Galactopus!

[+KaeruYojimbo]

 

Oh &%$@! Either the advance warning satellites are %&$#!@ again or there's a giant %©#&$ space octopus heading straight for earth! Congressional budget cuts have reduced NASA to launching model rockets in the park but never fear, the private sector is here! For six easy payments of just $199,999,999,999.99, Astr-O-Corp has volunteered to send their prototype low orbit fighter to intercept Galactopus™. Since it's still in the prototype phase, the laser cannons aren't powerful enough to destroy Galactopus™, but they can chip away his Octonuim armor. Collect eight pieces of Octonium and add them to the ship's reactors and the cannon will be powerful enough to finish Galactopus™ off once and for all!

 

Controls:

Left and right move the fighter left and right (in that order)

Fire fires the laser cannon

Left difficulty B - laser blasts pass harmlessly through octonium pieces

Left difficulty A - laser blasts destroy octonium pieces

Press the fire button on joystick 2 to use it to control Galactopus™

 

Things to do:

Add sound

Add more to Galactpus™ death sequence

Progressively increasing difficulty by improving AI and/or weapons

Maybe another game setting with the right difficulty switch

Score jackpot based on the number of shots needed to destroy Galactopus™

 

This is the closest I've come yet to completing a game. Hope you guys enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

 

UPDATE - I added the final version of the game (Galactopus20141115) here so you don't have to go through the entire thread to find it.

Galactopus20140919.txt

Galactopus20140919.bin

Galactopus20141115.txt

Galactopus20141115.bin

Galactopus20141115-PAL60.bin

Edited November 17, 2014 by KaeruYojimbo

[timdu]

I like what you have so far. Kind of reminds me of a combination of a sci-fi "creature double feature" movie from the 1960s / 1970s and GALAXIAN and MISSILE COMMAND... ( at the end when Galactopus descends! )

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Tim

Edited September 20, 2014 by timdu

[GroovyBee]

Good start! Had a quick play. Some thoughts :-

 

- It really needs sound effects (I see that its on your list of things to do ).

- How about making the Galactopus multi-coloured to spice him up a bit?

- Make the Galactopus change colour briefly after a successful hit.

- Make the falling Octonium pieces a different colour (or cycle colours as they fall) as they fall. That way your eye is drawn to them as something interesting to collect.

- Its a bit too easy to track the Galactopus and avoid his shots. It might be more fun if he changes direction part way into the screen. Then the game is a bit more random.

- Make the player ship multi-coloured.

- Make the Octonium shield multi-coloured.

[Philsan]

Very nice!

[belial]

I just checked out your game. I really like it Can't wait for sound effects

[TrekMD]

Very nice indeed!

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. The game is resetting itself, usually the first time I hit Galactopus on the fourth stage. Has anyone else played far enough to have this happen to them? I'm working on tracking down the cause then it's back to making explody noises.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Here's the latest version. The game no longer crashes, plus I made a few graphic tweaks and started adding sound.

Galactopus20140922.bin

Galactopus20140922.txt

[PFL]

I just tried this out and I really enjoy it so far. I pretty much agree with what others have said. There's a lot of potential for a really cool game here. Looking forward to seeing what you add.

[+save2600]

Looks cool - haven't tried it yet, but wanted to say I love the name of the game!

[+KaeruYojimbo]

A little update. Added some sound effects. This is my first real attempt at sound with batari basic, so I'm still tweaking and figuring things out. Also, Galactopus changes colors every couple of levels. This represents what will eventually be a progression of more cunning and better armed Galactopi.

Galactopus20140927.txt

Galactopus20140927.bin

[TrekMD]

Nice. I just tried it. The added sounds are good.

[REACTOR]

The Galactopus was really superb, nice animation of graphics. But it's a tad on the boring side, I find that shooting at something continously in one setting can get old, but a very nice arcade game!

