Vincehood Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 (edited) Hello, like many of us, I have great memories playing Imagic games on Intellivision and Colecovision. Wing War which was never adapted on Intellivision has always been one of my favourite Imagic games. I got Nanochess Intellivision programming book for Christmas and it gave me back the motivation to program in Intybasic after 3 years of total inactivity. One of the results is this basic initial attempt of "porting" Wing War. No real gameplay, no sound, no enemies, no egg or crystal to pick up but just the possibility to fly around in a few rooms. This is hopefully capturing a part of the Wing War experience. Comparing to the high standard of Intellivision homebrews, this is probably not much but I found it quite rewarding to come that far thanks to Intybasic and this forum. I hope to do more than that but I need to learn a few more things on the way and find the required time for that Special thanks to DZ-Jay, carlsson, nanochess for all the help! /Vincehood EDIT: link to Youtube demo: wingwar2.rom Edited March 21, 2021 by Vincehood 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Cool, not too bad. It actually looks kinda neat. Personally, I think the buoyancy is a bit too aggressive, but I've never played the original so I do not know how it is. Nonetheless, not bad at all for a first project. :) -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 10, 2021 Author Share Posted March 10, 2021 4 hours ago, DZ-Jay said: Cool, not too bad. It actually looks kinda neat. Personally, I think the buoyancy is a bit too aggressive, but I've never played the original so I do not know how it is. Nonetheless, not bad at all for a first project. -dZ. I agree, some tuning is needed! I have the original on the real hardware so I can play , observe and update accordingly. It is possible to play emulated inside your web browser at this link by the way: https://classicreload.com/colecovision-wing-war.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Cool! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mik's Arcade Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 wow. great job for a first go. I too got the Nanochess book. I aced all the programs in the book, but have been struggling coming up with making a game myself. I have admittedly not been spending enough time coding. I was working on a remake of Space Armada and got stumped, so I have just been lurking for a while. however, just yesterday I came up with a solid idea for an original game that would be a bit easier to do, and I was motivated enough to write a full design document on how it will work. We shall see if that gets me going again. The book is great but does only take you so far. That's why this board is great, so many people willing to help, including the master himself! I'm hoping to throw my hat in the ring for the next programming contest, maybe I will see your next game there as well! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 (edited) On 3/9/2021 at 5:04 PM, Vincehood said: Hello, like many of us, I have great memories playing Imagic games on Intellivision and Colecovision. Wing War which was never adapted on Intellivision has always been one of my favourite Imagic games. I got Nanochess Intellivision programming book for Christmas and it gave me back the motivation to program in Intybasic after 3 years of total inactivity. One of the results is this basic initial attempt of "porting" Wing War. No real gameplay, no sound, no enemies, no egg or crystal to pick up but just the possibility to fly around in a few rooms. This is hopefully capturing a part of the Wing War experience. Comparing to the high standard of Intellivision homebrews, this is probably not much but I found it quite rewarding to come that far thanks to Intybasic and this forum. I hope to do more than that but I need to learn a few more things on the way and find the required time for that Special thanks to DZ-Jay, carlsson, nanochess for all the help! /Vincehood Great job! I'm impressed! I like the title screen styled like an Imagic box. The dragon sprite is well done, and background graphics look good. Keep going! I think remakes/demakes are great for practicing and learning without the added pressure of having to design something and make it work. No one learns a new language by trying to write a new book. I like to think that mastery of the basics is what creates the freedom to be creative. Of course, I'm on my own journey, and just starting to get my feet wet. Here is one suggestion: Pressing action buttons constantly to make the dragon fly works well on a keyboard, but on a real controller it will be a painful experience. Once you figure this out, your next project may be a Joust port Edited March 16, 2021 by cmadruga 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 22 hours ago, Mik's Arcade said: wow. great job for a first go. I too got the Nanochess book. I aced all the programs in the book, but have been struggling coming up with making a game myself. I have admittedly not been spending enough time coding. I was working on a remake of Space Armada and got stumped, so I have just been lurking for a while. however, just yesterday I came up with a solid idea for an original game that would be a bit easier to do, and I was motivated enough to write a full design document on how it will work. We shall see if that gets me going again. The book is great but does only take you so far. That's why this board is great, so many people willing to help, including the master himself! I'm hoping to throw my hat in the ring for the next