RatTrap

[+darryl1970]

RatTrap

 

Around January 6th, I plotted a mouse on-screen. I had a couple ideas in mind. I wanted to plot a 320-mode mouse, like the one on Exidy's MouseTrap. The game is pretty basic as far as graphics. The sprites are single color, and I thought it would look pretty cool on the 7800.

 

The mouse and dog looked great. This got me wondering if I could create a similar experience to the arcade. I had a little challenge recreating the maze, followed by the challenge of getting the mouse to follow the maze. With this, I realized that the maze would need to change, based on the doors that are switched. I thought this would be a perfect candidate for the SNES controller (SNES2Atari)!

 

At this point, I started looking at the ColecoVision port, because I figured that was the bar for home ports. I also started to think that, while 320 mode would be cool, the 7800's strength is its multi-color sprites. I decided to redraw the sprites to what I thought played to the 7800 strengths.

 

Once I did this, I got the mouse to follow the maze. Next, I worked on the switching doors. All of the maze routines were reusable for the cats, so it wasn't really too much to get the cats into the maze. I created a few sound effects to handle eating, barking, and screeching.

 

I decided to reuse the PentaGo music engine, built by Playsoft. I started picking out some of the tunes. The game just happened. I added scoring, lives, sound effects, high score saves, and some title screens.

 

The game has a way to go. Since the game was brought to light in the forums, I decided to throw a demo together. Please note that it's a very early demo, and I have a lot to add. However, there is a lot here that I am pretty happy about.

 

Game Features:

1. 1  Player Controller Options
   1. 2-Button Joystick
      1. Left Button = Doggie Button
      2. Right Button & Left   = Red Doors
      3. Right Button & Up     = Yellow Doors
      4. Right Button & Right = Blue Doors
   2. SNES Controller (Only when Auto-Detect is triggered)
      1. SNES STANDARD
         1. B = Doggie Button (Start Button also works as Doggie Button)
         2. Y = Red Doors
         3. X = Yellow Doors
         4. A = Blue Doors
         5. Select = Pause
      2. SNES COLORBTN
         1. Greeen / Start = Doggie Button (Start Button also works as Doggie Button)
         2. Red                = Red Doors
         3. Yellow             = Yellow Doors
         4. Blue                = Blue Doors
         5. Select             = Pause
   3. Dual Joysticks (Will be disabled when a high score device is present, but HS saves are currently disabled for now.
      1. Left Stick moves mouse
      2. Right Stick Left   = Red
      3. Right Stick Up     = Yellow
      4. Right Stick Right  = Blue
      5. Right Stick Down  = Doggie
2. 2 Player Controllers
   1. Shared Stick (Same as 2-Button above)
   2. Single Stick (Same as 2-Button)
   3. Share SNES (Auto-Detect) *P1 and P2 will share the SNES controller in port 1
3. Difficulty Levels
   1. Novice - Starts with 4 cats (1 normal and 3 slow); Hawk doesn't come out until later in the stage
   2. Arcade - Starts with 6 cats; Similar to Arcade difficulty
   3. Expert - 2 Cats are very fast.
4. Music
   1. Has 3 BG tunes so far, 3 prize tunes (31 different prizes to collect), level clear tune, and an Intro tune. I have other tunes and sound effects in mind.
   2. Added more music and sfx in the 02-11-2023 update below.

 

This demo allows for one or two players, and all difficulty levels are accessible. Players get two lives, but extras can be earned at 30k & 60k. However, the game ends after three mazes are cleared.

  

 

This initial version may contain bugs. This is an early release for fun.

RatTrap_Demo_01-27-2023.a78

 

UPDATE 1/28/2023 - Corrected title screen spelling & added title music.

RatTrap_Demo_01-28-2023.a78

 

UPDATE 2/11/2023 - Major Update (See thread below for details!)

Click here for update thread!

 

UPDATE 2/15/2023 - Update (See thread below for details!)

Click here for update thread!

 

UPDATE 03/04/2023 - Update (See thread below for details!)

Click here for update thread!

 

[+evg2000]

sorry, this is what I first thought of when I saw the title of the thread😎

 

[Jinks]

Why does the game screen say Ratrap and the game is called Rat Trap? 

 

 

[+darryl1970]

43 minutes ago, Jinks said:

Why does the game screen say Ratrap and the game is called Rat Trap?

