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Fighter pilots needed in sector wars...


PacManPlus

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My console and tv don't seem to like darker vertical shots on a black background. If I were you I'd still leave it how it is because I paid someone to install the 8bitdomain kit and they had to redo it. Personally I think there are too many variables in the equation to actually change it to something not arcade accurate just for me.

 

With Frenzy at first I thought it was just the console needing to warm up but then later I was getting the same issue but didn't say anything because it wasn't that important.

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Just a quick update:

 

"Enemies that drop in certain waves" - done

"Secret bonuses" - mostly done, need to add one or two more. Please note, I didn't have the graphic room to add the 'window' border characters that are used when displaying the secret bonus, so I just used the same characters as the outer border.

 

That leaves sound and speech.

 

Bob

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Just a quick update:

 

"Enemies that drop in certain waves" - done

"Secret bonuses" - mostly done, need to add one or two more. Please note, I didn't have the graphic room to add the 'window' border characters that are used when displaying the secret bonus, so I just used the same characters as the outer border.

 

That leaves sound and speech.

 

Bob

HI

will the final cart support HSC ?

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Hi Guys!

 

Thanks for the help Trebor ;) - Yes I will add HSC support when everything else is done.

Here is an updated version. As stated earlier:

 

- Enemies that drop in certain waves (DONE)

- Secret Bonuses (DONE)

 

Todo:

- Double points during 'fuel status critical' (forgot about this one)

- Sound

- Speech

 

@iesposta - in-game speech is not possible with the 7800 without stopping the gameplay as you don't normally have access to each individual scanline. Groups of scanlines are broken up into 'zones' (usually 8 or 16 scanlines per zone - in the case of AstroBlaster, 16)

 

Regarding some of the 'in-game' speech, there are many that I won't be implementing due to having to stop gameplay like 'Extra Fuel', 'Use extreme caution', and a few others. Any important messages that must happen during game play will be written on the screen (like I did with the warp countdown).

 

Enjoy!

 

@DoctorTom - Thank you :) The arcade version of the docking is the same, and as I am trying to port this version as close to the arcade as possible, I won't be making any changes to the docking sequence (unless someone finds a bug of course). Thanks again!

 

Bob

 

EDIT - anyone who downloaded it before 10:05, please download it again as there was a small bug in sector 3 wave 2.

AstBlstr.A78

AstBlstr.bin

Edited by PacManPlus
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I actually started this in 160A, but didn't like the way the enemies were coming out, and didn't like the stretched screen. (Attached - please ignore the scrambled title screen)

 

I see what you mean. It would take a talented pixel artist quite a lot of work to redraw every frame of every sprite to capture the look of the originals. Have you considered doing palette animation on the enemies? I see you're already doing it where the arcade version does (albeit a lot faster than the arcade version does), but how about extending this to all of them, so for example the enemies that are primarily red and blue would pulse between those two colors in sync with their sprite animation cycle.

 

I tried the most recent version in the ProSystem emulator, some things I noticed--

 

Many things that should be red (first wave of enemies, fireballs, player shots) are orange instead.

The beams shooting out from the mothership seem to just flick between two frames instead of animating outward from the emitters.

No starfield. Due to the already-stressed sprite DMA, I'm assuming.

Would be nice to see the arcade-style title screen in the attract mode.

If the game ends while warp is activated, both text messages end up mixed together.

Enemy ships draw on top of the side borders.

Even though it wouldn't be arcade-accurate, it might be good to slightly extend the amount of time that the secret bonus message stays on screen. In the arcade game it can display for less than a second!

It would be nice to have an option to start with more ships. 3/5/7 or something like that.

Why is text in the play area always the same color as the border? Seems like in situations where there will never be any enemies on screen that it could be any color.

I hope the main menu in the final version uses a more conventional design where you move a pointer to each line of options.

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Hi!

 

 

Have you considered doing palette animation on the enemies? I see you're already doing it where the arcade version does (albeit a lot faster than the arcade version does), but how about extending this to all of them, so for example the enemies that are primarily red and blue would pulse between those two colors in sync with their sprite animation cycle.

