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Tober's Nightmare (2600) - The Pumpkin Smashing Game!


mickmuze

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? Tober's Nightmare - Version 0.4 Alpha ?


tober_screenshot.thumb.png.4c44663ef1b8fb17197122866b7c58e2.png

 

1. THE DARK SPIRITS RISE ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT

 

Tober's backyard has filled up with many Ghosts and Ghouls of the night and he is not having any of it! Your goal is to run to the pumpkin patch at the bottom of the screen and smash the evil spirits in the face with them. The pumpkin patch is watched over by the Phantom Gardener. He doesn't like to come out when Tober is around. Once you run out of pumpkins, run back into your house and the Phantom will tend to the garden and grow more pumpkins for you.

 

Each level in the game consists of two waves of the same enemy before a new enemy is introduced. At the beginning the enemies will move side to side. The further back the enemy is when you hit them with a pumpkin, the more points you will get. If the enemy is in front of the fence when you hit them you will only get 50 points. If they are in the middle of the backyard then you will get 150 points. If the enemy is way back and closer to the house then you will get 200 points.

 

Sometimes it is more strategic to wait for an enemy to move to the back before hitting them with a pumpkin so you can gain a higher score. You have three hearts that represent your health. You will lose one anytime you touch an enemy or get hit by an enemy's spell. On rare occasions, hearts will appear and float across the screen. If you grab one you will gain one heart to your health. You will need to throw all your pumpkins and then run out and grab the heart before it reaches the other side of the screen. The heart is worth 75 points if you grab it in time.

 

2. USING THE CONTROLLERS

 

Walk - Push the joystick in the desired direction
Run - Hold down the fire button while pushing the joystick in the desired direction
Pickup Pumpkin - Move player next to the pumpkin and press the fire button
Throw Pumpkins - Press the Fire button while holding the pumpkin. If you push the joystick diagonally you can also throw the pumpkins on an angle. The pumpkins will also ricochet off of the sides of the screen when you do this.

Note: If you press and release the fire button to pick up a pumpkin then quickly hold down the fire button before Tober is finished picking the pumpkin up, you will be able to run while holding onto the pumpkins.
 

3. CONSOLE CONTROLS

 

GAME SELECT SWITCH - Use the Game Select switch to choose between Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3. Currently in this Alpha release, Game 1 is the only available option.

 

GAME RESET SWITCH - Use the Game Reset switch to reset the game and go back to the Title Screen. This will clear everything in memory, including your current score!

 

DIFFICULTY SWITCHES - Set the Left Difficulty switch before starting the game in order for the change to take effect.

b = Beginner (Regular/Slower speed)
a = Advanced (Faster enemies and attacks)

 

???? Happy Halloween! ???? 

 

Hope you enjoy this little game :)

 

version 0.4 Early Alpha - NTSC 2021y 11m 07d 2215t

 

Tober's Nightmare v0_4.zip

 

Note: This game will not work on an UnoCart. This is a 32k DPC+ game, which UnoCarts do not currently support. You'll have to use emulation, Harmony, or a Harmony Encore cartridge.

Spoiler

 

Old versions:

 

version 0.3 Early Alpha - NTSC 2021y 11m 07d 0122t

Tober's Nightmare v0_3.zip

 

version 0.2 Early Alpha - NTSC 2021y 10m 29d 2011t

Tober's Nightmare v0_2.zip

 

 

 

 

Edited by mickmuze
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I tried it in a real console. It's very nice. Lots of graphical details and nice colors.

 

My feelings are that it takes too long for the Phantom Gardener to do his task. It's a very nice animation, but it could appear only before a new enemies wave. To recharge the same wave, it could just cross the screen spilling water through the whole bottom of the screen or such.

 

I couldn't return to the Title Screen using the game reset switch.

 

I'm courious about what will games 2 and 3 be!!! ?

