Space Chaos - A new DPC+ Game

[+Atarius Maximus]

It's an intergalactic rescue mission!  Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to rescue as many trapped astronauts as possible from our fleet of nine ships.  Each ship has a limited supply of oxygen represented by the meter at the top of the screen.  Rescue as many astronauts as you can before it runs out, once the oxygen meter gets all the way to the right you will be transported to the next ship.

 

Using your specially equipped fighter, you can enter the federation ship and rise through the tunnels to the eighth floor to get to the trapped astronauts.  You can only carry one at a time. Once you pick them up, transport them back to the bottom docking area and they will exit the ship for rescue. In your path is a security system gone awry, you'll need to shoot and/or avoid the regulators and completely avoid the moving security doors.  Regulators will be regenerated after a period of time, so be careful.  Security Doors cannot be destroyed and must be avoided. You will receive 10 points for each Regulator you destroy, and 100 points for each astronaut that is rescued. After running out of oxygen on the ninth ship, the game will end.  There are no bonus ships in this game, so tread carefully! Go for the high score! 

 

I've been wanting for a very long time to work on and actually finish a DPC+ game for bB.  This game is complete, however I may make some updates in the future if any bugs are found or to make general improvements.  It has been tested on real hardware with a harmony encore and works fine.  I will release the source code in the future after I have some time to clean it up and comment it.

 

Enjoy!

 

Steve

 

 

 

The Latest Version is 1.11[6/29/2022]

• I tightened up the ship movement control (it's no longer frame based).
• I added automatic firing as an option.  Push left or right on the title screen to turn it on or off.  The game will default back to 'off' when turned on, reset, or the game ends.
• Your ship is reset to the bottom dock area when it explodes.
• The astronaut at the top of the screen will now move back and forth and is animated.
• Bonuses were added.  If you rescue at least 4 spacemen on a single ship, you will receive a 300 point bonus after the oxygen is depleted on the ship you're on.  If you rescue 8 or more, there is a 600 point bonus. 
• Rescuing an astronaut (picking him up and taking him to the bottom dock area) will now give you a small oxygen bonus, increasing the time you have available on the ship.
• The security gate will flash when you are getting low on oxygen, so you have an additional visual indicator when the time is almost up.

 

Latest Version:

SpaceChaos1.11.bin 

SpaceChaos1.11.bas

 

Old Version:

SpaceChaos1.0.bin

[Prizrak]

Cool game, makes me think of Turmoil with a space theme.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Arenafoot]

Wow! First 2600 game since 2015 Steve???? @Atarius Maximus

Awesome!!

[+Atarius Maximus]

17 minutes ago, Arenafoot said:

Wow! First 2600 game since 2015 Steve???? @Atarius Maximus

Awesome!!

Yep, it's been a while Brian, and thanks.  It was fun diving back in but I forgot how much work it is!  I probably put 100 hours or more of development time into this one.

[+Atarius Maximus]

Here's the source code.  I cleaned it up a bit and added some comments.

SpaceChaos1.0.bas

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Space Chaos on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Fri Jun 24, 2022 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 7PM GMT

WATCH: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Space Chaos (2022 | 2600) by Steve Engelhardt @Atarius Maximus
• Elevator Game (2022 WIP | 2600) by Alberto @jab
• Slap the Bear (2022 WIP | 2600) by Fort Apocalypse @Fort Apocalypse
• Mastermind (2022 WIP | 2600) by Alberto @jab

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks to James and Darcy for playing Space Chaos, and thanks to everyone who was online and providing feeedback during the show!  I made some notes on what was mentioned, I'll look at them again and maybe implement some improvements in the coming weeks.  Feel free to post any additional comments for improvements!

 

General notes:  Tighten up the controls - noticed a delay in movement sometimes, noted that you can just stay on the bottom to advance (but won't score points), maybe add bonus points for finishing a ship (maybe only after rescuing a certain number of astronauts?), noticed that the enemies don't reset their locations after death, that you respawn at the same location after death, death animation may move with you if you keep pressing the joystick, maybe add a new screen showing astronauts being rescued/transported away.

 

From nostalgic26: How about if, after running out of oxygen, you only advance to the next level when you lose a ship or make it back to the bottom? The current transition is a bit sudden - though it can save you from trouble!  What would you think of the people you're rescuing appearing randomly on either the left or right, and maybe at a random distance from the center? That could add some variety to the rescue.

 

From Ivory_Tower_Collections: How about making it so that if you run out of oxygen, the meter at the top goes back the other way much much faster so that you only have a few seconds to make it back to the planet? Button could be used for a temp shield - That overheats and blows you up if used for more than maybe 2 lines?

 

From thrust26: maybe add automatic shooting when changing ship direction. so left and right tigger the shots, not the button.

 

I had another idea of a random bonus at the top screen that you could grab that would add additional oxygen (time) for the level you're on.  In general, I hit a wall with CPU cycles on this game so adding anything will require some other optimizations - it may be a little while before there's another update but I always appreciate feedback.

[TrekMD]

That looks cool!

