Super Zaxxon 2021

[Serge Billault]

Hello,

I have undertaken a modern update of Super Zaxxon which you can play online (no installation needed) here:
https://geoarcmap.alwaysdata.net/SUPER_ZAXXON

The game code is 99% finished. But there is only one level at the moment.

I will soon need some people to help me:
- Design 5 or 6 levels (even more if the collaborative experience goes well)
- Suggest improvements
- Report bugs
- Add features or ennemy types not originally presents in the original game if a consensus is reached among fans.
- With anything else I didnt think of.

When the games is finished (Unity), the game code will be released in full and you will be able to do your own versions of Super Zaxxon.
It might be a little too soon to register yourself as interested people to help me on the project (I have to work on the Facebook integration aesthetics for a few days) but the time
will come before the end of the year that's for sure.

Thank you for your consideration.

Notes:

* Concerning Facebook: the SDK have difficulty agreeing with itself when attempting to log in in full screen, so for the moment it is advised to login first, switch to full screen after.
* You can play with a game pad
* You can play with the keyboard (arrows + left ctrl to fire)
* You can play without loging in but the game wont be able to save your score since it have no name to associate to that score.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Serge Billault
grammar, typo

[Serge Billault]

Added some screenshots to demonstrate that you can play a full level to completion

[+SpiceWare]

Looks great.  I did encounter a major issue with Mac - the use of CONTROL conflicts with both Mission Control and Spaces (aka virtual desktops).

• Control + Up = trigger Mission Control
• Control + Down = show Application Windows
• Control + Left = move to the Space to the left
• Control + Right = move to the Space to the right

So trying to fire while also moving the ship resulted in the browser moving around (Up or Down) or disappearing because it was moved offscreen (Left or Right).

 

I discovered WASD works to fly the ship, so was able to try it using WASD + CONTROL, but it was an awkward layout requiring both hands to be squished together.

 

Maybe make F an alternate for Fire?

[Serge Billault]

Hello Draconian,

Indeed there are things that are not quite right yet and I'm going to try to improve them as you report them.
You would also be right to mention that the controls configuration is nowhere to be found in the menu so the player is left having to guess it for now.
Having in mind that controls are the first thing players are confronted with when discovering the game, I'm going to focus on it based on your report.
Tasks:
1) Display controls
2) Better default controls
3) Possibility to change controls

Edited November 3, 2021 by Serge Billault
grammar

[+SpiceWare]

I see an option to change controls. They all show CTRL. Clicking on a key to change it doesn't appear to work, though you may still be working on it.

 

 

 

 

My alias is SpiceWare, Draconian is my custom Member Title. It comes from my 2600 port of Namco's arcade game Bosconian.  If you would like to play it the ROM is available here, and you can play it on your computer using Stella or on a real 2600 using a Harmony cartridge.

 

 

 

 

[Serge Billault]

Absolutely, it will continue to be a work in progress for a while.
In the meantime, there are things that I can test only in a browser, which is why I often make new builds.
I should perhaps upload these test builds at a different adress, but using a free provider, the space on the server is limited, and so I must restrain myself to use a single version for the moment. The side effect of this is that you can almost see the progress in "real time" over the days.

 

Realizing my error I have added you in the credits under the name, this time, of SpiceWare in a section where I will add other contributors who helped me with feedbacks.

 

Bosconian looks very good, I will try out Stella some time after I finished with the controls.

 

As a side note and as a genral rule, do not consider anything in the webGL version to be definitive. The intent is really to get feedbacks before speading the adress to a larger number.
 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Serge Billault
typo

[Serge Billault]

I have started and finished the controls interactive remapping this morning. I will add the seriallization of the player preferences (the saving your controls configuration) when i'm done eating.

[Serge Billault]

I have added the auto saving of the controls remapping in the player prefs. It does work well in desktop builds, but on WebGL I am confronted to Unity's taste for bugs regressions (see attachment). It causes PlayerPrefs denial with browsers games because PlayerPrefs use IndexedDB. I will keep you up to date once they published a fix for the version I'm using (Unity 2020.3.19f1)

Edited November 5, 2021 by Serge Billault
Screenshot of indexedDB error preventing players from saving their config

[BydoEmpire]

What a cool project.  Looks good, but it's really, really hard.  I played a couple games and had a tough time with the keyboard controls (I didn' tsee a way to use my usb joystick or pad, but maybe I just missed that in the config) and gauging height vs. enemies. There's also not much room to maneuver between all the enemy fire.  Off to a great start, though!

[Serge Billault]

Thanks for your reports,

 

There is no configuration panel in the options for the gamepad yet. But you can use one nonetheless.
I tried to connect a Logitech USB gamepad, after the game had started, even, and the gamepad worked. But i had to try every button to find which one allow you to fire (it was the right trigger in the front of the pad).
Gauging height vs enemies is definitely an issue. I could advance a little the player jetfighter so that it's shadow is always visible even when flying near the boundaries of the screen, I dont know if it will be sufficient. In the original game you had to continually fire in order to help you guess your relative position to enemies, we might have to come with an innovation on that aspect.
You are also right that there a lot of enemy fires, which can be partly compensated as you get accustomed to the game but can be frustrating and I will also look at this.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Serge Billault
typo, grammar

[Serge Billault]

If you agree with this my upcoming tasks will be as follow:

 

Tasks list:
----------
1) Add a camera offset in the options under a camera section. Find a better default camera offset so that the jetfighter shadow is more visible.
2) Add a gamepad configuration panel in the options
3) Find a way to improve players perception of their relative position to enemies
4) Adjust enemies fires

Edited November 5, 2021 by Serge Billault
typo (is there a preview option?)

