"Firefighter" twin-stick game

[billkendrick]

Over the past week, I've put together a new game for the Atari 8-bit. The graphics aren't so hot (no pun intended), but so far it's turning out pretty fun. You play as a firefighter trying to rescue people from a burning building.  The main method of play is with a twin-stick setup (a la Robotron: 2084 or Smash TV) -- one stick to move, the other to shoot spray water.  It can be played with a single stick -- use the fire button + direction to spray -- but you cannot move while spraying, so you'll be at a disadvantage.

 

It's written in C (cross-compiled with CC65) and released as open source under the GPLv3 license. It runs as a stand-alone XEX, or as an ATR disk image. (The latter offers built-in help, and will eventually record a high-score table back to disk.)  Learn more & download it from: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/firefighter/

 

Screenshots of the title screen and first two levels are attached, as is the 0.1-beta1 release (includes source, XEX, and ATR).

 

Tell me what you think!

firefighter-0.1-BETA1-2023-08-22.zip

[Beeblebrox]

Looks cool. Twin stick element is appealing. Will check it out something between playing ADoom. Well done. 

[_The Doctor__]

More games like this please!

[Paul Westphal]

I'll dust it off... Thanks Bill !

Edited August 22, 2023 by Paul Westphal

[invisible kid]

Heheh, thought it was going to be a port of the 2-person arcade driving game! Looks awesome, can't wait to try it.

[+cjherr]

Very nice!

[phigan]

This is fun.

 

Stuck on lv 4. Got on the right side somehow once, but not sure how

Edited August 22, 2023 by phigan

[billkendrick]

7 minutes ago, phigan said:

This is fun.

 

Stuck on lv 4. Got on the right side somehow once, but not sure how

If you spray a gas leak, you can walk through it

[JLsoft]

1 hour ago, billkendrick said:

If you spray a gas leak, you can walk through it

For me it seems to be 'iffy' whether it lets you or not.  No idea if it works consistently with twin sticks, but with a single one and a fire button, it would randomly block me no matter how long I sprayed it beforehand and no matter how quickly afterwards I let go and tried walking in that direction.

[billkendrick]

1 hour ago, JLsoft said:

For me it seems to be 'iffy' whether it lets you or not.  No idea if it works consistently with twin sticks, but with a single one and a fire button, it would randomly block me no matter how long I sprayed it beforehand and no matter how quickly afterwards I let go and tried walking in that direction.

Aha yes whoops. I need to be sure to test things with a single stick, sorry! Thanks for testing!!!

[billkendrick]

20 hours ago, Paul Westphal said:

I'll dust it off... Thanks Bill !

I'm curious how the dual CX-40 setup works for you; I always figured they'll be a bit mushy. How was my game with that rig? How is Robotron?

 

I'm privileged to have a nice Edladdin "Super Twin 78" arcade-style controller. It's been great for Robotron. It's also great for 2-player games, like Mario Bros. and Joust [they're, like, the same game, maaan!], although I wish the fire buttons were on the other side.  However, I've been out of town during most of this game's development, so have to admit that so far I've only had the chance to try out my game on my real Atari, with real controllers[*], before there was much of a game at all!  For the past week I've been using Atari800 emulator my laptop keyboard during development.

 

[*] And turns out I like moving with the right (arrow keys), and spraying with the left (WASD), which is why I added the option to flip controls on a real joystick setup. (Heh, though I suppose swapping cables would have worked, too, huh? 🙃)

[Beeblebrox]

I think the CX24's are probably better suited(?) 

 

So I've seen these 3D printed couplers before for the Cx24. I might print one out to use with mine check it out (a few variations available:

 

https://forums.atari.io/topic/3699-atari-7800-joystick-coupler/

EDIT: Found the file: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2767791

I'll print one out.

 

https://www.ebay.com.my/itm/115774629278

 

     

Edited August 23, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[billkendrick]

New beta! Gas leaks don't appear immediately, giving you some time to walk past after spraying them with water. Also, your last level played, and left/right stick swap choice are saved in the ATR version.

firefighter-0.1-BETA2-2023-08-23.zip

[_The Doctor__]

maybe that should only be in single stick mode, not in expert dual stick mode.

