Tons O' demos

[Master_Programmer]

I have, 4 demos. At once.

 

"MLP" is that pony game i'm working on. The controls, are

 

Switchselect - change characters.

Fire - use an attack, if the pony has one programmed in.

Directions - Come on, do i really need to explain this one?

 

If a pony is defeated, then they are permanently defeated, until you reset the game.

Fluttershy, and Applejack currently have no attacks, and Firefly's(The pink and blue pony), doesn't have collision programmed in for her attack.

 

The only enemies are normal, and golden paraspites.

 

The collision detection is giving me problems, and a few other things don't want to work right...so don't expect much from this demo.

 

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"Robotman" is my attempt at an Atari 2600 Megaman X, and in it's current state, is nothing more than a tech-demo.

 

Left and right - it's obvious, isn't it?

Down - Dash

Up - Jump

Fire - use current weapon

SwitchSelect - Change weapons

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Snik the Horguehug, is the full, complete version of the demo I released a while back. I've had it completed for quite some time, but never got around to releasing it, due to job-hunting taking up quite a bit of time in my day.

 

It has 6 zones total, if I remember correctly, and now has a 2-player mode, where both players take turns, player 1 being blue Snik, and player 2 being red Snik.

 

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"Solar Force" is my attempt at making a very fast-paced game.

 

~On the title~

 

Switch Select - Changes characters

Switch Reset - Starts the game

 

~ In game ~

 

Directions - You know this one.

Fire - Fires your character's unique attack, so long as you're standing still. (:<

 

The objective of the game, is to move upwards until your distance, the number indicated by the score digits, reaches Zero.

 

But be warned, every single more you make, drains a bit of your energy, causing your health-bar to slowly deplete.

Getting hit by a badguy also depletes life.

 

Badguys show up randomly, and so go white health-packs, which are quite rare, and the screen won't allow them to move-offscreen, so when a healthpack, or baguy, is on screen, they have to be defeated/picked up to move on.

 

Oh, and just to increase the difficulty, you can ONLY ATTACK UPWARDS, so good luck with that. XD

 

There are 3 characters, each with unique stats.

 

Character 0, the Yellow robot, is the Celestial Unit.

 

She has the highest defense against enemy shots of all of them, taking only one point of damage, but she moves the slowest.

Her attack is a thin laser stream, that does 2 damage to foes.

 

Character 1, the Blue robot, is the Lunar Unit.

 

She is quicker than the Celestia unit, but she takes 2 points of damage from each shot.

 

She has the weakest attack, a tiny phaser beam.

 

Character 2, the Red robot, is An incomplete, new generation prototype, known as Mecha Max. (Yes, he's Max as a robot)

 

His attack is the most devastating, a hyper-powered, over-charged plasma-cannon.

 

But, with such power, comes a huge risk.

 

Since he's only a prototype, his armor is *EXTREMELY* thin, and his power core is very unstable. He takes 4 units of damage from any shot.

 

 

That's all my demos I can release so far...so...enjoy!

 

I look forward to feedback!

MLP REV 91120121118.bin

ROBOTMAN REV 922121204.bin

Snik The Horguehug.bin

SOLAR FORCE 922121204.bin

[Master_Programmer]

Here soon, i'm going to add something special to the Max character in Solar force.

So far, like I said before, he has an unstable power core...so I'm going to add another thing to make playing him more risky.

 

Due to his unstable power core, when he's hit by an enemy shot, there's a small chance he'll blow up, regardless of how much energy he has left.

[Gateway]

Some nice work so far!

 

Here are some comments about each game. Keep in mind I am giving feedback based on my first impression of trying each of these out a few minutes ago. I may go back later and my opinion could be different, but wanted to give you some thoughts like you may expect from the average gamer out there who may not understand all the blood, sweat and tears that go into programming a good game on the 2600.

-

 

1. My Little Pony:

 

I like the animations of the ponies and the unique abilities for the fire button that you have programmed so far. The animations for death and running, etc, are good, especially in such a small character size. Though I am not sure what the ponies are supposed to do yet. This may make more sense when you get more of the game added.

 

I did notice that some of the background colors in the rooms blur with the pony colors, so see if you can find a few colors for the background to use throughout the whole game that doesn't clash with any of the 6 pony colors, otherwise it will be hard to see your pony on the screen. In other words, I assume you don't want to change the pony colors because they should match the characters on the show, so the easiest thing to change is the playfield colors.

 

2. Robot Man

 

Nice animation! I can see the inspiration from Mega Man and it looks good. The different weapons are a nice touch, however I am not sure what the gray Robot Man weapons is supposed to do? Is it a bomb you drop or something?