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Thanks for trying it vitoco. I've tested it as well on real hardware and find it odd that the reset switch was not working for you. I'm pretty sure I've used it quite often and didn't notice any issues with it. I'll look into it tomorrow and see if I notice anything wrong there.

1 hour ago, vitoco said:

My feelings are that it takes too long for the Phantom Gardener to do his task. It's a very nice animation, but it could appear only before a new enemies wave. To recharge the same wave, it could just cross the screen spilling water through the whole bottom of the screen or such.

Hmmmm... maybe. I'll think about it more the next time I jump into the code. I did quite like the back and forth and the quick breaks between waves didn't bother me, almost looked forward to it after chaotic rounds. I know I'm not everybody though so maybe you have a point. You'll be happy to know that I did speed him up quite a bit however from when I originally wrote him into the game lol

Quote

I'm courious about what will games 2 and 3 be!!! ?

I'm not 100% sure what I am going to do with the game modes yet. I put them there assuming I would want to have 3 game modes like I did with Deepstone Catacomb. I have a couple ideas of what I would like to do, haven't had time to see if its going to be possible. Rather not speculate that until the time comes ?. I wrote the title screen a few weeks ago when I thought I was going to be able to completely finish this for this Halloween. Almost made it... Just lacking some game modes and a few minor touches.

 

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Very enjoyable game, took me by surprise!

Original and fun gameplay, which is easy to grasp without reading the instructions.

I particularly loved all the neat touches that add much atmosphere to the game, and make it an experience.

Smashing (:) title screen and all the smoothly interwoven little animations really put you into the game/story.

 

What I would hope for are a couple of fitting tunes for in-game and title screens. I think that would spice up the atmosphere even more.

 

Maybe a few more animation touches here and there, but in any case this game has great promise.

 

Thanks for this sweet treat!

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Thanks for all the kind words everyone :) Sure makes the struggle of getting this out on time feel worth it.

9 hours ago, r_type2600 said:

What I would hope for are a couple of fitting tunes for in-game and title screens. I think that would spice up the atmosphere even more.

 

Maybe a few more animation touches here and there, but in any case this game has great promise.

 

Thanks for this sweet treat!

I agree the title screen needs more. I tried to write a little a little song for it but I wasn't happy with it. It actually made me feel kind of angry when listening to it lol, that is not the effect I was going for. So I decided there were more important things I needed to spend my time on to get this out before Halloween and set it aside. There isn't much space left now, but I'll take a look into it later.

 

Is there specific animation touches you were looking for? Or did you mean just in the title screen in general?

4 hours ago, Karl G said:

Thanks for sharing it! Any plans for a cart release? 

 

Also, I personally enjoy the phantom gardener sequence as it is now. :)

I would love to release this on cart. However there aren't any plans yet. I'd like to spend a bit more time with the code and maybe if Albert is willing and people are interested in getting it on cart then we'll see. Would be a lot of fun doing the label and box artwork for this game.

1 hour ago, Sohl said:

I will try on my real hardware later today/tomorrow!

Thanks! Let me know how it goes.

 

I did notice one small bug last night that I need to go in and fix. At some point in the game I noticed that my score ended with a 1. That should never happen since all the points given are 50, 100, 150, and 200. I have a feeling that this was caused by the score being cut off when it rolls up. I think it might be when you get a heart and run into the door of your house before the score is finished adding up. I'll have to look more into that when I have time to make sure.

 

 

 

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Love the game and the animations are awesome. There's a lot of 2600 games developed every year and not too many make me go wow, this one certainly did. What gets that reaction from me is the level of care and detail to the game and the ability to do amazing things with very limited hardware.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

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22 hours ago, vitoco said:

My feelings are that it takes too long for the Phantom Gardener to do his task.

 

21 hours ago, mickmuze said:

Hmmmm... maybe. I'll think about it more the next time I jump into the code.

 

Hmm - maybe make it so holding down the firebutton would cause the Phantom Gardner move at 2x or 4x speed?

