Game Idea: Fade Out 2600

[salstadt]

Hey all,

 

Since the other thread was more about asking for art advice, I thought I'd start up a thread where I can post new art & advancements for my 2600 concept (if no one minds). The game's currently without a coder so if you'd like to partner up with me on this game, drop me a line. If not, enjoy the idea of a game below.

 

Title: "Fade Out"

 

Original mockup:

3x Atari-stretched

 

Concept: 2-4 player platforming deathmatch combat. The twist is blocks of color in the background are the same color as the sprites, so you can move into these areas to 'hide' then pop out to surprise your foe. (see my avatar for an example)

 

Specifics:

- Color blocks will appear randomly.

- Each player can carry only five bullets at a time.

- When bullets empty, player must hit switch at left or right side of screen

- Hitting the switch will drop 1 bullet pack, but also re-randomize color blocks

- Switches must be alternated (ie, if left switch is hit, then right must be next)

- Players have energy displayed at top of screen

- The winner depletes their enemy's energy with gunshots

- If 4-player is a possibility, 4 different colors (and blocks) will be displayed at once

 

Hope ya like it so far! If you have any suggestions, post em below.

 

- Adam

[+Cafeman]

new art & advancements for my 2600 concept. Title: "Fade Out"

 

It looks more detailed than any other 2600 game I can think of so I personally can only assume that those visuals can't be achieved on the machine. But it has that "colorized Game Boy" look due to the use of Gray Black and Red so much. If it could be pulled off' date=' it'd impress me. The coolest concept I see in that picture is that each player can 'hide' by walking overtop a background of the same color. So even if that exact screen is not possible, that concept is still an interesting one.

 

The game's currently without a coder so if you'd like to partner up with me on this game, drop me a line.

 

[salstadt]

Mockup #2:

 

Mirrored, with less unecessary details. Maybe still too many color changes per line, but we'll see. (hopefully I'm getting a little closer to something that can actually be done on a 2600)

 

- Adam

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

hopefully I'm getting a little closer to something that can

actually be done on a 2600- Adam

 

Definetely!

 

Ok, the red/grey background, the sprites and the bullets are doable now.

 

There's still too much detail in the platforms and the bonus objects and those little graphics at the sides are too much as well.

 

- The side graphics need to be removed.

- The bonus object can only be the ball, so it can only be a rectangle,

either colored red or grey, depending on wether red or grey is the PF

color

- The platforms could probably be three pixel high solid black horizontal

lines, yet the gaps between them could probably be something like a

gray, a red and a gray line. or probably three white lines.

(One scannline should only use two different colors.)

 

Another limitation of the 2600 to think of: Since the missiles are forced to use the same colors as the sprites, you'd need to flicker them in a way that they're swapping their colors as well. Might do an interesting game mode - if the colors don't swap, then the bullets will completely invisible in same colored areas...

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Schmutzpuppe]

How about an Atari 8-bit Port?

[salstadt]

Mockup #3:

 

I removed horizontal platform details, limited switch, bullet-pack and bullet to 1 each per screen (dunno if that'll help) trimmed the sides and altered the sections between the platforms to only 1 color horizontally. Also 1-colored the switch and bullet pack (though from the sound of things, I might hafta make them into generic blobs - yeuch).

 

Anywho, comment away some more and thanks again for all the direction, guys!

 

- Adam

 

EDIT: And Mockup #4:

 

I realize that without perfectly clear reception, the platforms above might be hard to distinguish from the random detail lines, which were basically unecessary anyway so I removed them. Key in on whether you think this latest version would work better, or whether it's getting too simple now.

[moycon]

Holy poop this is the coolest sounding two player Atari 2600 game EVER!!

Would there be a way to randomly generate the background colors??

Or at the very least use the select button to choose different ones?

 

Maybe some would give the grey player the edge because there'd be more grey area, hence more hiding space. It would be nice to have larger hiding area's. I say this because you couldn't get very far without your opponent seeing you. For instance you couldn't jump up to another platform and still be hidden... as is.

 

However...With different backgrounds... You could...Or if it was random..You MIGHT. Here's an example. I can see one area where the grey player could jump up 3 levels and still be hidden.... Altho I guess it might be difficult to pull off jumps if you could see yourself...So maybe that wouldn't work anyways.

 

Man what a great concept tho.

[moycon]

Ahhhh I just saw this other thread:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33370

 

Alot more discussion about this game contained within.

If it ever see's the light of day, it's sounds like a must have title.

[Ben_Larson]

If backgrounds changed color randomly and players had the ability to toggle what color they wanted to be at any given time, I think this would be a pretty cool game. As it stands right now I think it would be too easy to keep track of where the other player is at....just my own opinion though.

 

Of course there might be some serious confusion as to who is who if both people are the same color...

 

Ben

[bjk7382]

So why isn't someone programming it yet??? Someone step up, PLEASE. This sounds like a higly original title, and I hope it gets past these mockups.

 

-Brad K.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

So why isn't someone programming it yet??? Someone step up, PLEASE. This sounds like a higly original title, and I hope it gets past these mockups.

Just because most (all?) programmers already have a long (and growing!) ToDo list, which probably contains many projects with much higher priorities.