 

Also, I noticed the graphic appears to be 9 or 10 pixels wide rather than the usual 8 for a player. Are you using player1 and player 2 both to draw him? If so, this will limit the kind of enemies you can have in the game for him to fight.

 

3. Snik the Horgehug

 

I saw your first demo for this a while back and this one is improved and expanded on that last demo. Again, good work on the animations for the rings and the bouncing rings when you fight the Robotnik expy. However, the screens that Snik ( aka Sonic ) moves through have a lot of holes to fall into.

 

I haven't played all of the Sonic games out there, so maybe this is from one of those games, but the Sonic games I have played in the past mostly had large areas to run and gain speed with very few holes. My instinct is that I want Snik to run fast, therefore I skip through the other screens quickly and jump over to face Robotnik immediately.

 

This may be difficult to program because of the limited nature of the 2600, but Snik needs a longer path to run with very few holes and more enemies if they can be put in somehow.

 

4. Solar Force

 

Again, good animations for the shooting for each uniques character, however I couldn't tell if they were blobs or what until playing for a few minutes. Finally I realized it is a top-down perspective.. sort of, for the characters.

 

One thing that confused me was that if your goal is to shoot upward and also journey to the top (reach 0000 on your counter) then why can you scroll down the screen? The only logic I see is if you need to get under the enemy you are shooting at. However it seems he hangs out in the upper part of the screen anyway until you kill him, so maybe you need a limit of how far down you can scroll- Perhaps once you pass a certain point you are not allowed to go back (similar to Super Mario Bros. horizontal scrolling on the NES. You could only backtrack the size of the screen currently.)

-

 

Anyway, overall, you have got some good progress here! I am also interested to see more done on your Metal Max game. Did you complete that game or still adding to it?

[Master_Programmer]

With the MLP game, Yeah, i'm having problems with collision, so i'm working on fixing that first. That's why it took so long to get that demo out, and even then, I didn't manage to fix the collision very well.

 

 

 

With Robotman, yes, i'm using two sprites for him, and he's not 9 pixels wide, he's 16.

 

and i'm using the multisprite kernel, so I still have a good 4 more sprites...which is handy, because one boss i'm designing will be 3 sprites, 24 pixels, by 32 pixels.

 

He'll be GIANT. XD

 

the black weapon is nonfunctional...and the green weapon, is special. It has to a degree, physics applied to it. if Robotman is moving in a direction, while firing the shot, the shot will have more velocity in said direction.

 

 

As for Snik, yes, sadly that's a limitation I hardly had a way around..and since i only have 2 bytes left in the rom, i'm not going to fiddle with it much anymore.

 

 

With Solar Force, yes it's a top-down perspective. And yeah, you're only allowed to go downwards, due to the way the enemies work. Even then, there are still a few glitches.

 

Right now though, i'm focusing on a two-player mode for Solar Force...a competitive mode, where each player picks a character, and races towards the finish, and can of coarse attack each other, but all that does is stun the player that's hit.

 

 

 

As for Metal Max 2, it's still nothing more than a PNG with sprites on it at the moment. I'm running into a huge problem.

 

I can't figure out how to make the gameplay work...although...I think Solar Force has helped me work out a good idea.

 

Basically, I wanted Metal Max 2, to not be a platformer. I want it to play like a top-down view, Sonic game.

 

As fast as the gameplay for Solar Force is, I think, with a bit of tweaking, that engine will be perfect.

 

By the way. I do have a title for Metal Max 2. It won't be called Metal Max 2...no, I have a new name for it.

 

"Max & Punchline"

 

I have a friend on another forum, who has a very interesting character called 'Punchline', a living, life-sized puppet.

 

And, as kind of a gift for them, I'm having their character be a playable hero in the new Metal Max game. And I have gotten permission to do so. XD

[Chuck D. Head]

Like Gateway said, the animations on the ponies look great! I showed this to my daughter and, well if you ever do produce a game, you have one sale!

[Master_Programmer]

Like Gateway said, the animations on the ponies look great! I showed this to my daughter and, well if you ever do produce a game, you have one sale!

 

Buddy, I never sell games...they're always 100% free. I never even ask for Donations..._{mostly because I don't feel i'm good enough to do that. >.>}

[Master_Programmer]

 

Those are the current Sprites for the new Metal Max game

[Master_Programmer]

http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv291/Master_Programmer_Pook/Pony_2600_zpsd8d9d206.png

 

And, if anyone's interested, there's a link to a .PNG with more sprites for the MLP game project, and the Solar Force Project.

 

http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv291/Master_Programmer_Pook/RobotMan_zpscf0b0e14.png

 

And that's sprites for the Robotman game.

[Gateway]

Nice artwork!

