Schizophretard Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 My thinking is to spawn a new asteroid after every 3rd small one was destroyed, but once a certain number of asteroids had been spawned it would change to after every 4th. I'd have to calculate how many that would be. Of course that depends on there being space for such an option. I have an idea for adding another enemy that will take minimal resources and will do that first. I will admit I was surprised at the number of game variations. I knew it would be more than 100, but was not expecting it to be 5 figures I'm very interested in the new enemy. I just played a few more games and still can't get over how good it looks. I really like that fiery spark when ships explode. It looks kind of like sparklers. Are the sounds the final sounds or are they still place holders? Why did you choose those colors for the words space rocks? As I was playing I thought of another idea. Is it possible to have a down option for a pulse that repels close asteroids? I was also surprised at the number of game variations. If you pointed that out from the beginning then it would have been obvious to me that a traditional Game Select Matrix wouldn't work. Then I would have recommended having a different kind where you select the number for the first option then hit reset to enter it, select the number for the next option then hit reset to enter that,... hit reset to enter the number for the last option, and then fire button to start or something like that. After that you could have still explained why you don't like the idea. 17,680! See if you can beat your high score and get to 100,000 variations. I'm curious, how much ROM is used on the menu? Again. I'm very interested in the new enemy. Are you trying for one of the old ones, inventing a new one, or is it a surprise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 18, 2012 Author Share Posted August 18, 2012 Sound effects are still placeholders. I'm holding off on new enemy until after the sound effects are done as they may take up more space than the placeholders do as I'm currently reusing some of the sound effects that should be discrete. The title graphics for Space Rocks are just placeholder graphics I threw together. Nathan plans to do redo it to match the cartridge label. In theory the shields should repeal any asteroid that come close to the ship. I plan to look into it if there's space for it, but am not going to hold by breath on that one. The graphics and data streams for the main menu takes up $422 (1058) bytes. The 6507 code to display the main menu takes $197 (407) bytes. ARM code takes $512 (1308) bytes. If I'm able to add another enemy, it would be based on the two-ship enemy from Space Duel, it shows up at 2:54 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_brww6GHGeE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted August 19, 2012 Share Posted August 19, 2012 Good enemy choice. Do you plan on using similar sounds as the arcade games for the placeholders? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 19, 2012 Author Share Posted August 19, 2012 Somebody else is doing the sounds, so we'll both find out when they're done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DT Kofoed Posted August 20, 2012 Share Posted August 20, 2012 I dream of a Xonox-style double-ender for Space Rocks and Frantic... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 20, 2012 Author Share Posted August 20, 2012 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accousticguitar Posted August 20, 2012 Share Posted August 20, 2012 Haha why didn't I think of that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share Posted August 21, 2012 menu revisions changed luma value of asteroids in monochrome games (they're darker so flicker will be less noticeable) tweaks to ship explosion if you lost your last ship, but your last bullet scored you a bonus ship the game used to end anyway. It should now let you play the extra ship. (placeholder) heartbeat sound effect tweaks to saucer ROMs - Harmony or Stella1 spacerocks20120821_NTSC.bin spacerocks20120821_PAL.bin 1 Requires Stella ver 3.7.1 or later. See first post for instructions on how to reduce flicker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master Phruby Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Wow! How did I miss this one. It looks amazing! I'll grab this later today and give it a go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Just got through playing a few rounds with the Starplex controller. Freakin' amazing, great work Spice! Looking forward to this on cart some day. Atari obviously dominated, even with their games as is, but imagine if this level of quality was marketed at the time. Space Rocks released as Asteroids instead of Atari's version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 22, 2012 Author Share Posted August 22, 2012 Thanks! It does work well with the Starplex. The Starplex is part of why Nathan requested a 2 player alternating option in the comments of this blog entry. I played a few rounds of 2 player alternating last night and realized I forgot to set it up so the heartbeat speed changes when players get swapped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IG-88 Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 (edited) Damn dude, my homebrew game budget is going to have to be bumped up at this rate! As save2600 was saying, if your games were being relaesed towards the end of the console's life cycle can you just imaging how this could of changed the whole industry? Add on another 5 years of sales for the 2600 and what that could of done to the crash. Maybe nintendo wouldn't have gotten a foothold in North America? The kids might now all be playing Atari 3DS's right now! Bug issue maybe? Are all the asteroids big and small supposed to stay "vectorized" even after you shoot them? Right now the large ones are vector but when I split them the small ones go solid. I skimmed thru the previous posts and didn't see if that was supposed to be like this or not. Again great work and sign me up for another cart! Edited August 29, 2012 by IG-88 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 29, 2012 Author Share Posted August 29, 2012 (edited) As save2600 was saying, if your games were being relaesed towards the end of the console's life cycle can you just imaging