT!!!!! Thanks!!!!

[Opry99er]

Marc Hull has selected the CF7 device. Now it's time for #2.

[unhuman]

Marc Hull has selected the CF7 device. Now it's time for #2.

 

*A 64k Jon Guidry cartridge board and game case (for making homebrew carts)

 

This look awesome, and I "only" ordered 3, so I'll take 1 more

 

-Howie

[Opry99er]

Noted. So, the widget and the Myarc card and Term Em II cart with original docs remain.

[Opry99er]

If you have a PEB, the rs233 card is a great addition. . The Navarrone "widget" is a cool item too. Kurt, you're up buddy.

[InfernalKeith]

I wrote up docs in the Thin Ice thread, on the assumption that they were stand-alone, so a lot of what's in them (system requirements, for example) could be cut. If they're too long, you can trim 'em down or I can submit an edited version.

[Opry99er]

I'm sure the Codex will figure something out. I really enjoy your docs for both games!!! Good stuff

[+InsaneMultitasker]

OK...I couldn't resist...

 

TI-Simon!

Written by T. Tesch

2010 SSGC Competition

 

 

STORY:

When the Inaccurate Invaders' spacecraft landed on Memory Lane, the occupants were perplexed as to which humans would best serve them and their repetitious ways. They had learned about the Texas Instruments TI-99 Computer and its color and music capabilities from early television transmissions. They needed a way to test their future "repeaters"... could this popular TI Technology come to their rescue?

 

The invaders designed TI-Simon!, a memory game designed to "test" concentration through the use of randomly generated sequences of sound and sight. Four "tiles" illuminated in random order and progressively faster challenge your memory. Mimic the sequence and TI-Simon! adds another tile. The better your memory, the higher your score. Because these aliens are sadomasochists, there is no end... the game continues until you hit the wrong key and fail your endeavor. Or by failing do you truly win? Try again...and again... and again...

 

 

MENU OPTIONS:

1-4: select your skill level

5-8: Hidden options mirror 1-4 but display the sequence key. Good trainer option.

9: In game instructions

 

PLAYER CONTROLS:

Use the arrow keys (E,S,D,X) to select the appropriate color tile.

Spacebar to repeat the sequence - active at any time

Q to quit

 

Notes:

A "timed" option and joystick control were planned but didn't make it into 30 lines of code

 

* Written in memory of Gene Hitz, a prolific game programmer and friend.

Edited April 30, 2010 by InsaneMultitasker

[Opry99er]

Excellent!!!!! Thanks for that Dr. Tesch!!!! What a cool story! And the dedication is heartfelt and well received. Thanks for your awesome contribution.

[unhuman]

STORY:

When the Inaccurate Invaders' spacecraft landed on Memory Lane, the occupants were perplexed as to which humans would best serve them and their repetitious ways. They had learned about the Texas Instruments TI-99 Computer and its color and music capabilities from early television transmissions. They needed a way to test their future "repeaters"... could this popular TI Technology come to their rescue?

 

HFS! U made me LOL. Daaaaamn!

 

Thanks - H

[+Vorticon]

Gravity Run

By Walid Maalouli

 

The onboard computer impassively announces: weapons bays depleted. Suggest evasive action. You check your short range scanner, and it does not look good: red blips are all over your vital space, inexorably closing in, blocking any escape route back to the home fleet. You look up and there in front of you the enemy capital ship is quickly filling up your anterior viewport. A loud alarm suddenly sounds: "collision imminent!". You have only a few seconds to react, but your inertia compensators are out of action and you realize that there is no way to avoid impact... Wait! Is that the main neutron drive shaft opening??? Could you possible slip in there and find a way out through the ship? You are out of options... You fire your side thrusters and line up with the dark opening lined by a shimmering plasma barrier with only meters to spare, and disappear inside the massive ship.

 

Play Instructions

 

The drive tunnel is under the influence of the capital ship's artificial gravity field, so you must constantly fire your thrusters to avoid running into the deadly plasma barrier by pressing any key. In addition you must avoid the obstacles scattered all over the tunnel. Your fighter is equipped with slowly regenerating shields which you can activate by pressing Q, which will allow you to safely bypass the obstacles, but only for about 2 seconds! You get a new shield every 100 points, and you accrue points as you move through the tunnel.

 

Good luck!

Edited April 30, 2010 by Vorticon

[Opry99er]

We have some really good writers in our mix!!! Great work Walid!! A great companion to a great game!

[InfernalKeith]

Gravity Run

By Walid Maalouli

 

The onboard computer impassively announces: weapons bays depleted. Suggest evasive action. You check your short range scanner, and it does not look good: red blips are all over your vital space, inexorably closing in, blocking any escape route back to the home fleet. You look up and there in front of you the enemy capital ship is quickly filling up your anterior viewport. A loud alarm suddenly sounds: "collision eminent!". You have only a few seconds to react, but your inertia compensators are out of action and you realize that there is no way to avoid impact... Wait! Is that the main neutron drive shaft opening??? Could you possible slip in there and find a way out through the ship? You are out of options... You fire your side thrusters and line up with the dark opening lined by a shimmering plasma barrier with only meters to spare, and disappear inside the massive ship.

