Game Idea: Demon-Kart

[pmpddytim]

The best way for me to describe my game idea is:

 

"Indy500+Combat+MarioKart+Stephen Kings Christine"

 

Ok,

 

First you get to pick a character from a 2600 game...You could be the ship from galaxian, the tank from combat...you get the idea. Then these characters act as your go-karts on a screen that resembles a maze from combat or a crash and score from indy 500. The cars go at a set speed (Varying depending on the level of difficulty you choose) You cannot control stoping or going only steering and shooting. In the "maze" or go-kart course special dots would be spread out or occasionly pop up. When you run over one of these dots you get one shot to shoot the other car. You have to hit another dot in order to shoot again. Kinda like running over the

"? squares" in mario-kart. First person to hit the other 10 times wins. Of course there would be different courses and variations. One variation could be that the bullet you shoot can bounce of walls like a pong ball.

 

I think this would be a good 2-player game using driving contollers, but dont know anything about programming so I dont know if its actually possible. Driving controllers would be good for the game because you could steer with the wheel and shoot with the button but not control speed. Not being able to control the speed I think ads a certain sadistic quality that I think would be cool.

 

 

The name for this game would be:

 

"Demon-Kart Atari"

 

-Tim

[Blackbird]

AtariCart? That'd be awesome! Maybe you could adapt that scheme to use paddles (and though they don't turn all the way, they can provide enough for full rotation) and have a 4-player game? I think it would be more fun that way, than just two players facing off.

 

Not to veer off the original topic, but that leads to an interesting question: Would it be feasible to have a four-way scrolling overhead driving game?

[pmpddytim]

4 players would be the abslute best, Atari needs more 4 player games. I dont know why I didnt think of paddles. I just got driving controllers stuck in my mind and wouldnt let go I guess.

 

So is this idea plossible anyone?

 

-Tim

[Mord]

Offhand I'd say if it is possible, it'd be plagued with flickery screens since you'd have to handle the scrolling, placement of 4 cars, adjusting their positions, any soundeffects, and polling the paddle controllers sufficiently for accurate readings. Great idea, and I'd certainly like to play it, but I don't know if the 2600 could handle it. The 5200 or 7800 on the other hand...

 

--

Mord

[Blackbird]

Probably not, but it would make for a good programming challenge. None of the things you mentioned would be that hard to do, it's actually the items and boxes that seem harder to make (that'd be even worse than the 4-sprite flicker)... that, and the fact that the playfield is going to be extremely blocky.

 

I guess a solution for a blocky playfield would be to move the playfield over one or two pixels horizontally every scanline... if you were to make the playfield constantly curving, it would look very nice. However, I have no clue how fine scrolling of the playfield is done, so I may be completely off the mark on that one.

 

The 5200 could pull it off though, with some extra graphical touches. But another 4-player game on the 2600 wouldn't hurt.