LOL. Because I got in a hurry. I finished this demo about 4 hours after my regular bed time.

 

I Was confused when I first read this, and now I see it. Nice catch.

 

I guess I'll have to order another "T" from Amazon.

[gambler172]

Hi Darryl

A good game, but why is it sooo heavy? The 2600 version is easier

[miker]

22 hours ago, Jinks said:

Why does the game screen say Ratrap and the game is called Rat Trap? 

 

 

First World's problems, really...  

[Trebor]

Looking, sounding, and playing wonderfully already.  Excellent work, Darryl! 

The sprites' details for mouse, cat, and dog, are all excellent. 

A couple of suggestions:

 

1.  Novice mode -> Completely remove the hawk.

 

2.  Controls via Stick -> When the second/right button is held down to change door positions, input from the stick should not move the player.  Currently, the player's character continues to move when door color is being selected.  When the second/right button is not being held down, then stick input moving the player engages.

[+darryl1970]

@Trebor

 

Thanks for the feedback. I thought about pausing the player movement on door switch. I was afraid that it would take away from the ability to "multi-task" on higher levels. However, it does get in the way sometimes. I find myself running into a cat inadvertently.

 

I'll try skipping the movement on button press, but I might make it a selectable option when I get the settings menu in place. 😉

 

I originally had the hawk gone from the novice  level, like ColecoVision, but it was WAY too easy.  I locked all of the cats in the center area and collected all of the prizes. It was possible to walk away without consequence. 

 

Do you think the hawk really adds too much difficulty? What are your thoughts? How about making the hawk purely dumb? (Never redirect)

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, Trebor said:

1.  Novice mode -> Completely remove the hawk.

 

2.  Controls via Stick -> When the second/right button is held down to change door positions, input from the stick should not move the player.  Currently, the player's character continues to move when door color is being selected.  When the second/right button is not being held down, then stick input moving the player engages.

Yes to both ideas.  More:

23 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

I'll try skipping the movement on button press, but I might make it a selectable option when I get the settings menu in place. 😉

Both completely removing the hawk and controls via stick would be good candidates for being selectable.  Perhaps instead of making them part of a novice level, just have them be toggles, with the actual difficulty level affecting cat / dog / hawk aggressiveness?  In theory, that would allow for an expert level of difficulty with or without hawk, etc.

25 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

I originally had the hawk gone from the novice  level, like Colecovision, but it was WAY too easy.  I locked all of the cats in the center area and collected all of the prizes. It was possible to walk away without consequence.

This is exactly the scenario that made think of having it be a toggle 

26 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Do you think the hawk really adds too much difficulty? What are your thoughts? How about making the hawk purely dumb? (Never redirect)

To my mind, it's not so much that the hawk adds difficulty as it adds frustration.  You can be doing everything in your power to avoid it, the cats, and the dog, and the hawk will snap around at just the right time to make it feel like you took a cheap hit from it.

 

Having said that, it's also something that irks me about the arcade version.  I really like the game, but whenever that happens a couple of times in a row it usually kills my enthusiasm for playing past the current game.

[Trebor]

1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

I'll try skipping the movement on button press, but I might make it a selectable option when I get the settings menu in place. 😉

1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

Do you think the hawk really adds too much difficulty? What are your thoughts? How about making the hawk purely dumb? (Never redirect)

I do not, but others may think so, and I always believe Novice should be a challenge where anyone can pick up and play without a considerable amount of difficulty (I.E. 2600 Ms. Pac-Man Teddy Bear setting).  Those only familiar with the 2600 port will find this truer to the Arcade original game, a much greater challenge.  Perhaps remove the hawk, but keep all four cats at normal speed.

 

Hawk without redirect may be a great alternative as well.  Couple that with 2 normal and 2 slow cats (In lieu of the current 1 normal 3 slow), perhaps will even it out a bit, if the no redirect hawk seems too easy.

[John Stamos Mullet]

Dude!

 

awesome!

[+darryl1970]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Yes to both ideas.  More:

Both completely removing the hawk and controls via stick would be good candidates for being selectable.  Perhaps instead of making them part of a novice level, just have them be toggles, with the actual difficulty level affecting cat / dog / hawk aggressiveness?  In theory, that would allow for an expert level of difficulty with or without hawk, etc.

