Pipe Down (WIP)

[+atari2600land]

Long-time followers of my Odyssey 2 exploits may remember a game I was making called "Plumber" that was a little (a lot?) like the arcade game "Mario Bros." Well, I decided to come back to this game and work on it some more. I'm requesting feedback about the game. I don't have much room left to make huge changes, but I will see what I can do with minor ones.

plumber14.bin

[+atari2600land]

Made it easier to hit the crab from below. ROM is now just 2k instead of 4k.

pipedown15.bin

[+atari2600land]

Did some work on the jumping and other stuff.

 

pipedown16.bin

[Mikebloke]

I've got a sd device coming in the post and my videopac is out at the moment, I'll give it a try when it arrives. 

[+atari2600land]

Major updates.

•  changed the way the guy looks
•  fixed a bug related to not dying when you're supposed to
• a couple other things I forget ATM.

Space is at a premium. I have ten bytes left.

pipedown17.bin

[+atari2600land]

I removed the fireball.

pipedown18.bin

[+atari2600land]

Got the fireball back in but it only appears if you get a certain amount of points. I set it to ten but that will probably change.

pipedown20.bin

[Mikebloke]

On 11/29/2020 at 3:28 PM, atari2600land said:

Got the fireball back in but it only appears if you get a certain amount of points. I set it to ten but that will probably change.

pipedown20.bin 2 kB · 2 downloads

I couldn't wait so I emulated it, but I do want to try it on console too when my cart comes. I think my main comments right now would be two things:

 

1) I think the gap on the bottom level could do with being a pixel or two more on each side.

2) I did wonder if the hit box for knocking over enemies be slightly bigger, I don't know if its different for turtles and crabs - and I know crabs take two hits but it felt I hit them a few times and they wouldn't always go down. I believe the sound is an indication of a hit, but I thought many times "I must have hit it that time!"

 

Other than that, it kept me busy for 10 minutes which for the G7000 is a good amount of time

 

I can't remember general limitations of G7000 well, is the 2k limit just a personal challenge / closer to original cart releases similar to the 2600 or is it a physical device limitation? (I assume they can handle more as the later games get quite complex).

[+atari2600land]

1. The gap on the bottom level can only be widened by multiples of 8 pixels since it's using the grid.

2. The Odyssey 2 has collision detection between sprites, which is what I'm using.

The 2k limit is easiest for me to program. Thanks for trying the game out, did you use a Videopac?

[Mikebloke]

29 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

1. The gap on the bottom level can only be widened by multiples of 8 pixels since it's using the grid.

2. The Odyssey 2 has collision detection between sprites, which is what I'm using.

The 2k limit is easiest for me to program. Thanks for trying the game out, did you use a Videopac?

Ah that's a shame regarding the gap, Its manageable and playable, just a shame it can't be slightly bigger.

Regarding collision detection this makes a lot more sense, its registering when hitting to the feet specifically, where as I was probably aiming for the centre where the player doesn't make contact with the feet at all. I just tested this out and it appears to be the case. I think I was originally thinking from from the original aspect of "hitting the floor" which causes the ripple to knock enemies over - but I imagine using the built in collision saves a lot of bytes.

 

Only tried on emulator so far, my device is on its way from spain, so hopefully will receive in the next week or so. I only have a European standard G7000 which should play exactly the same as the US odyssey2 - so I don't get the 7400 abilities for background etc.

[Mikebloke]

I did wonder if it was possible to increase the chance of hitting a crab by making it "realistic" with a couple of extra legs, but I think it would look ugly.

 

Aiming for the feet is not a terrible problem, now I realised it its easy enough to aim.

 

Regarding the gap, increasing it by a tile on each side would open the possibility of a 'power' block in the middle that could knock enemies on the screen over when hit - however I imagine you don't have the bytes left for that without increasing back up to 4k.

 

Edit: rubbish attempt to give crab extra legs

Edited December 1, 2020 by Mikebloke

[Mikebloke]

Plays nicely on a real console, sorry I didn't last long enough for fireball in this one, but I did do before!

 

 

Edit: I also tried your fly swatting game, it is much harder on a real console than on emulator!

Edited December 3, 2020 by Mikebloke