 

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15 hours ago, mickmuze said:

Is there specific animation touches you were looking for? Or did you mean just in the title screen in general?

I would love to release this on cart. However there aren't any plans yet. I'd like to spend a bit more time with the code and maybe if Albert is willing and people are interested in getting it on cart then we'll see. Would be a lot of fun doing the label and box artwork for this game.

Thanks! Let me know how it goes.

 

One immediate idea would be to further enhance the (already great) Game Over to Title Screen transition by adding a triumphing grinning to the big Halloween face at that occasion. I guess a couple of additional frames to his mouth would serve that nicely.

 

Also, it would be great to have a brief interlude between each level, informing of the upcoming level.

For example a crow sitting atop the lawn during normal gameplay, maybe with a couple of animation frames to his head expressing him curiously observing the action below.

Once a level is finished he would then briefly fly down displaying the next level number under his claws for a couple of seconds and then return to the top of the lawn.

Just another storytelling element that would add further polish to your creation that already impresses with the many lovable arcade-style touches (like the display of score points or the great gardener character).

Such a creepy silent observer would also add to the atmosphere during gameplay.

 

A gameplay suggestion: adding time pressure.  I guess the squarish white "globe" is representing the moon - how about having it wander slowly diagonally from the fence to the top of the sky area, thus displaying the elapsing time. Once the moon has left the screen, the player would lose a heart, or perhaps a life. It would introduce an element of stress, that would boost the gameplay excitement. A nice additional atmospheric element as a side-effect.

 

I agree with others that this game would much deserve a boxed physical release. Maybe for next Halloween. Since you marked this version as Alpha, I have hopes that you'd be open to further enrich it, as it shows such great potential ?

Edited by r_type2600
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Wow @mickmuze!

 

Thank you so much for this amazing surprise Halloween game for Friday's ZPH stream! You really knocked it out of the park with Tober's Nightmare on the gameplay, graphics and animations. It plays like a finished game, there's so much polish to everything in it.

 

There's some great suggestions above, I also like the idea of a moving moon across the sky for added pressure so the player doesn't just sit around safely at the top or the bottom dodging projectiles. You could also make it so when the screen is cleared of all the enemies, the character automatically and very speedily, runs back home to the top since there's no danger anyway. I also like speeding up, a little bit, the ghost that waters the pumpkins.

 

This is 100% worthy of a cart release and would be great timing for just before next Halloween, it should coincide well with PRGE if it's held before Oct 31, 2022?

 

- James

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First off, really great job for such a early version of the game!

Here are my results testing on real hardware:

The game does not work on a UnoCart? I just get a black screen on a 4 switch and a jr.

On a harmony cart on my 4 switch all is well, no issues

On a harmony cart on my 2600jr. it loads to title screen, 1 and 3 game select are switching back on forth on their own, try to start game, 1 and 3 are overlaid on top of one another, death comes and pushes the number off screen, then just black screen.

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1 hour ago, Fierodoug5 said:

The game does not work on a UnoCart?

 

It's a DPC+ game, which I do not believe UnoCart supports.

 

The other issues sound like a missing # from an immediate mode instruction, such as using LDA $08 instead of LDA #$08. It's an easy mistake to make, as most systems will work OK due to how the 2600 was designed. I've even fallen prey to it.

 

1053577343_ScreenShot2021-10-31at5_12_53PM.thumb.png.cc11793792bd9584928b6488ab19f587.png

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21 hours ago, Prizrak said:

Love the game and the animations are awesome. There's a lot of 2600 games developed every year and not too many make me go wow, this one certainly did. What gets that reaction from me is the level of care and detail to the game and the ability to do amazing things with very limited hardware.

Thank you very much, I'm very glad you enjoyed it!

20 hours ago, SpiceWare said:

Hmm - maybe make it so holding down the firebutton would cause the Phantom Gardner move at 2x or 4x speed?