This is exactly the scenario that made think of having it be a toggle 

To my mind, it's not so much that the hawk adds difficulty as it adds frustration.  You can be doing everything in your power to avoid it, the cats, and the dog, and the hawk will snap around at just the right time to make it feel like you took a cheap hit from it.

I have already implemented the toggle for the door button press. Since I do not have the settings menu yet, I just have it as default in the next release. Who knows? I may have the setting menu by the next demo.

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Having said that, it's also something that irks me about the arcade version.  I really like the game, but whenever that happens a couple of times in a row it usually kills my enthusiasm for playing past the current game.

5 hours ago, Trebor said:

I do not, but others may think so, and I always believe Novice should be a challenge where anyone can pick up and play without a considerable amount of difficulty (I.E. 2600 Ms. Pac-Man Teddy Bear setting).  Those only familiar with the 2600 port will find this truer to the Arcade original game, a much greater challenge.  Perhaps remove the hawk, but keep all four cats at normal speed.

 

Hawk without redirect may be a great alternative as well.  Couple that with 2 normal and 2 slow cats (In lieu of the current 1 normal 3 slow), perhaps will even it out a bit, if the no redirect hawk seems too easy.

I had a bunch of questions, but I decided to just make some tweaks instead. Ignore what was here before if you read it. LOL.

 

I do not want to make the hawk toggle-able, because there are 3 difficulty levels. If one player has a better novice score than another, it shouldn't be because one of them toggled off the hawk. (I thought about skipping the high score when the hawk was toggled off, like I do for cheats. However, I like leaving the hawk off altogether, as long as it's not impossible to die like it was before.

 

I wanted to prevent players from camping out and collecting all 32 prizes (the highest value is 7,200pts) multiple times. It's very easy to trap even two cats and just collect prizes indefinitely. I do not want to implement a timer, because it would require more processing power, and I feel I'll need that when I change doors. I have yet to loop through every door to see if it's intersected with any cats or the mouse.

 

I landed on adding the additional cats back in toward the end of the level. They are still traveling pretty slow, so they are not a major threat. However, they help prevent the infinite camping on the screen. I think it works pretty well. I also made it so the level only starts with 4 cats on the first two levels. After that, it starts with 5.

 

I hope you'll both like it.

[TrekMD]

Oh, wow!  Awesome!

[Trebor]

11 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

I landed on adding the additional cats back in toward the end of the level. They are still traveling pretty slow, so they are not a major threat. However, they help prevent the infinite camping on the screen. I think it works pretty well. I also made it so the level only starts with 4 cats on the first two levels. After that, it starts with 5.

 

I hope you'll both like it.

 

[TrekMD]

I downloaded the binary but I was not able to run it using BUP emulator.  Is this a known issue?

[Lord_of_Sipan]

I really like how this maintains the characteristic spare/minimal “look” I associate with a lot of Exidy games while also looking like a 7800 game. I think making the sprites multicolor like you did was a great idea.

 

Not sure what I can add concerning the hawk as it is annoying as hell on the arcade version from what I recall. I’ve never played the Colecovision version since that isn’t a console I own.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Lord_of_Sipan

[7800Knight]

Looks amazing!

 

I have the Atari 2600 port of Mousetrap .  As much as I like it, it is sad they took out the Hawk from the arcade game.

[+mksmith]

Gee Darryl this looks fantastic mate - great job!!

[TIX]

Great job @darryl1970 !

 

Old Exidy games are very iconic and playable, but I found them lacking in the graphics department.

What I find "unfair" is the (fully drawn) cat is animated in 16 frames (4 in each direction),

while the hero mouse/dog is only a measly head animated in just 4 frames..

 

I Like the fact that you decided to go low res/multicolor for the sprites,

would you consider to give the mouse/dog the "cat treatment"  ?

 

Let me know if you need a hand !

 

 

[+Propane13]

On 1/29/2023 at 3:01 PM, Trebor said:

I do not, but others may think so, and I always believe Novice should be a challenge where anyone can pick up and play without a considerable amount of difficulty (I.E. 2600 Ms. Pac-Man Teddy Bear setting).

+1.

