Cosmic Combat Redux

+KaeruYojimbo · February 5, 2023

About a year and a half ago I posted a little 2k game called Cosmic Combat. I never meant to do anything more with it, it was just a little programming exercise/something to do on a weekend I was home alone. But the other day I had some ideas for expanding on it and decided to go ahead and see if I could make them work. So without further ado I present Cosmic Combat Redux!

Long running tensions between the Havzs and the Havknots have finally boiled over into full-blown war. Cosmic Combat Redux is a 2 player only game. Player 1 represents the Havzs and controls the red ship at the top of the screen. You control all of the planet's resources (represented by giant diamonds) and want to keep it that way. Player 2 represents the Havknots and controls the blue ship at the bottom of the screen. You want to end the Havzs stranglehold over resources by taking them away.

Use the joystick to control your ship. Player 1 uses the left joystick, player 2 uses the right.

Move the joystick left and right to move your ship.

Press the fire button to shoot.

Press the stick up to activate your shield, down to deactivate it. You can't shoot while your shield is activated.

Each round begins with the ball in the center of the screen. Shoot it to make it move towards your opponent. Shoot it again while it's moving towards them to make it go faster. Activating your shield allows you to deflect the ball back, but only works if the ball hits the front of your ship. If the ball hits you, your ship is disabled for a second and a half. If the ball reaches the opposite side of the playfield, you steal one of your opponents diamonds. Whoever has the most diamonds at the end of the round wins. First one to win 3 rounds wins the game.

Things to fix/add:

Stun ships when hit by enemy shot. I just realized I forgot to add this and don't feel like going back and doing it right now.

Need to fix a collision detection issues where sometimes your ship will get stunned when it shouldn't.

Sounds (duh)

More fanfare at the end of each round and the end of the game.

Add options to select 30, 60 or 90 second rounds and to play best 2 of 3, best 3 of 5 or best 4 of 7.

Find a 2 or 4 digit score minikernel that works with the multisprite kernel so I don't have to use six digits to show the round time.

Latest ROM:

Cosmic Combat 20230219.bin

Older ROMs:

Cosmic Combat 20230205.bin

+KaeruYojimbo · February 19, 2023

New ROM in the first post.

Changes:

Player 1 (left joystick) now controls the blue ship, player 2 (right joystick) controls the red ship.

Shots now stun the other player.

Score display updated (thanks @Karl G). Left digit is the red player score, middle 2 digits the countdown timer, right digit is the blue player score.

During the attract mode press up and down on the left stick to select between winning 2, 3, or 4 rounds to win the game (defaults to 3). Press left or right to select between 30, 60 or 90 second rounds (defaults to 60).

Also during the attract mode, press the Select switch to choose a 1 or 2 player game (defaults to 2 players). When 1 player mode is active, the red ship's shield will be visible. One player mode doesn't do much at this point, just bounces the ball back to you, but I'll be working on improving it.