[Serge Billault]

I have added the gamepad and joystick configuration. Task 1 of 4 completed.

[Keatah]

I always wanted to see a version of Zaxxon with a user-positionable camera. Similar to I'Robot, but more degrees of freedom. More granular.

 

Also is there a way to play this off-line?

[Serge Billault]

Update:

I have added the options for the camera settings and music/sound fxs volumes (see attachment).
The camera offset setting work as follow:
slider at min: no change from what you are used to.
slider at max: camera is positioned such that your jetfighter is at the center of the screen.

 

@Keatah: There is a way to play this off-line, I maintain a desktop build that I keep to test the saving of player prefs while waiting for Unity to back-port their fix for player prefs not working in webGL. But I prefer to keep only the webGL build available to the public for the moment. Otherwise I will end up not knowing for which build  contributors are reporting bugs & improvements.

 

I anticipate that at some point you will want to be able to pause the game during gameplay to change the options (for the camera for exemple) and will look into adding this to a later build.
 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Serge Billault
Added precisions notes

[Serge Billault]

I have added the possibility to pause and display the options during gameplay.
To pause and display the options during gameplay use the pause key of your keyboard (it might not work with Mac keyboards that have no pause key, I will look into this).

Tasks completed 3/4.

 

Tasks list:
----------
[X] Add a camera offset in the options under a camera section. Find a better default camera offset so that the jetfighter shadow is more visible.
[X] Add a gamepad configuration panel in the options
[X] Find a way to improve players perception of their relative position to enemies (kind of... camera offset + I am in the process of joining the original 1982 game designer for its take on the problem)
[  ] Adjust enemies fires

Edited November 8, 2021 by Serge Billault
grammar

[Serge Billault]

Bugs fix:
---------

Fixed the impossibility to remap controls from the options menu during gameplay.

[Serge Billault]

Macintosh Users:
------------------

In order to not penalize MAC users the new shortcut to pause and display options during gameplay is TAB.

The shortcut is visible during gameplay in the top right corner of the game screen (see attachment).

Should your tab key not work for any reason (old keyboard, physical accident, etc.), you can click on the button next to the shortcut hint.

 

[RedThunder]

Can you boost and fly forward a bit ?

 

Can it be a bit faster ?

 

I would be happy to help create a few levels.  What do we need to do to achieve this ?

 

Looks lovely and getting super awesome.

 

RT

[Serge Billault]

Hello RedThunder,

It can be faster any way we like. But tastes vary from one player to another and It could be wise to try and reach a consensus by gathering the opinions of others on the subject.
We can also imagine implementing a difficulty option, and speed would be affected by this setting. So it's open for discussion for the moment. To resume, until people massively express the same
concern for an aspect of the game, I prefer to try an get an hint as to what would make the majority happy.

 

To help building other levels is a little prematured given that there are a number of minimum polish I need to do. Otherwise I would tell you that you could start helping create level as we speak by producing documents with cells (tiles) that are all 4x4 units in size and can be duplicated across the scene to form a level. Then once the level is laid out, add the units (turrets, fuel tanks, radars etc) using icons in the document, and in a section at the top of the document, resume the different types of tiles used so that I know which one already exist, and which ones I will need to model. But as you can see, there are missing units (enemy planes for exemple) and other missing things that need to be added first. On top of that I may come with a tool for autogenerating a level using your documents, and until the specs are fleshed out, I cant entice you to start design levels only for you to find out that you have to start all over again to respect those new specs.

A big thank you to you for your feedback and comments, and to those who contributed so far.

 

[Serge Billault]

Update:
---------

I have completed tha last task (4 of 4: Adjust enemmy fires) and started to model enemy planes (see attachment).

Once this new unit is up and runing in the game I will make a new webGL build.

[tep392]

This looks very cool! I only spent a few minutes playing, but I felt the difficulty level was a bit high for the first level.  It would be great if the starting difficulty could be adjusted.  Maybe reduce the firing rate of the rockets and turrets to begin with.

[Serge Billault]

Update:
---------
I have finished a first version of the enemy cratfs (see attachment) and I will begin to code it in the game tomorrow.

@tep392: Yep it certainly need tweaking, I will do this once I'm finished with the enemy crafts.

[Serge Billault]

Update:

--------

Enemy craft asset integration: I' m not sure yet about the colors but I can easily change them because I always put them into separate layers.
Let me know if the current enemy craft colors make your eyes bleed (and dont hesitate to suggest new colors, if a consensus is reached I will adopt your choices)

Edited November 12, 2021 by Serge Billault
replace screenshot with a more recent one

[Serge Billault]

Update:
--------

 

New units:
 * The new unit (enemy aircraft) have been added to the game. Its fire rate is 2 secs.

 

Difficulty:

 * The missile launchers fire rate have been increased by 2 secs

 * The turrets fire rate have been increased by 1 sec

 

[Serge Billault]

Update:

--------
* I have refactored the font auto generator and the game no longer have misaligned characters (webGL version have been updated).

Levels building:
----------------

 

The time for involving contributors to levels building is getting near. Before I take a decision I will need to know:

 

* Who is interested in building additional levels for the game ?

* Who is familiar with Unity, and if you would prefer to be able to build your levels directly from the unity project inside of Unity ?
* Who would prefer a separate tool from the Unity project for building levels ?