+SpiceWare Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 (edited) New Magna-Mines menu option. Before they were only enabled on the Normal and Hard levels. Fixed a few bugs related to the Magna-Mines. The Magna-Mine now splits into 3 double-sections when shot, each of which splits in half when shot. New Control menu option to specify if you're using joysticks or multi-button gamepads. If gamepad is selected for a player then the "down" feature (shields, hyperspace, 180) is remapped to another fire button. Gamepads known to work include:Amiga CD32 Red = Fire Blue = "down" [*]Genesis B = Fire C = "down" New double-section Magna-Mines: New menu options: Left player using Gamepad, right player using joystick: At this point I have 5 things left on my To Do list, at which point I will consider the game in Release Candidate mode. change heartbeat timer to use a fractional decrement revise Manga-Mine speed logic to also consider the selected LEVEL (it's way to fast for Kids) saucer's targeting a stationary spot at end of round, need to fix that if possible, display high score on demo screen review easter egg ROMs - Harmony or Stella1 spacerocks20120927_NTSC.bin spacerocks20120927_PAL.bin 1 Requires Stella ver 3.7.1 or later. See first post for instructions on how to reduce flicker. Edited September 28, 2012 by SpiceWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 I can start the shields after I've died , sometimes causing me to reappear and die immediately because the shields have been on for five seconds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 Nice find, thanks! I'll add it to my to do list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 This one may be related, but it's kind of fun so you might probably just as well leave it in: When you die, if you hit hyperspace before your explosion disappears, you will still hyperspace, but finish exploding in your new location. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFL Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 ^ I like that 'feature'. It's kinda like rubbing your nose in your slow reactions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
espire8 Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 This one may be related, but it's kind of fun so you might probably just as well leave it in: When you die, if you hit hyperspace before your explosion disappears, you will still hyperspace, but finish exploding in your new location. I've experienced the same. It's quite comical to say the least! I'd leave it in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 It is quite comical. However, to save space, the shields and hyperspace logic have intermingled code which means when I fix shields it'll also fix hyperspace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 Hmm, wonder how many variations there are now with the new menu options Players - 5 options Style - 2 options Color - 17 options Level - 4 options Down - 4 options Friction - 2 options Bonus - 4 options Magna-Mines - 2 options Control - 4 options 5*2*17*3*4*2*4*2*4 + 5*2*17*1*1*2*4*2*4 141, 440 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 You forgot one. The "do nothing" option and stare at title screen. Bad joke I know, just woke up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 revised the heartbeat timer could start shields and hyperspace after getting killed, fixed saucer targeted an empty spot at end of round, fixed shifted shield sound effect to a higher in priority fixed some problems with 2 players and 1 joystick that was introduced with gamepad support fixed a problem where shots on the left side of screen would pass thru asteroids if they were wrapped around the left & right border. Noticeable with large asteroids, but affected smaller asteroids as well fixed a "burnt out" bottom segment of player 2's lives display Manga-Mines and saucer can now detect the closest path to you even if it means wrapping around the edge of the screen Magna-Mine speeds revised, level now taken into account Magna-Mines leave the screen quicker after killing player Magna-Mines no longer leave screen if player uses hyperspace I thought this would be the initial Release Candidate, but I found 2 new issues while testing this build: I got past 50K for the first time tonight and experienced a screen roll. like the shots used to be, if the player is on the left edge of the screen and an asteroid is on the right edge wrapping around to the left, the player will not collide with the asteroid. ROMs - Harmony or Stella1 spacerocks20120930_NTSC.bin spacerocks20120930_PAL.bin 1 Requires Stella ver 3.7.1 or later. See first post for instructions on how to reduce flicker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I couldn't get past 41K just now playing on real hardware, but the last game my projector did lose signal and blank costing me a life so maybe that was a "roll"? It really feels polished now. I want to buy this for everyone I know, it has so much going for it! Just shooting rocks can get monotonous, but with the saucers and magna-mines it really gets you to move around and not sit in one place. Then there is two players at the same time with co op _and_ fight.. 141,000+ variations? What a marketing dream. Put THAT on the box!. ...well, the reviews are sure to be spectacular! