Time Plot WIP

[DZ-Jay]

11 hours ago, artrag said:

Thanks to @skywaffle for the audio contribute.

Wip with all the 5 levels

avi_0001.avi

 

I'll take a closer look at the entire video a bit later, but here are some preliminary comments:

• The pacing of the starting jingle is much too fast (as compared to the original arcade).
• The last "down-scale" of notes sounds a little distorted, as if the tones' frequency is heavily modulated.  The instrument sounds less music and more like "bleepy" sound fx.
• The "auto-shooting" is a lot slower than in the arcade, where it shoots three bullets in rapid succession at a time.  I like the "auto-shot" feature, but I still think it should throw three quick bullets on each burst.
• The player shooting sound effect sounds a little hollow, like from "Pong."  It would be ideal if you could replicate the futuristic "laser blast" sound of the arcade.  After all, the player is piloting a time machine from the future.
• The green sky in the 1940 stage is a bit weird, and so is the fuchsia sky of 1982.  I do not think it is necessary to change the sky colour on each stage, and worse on the Intellivision, who's colour palette is very limited (and weird).
• The "clouds" (asteroids?) in the 2001 stage look much too orange.  Perhaps they would look better using a different colour?
• Ignore the previous two:  I just checked out a video of the original arcade game and the colours seem to match.  The ones on the Intellivision are still too stark and weird, but I guess we could expect that.  It would be worth checking out on a CRT to see how the sprites look against the background, in context.

That's it for now.  Looking (and sounding) good, although still needs some work.  Great job so far! 👍

 

     -dZ.

[artrag]

Many little changes. The new sfx for bullets (thanks @skywaffle) lasts a bit too long wrt the new bullet rate, so 2 channels are contantly busy while the fighter is firing.

This cuts the other sfx effectsso I have to fix this.

Reworking the intro jingle to fix the off tunes, still WIP

 

 

[artrag]

Scoring works, wip on the ranking table

PAL version in the video

[DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, artrag said:

Scoring works, wip on the ranking table

PAL version in the video

avi_0001.avi

 

It looks and sounds fantastic!  Great job!  I can't wait to play it.  It really evokes the original arcade, and seems very fluid and smooth.

 

  -dZ.

[artrag]

This is the game on NTSC machines

No more jittering

PS The number of spare fighters is 0 becouse I was testing the ranking table 

Edited October 2, 2022 by artrag

[DZ-Jay]

42 minutes ago, artrag said:

This is the game on NTSC machines

No more jittering

PS The number of spare fighters is 0 becouse I was testing the ranking table 

 

avi_0001.avi 28.99 MB · 0 downloads

 

Looks very smooth as well. 👍

 

I still hold out hope for a closer replication of the shooting mechanic from the original:  three rapid-fire bullets in one burst at a time, with a more "laser-y" sound.  With auto-fire, it would still shoot three rapid-fire shots in one burst, but repeat them with a slight delay in between.  Obviously, this is nothing critical, just spit & polish.

 

Still, it looks to be a great game. :)

 

      -dZ.

Edited October 2, 2022 by DZ-Jay

[+KylJoy]

Looks fantastic.  Can't wait to play!

[artrag]

Nice review