Scorch - full game for Atari 800 and up

[MichaG]

Would be great to use FujiNet to play with opponents all over the world

[Pecus]

1 hour ago, Probabilitydragon said:

Biggest deviation from the original is that parachutes can't be active with shields, you have to make a choice which ones to use. Could be seen an improvement from the original, depending on your strategic point of view

 

Also, the only instance I used laser it backfired on me... I think that's something which happens in the original, too - but I never figured out what was the logic! I think in the original it may have had something to do with force shields?

 

That was our assumption. One active defensive weapon (one variable in the code   ). But I programmed a weapon that combines parachute and shield - "Force Shield".

 

And laser.... The laser is very difficult to aim properly. If aimed perfectly, it works as it should. You have to try

 

In the new version already available in the "develop" branch, I added the equivalent of "Lazy Boy" and "Auto Defense" which works as in the original (only a little differently ).

 

Enjoy!

https://github.com/pkali/scorch_src/tree/develop

 

and read manual for more information:

https://github.com/pkali/scorch_src/blob/develop/MANUAL_EN.md

[Pecus]

Sorry - Double post.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Pecus
Double post

[Pecus]

3 hours ago, Probabilitydragon said:

Also, the only instance I used laser it backfired on me...

Of course, I will check the laser operation again.

[Probabilitydragon]

ah yeah - I do recall the laser being somewhat unpredictable back in the days of playing Scorch on a PC, and there was a chance of it kinda hitting back to you. I _presume_ I was shooting a direct hit at my dear daughter's tank yesterday, as we were pretty much on the same level and my turret was at angle 0 - but instead of blowing up her tank, I was destroyed.

[Pecus]

Thank you for describing the problem.
I have identified it!
It's not a laser bug, it's a general bug
Try to shoot any weapon by setting the firing angle to 0 (it can only be done to the right and this is also a bug ).

The barrel is drawn one pixel too low and its end hits the "hitpoint" of the tank.
Here we go to start fixing it!

 

Or maybe just make a workaround by blocking the possibility of shooting right with a 0 angle.  - Noooo....

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Pecus
Refinement

[Beeblebrox]

Just popped over to Atarionline.pl and the Scorch thread there and saw this which is being experiemented with/discussed. Not - as it says - it will be the default of course.

 

I quite like it. A PSYCHEDELIC take on it the graphics.

 

I personally would welcome this as one of the configuration options in the menu if you occasionally wanted to "trip out" whilst playing the game.

 

 

More here:

https://atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=6635&page=1#Item_0

[pirx]

Exactly - we were listening to you and although I personally like the ascetic aesthetic of the game I do recognize it is not as easy to the eye as the crazy colorful games of today.

Edited November 10, 2022 by pirx

[+x=usr(1536)]

5 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Just popped over to Atarionline.pl and the Scorch thread there and saw this which is being experiemented with/discussed. Not - as it says - it will be the default of course.

 

I quite like it. A PSYCHEDELIC take on it the graphics.

 

I personally would welcome this as one of the configuration options in the menu if you occasionally wanted to "trip out" whilst playing the game.

Perhaps we could look forward to @Yak doing a Scorch 3K

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.19
2022-11-04

This is the final round of weapon additions! Also, our beloved testers and players found a number of issues and we were extremely happy to address them.
* New defensive weapon "Lazy Boy" - aims at the closest enemy.
* New defensive weapon "Lazy Darwin" - aims at the weakest link, an enemy I mean.
* New defensive weapon "Auto Defense" - activate it to be automatically protected by shields and stuff (where available)
* New defensive weapon "Spy Hard" - quickly view energies, weapons and shields of your opponents.
* New SFXes, improvements in SFX, and music by @mikerro
* Shooting with angle 0 caused the sudden death of the operator. Fixed.
* Angles were asymmetrical, now you can go from 0 to 90 and to 0 again (181 degrees of freedom). Fixed with an improved arithmetic rounding of our sub-pixel accuracy.
* Drawing a barrel when a tank was on the edge of X==256 pixels caused a lonely pixel to appear randomly. Fixed.
* Liquid Dirt was overflowing from the right edge of the screen to the left. Fixed.
* Liquid Dirt volume increased significantly, it is now a formidable attack!
* A single pixel was erroneously plotted when measuring distance (was visible in e.g., Death's Head). Fixed.
* Not all traces were correctly erased after Funky Bomb, fixed again (for the 3rt time I guess).
* Soil sedimentation speed after Funky Bomb improved.
* Pressing [ESC] when in inventory/store was quitting the game, now it quits the menu only.
* a bug in MADS optimization was causing parts of SEPPUKU message to stay on screen.
* BIGGEST OF ALL: the lonely pixel after Nuclear Winter was eliminated. ->link<- We have spent a disproportionately large amount of time trying to slap this bug. It is still there, but is not manifesting itself ;