 

I hope you are able to fit most if not all of your graphics work in each game. On Metal Max, I notice you show the gray playfield in one set of rooms like a top-down view with a 3D effect for the walls and door way. Looks cool!

 

Also, the Robot Man Big boss character is awesome, however I hope he won't flicker too much by the time you get the extra sprites working in the multisprite kernel. I, myself have a project using the multisprite kernel and have been referring to Robert M's posts and blog about how to make full use of the extra sprites without too much flicker.

 

His Hero-themed shooter project has been helpful to understanding how he can get all those sprites on the screen. However, keep in mind that in most cases he is still keeping each sprite vertically seperated from the others.

 

So, making your big boss character 3 players wide may cause more flicker than you want it to. If you find a way around that, let us all know.

 

Good Luck!

 

http://www.atariage....themed-shooter/

[Chuck D. Head]

Buddy, I never sell games...they're always 100% free. I never even ask for Donations..._{mostly because I don't feel i'm good enough to do that. >.>}

 

Well, you'll have a fan then. I'll tell her she needs to design her own label and box; right up her alley!

[Master_Programmer]

Actually, I do all of that stuff myself. I make the game, the box-art(Unless I use an official Pic, like with the Pinkie Quest game)), etc.

 

The only thing I have troubles with, is music. Never been good with music.

[Master_Programmer]

I've got quite the conundrum.

 

With "Max and Punchline", for any sort of GOOD looking sprites, I need to use both player objects.

 

so to have enemies, I need more than 2 sprites available.

 

BUT DPC+, and Multisprite don't support scrolling, at all.

 

So, should I make no enemies for the game, to gain scrolling, sacrifice scrolling for enemies, or, risk having crappy sprites, and keep both enemies and scrolling?

[Gateway]

...

BUT DPC+, and Multisprite don't support scrolling, at all.

 

I can't speak for DPC+, but if you are talking about vertical scrolling, the Multisprite kernel does indeed support it.

 

Below is a sample from the project I am working on, based on code posted by Michael aka SeaGtGruff. I have got vertical scrolling working, but haven't gotten the inventory strip to work quite right yet, so you can ignore those lines in the BAS file.

 

Note that you can change the offset commands with the joystick in the demo by pushing up or down. The playfield I am using is 256 lines tall, but is currently set to stop scrolling at the bottom(1) and 10 from the top(246), otherwise the display gets messed up. 10 lines of vertical playfield are visible at a time instead of 11 because I am using screenheight = 80 so as not to intrude on the score minikernel area. Note this demo also uses the scback command to color the score area.

 

Finally, the pfheight command can be changed (currently pfheight = 7) to lengthen or shorten the playfield size and resolution, but keep in mind that the higher resolution means more of your 256 limit is displayed on the screen, therefore any scrolling will be shorter overall. So if you want a large "level" or "room" for your game, pfheight = 7 is a good choice, but at the cost of detail onscreen.

 

If you want the screen to move up or down on its own, you just need to set the offset command to "+1" or "-1" depending on the direction you want to screen to move. Michael has a more detailed explanation here, toward the end of the thread:

 

http://www.atariage....s-about-batari/

 

 

 

Test_multi_scroll_32k.bas

Test_multi_scroll_32k.bas.bin

[Master_Programmer]

Huh.

I had a game that tried to vertical scroll in multisprite, and it errored...but when I removed the scroll line, it compiled.

 

But then again, I get errors out of nowhere, and 80% of the time, adding lines between commands fixes them. >_>

[KevinMos3]

I tried all these on the real thing with my Harmony Cart. You've got some pretty cool stuff here.

 

I really liked the Snik game. The boss get real hard after a few levels, (once he starts diving down).

 

The Solar Force game is pretty cool too, but it needs more variation in stages to keep it interesting. Although, I don't have any ideas to be more constructive.

 

The MLP game is nice. I like the different backgrounds on screens. I suppose it's too early to be considered a "game" but you've got a nice start.

[Master_Programmer]

I actually had a neat plan for the Solar Force game.

 

On one of the levels, a badguy will appear at the bottom of the screen, and chase you as you fly upwards.

 

He will also try to shoot you with a large beam, so the point of the stage will be to try to dodge his attacks, and survive, although right now, i'm working on the 2 player battle mode...i'm not sure i'll be able to complete it though, it's giving me heck. DX

 

That, and the way the MLP game is looking, I might need to re-do everything from scratch....I don't think I really have any more room for graphics, so yeah. I might kick the game into DPC+, but...i'm very hesitant to do so. DPC+ likes to give me tons of problems...Like the kernel options command for collision isn't working for me, period. It errors 100% of the time.