programming contest, maybe I will see your next game there as well! Thanks! This is actually more of a second project. I did a Tron deadly disc 2-players game back in 2017: "Tron, back to the grid" See link below: Note: someone in the forum helped with the music conversion to Intybasic but I still have to integrate it in the game I relied more or less entirely on the Intybasic tutorial, manual, examples and all the great help from this forum (without it I would have come nowhere!). Then I took a long pause & forgot almost everything. I got recently Nanochess book for Christmas and found motivation & interest again. Thanks to the book, I think I learned better ways to do things, better structure and new stuff like scrolling : Now I will try to progress on Wingwar. And who knows I could maybe part of the contest some day! /V 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 7 hours ago, cmadruga said: Great job! I'm impressed! I like the title screen styled like an Imagic box. The dragon sprite is well done, and background graphics look good. Keep going! I think remakes/demakes are great for practicing and learning without the added pressure of having to design something and make it work. No one learns a new language by trying to write a new book. I like to think that mastery of the basics is what creates the freedom to be creative. Of course, I'm on my own journey, and just starting to get my feet wet. Here is one suggestion: Pressing action buttons constantly to make the dragon fly works well on a keyboard, but on a real controller it will be a painful experience. Once you figure this out, your next project may be a Joust port Thanks Carlos! I am by the way really impressed by all your work. I hope you will complete the Pandora Incident: it looks fantastic! I should soon receive HELI by the way About the controls, I am not fully satisfied yet but Wing War did rely on recurrent button pressing. I know Joust but have never played it actually. I should check it out /V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mik's Arcade Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Vincehood said: Thanks! This is actually more of a second project. I did a Tron deadly disc 2-players game back in 2017: "Tron, back to the grid" See link below: Note: someone in the forum helped with the music conversion to Intybasic but I still have to integrate it in the game I relied more or less entirely on the Intybasic tutorial, manual, examples and all the great help from this forum (without it I would have come nowhere!). Then I took a long pause & forgot almost everything. I got recently Nanochess book for Christmas and found motivation & interest again. Thanks to the book, I think I learned better ways to do things, better structure and new stuff like scrolling : Now I will try to progress on Wingwar. And who knows I could maybe part of the contest some day! /V wow....Tron is great too. Coincidentally, the game I am working on now uses scrolling, so I know who to bug if I need help....haha. I'm doing one small chunk at a time. I got my animated running character working, looks like your Tron guy, now I am going to try to use the IntyColor to make one with better graphics, like your scrolling game. Then I am going to work on the scrolling backgrounds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 6 hours ago, Vincehood said: Thanks Carlos! I am by the way really impressed by all your work. I hope you will complete the Pandora Incident: it looks fantastic! I should soon receive HELI by the way About the controls, I am not fully satisfied yet but Wing War did rely on recurrent button pressing. I know Joust but have never played it actually. I should check it out /V Thanks for the comments, and I hope you enjoy HELI. I did give Wing War a shot for the first time earlier today, and yes, there is recurrent button pressing. The thing is that the Intellivision's action buttons are unfortunately not very comfortable, and there is a chance you may hear complaints from players. Of course, deciding whether to deviate from the original - or to offer more than one control scheme - is your choice. Never played Joust? I bet you will really enjoy it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Steve Jones Posted March 19, 2021 Share Posted March 19, 2021 Joust was one of my arcade favs as a kid, for years I’ve been hoping for an Intellivision port, but maybe with some sort of auto-flap option, since the constant button pressing to fly would be literally painful using the Intelly controller. (Not bashing the controller by the way, I still like them, I use one with an adaptor to play games in jzintv on my laptop) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 19, 2021 Share Posted March 19, 2021 Auto-flapping is one idea for sure. Another could be to introduce "gain" with each consecutive flap. Let each flap have a compounded/exponential effect over the previous one. Up to a max, of course. If buttons are not pressed for a while, the gain would get back to a minimum level. Either way, Joust is a great game and I hope someone will port it eventually. Shouldn't be that difficult, other than the controller part. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) On 3/19/2021 at 5:09 PM, cmadruga said: Auto-flapping is one idea for sure. Another could be to introduce "gain" with each consecutive flap. Let each flap have a compounded/exponential effect over the previous one. Up to a max, of course. If buttons are not pressed for a while, the gain would get back to a minimum level. Either way, Joust is a great game and I hope someone will port it eventually. Shouldn't be that difficult, other than the controller part. Yes, I have been thinking about this as well, may give it a try eventually I will try to progress with additional rooms (the cave part). I feel I haven't found yet an efficient way to convert/adapt pictures into Inty backgrounds, I am lacking experience. I can see from the Colecovision version that they are definitely some kind of tiles that are re-used between the rooms but I am wondering about the best way to approach it. Or maybe there is only one way: the hard way :(... Any suggestion welcome! Edited March 21, 2021 by Vincehood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 About the controller discussion, have you seen this? Would probably help with recurrent action button presses. About your question on how to convert/adapt pictures to Intellivision backgrounds and reuse tiles: one approach is to use a tile editor to create your screens. Are you familiar with those? There is a free one called "Tiled" that works well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 20, 2021 Share Posted March 20, 2021 4 hours ago, Vincehood said: Yes, I have been thinking about this as well, may give him a try eventually I will try to progress with additional rooms (the cave part). I feel I haven't found yet an efficient way to convert/adapt pictures into Inty backgrounds, I am lacking experience. I can see from the Colecovision version that they are definitely some kind of tiles that are re-used between the rooms but I am wondering about the best way to approach it. Or maybe there is only one way: the hard way :(... Any suggestion welcome! But the question is ... is auto-flapping the main game mechanic of the first Intellivision Club members-only release? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 2 hours ago, cmadruga said: About the controller discussion, have you seen this? Would probably help with recurrent action button presses. About your question on how to convert/adapt pictures to Intellivision backgrounds and reuse tiles: one approach is to use a tile editor to create your screens. Are you familiar with those? There is a free one called "Tiled" that works well. Funny I was discussing today about this controller with the designer in a french forum today Looks promising! And I started to learn using a tile program today before I read your message So yes I think it is part of the solution and definitely an improvement but it will still take a lot of time. I was hoping that I would be able to use some software to detect common tiles between different Colecovision screenshots, then scale those down and adapt to Intellivision. Instead, I end up working on one scaled down screenshot that I re-work and manually derive the tiles. Then I will have more or less to recreate the others rooms manually using these tiles. There is probably not magic here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 59 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said: But the question is ... is auto-flapping the main game mechanic of the first Intellivision Club members-only release? Haha, who knows! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 (edited) 15 hours ago, Vincehood said: Haha, who knows! That was a question for @Rev and for some reason the quoting got missattributed. (And it was intended as a joke.) Anyway, back on topic: I agree with @cmadruga that some sort of combination of physics and mechanics would be superior than having to hit that stupid action-button on the Intellivision controller constantly. -dZ. Edited March 21, 2021 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lathe26 Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 Maybe combine direction the flapping by tapping different parts of the disc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 (edited) Initial rendering of the starting cave, using a tile editor. I now have a base set of tiles that I can try to re-use when creating the other rooms (while trying to keep the number of used titles under a reasonable limit) Edited March 22, 2021 by Vincehood 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 Looks good! How many different tiles did you use to draw that screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vincehood Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 1 hour ago, cmadruga said: Looks good! How many different tiles did you use to draw that screen? Will double-check... I think it was 24 or 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmadruga Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 In that case you seem to have enough space in GRAM to add a few more tiles and make it even closer to the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 21 minutes ago, cmadruga said: In that case you seem to have enough space in GRAM to add a few more tiles and make it even closer to the original. A few comments: Instead of white on red, you may want to try orange on red, or yellow on orange. There's 64 cards in GRAM, so you have plenty of space for a few more cards. The way I typically design screens is by first making an "ideal" scene, and then seeing how I can implement it in the limited number of cards available. I would recommend that approach rather than trying to design cards first and using them to "tile" your background. It may come up more organic. It's looking good so far. -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masseo1 Posted March 22, 2021 Share Posted March 22, 2021 Looking really good. I enjoy tracking the progress. keep up the great work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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