Edited November 14, 2022 by pirx

[Beeblebrox]

@pirx Thanks for the latest update.

 

I think I've found a possible bug in the A8 v1.19 after testing in Altirra - namely with the laser weapon

 

I have a 2 player game set with almost flat terrain and with laser selected and fired whilst tank pointing 90 degs hozitonally right towards the other tank you get no laser line at all and no laser sound. Move it up over 40 or so degs and fire and you get the laser line.

(Note due to the laser flicker the screengrab only caught some of it in the second pic but it's there):

 

   

 

   

 

Funnily enough this isn't an issue at all if you are the other tank firing left and the firing angle makes no difference:

 

 

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

@pirx just seen ya atarionline.pl post. Thanks for fixing the laser issue.

[pirx]

@Pecus is faster than light nowadays  And this is exactly what we were talking about before the 1.19 release - there are so many weapons that we are not sure everything works as it should. We spotted some issues, others spotted few more, but the number of possible combinations is really large. We hoped 1.18 is the last one (before FujiNet) but then bugs and ideas happened :). 

[Beeblebrox]

57 minutes ago, pirx said:

@Pecus is faster than light nowadays  And this is exactly what we were talking about before the 1.19 release - there are so many weapons that we are not sure everything works as it should. We spotted some issues, others spotted few more, but the number of possible combinations is really large. We hoped 1.18 is the last one (before FujiNet) but then bugs and ideas happened :). 

I can well imagine. All those weapons are worth it for the gameplay though! It's greatly appreciated.

 

Very much interested in Fujinet network suppport for this game. Presumably emulated Fujinet via Altirra over the internet would be technically possible if you don't own a Fujinet?

 

 

[pirx]

8 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Presumably emulated Fujinet via Altirra over the internet would be technically possible if you don't own a Fujinet?

Absolutely! I am so dependent on @phaeron's Altirra that I cannot imagine working without it now. Unfortunately I am on shmubuntu and so far I was not successful in installing FujiNet emulator - there is a github repo with walktrhough, but it did not work for me so far. Will try again.

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.20
2022-11-23

It's the final cut. Director's Cut.
We squeezed the code and saved some bytes to add the joystick/controller selection. No more fights for the stick, up to 4 players can have fun with their own manipulators. And the fifth one can still use the keyboard :).
Our most prolific testers Arek and Alex called for a number of fixes. Thank you, guys!
* Players can select their controllers.
* Better Auto Defense symbol in the status line.
* Battery performance in AI and Auto Defense fixed.
* More accurate and faster Laser.
* Boost For Gifts includes a secret, quite powerful weapon.
* Points counting fix-up (edge cases eliminated).
* Long lists in inventory and shop were pointing to a weapon outside the screen. Fixed.
* Lazy Boys now remember the last weapon used.
* Especially for XEGS - SELECT key changes the joystick similarly to TAB.
* Rare P/M glitches fixed.
* ExplosionRange variable glitched (rarely) due to byte/word mix-up. Fixed.
* Bouncy Castle was bouncing the laser from inside. Fixed.
* Shielded tanks were autodestructing when shooting with angle 0. Fixed.
* Physics of bouncing off the walls was incorrect for some weapons. Fixed.

