Drone Patrol [Complete]

[+Atarius Maximus]

A few minor bugfixes in this version.  I'm ready to call this Release Candidate 1.

 

 

drone_patrol_v77_RC1.a78 drone_patrol_v77_RC1.bin

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Drone Patrol on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us!

 

Fri Mar 7, 2024 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• StoneAge (2024 WIP Update | 7800) by Anthony Quinlan @TwentySixHundred / Konstantinos Giamalidis @TIX (Graphics)
• Drone Patrol (2024 WIP Update | 7800) by Steve Engelhardt @Atarius Maximus / JAM  @H3xaFli6ht (Music)
• Knight Guy - In Another Castle (2024 WIP Update | 7800) by VHZC Games / Vladimir Zuñiga @vhzc

 

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks for playing Drone Patrol last night, James!  I now know of a few changes that need to be made, and it was great watching someone else play.  There are a few spelling errors in the mission briefing and a high score bug in the easter egg mini-game, and those are easy fixes.  They'll be corrected in the next update.

 

As promised attached is the ZeroPage Homebrew logo source code and graphics I used for the special version of the game used on the ZPH broadcast.  Anyone is welcome to use this for a future project, I just thought it would be cool to add for the show.  It won't be in the final release of the game.

zeropage_logo.tar zeropage_logo.a78

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

5 hours ago, Atarius Maximus said:

Thanks for playing Drone Patrol last night, James!  I now know of a few changes that need to be made, and it was great watching someone else play.  There are a few spelling errors in the mission briefing and a high score bug in the easter egg mini-game, and those are easy fixes.  They'll be corrected in the next update.

 

You're so welcome, such an amazingly fun game especially the awesome boss fights! Glad we were able to find a few bugs in the game! Looking forward to playing it again in the future!

 

5 hours ago, Atarius Maximus said:

As promised attached is the ZeroPage Homebrew logo source code and graphics I used for the special version of the game used on the ZPH broadcast.  Anyone is welcome to use this for a future project, I just thought it would be cool to add for the show.  It won't be in the final release of the game.

zeropage_logo.tar 32.5 kB · 2 downloads zeropage_logo.a78 32.13 kB · 3 downloads

 

It's was an honour to see the ZPH logo in your game, thank you so much for putting it in the version we showed on the stream and for sharing the code for others to use if they like!

 

- James

[+Atarius Maximus]

This version fixes the spelling errors in the mission briefing and the high score bug that was identified in the ZPH broadcast.

 

 

drone_patrol_v0.78_RC2.a78 drone_patrol_v0.78_RC2.bin

[+Atarius Maximus]

This version makes another difficulty change.  On the easy and standard difficulty levels, the second stealth plane that moved from left to right was removed from Boss 8.  

 

I also added paddle support to the Drone Bomber game.  Playing with a paddle makes the game SO much more fun!

 

On the Drone Bomber menu, you'll see a new option available that displays "activate paddle".  Press the fire button on that option and it will change to "paddle active".  After the screen displays "paddle active", it will display a message that you must exit the game in order to re-activate the joystick.  If you press the paddle button while you're on the "paddle active" menu option, the game will reset to the Drone Patrol main menu and re-enable the joystick (the same as choosing the "exit" option).  Once the menu says "paddle active" unplug the joystick and plug in the paddles. The menu will now be navigable by spinning the paddle to get to the different options (start, exit, instructions, and controller selection).  Spin it until you see "start game" to start.  This unfortunately ruins the game's couch compliance, but it's worth getting up for!

 

Note that the instructions screen itself once loaded is not navigable with the paddle, you'll only be able to view and exit from the first page.  Also, the menu option that's visible on-screen is based on the hardware location of the paddle wheel.  It might immediately move to a different menu option when you plug in the paddle, and when the game ends the first menu option you see will be based on wherever your paddle is located in its rotation.  You might see any of the four options first.  When you exit Drone Bomber to the main menu of the game, the joystick is automatically re-enabled.

 

Because of the addition of paddle control the game as it was previously was much too easy.  I ramped up the difficulty to accommodate the paddle controls by increasing the speed progression, changing the movement pattern of the enemy mega-drone that drops the bombs, adding two additional levels, and reducing the size of the drones. This makes the game a lot more fun with the paddle, but as a consequence makes it much more difficult with the joystick.  Now that it's in-place, I highly recommend playing Drone Bomber with the paddle controller, although you can use either.

