In Development "Jutland Skies" Atari 2600 Historical Airplane Game

[kikipdph]

The game will most likely be called "Kaiser's Kapers," and another name I'm considering is "Jutland Skies."

[LatchKeyKid]

The first sounds more appropriate for a 2600 era game IMO with a bit of humor included.

[kikipdph]

Since James on the forum suggested the name "Jutland Skies," even though it hasn't been officially chosen, the game will be called "Jutland Skies."
 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

8 hours ago, kikipdph said:

Since James on the forum suggested the name "Jutland Skies," even though it hasn't been officially chosen, the game will be called "Jutland Skies."

 

Great final name choice! I thought it was one of the better suggestions of the bunch and I wanted to attach a name to your game in the listing. 🙂

 

- James

[kikipdph]

I've made the enemies shoot, and I've created a title screen. Although in some other 3D Atari games, they didn't pay attention to this, I listened to the advice and made the ships a bit slower than the airplanes.
 

I still haven't implemented the feature where you can lose a life by getting hit by an enemy missile. Information on how to shoot air targets and bomb targets on water and land can be found in previous posts.

 

plane.bin

[guppy]

2 hours ago, kikipdph said:

I've made the enemies shoot, and I've created a title screen. Although in some other 3D Atari games, they didn't pay attention to this, I listened to the advice and made the ships a bit slower than the airplanes.
 

I still haven't implemented the feature where you can lose a life by getting hit by an enemy missile. Information on how to shoot air targets and bomb targets on water and land can be found in previous posts.

 

plane.bin 32 kB · 3 downloads

Nice improvements!

 

I got to a point where the island became closer, and then the enemy ships and planes stopped coming.  Is something supposed to happen next that you haven't implemented yet?

 

Suggestions for further development:

 

• Use sprite doubling to create formations of 2-3 airplanes or convoys of 2-3 ships.
• Sfx for engine, guns, explosions, maybe even water/wind.
• Some variety in the planes direction of travel.  Have some come from behind, or fly transverse to your flight path (left to right or right to left) rather than always flying straight at you every time.  Planes that change course, either to try to dodge your shots, or to get closer to shoot at you, would be cool, too.
• Sinking, crashing animations for when you hit an enemy.
• Keep going with the concept of getting closer to land, I'm intrigued and curious what happens if I make it to the island... landing strip?  Bombing run?  Tanks and trenches?  Artillery shells firing up from the ground to create a new hazard?  Could be a lot of cool possibilities for where this goes...

Edited October 21, 2023 by guppy

[kikipdph]

5 minutes ago, guppy said:

Nice improvements!

 

I got to a point where the island became closer, and then the enemy ships and planes stopped coming.  Is something supposed to happen next that you haven't implemented yet?

 

Suggestions for further development:

 

• Use sprite doubling to create formations of 2-3 airplanes or convoys of 2-3 ships.
• Sfx for engine, guns, explosions, maybe even water/wind.
• Some variety in the planes direction of travel.  Have some come from behind, or fly transverse to your flight path (left to right or right to left) rather than always flying straight at you every time.  Planes that change course, either to try to dodge your shots, or to get closer to shoot at you, would be cool, too.
• Sinking, crashing animations for when you hit an enemy.
• Keep going with the concept of getting closer to land, I'm intrigued and curious what happens if I make it to the island... landing strip?  Bombing run?  Tanks and trenches?  Artillery shells firing up from the ground to create a new hazard?  Could be a lot of cool possibilities for where this goes...

The following should be submarines and airplanes, and on land, maybe tanks or something like that. It hasn't been decided yet what it will be.

Many things are not yet done, such as sounds, and many things will likely need to be simplified because, for example, for one sprite, like an airplane, you actually need three different sprites, and a lot of memory is consumed by these effects. So, adding more detail and effects for the sake of experience could significantly burden the game.

[LatchKeyKid]

Indeed, nice improvements!  It's great to see this progressing at such a pace.  By needing three different sprites, are you referring to the animation using multiple sprites?

[kikipdph]

24 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Indeed, nice improvements!  It's great to see this progressing at such a pace.  By needing three different sprites, are you referring to the animation using multiple sprites?