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 Thanks! Yeah, the projector losing the signal was probably a screen roll. To fix that I need to get some diagnostics into the program as I don't know if the roll is caused by overscan or vertical blank taking too long to run. Until I know that, I don't know which part of the program needs to be optimized. I've got a lot going on in October though, so getting this wrapped up might take a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Hopefully it'll be something minor, and easily fixable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck D. Head Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 After seeing it at PRGE, this game is #1 on my want list! Great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 (edited) I did some rearranging that might have fixed the screen roll/jitter problem. However, I need people with Harmony cartridges to run the stress test on their real Atari using a variety of game options in order to see if it fixed it or not. If you have a Harmony please download the Stress Test build and let me know if you experience any screen hiccups. Edited October 2, 2012 by SpiceWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 After seeing it at PRGE, this game is #1 on my want list! Great job! Thanks! The only "Space Rocks photos" I've seen where like the ones below, so I didn't know if it was seen or not! http://www.flickr.co...157631667275395 http://www.flickr.co...157631667275395 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck D. Head Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 Thanks! The only "Space Rocks photos" I've seen where like the ones below, so I didn't know if it was seen or not! http://www.flickr.co...157631667275395 http://www.flickr.co...157631667275395 Trust me, I said the phrase "yeah, but have you seen Space Rocks?" at least eight times over the weekend, followed by dragging them to it..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 I have a two quick questions on the behavior of the ship motion and the fired shots. 1- Space Rocks uses a relativistic cannon doesn't it? By that I mean the shots fired always travel at the same velocity regardless if fired forward or backward when the ship is in motion. This is different than Asteroids. In Asteroids the cannon's shot velocity is added to the velocity of the ship. If fired in the direction of travel you have bullets moving at great speed. Conversely, if you get going really fast and do a 180 while coasting, then fire the cannon shots, the shots are almost stationary with very little movement. 2- The ship's motion, and response in a turn. Say you are going full speed straight up, for example. And with friction off, coast for a moment, set the angle or point the the ship's nose at about the 2 o'clock position and turn on the engine. Nearly all vertical velocity stops and you "re-build" your speed again in a new direction. This doesn't happen if you point the ship at 3 o'clock. The 90 degree change happens smoothly. You don't lose speed. And if you are traveling at less than full speed, velocity vectors integrate smoothly at any angle between thrust and direction of travel. Just wondering if these are features by design or something got overlooked. And noting differences in control behavior between SpaceRocks and Asteroids. I neither like or dislike the current set-up. After all, we can't have the ship going so fast that it escapes from the playfield, we'd be in trouble then! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 Yep, thats how they work. I'm not making any more design changes to the game, just bug fixes, as my time for Space Rocks is now quite constrained. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 (edited) Announcing Release Candidate 1! You can play the Release Candidate ROMs on either Harmony or Stella to provide feedback on bugs. If you have a Harmony, please also run the Stress Test ROM on your Atari. It starts each wave with 12 asteroids in order to stress the routines. If you noticed any screen jitters or rolls please let me know right away. Release Candidate 1 ROMs - Harmony or Stella1 spacerocks20121002_NTSC.bin spacerocks20121002_PAL.bin Stress Test ROM - Harmony2 spacerocks20121002_STRESS_TEST.bin 1 Requires Stella ver 3.7.1 or later. See first post for instructions on how to reduce flicker. 2while the stress test will run on Stella, it's not useful as a stress test because Stella doesn't emulate how long the ARM processes take to run. Edited October 24, 2012 by SpiceWare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LidLikesIntellivision Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I played a few games with various changing options for each try and until now everything is ok. I'll keep testing. If something goes wrong, I'll tell you. I'm testing in an Atari 7800. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I played stress test into the fourth round of rocks. Nothing to report, no problems here. Just noticed that there is no attract screen in stress test, I wanted to check my score I think it was 29,000... I did want to mention that I like when it's very hard and there's an impossible amount of things flying around -- it doesn't slow down one bit. It is amazing it is the nature of the hardware itself that the game can't slow down or the display would fall apart! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 Just noticed that there is no attract screen in stress test, I wanted to check my score I think it was 29,000... Looks like you found a bug! I'll see if I can't fix it tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn4_kwfCGfc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted October 3, 2012 Share Posted October 3, 2012 spacerocks20121001_STRESS_TEST.bin It was this bin Yesterday's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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