I assume you're talking about the death sequences (for the player and the enemy)? That's really the only time I change the palette colors on the fly like that. As a side note, I actually counted the frames between each color change and sprite shape change, so the death animations *should* be exactly the same speed as the arcade.

To address your question, if I can find the ROM room I can look into that. As it stands now I'm going to have trouble fitting in the speech samples in the 17K that's left open, and I'd really like to keep this from becoming a bank-switched game. I'll see what I can do.

 

Many things that should be red (first wave of enemies, fireballs, player shots) are orange instead.

Hmm... I actually thought they *were* orange - I even put the 7800 version right up next to the arcade to get the closest color possible. Maybe it's a 7800 palette thing :(

 

The beams shooting out from the mothership seem to just flick between two frames instead of animating outward from the emitters.

That was due to not having enough character space. I figured the 'beam' from the mothership and the secret bonus window frame would be the two places to take away from.

 

No starfield. Due to the already-stressed sprite DMA, I'm assuming.

Exactly. I can add stationary stars, no problem (as characters). But I didn't think that would look too good.

 

Would be nice to see the arcade-style title screen in the attract mode.

I had every intention of adding that originally. Once I ran low on character space I quickly got away from it. :(

 

If the game ends while warp is activated, both text messages end up mixed together.

Thanks for finding that. I will fix. :)

 

Enemy ships draw on top of the side borders.

Believe it or not, this also has to do with the sprite DMA. I can't make the character mode last, because there isn't time. So the character mode stays constant as the first thing in the display list (i.e. it's there by default so I don't add it manualy), and the sprites get added afterward.

 

Even though it wouldn't be arcade-accurate, it might be good to slightly extend the amount of time that the secret bonus message stays on screen.

Completely agree here. Do you think the initial display should last longer or the countdown take longer or both?

 

It would be nice to have an option to start with more ships. 3/5/7 or something like that.

I will see how much ROM space I have after the samples are added. I should be able to add that.

 

Why is text in the play area always the same color as the border? Seems like in situations where there will never be any enemies on screen that it could be any color.

The Character Mode in the display list is the entire width of the screen (it includes the borders). I can look into breaking it up to be border-playfield-border but I think that would make the processing of the display list in VBLANK take longer which will push over the limit. I will try it and see what happens. :)

 

I hope the main menu in the final version uses a more conventional design where you move a pointer to each line of options.

That all depends on how much ROM space I have left.

 

I really appreciate the feedback as always.

Thanks!

 

...why do I get the feeling that this game in particular is a personal favorite of yours? ;)

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Hmm... I actually thought they *were* orange - I even put the 7800 version right up next to the arcade to get the closest color possible. Maybe it's a 7800 palette thing :(

Looking at Astro Blaster via MAME - I would use the Force Binky, Luke Bob. Perhaps 27 -> 34 (Or more in the 34-37 area). :)

 

The 2x range is just orange where 3x gives us the red-orange and more inline with what the Arcade is providing (At least via MAME).

 

In the arcade, your player shots definitely register a strong red with an RGB of: 201,0,1.

 

Enemy pilots range with one measurement at: 240, 60, 75. Another measurement places: 252, 21, 30.

 

The red does appear to be stronger:

 

post-18-0-73127100-1388371153_thumb.png post-18-0-72741200-1388371272_thumb.png

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I assume you're talking about the death sequences (for the player and the enemy)?

No, those look good. I'm talking about the waves where the enemies are constantly color-cycling (to match the arcade levels where they do that).

 

As it stands now I'm going to have trouble fitting in the speech samples in the 17K that's left open, and I'd really like to keep this from becoming a bank-switched game.

I've been wondering how you intend to compress the speech samples. Have you decided which lines you'd like to use?

 

Hmm... I actually thought they *were* orange - I even put the 7800 version right up next to the arcade to get the closest color possible.

