Entry 2015: Bowl Bust

[PuzZLeR]

 

Introducing Bowl Bust, a brand new game for your Intellivision, brought to you by PuzZLeR S0fTZ – the award winning producers of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and Masters of cheap hype!

Delivered as an entry into the Intellivision IntyBASIC Programming Contest 2015, and guaranteeing a last place finish.

BUT, what’s best, it’s currently COMPLETELY INCOMPLETE!

You can count on us to have minimal expectations. You will not be disappointed!

 

Bowl Bust 0.2 BetaHB.zip.zip]

[PuzZLeR]

I only really decided to start this game, and enter the Contest somewhere late last month, so I could not complete exactly what I wanted. (And had to learn IntyBASIC at the same time.) However, even as a WIP, it’s still a fully playable game, and still will be an entry. But still call it a “Beta” regardless for now.

Win or lose, this is something I want to complete, so here’s my To Do List, even if little of this will be done before the deadline.(But will post later for sure.)

-More Intellivision characters to shoot at. I ran out of GRAM as, for some reason, IntyBASIC doesn’t read anything past SPR19.
-Some background imagery. Had something going, but scrapped it. Working on another.
-The sound effects are minimal here. I hope you also have volume control nearby.
-MUSIC! I have a tune I’m trying to put together which gives it a Joker vs Batman type of feel. I can put some music up, but would rather leave it without music if it means pasting some random stuff “just to have music”.
-I also am working on a scrolling boss level – but currently its way too buggy to submit.

Limitations: Wanted to throw off multiple balls per frame AND have the enemies shoot at you, but I have to make compromises on the meager 8 sprites. Will look into this in an update.

Thanks to the community and thanks for IntyBASIC. This was, and will continue to be, LOTS of fun.

[+nanochess]

You need to break DEFINE statements in groups of 16 definitions or less. You cannot define more than that per frame (WAIT)

[PuzZLeR]

Hi Nanochess.

 

Thanks for IntyBASIC and thanks for making this happen. I will be posting it to the contest in a matter of hours. It's only a WIP for now but still plays fully. (Stilll a bit too easy.)

 

I have a question for you. As you can see, I like to have a "box" (as well as overlays, instructions, etc. in the ZIP). Is it Ok if I flash IntyBASIC, or any logo, on the box?

 

(Want to update something on the literature anyway.)

 

You need to break DEFINE statements in groups of 16 definitions or less. You cannot define more than that per frame (WAIT)

 

Ah. Makes sense! Hopefully I still have time to fix this for my final pre-contest update.

 

I actually took the time to draw some nice humming birds, froggies, and other cute Intellivision characters to shoot at. Isn't that sweet of me?

[+nanochess]

Hi Nanochess.

 

Thanks for IntyBASIC and thanks for making this happen. I will be posting it to the contest in a matter of hours. It's only a WIP for now but still plays fully. (Stilll a bit too easy.)

 

I have a question for you. As you can see, I like to have a "box" (as well as overlays, instructions, etc. in the ZIP). Is it Ok if I flash IntyBASIC, or any logo, on the box?

 

(Want to update something on the literature anyway.)

 

 

Ah. Makes sense! Hopefully I still have time to fix this for my final pre-contest update.

 

I actually took the time to draw some nice humming birds, froggies, and other cute Intellivision characters to shoot at. Isn't that sweet of me?

 

Yes, it's ok.

 

In fact I've a IntyBASIC logo in my website http://nanochess.org/intybasic.html

[GroovyBee]

I've played a few games and have some comments :-

- At one point the ball appeared some distance from my avatar horizontally but could still be fired.
- The objects to hit seem to be clumped together in X quite a bit.
- The blue fish thing appeared half way across the screen and was flickering.
- When you hold fire down to start the game you immediately fire the ball. It'd be better to wait for fire to go up (or key release) before starting the game.

[PuzZLeR]

I've played a few games and have some comments :-

 

- At one point the ball appeared some distance from my avatar horizontally but could still be fired.

- The objects to hit seem to be clumped together in X quite a bit.

- The blue fish thing appeared half way across the screen and was flickering.

- When you hold fire down to start the game you immediately fire the ball. It'd be better to wait for fire to go up (or key release) before starting the game.

 

Hi GroovyBee,

 

Yup, still a WIP, and I know about some of these bugs. Much of the problem is due to the fact that I haven't "locked down" the controls very well, and meant to ask for help on this. Some controls go on auto-pilot.

 

I'm still learning concepts about a two way gate, etc. For example, I want the disc to (re-) start the game, and move the player, but fire and others get involved and conflict. Can anybody help with this?

 

As for the fish flickering, this is a bug in a loop. (A "frame" or "wave of 4" is a whole loop.) For some reason, whenever I generate a random number in a loop, strange things happen. I've since moved the random number generation before the loop (and had to introduce lots more variables as you'll see in the source code). So far this helped.

