In Development "Jutland Skies" Atari 2600 Historical Airplane Game

[guppy]

55 minutes ago, kikipdph said:

I added sounds.

 

jutlands1.bin 32 kB · 2 downloads

It's getting better!

 

Collisions are working in this one. I got shot down a bunch of times.  It seems like the ships are a lot better at hitting me than the enemy planes are.

 

Criticisms/suggestions:

• It seems wrong that flying into a ship results in a crash.  I should be able to fly over the ships.
• Hit detection with the ships makes it feel like I'm trying to drop a bomb on the ship. I have to get the "target point" very close to the location of the ship.  In earlier builds it felt like there was more leeway with near misses usually hitting the ship.  It felt like I could be a little short or a little long and still take a ship out; now it feels like I have to be much more precise and only a direct hit will kill the ship.  This requires perfect timing and you can't take a second shot if you miss with the first one, which is a bit frustrating.  It also means that ships can always get closer to you than the enemy planes can, which means they live long enough to take a few shots, and I think this is what makes them more dangerous.
• I felt like in the earlier builds that I was dropping a torpedo when I was shooting at ships, and if I was a little short the torpedo would run out to kill the ship.  This gave you a bit of a margin of error, and you could take a second shot if the first one went wide or was too short.  I liked that better.
• Maybe a descending whistle when dropping bombs would help "sell" the difference between bombing and firing bullets. 
• I like the submarine sprite, but if we have a submarine, then I think the next thing is to make it dive and surface, with its sprite changing accordingly, and its ability to evade your fire changing as well. Perhaps you're working on that now...
• When we get over land there's no ground targets; I'm hoping for tanks and trenches and artillery to spice it up.  Maybe  a landing strip.
• For that meter on the right... if you do something with it, maybe put in different game variations where you can opt to play with the meter in effect, or not.  I kind of like the free feel of the game without anything metered.  As for what the meter could represent, you could have it represent a few things:  life, fuel, ammo.  You could add power-ups that you need to shoot or fly over to collect more.  You could even make a triple-meter that tracks life, fuel, AND ammo.  I like the idea of life and fuel being replenishable only when you land at a landing strip, and ammo being able to be picked up when you fly over it. Maybe an enemy plane drops them, or maybe they're just an icon that appears instead of a plane sometimes.  Maybe you should get unlimited gun ammo, but need ammo pickups to replenish bombs/torpedoes....
• Changing the sprites so the plane appears to bank when moving left or right would take this to the next level.
• Enemy planes should have more movement to them; just sweeping left to right (or vice versa) at a constant speed makes them a little predictable and boring.  If they can respond more intelligently at least some of the time, and change course to intercept you, or to dodge your fire, that would make the game much more interesting and challenging and fun.

I love the progress you're making, so quickly, with this, and I think you'll have a memorable game by the time you're done.

[alfredtdk]

18 minutes ago, guppy said:

 

 

Collisions are working in this one. I got shot down a bunch of times.  It seems like the ships are a lot better at hitting me than the enemy planes are.

 

 

I had the same feeling. Ships seem to be better gunners than planes.

[LatchKeyKid]

Love the added sounds and improvement in such a short period of time!   I know it's early and you're likely to change the details like sprites for movement and varied sounds after fine tuning the rest of the gameplay but I'll echo the suggestions above for both.   For gameplay, I'd recommend allowing players to fly over ships instead of instantly crashing into them if you dodging their attack and then miss when trying to line up the bomb shot.   Regardless, it's incredible progress!

[kikipdph]

15 hours ago, alfredtdk said:

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.

When the game is nearing its end, details will be refined. Sounds for enemy shots have been planned

[kikipdph]

14 hours ago, guppy said:

It's getting better!

 

Collisions are working in this one. I got shot down a bunch of times.  It seems like the ships are a lot better at hitting me than the enemy planes are.