Let's say player1 changes appearance three times, and I think the term "sprite" correctly refers to a single graphic, with each frame being one sprite, while player1 remains the same. Regardless of the exact definition, you need three different images for one character, or you can use even more for a better effect.

In a 2D game, with the same amount of memory usage, you could have 3 enemies. In 3D, with that same memory allocation, I would get one enemy.

When I was creating more beautiful islands, specifically Jutland, which is a peninsula, it consumed half of the graphics memory, but it looked much better when zoomed in. Unfortunately, I had to simplify it.

[LatchKeyKid]

51 minutes ago, kikipdph said:

Let's say player1 changes appearance three times, and I think the term "sprite" correctly refers to a single graphic, with each frame being one sprite, while player1 remains the same. Regardless of the exact definition, you need three different images for one character, or you can use even more for a better effect.

In a 2D game, with the same amount of memory usage, you could have 3 enemies. In 3D, with that same memory allocation, I would get one enemy.

When I was creating more beautiful islands, specifically Jutland, which is a peninsula, it consumed half of the graphics memory, but it looked much better when zoomed in. Unfortunately, I had to simplify it.

In that case we were talking about the same thing then in regards to sprites.  By graphics memory,  assume you're referring to ROM space and not RAM and it doesn't sound like there is an easy fix.  I've heard of people using various algorithms to compress sprite data but I don't have any actual knowledge of the process myself.

[kikipdph]

23 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

In that case we were talking about the same thing then in regards to sprites.  By graphics memory,  assume you're referring to ROM space and not RAM and it doesn't sound like there is an easy fix.  I've heard of people using various algorithms to compress sprite data but I don't have any actual knowledge of the process myself.

If you have a good idea, then it's not as important. For example, Solaris and Secret Quest are based on a good gameplay without many changes during the game. In Solaris, the action always takes place on the same planet and in space, while in Secret Quest, it's like going from room to room, but the idea made the game complex.

[Phobos867]

Oh my! This is extremely impressive! I will track the progress of this project!

Edited October 22, 2023 by Phobos867

[kikipdph]

I added submarines to the game, and that's where the sea ends, and after that, you fly above the land. First, I will do the gameplay over the sea (losing lives, there will probably be bar for energy, etc.), and then the game can be experienced.

Information on how to shoot air targets and bomb targets on water and land can be found in previous posts.

 

 

plane.bin

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

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

 

Tue Oct 24, 2023 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

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

 

Games:

• Cargo (WIP | 2600) by donnerkuh @donnerkuh
• Jutland Skies (WIP | 2600) by Mirsad Sarajlic @kikipdph
• Walls of Nibiru (WIP | 2600) by Jonas Carlsson @Lillapojkenpåön
• Book of Five Rings (Final Version | 2600) by Dan Manning @dmanning23

 

[kikipdph]

16 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

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

 

Tue Oct 24, 2023 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

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

 

Games:

• Cargo (WIP | 2600) by donnerkuh @donnerkuh
• Jutland Skies (WIP | 2600) by Mirsad Sarajlic @kikipdph
• Walls of Nibiru (WIP | 2600) by Jonas Carlsson @Lillapojkenpåön
• Book of Five Rings (Final Version | 2600) by Dan Manning @dmanning23

 

Today is the first testing of the game I mean, of what has been done so far

[LatchKeyKid]

Will the ZPH channel be testing the most recent build posted above?

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

1 hour ago, kikipdph said:

Today is the first testing of the game I mean, of what has been done so far

 

21 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Will the ZPH channel be testing the most recent build posted above?

 

I'm more than happy to play a newer build of the game on the show tonight if there's been more work done on it!

 

@kikipdph: PM me with a newer build if you have one for me to play! 🙂

 

- James

[kikipdph]

Design for the cartridge. Maybe I'll work on it some more later.

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by kikipdph

[kikipdph]

I've implemented the player's ability to lose a life now. I haven't tested how it plays out yet. I haven't added the effect when an enemy is hit, and I need to adjust the collision when hitting a plane that is farther and less than 16 pixels wide. Information on how to target ground and water targets and how to target planes in the air can be found in previous posts.

