New, HOT STUFF from Poland ;)

[Heaven/TQA]

Played time pilot to death on several platforms and arcade.... I guess I know what emkay means with controls but have not played the a8 version with joystick....

[emkay]

Depending on the low resolution, a full simulation of a plane/flight may not be possible. It would be sufficient enough to put the rotation point to the end of the plane. Currently it is in the middle of the sprite. Simulating a boat would make to use the rotation point at the front of the sprite.

[_The Doctor__]

[+MrFish]

You know, a plane cannot rotate on a still point? The rotation is later than the movement. On the Arcade, you can play "follow me" with the missiles and shots can pass by , just rotating the plane. On the A8 , the plane rotates without moving.

 

I think it's more a byproduct of the slower velocity of the ship -- the joystick movement not being slowed proportionally. There is movement, but you can nearly spin on a single point, as you say, because of the disparity between the two. I don't think slowing the joystick movement would be a good solution, because your flee defense would be crippled, and the ship velocity is set based on intent.

 

 

I also count "192" lines (96) for the playfield. You know , there are "240" lines (120) available. Since the status lines have their reason, how high could the playfield get? As the plane is always in the center of the playfield, PM could be used, overlaying ?

 

Lets not kill it for NTSC machines though...

Edited May 17, 2017 by MrFish

[_The Doctor__]

the rotation point is actually just back cockpit... always in motion... background keeps the movement

 

 

two gameplay videos

[+CyranoJ]

Time Pilot looks great!

[emkay]

the rotation point is actually just back cockpit... always in motion... background keeps the movement

 

 

two gameplay videos

On the C64 they did a workaround for this... the plane gets a weird shape while rotating, so it isn't possible to steer the back into a shot.

[_The Doctor__]

but you can steer back into shots in the arcade why would you make it so you can't?..... I played the Atari version from the party and it seems pretty close to me... the speed and such was fine... the rest of it will be fixed up so I'm just going to sit tight... we'll see what it looks and feels like when the current batch of tweaks fixes and finalization are done...I didn't have any problems getting thru levels and such though at one point I ran out of enemy completely after killing the boss... might be I chose wrong dos to load up....

 

The more I play it the more I like it....Lookin' good....

Edited May 17, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[emkay]

but you can steer back into shots in the arcade why would you make it so you can't?.....

Why should one steer back into the shots?

I wrote that there is a wrong handling in the game. You could steer into a shot with the back of the plane while you want to avoid the collision.

In the Arcade, the ship has a very small shape and a long small nose. The C64 version handles that with the animation of the sprite.

Hey, even the 2600 version handles that right.

[solo/ng]

Why should one steer back into the shots?

I wrote that there is a wrong handling in the game. You could steer into a shot with the back of the plane while you want to avoid the collision.

In the Arcade, the ship has a very small shape and a long small nose. The C64 version handles that with the animation of the sprite.

Hey, even the 2600 version handles that right.

 

But why should we even look on A2600/C64 very bad ports? Its gameplay has nothing to do with the original version and any alternation for original game is not our target - we want to make it to be arcade close (because its great fun game);

In original arcade game the global velocity is around ~2.0; in our party version its like about 0.7. If you increase it to proper value, it feels almost exact as on arcade, but smaller playfield makes it super hard.

 

Game is still in progress, things gonna change so it should be emkay.

[solo/ng]

 

Yes, I guess almost every arcade game has 1 to 1 pixels aspect. But it has been proven time and time again on the Ataris that it doesn't suck converting to a 2 to 1 ratio. It all depends on how good the pixel artist is.

 

It's certainly much easier with the method you've chosen -- since there's no conversion work to be done -- and you'll get your pixels perfectly matched with the arcade. The downside is the look is a little more on the blocky side.

 

yes, the time was important factor - becase after long break we had to start from 6502 hello world yet again and prepare all common stuff + engine before we even code the game.

so it was easier to keep original sizes.

The other factor is - I would not be happy to see small "typical atari objects" in our version, so its also important; )

 

Maybe after final version we will make small mockup with one level and smaller objects in 2x1 mode (fortunatelly nothing is hardcoded so we just would have to change widths/heights values to smaller ones here and there). But cannot promise that:).