 

Criticisms/suggestions:

• It seems wrong that flying into a ship results in a crash.  I should be able to fly over the ships.
• Hit detection with the ships makes it feel like I'm trying to drop a bomb on the ship. I have to get the "target point" very close to the location of the ship.  In earlier builds it felt like there was more leeway with near misses usually hitting the ship.  It felt like I could be a little short or a little long and still take a ship out; now it feels like I have to be much more precise and only a direct hit will kill the ship.  This requires perfect timing and you can't take a second shot if you miss with the first one, which is a bit frustrating.  It also means that ships can always get closer to you than the enemy planes can, which means they live long enough to take a few shots, and I think this is what makes them more dangerous.
• I felt like in the earlier builds that I was dropping a torpedo when I was shooting at ships, and if I was a little short the torpedo would run out to kill the ship.  This gave you a bit of a margin of error, and you could take a second shot if the first one went wide or was too short.  I liked that better.
• Maybe a descending whistle when dropping bombs would help "sell" the difference between bombing and firing bullets. 
• I like the submarine sprite, but if we have a submarine, then I think the next thing is to make it dive and surface, with its sprite changing accordingly, and its ability to evade your fire changing as well. Perhaps you're working on that now...
• When we get over land there's no ground targets; I'm hoping for tanks and trenches and artillery to spice it up.  Maybe  a landing strip.
• For that meter on the right... if you do something with it, maybe put in different game variations where you can opt to play with the meter in effect, or not.  I kind of like the free feel of the game without anything metered.  As for what the meter could represent, you could have it represent a few things:  life, fuel, ammo.  You could add power-ups that you need to shoot or fly over to collect more.  You could even make a triple-meter that tracks life, fuel, AND ammo.  I like the idea of life and fuel being replenishable only when you land at a landing strip, and ammo being able to be picked up when you fly over it. Maybe an enemy plane drops them, or maybe they're just an icon that appears instead of a plane sometimes.  Maybe you should get unlimited gun ammo, but need ammo pickups to replenish bombs/torpedoes....
• Changing the sprites so the plane appears to bank when moving left or right would take this to the next level.
• Enemy planes should have more movement to them; just sweeping left to right (or vice versa) at a constant speed makes them a little predictable and boring.  If they can respond more intelligently at least some of the time, and change course to intercept you, or to dodge your fire, that would make the game much more interesting and challenging and fun.

I love the progress you're making, so quickly, with this, and I think you'll have a memorable game by the time you're done.

Ships are more dangerous than planes and carry more points, and at that time, ships were indeed more dangerous than planes.

Some of your suggestions will likely be implemented, and this will be determined mostly by the game tester.

[kikipdph]

On 10/20/2023 at 7:01 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

 

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

I've received a lot of suggestions on what to implement in the game, which is why I made the airplane faster than the boat, even though I didn't notice it as a common practice on Atari. Do you think that targets on land and at sea should not be able to collide with the player, meaning only their missiles can harm you?
In the "River Ride" game, it doesn't matter whether the target is on the water or in the air; you can collide with a ship.

I've been looking at the ZPH suggestions, and there will be tanks in the game, and after that, possibly some bombing, like houses or bunkers, or something similar.

[insertclevernamehere]

On 10/26/2023 at 8:27 AM, kikipdph said:

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

 

Really like the cover art.  My only criticism is that the ship looks more like a modern warship than a WW1 era ship.

[LatchKeyKid]

9 hours ago, kikipdph said:

I've received a lot of suggestions on what to implement in the game, which is why I made the airplane faster than the boat, even though I didn't notice it as a common practice on Atari. Do you think that targets on land and at sea should not be able to collide with the player, meaning only their missiles can harm you?
In the "River Ride" game, it doesn't matter whether the target is on the water or in the air; you can collide with a ship.

I've been looking at the ZPH suggestions, and there will be tanks in the game, and after that, possibly some bombing, like houses or bunkers, or something similar.

