MCP90 Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 (edited) Shadow Reflex is a frantic 4K arcade shooter that will test your reaction times, focus and stamina! The story so far... You found a strange meteorite at the border of the Solar System and decided to investigate but, entering a cave in one of its craters, you discover that the meteorite is actually an ancient alien mothership. "IT'S A TRAP!" As soon as you enter the first corridor two shiny red energy walls locks you in and Drone appears... A scan of the alien artefact reveals you that not only it has an incredible hull density but also a very thick energy shield, it will be hard to escape but there's hope: the Drone is powering the two energy walls and this means that if you destroy it the energy walls will be lowered! Controls: The joystick moves the player ship Fire button to shoot Difficulty settings: BB = normal / 100k score limit, AB = hard / 150k score limit, BA = very hard / 200k score limit, AA = extreme / 250k score limit Color setting: B/W to enable autofire Game rules: You win the game by reaching the score limit based of the difficulty setting (100k/150k/200k/250k) If you get too close to the Drone it will try to ram you and possibly destroy you in a second, move away quickly! If you are being chased by the drone you will be unable to shoot but you will also be slightly faster If your shield (bottom left bar) gets in half or less, an energy cell will appear orbiting the Drone, grab it for 1000 points extra and regenerate the current shield If you lose a shield you will lose a ship's hull (bottom right bars), you can't get them back, lose all three and it is game over! Latest release 26_10_2020 [final release, previously known as beta during bug hunting] Added a game end New SECAM-like color scheme... FANCY! PAL60 release Tuned difficulty settings Tuned energy cell orbit and speed General code optimization & gameplay polishing General bugfixing (it should be the last one) Added an autofire function using the color switch Known Issues: None so far... Let me know if you find something shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_NTSC.bin shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_PAL60.bin ######## OLDER RELEASES ####### Spoiler LATEST RELEASE 19_10_2020 rewritten drone logic (drone sight for ramming is now cross shaped instead of a circle-ish) when in ramming mode the drone it will change sprite based of the main directon when in ramming mode the drone will cease fire and double it's speed "only" on the horizontal axis when the drone is in ramming mode the player ship will be in light grey color, unable to shoot and it will double its movement speed general code optimizations Known Issues rarely the enemy drone gets stuck on the playfield border rarely the drone will "YEET" out of the screen sometimes the drone will have an higher than intended ram speed shadow reflex 19_10_2020 NTSC.bin Thanks to DrJest for your great suggestions and code snippets! RELEASE 14_10_2020 after 4 hits to the player an "energy pill" will appear orbiting the enemy drone, catching it will restore the player energy. WATCH OUT, the drone will still try to ram you! added difficulty settings via console switches: BB = normal, AB = hard, BA = very hard, AA = extreme [normal setting highly suggested] when in "ramming mode" the drone will change sprite and color to warn the player about the danger minor color changes removed flashy boot screen Known Issues sometimes the enemy drone gets stuck near the player rarely the drone will do a very difficult to avoid ramming manouver shadow reflex 14_10_2020 NTSC.bin RELEASE 19_09_2020 drone fire speed reduced the drone will try to ram you if you get too close (currently a bit glitchy) after player death the drone will smoothly go out of the play field based of its postition fixed end game timer that allowed restart by pressing fire hidden player missile after death general code optimizations shadow reflex 19_09_2020.bin RELEASE 14_09_2020 tuned "temporary" default difficulty by slowing down the drone's bullet now pressing FIRE after loosing will restart the game without going back to the splash screen removed background flashes (may be reintroduced as a different rom or as an option by switch selection) shadow reflex 10_09_2020.bin Flashy version "WARNING" shadow reflex WIP 10_09_2020.bin No Full Screen flashes version shadow reflex NO FULLSCR FLASHES.bin Edited November 30, 2020 by MCP90 tag update, final 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 Related link: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-game-design-guidelines.html#no_flashing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted September 13, 2020 Author Share Posted September 13, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Random Terrain said: Related link: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-game-design-guidelines.html#no_flashing you are right, I should have at least warn about that EDIT: added a warning plus a rom without full screen flashes Edited September 13, 2020 by MCP90 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Karl G Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 It's a pretty good start. The auto-flip whent he drone is on the other side of the screen is handy. I didn't personally mind the screen flashing version since you used a low intensity color for it, but it should be optional if you keep it for those who have issues with it. It's also really difficult as it is right now - it seems the only way to damage the drone is to be in its line of fire, so you are going to get hit at the same rate, unless I am missing something. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted September 13, 2020 Author Share Posted September 13, 2020 35 minutes ago, Karl G said: It's a pretty good start. The auto-flip whent he drone is on the other side of the screen is handy. I didn't personally mind the screen flashing version since you used a low intensity color for it, but it should be optional if you keep it for those who have issues with it. It's also really difficult as it is right now - it seems the only way to damage the drone is to be in its line of fire, so you are going to get hit at the same rate, unless I am missing something. THX! Yes it needs to be tuned, as said one of the future goals is to make difficulty (enemy and missile speed) increase gradually based of the score while also introducing health back after a certain amount of points. My code needs a bit of optimization too, I'm out of variables XD The auto flip is there to keep the game pacing frantic and the player concentrated on the action, at some point I considered the classic "change direction and press fire/release fire change direction again and press fire" to change fire direction (like predecessors to twin stick shooters) but I realized it can be distracting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slacker Posted September 18, 2020 Share Posted September 18, 2020 Cool game! I dig the auto flipping of the ship to keep it facing the enemy. It definitely gave it a unique feel. The drone is pretty tough to hit at any distance. I was only ever really able to get good shots on it while I was dangerously close to causing us to crash into each other. (Though that could just be me being bad at it. ) It would be cool to see power ups (temp weapon upgrade, shield, etc) that randomly appear in the play area and whoever flies over it first (you or drone) gets the power up for x amount of time. Also maybe the addition of obstacles in the play area at higher difficulties. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted September 18, 2020 Author Share Posted September 18, 2020 1 hour ago, slacker said: Cool game! I dig the auto flipping of the ship to keep it facing the enemy. It definitely gave it a unique feel. The drone is pretty tough to hit at any distance. I was only ever really able to get good shots on it while I was dangerously close to causing us to crash into each other. (Though that could just be me being bad at it. ) It would be cool to see power ups (temp weapon upgrade, shield, etc) that randomly appear in the play area and whoever flies over it first (you or drone) gets the power up for x amount of time. Also maybe the addition of obstacles in the play area at higher difficulties. Thx a lot! Before adding features I need to sort out my code since I believe it is inefficient (I'm out of standard variables) but it is indeed planned to add more gameplay features as you can read in the main post. I hope I can release a new version during the weekend. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted September 19, 2020 Author Share Posted September 19, 2020 NEW RELEASE 19_09_2020 drone fire speed reduced the drone will try to ram you if you get too close (currently a bit glitchy) after player death the drone will smoothly go out of the play field based of its postition fixed end game timer that allowed restart by pressing fire hidden player missile after death general code optimizations shadow reflex 19_09_2020.bin 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 Man, this is tough! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted September 19, 2020 Author Share Posted September 19, 2020 1 hour ago, TrekMD said: Man, this is tough! I know and it will stay this way until I add the missing planned features... This does not mean it will be easy, just that a match will last longer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted October 14, 2020 Author Share Posted October 14, 2020 (edited) LATEST RELEASE 14_10_2020 after 4 hits to the player an "energy pill" will appear orbiting the enemy drone, catching it will restore the player energy. WATCH OUT, the drone will still try to ram you! added difficulty settings via console switches: BB = normal, AB = hard, BA = very hard, AA = extreme [normal setting highly suggested] when in "ramming mode" the drone will change sprite and color to warn the player about the danger minor color changes removed flashy boot screen Known Issues sometimes the enemy drone gets stuck near the player rarely the drone will do a very difficult to avoid ramming manouver shadow reflex 14_10_2020 NTSC.bin Edited October 15, 2020 by MCP90 changelog correction 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted October 16, 2020 Share Posted October 16, 2020 (edited) ZeroPage Homebrew will be checking out Shadow Reflex on tomorrow's (Fri Oct 16) stream LIVE on Twitch at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 7PM GMT! Hope everyone can watch! Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/ Games: Pitkat (2020 Exclusive Final Release) by Marco Johannes (@MarcoJ) and Dyfed Hitchings (@Jamtex) Shadow Reflex (2020 WIP) by @MCP90 Chalk & Duster (2020) by Glenn Main (Glenn Main) @Glenn Main) Astronomer (2018 Patch Attempt #2: ?/20) by Alex Pietrow (@Coolcrab) (SET VIDEO TO 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY) Edited October 17, 2020 by ZeroPage Homebrew 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted October 19, 2020 Author Share Posted October 19, 2020 (edited) LATEST RELEASE 19_10_2020 rewritten drone logic (drone sight for ramming is now cross shaped instead of a circle-ish) when in ramming mode the drone it will change sprite based of the main directon when in ramming mode the drone will cease fire and double it's speed "only" on the horizontal axis when the drone is in ramming mode the player ship will be in light grey color, unable to shoot and it will double its movement speed general code optimizations Known Issues rarely the enemy drone gets stuck on the playfield border rarely the drone will "YEET" out of the screen sometimes the drone will have an higher than intended ram speed shadow reflex 19_10_2020 NTSC.bin Edited October 19, 2020 by MCP90 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted October 26, 2020 Author Share Posted October 26, 2020 The Beta is here, the game can be considered complete! If no more issues are found this will be the last release. I added a bit of "lore" to introduce the game, I hope you like it. Latest release "BETA" 26_10_2020 Added a game end New SECAM-like color scheme... FANCY! PAL60 release Tuned difficulty settings Tuned energy cell orbit and speed General code optimization & gameplay polishing General bugfixing (it should be the last one) Added an autofire function using the color switch Known Issues: None so far... Let me know if you find something shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_NTSC.bin shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_PAL60.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) Nice game. If you enable "Delayed VDEL... swap for Players" in Stella's Developer TIA options, the rightmost score digit shows a glitch. This might show on the @ZeroPage Homebrew console too. Edited October 26, 2020 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Nice game. If you enable "Delayed VDEL... swap for Players" in Stella's Developer TIA options, the rightmost score digit shows a glitch. This might show on the @ZeroPage Homebrew console too. Looks all good here! Both fine from cold and also after 1 hour of system being on. - James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCP90 Posted November 30, 2020 Author Share Posted November 30, 2020 Since the latest BETA release didn't show any bug neither I received any report from the community, it is to be considered the FINAL and COMPLETE version with no more work to be done, enjoy! Latest release 26_10_2020 [final release, previously known as beta during bug hunting] Added a game end New SECAM-like color scheme... FANCY! PAL60 release Tuned difficulty settings Tuned energy cell orbit and speed General code optimization & gameplay polishing General bugfixing (it should be the last one) Added an autofire function using the color switch shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_NTSC.bin4 kB · 50 downloads shadow_reflex BETA 26_10_2020_PAL60.bin 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.