 

When I worked on Mean Santa for the 2600, I ended up creating multiple modes of difficulty for this reason.  I was surprised to learn that my play-testers were a mix of seasoned veterans, but also their children and grandchildren.  The easiest mode on Mean Santa has basically no difficult objects at all, but to balance that, I limited how far you can advance in the game.  If you eventually plan on having different maze layouts / bonus items / cut-scenes, you can simply make some of those options inaccessible on Teddy Bear mode.  This allows people to be able to play and advance / unlock more as they get comfortable while supporting a wide range of ages.  Honestly, I felt weird releasing Easy Mode on Mean Santa initially (it was just too simple in my opinion after hours of play-testing myself), but eventually I learned that it was a "gateway" level and was well received.  I guess my point is that your audience is a mix of people of different levels of skills; ensuring that everyone can access the game in some way is always a good idea.

[Trebor]

12 hours ago, TrekMD said:

I downloaded the binary but I was not able to run it using BUP emulator.  Is this a known issue?

 

I was able to advance it from a blank screen to the title screen after pressing the input mapped for the "Pause" console button.

My setup is currently mapped to "C" - but highly likely remapped from default:

I believe it may have something to do with having saving in place for scores. 

BupSystem has been known to have issues with some of those titles at times with that feature present.

[+darryl1970]

It's really too early to be able to nail that one down. On a game standpoint, it's not even close to being ready for testing. I just shared it, since it was mentioned as a WIP.

 

As for BUP, I feel it's deeper than the high score. I have high scores implemented, but they are disabled right now. (Disabling high scores usually is the fix for BUP.)  The reason is that the SNES2Atari detection is interfering with the high score saves. RevEng has shared this in the 7800 Basic forum. There is an issue that he has to look into, and that is higher level in the Basic language. He will need time to get to that 

 

It works great in A7800 emulation (even HS), but HS has issues when I'm using an SNES controller. Also, my AtariVox says, "Eeee" when it tries to auto detect an SNES controller. There's a lot of cross talk in the serial device timing.

 

Since high scores break BUP, and the devices are on the control ports, I would assume that the SNES detection also breaks BUP. 

 

-Darryl

 

 

[+darryl1970]

On 1/31/2023 at 2:39 AM, TIX said:

Great job @darryl1970 !

 

Old Exidy games are very iconic and playable, but I found them lacking in the graphics department.

What I find "unfair" is the (fully drawn) cat is animated in 16 frames (4 in each direction),

while the hero mouse/dog is only a measly head animated in just 4 frames..

 

I Like the fact that you decided to go low res/multicolor for the sprites,

would you consider to give the mouse/dog the "cat treatment"  ?

 

Let me know if you need a hand !

 

 

Thanks @TIX. I really appreciate the kind words, and I also appreciate the offer. Sorry it's taken so long to properly get back to you. I have had time to glance and "like" posts, but not much time to think about much and respond. Life has been a little busy. Life has been busy. I have spent a decent amount of time trying to add missing gameplay elements where possible. Getting "bumped" by the doors was a little bit of a puzzle to figure out efficiently.

 

I appreciate your offer. I actually considered some extra death frames or something, but I kind of wanted to keep it pretty simple and true to the arcade version.

I had thought about adding stars above the mouse when dying, along with some eye animation.

 

In the end, I kind of decided that I didn't want to do too much. I'd hate for you to go to all the trouble of creating sprites. The game is pretty close to done at this point. I need to add a self-play mode, along with some missing sound effects. I get a little anxiety about digging back in and changing too much late in the game.

[juansolo]

Anyone who hasn't played this with a SNES2Atari adapter should, it makes the game so much more playable. The original adapter I tried it with was a bodge, because it worked so well we decided to do it properly and make it a bit more robust/pretty. Essentially it's a 9-pin extension and a SNES extention chopped up and a tiny project box with a tiny piece of veroboard and a 1k resistor. Dead easy to make and cool as hell. Now I want everything to support this adapter. Awesome game @darryl1970, you keep knocking out of the park dude!

[Asaki]

On 1/27/2023 at 11:15 PM, darryl1970 said:

1. 1. SNES Controller (Auto-Detect)
      1. B = Doggie Button (Start Button also works as Doggie Button)
      2. Y = Red Doors
      3. X = Yellow Doors
      4. A = Blue Doors
      5. Select = Pause

Probably a nitpick, but wouldn't you want the colors to match the buttons?