+swlovinist Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Would love to see dual stick added to control. Wow, this is looking VERY good. As Robotron 2084 being my favorite game of all time, sign me up for a cart when made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godzillajoe Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 I would add the incentive to keep moving. In the video above, it seems like you can just park in one spot and fire away. Where's the fun in that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 Literally parking will get you killed fast enough. Camping in the bottom row, ducking in and out, is safer than roaming the screen, but in most levels you'll need to duck out at least once for ammo. When I make humanoid saving more important It will motivate the player out of the bottom row more often. I think its important that the player gets a varying texture of experience here. There should be moments when the player can aggressively camp and play Space Invaders from the safety of the bottom, and there should be those "oh crap, I need to enter the fray" moments too. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 In the video above, it seems like you can just park in one spot and fire away. Where's the fun in that? As RevEng mentioned, the technique employed was "camping in the bottom row, ducking in and out", for the most part. Was the bottom-left corner favored more/most? Sure. But there are plenty of times the player moved out from there and even away from the bottom row completely when deemed necessary. RevEng already noted, the game will be further adjusted to force persuade the player to rescue and preserve alive humanoids with greater urgency and frequency. Many times a person will choose to play or tackle a game/level the way they see fit. What is deemed "fun", in various ways, is up to the player to decide. For example, some people go for highest points achievable when playing a game of Pac-Man, Mr. Do!, or Dig Dug. Others just look to clear the board(s) as fast as possible. In side-scrollers, some like to go for fastest times, others go for the most points achievable, and then there are those that just like to take the safest, or a conservative paced, route. In a game like Robotron: 2084 or Asteroids, some like to move their player or ship around the board a lot. Others prefer to move their ship or player very little or slightly, and try to destroy as many targets as possible from the same spot. Currently with Salvo 2085, if a player wants to run around like a lunatic - they can. A player wants to camp frequently in one area or section of the screen - they can. A player wants to 'mix it up' with a little lunacy and some camping too - they can. Looks like in future revisions, RevEng will develop it further as a 'mix it up' deal 'enforced'; regardless, the player will still have the choice of going at it full throttle or more conservatively, depending on their style - and that's awesome too. The game, even 'as is' now, is a hell of a lot of fun. I find myself constantly reacting, looking for where/when the next enemy or/and their bullet appears. A great feature of the game is there is no set way (Or at least none that I could easily distinguish) of when an enemy is going to send a shot your way. Sometimes an enemy fires at you and other times they do not. Additionally, while enemies often come out to the 'main part' of the maze, sometimes they're just "teasing" and will hold off from entering the maze and just pace from the outskirts (and also just fire from there at times!)...Very sneaky There is a large healthy dose of action and fun with this game. Literally parking will get you killed fast enough. Camping in the bottom row, ducking in and out, is safer than roaming the screen, but in most levels you'll need to duck out at least once for ammo. When I make humanoid saving more important It will motivate the player out of the bottom row more often. I think its important that the player gets a varying texture of experience here. There should be moments when the player can aggressively camp and play Space Invaders from the safety of the bottom, and there should be those "oh crap, I need to enter the fray" moments too. This just keeps on getting better and looking forward to more additions and enhancements to an already great game to play...Thanks, RevEng! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godzillajoe Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Running around like a lunatic is sorta my thing Anyway, I'm just BS'ing ideas, take 'em or leave 'em. RevEng seems to know what he's doing, the game looks great already and I'll definitely need a cart when it gets released. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Yeah we need a cart release Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 Cart release some day, for sure, but I have a fair bit of work planned for the game first. And you guys can feel free to continue to throw ideas my way. I'm glad to hear them, though obviously I make no promises to implement them all. Heads up that I've put a minor update to the game in the first post. I fixed a small bug where humanoid points would sometimes pop up in error later in a round. I also took the opportunity to swap the fire buttons, since firing with A seemed more natural. The game will continue to a look and feel massively influenced by classic arcade games, but I've also tweaked the name to "T:ME Salvo" (feel free to refer to it as just "Salvo" if you prefer) and added a matching back story. The plan is to eventually have a few games in the "T:ME" universe, and they will not all necessarily be mine. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Cart release some day, for sure, but I have a fair bit of work planned for the game first. And you guys can feel free to continue to throw ideas my way. I'm glad to hear them, though obviously I make no promises to implement them all. Heads up that I've put a minor update to the game in the first post. I fixed a small bug where humanoid points would sometimes pop up in error later in a round. I also took the opportunity to swap the fire buttons, since firing with A seemed more natural. The game will continue to a look and feel massively influenced by classic arcade games, but I've also tweaked the name to "T:ME Salvo" (feel free to refer to it as just "Salvo" if you prefer) and added a matching back story. The plan is to eventually have a few games in the "T:ME" universe, and they will not all necessarily be mine. Sweet. Thought we were going to see a streak of 'year' games...liking the "T:ME" moniker instead - quite unique. Thank you for swapping button(s)...Minor peeve of mine that I was going to wait to see how it all panned out before mentioning/hoping for it to be switched. A few games in the "T:ME" universe....Man-o-man, do I ever LOVE the thought of that! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Apparently, in this latest installment of the future, at least one living humanoid is required for a maze to remain lit. I believe someone implemented some additional incentive... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 1, 2014 Author Share Posted August 1, 2014 Thats the start of it. In my private build, the existing enemies also become extra aggressive in the dark. Still gotta work on the enemy that only shows up in the dark, after which I'll look at some positive reinforcement. Keep heart. I'll make sure there's still incentive to let some of the buggers die, rather than risk your own hide. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Still gotta work on the enemy that only shows up in the dark... Oooohhh...A (Dark) Enforcer perhaps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 1, 2014 Author Share Posted August 1, 2014 I'm not adverse to making it another classic arcade enemy, but Enforcers sort of act like the rest of my stock enemies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Looks pretty good dude. Nice work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Thanks. Much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireTiger Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Very intrested- anyone have the CC@ menu coding already ready (already?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIKON Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 I have been playing this game since I discovered it...in my opinion INSTANT CLASSIC I have made it to level 4 once...did not complete the level but I keep trying. I have to tear myself away from it to take care of real life things. Me playing the game: Just one more time...just one more time...ok last time...no wait..one more time...ok ok ok really last game...no wait please just one more time...(wife in the background " turn that thing off and come to bed" ) ok dear one last game. When a game does that to me I know its a hit!!! Thank You RevEng for putting this out there. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 Thanks, NIKON. It means a lot to me that it's being enjoyed, and puts a bit more gas in the tank. The next month may not see any updates for Salvo - real life stuff will be getting in the way - but I'm eager to finish off the rest of the gameplay elements, and start working on the extras. (title screen, savekey/hsc support, ...) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIKON Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Thanks, NIKON. It means a lot to me that it's being enjoyed, and puts a bit more gas in the tank. The next month may not see any updates for Salvo - real life stuff will be getting in the way - but I'm eager to finish off the rest of the gameplay elements, and start working on the extras. (title screen, savekey/hsc support, ...) Thank you! Since the Robotron theme seems to be prevalent in this game..(which I think is totally tubular!!) then would it be possible to give the bonus points at the end of a round like this: 1 human = 100 bonus points 2nd human 200 bonus points 3rd human 400 bonus points and so on...much like Robotron does when you collect them I do not know if that will take romspace that will take but it is something that I just thought about. I also like the idea that was mentioned earlier about turning the humans into progs when a brain touches them As far as updates.. take your time...we can wait. But I will go on record as saying I cannot wait to see what you do with this already awesome game. Oh have you thought about a manual and naming the characters...also is there going to be different point values for the morphed characters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 This looks like its going to be a very good game for sure . Awesome job Rev ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Sweet! My first thought was Crossfire. But it's nice to see the added elements. Now if I could only drum up some time to actually try it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 13, 2014 Author Share Posted August 13, 2014 @NIKON: Increasing points for each humanoid saved sounds good. Its a bit of a variation on the humanoid bonuses that Trebor posted a while back, but simpler, which is good. I like the idea of only Brains having the ability to turn humanoids into Progs, just like Robotron. I can modify the Brain AI to target the humanoids too, to ensure it will happen often enough. This also gives the player an incentive to shoot Brains when they notice a humanoid will be appearing, which adds to the overall texture of the game. Different point values for each enemy was part of the plan, it just hasn't been implemented yet. No thoughts on naming the characters yet either, though any names would need to fit into the back story. @Shannon: Its Crossfire at the core, for sure. I always thought Crossfire had a great game mechanic, but suffered from being a bit monotonous. As inspiration for Salvo, I asked myself how Williams Electronics would have amped up Crossfire, and let that guide the intial game decisions. @AtariBrian: Thanks for the encouragement! @FireTiger: My 7800 and borrowed CC2 are packed up at the moment... part of that real-life stuff I mentioned. If nobody else obliges, I'll try to find it in the next few days and get the exact line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIKON Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 I was brainstorming on names and scoring while I was looking at a screenshot of the first screen. Point values suggestions 11 characters per screen to start that morph 3 times equates to 44 enemies Grunt =10 Hulk =15 Brain =20 Alien =25 Bonus for Humans Saved If all 4 saved =1000 Total maximum score per level 1770 -50 points for lost Human 30 Points for a Prog I also thought of the score being rolled because there are only 5 places for the score. Would need a marker for rollage. These are only my suggestions... it is your game..and it is Awesome Thank you for listening to me. NIKON Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted August 14, 2014 Author Share Posted August 14, 2014 A nice grab bag of ideas. Most of it sounds about right, though I'm planning to replace the alien with some kind of "morlock" character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikeguychicago Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 I used to play the original on PCjr cartridge so I can't wait to see how this turns out. Is it me or do the adversaries look familiar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 RevEng, I've got no suggestions, just a lot of admiration. Nice work! Looking forward to the (eventual) cart release as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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