Idea: Car Polo 2600

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

This looks like a doable and fun game for the 2600:

 

Since Glenn Saunders already plans using Y adapters for 4 Joysticks at once with his Death Derby, this might be the next 4-Player party hit!

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[mos6507]

The Y-player adapter doesn't allow for 4 joysticks at once (at least not without all the signals available at once). It just allows you to use 2 digital signals that the driving controller doesn't use. This will map to two joystick directions, up/down or right/left depending on how you wire the adapter.

 

If you used this technique to wire up two joysticks you'd be left with two joysticks that can only move in two directions and only one fire button to fight over.

 

The second button could be provided via one of the paddle lines ala Booster grip so it would be possible to do a 4-player game that only required a 2-way joystick.

 

Likewise you could wire up 4 driving controllers the same way so a 4-player driving game is theoretically possible, but not without requiring flicker some of the time.

 

Driving games don't really feature vertical separation so there would be times when all 4 cars are on the same line.

 

Consequently, a 4-Player Car Polo isn't going to happen within Death Derby 2600 because it uses a "no-flicker" kernel. I'd like to keep it a 4K game with only one kernel and sans flicker.

 

The missiles as gremlins work because the shapes I need to draw work okay with the limitations of missile width/position. However, it would be impossible to do a rotating car with the missiles.

 

You could, however, have two human-controlled zombies.

 

But the reason I'm doing the Y-adapter is to allow for a forward-reverse gear shifter. With a 4-driving controller game you'd only have a gas pedal button, that's all.

 

I've thought about doing a pseudo-4-player mode where you could manually control the direction of the zombies with the stick (tap left to rotate direction left, tap right to rotate direction right).

 

I've also thought about doing a 2-Player car-polo type of game, which should be quite simple to add to DD. It might be more interesting, though, if the "ball" were kept as a zombie and you make him ricochet off your car rather than splatting him.

 

That way the missing cars are substituted with the random AI effect of the zombie getting up and running around whenever he stops rolling after a collision.

 

I'm sure it's possible to write a 4-player driving game from scratch with intelligent flicker, something that has the full 16 angles of rotation unlike the 8 in Championship Sprint.

 

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[Cybergoth]

Hi Glenn!

 

The Y-player adapter doesn't allow for 4 joysticks at once (at least not without all the signals available at once).  It just allows you to use 2 digital signals that the driving controller doesn't use.  This will map to two joystick directions, up/down or right/left depending on how you wire the adapter.

 

Oh, I see. I should've paid more attention when the specs where discussed. I just thought it'd do something like toggling two Joysticks at 30Hz or something like that

 

The second button could be provided via one of the paddle lines ala Booster grip so it would be possible to do a 4-player game that only required a 2-way joystick.

 

Hm... I think I'd probably just try something with paddles then.

 

Driving games don't really feature vertical separation so there would be times when all 4 cars are on the same line.

 

Yep. I thought of simple flicker, just like in Robot City for example.

 

Consequently, a 4-Player Car Polo isn't going to happen within Death Derby 2600 because it uses a "no-flicker" kernel.  I'd like to keep it a 4K game with only one kernel and sans flicker.

 

Certainly. I was not suggesting that you should add that to DD. I just thought of a simple, yet fun beginners project.

 

I've also thought about doing a 2-Player car-polo type of game, which should be quite simple to add to DD.  It might be more interesting, though, if the "ball" were kept as a zombie and you make him ricochet off your car rather than splatting him.

 

Now that sounds definetly cool

 

I'm sure it's possible to write a 4-player driving game from scratch with intelligent flicker, something that has the full 16 angles of rotation unlike the 8 in Championship Sprint.

 

Would be cool too.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[kisrael]

This is similar to some ideas I've had.

 

One idea I've had for a long time (actually, I just cut and paste from my first Usenet post using the word JoustPong) is

"4 player 2600 Combat with each player steering with the paddle control, holding fire to move and releasing fire to launch a bullet..."

(Actually, that would play a bit more like 'airplanes' combat than the tank levels, since everyone would be moving so much probably)

 

Lately I've been thinking of some possible variations of that...like instead of everyone being able to fire all the time, there's a single "dodgeball" on the screen. Whoever picks it up can then fire it at the other folks, it moves for a distance, and then stops and becomes safe to try to pickup.

 

It could be dodgeball like we used to play in gym, and that would keep people on seperate halfs of the screen. Though I think all-screen warball would be best...I'd probably try to pick colors that didn't seem to flicker so much or something. I also thought about trying "Adventure Dodgeball" where everyone is the square from Adventure, but then you can't easily have everyone a different color.

 

"Polo" might be a better game though. Actually now that JoustPong is at the 'theoretically releasable if I'm really lazy" stage, I should experimentwith putting the left/right movement variants back in....

 

Frankly, the biggest almost show-stopping problem with all of these ideas might be providing decent (but hopefully not perfect) AI, since usually people don't have 4 people to play. Warlords is the only game I know that does this at all well.

 

(I also remember an old Compute's Gazette game...2 players, both in "Asteroids" ships, with 4 planetoids between them. Both ships could fire, but the guns main effect was too push the planetoids, and you'd try to get the enemy to crash into them. Not sure if the gun pushed the enemy as well. Anyway, it was a neat example of indirection in games.)