how this could of changed the whole industry? Thanks! Medieval Mayhem and Stay Frosty could have been done back then, but I'm not sure about Space Rocks or Frantic. The game logic in the latter two is running on the ARM CPU that's inside the cartridge. They figured out bus stuffing back in the day, which is actually faster than the DPC+ method I'm using to update TIA1, so they knew how to put an additional CPU in the cartridge in the early 80s - but the CPUs back then weren't as fast as the 70 MHz 32-bit ARM found in the Harmony/Melody. Bug issue maybe? Are all the asteroids big and small supposed to stay "vectorized" even after you shoot them? Right now the large ones are vector but when I split them the small ones go solid.Covered in this reply - in short, update to Stella 3.7.1 to fix that. 1TIA must be udpated by the 6507 CPU inside the Atari as the CPU in the cartridge does not have access to it. Edited September 8, 2012 by SpiceWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 (edited) two toned heartbeat minor bug fixes did a lot of optimizations to free up some ROM. used freed up ROM to add a new enemy! New enemy after shot, the sections swarm the player Note: The new enemy does not appear if the KIDS or EASY levels are selected. ROMs - Harmony or Stella1 spacerocks20120908_NTSC.bin spacerocks20120908_PAL.bin 1 Requires Stella ver 3.7.1 or later. See first post for instructions on how to reduce flicker. Edited September 8, 2012 by SpiceWare 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IG-88 Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 This is freaking awesome!! I know I played an arcade game back in the day with these enemies in it. Was it Space Frantic or something like that? What an awesome extra layer you have added here! Also, do you have the AI programmed with the saucers so that they defend themselves against oncoming asteroids? I am seriously thinking of building a dedicated cabinet around this game. It's that fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 Thanks! Asteroids Deluxe, the sequel to Asteroids, is where that enemy comes from. It's known as the Killer Satellite. Originally the saucer would either aim at the player or randomly shoot in 1 of the 32 directions it can shoot. The difficult level and saucer size dictate how often it targets the player, as listed below. If it's the small saucer the percentage is doubled (so it targets the player 36% of the time on the hard level). 0% kids 6% easy 13% normal 18% hard In the August 5th build I changed it so that if the saucer was not targeting the player it would target the closest asteroid. It's not so much to defend themselves as to prevent the player from "hunting the saucer". In the original Asteroids it was discovered that you could leave a couple small asteroids flying around and easily pick off the saucer. A dedicated cabinet? Wow Do you have a Starplex controller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSkgQxP9z00 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IG-88 Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 DOh! Asteroids deluxe, thats right. Never did play that but have seen it emulated. No. I don't have have a starplex. In fact I have never even seen one until the thread earlier today. Very cool. If I do build a cab around it, I will probably build a bartop sized one. I have made quite a few of them in the past. I'd throw an old PC in it running Stella with Mala as a front end. Using arcade type controls would be sweet with this game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UberArcade Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 Wow, this is looking awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 12, 2012 Author Share Posted September 12, 2012 Thanks! Just wait until you hear the new sound effects, they're awesome too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerSpaceFan Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 By the way, this works in Stella but does it also work in any of the 2600 emulators for the Wii Homebrew Channel? Anyone tried it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 12, 2012 Author Share Posted September 12, 2012 (edited) By the way, this works in Stella but does it also work in any of the 2600 emulators for the Wii Homebrew Channel? Anyone tried it? I don't have a Wii, but suspect not. You need at least Stella 3.51 for the ARM support to even work and from what I see they appear to be based on older builds. Wii2600 is based on 2.7.2. Can't tell for StellaWii, but the last mod date on that page is in 2010 and Stella 3.5 was released December 29, 2011. Of course, those pages could be out of date. 1version 3.7.1 or later is recommended as it fixes a minor issue where the vector option still displays some solid objects. Edited September 12, 2012 by SpiceWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 I don't have a Wii, but suspect not. You need at least Stella 3.51 for the ARM support to even work and from what I see they appear to be based on older builds. Wii2600 is based on 2.7.2. Can't tell for StellaWii, but the last mod date on that page is in 2010 and Stella 3.5 was released December 29, 2011. Of course, those pages could be out of date. 1version 3.7.1 or later is recommended as it fixes a minor issue where the vector option still displays some solid objects. It's doubtful whether the ARM emulation in Stella could even run on a Wii anyway. It needs a fairly fast CPU if you're using the ARM functionality extensively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 I know SpiceWare isn't (and shouldn't) be too concerned about it running in emulation. He is programming for the real hardware. It is recommended that Stella 3.7.1 or later be used. For information purposes: I find it runs just fine on Stella 3.6.1. It has the solid medium rock problem, but if you virtually hit the Reset button, it fixes the solid rock problem and all rocks and ships are vectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerSpaceFan Posted September 12, 2012 Share Posted September 12, 2012 I know SpiceWare isn't (and shouldn't) be too concerned about it running in emulation. Absolutely. Sorry, I wasn't inferring Spice needs to make it work in other emulators or anything, I was just curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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