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Colony 7 - Release Candidate!


Cybergoth

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- Yes :)

- like the additional ear candy as well :) (I wouldn't mind to have the last note left in there though, makes the game over jingle feel more rounder IMHO - just a personal preference)

- "Press Fire" -> :cool:

Certainly a worthy alternate to the extra presentation screen, if that can't make it. As simple as it it, the flashing text provides for enough visual stimulation to counter visual tiring. :thumbsup:

Only one small request here - instead of a continuous loop of the title tune, it would be nice if you could wait (silence) for a set time after a full sequence, before starting it again then. A continuous loop has a certain supermarket background music risk - "framing" the tune by moments of silence should considerably reduce that risk and allow to much better appreciate it...

 

A pleasure to follow this game improving step by step! :)

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Also, I think red looks better - fits in with the rest of the title screen.
I personally like the green, as it stands out a bit better. :)
Would second that - the different colour adds variety and counters monotony...

 

I chose it to have all the main colors of the game present on the title screen. There's blue and yellow in the logo, red for the scoring details, so there was some green missing :)

 

But good catch on the 's' Nathan! That should make it a lot more obvious!

 

(I wouldn't mind to have the last note left in there though, makes the game over jingle feel more rounder IMHO - just a personal preference)

 

The small gap it gained at the end makes for a better transition back to the title screen though, where the main tune is kicking in immediately :)

 

I'll have a look and see if I can fit a couple of silent patterns at the end of the tune.

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Minor sound suggestion--

 

Since the noise of the gun firing is constant while playing, how about having a slight, looping variation on its pitch? Not a song per se, but something like in arcade Space Invaders where the "doomp" movement sound plays a little pattern. As fast as the gun fires in Colony 7, an 8-shot loop would be about right.

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Finally addressing the difficulty, here's a new version:

 

- The placeholder return-fire code is finally replaced with the real one, so now more than one enemy will attack.

- Enemies will attack more agressivly in later rounds

- When a cannon gets destroyed now, the shot frequency gets halfed.

 

I wonder if this still is considered too easy? Should be closer to the arcade now :)

 

EDIT: Added a flashing effect to the smartbomb execution.

hardcolony.zip

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Finally addressing the difficulty, here's a new version:

 

- The placeholder return-fire code is finally replaced with the real one, so now more than one enemy will attack.

- Enemies will attack more agressivly in later rounds

- When a cannon gets destroyed now, the shot frequency gets halfed.

 

I wonder if this still is considered too easy? Should be closer to the arcade no :)

I have a feeling this will be MUCH harder. One thing I noticed is that it's nigh impossible to defend both cannons and you lose one of them pretty quickly. With the shot frequency halved when you lose one cannon, I bet this makes the game a fair bit more difficult. I'll find out when I try this out later today. :)

 

..Al

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I'm especially interested in feedback regading this new cannon behaviour, also because I'm rather uncertain wether I should consider it "fun" myself or not. IMO the blasting frenzy of higher levels suffers a bit from a slower sole cannon.

Yeah, I'm thinking the other two changes may be sufficient. I'm expecting to get my ass handed to me on the later levels. :)

 

..Al

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Finally addressing the difficulty, here's a new version:

 

- The placeholder return-fire code is finally replaced with the real one, so now more than one enemy will attack.

- Enemies will attack more agressivly in later rounds

- When a cannon gets destroyed now, the shot frequency gets halfed.

 

I wonder if this still is considered too easy? Should be closer to the arcade now :)

Just played two rounds. In the first game I died during the 7th wave, and in game two made it to the 11th wave. There's no doubt the game is harder--in the second game I died because the aliens destroyed my city. Previously I almost always died because they got my cannons. In the later waves the aliens are definitely more aggressive when they get close to the bottom of the screen--firing a quick barrage of shots. If they are anywhere near one of your cannons when they start this, you are toast unless you have a smartbomb you can use. I think this adjustment in difficulty works fairly well, but I was still able to get past SQUAD9 without too much difficulty. Not sure how this compares to the arcade as I've never played the arcade game.

 

As for the lone cannon that fires at half rate, well, not sure I like that as much. There's no doubt that it adds difficulty to the game, since you often have to hold the crosshairs over a target longer to ensure that one of the shots connect. Previously it was like having a "steady on laser"--if something was under your crosshairs, it was pretty much guaranteed to explode. I think the half rate lasers take away some of the rhythm of the frenetic energy of the game. Maybe they could get reduced to 3/4 rate?

 

EDIT: Added a flashing effect to the smartbomb execution.

