GoSub for INTV

[+DZ-Jay]

I have only two more suggestions:

• When I fired the torpedo at the Octopus and killed it, the "ping" sound overrode the sound effect of killing the enemy. I suggest you give the "ping" sound effect lower priority than any of the other sound effects, since it is essentially "background sound."
• I think that resetting the torpedo counter to three when the player dies is too much. How about just giving three torpedoes per level and that's it? This is assuming that no level requires the torpedoes to complete; but since you designed your levels prior to the torpedo feature, I don't think this is a problem.

I was going to say that the torpedo feature makes the game much easier, but I still manage to die miserably, so I guess not.

 

I really like the torpedo; it adds a new dimension to the game and maintains the balance. you still have to manœuvre your sub at the same time you're aiming at the Octopus, while avoiding killer seaweed and the pesky enemy, so it's not really that much of an aide.

 

By the way, are you considering implementing scoring, or is the progress marked exclusively by your advancement through the levels? Here's an idea that you may want to consider: keep track of how many octopi (octopussies? LOL!) were killed, how many torpedoes were used, and things like that; and just display them at the end on the "Game Over" screen.

 

This can give the player a sense of accomplishment, and also an enticement to do better the next time (people like me tend to play games that reward picking up or completing all tasks in a level for maximum pointage). It also adds to the replayability of the game, once the player masters all 40-something-gazillion levels you're making.

 

-dZ.

 

 

P.S. One note about my suggestions: You should only implement features that you like or think will improve the game. So far, you seem to have implemented everything I've suggested, and I feel flattered, but I want to make sure that you don't deviate your plans or your vision for the sake of other's recommendations. It is your game, and sometimes (most of the time!) it's better to just say no to other people's crazy ideas.

[+atari2600land]

I have only two more suggestions:

• When I fired the torpedo at the Octopus and killed it, the "ping" sound overrode the sound effect of killing the enemy. I suggest you give the "ping" sound effect lower priority than any of the other sound effects, since it is essentially "background sound."

I don't know how to do this: give preference to one sound playing over the other. Is there a way to say "if soundisn'tplaying then playtheothersound"? I've given the .bas file so one can take a look and see what I'm doing here.

Also, I changed a few other things. The octopus comes in at the opposite side of the screen you shot it on. For example, if you shot it at the lower right side of the screen, it will be introduced in the upper left hand side. The reason I gave three torpedos per attempt is in case someone is on their last try and used all three torpedos and the octopus is still coming at them. Yes, I know, I've made the levels (except 27-29) possible to beat without any torpedos, but I felt that some just needed torpedos to make it even more possible. And also, I'd give preference to cramming more levels in the game to make it that much longer than to introduce a scoring system, which would probably take up a bunch of room.

Edited May 30, 2015 by atari2600land

[+DZ-Jay]

I don't know how to do this: give preference to one sound playing over the other. Is there a way to say "if soundisn'tplaying then playtheothersound"? I've given the .bas file so one can take a look and see what I'm doing here.

 

Perhaps nanochess can chime in on this.

 

Also, I changed a few other things. The octopus comes in at the opposite side of the screen you shot it on. For example, if you shot it at the lower right side of the screen, it will be introduced in the upper left hand side. The reason I gave three torpedos per attempt is in case someone is on their last try and used all three torpedos and the octopus is still coming at them. Yes, I know, I've made the levels (except 27-29) possible to beat without any torpedos, but I felt that some just needed torpedos to make it even more possible.

 

I think that's fair.

 

 

And also, I'd give preference to cramming more levels in the game to make it that much longer than to introduce a scoring system, which would probably take up a bunch of room.

Well, a simple counter wouldn't take too much room. For instance, you could have a single variable counting the number of Octopi you killed, that's one byte. Then, on the collision of the torpedo and the Octopus you can just add:

 

 

    oct = oct + 1

 

On the "Game Over" screen, just display somewhere:

 

    REM Not real IntyBASIC code!
    print "Octopus Killed: %oct%"

 

However, it is up to you.

 

-dZ.

