Bot&Tom (was: Top&Tom 2)

[Bomberman94]

Very addictive game and very polished already! I like the cars, use of colors, charset of numbers and sound effects. I already see a physical release on the horizon. 
 

Without powerups and shields and starting from level 1: The game ramps up slowly (from 1 to 9) and after that it ramps up very quickly - so the ramp up from the beginning to let’s say level 8 could be a bit faster and from 9 to the next levels a bit slower regarding difficulty increase. 
 

Idea: what about a special bonus when completing a level without making a mistake?

 

If you have enough space and motivation left: a nice title screen and animation as well as a high score list would be fantastic 😊

[Thomas Jentzsch]

25 minutes ago, Bomberman94 said:

Very addictive game and very polished already! I like the cars, use of colors, charset of numbers and sound effects. I already see a physical release on the horizon.

Thanks!

25 minutes ago, Bomberman94 said:

Without powerups and shields and starting from level 1: The game ramps up slowly (from 1 to 9) and after that it ramps up very quickly - so the ramp up from the beginning to let’s say level 8 could be a bit faster and from 9 to the next levels a bit slower regarding difficulty increase. 

I get you, and I have the same feeling. However, the ramp-up's parameters are linear, so I yet have to find out what makes it feel not linear. 

25 minutes ago, Bomberman94 said:

Idea: what about a special bonus when completing a level without making a mistake?

I thought about something like that too. Maybe I will add it, if there are enough bytes left.

25 minutes ago, Bomberman94 said:

If you have enough space and motivation left: a nice title screen and animation as well as a high score list would be fantastic 😊

I could use bankswitching and easily add all the bell and whistles. But I think I will stay within my self-imposed constrains and leave that to the bigger games.

[carlsson]

If you change the robots into mnemonics, you can rename the game Tax & Tay.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

50 minutes ago, carlsson said:

If you change the robots into mnemonics, you can rename the game Tax & Tay.

TXS & TSX would probably fit even better.😀

[carlsson]

Ah, I never programmed the 2600 so I don't know how important it is to exchange data towards the stack pointer. As a VIC/C64 programmer, I very rarely have used those instructions.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

For version 0.93 (see 1st post), I have changed the difficulty ramp-up, it should be much more linear now. Please let me know if that works well.

[ALEXANDER]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:37 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Attached you find my latest little project called Top&Tom 2. If that name sounds familiar, please have a look at the game's history below.

 

Here are some basic instructions:

 

Top&Tom 2 is an enhanced variation of the browser game game Top&Tom by chsxf. Like in the original, you play Top and Tom, two bots that went on a road trip while being attached to one another. The twist is you can only control Top directly, but you have to help both of them continue their journey.

 

Use a joystick in the left port, to move Top up and down. Tom cannot be controlled directly, but you can make it avoid obstacles anyway. Jump then rush for the ground to bounce it below obstacles on its side of the road. Jump just after to bring it back to the road faster than it would be by itself.

 

A 2nd player can take over control of one direction, up or down by using a joystick in the right port. 

 

Press Select to check and change the current game variation. There are three difficulties which each can be played on three non-random and one random tracks. On top of this, you can combine each variation with  power-ups and shield options. The current variation and its options are displayed at the bottom of the screen, while the game is stopped.

 

To start a game, press Reset at any time. Or press the fire button, when a game is over.

 

During the game, Top and Tom will face numerous blocks in multiple combinations. If they hit these blocks, they will lose energy. If all energy is lost, the game ends. Use joystick up to make Top jump up and bring back Tom fast to the road. Use joystick down to bring it Top back fast to the road, which then allows Tom to jump.

 

The game is played in stages, each lasting ~60 seconds. At the end of each stage, you gain some extra energy and the game pauses.

 

If you have the Power-Up option enabled, you can collect power-ups, which randomly appear at the top or bottom of the screen. But you will get no extra energy at the end of a stage.

 

The shield option allows you to pass an obstacle without losing energy from it. But while the shield is enabled, it will require a little energy too. And if you still hit an obstacle, you will lose twice as much energy as without this option.

 

Note: The options can only be changed while being in select mode. During the game changing them has no effect.

 

While you select a variation, the display will alternate between the current variation, high score and high score stage display. After the game is over, the display will alternate between score, stage, high score and high score stage. High scores will be displayed in red.

 

Note: The ROM supports the PlusROM Highscore Club. But since this is a WIP and I am still tweaking some paras, all scores will be deleted for the final version.

