Drone Patrol [Release Candidate 5]

[+sramirez2008]

This is looking amazing and I love in-game mission briefings. Work has me swamped, but I hope to give it a go soon. Thanks for sharing.🙂

[+sramirez2008]

Holy crap this is fun! I made it to the 1st boss three times, but was unable to defeat it.☹️

[+sramirez2008]

Now we're talking! Defeated two bosses and made it to Corporal.

[+Atarius Maximus]

2 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

Now we're talking! Defeated two bosses and made it Corporal.

Nice!  I found some of the boss battles a little too easy, some a little too hard, I'm still working on finding that balance.  It's always difficult to tell when a game is too easy or too hard, as I tend to get pretty good at the games I make since I obviously play them so much during testing.

 

Here's a playthrough video.  I played up through the fourth boss and almost beat it.    (Thanks to Karl G for the easy answer to embedding a video in a post)

 

 

 

 

[+sramirez2008]

10 minutes ago, Atarius Maximus said:

Nice!  I found some of the boss battles a little too easy, some a little too hard, I'm still working on finding that balance.  It's always difficult to tell when a game is too easy or too hard, as I tend to get pretty good at the games I make since I obviously play them so much during testing.

 

I just now did a playthrough (without audio) and posted it on youtube here.  I can't seem to figure out how to embed a youtube video in a post.  I played up through the fourth boss and almost beat it.  

 

 

I found the first boss to be hard to defeat and the 2nd a bit easier. I’d like to hear from others, as I can’t devote more time today but hope to put some time in this weekend.
 

You have me hooked. I really like this game.👍

[+Atarius Maximus]

4 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

I found the first boss to be hard to defeat and the 2nd a bit easier. I’d like to hear from others, as I can’t devote more time today but hope to put some time in this weekend.
 

You have me hooked. I really like this game.👍

Thanks again!  I'd love to hear from anyone else who's playing as well.  

 

With the boss battles, I tried to add some unique elements to each one and I wanted the difficulty progression to be relatively linear so the later battles are harder than the earlier ones.  It's easy enough to somewhat artificially make them harder by simply giving the boss more health, which is pretty much how the game is set right now.  Each one is progressively stronger.  The unique weapons and other obstacles on the screen vary quite a bit, so I just need to keep playing and make adjustments where needed.

[+sramirez2008]

Thanks for the video. You made it look easy, although getting to the 4th boss with 4 HP left, was no easy feat. 

[+Karl G]

2 hours ago, Atarius Maximus said:

I just now did a playthrough and posted it on youtube here.  I can't seem to figure out how to embed a youtube video in a post.

Just paste the YouTube URL on a line by itself, and it should automatically generate a preview.

[+Atarius Maximus]

12 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Just paste the YouTube URL on a line by itself, and it should automatically generate a preview.

 

That just seemed too obvious.   I updated my post, thanks Karl.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

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

 

Fri Apr 21, 2023 | LIVE @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 7PM GMT

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

 

Games:

• Drone Patrol (2023 WIP | 7800) by Steve Engelhardt @Atarius Maximus
• RatTrap (2023 WIP Update | 7800) by 20th St Arcade / Darryl Guenther @darryl1970
• I.C.B.M. (2023 WIP | 7800) by Anthony Quinlan @TwentySixHundred
• Game of the Bear: Polar Opposites (WIP Update | 7800) by VHZC Games / Vladimir Zuñiga @vhzc

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

[+Atarius Maximus]

I've got so much extra ROM space now I thought I'd experiment a little with some extras.  One of the first 7800basic game demos I wrote about a decade ago (Boom!) was modified and added, and is selectable from the main menu as a different game to play.  I changed a few things and used some of the Drone Patrol graphics for the game.  It's a standard Kaboom! style game, the main difference is that the fast moving tank at the bottom will also block a bomb if one hits it. The soldiers running on the screen don't actually do anything in the game.  I'll probably make some tweaks still, I did this pretty quickly.

 

Maybe I'll add another one of my older games in there as well.  This can be a Drone Patrol multicart.

drone_patrol_v49.a78

[+Atarius Maximus]

I was looking through my old 7800 game project folder and I found this image, I'd forgotten I had this.  RetroGamer magazine interviewed me about the "Boom!" game and put me in the December 2015 issue.  I'm not exactly sure why they picked me and that game, but it was pretty cool to be in the magazine.