[Andromeda Stardust]

And another fine Batari Basic game comes out of the woodworks: Looking good so far... Can't wat to play it on my Harmony cart but sadly I am laid up in the hospital from surgery.

 

I saw the giant Octopus and the first game I though of was Name this Game, or the Game N Watch LCD "Octopus."

[PFL]

I stuck the new build on my Harmony and it's really enjoyable. I'm in PAL land and perhaps that's causing me a problem (other than colours). When I progressed to the next 'level' where there are the two barriers protecting the Galactopus the screen jumps a few scanlines every so often. Like I say, it could be a PAL issue though. Would you consider doing a PAL 60 version, at all?

 

I've no idea if this is even possible but I have a suggestion. A starfield in the background. Preferably a scrolling starfield. It would make a huge difference to the sense of dynamics in the game.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Just checked it out in the Stella debugger and it looks like it's going over 262 scanlines every so often with the two shields. I was worried this might be happening (pfhline apparently uses up a lot of cycles) but hadn't checked yet (denial helps me keep moving forward).

 

Once I get the game finished, I'll look into what it would take to do a PAL version.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Added an extra drawscreen, which seems to have solved the scanline issue. Try it out and let me know (Don't have a Harmony cart to try it myself. I do have a Supercharger but as far as I know there's no Mac equivalent to makewav. Anyone out there know of one?). I looked into it and if I'm reading it right, PAL 60 uses the same number of scanlines, just a different color palette, so conversion is just a matter of swapping out color values.

 

Stardust, hope it wasn't anything too serious. Get well soon!

Galactopus20140928.bin

Galactopus20140928.txt

[PFL]

Thanks for the upload. I'll try it out after tea for you.

 

As far as the PAL conversion thingy goes, lots of people say it's really easy to do. Like you say, normally it's just a matter of changing colour values.

 

Here's a link to a thread all about PAL 60 ROM conversions:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/193459-pal60-roms/

 

Perhaps there's something of use to you in the thread. I'm giving you the link to harass you into doing a PAL version. Just thought you might like it.

[+Gemintronic]

For future "Giant Enemy" projects you might consider using pfheights and playfield blocks for the boss like my game Cyber Willy:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/

 

[PFL]

Just thought I'd let you know I think there's a bug with the hit detection. If you fire two shots in quick succession the second 'hit' seems to go straight through Galactopus and doesn't count as a hit.

 

PS: Still having fun.

[+Gemintronic]

Added an extra drawscreen, which seems to have solved the scanline issue. Try it out and let me know (Don't have a Harmony cart to try it myself. I do have a Supercharger but as far as I know there's no Mac equivalent to makewav. Anyone out there know of one?). I looked into it and if I'm reading it right, PAL 60 uses the same number of scanlines, just a different color palette, so conversion is just a matter of swapping out color values.

 

Stardust, hope it wasn't anything too serious. Get well soon!

 

Could it have to do with that extra drawscreen? You might have to check for collisions on the first drawscreen and save the result to a variable so you can deal with it when you're ready.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I noticed that too. I guessed it was from the extra drawscreen as well. Haven't had a chance to go back through and check everything that affected yet. Glad you're enjoying the game.

Edited September 30, 2014 by KaeruYojimbo

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Fixed the hit detection and added a little bit to when you kill Galactopus. Changed the scoring some too. Killing Galactopus is worth from 100-1000 points, depending on how many shots it takes you to finish him off.

Galactopus20141005.bin

Galactopus20141005.txt

[PFL]

I've been offline for a couple of days so it was nice to see a nice new build. Lookinf forward to trying it out.

[neotokeo2001]

Great game. Found a couple bugs/issues.

 

#1 - If the player does not move then it is impossible for Galactopus to hit them. The shots will skim the left or right side. You can stay in one place and just take potshots.

 

#2 - If you hold down the fire button while you are moving the first shot comes from the players ship, the next two shots will be from the location of the first shot regardless of where the player is at that point.