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.21
2022-12-10

We couldn't resist! This is the Senior Executive Director's Cut.
By virtue of byte misering we squeezed in a few new features:
* new selectable tank shapes - change the controller enough times to get a different tank model
* lonely bad pixel after Liquid Dirt fixed
* mountain colors (or shades) possible, switch with [Tab] in the main menu (or [5] in Atari 5200)
* active controller number display in the game, store, and inventory screens
* an extraordinary terminator mode for Moron

[Beeblebrox]

10 minutes ago, pirx said:

* new selectable tank shapes - change the controller enough times to get a different tank model

* mountain colors (or shades) possible, switch with [Tab] in the main menu (or [5] in Atari 5200)

Nice. Will try it out tmrw. Thanks 

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.22
2022-12-24

Christmas colors edition! Can you carve a quarter of a page of memory from two decades old code? Sure @Pecusx can! So finally we have the most requested feature - C0L0RS on the game screen, adjusted with Adam's help.
Press [TAB] twice in the main menu to switch to a screen with colors.
Other (dubious) improvements:
- New Lazy Darwin, it is spectacular, check it out!!!
- Smoke Tracer does not smoke when targeting with Lazy Darwin
- Lazy Boy works well with a joystick
- Another fix for self-destructing tanks shooting low angles (0-4 degrees)
- New, better tank shapes by Adam
- Barrel start point correction fixes very rare aiming issues
- Soil slide after Hovercraft usage optimized

• Classic
  
• 
  Polish Rainbow
  
   
• Christmas Colors
  

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.25
2023-01-17

Y2K Compliance Edition
This version is 5200 SuperSystem focused.
- the correct production year in the splash screens!!!
- very rare hangups when accessing the inventory seemingly eliminated, thanks @RB5200 for testing!
- a new feature - pressing [Tab] (atari800) or [5] (5200) when selecting the wind power switches wind mode to changing with each turn, which makes aiming arguably more challenging! It is indicated by "?" next to the "Wind" in the main menu.
- pressing [G] during the game changes the color scheme (classic, Polish rainbow, Xmas).
- all these changes were made possible because of the extensive code size optimization by @Pecus

[pirx]

->link<-

###### Version 1.26
2023-01-23

Early morning edition. It is 5:11 am and I am writing this instead of dreaming of electric sheep.
For the last 6 weeks, the versions we released had an awful bug - the conversations of tanks were completely invisible. Thanks for pointing this out, RB5200.
- tanks talk to each other again
- better stochastic non-blocking wait one frame
- rare distance measurement bug fixed (rarely a tank survived a direct hit)
- 5200: second fire (by RB5200)
- "visual debug" mode in A800 version, triggered by pressing [CTRL]+[HELP]. It displays distances measured, laser aiming, and aiming technique. It leaves a mess on the screen, but it does not impair the game, just makes it a bit harder.

[_The Doctor__]

love the release name 'early morning edition' and it truly was, thanks for the smile

[pirx]

New version 新版本 Nueva versión 新バージョン Nouvelle version 새 버전 Neue Version نسخة جديدة Nuova versione Nova versão नया वर्जन  Новая версия  নতুন সংস্করণ Yeni sürüm รุ่นใหม่ Versi baru Nieuwe versie Nowa wersja Ny versjon

 

[Steril707]

Just had a few rounds of this game playing with a good friend while drinking some beers and had a lot of fun.

 

Good job, mate...

[pirx]

->link<-

2023-04-22

Greetings and salutations,

Allow me to present the release notes for Version 1.28 of our esteemed hobby game for 8-bit computers.

First and foremost, let it be known that we have reached the end of an era. We bid adieu to the solitary player versions, as we are determined to preserve the sanctity of this auspicious round version number.

Moving on to the technical enhancements and embellishments, we are proud to introduce a simulated stereo feature for those fortunate enough to possess the dual pokey hardware. This auditory wonder was brought to fruition by the esteemed Arthur "Two Pokeys" Jackson, whose mastery in the field of sound engineering knows no bounds.

Furthermore, we have bestowed upon our beloved creation a splash screen of unrivaled brilliance, crafted by the masterful xorcerer. This work of art, by the Artificial Unintelligence and Machine Forgetting, shall leave an indelible mark on all who behold it.

Our developers have also painstakingly refined the game's performance with a plethora of improvements, including a refined round and final results sorting mechanism, additional keyboard usage assistance in the main menu, and a significant acceleration of the 8x8 and 4x4 put char routines. Additionally, we have incorporated configurable hardware and screen memory layout agnostic put char routines to accommodate future ports and ensure seamless compatibility.

Last but certainly not least, our mountain drawing optimization shall elevate the visual experience to new heights, ensuring an immersive and enjoyable experience for all.

We hope that these improvements shall enhance your gaming experience, and we eagerly anticipate your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

The Developers

Edited April 22, 2023 by pirx