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HSC18 Round 12: PHOBOS, CAVERNS OF MARS II, NIGHT RESCUE 1941


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Some interestng posts guys thank you :thumbsup:

 

Robert when you have done all 10 games (that's a serious achievement) let me know and we'll run them all in a special HSC round alongside their basic originals. I'm a fan of basic games.

 

TP see smoking is bad for you after all  :-D

 

15 hours ago, therealbountybob said:

Round 13 POLL OPEN

 

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Awesome TP :thumbsup: you are boldly going where no atarian has gone before and have picke up a bonus point! Of course we all want you to keep playing and see if there is a kil screen/level but I think you have the win in the bag so you might want to stop paying now!!!

 

Tried to complete 2 laps on Phobos but my impatience got me again and again!  

81.870

Photo3663.jpg.89e03da793b8e055b30d90c12cd838e5.jpg

Still no joy with NR1941 - got 4200 couldn't scroll R at the end to find anything - or L at start (yes with fire held). Am playing on PAL 130XE with 1050 drive - game is on mypicodos menu on a mydos disk...screenshot shows go where I go right from start and try and get as far right as I can...

Photo3666.jpg.30375216dedc6c794049c4e9c2ae6954.jpg

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@therealbountybob

 

Have you solved the NR41 fine tuning movement to get onto the landing pad ?

 

I use the keyboard (most of the time). The fire button makes for fine movement, dont really know why it's required. Just a pain.

 

Seems like an invisable wall, then use the fire button.

 

This might make sense ?

nr41landhere.jpg

Edited by RedThunder
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I manage to shoot those two more or less impossible fuletanks on stage 4 twice in perhaps 40 atempts.

For a moment i was worried about my 130xe after launshing at spacebar to hard to pause for the picture?

 

This game make me dizzy after played it so much this week, so im truh with it for now.

 

 

20210730_230726.jpg

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Small improvements on my side, though I'm not sure how much it changes the big picture:

 

Caverns of Mars II - 116400 pts (level 6 stage 5)
Night Rescue 1941 - 26100 pts (level 3)
Phobos - 62040 pts (Commander level 2 stage L)

 

On CoM II, I had five lives at the beginning of level 6 but managed to waste all on that level. I could say something similar about Phobos to be honest.

 

cavernsofmars2-116400.thumb.jpg.16a214a05f4312969270f4bb850e36a8.jpg

 

nightrescue1941-26100.thumb.jpg.baac5ad0b5316466fd29fd8cfbafd5ab.jpg

 

phobos-commander-62040.thumb.jpg.86cdd925038e380c478a24d98555dbd3.jpg

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So for fun I played two bonus games:

 

Caverns of Mars I (the forerunner to Phobos) - 22450 on difficulty Commander.

 

I reached the beginning of stage 3 but not sure how I should time those blocks of lights by adjusting the height of my ship in time. Super hard, much harder than Phobos at the same difficulty level. I never tried Novice to see how much easier that is. Yeah, since this isn't an official bonus game of this round, just chalk it down to my curiosity.

 

Night Rescue (original 1984 version) - 1700 pts.

 

nightrescue1984-1700.thumb.jpg.6c4dcaf8afe456e26066d1c6a730c342.jpg

 

Deteacher wrote this is hard as heck. I think that is an understatement! The course scrolls one character at a time and the balloon much quicker picks up pace up and down, sometimes making it a challenge to control it. You must only pick up people right above them, you must not much people with any other part of the balloon. You can not land at solid red squares. The fine movement when holding the fire button only works with two 8x8 cells at a time, before the game does a coarse scroll to the side. If you are fine adjusted in either direction and then move rough, you will likely hit something and die. People located right at the side of a building - forget to rescue those, you can't reach them anymore. People located in deep crevices - consider leaving them, as the risks are too high. Also, did I mention that the enemy airplane is flying across the screen from the very first level, and in combination with the coarse movement makes it super hard to avoid?

 

While it is a fine game for 1984, in particular if it was a machine code type-in, I can kind of see why COMPUTE! decided to not publish it as it is super hard and super unforgiving. Anyone who plays this version of the game and manages to complete the level should be awarded a HSC bonus point, easily.

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@carlsson thanks for the review and comments about the original BASIC version of Night Rescue.  The version submitted to Compute was in BASIC, not machine code.  We agree that it was very difficult for all the reasons you mentioned.  Looking at all of the BASIC games we wrote in the 1980's, half of point of writing them for magazine publication was to provide technical information and showcase tricks that could be done in BASIC (horizontal scrolling, PM graphics, Antic mode 4, redefine characters,, etc.)  The gameplay was sometimes secondary, and we were all arcade hotshots at the time and made them purposely difficult for even us to master.  We should have considered the beginning player who hadn't playtested the game hundreds of times during development. Going back and re writing these games has allowed us to take a fresh look at gameplay and try to improve that as well.  At least now you can see why we introduced the fine-tune movement with the fire button in the BASIC version so even with course scrolling you could move to any pixel on the screen to rescue humans.  Of course that made any fine tuned movement very difficult, as you mentioned! 

 

I apologize for the score and high score bug with the new version that was discovered.  I looked at the code and it was an easy fix of one line that was a cut and paste error.  If you want me to post the fix here, I can do it, but it only happens when you score more than 100,000 points so it is rare.

Edited by rra
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Not sure I will get to play the original Night Rescue.  Tried but was not sure how to run it either on real hardware (have a Unocart, no drive) or emulator.   Any one have some tips or link on how?  Thanks 

 

Thanks to the original authors for their additional information and game.  Never played such a game before 

Edited by AtariSphinx
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12 hours ago, AtariSphinx said:

Tried but was not sure how to run it either on real hardware (have a Unocart, no drive) or emulator.

I'm using a SIO2SD with this process:

 

1. Mount an existing ATR with DOS (2.5) as device 1.

2. Mount the BASIC file as device 2.

 

Boot with BASIC enabled until it reaches the READY prompt. Then LOAD"D2:NIGHTRES.BAS" and RUN.

 

Without booting the ATR, it seems BASIC doesn't know there is a disk drive attached. I don't know how to translate this process to the Unocart.

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Ok, I played the original Night Rescue again and managed to get 2600 pts. Simply I decided to skip the 2x3 guys inside the tower as it is too risky to lose lives capturing them, and hoped to get as many as possible in the cave later on.

 

So yes, an impressive game for being BASIC but as mentioned, more a challenge in implementing techniques than balancing game play for average players.

 

nightrescue1984-2600.thumb.jpg.dfee8bfa1ac04bca65ae7b270be2427a.jpg

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2 hours ago, carlsson said:

I'm using a SIO2SD with this process:

 

1. Mount an existing ATR with DOS (2.5) as device 1.

2. Mount the BASIC file as device 2.

 

Boot with BASIC enabled until it reaches the READY prompt. Then LOAD"D2:NIGHTRES.BAS" and RUN.

 

Without booting the ATR, it seems BASIC doesn't know there is a disk drive attached. I don't know how to translate this process to the Unocart.

Thanks,  will play around with it.   Never booted a .bas game in years.  

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