 

Play Instructions

 

The drive tunnel is under the influence of the capital ship's artificial gravity field, so you must constantly fire your thrusters to avoid running into the deadly plasma barrier by pressing any key. In addition you must avoid the obstacles scattered all over the tunnel. Your fighter is equipped with slowly regenerating shields which you can activate by pressing Q, which will allow you to safely bypass the obstacles, but only for about 2 seconds! You get a new shield every 100 points, and you accrue points as you move through the tunnel.

 

Good luck!

 

 

Awesome! Not trying to be a pain in the butt but I wanted to point out before this gets printed for good, it's "collision imminent." [/spellingnazi]

[+Vorticon]

Gravity Run

By Walid Maalouli

 

 

 

Awesome! Not trying to be a pain in the butt but I wanted to point out before this gets printed for good, it's "collision imminent." [/spellingnazi]

 

Thanks for catching that:)

[Opry99er]

Hey all--- for those of you who do not know Bill Gaskill, he is the foremost historian of our community. His efforts to preserve our history are amazing. Here's an example:: He has created an amazing website called "Timeline99." In this, he goes year by year from the late 70s on to today describing the most important events on the TI scene by month. This took an unbelievable amount of research of work. Anyway, the SSGC is now a part of the Timeline!!!

 

http://www.ti99ers.org/timeline/timeline.htm

[InfernalKeith]

Hey all--- for those of you who do not know Bill Gaskill, he is the foremost historian of our community. His efforts to preserve our history are amazing. Here's an example:: He has created an amazing website called "Timeline99." In this, he goes year by year from the late 70s on to today describing the most important events on the TI scene by month. This took an unbelievable amount of research of work. Anyway, the SSGC is now a part of the Timeline!!!

 

http://www.ti99ers.org/timeline/timeline.htm

 

I was gonna say, BillG gets one of the finished product before any of the rest of us do! That is only right and just. If it came down to it, and only he or I could have one, I'd give mine to him.

[Opry99er]

Absolutely. He gets the first copy of everything I do--- he has an official copy of Honeycomb Rapture with manual, and I've not even released it yet!!!! The manual I put together was for him specifically.... The label for the Honeycomb diskettes can be seen on the back cover of my Lemonade Stand manual--- he got the first one of those too. Please visit his pages and let him know we appreciate his efforts.

[Tursi]

hehe.. very cool. If you want to use ZomBXB the text file in the zip is about the limit of my writing skill

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK... since I already own a Terminal Emulator II cartridge and an RS-232 card (but an original TI one), I'll take the Navarrone 3 cartridge expander device. I would also take the disk with the winning entries you were offering to send to all contestants. And, if I may ask for an additional favour, it would be nice if you could include the MFM program which we talked about four months ago in another thread on that disk, if it fits there. I figured that if you're sending stuff to me anyway, this wouldn't be too much extra work... I hope I'm right. I know I was planning to write a program which would have allowed to transfer it over the cassette port, but I didn't get around to doing that yet.

 

If you have a PEB, the rs233 card is a great addition. . The Navarrone "widget" is a cool item too. Kurt, you're up buddy.

[Opry99er]

Kurt--- absolutely man. You got it

[unhuman]

Kurt - if you wanted the make your own cartridge thingie (and don't have any already) you could have it... I have 3 already, so I'm willing to share.

[The Codex]

The games have good story and control synopses so far, both here and in the distributions. I started the manual layout last night, took some time to hunt down the right font for the body text (it's mostly ITC Bookman in the XB manual, for those who are curious). I'm sizing it to be 11"x8.5" paper folded in half, black-and-white interior with greyscale screenshots, and color cover. I'm designing it in OpenOffice and will output the final version to PDF so that Owen can conveniently print it. Naturally everyone will have a chance to provide input along the way. I should have something to post soon.

 

If anyone has a specific game screenshot they'd like to use in the manual, please post it here. Ideally post a version which is at the original TI resolution and does NOT have anti-aliasing (blurring/smoothing) turned on. Those will look the most genuine. Thanks!

 

PS - Owen, if you'd like to write an introduction, explaining the inspiration for the contest as well as the rules, that would make a great starting page for the book.

 

For all entrants, let me know if you want your byline to appear differently than it does on Owen's SSGC page. I'll probably go by my real name in the book, as this has the potential to reach people who have no idea who we are on AA (or even that AA exists).

Edited April 30, 2010 by The Codex

[InfernalKeith]

The games have good story and control synopses so far, both here and in the distributions. I started the manual layout last night, took some time to hunt down the right font for the body text (it's mostly ITC Bookman in the XB manual, for those who are curious). I'm sizing it to be 11"x8.5" paper folded in half, black-and-white interior with greyscale screenshots, and color cover. I'm designing it in OpenOffice and will output the final version to PDF so that Owen can conveniently print it. Naturally everyone will have a chance to provide input along the way. I should have something to post soon.

 

If anyone has a specific game screenshot they'd like to use in the manual, please post it here. Ideally post a version which is at the original TI resolution and does NOT have anti-aliasing (blurring/smoothing) turned on. Those will look the most genuine. Thanks!

 

PS - Owen, if you'd like to write an introduction, explaining the inspiration for the contest as well as the rules, that would make a great starting page for the book.

 

For all entrants, let me know if you want your byline to appear differently than it does on Owen's SSGC page. I'll probably go by my real name in the book, as this has the potential to reach people who have no idea who we are on AA (or even that AA exists).

 

 

Another vote for real name (Keith Bergman) here. And a thousand thanks for doing this, man, I can't wait to see it!