Favorite game?

[Retrospect]

@99V I once made a game similar to Parsec and attempted to make it quite a challenge.  I over-did that bit somewhat.  It's all fine until the Weaponized Saucers come into play.

Stage 2 is difficult with the roaming satellite thing that stops players from "camping", as well as the Walking Robots that lock their sights on you and shoot directly where you are.

 

The graphics weren't my own, some were copied from Salamander / Nemesis, but it makes for quite a nice Parsec alternative, however, it falls into the same trap as Parsec does, in that it loops (with increased difficulty).  You can play this game using JS99er online emulator, click "software" and then "more" and type Avaris II.  

The game will need 32K switched on in the options.  See Parsec didn't need that  
 

 

 

[99V]

Yes I see the difficulty going higher. That's all anyone needs, and if it is too hard, people will get better. That's the whole point of playing a game. It feels good to finally get past a round.

 

Another boring AF game was Xevious. Beautiful to look at but never got really hard.

[99V]

I see it takes two shots to kill some saucers. Next round 3, next round 4. It's not hard to include increasing difficulty 

[Retrospect]

6 minutes ago, 99V said:

next round 4

I've not heard of anyone getting to round 4 on Avaris II .   You could attempt it, let me know how hard it is at that because I never got there either! 

[99V]

Haha that sounds like a good game

[+save2600]

48 minutes ago, 99V said:

I remember an arcade game call Robotron 2084 by Williams. That game was sick. It got more and more difficult with sometimes a hundred characters running around at the same time. Talk about four sprites in a row, this thing had 25 in a row...

Didja know Robotron has been unearthed for the TI?  😀

 

 

[+arcadeshopper]

1 hour ago, 99V said:

I remember an arcade game call Robotron 2084 by Williams. That game was sick. It got more and more difficult with sometimes a hundred characters running around at the same time. Talk about four sprites in a row, this thing had 25 in a row. That's a game to try to emulate and I don't mean that in a copy kind of way. I mean it should inspire programmers to reach the limits of what's possible. 

 

Super Demon Attack got harder so it was a better game. It can be done. I just think the creators of Parsec didn't think they needed to make the game challenging. They thought we would have fun forever taking a flying tour of a beautiful futuristic world. I mean no ill will to anyone else that highly esteems Parsec as the crown jewel of TI games. To me it was a missed opportunity, and an expensive one at that. 

there was a port to the 4/a  it never made it past prototype but we have it in the community here

also robots of death (and sequels) are amazing 

 

[99V]

1 hour ago, save2600 said:

Didja know Robotron has been unearthed for the TI?  😀

 

 

Great 

[+OLD CS1]

3 hours ago, 99V said:

Yes I see the difficulty going higher. That's all anyone needs, and if it is too hard, people will get better. That's the whole point of playing a game. It feels good to finally get past a round.

There was a study about rats that hit all the news outlets a number of years back.  The big headline was that rats are ticklish and laugh when tickled.  Other parts of the study were buried by this spectacular headline, including the importance of play, adversity, and social and psychological development.  There was also some speculation about how these results would translate to other intelligent animals, such as primates and humans.

 

To our discussion, an important point was if a smaller rat played against a larger rat, it would only continue to play if it won roughly 25% of the time.  Anything less and the smaller rat would withdraw from future play or interaction.  This has been observed across other species, and probably many of us have experienced it in one form or another, such as against a game or in competition with a friend, even gambling.

[99V]

Wow great analogy 

[Reciprocating Bill]

4 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

There was a study about rats that hit all the news outlets a number of years back.  The big headline was that rats are ticklish and laugh when tickled.  Other parts of the study were buried by this spectacular headline, including the importance of play, adversity, and social and psychological development.  There was also some speculation about how these results would translate to other intelligent animals, such as primates and humans.

This was Jaak Panksepp's work on "affective neuroscience" (the neuroscience of emotion, sociality, bonding, play, etc. in mammals, including ourselves). Rat laughter during play occurs at a frequency well above the limits of human hearing. I heard him present on his research at Akron University. He has since passed away. 

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, Reciprocating Bill said:

I heard him present on his research at Akron University. He has since passed away. 

That is a shame.  I would have very much enjoyed attending his lecture.  I believe this kind of research has a lot to lend to my own field.

[+mizapf]

I just noticed that I have had Robotron on my todo list for a decade by now, as it was not running stable in MAME. I remember that I already found out that it was related to a glitchy interrupt handling, which would have meant that it was a bug in Robotron - although people assured that they did not observe that in real hardware.

 

So I gave it another try right now, I even reached the 7th wave, but no problems anymore. I tried several times.

 

Strange. I mean, fine.

[Tursi]

55 minutes ago, mizapf said:

I just noticed that I have had Robotron on my todo list for a decade by now, as it was not running stable in MAME. I remember that I already found out that it was related to a glitchy interrupt handling, which would have meant that it was a bug in Robotron - although people assured that they did not observe that in real hardware.

 

So I gave it another try right now, I even reached the 7th wave, but no problems anymore. I tried several times.

 

Strange. I mean, fine.

"Random number generators have no soul".

 

I just re-read your analysis over there too, and it all makes sense to me. 

 

[+mizapf]

Ah, at least I see a crash on QUIT (illegal opcode).

[99V]

2 hours ago, mizapf said:

I just noticed that I have had Robotron on my todo list for a decade by now, as it was not running stable in MAME. I remember that I already found out that it was related to a glitchy interrupt handling, which would have meant that it was a bug in Robotron - although people assured that they did not observe that in real hardware.

 

So I gave it another try right now, I even reached the 7th wave, but no problems anymore. I tried several times.

 

Strange. I mean, fine.

It works fine now because 9 years ago, they transported all the billions of people on earth to a new planet due to the impending solar death flare. It is almost exactly the same as earth but there are a few minor differences here or there like Robotron not working or working.

 

Or it just isn't glitching now for a simpler reason 😁

[+mizapf]

Funny game, though. At some times you tell yourself to let go off the fire button, but you notice that your free will goes astray on its way to your thumb.

[Opry99er]

I answered this thread in 2017. 

 

But back then, Realms of Antiquity was not on the market.  That's now my favorite TI game.  If you haven't played it, please do.  It's sooooooo good.