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Intellipongola


catsfolly

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Recently, on a thread discussing what games are missing for the Intellivision, "Revolutionika" said "How about a Pong game?".

 

I was a little surprised by this, since Joe Zbiciak wrote a version of pong for Intellivision years ago, and even posted the source code on this forum somewhere…

 

Meanwhile, I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with a decent control scheme for my "Chaos theory inspired, tank battle based, gambling simulation" game, but with no success yet. And I haven't found any interesting new bugs in the "Christmas Carol" game lately, because the upper difficulty levels are too fast for me.

 

So, I thought I would take a "mental vacation" and write my version of a pong-like game for the Intellivision.

 

Naturally it took much longer than I expected (Joe said he wrote his version in 24 hours - imagine that.) But finally it is finished, I think.

(I labeled it version 0.9 just in case I am wrong…)

 

So, for whatever it's worth, here is my spin on "TV TENNIS" - Intellivision style - Intellipongola!

 

inp.rom.zip

 

 

Let me know what you think,

 

 

David

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Great job! I love it. I few suggestions: the CPU player plays a little too good. It seems to correct his position with very exact trims as the ball trajectory changes, so unless you hit the ball very hard, at a very sharp angle, it won't miss.

 

Which brings me to my second gripe: the player control is too sensitive. Because of this, I cannot seem to make the same type of micro-corrections as the CPU player, so I feel at a disadvantage.

 

Other than that, I'm very impressed! I really like it! :)

 

-dZ.

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Great job! I love it. I few suggestions: the CPU player plays a little too good. It seems to correct his position with very exact trims as the ball trajectory changes, so unless you hit the ball very hard, at a very sharp angle, it won't miss.

 

Which brings me to my second gripe: the player control is too sensitive. Because of this, I cannot seem to make the same type of micro-corrections as the CPU player, so I feel at a disadvantage.

 

Other than that, I'm very impressed! I really like it! :)

 

-dZ.

Thanks dZ.

Thanks for your kind words.

I thought the AI was too difficult at first, but now I think it is too easy. Maybe give it some time.

 

In theory, on a real Intellivision, pressing the more diagonal areas of the control (rather than just the "up" and "down" areas) should give the player slower speeds and finer control. I don't have access to a real Intellivision at the moment, and hitting diagonals quickly on an emulator is difficult - so I can't tune this aspect very well.

It is hard to adapt a paddle based game to digital controls. Let's see what other people think - if more people dislike it maybe I can slow it down a bit.

 

David

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This finally inspired me to download an emulator! Very cool opening sequence ... and fun to waste some time with. Very nicely done.

 

Maybe the programmers should create a bunch of simple games and sell them all on one cart ;)

 

Thanks, Fushek.

That was exactly the idea behind "Triple Action".

 

David

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Thanks for checking it out, GroovyBee. There is only one intro for all the different options. Glad you liked it!

 

Its the only one I tried. On the subject of control methods how about having some inertia? By that I mean if you hold the direction of desired movement for a short amount of time you move a short distance. If you hold the direction for a longer time you accelerate to a maximum velocity. As soon as you change direction or no direction is detected on the controller stop dead.

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Great job! I love it. I few suggestions: the CPU player plays a little too good. It seems to correct his position with very exact trims as the ball trajectory changes, so unless you hit the ball very hard, at a very sharp angle, it won't miss.

 

Which brings me to my second gripe: the player control is too sensitive. Because of this, I cannot seem to make the same type of micro-corrections as the CPU player, so I feel at a disadvantage.

 

Other than that, I'm very impressed! I really like it! :)

 

-dZ.

Thanks dZ.

Thanks for your kind words.

I thought the AI was too difficult at first, but now I think it is too easy. Maybe give it some time.

 

In theory, on a real Intellivision, pressing the more diagonal areas of the control (rather than just the "up" and "down" areas) should give the player slower speeds and finer control. I don't have access to a real Intellivision at the moment, and hitting diagonals quickly on an emulator is difficult - so I can't tune this aspect very well.

It is hard to adapt a paddle based game to digital controls. Let's see what other people think - if more people dislike it maybe I can slow it down a bit.

 

David

 

David,

 

You're absolutely right, I did not think of the Intellivision controllers; I was playing it in an emulator. Treating the Intellivision controllers as a "paddle" in the way that you described should be fine. I'll try it out in my Master Component tomorrow and let you know.

 

It is great so far!

 

Perhaps we can collaborate on a project to put multiple mini-games in a cart? With my P-Mach game engine I can whip out quick-and-dirty games in a jiffy.

 

-dZ.

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What do i need to download to look/play this game!!!!!!