[+nanochess]

 

Perhaps nanochess can chime in on this.

 

 

Currently no way to know what music is being played.

[freewheel]

Without looking at your code (I've got way too much code in my head at the moment), here's how you handle prioritizing the sound effects:

 

It's all a matter of how you've structured things. You can pretty easily disable the "ping" noise by doing SOUND 2,0,0 (or whatever channel you're using), then play the torpedo sound. Now, it's possible that the ping noise will start playing again before the torpedo sound finishes - I'm guessing it's just part of your main game loop and set via timer. So here's a thought:

 

Have a simple flag that keeps track of things. This will only work if you're juggling a very small (like 2 or 3) sound effects, but it should work here. Have the flag always at 0. When the torpedo hits the octopus, set the flag to 1. Then your ping sound code is basically:

 

IF flag=0 THEN *play ping noise*

 

This prevents the ping noise from being played any time the torpedo/octopus noise is played. And at some point later on, reset the flag. You can do this via a counter (just count say 10 ticks after the octopus gets hit - this depends on how long THAT sound effect is), or explicitly after the octopus noise is over. It all depends on exactly how you're creating sound effects. Some sounds I do are the "fire and forget", ie: you send values to the PSG and it plays them until they're done, but the game logic continues. So you need to be very careful with your controls. But a lot of sound effects I've done are explicit looping structures, so I am guaranteed to know when a particular sound effect finishes. I suspect your situation is the former, so you need to be careful - but just use a couple of extra variables and it's pretty straightforward.

 

Don't be shy about adding a lot of control and scoring variables to your game. While the INTV may seem to have limited RAM, for these types of games I doubt we'll ever run into it. I'm using dozens upon dozens of variables for all sorts of things and it works just fine. I believe the limit is well over 200 for single-byte vars. So long as you set/check/display them at logical times, it doesn't slow the game down at all either. Just make sure you name them better than "flag" or else you'll forget what the heck they do

[+atari2600land]

I don't think I can control which channel the music can come out of, can I? The sfx are all music cues.

[pimpmaul69]

Outta curiousity, is the periscope on the # lives sub supposed to be backwards? I do have to say that i do really like how this game turned out to be. Cant wait til the "complete copy" is done and i dont have to d/l fixed versions anymore. i do think it was a smart idea for you to release all these variations though. It allowed you to get good feedback that will prove very useful when u make another inty game. Thank you for this awesome game.

[+atari2600land]

I didn't notice it was backwards. Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.

[mthompson]

Yes, I second what Pimpmaul69 said. Neat game, and the addition of torpedoes to take care of the octopus is a huge improvement, as I got frustrated quickly with merely navigating maze after maze (and not getting very far). 3 per level, same as the lives, seems about right.

 

As for a scoring display, that would seem important only if the object of the game were to rack up points for killing octopuses or saving ammo. Of course, I haven't gotten anywhere near the ending yet, so maybe there would be a reason to have a scoring system. If you add one, naturally there should be points for getting a chest and completing a level.

 

Thanks for the work on this

[freewheel]

I don't think I can control which channel the music can come out of, can I? The sfx are all music cues.

 

No, not if you're doing it this way. And actually, doing sound effects via PLAY is not a bad idea. I never thought about trying that.

 

So do it this way (apologies for the pseudo code):

 

IF hit_octopus=true THEN PLAY OFF:flag=1 (this will kill the ping sound if you hit the octopus with the torpedo)

PLAY torpedo_hit_music

 

and same thing as before with the flag:

 

IF flag=0 THEN PLAY music_ping

 

or however you have it described. Only allow the ping music to be triggered when the flag is not set. Just be careful that you eventually clear the flag, for the "next" ping (use a timer or something event-driven).

 

One of the limitations of IntyBASIC is that when you use PLAY (MUSIC, really), you only have one sound channel (channel 2) left for sound effects. So you can't just have ping be one channel the "hit" sound be another. Which is how the ASM guys would be coding it for sure. I ran into this with my goat game, it's pretty sparse for sound effects as a result.

