IntyBASIC WIP Game: M........

[carlsson]

No screenshots yet, but I can let you listen to the title music.

http://www.anders.sfks.se/mp3/md_music.mp3

 

Bonus points if you can name game(s) I have plagiarized musically, even more bonus points if you can guess the genre or even identify the name of the game.

[+DZ-Jay]

I have no idea. It is a cool tune, though.

[petit chou]

The little sound effect at the end sounds incredibly reminiscent of the sound effect that happens when the character dies in the Adventures of Lolo/Eggerland series.

 

Is this a puzzle game? I'd love to see a Lolo reboot done up for the INTV!

[carlsson]

No, it is more of a space shoot/collect 'em up. Since I've been too busy and lazy to get collision detection going, I can post a screenshot:

Edited April 25, 2016 by carlsson

[+cmart604]

That's a cool looking ship. Nice!

[carlsson]

Still no collision nor scoring, but for those curious, here is a binary file. I noticed in case you fly very slowly, shoot and immediately change direction and increase your speed, the shot will remain in its position, probably due to scroll speed offset is greater than bullet speed.

 

 

This one started off as a tongue in cheek crap game for the ZX Spectrum (not yet published on this year's CSSCGC site) and while making that game, I realized it might actually look decent on the Intellivision. For those who don't get the title - Meldonium - it obviously a reference to the heart medicine from Latvia that during the first few months of this year has caused a flood of doping cases in the world of sports, and even has been discussed if small concentrations should be allowed without getting penalized for. Thus the idea eventually is to shoot or run into hearts to get points, while avoiding the yellow pills.

 

meldonium-intv.bin

 

As for the intro music, I have used the chord progression in Rob Hubbard's title theme for Delta (C64) which itself is a brilliant remake of Koyaanisquatsi by Philip Glass. I have replaced the melody by something else and also changed the bass line a liittle. Part of the tune happens to remind me of the M.U.L.E. theme by Roy Glover.

[+DZ-Jay]

Cool music! It's looking nice so far. Here is some feedback:

 

• I am not a fan of the rapid colour cycling on the Intellivision, especially when the colour sequence seems to be random.
• The acceleration and deceleration are perhaps too slow for a practical action shooter, making the game feel sluggish.
• I think the sports medicine reference is a too obscure. To me it feels as if it should be an outer-space shooter. I guess an inner-space shooter (i.e., inside the human body) would work as well, but then the theme should be a bit more universal and recognisable.
• You may want to consider separating moving momentum from shooting orientation, à la Defender. That way, the player can defend himself from both sides without having to wait for his ship to lose enough momentum and flip directions.
• I like the spinning animation of the ship.
• You should consider overlaying multiple MOBs to give the player's ship more detail.
• The bullets do not seem to reach the right edge of the screen, though they do reach the left edge. This seems to be due to the ship being centered on the logical screen area, not on the actual visible area (i.e., minus the extended border). In any case, I would suggest letting the bullets reach both edges, for symmetry.
• There is an occasional glitch in the scrolling where it seems like a frame is skipped. However, I've seen this myself on my own game during emulation, so it could be a quirk of jzIntv. In any case, it is worth reviewing the assembly code generated to make sure it is not affecting the BUSQ assertion of the STIC by having too many non-interruptable operations in sequence.
• The glitch happens when scrolling on either direction, and mostly noticeable at the highest speeds (though I can barely see a hint at the lowest speeds as well).
• Disc sampling seems awfully slow: pressing left and right in rapid succession, back and forth, when at the lowest speeds, barely registers at all.
• By contrast, the fire button seems more responsive, though not consistently: firing multiple times in rapid succession, at a steady beat, yields widely different spreads of the four simultaneous bullets.

That's it for now. I like the visual concept and the game mechanics, though the story is completely lost on me.

[freewheel]

• I am not a fan of the rapid colour cycling on the Intellivision, especially when the colour sequence seems to be random.

 

Agreed. And allow me to expand on this a bit, from personal experience:

 

Flashing colors like that looks OK in an emulator. It generally looks HORRIBLE on a real console. I had to see it for myself to believe it. Slow it down somewhat, to maybe 5-10Hz, and it's much easier on the eyes.

 

I was a bit of a fan of writing stuff like that, until I saw what it looked like on the real thing. Yuck. A lot of systems from the era used it, so I'm not quite sure why it's particularly bad on the Intellivision, but it is.

[carlsson]

Yeah, the intro screen effect was not something I put a lot of work into, I just wanted it to look different.

 

The inertia in movement is kind of borrowed from games like Uridium, which is another -ium shooter that gave me the idea for this one. As I wrote, it started off as a tongue in cheek joke from a sick mind (mine) and that I have developed a bit further. We'll see what gives.

[+DZ-Jay]

Yeah, the intro screen effect was not something I put a lot of work into, I just wanted it to look different.

 

The inertia in movement is kind of borrowed from games like Uridium, which is another -ium shooter that gave me the idea for this one. As I wrote, it started off as a tongue in cheek joke from a sick mind (mine) and that I have developed a bit further. We'll see what gives.

 

Inertia is fine, it would just work better either faster, or allowing the ship to change directions while its momentum is spent in its previous one, and it is able to accelerate in the opposite direction.

 

-dZ.