[emkay]

But why should we even look on A2600/C64 very bad ports? Its gameplay has nothing to do with the original version and any alternation for original game is not our target - we want to make it to be arcade close (because its great fun game);

In original arcade game the global velocity is around ~2.0; in our party version its like about 0.7. If you increase it to proper value, it feels almost exact as on arcade, but smaller playfield makes it super hard.

 

Game is still in progress, things gonna change so it should be emkay.

Going close to the arcade version is the best solution there.

That's why I proposed to get more visual height on the playfield. The Arcade machine also give more "range of view" to the enemies.

Possibly it's the "high density" of enemies in that small range that makes the problem that obvious.

[_The Doctor__]

tell ya what later we make special emkay version we just turn all our monitor 90 degrees to the sky.....

I don't want it narrowed, heightened, made incompatible, crappified, then made slow....

 

Again this is exciting and is the most correct version by far and the coder knows this , I like the idea he continues doing what he is doing, and may offer other version later, VERY SMART! Further optimizations are coming and plenty of material is available.... it just gets better as it goes along, the path being taken is very good and clearly the right direction for our Atari!

 

The preliminary reviews are good from Atari and non Atari video game critics alike... this is precisely because of the faithful porting characteristics thus far... can't wait for the next release...

Edited May 17, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[FifthPlayer]

I kind of like the blocky look - it looks as if it were a Time Pilot for Intellivision port.

Edited May 17, 2017 by FifthPlayer

[emkay]

Maybe after final version we will make small mockup with one level and smaller objects in 2x1 mode

Please, not. The game is great already. It's just some slight changes to gain the real arcade feel.

[xdslx]

that atarionline.pl site is very nice , but it would be better if there were an English version of it .

[_The Doctor__]

xdxs translate is your friend there are several that will process the page for you!

[xdslx]

xdxs translate is your friend there are several that will process the page for you!

I know , but the translated by google etc. is never like an original site. Some words missing , some sentences are bad. etc.....

I would like to see this site translated by the owners and have the English version of it , too. My words are for the site owners.

[_The Doctor__]

hmmm you could go to the site and leave msg/email/feedback..... that would get ya a little further

[+mytek]

Not to belittle what the coder has done in Time pilot (which is truly great), but as suggested by someone earlier it has movement similar to Bostonian. So I was wondering if the same graphics engine that was developed for that could also work for Time Pilot?

 

- Michael

[+Adam+]

I would like to see this site translated by the owners and have the English version of it , too. My words are for the site owners.

I don't know anyone who would like to do it and would have time for that. What's more, it's even hard to find someone to write ANYTHING for AtariOnline regularly in Polish, so I have to write most of the articles by myself (or do editorial work for others) and generally I'm absolutely overloaded with "Atari duties".

Edited May 18, 2017 by +Adam+

[xdslx]

I don't know anyone who would like to do it and would have time for that. What's more, it's even hard to find someone to write ANYTHING for AtariOnline regularly in Polish, so I have to write most of the articles by myself (or do editorial work for others) and generally I'm absolutely overloaded with "Atari duties".

Thank you for your efforts , maybe you can prepare this webpage only in English , as I see your English is enough for that. I am sure more people will visit your webpages... Thats an idea only .

[+Adam+]

Thank you for your efforts , maybe you can prepare this webpage only in English , as I see your English is enough for that. I am sure more people will visit your webpages... Thats an idea only .

 

It's a non-commercial site made for Polish Atarians in the first place, many of them don't speak English. And we have quite big and active Atari community.

[xdslx]

I can guess what you have written here , before you have written it here. I am not so stupid. It was a wish that if only you could do .I would do it if I could speak Polish. Maybe you meet a site which is only in Arabic , then you can understand what I mean . Thank you.

[+Adam+]

I can guess what you have written here , before you have written it here. I am not so stupid.

I'm feeling very awkward now. I didn't mean to offend you in any way, I'm just trying to explain.

 

Maybe you meet a site which is only in Arabic , then you can understand what I mean . Thank you.

There are many situations like that, for example when I try to read Spanish language Atariteca, German ABBUC forum or Fandal's blog in Czech.