There are some good suggestions in the livestream.  As for River Raid, I'd offer that it's from a different perspective and I think the playstyle/mechanics expectation may be tied to that.

[kikipdph]

1 hour ago, insertclevernamehere said:

Really like the cover art.  My only criticism is that the ship looks more like a modern warship than a WW1 era ship.

I agree about the boat, and I will fix it. I didn't pay much attention to the boat's appearance because it seemed to me that they always look similar

[kikipdph]

I have implemented it as you wanted, so in the game, there can be no collision between the plane and the ship. In other words, enemies on water and on land cannot collide with the player's plane; only airborne enemies can cause a collision.

As a result, gameplay becomes easier, and I will likely introduce a feature where the right bar replenishes by hitting an enemy, ensuring that players don't avoid combat.

 

jutland1.bin

[guppy]

On 10/29/2023 at 2:45 PM, kikipdph said:

Do you think that targets on land and at sea should not be able to collide with the player, meaning only their missiles can harm you?
In the "River Ride" game, it doesn't matter whether the target is on the water or in the air; you can collide with a ship.

Yes, in your game I get the feeling that the camera angle is behind and slightly above the plane, and we're looking forward and down. This gives me a feeling of depth perception and I expect the plane to be high enough to fly over the ships and any other surface targets. 

 

River Raid is a different game entirely, and the POV of the camera seems to be directly above the action, looking straight down. The effect of this is to lose the sense of depth, and it makes more sense for the plane to collide with terrain and targets. But even so when I was a kid playing the game I still felt like it would have made sense for the plane to be able to fly over anything. It didn't though, so I accepted it. It also made the game more challenging since it meant that it was necessary to be dodging obstacles constantly. It feels like you're flying low in a river channel, just above the water surface, perhaps to avoid radar or something. So it makes sense. But in your game the feeling is free and open, and is true to life in that way. So it also makes sense. And in that context being able to fly over the ships without crashing into them feels better. 

[kikipdph]

Red Baron

[Phobos867]

6 hours ago, kikipdph said:

Red Baron

This looks badass! 😈

[kikipdph]

Currently, i'm programming the battle with the Red Baron, and you can see the progress at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/601773036/videos/302903695921958/

The Red Baron is one of the game's bosses and is larger than the player's aircraft because, after all, he's the boss Watching ZPH's stream, Tanja suggested a larger aircraft, and unlike James, I accept the proposal

So far, from the suggestions that will likely be accepted, I have:

    Tanks
    Enemy planes making slight direction changes during flight
    Bombing houses or something similar

The player will have something like energy that will be replenished by hitting enemies, which encourages not avoiding battles

[LatchKeyKid]

I agree that it should be bigger.  Can it be easily programmed to increase in height as well?  The normal airplane is double wide (?) so is the Red Baron a quad sized sprite?

[kikipdph]

3 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

I agree that it should be bigger.  Can it be easily programmed to increase in height as well?  The normal airplane is double wide (?) so is the Red Baron a quad sized sprite?

The sprite cannot be increased in height in a way that stretches it like it does in width, but it's not difficult to draw a sprite. Yes, the normal plane is twice as wide, and the Red Baron is a sprite that's four times wider.

[kikipdph]

The battle with the Red Baron is done.

Now, some of the enemy planes change direction if they are going opposite to the player.

The next phase in gam

The intended idea is for the energy bar to fill when an enemy is hit, and tougher enemies would fill it more.

Sound effects for enemy shots need to be added, and some adjustments should be made to ensure that this part of the game is definitely completed before moving on.

Here is the bin file of the work done so far.

jutland3.bin

Edited November 3, 2023 by kikipdph

[+Yurkie]

On 10/9/2023 at 1:37 PM, kikipdph said:

In development is a game for the Atari 2600, which currently lacks a defined storyline. It revolves around an airplane, and so far, the airplane is programmed to fly with another plane approaching it. Over time, the plane approaches an island. That's the extent of it for now. You can download a test BIN file if you wish. A 3D environment consumes a lot of resources, so at this point, I'm unsure how much can be achieved within the 32-kilobyte limit. However, I'm hopeful that the game will turn out to be decent both in terms of graphics and gameplay.

plane.bin 32 kB · 83 downloads

What if you used the B&W switch to change to map view to select what island area to fight in.