[JoeM_Intellivision]

I just want to quickly reiterate how nice it was for EVERYONE to pitch in here and there with ideas and quality control. Really nice to see such a collaborative effort which will only lead to a much better game. Too many people to name so just a double thumbs up to everyone with input on this project.

Best regards all!

Joe.

[+DZ-Jay]

As for a scoring display, that would seem important only if the object of the game were to rack up points for killing octopuses or saving ammo. Of course, I haven't gotten anywhere near the ending yet, so maybe there would be a reason to have a scoring system. If you add one, naturally there should be points for getting a chest and completing a level.

 

Thanks for the work on this

 

My suggestion was not to add a scoring display to the game, for that changes the dynamics and purpose. I thought it would be neat to offer playing statistics at the end, like many old school games do. This gives the player an idea of his progress and skill maturity.

 

The level counter already tells you the last level you reached, which includes how many treasure chests you've picked up (one per level, minus the last uncompleted one). About the only other things to count are the average time to complete a level and octopuses killed.

 

-dZ.

[+atari2600land]

ping problem solved (i think). I moved the ping from a music thing to a sound thing. Therefore, the ping won't be interrupted when shooting the octopus. In death or chest getting, the ping will still stop, though.

Edited May 30, 2015 by atari2600land

[+DZ-Jay]

Cool, I'll try it later.

 

I just tested it. Hmm... It sounds different from before. I don't like it. It doesn't even follow an envelope shape (i.e., with a subtle decay over time), it's just a gated beep.

 

Also, it occurs much too frequently now. I say, if you can't get it to sound like before, then I much rather have the sound cut-off like before.

 

-dZ.

Edited November 6, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[+atari2600land]

I tried lowering the sound and made it occur less frequently.

Edited May 30, 2015 by atari2600land

[+atari2600land]

For those who don't want to use missiles, just try clearing level 30 without them. Also. the game now has 30 levels. And it's only 12.5 kb. Seeing as how I have some more room, I'm aiming for 39 levels. I want to have enough room to make two endings: one for starting on level 1 and one for not. And still make it be <16k. So I'll see how much room I have left once I program 9 more levels in.

Edited May 30, 2015 by atari2600land

[+atari2600land]

You can grab the latest binary here which has level 31 in it. Is level 31 too hard?

http://www.atari2600land.com/gosubintv/

 

[pimpmaul69]

You can grab the latest binary here which has level 31 in it. Is level 31 too hard?

http://www.atari2600land.com/gosubintv/

 

this latest version is unplayable. after you fire a missile in any direction it turns the sub left. so if you say fire a missile up your sub will turn left into a wall and die. also curious why you changed the ping sound? i prefer the old ping sound.

 

edit: rebooted game and it works right. still strange sonar ping though.

Edited November 7, 2014 by pimpmaul69

[+atari2600land]

The reason I changed the ping is to make it be heard if you shoot the octopus.

[pimpmaul69]

So as for level 31. It is nerve wrecking but beatable. I beat it with 2 missiles, but not before dying a bunch first. I like it. I think the last few levels should be like that. You could also add easy and hard and remove the missiles on hard. As for the sound i didnt notice a problem with the sound as most people probably wouldnt have noticed. The sound was sonar ping-like before. Now it is kind of a buzz sound that you have in a 1970's handheld game. But either way i am ok with it. I understand the need to compromise.

[+DZ-Jay]

The reason I changed the ping is to make it be heard if you shoot the octopus.

Personally, I would recommend putting back the sound effect from before, if you cannot make it sound the same.

 

I think competing sound effects over the "ping" is not as common, and when it happens it can be ignored. The original effect was reminiscent of a "ping," they new one is not too close.

[+atari2600land]

How about if I change the octopus death sound and put back the ping? Something like this, perhaps?

Edited May 30, 2015 by atari2600land

[mthompson]

How about if I change the octopus death sound and put back the ping? Something like this, perhaps?

 

Yes! The original ping sound is a keeper.

[pimpmaul69]

Yes. I would rather sacrifice the octopus sound than the ping.

[Rev]

Looking good.