 

What we need is fresh blood, the more, the better! So have a look at Andrew's programming lessons and start doing it yourself.

[salstadt]

Someone *is* programming it, and it's coming out splendidly. I'll leave it up to him whether he wishes to announce himself. But what we've got so far is pretty much a fully working game. All that's left is making it 2-player, and adding in the score/death parts.

 

By the way, I just came up with another idea that I think would work well (and it's SOOO much simpler than my first two). I'll post a screen and concept here when it's developed.

 

- Adam

[Video]

Except for the blob at the top, I think the last screenshot is completely doable. Another option, that would allow you to keep your horizontal details and b/w platforms is to use missiles for the platform, draw two long missiles, and a shorter one below them for the bowl shape, and have a white ball overlayed on the sedcond line wich would give the er...3d ish look to them. Since you couldn't shoot on those scanlines, I'd assume, that might be possible, aslong as you use mirroring.

 

But for ease, I'd say the last screen would be the easiest to do. Scrambling the colors could be done easily enough, though to do more than two colors, you'd be severly limited on how many squares are on a scanline. Using a huge ass missile, you can add a third, and fourth color, but it would either require mirroring, or limit to only two alternate colors without flickering. As for four player. You'd have to build either, custom controllers, that act like a keypad, but that may not work, or build two extra controll ports into the cart itself and have the system look for 3/4 characture on the cart rather than the real controller ports.

 

Two players is probably the way to go, and that last screen is the most doable screene shot.

 

BTW, who do you use as a picture server? Or does Atari Age do it? I was thinking of pitching a few Ideas myself, with screenshots, but I don't know how that's done as it's been forever since I've seen any good free hosts.

[CPUWIZ]

BTW, who do you use as a picture server?  Or does Atari Age do it?   I was thinking of pitching a few Ideas myself, with screenshots, but I don't know how that's done as it's been forever since I've seen any good free hosts.

 

He has them on his own website/server.

[salstadt]

Yeah, it's all about catalog.com. $35/year for 30 to 50MB of space and your own domain name. Very reliable, too.

 

As for game suggestions, we're really really far. I'll see if my coder would mind me posting a recent screenshot.

 

- Adam

[mos6507]

There is no reason for the playfield and background color registers to match the players.

 

All you have to do is set the priority registers so that the players will be behind the playfield. The only downside of this is that you'll only have one color on the "walls" that both players can go behind.

 

But the advantage there is that you can have 4 unique colors and still have the players be able to move behind something.

 

I think the way to increase the challenge is:

 

a) players should be able to jump to avoid shots.

b) when behind a wall they should be able to teleport to other walls by holding down the fire button and moving the joystick to indicate the direction of the nearest wall you want to jump to.

c) The ball can be used as a powerup and when made to look like a wall you can have a moving wall sliding around. It might also be a square "boulder" or ice-block that cascades down from the top and be an obstacle to keep people moving around without getting squashed.

[salstadt]

Those are some great ideas, but re: The colors I think the charm of the game is knowing that you ARE looking at your character. You just can't see him because he's on a similar-colored BG. I think that if they were just hiding behind walls, it would lose some of that charm.

 

- Adam

[raindog]

I think the "teleport to nearby square of the same color" feature could be really cool... if it were accompanied by a sound effect that would alert and unnerve your opponent Extra points if you yourself can't be sure exactly which block you've been teleported to!

[Video]

The problem with assigning a color as a "foreground" color so your characture can walk behind it is...Well, you'd both walk behind the same color. I like the two tone background being the same color as sprites, because you can't both hide in the exact same spot, as one of you'd be visible.

 

Nice Idea for the boulder coming crassing down though. That would add an extra bit to the game. What if the boulder was the same color as the sprites too? Then you could only see it if it was on the opposite sprites background, or as it passed a platform and was obviously visible.

 

Either way, if you add boulders, that sould be able to be toggled off. It's a cool Idea to have, but I think it might make the game annoying if it was peremanant.

[cdoty]

I'll start off by saying, I love your artwork Adam.

 

This looks like a great game for a system like the Atari 5200, Intellivision (GASP!), or Coleco (He didn't!). Is there any objections to using the idea on one of those systems? I'd be willing to give 'er a go.

[moycon]

Hey I glad someone revived this thread, I was wondering if any head way had been made on this game. Supposedly it was in the works.

[Lost Monkey]

It appears to be almost complete...

 

 

But the finishing touches are usually time consuming...

[salstadt]

"I'll start off by saying, I love your artwork Adam."

 

Thanks.

 

"This looks like a great game for a system like the Atari 5200, Intellivision (GASP!), or Coleco (He didn't!). Is there any objections to using the idea on one of those systems? I'd be willing to give 'er a go."

 

Well since the intital concept and art are mine, but 90% of the work has been on the part of my coder, I'd say it's more a question for them. Wait for the game to get finished (it's already very slick; more options and features keep getting added). In the meantime, I'm constantly looking for Atari projects. If anyone needs any quick sprites for their game, or wants to try a hand at one of my game ideas (s unused so far), or if you even have a request ('come up with a 2600 puzzle game for me') I'd be more than happy to oblige. I'm on a huge GBA contract right now where each sprite animation can take hours and hours, so it's really nice to come back to little low-color guys like these to blow off some steam.

 

- Adam