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, Atarius Maximus said:

I was looking through my old 7800 game project folder and I found this image, I'd forgotten I had this.  RetroGamer magazine interviewed me about the "Boom!" game and put me in the December 2015 issue.  I'm not exactly sure why they picked me and that game, but it was pretty cool to be in the magazine.

That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I've been out of state for several weeks for unfortunate circumstances, my mother recently passed away.  There was no wi-fi, and I found that an AT&T phone in the mountains of Vermont is completely useless.  Prior to all of that I did make some updates so I thought I'd share that now. I'll get back to this sometime soon.  

 

I updated the city graphics so some buildings have a more "war-torn" look as you progress.  Starting at level 7 the city graphics no longer change.  I updated the secondary "drone bomber" game to use a bomber that's more in the style of the mega-drones you'll encounter in the main game rather than looking like the bomber in Kaboom.  An explosion-like screen flash was added when you use a smart bomb or kill a boss.  The most notable change is adjustments in boss difficulty - I have played through every boss and it is now entirely possible to beat all of them.  If you do manage to beat the final boss, the game doesn't end but moves on to "Level 11", which is an endless (and difficult) level to simply try and boost your score. 

 

 

 

drone_patrol_v51.a78

[+sramirez2008]

@Atarius Maximus So sorry to hear about your Mom. Please accept my condolences.

Thank you for this update but please keep first things, first.

[+Muddyfunster]

@Atarius Maximus Sorry for your loss mate.

[Trebor]

Deepest condolences @Atarius Maximus 

[The Usotsuki]

Huh. I've had good luck with the AT&T network (I used to have a Virgin phone, and it got absolutely no signal in Oswego, NY and thereabouts, while my Cricket phones have never had issues).

[+cjherr]

Sorry for your loss. Prayers for you and your family.

[+Atarius Maximus]

19 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:

Huh. I've had good luck with the AT&T network (I used to have a Virgin phone, and it got absolutely no signal in Oswego, NY and thereabouts, while my Cricket phones have never had issues).

Thanks for the condolences, guys.  I appreciate it.   I'm sure my cell signal issue was just my specific location near Woodstock.  Man, it's like a different world up there.  No internet, no cell phone service, primary heat from a wood stove, and when it snows you're literally stuck without a plow and a 4x4 vehicle.  Snow would drift 8 feet/2.5m high around her house in the winter.  I rarely visited her due to the expense of travelling 1200 miles across nearly half the USA, but we talked on the phone frequently.  I'll miss her.  If you're mom's still around, call her often! Happy Mother's day to all the moms out there!

[TrekMD]

My condolences on your loss, @Atarius Maximus

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

So sorry to hear of the loss of your mother @Atarius Maximus, my condolences.

 

- James

[SlidellMan]

I know how you feel, my dad is now in hospice due to stage four cancer.

[+Atarius Maximus]

@RevEng recently added RMT support to 7800basic, so I've been playing around with adding music to the title screen of Drone Patrol.  Many thanks to him for adding in this functionality to 7800basic!  I didn't originally write the code with music in mind so adding it now is a little challenging (I don't have any RAM space available for music playback), but I do have space for about a 45 second loop on the main menu screen.  I could create some more space with some additional time spent optimizing code, probably up to 2 minutes of music or so.

 

I have zero skills in music creation, but it was fun browsing through the ASMA archive to test this out.  I selected a file that I liked that was small enough to fit in my code and it works well.  The title screen now plays a tune named "Alloy" by Emkay.  This is just a demo using a random song from the public archive, I did not reach out to the author of the song nor am I exactly sure how I would do that.

 

Edit:  This song will not be included in any final release of the game, this is just a sample to show that I'm able to add music.   

 

Edit #2:  A quick update to the binary so the music stops playing when you start the game.  I simply forgot to add the 'stoprmt' command in before the game starts.  Version number is the same, I just replaced the attachment to this post.

 

 

drone_patrol_v54.a78

[Eagle]

Looks like @emkay has been banned on AAge, but you can try reach him on AOL

https://atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=6972&page=3#Item_8