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Redshirts


jrok

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Hey gang,

 

I haven't updated anything in awhile, so I thought I'd post some progress on a game I'm working. I've named it "Redhsirts" in honor of those Sci-Fi Kamikazes of legend, who would beam down to hostile worlds and meet their inevitable doom.

 

The basic idea is that a Captain Kirk-type sends his hapless "Away Team" down to various planets to accomplish missions. The planets are 6x6 grids randomly generated at the start of each level, with the mission objectives randomly placed on the grid. The mission objectives will vary from level to level, including various task such as locating downed shuttle crafts (as in this one-level demo), killing certain badguys, rescuing fellow crewmen, etc.

 

I settled on a display routines that allows for:

(2) 30hz multi-colored player1's for characters

(1) 30hz player0 for multipurpose (scenery, traps, effect)

(2) 15hz player0's for laser fire

 

There is still a ton of stuff planned for this game. The idea I'm striving for is a game that allows you to earn tons of bonus points for doing exceptionally brave/stupid things. But for now, this demo is just to test the basic engine with a few different kinds of randomly appearing baddies. Here are the controls:

 

Fire Button:

- Start game from title screen

- Click to pass Mission and Lives Remaining screens

- Hold to aim your laser, release to fire

 

Joystick(or arrow keys in EMU):

- Hold in any direction to move

- Tap in any direction to perform a defensive roll (cannot be hurt by laser fire while doing this)

- Tap or hold while rolling to fire

 

Many thanks to Rev_Eng for his wonderful title screen minikernel!

Cheers,

J

post-21152-129056950203_thumb.png

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post-21152-129056952605_thumb.png

Redshirts1.bas.bin

Edited by jrok
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Cool concept, like the fact that you have both male and female crew members along with different species - was the blueish gal Andorian?

 

The flicker with the colored backgrounds doesn't work very well on a real display though, you can't even tell the shirt is red. Probably need to use black or dark grey.

post-3056-129057110968_thumb.jpg

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Cool concept, like the fact that you have both male and female crew members along with different species - was the blueish gal Andorian?

 

The flicker with the colored backgrounds doesn't work very well on a real display though, you can't even tell the shirt is red. Probably need to use black or dark grey.

post-3056-129057110968_thumb.jpg

 

Thanks for the feedback, SpiceWare. For the crew, I thought I'd just switch things up, and let the player's imagination do the rest. Ultimately, the crew members will be randomized as well.

 

Do you mean I should use black or grey for the backgrounds? It couldn't be black, I guess, due to the black pants, although I could change those to red scale.

 

I attached a version with a dark grey background and one a light blue one to this post. I'm a little curious how it looks, if you have some time. I don't have real hardware to test on, so its hard to visualize the mix.

 

Cheers,

J

Redshirts1_darkgrey.bas.bin

Redshirts1_lightblu.bas.bin

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I love how you've taken some of your previous WIPs and come up with this.

 

Personally, I like the brown background way better than the blue or gray. Maybe another shade of brown would suit on a real console/TV. Other colors would be fine for variety if you travel to other planets, but other than personal taste, I can't give a great argument for the first planet surface resembling dirt.

 

As for gameplay, I found it very difficult my first go at it... but I love it nonetheless. If needed, I can play around with it on real hardware tomorrow.

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Grey looks best - on the blue background the shirt and pants appear to be the same color.

 

Thanks again. I've attached a new binary that allows you to select the background color by using the select switch (each press increments the background color by two, cycling through the TIA palette). Kind of curious if there is any luma and/or chroma that looks okay, if you or KevinMos ever have some time to play around with it.

 

Cheers!

Jarod.

Redshirts1_colorselect.bas.bin

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I spent a little time with it today. The cool thing for me was that I hooked up my Atari to my parent's TV this Thanksgiving and it's the same TV they had when I first got the Atari as a child. Yes, they still use the same TV after all these years. I was reliving memories of playing Jungle Hunt, Battlezone, and Pac-Man on that TV while my mom watched, just as she did the Christmas she got us the Atari. I think she enjoyed it today almost as much as I did.

 

Anyway... on to business: I tried out the different colors and I gotta say, I saw no significant difference in being able to see the "red" shirts on any color background. The amount of flicker in the player's character keeps it from looking very red unless you're using a red or purple background, in which case, you can hardly distinguish the player from the ground. With all other colors, it just looks faded.

