jaguar Wormhole 2000 (home brew) ATARI Jaguar

[Zerosquare]

4 hours ago, phoboz said:

Yes that was my fear also, because I understand the rotary has 16 steps for a full circle. The circle's angle is 256 steps, so the smallest unit you could move your ship with the rotary would be 16 steps in one go. So the game might be very hard with such precision.

All rotaries don't have the same number of steps per revolution. But in practice it doesn't matter, because you don't actually need 1:1 mapping: since you're not looking at the rotary when playing, the position of the knob isn't important. If you're not convinced, try playing Tempest 2000 with a rotary

In fact, it's best to let the player adjust the sensitivity (angle per step) of the controls.

[phoboz]

4 hours ago, KevinMos3 said:

Looks really cool.  I look forward to the sale.

One thing that stuck out to me was the abrupt transition between planets.  Current planet disappears and new planet quickly zooms in.  It doesn't appear this was due to video editing, or am I mistaken?  If not, that's the one thing I would encourage improving: leaving the current planet with a flyby or something before arriving at the next one with the zoom in.

I actually made a transition a little bit like you describe, please see the attached videowomhole2k_transitions.mkv

[agradeneu]

56 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

All rotaries don't have the same number of steps per revolution. But in practice it doesn't matter, because you don't actually need 1:1 mapping: since you're not looking at the rotary when playing, the position of the knob isn't important. If you're not convinced, try playing Tempest 2000 with a rotary

In fact, it's best to let the player adjust the sensitivity (angle per step) of the controls.

It works well with Tempest 2000, but you don't need much precision for that game.  It's the only game were I really prefer the rotary over a standard.

[Machine]

2 hours ago, agradeneu said:

It works well with Tempest 2000, but you don't need much precision for that game.  It's the only game were I really prefer the rotary over a standard.

 

Rotary is great in Rebooteroids. Seems percise and you can customize the rotary responsiveness. Love the controls in that game.

[agradeneu]

11 hours ago, Machine said:

 

Rotary is great in Rebooteroids. Seems percise and you can customize the rotary responsiveness. Love the controls in that game.

The ship in "Wormhole" also moves on a  Z Axis. How you do that with a rotary, as it lacks a D pad unfortunality? Also rotary makes navigation of menus more cumbersome and unpleasant. Moving a character in a straight line, horizontally or vertically, with a rotary, is like parking a bus with a tire puncture. The scenarios in which a rotary could really benefit a game and give you actually BETTER controls are very limited. Won't argue with you that some people like it and want more software for it. So yes, maybe worth a try, go for it. ?

But its not easy to make good use of it, and to change or alter a game for a IMO gimmicky input device is not a thing you really want to do.

Edited August 4, 2020 by agradeneu

[phoboz]

Some people seems to be willing to help me looking into the rotary support.

I wouldn't mind having it as a nice feature for those who has the opportunity to play with such controller.

However, I am not ready to break anything else the game because of that. I guess most people do not have a rotary controller.

(It could be possible to move in the Z-direction using the A, and C buttons, you could also navigate in the menus using these buttons A-up, C-down)

So let's see what happens in the coming days, if we are able to work out a solution together, but I wouldn't like to hold back the game for to long, as all of the other stuff is already complete...

[VintageGamer74]

Old-school shooter! Loving it!

 

Cheers!

[PFG 9000]

Holy cow, this looks cool!  A definite purchase for me.  For the record, I have a rotary controller and would love the option to use it here, but I'll buy the game whether or not it has rotary support.  I think rotary controllers are pretty common among Jaguar fans, since Tempest 2000 and Rebooteroids are among the more popular Jaguar titles, and rotaries are pretty readily available these days.  I've even seen a variety of different Jag rotary controllers in my local used game shops.

[Machine]

On 8/4/2020 at 5:41 AM, phoboz said:

Some people seems to be willing to help me looking into the rotary support.

I wouldn't mind having it as a nice feature for those who has the opportunity to play with such controller.

However, I am not ready to break anything else the game because of that. I guess most people do not have a rotary controller.

(It could be possible to move in the Z-direction using the A, and C buttons, you could also navigate in the menus using these buttons A-up, C-down)

So let's see what happens in the coming days, if we are able to work out a solution together, but I wouldn't like to hold back the game for to long, as all of the other stuff is already complete...

 

I think a lot of use now have a rotary because of Tempest and Rebooteroids. To me, the most important part of a game is good controls. Rotary really improves control on most of these types of games. Good luck with adding it and it is cool people are helping you look into it!

[Lost Monkey]

Very nice work phoboz!

 

I would suggest one thing - after listening to the video a second time while I was reading the comments, I noticed that the explosion sound gets very repetitive.  Can you give the explosion a different volume or tone depending on how far away the exploding object is? 

[phoboz]

Yes controls is probably one of the most important aspects of a game. I also added another control method (which I prefer in some situations). Identical to the controls in the oscilloscope vector game "Gyrocks". This mode is called "rectangular" controls (you can actually switch between the control modes during game-play by pressing keypad "2", or "3")

 

The nice thing with this control method is that you control the ship in a classical 2D fashion (so the ship actually goes in the direction you are pulling to on the D-pad) So you can get to any coordinate on the screen, and not only along the outer edge of a circle. Also the closer you get to the screen center, the further away the ship goes. The angle of the ship is automatically aligned toward the screen center.

 

I prefer to switch between these 2 control modes depending on the situation in the game.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by phoboz
Add image of Gyrocks

[phoboz]

Image of Gyrocks

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by phoboz

[racerx]

Looking good!

 

Love me some Gyruss.

[The Helper]

Looks good but it needs power ups imo.

[phoboz]

4 hours ago, Chris Brockman said:

Looks good but it needs power ups imo.

There are 2 types of power-up

1. Dual fire

2. Shield +3

[phoboz]

The game is now released (with joypad support only)

http://tjocktv.se/product/wormhole-2000-atari-jaguar/

[+CyranoJ]

Congratulations on the release - Ordered!

Get me some Gyruss action !

 

(Also dropped the link on the Reboot facebook and twitter feeds to give you some extra exposure)

[TrekMD]

Ordered!  Thank you!

[Stage_1_Boss]

Ordered, thank you! = )

[+Saturn]

Ordered

[Rick Dangerous]

Really want this with a box and manual....any possibility of that happening down the road? 

[Gaztee]

3 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said:

Really want this with a box and manual....any possibility of that happening down the road? 

I'm working on this with Phoboz, so hopefully these won't be too far away ? Once I have all the ST ports shipped this will be completed.

[Neogeoman]

COUNT ME IN IT LOOKS FANTASTIC! GREAT JOB, DEFINITELY REMINDS ME OF GYRUSS 

[Rick Dangerous]

Awesome @Gaztee will you offer the cart with it; or just box/manual

[McCarseat]

Very excited for this, don't mind having to buy box/manual separately from Gaztee. Waiting for his response though so I don't end up having a loose copy and a boxed copy haha.