I don't have a MAME install going right now, but every YouTube video I've looked at, the saucers in the first wave of sector 1 are pale red.

 

That was due to not having enough character space. I figured the 'beam' from the mothership and the secret bonus window frame would be the two places to take away from.

Darn. Well, I'd recommend at least tweaking the character data so the two frames of the beam each have the same pixel pattern. It's a bit asymmetrical currently.

 

I can add stationary stars, no problem (as characters). But I didn't think that would look too good.

It might be nice to try, see what people think. Maybe have them twinkle. Wait, would they be blue stars? Yeah, that wouldn't look so good.

 

Believe it or not, this also has to do with the sprite DMA. I can't make the character mode last, because there isn't time.

It's just as well, since this way the text warnings don't appear on top of the enemies.

 

Completely agree here. Do you think the initial display should last longer or the countdown take longer or both?

I was just thinking it should hang around like half a second longer before disappearing, but this is the sort of thing that takes tinkering to find the best presentation so... dunno.

 

The Character Mode in the display list is the entire width of the screen (it includes the borders).

Oh, that makes sense. I thought the text was being rendered as sprites.

 

Do you plan to include the "EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION" speech before each meteor wave? If not, the warning as flashing text would be nice.

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Ok I am going to say this and it may offend some people...the Atari 7800 is LIMITED in what it can do...you HAVE to understand that...arcade ports are NOT i repeat NOT going to be exact. EVER!

 

I did exactly what trebor did and did a side by side comparison and to me it looks awesome. Bob is being VERY generous with his time and talent for this community and if it were not for his love of the game we would not have anything new for the 7800.

 

If you look at the other arcade ports on the 7800 ..NONE of them are exactly like the arcade. they come close but miss the mark consistently. I realize that one can use a Super Mega Ultra RAM ROM cart to add memory and space for a game but it all comes down to the actual hardware and it's limitations on processing power.

 

So what if the initial ships are orange instead of red...or the players shot missile is orange instead of red...WE HAVE ASTRO BLASTER on the 7800!!!!!!!

 

So I want to say THANK YOU BOB for surprising all of us with the GREAT port of a GREAT game. If you do nothing more to this game I am happy with what you have shared with us thus far. all I can say is YOU ROCK DUDE!!!!

 

and that is my opinion.

 

NIKON out.

Edited by NIKON
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Nikon, no one here is attacking Bob or this already-excellent port of Astro Blaster (seriously, this ALREADY surpasses what Atari would have done in 1984, and we all appreciate that!). They're just giving feedback as Bob continues work on the game, as well as being respectful that the Atari 7800 does have it limits. So long as everyone is respectful of Bob and his replies, then it's all good.

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Thanks, guys - for everything. :)

 

Yes, I do appreciate feedback as I always want to make my ports as close as possible to the original game. I also found some issues when enabling the HSC function that I will have to work on. :(

But on the bright side, I was able to separate the left and right borders from the playfield text area without taking much of a hit to processing time. So the playfield text will be a different color than the border.

 

Regarding the samples, I'm only going to use the ones that aren't spoken during actualy gameplay. (i.e. "Fighter pilots needed...", "(0,1,2) ships remaining", "Play Over", etc.) Reason being is that I have to stop everything to play the sample, so I don't think anything else will work too well.

Also, I see what you mean about the color-cycling. I will slow it down.

The colors of the enemies I have to be careful of - apparently what I'm finding out is, the darker the color, the worse it looks in 320 mode on the real thing. :(

 

PS - Does anyone know in what ways the difficulty ramps once you pass sector 7 and start at sector 1 again?

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The colors of the enemies I have to be careful of - apparently what I'm finding out is, the darker the color, the worse it looks in 320 mode on the real thing. :(

Is it possible to stay at the same level of brightness, but just adding more red to the color so 27 --> 37?

 

Additionally, maybe the blue could have less red as the Arcade "blue" contains no red: 0, 108, 255 (With no screen filters/simulations applied).