 

As for the objects clumped together in X, this is somewhat on purpose - kind of like bowling pins. The +/- in spread is max 64 (generated at random), otherwise hitting all the targets, with one ball - a strike - would be impossible. Just like bowling, missing can penalize you in this game.

 

I do allow a "hook" (analogy to "back spin" in bowling) to help, higher than y=25, to bias a left-right curve of the ball. Hmmm. You're giving me an idea now...

 

I have two sprites left, and for a future release (likely after the contest) I'm planning to allow your player to have multiple shots per wave, and/or the targets to have a defense of their own. This can allow a bigger spread.

 

Working on it.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Edited December 31, 2015 by PuzZLeR

[PuzZLeR]

Update!

 

Here are my changes since (starting with GroovyBee’s comments – deeply considered and appreciated along with any more).

 

- At one point the ball appeared some distance from my avatar horizontally but could still be fired.

 

Corrected now. Astute of you to pick this off.

 

- The objects to hit seem to be clumped together in X quite a bit.

 

Yeah, on a 2D plane, the presentation is initially poor, and concept obscure, but (hopefully) is a bit clearer with a more 3D feel.

Now that I’ve added a background, and the ball “shrinks into the distance”, (and will adjust the target movements soon), it now looks more like you’re “bowling into a lane” instead of “shooting up in space”.

The “bottom” target should look more like a “front” target instead, as meant to be (which should explain the bigger size). The “clumping” looks (hopefully now) more like targets on a z-axis, kind of behind each other. As well, bowling a “strike” would be impossible with a bigger spread.

Much of this was intentional, so hopefully now the “bowl” in the namesake makes more sense (albeit in an insane sort of way). But I’m open to suggestions.

 

- The blue fish thing appeared half way across the screen and was flickering.

 

I originally thought it was bad random number generation, but discovered that this was a stack overflow, as discussed on another thread. This glitching would occur before the game would crash. Now this has been corrected. (Thanks to the Community on this.)

 

- When you hold fire down to start the game you immediately fire the ball. It'd be better to wait for fire to go up (or key release) before starting the game.

 

I’ve secured the controls a bit more. The fire buttons will only fire now. (However, I can't speak for the keypad buttons and the "false positives" which plague many Inty games. Just don't press them.)

 

Other things I’ve fixed:

Now you see the real bowling symbols flash for “strike” (X) and “spare” (/) when you, respectively, get a strike (hit all 4) or have a spared ball (hit 3 targets). (Yeah, I know, it needs sound effects. It’s coming. It’s coming.)

The “front” target, which in this case is a “blue robot”, although easy to hit, is no longer a guarantee. Tightened the collision rectangular, which was too generous previously.

The ball can hook both left and right (with disc) at the later part of the ball delivery (when previously it would only hook left).

The 2.5 second prompts at GAME OVER to play a new game were annoying. Now they’re only half a second.

This game BEGS for sound effects, but they still currently suck and are minimal, but at least the ball delivery is starting to sound more natural, kind of like a pitch in Inty Baseball.

As per music, I’m working on a particular score that gives it that action game feel I want. Sure, it’s easy enough to “copy and paste” something, but, honestly, I’m not going to do that and ruin the game just for the sake of “having music”, or just for a contest. I’d really rather leave it blank till then.

Priories in order: Game Mechanics, Graphics, Sound, Music. I say this because without game mechanics functioning properly, everything else is worthless.

 

COMING SOON:

This is version 0.38, and although now “decent enough” as a stand-alone as-is, I still only consider this game only at “level 1” (The Bowling on the "Street Level") whereas the targets are still defenseless (although you can still “die” if you miss enough).

I want to give the targets more ambition. Upcoming levels will feature the targets getting nasty (obstacles, invisibility, and – attacks of their own…) I will release these soon – I really want this to be a full scale ACTION game! Please, stay tuned!

Also, testers and feedback are always welcome!

NOTE:

The targets in this version are hypothetical, only for demonstration, kind of like a fraudulent box design with composite game pix. But you may recognize them as a (twisted) robot from Night Stalker, the player fish in Shark! Shark!, a bee from Buzz Bombers, and a tank from other titles. The “next levels” will have such characters better showcased, more in their “own level” with “friends”.

Yes, you’re going to be bowling down classic Mattel Intellivision characters!”

(Call me a traditionalist.)

Bowl Bust 0.38 BetaHB.rom

[PuzZLeR]

Oops! The last ROM had a game-restart typo in the code. Just a small update.

Bowl Bust 0.381 BetaHB.rom

[Rev]

Oops! The last ROM had a game-restart typo in the code. Just a small update.

 

Any other work done on this?