[Beeblebrox]

19 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

I think the CX24's are probably better suited(?) 

 

So I've seen these 3D printed couplers before for the Cx24. I might print one out to use with mine check it out (a few variations available:

 

 

 

     

Update: at 88% and 12 hours into printing so far, my 3D printed coupler is coming on! 

 

I decided to use tranlucent PLA filament to print this. I may colour the raised Atari lettering manually so it stands out.

 

 

As per the Thingverse link I posted the other day this is what it'll finish up looking like in terms of design:

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[Beeblebrox]

finished printing. Will test it later:

 

   

[rdefabri]

I feel stupid asking this - how do you "exit" from the level?  

[Beeblebrox]

I was gonna ask the same.

[Paul Westphal]

On 8/23/2023 at 10:24 AM, billkendrick said:

I'm curious how the dual CX-40 setup works for you; I always figured they'll be a bit mushy. How was my game with that rig? How is Robotron?

 

I'm privileged to have a nice Edladdin "Super Twin 78" arcade-style controller. It's been great for Robotron. It's also great for 2-player games, like Mario Bros. and Joust [they're, like, the same game, maaan!], although I wish the fire buttons were on the other side.  However, I've been out of town during most of this game's development, so have to admit that so far I've only had the chance to try out my game on my real Atari, with real controllers[*], before there was much of a game at all!  For the past week I've been using Atari800 emulator my laptop keyboard during development.

 

[*] And turns out I like moving with the right (arrow keys), and spraying with the left (WASD), which is why I added the option to flip controls on a real joystick setup. (Heh, though I suppose swapping cables would have worked, too, huh? 🙃)

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Paul Westphal

[billkendrick]

8 hours ago, rdefabri said:

I feel stupid asking this - how do you "exit" from the level?  

8 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

I was gonna ask the same.

Oh, hehe.  When no more workers are on the screen (either rescued, or have perished), go to the door or exit sign again, and push into it with the stick. A countdown timer (my son says I should make it shorter) will appear at the top left. Once it hits zero, you exit.

 

I did this so that you had the opportunity to put the fire out after rescuing the last worker. (Otherwise, you might just exit immediately if you hold the stick down too long while sending a worker on their way.)  I suppose I could make this more obvious on the title screen's scant instructions.

[+gnusto]

Nifty! Works great in Altirra with a dualshock configured for both sticks.

 

Minor suggestions: some kind of sound to movement, or to represent the amount of fire, add some tension. The people I'm rescuing have self immolated a couple of times too, but maybe that just adds to the charm =).

[Ely]

5 hours ago, gnusto said:

Nifty! Works great in Altirra with a dualshock configured for both sticks.

How do you do that? I've got a wired Xbox 360 controller and would like to set it like this.

[+gnusto]

19 hours ago, Ely said:

How do you do that? I've got a wired Xbox 360 controller and would like to set it like this.

Input/Input Mappings... then add a new entry called "Right Stick" (or whatever you like really). Set it to your game controller and then add each direction for left/right/up/down.

[Saberman]

Gameplay:

 

[ALEXANDER]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:46 PM, billkendrick said:

Over the past week, I've put together a new game for the Atari 8-bit. The graphics aren't so hot (no pun intended), but so far it's turning out pretty fun. You play as a firefighter trying to rescue people from a burning building.  The main method of play is with a twin-stick setup (a la Robotron: 2084 or Smash TV) -- one stick to move, the other to shoot spray water.  It can be played with a single stick -- use the fire button + direction to spray -- but you cannot move while spraying, so you'll be at a disadvantage.

 

It's written in C (cross-compiled with CC65) and released as open source under the GPLv3 license. It runs as a stand-alone XEX, or as an ATR disk image. (The latter offers built-in help, and will eventually record a high-score table back to disk.)  Learn more & download it from: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/firefighter/

 

Screenshots of the title screen and first two levels are attached, as is the 0.1-beta1 release (includes source, XEX, and ATR).

 

Tell me what you think!

firefighter-0.1-BETA1-2023-08-22.zip 86.31 kB · 30 downloads

Nice game Bill !