 

The 7800 does not have such a color. The current selected "blue" [87] distributes this way (With no screen filters/simulators applied): 90, 114, 227.

 

If that 87 selection is shifted one row to 9x, we lose some of that red. Under 97 it becomes: 68, 132, 206.

96 is: 51, 115, 189.

 

Perhaps 96/97 would be a better fit than 87 for the "blue" (?)

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Would having the game stop and say "Warp Activated" and stop to say whatever it says when warp ends be too obnoxious? It seems to me like it wouldn't disrupt gameplay too much, and be similar to the voice clips in Berzerk and Frenzy when Evil Otto comes out. Would it be possible and what do people who are actually good at the game think of that option?

 

Also, I hope the "Entering Sector X" statement stays in the game.

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Nikon, no one here is attacking Bob or this already-excellent port of Astro Blaster (seriously, this ALREADY surpasses what Atari would have done in 1984, and we all appreciate that!). They're just giving feedback as Bob continues work on the game, as well as being respectful that the Atari 7800 does have it limits. So long as everyone is respectful of Bob and his replies, then it's all good.

I am sorry...but i was reading this color is not exact and that color is not exact and why don't we have speech...I was caught up in the moment and I just had to say something...Maybe there is a reason that the talk byte on Jinks is short and fast...and have we forgotten that the speech in Berserk and Frenzy stop all action?

As for me written notifications on screen is good enough.

 

Maybe I did go a little over the top in defending Bob but I don't want him to stop making games...he is the Dah Har Master of the 7800!!!

 

I am just so grateful to have new titles for the 7800...it expands what can be done in the HSC as well as bring variety to the 7800 for everyone.

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For in-game speech, along with on-screen text, you could support AtariVox+ since this game is a "talkie."

I can make speech data for this game.

I thought Bob was trying really, really hard to make this a game to fit on a standard board (which I heartily approve of). For my own curiosity, however, what is required to enjoy the AtariVox+?

 

 

Would having the game stop and say "Warp Activated" and stop to say whatever it says when warp ends be too obnoxious? It seems to me like it wouldn't disrupt gameplay too much, and be similar to the voice clips in Berzerk and Frenzy when Evil Otto comes out. Would it be possible and what do people who are actually good at the game think of that option?

As a friendly suggestion to Bob, I would keep this in mind once the other planned additions are done. If there's room on the cart for these lines, then it would be fair to test this on a rom for us to play with, right?

Edited by Jaynz
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PS - Does anyone know in what ways the difficulty ramps once you pass sector 7 and start at sector 1 again?

Couldn't find anything indicating any difficulty ramping pass sector 7, just that it repeats back to sector 1. I did come across this little bit of info, not sure if you seen it/if it is helpful:

 

http://donhodges.com/Astro_Blaster_Secret_Bonus_01.htm

 

Probably seen this too, but some nice info here as well: http://tcrf.net/Astro_Blaster

 

The game's difficulty balancing among the three revisions I found the most interesting.

 

Looks like a strong orange and a strong red is used throughout the game, along with a 'pale red' as ZB nicely described it. A 37 split (Between the current 27 'orange' and a 33/34 for a 'red') is sort of a compromise between them, but as always whatever you think is best. ;)

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About as definitive as it gets on the game: http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=astro-blaster&page=detail&id=129

 

Judging from comments on various boards, it LOOKS like the difficulty stops ramping up at sector seven, with all the speeds, shots, etc., consistent from then on it. I haven't found any hard info on that, however, and I'm sadly not good enough on MAME to get that far in the first place. :(

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For in-game speech, along with on-screen text, you could support AtariVox+ since this game is a "talkie."

I can make speech data for this game.

The arcade Astro Blaster uses a GI SP0256 speech chip (or some variation thereof), so it should be possible to rip the allophone lists from the ROM and map them to what the AtariVox's Speakjet chip uses.

 

I wonder if it would be possible for the 7800 to emulate the SP0256? Since all the speech is presumably generated by stringing together short packets of digital audio, this approach would allow for much more efficient storage of digital speech.

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