 

1. Download the file that dZ set up in this thread (message 10):

 

http://www.atariage....r-beta-testers/

 

2. Follow his instructions to set up the files and run his test game.

 

3. If that works, download this game inp.rom (from the start of this thread), and copy it to the "game" directory under "xmas_carol-win" directory.

 

4. edit the file "start.bat" and change:

 

jzintv.exe -f0 -z1 xmas_carol.rom

 

to

 

jzintv.exe -f0 -z1 inp.rom

 

4. Save the changes to start.bat

 

5. click on start.bat to run the program.

 

Does this make any sense?

 

David

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What do i need to download to look/play this game!!!!!!

 

1. Download the file that dZ set up in this thread (message 10):

 

http://www.atariage....r-beta-testers/

 

2. Follow his instructions to set up the files and run his test game.

 

3. If that works, download this game inp.rom (from the start of this thread), and copy it to the "game" directory under "xmas_carol-win" directory.

 

4. edit the file "start.bat" and change:

 

jzintv.exe -f0 -z1 xmas_carol.rom

 

to

 

jzintv.exe -f0 -z1 inp.rom

 

4. Save the changes to start.bat

 

5. click on start.bat to run the program.

 

Does this make any sense?

 

David

 

I think he may be missing the SDL library. He mentioned before that he couldn't get the emulator to work even after following all the steps.

 

Perhaps someone can make a quick-n-dirty front end that will let the user select a ROM from a folder, and just launch jzIntv... like my batch script does. I would do it myself, but I'm on a Mac right now.

 

 

-dZ.

Edited by DZ-Jay
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Great job! I love it. I few suggestions: the CPU player plays a little too good. It seems to correct his position with very exact trims as the ball trajectory changes, so unless you hit the ball very hard, at a very sharp angle, it won't miss.

 

Which brings me to my second gripe: the player control is too sensitive. Because of this, I cannot seem to make the same type of micro-corrections as the CPU player, so I feel at a disadvantage.

 

Other than that, I'm very impressed! I really like it! :)

 

-dZ.

Thanks dZ.

Thanks for your kind words.

I thought the AI was too difficult at first, but now I think it is too easy. Maybe give it some time.

 

In theory, on a real Intellivision, pressing the more diagonal areas of the control (rather than just the "up" and "down" areas) should give the player slower speeds and finer control. I don't have access to a real Intellivision at the moment, and hitting diagonals quickly on an emulator is difficult - so I can't tune this aspect very well.

It is hard to adapt a paddle based game to digital controls. Let's see what other people think - if more people dislike it maybe I can slow it down a bit.

 

David

 

David,

 

You're absolutely right, I did not think of the Intellivision controllers; I was playing it in an emulator. Treating the Intellivision controllers as a "paddle" in the way that you described should be fine. I'll try it out in my Master Component tomorrow and let you know.

 

It is great so far!

 

Perhaps we can collaborate on a project to put multiple mini-games in a cart? With my P-Mach game engine I can whip out quick-and-dirty games in a jiffy.

 

-dZ.

dZ -

Did you get a chance to try Intellipongola on your Master Component yet? I've only played it on the emulator (my Intellivisions are in a storage locker 5000 miles from here...). Is the control any better on the real machine? Maybe I still need to tune it up a bit...

 

It would be fun to collaborate on a minigame collection someday. Your game engine sounds interesting...

 

David

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Thanks for checking it out, GroovyBee. There is only one intro for all the different options. Glad you liked it!

 

Its the only one I tried. On the subject of control methods how about having some inertia? By that I mean if you hold the direction of desired movement for a short amount of time you move a short distance. If you hold the direction for a longer time you accelerate to a maximum velocity. As soon as you change direction or no direction is detected on the controller stop dead.

GroovyBee -

 

I do have some inertia in the control - but maybe I should increase it if it's not so noticeable. Currently the inertia also makes it difficult to stop quickly - maybe "stopping on a dime" as you suggest would make it easier for players to control it also.

 

I've gotten used to the current scheme, so it is hard for me to judge - but it looks like I should play around with it a bit and see it I can find a better tuning...

 

David

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Great job! I love it. I few suggestions: the CPU player plays a little too good. It seems to correct his position with very exact trims as the ball trajectory changes, so unless you hit the ball very hard, at a very sharp angle, it won't miss.

 

Which brings me to my second gripe: the player control is too sensitive. Because of this, I cannot seem to make the same type of micro-corrections as the CPU player, so I feel at a disadvantage.

 

Other than that, I'm very impressed! I really like it! :)

 

-dZ.

Thanks dZ.

Thanks for your kind words.

I thought the AI was too difficult at first, but now I think it is too easy. Maybe give it some time.