[+Atarius Maximus]

This revision addresses some of the items brought up during the ZPH show.  I have not done much play testing on this version.  It does appear to be stable on real hardware.

• I tightened up the ship movement control (it's no longer frame based).
• I added automatic firing as an option.  Turn on autofire by moving the left difficulty switch to 'A' on the title screen. In Stella, F5 selects difficulty A and F6 selects difficulty B.  You can only select normal or automatic firing from the title screen, you cannot change it mid-game.  There is an 'auto' indicator on the titlescreen to let you know when automatic firing is enabled.
• Your ship is reset to the bottom dock area when it explodes.
• The astronaut at the top of the screen will now move back and forth and is animated.
• Bonuses were added.  If you rescue at least 4 spacemen on a single ship, you will receive a 300 point bonus after the oxygen is depleted on the ship you're on.  If you rescue 8 or more, there is a 600 point bonus. You can still simply wait it out on the bottom of the screen for the oxygen to deplete and to move on to the next ship, however you won't score any points.
• Rescuing an astronaut (picking him up and taking him to the bottom dock area) will now give you a small oxygen bonus, increasing the time you have available on the ship.
• The security gate will flash when you are getting low on oxygen, so you have an additional visual indicator when the time is almost up.

 

 

SpaceChaos1.08.bas SpaceChaos1.08.bin

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

2 hours ago, Atarius Maximus said:

This revision addresses some of the items brought up during the ZPH show.  I have not done much play testing on this version.  It does appear to be stable on real hardware.

Great updates!

Quote

• I added automatic firing as an option.  Turn on autofire by moving the left difficulty switch to 'A' on the title screen. In Stella, F5 selects difficulty A and F6 selects difficulty B.  You can only select normal or automatic firing from the title screen, you cannot change it mid-game.  There is an 'auto' indicator on the titlescreen to let you know when automatic firing is enabled.

I noticed with this new addition the 'AUTO' text doesn't goes away on the title screen if you switch it back to 'B', at least when using Stella (ver 6.7). It behaves as it should in the game. Also when you switch back to 'B' during a game, the auto moves just under your ship after your game is over. The 'AUTO' text does go away if you have it on 'B' and press reset.

Quote

• The astronaut at the top of the screen will now move back and forth and is animated.

This is one of my favourite additions, having to chase down the astronaut! Love it!

Quote

• Rescuing an astronaut (picking him up and taking him to the bottom dock area) will now give you a small oxygen bonus, increasing the time you have available on the ship.

This might be a bit too generous as I'm able to keep my oxygen near 100% for a VERY long time on level one.

 

- James

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks for the feedback.  I didn't do much playtesting with this one or I likely would have caught those issues.  They're all fixable.

[+Atarius Maximus]

A few quick updates to address the items you mentioned, ZPH.  I changed the auto fire selection completely and removed the difficulty switch, now just push right on the joystick at the title screen to enable auto fire and left on the joystick do disable it.  I'd add another sprite to indicate it's off, but I only have 3 bytes free in the graphics bank now.  I still don't want it to be possible to change it mid-game, that caused some headaches for me.  That should also fix the problem of the "auto" text showing up when it shouldn't.

 

I also changed the oxygen bonus to give you less.  It can be reduced even further if needed.  I need to play it more myself as well.

 

 

SpaceChaos1.09.bin SpaceChaos1.09.bas

[+Random Terrain]

I read the name wrong. I thought it was Space Chess. No wonder I couldn't move the pieces.

[Fort Apocalypse]

26 minutes ago, Random Terrain said:

I read the name wrong. I thought it was Space Chess. No wonder I couldn't move the pieces.

https://www.chessvariants.com/d.photo/spacechess.html

[Fort Apocalypse]

The text "AUTO" shows up on the title screen in somewhat random locations after losing now in the latest version.

 

It was a lot of fun to play!

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Fort Apocalypse

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks for noting that, Fort Apocalypse.  I think I've got the autofire on/off display fixed on the titlescreen - it now checks the sprite location when you exit the "game over" screen.

SpaceChaos1.10.bas SpaceChaos1.10.bin

[Fort Apocalypse]

2 hours ago, Atarius Maximus said:

Thanks for noting that, Fort Apocalypse.  I think I've got the autofire on/off display fixed on the titlescreen - it now checks the sprite location when you exit the "game over" screen.

SpaceChaos1.10.bas 78.05 kB · 0 downloads SpaceChaos1.10.bin 32 kB · 1 download

In the latest, I noticed the "O" and "FF" overlap in the "OFF" only sometimes after losing. Sometimes you have to play it a few or several times before it happens.

 

 

 

 

[+Atarius Maximus]

Ugh.  Thanks again for pointing that out.  I re-use lots of variables and sprites between the title screen, transition screen, game over screen, and in-game screen, so it's easy to make a mistake at this point when I make changes.  I made a few changes and played through it about 25 or so times and the 'OFF' sprite displayed correctly each time.  As part of this change, every time the title screen is displayed it will reset the value back to OFF, including when you die and the game is reset.  You'll have to reselect ON each time you play if that's your preference.

SpaceChaos1.11.bin SpaceChaos1.11.bas