Colecovision version of Pong and Computer Space Gameplay Clips

[VGC1612]

All 3 are amazing!Very 70's theme,i like that

[Kiwi]

Here's a couple ideas for a pong title screen if you need one:

 

4.png Arcade cabinet style

 

5.png Home pong style

 

6.png Super pong style

Wow, you're reading my mind. The title screens are really cool! Home pong is one thing I want to put in there, hand ball, hockey, and etc. Super Pong, I definitely want to put a spin on Pong. All three of these screen would fit in this game. The main game selection screen where you pick your Pong game is how Earthbound Mock-up came to be. I wanted to have a series of groovy type of background animation. I kinda want like a music video with varies crazy background. I'll definitely get my mitts on Pong once I get Computer Space completed. I can't wait . I have all these ideas in my head and I really need to put it on paper and then start drawing it. I want to fill the entire 32KB ROM for each games, with little space left as possible. I should have time tomorrow and all day Monday to work on Computer Space.

[Hakogame 箱亀]

Last year Atari held a competition for indie devs to create a new pong. Most of the finalists barely touched the gameplay of pong, and only added un-inspired surface embellishments.

 

Anyway, I saw a few decent ideas for gameplay improvements for pong, such as:

 

Safety barrier behind each payers paddle (essentially lets you have 1 miss before your opponent gains a point)

breakout style bricks in the middle of the screen

Third paddle in the center (random movement)

Randomly appearing blocks in the playfield (either destroyable or non destroyable)

Changing paddle sizes

Double paddles

Multiball

 

These could all be used in an updated version of pong if you're adding one. Maybe whenever the ball is hit about 10 times (maybe make it random 10/11 times so it doesn't always trigger for the same player every time) have a new effect trigger. Or at the 10 hit mark, you could have an item appear in the middle of the screen, and have it trigger an effect whenever the ball hits it.

 

Ever see breakout on Arcade's Greatest Hits for the Master System? You could try using an animated background like in that game for a pong update. Maybe have it as one of the random "power up" effects.

 

Just some thoughts.

[Kiwi]

The breakable bricks are going in the game.along with the power ups. It'll be like Arkanoid Pong. Your idea match my idea where to put these bricks. I didn't know about the indie contest and I looked it up. I found pretty interesting story about Pong World.

One feature that is in is you can slice the ball to change it speed on that hit. I don't think the original arcade version had that, but old computer youtube video of Pong looks like one hit sped up the ball gave me the idea, but really the ball sped up after a several hits. The ball goes a lot faster in my game. Not too fast to go through your paddle hit collusion box.



For features for Computer Space as right now:
Colorful mode
Solid version of ships and UFOs, each ships graphics are 48 sprites so there's 4 of those .
2 player cooperative with friendly fire enable or disable

dog fight, 1P ship vs 2P ship
Ship vs UFO, where Player 2 can move the UFO with ease with the Joypad. UFO can use the Keypad to shoot in 8 directions. Fire1 autoaim at the 1 player ship.
short game, last like 30 seconds

normal game, 100 seconds
long game, 200 seconds

Edited September 29, 2013 by Kiwi

[Retro Rogue]

The gameplay looks a little off on PONG. The speedups don't look right and it doesn't look like the paddles have all the segments.

[Hakogame 箱亀]

Does computer space have the "gravity well" in the center of the screen like the original Space War?

If so, for the update, you could have it start as a sun, and over the course of time, collapse into a black hole; increasing gravity as time went on.

[Retro Rogue]

Does computer space have the "gravity well" in the center of the screen like the original Space War?

If so, for the update, you could have it start as a sun, and over the course of time, collapse into a black hole; increasing gravity as time went on.

 

Computer Space is not Spacewar. It was not a copy of the game. As Ted stated, they were inspired by the game and did not try to clone it.

[Kiwi]

The gameplay looks a little off on PONG. The speedups don't look right and it doesn't look like the paddles have all the segments.

When you hit the ball while the paddle is moving in the gif above, it is applying a spin on the ball to speed up or down, this was not in the original Pong. It will be optional. The paddles have 7 segments. 7 different angles it can apply to the ball depending where on the paddle it hits. There's an option for 11 or 15 points game like the arcade cabinet, which has a physical switch on the arcade cabinet.

 

Does computer space have the "gravity well" in the center of the screen like the original Space War?

If so, for the update, you could have it start as a sun, and over the course of time, collapse into a black hole; increasing gravity as time went on.

There isn't gravity well programmed in the game. I don't think I will have the space to code that in. We'll see...

[Retro Rogue]

When you hit the ball while the paddle is moving in the gif above, it is applying a spin on the ball to speed up or down, this was not in the original Pong. It will be optional.