 

Some history

Since I am always lacking ideas, I was browsing the web when I found Top&Tom by cxsxf. I really liked the unique twist in game play and the nice physics. And it looked very doable for the 2600. This was late in 2021 and I started working on it until I got a nice kernel and were able to play the game. Then RL and other projects interfered, so development stuck until after summer vacation. I was making good progress when Arlasoft (who I thought was chsxf) released his 2600 version the same original idea. This came a bit like shock. What should I do now (I thought it was his original idea)? I contacted Arlasoft and it turned out that he is a very nice person who likes my version and doesn't mind at all about me releasing it.

 

Nevertheless I decided to wait some weeks before I got public to give him time to finish his version. Since that did not happen, I finally decided to announce and release my WIP during AtariAge day. And after going public, Arlasoft came here and corrected my mistake.  

Top&Tom (V0.9).zip 4.61 kB · 67 downloads

Top&Tom 2 (V0.91).zip 4.79 kB · 30 downloads

Top&Tom 2 (V0.92).zip 8.37 kB · 17 downloads

Top&Tom 2 (V0.93).zip 8.35 kB · 4 downloads

Congrats Thomas ! Nice game.

 

[pumaconcolor]

I really like where this is headed.  Keep it up!

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Top & Tom 2 via the PlusCart for a highscore on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Nov 29, 2022 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Chaotic Grill (2022 WIP Update | 2600) by Philip Blackman @splendidnut (Code, Graphics, Sound) / NostAlgae37 @NostAlgae37 (Sprites) / Kurt Woloch @Kurt_Woloch (Misc)
• Immunity (2022 Exclusive WIP Update | 2600) by Mike Losh @Sohl
• Top & Tom 2 (2022 WIP Update | 2600) by Thomas Jentzsch @Thomas Jentzsch

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Another late session. Too bad.

[+sramirez2008]

I finally got around to playing Top & Tom 2. Holy cow is this addictive. I love it! I need more practice but I love it. Btw, I played the latest BIN and I think the difficulty ramps up quite nicely. I honestly didn't want to stop playing it, but I'm off to watch the ZPH Twitch stream. 🙂

 

Note: Pics came out terrible...made it to level 9, 38,258.

 

This will make a great party game.

Edited November 30, 2022 by sramirez2008

[Thomas Jentzsch]

@ZeroPage Homebrew I just watched the latest ZPH stream, where Tanya and you were playing the latest version of my game. This was very helpful, thanks a lot! It seems that the difficulty and its ramp-up are quite right now. So unless someone proves me wrong, I will keep it at it.

 

To answer some questions: You do not get extra points for jumping over obstacles which you can pass without jumping. The difficulty ramp up is not asymptotic.   There are only 11 difficulty levels, the game does not get any harder after playing stage 11. So when you can play stage 11 without loosing too much energy, you can get pretty high scores. 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

7 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

@ZeroPage Homebrew I just watched the latest ZPH stream, where Tanya and you were playing the latest version of my game. This was very helpful, thanks a lot! It seems that the difficulty and its ramp-up are quite right now. So unless someone proves me wrong, I will keep it at it.

You're very welcome Thomas! I think the ramp up is perfect now, it's not too easy at the beginning but easy enough for beginners and it has a very gradual and natural ramp up throughout the levels. The length of the levels also feels just right, not too long and not too short.

 

7 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

To answer some questions: You do not get extra points for jumping over obstacles which you can pass without jumping.

I was wondering about that! I will definitely never jump something I don't need to jump again now that I know that.

 

Excellent game and great for high score challenges!

 

- James

[Thomas Jentzsch]

5 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

You're very welcome Thomas! I think the ramp up is perfect now, it's not too easy at the beginning but easy enough for beginners and it has a very gradual and natural ramp up throughout the levels. The length of the levels also feels just right, not too long and not too short.

Thanks for confirming.

5 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

I was wondering about that! I will definitely never jump something I don't need to jump again now that I know that.

Actually, in some cases it even makes sense to jump (at the top, when there is an obstacle at the bottom very close after).

5 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Excellent game and great for high score challenges!

Looking forward to your scores.  

Edited November 30, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+sramirez2008]

Made it to the PlusROM HSC Top 5. WooHoo!