 

Drone Bomber been tested on real hardware and works as expected, although it was only about 10 minutes of testing.  On the technical side, in order to accommodate paddle control I had to relocate the plotsprite4 code as I was out of space in the 7800basic reserved area.  That immediately broke the Music Player, which I've fixed.  I'm hoping it didn't mess anything else up, but it shouldn't have.  I will need to do some more testing of the main game just to make sure. 

 

Edit:  The next post has the latest update that fixed I bug I found in this release.

 

[+Atarius Maximus]

See the previous post for details on this release.

 

This fixes the issue with trying to switch back and forth between the paddle and joystick within the drone bomber game.  In this version, once you select the paddle it's set for that session of drone bomber - deactivating it will reset to the Drone Patrol main menu and automatically revert back to joystick control.

drone_patrol_v81_RC3.a78 drone_patrol_v81_RC3.bin

[phantomthrill]

I love the concept of the game, maybe it is just me, i suggest perhaps that when the other bogeys are on the screen that perhaps we can shoot at and defeat them and they spawn a little after that in the levels. I don't know how much reprogramming that would take, but it occurred to me that I can shoot the big target and its fun enough trying not to get hit by that, but then I have these other enemies that are shooting me and I can't defeat "shoot" them.

[+Atarius Maximus]

On 3/25/2024 at 7:20 PM, phantomthrill said:

I love the concept of the game, maybe it is just me, i suggest perhaps that when the other bogeys are on the screen that perhaps we can shoot at and defeat them and they spawn a little after that in the levels. I don't know how much reprogramming that would take, but it occurred to me that I can shoot the big target and its fun enough trying not to get hit by that, but then I have these other enemies that are shooting me and I can't defeat "shoot" them.

I really appreciate the feedback, thanks for sharing your opinion.  At this stage of development it would be very difficult to add that in due to RAM and ROM constraints, as well as how I've balanced the difficulty in the boss battles.  At this point the gameplay is set.  I'm not going to be making any more changes, I'm just focused on bugfixes now.

 

I mentioned in a previous post that I had relocated the plotsprite4 assembly code and that did in fact cause an issue that I just caught.  It only affected the easter egg/hidden game, and it's been fixed. 

 

 

drone_patrol_v82_RC4.a78 drone_patrol_v82_RC4.bin

[+Atarius Maximus]

RevEng just shared a RMT playback fix that allows for the music that H3xaFli6ht created to be played at the proper PAL speed, this version includes that fix.  I also changed the menu system for Drone Bomber once the paddle is activated.   After activating the paddle, only the "start" and "exit" options are available, and exiting the game to the Drone Patrol main menu will automatically re-enable the joystick.  Spin the paddle to select start or exit.  The instructions option is only available when the joystick is active, and of course once you activate the paddle the option to activate it is also removed from the menu.

 

I played Drone Bomber with the paddle for a while again today and it works great.  I should have put paddle support in there from the very beginning!  

drone_patrol_v84_RC5.a78 drone_patrol_v84_RC5.bin

[+Atarius Maximus]

I'm ready to call this game complete.  I made a few minor changes to the Maximus Games splash screen, other than that this final version is the same as the previously posted version (v84_RC5).  

 

I created a webpage at www.maximusgames.us and the link to that is now included on the splash screen.  At the moment that website only provides links to all of the homebrews and hacks I've done in the last 20+ years.  In the future I'll likely enhance it with unique pages for each game with screenshots, videos, instructions, etc.  I am also currently working on a proper instruction manual which will be posted here in the near future.

 

Edit:

 

The minor change in the splash screen seems to have caused another issue in the main game, there was some corruption in the city graphic.  I've played a few games on real hardware and I believe I have it fixed in this revision but I will continue to test.  It was only happening on real hardware, not in emulation.

 

Drone_Patrol_Final_Revision_A.a78 Drone_Patrol_Final_Revision_A.bin

[+sramirez2008]

Would love to see this released on a cart.🙂

[+Atarius Maximus]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

Would love to see this released on a cart.🙂

The plan is to release it this fall on cart at this year's PRGE.