This is a nice addition, I approve. :) :)

 

..Al

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I'm also not very keen of the half rate fire: while it does make the game more difficult, it feels unfair to further reduce the player's odds after he already lost a cannon...

 

Maybe this feature could be included in another way?

What about halfing the fire rate of the (remaining) cannon(s) for a short while after shooting a particular enemy, and return to the normal fire rate after 5 seconds or so? I was thinking of the white alien here, who does not seem to have any particular characteristic at the moment.

That way the game would also get a nice little tactical component (go for the extra score or play it safe)...

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It has to be either full or half the speed. There is no real math involved in the firing process, I'm just calculating a vertical and a horizontal stepwidth, either getting 4 steps with 2 LSR or getting 8 steps with 3 LSR :)

 

I can try a compromise solution, that would be repairing the cannons between rounds. Probably not much better, but worth a try. If not I will just kick this feature :)

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I disagree with comments above - I like the half-speed firing. Though it is maybe a bit too slow. Can you do get 3/4 speed by doing half speed on even frames, full speed on odd frames? One weird thing with the slow fire rate is that if you are moving the crosshair some shots don't hit on the crosshair. Looks a little odd.

 

It is still way, waaaaaaay easier than the arcade - I purposely tried to lose a cannon on the first round and couldn't do it until the final enemy - all the regular enemies missed! I didn't play beyond the 2nd level (yet) so I can't say whether the difficulty is good on higher levels or not.

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I disagree with comments above - I like the half-speed firing. Though it is maybe a bit too slow.

That's why I don't like it. ;)

 

I like the concept, just not the speed.

What I meant, but phrased poorly, is that I like binary with the half-speed firing better than the previous binaries without it, and think that a future (potential?) binary that had 3/4-speed firing would possibly be even better still. :lol:

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I like that it's easier than the arcade. Arcade machines are there to steal money from you. This is Colony 7 for the home. I think different rules apply.

 

I've been playing a lot of a recent dump of this ROM (Firecolony, I think it was called). Perfect. Control is slick, difficulty grows steadily. Change nothing.

 

As a (not entirely useful or serious) aside, I may be able to get a LOT more feedback next week from a much younger audience. My wife is a primary school teacher and the current project for the kids (9 yr olds) as set by the National Curriculum, is for them to write a manual on an unfamiliar piece of software (as an exercise to gauge their ability with new computer apps as well as communication skills with others). Most classes just stick them on Excel or something.

Well....if it's okay, she'd like them to all play the latest build of Colony 7 :)

 

These are kids who've ever seen an Atari. I'd like to see what they come up with :)

 

Heck, they may even be able to help me with the official manual!

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I've been playing a lot of a recent dump of this ROM (Firecolony, I think it was called). Perfect. Control is slick, difficulty grows steadily. Change nothing.

 

Thanks! :)

 

In fact I already reverted the cannon behavior. It just didn't feel good.

 

Well....if it's okay, she'd like them to all play the latest build of Colony 7 :)

 

Wow! I'm wondering how open minded they are at this age. Will they diss it for not looking as good as their PS3 games at home? :lol:

 

Heck, they may even be able to help me with the official manual!

 

I guess I'd be more of a help if I'd already be done coding. Useless me is spending days on replicating Clone Wars SFX instead of providing some manual text... :ponder:

 

Anyway, as attached is probably as good as it gets with my SFX driver ;)

clonecolony.zip

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I guess I'd be more of a help if I'd already be done coding. Useless me is spending days on replicating Clone Wars SFX instead of providing some manual text... :ponder:

 

Anyway, as attached is probably as good as it gets with my SFX driver ;)

Sounds good. If you could make the sound trail off for a second or so, I think that would enhance it.

 

I think that having the rapid fire back again was a good move. :thumbsup: I have another suggestion for increasing the challenge (if not the actual difficulty). If you have one gun remaining, could you have the Scouts intentionally hang out in the opposite corner of the screen (upper left or upper right)? You pretty much have to shoot them, or they make the wave interminable. If they hang out up there, you'd have to move the cursor away from the corner you're protecting to get them.

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Found a bug. I took a save state in Stella, but I don't know if it will help.

 

colony7_1204.bin.st0.zip

 

What happened, was I was at the very end of a level, and shot the last guy (forgot which guy - sorry), and the wave never ended. It seems to me that there was an Advisor left, and the timer was down to zero, then I shot it just as a Fighter came onscreen (I may have that backwards). Anyway, once I shot this "extra" ship, the wave never came to an end, and no enemies appeared. It just stayed like this, with my cannon firing away:

post-2641-1196817890_thumb.jpg

 

By the way, I'm using Stella 2.3.5.

Edited by Nathan Strum
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