Edited November 30, 2022 by sramirez2008

[adamchevy]

I had a great time playing this game today! Great work! I showed it to some of my fellow co-workers that are younger than I and are modern gamers.  They thought it was a lot of fun to play and that it was very unique and creative!  I look forward to purchasing a cart of this game when it becomes available.  I’m going to need a bit more practice.  It is very addictive as others have mentioned and definitely has that one more time difficulty sweet spot sighted in just right. I think it could probably use just a bit more difficulty from my perspective. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 hours ago, adamchevy said:

I had a great time playing this game today! Great work! I showed it to some of my fellow co-workers that are younger than I and are modern gamers.  They thought it was a lot of fun to play and that it was very unique and creative!  I look forward to purchasing a cart of this game when it becomes available.  I’m going to need a bit more practice.  It is very addictive as others have mentioned and definitely has that one more time difficulty sweet spot sighted in just right.

Thank you for the feedback.

3 hours ago, adamchevy said:

I think it could probably use just a bit more difficulty from my perspective. 

Since you played until stage 7, I suppose you mean the initial difficulty being too easy or the ramp up too slow. Can you details this a bit more?

[+littaum]

BTW, I don't think this game really needs a pause function, since there's a natural pause function in between stages and you only have to wait 60 seconds to get to the next pause.

[adamchevy]

I would say the difficulty overall feels to low.  I was able to get to stage 10 this evening and it’s my first day playing the game. It’s probably my 12th play through.
 

Ofcourse for children between the ages of 6-10 like my 2 girls the difficulty overall feels just right.  
 

I probably just need to move the difficulty from B to A. I’ll give that a try.

 

When I switched from my Edladdin Super 78 to a Best Electronics fully upgraded CX40 I was amazed at how much easier it became.  This game feels like it was made for a CX40, which is awesome!

[adamchevy]

I just tried it with the difficulty on A and it seemed about the same.  I will say that I am having a great time playing this game, so maybe the difficulty is just right? This could also just be my jam? Either way I think it would be fun if you could add some kind of power pellets like in falldown that would enable you to speed up when you hold down the button.  And also when your going faster if it would give you extra points for the increased difficulty that would be fun. 
 

Or just leave it the way it is. It’s seriously a great game and I think it’s a definite contender for the best new VCS game that I’ve played this year so far.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, adamchevy said:

I just tried it with the difficulty on A and it seemed about the same.  

Probably you did so during a game. That makes no difference, which is intentional. You have to use SELECT to get the changes active. Rule of thumb: You have to see the options enabled or disabled in the game select display.

1 hour ago, adamchevy said:

I will say that I am having a great time playing this game, so maybe the difficulty is just right? This could also just be my jam? Either way I think it would be fun if you could add some kind of power pellets like in falldown that would enable you to speed up when you hold down the button.  And also when your going faster if it would give you extra points for the increased difficulty that would be fun. 

Just try the difficulty switches again. And then let me know about your thoughts.

1 hour ago, adamchevy said:

Or just leave it the way it is. It’s seriously a great game and I think it’s a definite contender for the best new VCS game that I’ve played this year so far.

That's a huge compliment. Thanks a lot!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, littaum said:

BTW, I don't think this game really needs a pause function, since there's a natural pause function in between stages and you only have to wait 60 seconds to get to the next pause.

I already added it.  But if I should need the bytes for something better, I can easily remove it again.

[Bomberman94]

Second place 😎but Thomas seems to be unreachable at the moment 🤷‍♂️

 

I would say the last version is now good balanced regarding difficulty 👍

Maybe additional points for a perfect level would be a nice stimulus (not easy to get in many levels 😉). 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Working on it. I just want to balance this right, compared to the other points.

 

Currently you get:

• ~2500-3000 obstacle points in stage 1, which increase to ~5000-6000 points in stage 9
• 1000 extra points per finished stage.

Ideas:

1. increase the fixed stage bonus for a perfect stage (e.g. double to 2000 points)
2. an increasing bonus per stage (e.g. 500 points for stage 1, 600 for stage 2... 1300 for stage 9), which is doubled for a perfect stage 
3. ...?

The bonus should not become too large, else it will devalue the obstacle and power-up points too much.

 

Thoughts?

[Bomberman94]

I like your first idea and would add something: generally 2.000 extra points and (if you master the following stage without a fault) add 1.000 and so on. So maximum could be: 2.000 - 3.000 - 4.000 and so on. If you miss a perfect stage and make it perfect some stages later, it starts with 2.000 extra points again. 
 

Whatever you choose: it should be displayed at the bottom like „Perfect stage! +2.000 points“ or something like that (I think it will be very rewarding to actually show it if you made it😃).