Not a bad idea. I'll look into that and see if I can make it fit ?? 

14 hours ago, r_type2600 said:

One immediate idea would be to further enhance the (already great) Game Over to Title Screen transition by adding a triumphing grinning to the big Halloween face at that occasion. I guess a couple of additional frames to his mouth would serve that nicely.

 

Also, it would be great to have a brief interlude between each level, informing of the upcoming level.

For example a crow sitting atop the lawn during normal gameplay, maybe with a couple of animation frames to his head expressing him curiously observing the action below.

Once a level is finished he would then briefly fly down displaying the next level number under his claws for a couple of seconds and then return to the top of the lawn.

Just another storytelling element that would add further polish to your creation that already impresses with the many lovable arcade-style touches (like the display of score points or the great gardener character).

Such a creepy silent observer would also add to the atmosphere during gameplay.

 

A gameplay suggestion: adding time pressure.  I guess the squarish white "globe" is representing the moon - how about having it wander slowly diagonally from the fence to the top of the sky area, thus displaying the elapsing time. Once the moon has left the screen, the player would lose a heart, or perhaps a life. It would introduce an element of stress, that would boost the gameplay excitement. A nice additional atmospheric element as a side-effect.

 

I agree with others that this game would much deserve a boxed physical release. Maybe for next Halloween. Since you marked this version as Alpha, I have hopes that you'd be open to further enrich it, as it shows such great potential ?

All great ideas. Would be easily doable if I wanted to go over the 32k limit. These ideas definitely have me thinking though. I like the idea about time pressure and I really like the observing crow idea. Not sure about making it display the level number. But these are all nice things to have in my head when I dive back into it. :)

4 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Wow @mickmuze!

 

Thank you so much for this amazing surprise Halloween game for Friday's ZPH stream! You really knocked it out of the park with Tober's Nightmare on the gameplay, graphics and animations. It plays like a finished game, there's so much polish to everything in it.

 

There's some great suggestions above, I also like the idea of a moving moon across the sky for added pressure so the player doesn't just sit around safely at the top or the bottom dodging projectiles. You could also make it so when the screen is cleared of all the enemies, the character automatically and very speedily, runs back home to the top since there's no danger anyway. I also like speeding up, a little bit, the ghost that waters the pumpkins.

 

This is 100% worthy of a cart release and would be great timing for just before next Halloween, it should coincide well with PRGE if it's held before Oct 31, 2022?

 

- James

Thank you James! This is what it's all about man, sharing these games. Had no idea I was going to have so much fun with this when I decided to finally give it a shot on my first game. As always, thanks for what you do as well, really helps the motivation for developers I think to actually have a platform to show our projects.

 

I do hope to make a cart release. I'll wait till I'm happy with it and go from there. ??

2 hours ago, Fierodoug5 said:

Here are my results testing on real hardware:

The game does not work on a UnoCart? I just get a black screen on a 4 switch and a jr.

On a harmony cart on my 4 switch all is well, no issues

On a harmony cart on my 2600jr. it loads to title screen, 1 and 3 game select are switching back on forth on their own, try to start game, 1 and 3 are overlaid on top of one another, death comes and pushes the number off screen, then just black screen.

Hmmm... Very odd. I don't own an UnoCart and kind of assumed it didn't support DPC+. There isn't much I can do about getting it to run on one of those if that is the case. I was only able to test it on my 4 switch with Harmony. Kind of assumed it would work on a jr though, that is weird?

1 hour ago, SpiceWare said:

The other issues sound like a missing # from an immediate mode instruction, such as using LDA $08 instead of LDA #$08. It's an easy mistake to make, as most systems will work OK due to how the 2600 was designed. I've even fallen prey to it.

Thanks for the tip SpiceWare! :) There are places I used assembly but I wouldn't say I understand assembly yet lol. Mainly used it when dealing with the score. I went through and added the pound symbol anytime I personally loaded the accumulator, ran it and it still runs fine on the emulator lol. I'll release a bug fix version soon and hopefully Fierodoug5 would be kind enough to test it for me again on his jr.?