 

Is the normal speeding up routine in there?

 

The spin was in the original Odyssey Tennis game it was taken from (called "English").

 

The paddles have 7 segments. 7 different angles it can apply to the ball depending where on the paddle it hits.

PONG has 8 segments, not 7.

[Kiwi]

Is the normal speeding up routine in there?

Yes, the speed up is in.

 

PONG has 8 segments, not 7.

I stand corrected, there is 2 middle segments that only does horizontal motion. Still 7 angles possible produced by the paddle.

[youki]

May i suggest to have this title for Computer space

 

 

But with just a little modification.... can we have a naked woman instead? in the same position of course

[Retro Rogue]

Yes, the speed up is in.I stand corrected, there is 2 middle segments that only does horizontal motion. Still 7 angles possible produced by the paddle.

I'm assuming you assigned specific angles. What did you use to decide the angles? The original doesn't produce the angles by degrees, rather circuit timing, so there's no comparable setting.

[+nanochess]

May i suggest to have this title for Computer space

 

 

But with just a little modification.... can we have a naked woman instead? in the same position of course

Youki, at this rate you'll end writing the "Computer SpaSEX" and "Erotic Pong" games for Colecovision!

[Kiwi]

I'm assuming you assigned specific angles. What did you use to decide the angles? The original doesn't produce the angles by degrees, rather circuit timing, so there's no comparable setting.

 

Yes, the angles are specific. 7 different collusion boxes for the paddles sprites. Top of the paddle will give the ball 30 degree angle, upper part of the paddle will give it 45 degree, lower upper part of the paddle will give the ball 60 degree angle, middle part will give the ball 90, and so on. It's basically give the ball x projection a 2 plus speed, and the ball y projection a 2 plus speed if it hits the upper part of the paddle. There are no decimals in these variables so the ball is update 30 fps to slow it down. Well yes, I do know that the original does not have CPU. These 2 is rather a recreation for the Colecovision. I wanted the games to be like the arcade counterpart. Also, give an enhance version of these games for people to enjoy if they get bored playing with the original version.

 

 

May i suggest to have this title for Computer space

 

 

But with just a little modification.... can we have a naked woman instead? in the same position of course

Maybe I will go along with J-F having 2 separate version of this game after all LOL

[Retro Rogue]

Yes, the angles are specific. 7 different collusion boxes for the paddles sprites. Top of the paddle will give the ball 30 degree angle, upper part of the paddle will give it 45 degree, lower upper part of the paddle will give the ball 60 degree angle, middle part will give the ball 90, and so on. It's basically give the ball x projection a 2 plus speed, and the ball y projection a 2 plus speed if it hits the upper part of the paddle. There are no decimals in these variables so the ball is update 30 fps to slow it down. Well yes, I do know that the original does not have CPU.

It's got nothing to do with not having a microprocessor. Specifically, when I was working with Al Alcorn to do a logic level recreation of the game in Flash for the current Atari, he stated the angles weren't done via fixed degrees. Rather it's done via the timing. The ball has a flip-flop for the x direction and the y direction rate was done via the timing circuitry related to the spot positioning of the ball.

 

Likewise, the paddles shouldn't be giving an increase in x rate until after a certain amount of hits.

 

These 2 is rather a recreation for the Colecovision. I wanted the games to be like the arcade counterpart. Also, give an enhance version of these games for people to enjoy if they get bored playing with the original version.

 

Just include the paddle holes that are in the coin-op version and it shouldn't be a boredom issue.

[Kiwi]

Here's a longer version of the game in action with spin functions disable. The 6 is going to get fixed.

"Likewise, the paddles shouldn't be giving an increase in x rate until after a certain amount of hits."

Now I just got it, the y variable was also given the speed increase. So no y speed up after given hits.

[Retro Rogue]

pong longer gif.gif Here's a longer version of the game in action with spin functions disable. The 6 is going to get fixed.

 

"Likewise, the paddles shouldn't be giving an increase in x rate until after a certain amount of hits."

Now I just got it, the y variable was also given the speed increase. So no y speed up after given hits.

 

Yes, between the x and y direction only x has speed increases. However, the x shouldn't be increasing either though until a certain number of hits are met. There's only three x speed rates in the arcade PONG: less than five volleys, between 5 and 12 volleys, and over 12 volleys..

[Brockolye]

So do you guys know if the Colecovision will be able to produce the sounds from the Computer Space arcade correctly??

 

I know there are limitations...but I'm not very technical with that stuff.

 

:

 

 

Edited November 1, 2013 by Brockolye

[Kiwi]

Here's a video of it with sounds. Not 100% accurate, but I did what I could.