 

plane.bin

Edited October 27, 2023 by kikipdph

[guppy]

13 hours ago, kikipdph said:

I've implemented the player's ability to lose a life now. I haven't tested how it plays out yet. I haven't added the effect when an enemy is hit, and I need to adjust the collision when hitting a plane that is farther and less than 16 pixels wide. Information on how to target ground and water targets and how to target planes in the air can be found in previous posts.

 

plane.bin 32 kB · 5 downloads

I see the enemies are firing at me, but they don't seem to hit.  Is that a life bar at the bottom right? I've seen enemy shots pass through my sprite, but the meter doesn't change.  

 

Also I find it is much harder to land a hit on the ships.  It seems like shots will go over/through them and do no damage.  I can still hit them, but it seems almost random whether a shot that hits them "counts".

[kikipdph]

2 hours ago, guppy said:

I see the enemies are firing at me, but they don't seem to hit.  Is that a life bar at the bottom right? I've seen enemy shots pass through my sprite, but the meter doesn't change.  

 

Also I find it is much harder to land a hit on the ships.  It seems like shots will go over/through them and do no damage.  I can still hit them, but it seems almost random whether a shot that hits them "counts".

The right bar still doesn't have a function, and whether it will have one in the future or be removed, I will see during game development. Losing lives on the left works, but there is no "game over." When shooting at the ships and ground targets, you need to pull the joystick back, and that's when the targeting reticle appears for bombing. If you've downloaded the latest file, it should work.

[guppy]

8 hours ago, kikipdph said:

The right bar still doesn't have a function, and whether it will have one in the future or be removed, I will see during game development. Losing lives on the left works, but there is no "game over." When shooting at the ships and ground targets, you need to pull the joystick back, and that's when the targeting reticle appears for bombing. If you've downloaded the latest file, it should work.

I'm seeing enemy shots passing right through me, dead center and my lives count on the left doesn't change.

 

In the previous beta release I was hitting ships pretty reliably, but sometimes my shot would pass harmlessly over, or else fall short and fail to score a kill.  Now it seems like the shots are a lot harder to get on target, and I'm killing ships a lot less reliably, maybe 1 in 4 as opposed to 4 in 5 on the last build.  While it makes sense that killing a ship should be fairly difficult, it just feels unfair, like the game isn't properly doing hit detection now, and not like it's hard to to score a hit or that the ships are tough and take several hits to kill.

 

[kikipdph]

1 hour ago, guppy said:

I'm seeing enemy shots passing right through me, dead center and my lives count on the left doesn't change.

 

In the previous beta release I was hitting ships pretty reliably, but sometimes my shot would pass harmlessly over, or else fall short and fail to score a kill.  Now it seems like the shots are a lot harder to get on target, and I'm killing ships a lot less reliably, maybe 1 in 4 as opposed to 4 in 5 on the last build.  While it makes sense that killing a ship should be fairly difficult, it just feels unfair, like the game isn't properly doing hit detection now, and not like it's hard to to score a hit or that the ships are tough and take several hits to kill.

 

Try this file; if you're using Stella, you shouldn't be experiencing what you're describing, and it should have been tested on an Atari these days.

Ships and ground targets will be worth more, and perhaps there will be more energy available, or it might replenish more.

Now, the game also has sound in some parts.

 

When you're bombing targets that are not in the air, you have to aim them with the target that appears. If you don't aim correctly, the bomb will miss the target. When the red square flashes, that's a surface detonation, and that detonation must be on the object to be counted as a hit. It's not that complicated once you practice a bit.

jutlands.bin

Edited October 28, 2023 by kikipdph

[kikipdph]

I added sounds.

 

jutlands1.bin

[alfredtdk]

Impressive. I was just going to ask about the type of explosion sound that would be added to enemy targets, I liked what I heard. They are very pleasant sound effects. Perhaps two distinct sounds could be added for enemy targets? One air and one sea. Do you also want to add the sound of enemy shots? A difficulty selector perhaps? Great job.