[Striker667xbl]

On 6/13/2024 at 2:03 PM, Atarius Maximus said:

The plan is to release it this fall on cart at this year's PRGE.

I hope we'll be able to buys these through something like AtariAge Store. 🙏

[+Atarius Maximus]

I clearly should have done some additional testing on real hardware before I called this complete.   The only flash cart that I own that will run Drone Patrol is the 7800 Game Drive so all of my real hardware testing has been with that cartridge.  In order for Drone Patrol to run as expected you MUST have break disabled on the menu.  I've noticed graphical glitches with break enabled that don't happen when it's enabled, and AtariVox speech will not work if break is enabled.

 

Disabling Break:

Use the right joystick button to bring up the menu, push right to change it from enabled to disabled, then select Start Game.  This menu selection is saved to the SD card so you will only need to do this once.

 

If anyone who owns an MCP Dev Cart or Firefly would like to test this for me I would appreciate it.  I would be most curious if any issues crop up in the display on the city buildings during gameplay, as in my testing on the 7800GD I had noticed an intermittent graphical glitch where a solid orange bar would appear within the city.  In my testing on the 7800GD so far it seems to happen only when break is enabled. 

 

This version has the following changes:

 

The Password Entry Screen:  There was noticeable flickering in the background on real hardware.  I've corrected it in this version.

The Scrolling Text/Message Bar:  The scrolling text was removed in this version, it previously would scroll text messages at the bottom of the screen when your shield or laser level was low.  I don't think it was integral to the game, and the AtariVox will still notify you of those in-game conditions if you have one plugged in.

The Progress Bar:  It was moved to the bottom of the screen (rather than at the very top).

Graphical glitch on initial game start:  There was a brief and minor graphical glitch near the top of the screen when the game first started.  Moving the progress bar to the bottom was one of the things that helped resolve that.

 

There's a very good chance this will be the actual final version, but I am going to continue to test.  

 

Drone_Patrol_Final_Revision_B.binDrone_Patrol_Final_Revision_B.a78

 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

DEVELOPER SPOTLIGHT on

STEVE ENGELHARDT (ATARIUS MAXIMUS)

 

We're excited to have Steve Engelhardt join us LIVE tomorrow on ZeroPage Homebrew for a Developer Spotlight highlighting his prolific Atari 2600 & Atari 7800 development career! Join us in the chat to ask your questions directly to @Atarius Maximus as we go through his past games plus unveil the EXCLUSIVE WORLD PREMIERE of his SECRET new Atari 7800 game! See you tomorrow on Twitch!

WATCH LIVE:

Tuesday July 9th @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

[Trebor]

@Atarius Maximus Almost by default, I turn off Break for any testing I do via 7800GD, just to avoid those 'bugs that are not a bug' situations.

 

I have not come across anything outstanding with the latest build (Final Revision B).   Though admittedly, I'm not very good at the game ...yet.

 

A small related item that I have come across, is probably confusing the letter "B" with the number "8" for the password. 

 

At least for The Hunter, I presume it contains both, as the interpreted password results I entered started a new game at Level 1.  Although hex values are being used, especially under a CRT coupled with the lower 160 resolution mode and the smaller size font, someone *cough*me*cough*, may confuse that "B" and "8".  From all the values, 0-9 & A-F, those two appear to be the only characters very similar to one another in appearance.

 

Perhaps exclude any "B" or "8"  from password usage (?)   Sorry, I should have kept the password string recorded for reference purposes, though I'm certain you have a master list. 

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks Trebor.  Good to hear you haven't come across anything.  The issue I mentioned was popping up within a few minutes of playing the game, so you wouldn't have to play for long.  This build seems solid but I'm going to keep playing for a while just to make sure. 

 

Regarding the B and 8, I hadn't considered that.  I could either change the codes so there are no B's or 8's as you mentioned, or maybe change the font so it's easier to distinguish between them.  I'll look at that probably later this week.

[+Atarius Maximus]

@Trebor I changed the font to make it easier to distinguish between the B and the 8.  The only other change in this version was a correction in the Drone Bomber instructions.  It specified that there were 10 levels of difficulty when in fact there are 12, I expanded it when I added paddle control.

Drone_Patrol_Final_Revision_C.a78 Drone_Patrol_Final_Revision_C.bin