 

You might consider a fueling or loading gameplay element when you land on an island. Pretty awesome look.

[LatchKeyKid]

21 hours ago, kikipdph said:

The battle with the Red Baron is done.

Now, some of the enemy planes change direction if they are going opposite to the player.

The next phase in gam

The intended idea is for the energy bar to fill when an enemy is hit, and tougher enemies would fill it more.

Sound effects for enemy shots need to be added, and some adjustments should be made to ensure that this part of the game is definitely completed before moving on.

Here is the bin file of the work done so far.

jutland3.bin 32 kB · 13 downloads

I like the variety in engine sounds you added with a change in tone when you move as well as the changing bullet sizes.  They're small things but they really add to the game's feel.  I hope to play a bit longer tonight and maybe even reach the baron!

[kikipdph]

6 hours ago, Yurkie said:

What if you used the B&W switch to change to map view to select what island area to fight in.

 

You might consider a fueling or loading gameplay element when you land on an island. Pretty awesome look.

Something like fuel or energy will be there, but it will probably recharge when hitting an enemy because it seems the game needs a bit more liveliness.

I'm not sure about the map because this is a classic-style shooter, but I do have plans for a game that will be more map-based.

[kikipdph]

5 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

I like the variety in engine sounds you added with a change in tone when you move as well as the changing bullet sizes.  They're small things but they really add to the game's feel.  I hope to play a bit longer tonight and maybe even reach the baron!

You can easily reach the baron because there is no "game over" feature yet. In fact, you have an unlimited number of lives.

[kikipdph]

The first stage of the game, you could say, is completed. It has been sent to the official tester named Haroldo for testing. The game is mostly composed of the wishes of the people on this forum and Facebook groups. It seems that most people gave advice for the game to be similar to games like 1942 and River Raid, so the game is a classic shooter, but I don't think the game will be bad. Now you can see what the first part of the game looks like.

In the game, an energy bar has been added, which is replenished when you hit an enemy. Enemies on the water  replenish the energy bar twice as much as enemies in the air.

Shooting sounds of enemy bullets have been added.

Enemy planes now change direction sometimes even when they don't reach the end of the screen.

The main enemy of the first stage - Red Baron - has been done, and it is the last thing that has been done so far.

For those who haven't been following previous posts, you cannot collide with enemies on the water; you can collide with other planes.

When you shoot at airborne enemies, you press the fire button. And when you shoot or bomb targets on the water, you pull the joystick back, and a targeting reticle appears for you to aim at the enemy you want to bomb. If you have a sensitive joystick, when shooting at targets in the air, push the joystick slightly forward to avoid accidental activation of bombing.

Below, you have a BIN file if you want to try it; we can now call it an untested game demo.

 

jutland.bin

[kikipdph]

I am currently working on the stage where tanks and zeppelins are involved. The Boss, Red Baron, has been modified to be a bit easier to defeat.

[kikipdph]

On 10/30/2023 at 4:43 AM, insertclevernamehere said:

Really like the cover art.  My only criticism is that the ship looks more like a modern warship than a WW1 era ship.

The ship on the label is now different, and I think it's okay now.

 

[LatchKeyKid]

On 11/9/2023 at 1:36 PM, kikipdph said:

I am currently working on the stage where tanks and zeppelins are involved. The Boss, Red Baron, has been modified to be a bit easier to defeat.

 

The zepellin and tank sprites are difficult to get right due to the shapes and Atari sprites.  I like what you did with the tank though.  Does it shoot at you?   Are the zepellins crash obstacles to avoid or do they shoot at you as well?