R_Leo_1 Posted December 17, 2023 Share Posted December 17, 2023 (edited) An update on The Pro Strikers Many weeks ago I had officially started this project as "The Pro Strikers", and while that title will definitely still get some development time at a later date, the project has started to shift towards a different direction than I expected. I've decided to scale back the scope a bit and focus on making one very solid gameplay style, instead of 2 less than ideal ones. If this new project goes swimmingly, then the original intention of the Pro Strikers project can be fulfilled in a follow-up title. As it stands now, the game will be known as "Sassy" and will be based on the golden era of arcade games. This will not only be easier for me to develop, but it will allow me to experiment more and get a gameplay loop that I'm happy with. I also won't need to worry about any on-cart sound or bank switching since the base 7800 is perfect for this sort of game. Before explaining the new project in more details, I feel it would be best to showcase what was actually developed for the "Pro Strikers" project, as well as providing the demo at it's current state. I was a few steps away from releasing a playable demo, but hadn't quite gotten in everything exactly as I wanted it, and before I could implement those changes, my focus for the project changed entirely. Here's where I was at: This was the current state of the box art. Not finished of course. From the demo itself: - A nice title screen was put together for the demo, as well as an interactable menu for all that was going to allow the user to select different game elements to be demonstrated. - For the initial first demo, I only planned to have the top-down demonstration as a selectable option, with the other two coming in later demos. - This is the screen for the top-down "Stage." - This featured a controllable player character "Kasey," a few walls to collide with, a projectile to shoot, as well as the titular villain "Sassy." Getting the collision detection down was a huge achievement for me and while it's not 100% where I want it, it's a great jumping off point. Not long after I had implemented this collision detection, I was quickly realizing that I had a lot of the pieces to make a simple arcade style game if I really wanted to. This was absolutely the seed that led me to think about just making a classic arcade game instead. After a while, I was pretty much exclusively developing the arcade game idea with notes and illustrations. At this point I knew it was too late, and that this new direction would be MUCH better for a semi-beginner game dev project. The code I have for the demo will certainly be refined to serve as a starting point for the "Sassy" game. The demo rom is attached to this post for anyone who want's to see it in action. So here we are! The project will be moving forward as "Sassy", theoretical 1984 Atari 7800 release, based on a 1982/83 arcade game that doesn't exist (But certainly could have!) Sassy A classic maze chase game for Atari 7800 The Basic Concept: Kasey Chaser is trapped in a maze-like concert hall while renowned singer, Sassy, is on a stage at the end of the maze, singing her heart out. She seems like a beautiful singer at first, but she has a bad side and will transform into a fast moving mad woman when you least expect it. It's up to you to navigate the maze and reach the stage at the end. All the while, the maze will slowly scroll from right to left, and you've gotta be on your toes to avoid music notes that travel outward from Sassy and stun you, as well as Sassy's evil form. While in her evil form, Sassy will jump off the stage and into the maze, at which point she will chase after you. Kasey can collect various food for points while in the maze. He can collect alcohol as well for some much needed liquid courage. While under it's affects, Kasey is able to turn the tables on Sassy, getting brave enough to swing his bat at her and knock her back to the stage. After two mazes, other roaming enemies begin to appear in the maze. Each maze gets gradually more challenging as the game progresses. Next Steps: I plan on spending the next week or so creating the games graphics. At least all of the game's major elements as well as a title screen, I just love making those too much to skip it. I'm going to refine the collision code to work around the principles of a maze, and see how to make that work for a maze that is constantly shifting, sort of like the mazes in Devil World for Famicom. I'm sure it can be done, I'll just need to experiment a bit. I have a rough sketch of the box art here as well: This certainly emphasizes the transformation and chase aspect of the game concept rather well I think. I'm excited to share more as this comes together. So far it's been a very interesting learning experience. Thank you all for your patience. TheProStrikers.bas.a78 Edited March 30 by R_Leo_1 Update to game title and major direction change 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrunchyTC Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Looking forward to any updates! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Among the fighter title, artwork of a central character on the cover, dragon in the background, and a robotic (?) arm having a 'hand' clenching a round object... feeling a Dragon Ball vibe. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 18 hours ago, Trebor said: Among the fighter title, artwork of a central character on the cover, dragon in the background, and a robotic (?) arm having a 'hand' clenching a round object... feeling a Dragon Ball vibe. Dragon Ball is one of my artistic inspirations in general so definitely expect some similarities I will say however that there will be a greater skew towards sci-fi stuff over the Oriental influences. Unlike the original Dragon Ball. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted March 30 Author Share Posted March 30 Apologies for double post. Major update in first post. Please check it out for news regarding the new direction. Thank you! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cjherr Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 Looks very cool. Can't wait to see what comes next! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrunchyTC Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Sounds really awesome! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+saxmeister Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Anxiously awaiting these projects. Looks great so far. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Muddyfunster Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 Love the art direction on this 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted April 6 Author Share Posted April 6 Thanks everyone for the kind words! They mean a lot! A Little Update: I have a title screen put together that I'm gonna leave for now. May add a few more details here and there, but I think this is mostly what I was aiming for with it. The stage lights move and flicker so the screenshots don't really do it justice lol. I've included a rom just so y'all can see it while it's animated. Would love to hear any feedback for this! Cheers. Sassy.bas.a78 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 3 hours ago, R_Leo_1 said: Thanks everyone for the kind words! They mean a lot! A Little Update: I have a title screen put together that I'm gonna leave for now. May add a few more details here and there, but I think this is mostly what I was aiming for with it. The stage lights move and flicker so the screenshots don't really do it justice lol. I've included a rom just so y'all can see it while it's animated. Would love to hear any feedback for this! Cheers. Sassy.bas.a78 48.13 kB · 2 downloads Sweet animation. Flickering lights give a nice transparency. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 Shooting stars flying across look great. The depth and details provided to Sassy's hair and outfit is handled really well utilizing shading and different colors. Slight concern over what emulator is being utilized for testing. A7800, MAME, JS7800, MiSTer 7800, 7800GD under original console hardware, all show an outfit with a considerably less amount of red. While color differences are more of a cosmetic concern, the accuracy of actual game(play) results (timings and such) may be skewed wrong utilizing a less accurate emulator as a testbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 8 hours ago, R_Leo_1 said: A Little Update: I have a title screen put together that I'm gonna leave for now. May add a few more details here and there, but I think this is mostly what I was aiming for with it. Nice! The design and use of colour remind me a lot of the Sega System 1 hardware, in particular Teddy Boy Blues. It's not an exact copy of it by any means; the feel is just very similar. Given that a couple of games I really like run on that hardware, this isn't a bad thing at all in my book 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted April 6 Author Share Posted April 6 59 minutes ago, Trebor said: Shooting stars flying across look great. The depth and details provided to Sassy's hair and outfit is handled really well utilizing shading and different colors. Slight concern over what emulator is being utilized for testing. A7800, MAME, JS7800, MiSTer 7800, 7800GD under original console hardware, all show an outfit with a considerably less amount of red. While color differences are more of a cosmetic concern, the accuracy of actual game(play) results (timings and such) may be skewed wrong utilizing a less accurate emulator as a testbed. I’m using BupSystem as my emulator for testing at the moment. That’s probably why the colors aren’t showing up as expected. Do you have a personal recommendation as far as which to use for testing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 22 hours ago, R_Leo_1 said: I’m using BupSystem as my emulator for testing at the moment. That’s probably why the colors aren’t showing up as expected. Do you have a personal recommendation as far as which to use for testing? Concerns alleviated. BupSystem is very good. Its emulation is pretty much spot on, overall just lacking some of the more relatively recent support additions such as Bankset. Timings though are very close to hardware accurate. So the only 'issue' right now is cosmetic, and quite frankly, if a person is happy with how the image looks and/or tweaks their television the same way, then that's certainly their prerogative. Nonetheless, the palette by default, for the current version 0.9.6.4, leans slightly stronger/more red hue start point (-8%) and very well saturated (76%). The degrees spacing between adjacent hues is a bit off too, sitting at 25%, actually places it below even a 'cool' setting, but the misaligned stronger red hue lean, disguised that issue. I am mostly responsible for that - my apologies. Now that I had a better examination of everything, here are the recommendations for a more even-handed/balanced video settings for both regions under BupSystem. NTSC: Brightness 100% Contrast 100% Hue -16% Saturation 50% Warmth 46% PAL: Brightness 100% Contrast 100% Hue -23% Saturation 50% Warmth 28% Here is Sassy with the above recommendations in place: If adjusted from the above recommendations, a couple of humble suggestions: Brightness could be bumped to 105% and still be within a 'reasonable' range. Saturation, if going higher than the 50% recommendation, should still remain around the 50's, or the 60's percentage range. Still, different strokes for different folks. The more important piece, the system timings emulation accuracy is in great hands with BupSystem. Looking forward to further developments with Sassy! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted April 7 Author Share Posted April 7 Thank you very much for the advice! I genuinely appreciate it, and I went ahead and tested things in A7800 to get the colors a little closer to what I envisioned. I also went ahead an update to the title screen while I was at it: Sassy now transforms when the user presses fire to start the game. I think this adds a bit to the presentation of things and makes things a bit more dynamic. Feel free to check out the colors on this one if you'd like! Sassy.bas.a78 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 7 hours ago, R_Leo_1 said: Thank you very much for the advice! I genuinely appreciate it, and I went ahead and tested things in A7800 to get the colors a little closer to what I envisioned. I also went ahead an update to the title screen while I was at it: Sassy now transforms when the user presses fire to start the game. I think this adds a bit to the presentation of things and makes things a bit more dynamic. Feel free to check out the colors on this one if you'd like! Sassy.bas.a78 48.13 kB · 2 downloads Looks fantastic! Like the color cycling effect on the transformation and the numerous 'Ha!' add a nice boost to the persona change. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bratwurst Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Getting some slight Kung Fu Heroes (NES) and Mendel Palace (NES) vibes from the presented material so far, which I really like. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted April 20 Author Share Posted April 20 Hello everyone! Got a small update I thought I'd share. I just started a new job so I haven't had as much time as I'd like, however, I still put in a few changes here and there. Updates: - Changed a few things with the title screen, most notably the main font for the game. - Added the main game screen, no collision yet, but the general layout is all there, the maze scrolls, and Kasey can be moved around the screen. Let me know if you guys like the chunky font more. I feel like it better represents a lot of the fonts present in 1984 7800 launch titles. Gonna be cleaning up the main game screen graphics over the weekend, and hopefully getting an improved collision system worked out. That's all I've got for now, I've attached the ROM for everyone. Until next time! Sassy.bas.a78 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrunchyTC Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 Thanks a lot for the update! I do like what I see 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 It's nice to see you back and with something new. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 Hello Everyone. I just wanted to give a small update. About a week after my previous update for this project, I had begun a new job and had to begin moving out of my old apartment. So only little things have been updated, like some graphical assets. I have been pretty busy with the new job I'm doing, however I have a new desk set up and feel pretty motivated to work on this some more. I'll go ahead and link the current version of the ROM, but stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks. Sassy.bas.a78 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted June 30 Share Posted June 30 lookd good 😁 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 I'm glad that you are still at it, and I'm starting to get back into my project. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted September 14 Author Share Posted September 14 Hello Everyone. Back with another update. I have added and cleaned up some of the graphical elements for this build of the game. Sassy is now sporting what I would describe as a more 80s inspired hairdo and facial design. A gradient has been added to the SASSY logo on the title screen. The games font has also gotten updated. As far as the main game screen goes, I've given Kasey a new color for his clothes. I think since he's the hero, he shouldn't have the same colored clothing as the bad guy, so I decided on blue to contrast well with Sassy's red colors. I've also added some stage lights to the top of the play area, just to add something interesting up there. I've also replaced the floor lights with a proper background color gradient. This gradient will also change color based on which maze mode is active. If you're in the "Good" Sassy maze mode, it's a nice blueish green. However, once you enter "Bad" Sassy maze mode, the gradient turns red to reflect her transformation. This maze layout is also much, much more basic since this is when Sassy will actively chase you, as well as other basic enemies. To enter the "Bad" Sassy maze mode, you simply touch the stage Sassy is performing on. Little things have also been added, such as you can no longer walk off-screen or out of the top and bottom of the maze area. Still don't have maze collision figured out, I know it's gonna be a tall order. However, once I get a good chunk of free time, and a lot of motivation lol, I'll go for it. That's all I have now for you guys. Let me know if you guys like the new graphical changes. Until next time! Sassy.bas.a78 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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