+SpiceWare Posted June 8, 2017 Author Share Posted June 8, 2017 new station core open/close sequence revised destroyed station pod graphics all explosion sequences are new revised player shots cd-w's updated the CDF Driver to fix a few issues A number of routines have been rewritten, so let me know if you spot something odd! For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0-pre8 or newer) draconian_20170607.bin 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 new station core open/close sequence revised destroyed station pod graphics all explosion sequences are new revised player shots cd-w's updated the CDF Driver to fix a few issues A number of routines have been rewritten, so let me know if you spot something odd! For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0-pre8 or newer) draconian_20170607.bin I like the changes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 AtariAge logo in place, though blink and you'll miss it fixed the screen roll issue in Quadrant B, Level 8 fixed the graphic glitch at bottom-right of gameplay area fixed a problem where the right half of the new mine explosions were not deadly added support for "tunes" (basically a 2-channel sound effect) iesposta's finished the sound effects for Player Shoots, Missile Spy Ship Hit, and Cannon Hit as well as the tune Round Clear. All are in place, though Missile Spy Ship Hit isn't used yet as that part of the game has not been written. Revised end-of-round to match the arcade (freeze player's ship, remove enemy ships and station shots, play the Round Clear tune). For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0-pre8 or newer) draconian_20170611.bin 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Holy shit on a stick, man! This is BEAUTIFUL! The 'splosions, the parallax stars...the look of the bases, ships.. I'm amazed! I hadn't seen Draconian since the rewrite. -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrok7 Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Any chance this gets released on cartridge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Any chance this gets released on cartridge? That's the plan. It has a ways to go before it's finished though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 14, 2017 Author Share Posted June 14, 2017 Any chance this gets released on cartridge? As Nathan says, there's still a lot to be done. My goal is to release it at PRGE in October, which would put it in the AtariAge store sometime in November. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Major update to the station shot routines. In the prior builds the stations would randomly shoot in 1 of 8 directions. Now they: can shoot in 32 directions only the pod closest to the player, and that pod's neighbors, can shoot at the player each pod has a "cool down" timer. Before each station had a single timer. "when to shoot" is randomly decided based on the selected difficulty level and the sector you're in* duration of the "cool down" timer is based on the selected difficulty level and the sector you're in* station shots now take out asteroids and mines (and the player scores points) station shots are now slightly slower than the player's ship The last 2 are to match the arcade.For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0-pre8 or newer)draconian_20170617.bin * these still need further calibration 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Guys, how did I miss this thread. (runs to go play Draconian) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Guys, how did I miss this thread. (runs to go play Draconian) Well it did hibernate for a few years while I got sidetracked with other things like Bus Stuffing. While Bus Stuffing didn't pan out, it taught us enough to create CDF, a new bankswitching scheme, which lead to drastic improvements in Draconian. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Doesn't work on Stella Mac 4.7.3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Doesn't work on Stella Mac 4.7.3. For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0-pre8 or newer) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 (edited) Odd, I thought I had the most recent download since I just got it for this mac... I figured 5.0 was the windows version. Now we're cookin with gas! Plays nicely. Nice flicker handling. Thanks. Edited June 18, 2017 by Zonie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Odd, I thought I had the most recent download since I just got it for this mac... 4.7.3 is the latest Stable Release. The -pre suffix denotes a preliminary build for the forthcoming 5.0.0 release, there's been 9 -pre releases so far. What's going on is Stella's TIA emulation has been replaced with a newer, more accurate emulation routine. During the process some of the features found in 4.7.3 had to temporarily be turned off. Once everything's back on then Stable Release 5.0.0 will be released without the -pre suffix. Older builds of Draconian were written using bankswitch scheme DPC+. Draconian's been rebooted to use CDF, which we started working on back in February. 4.7.3 is from November, so it has no idea what CDF is. You can reference replies 135 and 139 to see some of the visual improvements I was able to do by using CDF instead of DPC+. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 I got a score of over 135,000 on Draconian earlier tonight (6-17-2017 latest). One thing I noticed is the score disappears immediately upon game over. It would be nice to let that screen persist (with a short delay so that brief tapping of the fire button at game over doesn't clear it), or display the previous player score on the title screen so we can take cell phone snapshots or pen+paper whatever people do to track their high scores. Thanks, it's awesome! Other thoughts, I noticed there are 256 different stages to select from it seems, a lot for an old arcade game. Also right difficulty enables some sort of debug mode... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Considering how much remains to be implemented (ie: everything not green), the scores fairly meaningless at the moment. Once most of that list is done I'll be adding an attract mode, which will display the last score as it demos the game. Depending upon the Quadrant, there's 17 levels for Alpha (Midway) and 22 for Beta (Namco). When you get to the end it starts repeating the last 6 levels. So if you select level A-20 you'll play the first repeat of A-14, while A-A26 would be the second repeat. Quandrants Gamma and Delta currently have a handful of levels each. I might open those up for others to design, if so that'll be in August. Yes, both difficulty switches turn on debug features. The left shows time remaining in Vertical Blank and Overscan, while the right freezes the game so Nathan can review the graphics and make sure I've imported them correctly. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Okay cool did not know what the quadrants were. Is the version of Bosconian on the Namco Pacman 35th Plug-N-Play Alpha or Beta? It was annoying playing it on the built in four-way stick, but I stuffed that tiny PCB in a Cigar Box and the joystick I used have a restrictor plate so I can swap between 4-way and 8-way more easily. Nice that you have different versions of the game and I'd love to try out the new homebrew stages when it ships to the AA store. I have my doubts about getting it to run on the Retron77 unless they are running a bleeding edge version of Stella, but there's always old faithful Atari and a CRT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 I got a score of over 135,000 on Draconian earlier tonight (6-17-2017 latest). One thing I noticed is the score disappears immediately upon game over. It would be nice to let that screen persist (with a short delay so that brief tapping of the fire button at game over doesn't clear it), or display the previous player score on the title screen so we can take cell phone snapshots or pen+paper whatever people do to track their high scores. Thanks, it's awesome! I agree, its like the game is much easier now with this latest version. I did previous ask Darrell about the pause at the end of the game too. He will fix it later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Considering how much remains to be implemented (ie: everything not green), Ah, that explains why my ship's bullets did nothing to destroy the enemy formations. It hasn't been implemented yet! Carry on! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 Is the version of Bosconian on the Namco Pacman 35th Plug-N-Play Alpha or Beta? Have no idea (House would be fitting here too ) I agree, its like the game is much easier now with this latest version.Stations fire less frequently in the early levels than the prior builds did. Difficulty will increase once the spy ship, missiles, and formation routines are written. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanti77 Posted June 18, 2017 Share Posted June 18, 2017 Latest version look very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 18, 2017 Author Share Posted June 18, 2017 is the version of Bosconian on the Namco Pacman 35th Plug-N-Play Alpha or Beta? you know, you could always plug it in, play the first level, and compare it with station arrangement for Alpha and Beta. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 you know, you could always plug it in, play the first level, and compare it with station arrangement for Alpha and Beta. I will when I fire it up again. I can actually play Bosconian and Xevious properly now that the original PCB has a new home in a cigar box! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 Quadrant B matches up to the Bosconian game on this handheld: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butt_Rogers Posted June 19, 2017 Share Posted June 19, 2017 This could very well turn into my all time favorite 2600 game.I really love the difficulty curve in Bosconian. The first couple rounds are not too challenging. But by round 6, things are getting crazy, and when you get a Red Alert, it's absolute frantic mayhem. I played the arcade version on MAME for a good 45 minutes today and I couldn't get past Round 6, although I came dang close. More practice needed.I've played the latest Draconian build, and I'm completely blown away. The graphics are as good as I could ever imagine for the 2600, everything looks and plays fantastic. 100% stoked for the completed release.One general Bosconian question. Space station cannons are worth 200 points. Blowing up a space station is worth 1500 points. Does this mean that if you want to maximize points you should always destroy all 6 cannons, then the station, for a combined 200 x 6 + 1500 = 2700 points, or does it not work that way? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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