 

I don't consider this a "bad" thing. I just think it frees you up from worrying about using a certain background color so you can do what you want with different planet surfaces: Dirt, Sand, Rock, Ice, Grass, etc. I took some pictures of a few background colors to show you what I mean. There are numerous colors that look good, these are just a sample:

 

post-9364-129073417932_thumb.jpg post-9364-129073425127_thumb.jpg post-9364-129073431495_thumb.jpg

 

BTW, I really love the graphics and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

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Kudos, this looks like it's amazing. I must ask, is this intentional? It happens upon the first phaser fire three frames down. I slide around the frame like I'm on ice instead of walking, fire, and am locked in this impenetrable field of boundaries :?

 

Edit:

I haven't done much with attaching images, I tried to just upload & attach, but it doesn't seem that it worked, so *linked image insert* if this eventually turns into a double posted image, my apologies.

ifob.jpg

Edited by Silntdoogood
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Thanks for the feedback and testing, guys! Here's an updated version addressing certain bugs and points raised by posters, as well as some revised controls:

 

Revised Controls:

  • Move Joystick (no button) - Move the crewman in 8 directions as usual.
  • Hold Down Fire Button - This locks the crewman's aim to the current direction.
  • Release Fire Button - Fire the laser.
  • Move Joystick with Button Held Down - Strafe the crewman in 8 directions without changing the direction he is aiming his laser in.
  • Tap Joystick with Button Held Down - Perform a combat roll in the direction tapped. If the button is pressed, the crewman can roll in a different direction then the one he is aiming, along him to pop out from behind terrain shoot enemies. A second joystick tap or button release will fire the laser.
  • Strafe Mode - If you hold the fire button for a second then rapidly press it, you will continue to fire in the locked direction while moving. Releasing the fire button for a second will return you to normal moving/firing mode.

 

Bug fixes:

  • Playfield bug on enemy death fixed.
  • Improved collision detection with playfield.
  • Player always starts in room 1
  • Player can roll into rooms.

 

Color testing on real hardware:

  • Select switch increments the background color and the score tracks background's decimal value.

 

Redshirts2.bas.bin

Edited by jrok
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Did a quick test and basically every background with a LUM of 0* was best with regards to flicker and distinction between the red shirt/black slacks

 

* for black a LUM of 2 was best for the obvious reason.

 

Interesting. So I guess the best idea would be to go with lo-LUM backgrounds/ hi-LUM sprites? Maybe the pants could go hi-LUM red instead of black to compensate?

 

 

*EDIT*

 

Quick followup: If you run the game on Stella 3.x with the Game Properties set to 77 Phosphor blend, is it comparable to what you see on a real Atari in terms of color contrast?

 

Thanks again,

J

Edited by jrok
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Phosphor Blend, no matter the value, looks much better than what I see on the Atari. I can always tell the colors apart in Stella.

 

Interesting. So I guess the best idea would be to go with lo-LUM backgrounds/ hi-LUM sprites? Maybe the pants could go hi-LUM red instead of black to compensate?

Actually, no - my understanding of flicker is that it's least noticeable the closer the LUM value is between the object that's flickering and the background color. The shirt might look even better if you use $40 instead of $44.

Edited by SpiceWare
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Phosphor Blend, no matter the value, looks much better than what I see on the Atari.

Agreed. IMO turning off Phosphor Blend and using GL Vsync gives the closest approximation of a real Atari on a CRT, including color blending.

 

Stephen A has stated a bunch of times in the past that the Phosphor blend is there to enhance games with flicker, not to accurately simulate a TV.

 

@jrock: Definitely minimize the luma contrast between the flickered elements. But don't get too caught up on the absolute purity of the color of the guy's shirt and pants. When you flicker with a colored background color constancy kicks in and people perceive the colors as relatively pure even though they aren't in the absolute sense.

 

BTW, kick ass start! :thumbsup:

Edited by RevEng
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  • 8 years later...

We'll be featuring Redshirts LIVE on tomorrow's (Friday) ZeroPage Homebrew stream on Twitch at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT! Hope everyone can watch!

Twitch Stream: http://twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:
- Retron 77 (Stella 6 Update)
- Redshirts (2010) by Jarod Kitchen aka jrok
- Arcade Pong (2019 WIP) by David Galloway aka djmips
- Hunchy II (2005) by Chris Walton aka cd-w

 

UPDATED with YouTube Archive of Stream:

Edited by ZeroPage Homebrew
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