 

I was looking for that score bug last night (just while playing, not code) and have a general idea of where the problem lies. I keep the score stored in the stack. I'm pretty sure I need to clear the stack when a new game starts and when you press down on the reset switch. Sometimes I find if you play multiple games in a row, whether you get a game over or reset, the game will sometimes keep the old score and add onto it for your new game. Pretty big bug for a game that is currently all about scores. I'll fix this as well when I get a chance.

 

I'm not sure what more as far as features I can fit into this game. Going to take some time and make some code more efficient where I can and see what I can do. I definitely want 3 game modes. Anything else would be a great plus. Will probably tweak the game balance as well. I would love to add an ending to one of the game modes. That might be asking too much. I shall see....

Edited by mickmuze
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42 minutes ago, mickmuze said:

There are places I used assembly but I wouldn't say I understand assembly yet lol.

Difference between with and without the # is:

 

lda #$08 - loads an 8 into the accumulator

 

lda $08 - loads the value found at memory location 8 into the accumulator.

 

On an Atari address 8 is INPT0, which is paddle 0.  Due to how the Atari is designed only bit 7 of INPT0 is connected, and it'll be either 0 or 1 (so the value is 0 or 128). As seen below bits 0-6 are not connected to anything but due to the hardware design these bits will usually return the address, which is 8 in this instance.  So expected values from INPT0 would be 8 or 136 depending upon the state of the paddle, but some hardware will return other values.

 

 

1251583537_ScreenShot2021-10-31at7_28_19PM.thumb.png.e348a2ec4ae95319adfb00ce65d7cb2a.png

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On the Phantom Gardener animation: I love it, like most, and I also find its pace quite natural and fitting. On the other hand the break does indeed disrupt from the gameplay flow.

But I think there's a simple solution to this dilemma, which actually might even turn it into an additional gameplay feature:

Let Tober start his rush down in parallel to the Gardener's animation, with the fence gate opening from the side the gardener enters the screen.

Shall Tober be able to reach the pumpkins area before the Gardener finished the watering, two possible effects: either the gardener then just quickly finishes his job and rushes off. Or, even better, Tober gets a chance to catch the gardener for bonus points.

 

An additional twist then (but not sure if technically possible) would be to have any yet unwatered hole grow a special, more powerful legume. A purple pumpkin, or carot, or whatever fitting with the Halloween theme. That special legume would distinguish itself from the regular orange pumpkin by the ability to hit several enemies in a row before busting.

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Tober's Nightmare is such a nice and polished game, awesome work @mickmuze !

 

On 10/30/2021 at 7:15 PM, mickmuze said:

 

I did notice one small bug last night that I need to go in and fix. At some point in the game I noticed that my score ended with a 1. That should never happen since all the points given are 50, 100, 150, and 200. I have a feeling that this was caused by the score being cut off when it rolls up. I think it might be when you get a heart and run into the door of your house before the score is finished adding up. I'll have to look more into that when I have time to make sure.

 

sometimes this can happen when a constant is defined with "dim" instead of "const", so if you use constants for adding to the scores you should check them.

 

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On 11/2/2021 at 9:58 AM, Al_Nafuur said:

sometimes this can happen when a constant is defined with "dim" instead of "const", so if you use constants for adding to the scores you should check them.

Thanks for the tip, was unaware of that! I checked the code but didn’t see anywhere I have done this though.

 

I may have already fixed the problem by clearing the stack. I also went through the code and optimized some of it, saving a couple hundred bytes, not a lot but I’ll fill them up the for a future release. Since there isn’t a lot of space left I doubt any additions will be very major now but I think I should be able to pull off a couple things I thought this game needs.

 

I plan on releasing a minor bug fix update this weekend after I test this version on actual hardware again.

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