 

In theory, on a real Intellivision, pressing the more diagonal areas of the control (rather than just the "up" and "down" areas) should give the player slower speeds and finer control. I don't have access to a real Intellivision at the moment, and hitting diagonals quickly on an emulator is difficult - so I can't tune this aspect very well.

It is hard to adapt a paddle based game to digital controls. Let's see what other people think - if more people dislike it maybe I can slow it down a bit.

 

David

 

David,

 

You're absolutely right, I did not think of the Intellivision controllers; I was playing it in an emulator. Treating the Intellivision controllers as a "paddle" in the way that you described should be fine. I'll try it out in my Master Component tomorrow and let you know.

 

It is great so far!

 

Perhaps we can collaborate on a project to put multiple mini-games in a cart? With my P-Mach game engine I can whip out quick-and-dirty games in a jiffy.

 

-dZ.

dZ -

Did you get a chance to try Intellipongola on your Master Component yet? I've only played it on the emulator (my Intellivisions are in a storage locker 5000 miles from here...). Is the control any better on the real machine? Maybe I still need to tune it up a bit...

 

It would be fun to collaborate on a minigame collection someday. Your game engine sounds interesting...

 

David

 

I haven't tested it yet on the Master Component. I just got a brand new (such as it is) Master Component that I bought from e-Bay and I need to test it today, so I'll take the opportunity and play test Intellipongola on it.

 

Regarding my game engine, it's just a simple framework for games. I originally made it for my Pac-Man port, but I re-worked it and improved it for Christmas Carol. It has a simple state machine to handle Title Sequence, Initialization, Game-Play, and Game Over states, driven by a dispatch table; controller decoder; a task queue manager; and a bunch of macros to encapsulate state switching, GRAM allocation, sprite manipulations, and other game functionality.

 

It's actually the core of Christmas Carol devoid of all game logic and sprite graphics. Since it doesn't define logic, it can be used to create all sorts of games, not just Pac-Man clones.

 

I bet a simple game like Tag-Along-Todd can be implemented in P-Mach in a weekend or two.

 

-dZ.

Edited by DZ-Jay
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Some additional, humble, thoughts:

 

1) Multi-Ball Pong (w/ option to select number of balls)

2) Option to select team colors

3) Special powers (option to select powers, ie longer barrier, faster hit, automatic english?)

4) Addition of the Intellivision running man holding the barriers to give it a true Intellivision feel

 

Cart ... might be a hard sell to buy a cart for just pong ... but with some extras added in ... maybe ...

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The age old question: When are you releasing it on Cart?

 

:grin:

Good question.

Currently, I don't know if it will run on a real Intellivision - I've only tried it on the emulator.

Beyond that, I don't know if it's a strong enough game to be a cartridge.

I think some versions of "4tris" had a pong like game as an Easter egg - so there is already "tv tennis" on cartridge.

But, maybe if enough people play Intellipongola and like it...

 

David

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Some additional, humble, thoughts:

 

1) Multi-Ball Pong (w/ option to select number of balls)

2) Option to select team colors

3) Special powers (option to select powers, ie longer barrier, faster hit, automatic english?)

4) Addition of the Intellivision running man holding the barriers to give it a true Intellivision feel

 

Cart ... might be a hard sell to buy a cart for just pong ... but with some extras added in ... maybe ...

 

Interesting ideas. I think there is a certain elegance in the simplicity of the game as it is. But maybe we could have

some selectable alternative versions. Hmmm, let me see.. (putting on brainstorming cap...)

 

1. Multi-ball. The ball is actually 2 objects - the ball itself and the spin effect. So in theory we could have 2 more balls.

If I made the ball and spin one object, then we could have even more balls, but the ball and spin effect would have to be the same color.

But what would trigger the multi-ball? A target you have to hit? I guess the easiest thing to try would be to release two balls instead of one at the start, going in opposite directions - game play continues until all the balls are lost...

2. Team colors - easy enough to do I guess.

3. Special powers. I thought some handicapping would be nice, but this is different. Would these be things you have to catch, like arkanoid? Would they time out after a while?

4.Running men. I guess we could put a running man behind each paddle, using the paddles like shields. Is that what you mean? That would leave us with only 4 objects left to use the balls and powerups to catch... But it would add a nice Intellivision flavor to the actual game...

 

Thanks for the suggestions,

 

David

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I would buy it on a cart as a stand alone game.

 

You could even just release it as a cart only. not even overlays or manual. that would make it easier and cheaper to release.

 

 

 

I made a poll to see interest!

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/191211-would-you-purchase-intellivision-pong/

Edited by revolutionika
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