Sweep Shot - 4K game

[Sohl]

Coming later today (Dec. 31st)!  Just needs a bit more cleanup and tuning...
 

Will post my best version around 3:00 PM EDT.

 

[Sohl]

 

Sweep Shot

 

      

Welcome Space Station 48-307 Custodial Cadet! Your first job is to operate the station debris incinerator, which is enhanced with a laser-guided ion-beam sweeping device to push unwanted objects, including some nasty space-varmits, into the incineration zone.

The ion-beam is easy to operate, but tricky to master! The laser guide line will continuously sweep across the station sector in a repeating pattern. You inject an ionic pushing wave when you press your control button. The guide beam will glow orange as it energizes… but press too long and it looses effect. After you release the button, the beam will require a fraction of a second to recover before it can be utilized again. Note that you push the objects stronger if the beam activates on or very close to an object, and pushes more weakly if activated before reaching the object. Timing is critical!

 

Station “dust bunnies” will not move on their own, but the space-varmits will! Nudge them quickly into the incinerator in the center of your sector or they can escape. You will hear a warning tone if the object is close to the sector edge. If four objects escape, your shift will be terminated early and you will be sent to kitchen patrol… or worse! Your performance will be monitored, and you will receive more performance points if you incinerate the unwanted objects with fewer ion blasts. The more quickly-moving objects can earn higher amounts of performance points.

If you clear all of the objects in one sector, you will advance to another sector, but the ion-beam sweeping rate will increase each time up to the max speed seen in the third and later sectors. Many custodial cadets find that the higher sweeping speed becomes easier to use than the slowest speed once the timing is familiar.

 

Objects and space--varmits:

DustBuns:

 

Creepers:
 

Sliders:

Zipsters:

Zagsters:

A good, clean incineration:


We’re counting on you to maintain a clean station. Now get to it!

[2600 control notes: Reset Switch will restart the title screen; press Fire on the title screen or a game-over screen to begin play; pressing Fire on the game over screen (which looks white with black score digits) for a longer period will restart the title screen again; only the Left Joystick fire button is used to play; The Left Difficulty Switch allows the beam sweeping speed to reach a level of 4 (beginner is limited to 3); Right Difficulty switch disables ongoing beam rumble sound in the the A position; there are no game variants.]

 

sweepshot - 2022Dec31.bin

[Sohl]

Some notes on the typical behavior of space-varmits™ * 

Creepers:  Move slowly outward from the incinerator.

Sliders: Move in a straight horizontal or vertical path, usually whichever would be longest path to the edgewhen the varmit begins motion.

Zipsters: Chooses a random direction, slightly biased away from incinerator, but they are know to frequently zip right into it!

Zagsters: Generally alternate between a horizontal and vertical path away from incinerator.

Pushing any of these varmits to a new location will trigger them to re-establish their path.


* (not actually trade-marked... yet, at least!)

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Sweep Shot on tonight's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Jan 3, 2023 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

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

 

Games:

• ZPH Interview with James and Tanya O'Brien by Giovanna
• Bloxudoku (2022 WIP) by Ola Lisboa  @Lisboa2k6
• Sweep Shot (2022 WIP) by Mike Losh @Sohl
• Razor's Edge (2022 Retail | 2600 Full | Playthrough Attempt) by Red Button Games / Leonardo Santiago  @Leonardo Santiago (Design, Development, Graphics, Music, Sound Effects, Gameplay, Illustrations, Text, Final Art) / Claudia Maria (Illustrations)

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

 

[Sohl]

On 1/3/2023 at 7:10 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Sweep Shot on tonight's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

That's awesome, but I didn't catch your notice in time, and was kind of busy on Tuesday.   Thanks for playing during your show.

One hint for higher score is to hold the fire button longer, especially when the beam speeds up.  At the faster sweep speeds, this allows you to sort of scoop the objects along rather than bump them.  Early though, quick taps of fire can sometimes allow you to double-bump the objects in one beam pass.  Also, press & hold fire earlier to make smaller pushes when you have objects close to the incinerator.

There's a couple of fixes and other improvements I know I want to make:
1) It's too easy to start a new game immediately after loosing... I need to have the game ignore the fire button during the "loose" music motif and perhaps a bit longer to ensure you see your final score.

2) I want to make the Advanced difficulty switch setting start the same with speed level 2 (currently both A and B start the beam at speed level 1).  That would allow better players skip the slowest phase.  The speed is how many pixel positions or scanlines the beam advances each video frame (currently it is 1, 2, 3... no matter the difficulty, and then 4 is possible if difficulty is set to A).
3) Make the current moving objects just a little faster.

4) Add additional object types with unique ways of moving

5) Slow the title music, maybe add a second voice accompaniment

I haven't decided if I want to grow the feature set with things like:
1) Game version where you set the beam sweep direction each time.

2) Two-player version(s)