RoadBlaster - A new batari basic game

[supercat]

All of the bugs from my previous post still exist...shooting enemy cars still doesn't work properly, although you will score the proper amount of points.  Resetting the game may also cause a problem intermittently.

1009956[/snapback]

 

Well, if cars turn into some sort of power-up when shot, that could solve your problem.

[+Atarius Maximus]

All of the bugs from my previous post still exist...shooting enemy cars still doesn't work properly, although you will score the proper amount of points.  Resetting the game may also cause a problem intermittently.

1009956[/snapback]

 

Well, if cars turn into some sort of power-up when shot, that could solve your problem.

1009967[/snapback]

That's true!

 

It's been a lot of fun working on this game, but also very frustruating!!!!

[vdub_bobby]

I was looking through your code and I have a suggestion:

 

It looks like when a single car is shot by a missile you turn the car black to remove it from the screen. A better method would be to erase the car:

  player1:
 %00000000
end

Or simply change the car's Y position to immediately move it off screen.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I was looking through your code and I have a suggestion:

 

It looks like when a single car is shot by a missile you turn the car black to remove it from the screen.  A better method would be to erase the car:

  player1:
 %00000000
end

Or simply change the car's Y position to immediately move it off screen.

1010129[/snapback]

 

Thanks, that would be much better than turning the car black. I'll make that change on the next revision. I'm a little too busy at work to day to play around with it, hopefully I'll get back at this tomorrow.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I have another revision posted. This has one major change: after one car is shot, the other changes into a powerup that will repair your car if you drive through it. I've playtested this one a little bit, and it seems to be working fine. There's still a few more bugs to fix...but the game is getting much better.

 

Steve

[vdub_bobby]

The powerups killed me!

 

A design note: I think having every car-pair turn into powerups is overkill. Too frequent. IMO.

[ZylonBane]

My familiarity with bAtari Basic is exceptionally minimal, but looking at the source code for this, I was wondering-- is there any chance of a future version adding something like...

 

playfield:

%01101011110000001111011111000011%

%01101011110000001111011111000011%

%01101010110100001111011001110101%

%01111000001010101111110000011011%

end

 

With some syntax in there somewhere to specify the start line. Seems like it would be easy to implement, and much more efficient than all those PLOT statements, or whatever weird keyword bB uses.

[+Atarius Maximus]

The powerups killed me! 

 

A design note: I think having every car-pair turn into powerups is overkill.  Too frequent.  IMO.

1013819[/snapback]

 

How did they kill you? Did touching one kill you, or did they shoot?

 

You're right -- turning them into powerups with every hit is probably too often. It was the easiest way to add them into the game, though. It shouldn't be too hard to make it happen randomly. I'm really busy at work & home for the next week, it may be a little while before I can get back to this.

 

Steve

[+batari]

My familiarity with bAtari Basic is exceptionally minimal, but looking at the source code for this, I was wondering-- is there any chance of a future version adding something like...

 

playfield:

%01101011110000001111011111000011%

%01101011110000001111011111000011%

%01101010110100001111011001110101%

%01111000001010101111110000011011%

end

 

With some syntax in there somewhere to specify the start line. Seems like it would be easy to implement, and much more efficient than all those PLOT statements, or whatever weird keyword bB uses.

1013846[/snapback]

The latest build has this command. It works basically the same as you suggested but I didn't use 0 and 1.

[+Atarius Maximus]

A few more changes have been made:

 

1. The powerup now appears randomly after you shoot a car, instead of every time.

2. It's now possible to shoot both cars before they scroll off the screen, and they will disappear individually when shot. I finally figured it out.

3. The road was widened and the color was changed to brown. When the game begins, you see an outline of the roadside borders, which fill-in when the race begins.

 

There is still more work to be done, but this version seems to have corrected some of the problems in the last release. I've playtested this for about 5 minutes today, and didn't run into any major problems.

 

The first post has been updated with the latest bin & source, now at v0.65.

 

Steve

Edited March 16, 2006 by Atarius Maximus

[+Atarius Maximus]

I haven't had much time to look at this since early February -- I got a new job/promotion last month, and I've been much busier than normal. I've attempted to fix the problem of the cars restarting 'off the road' at the top of the screen after you've shot both of them. My playtesting so far hasn't shown any problems -- I played through about 20+ games and it never happened.

 

Updated source and binary are in the first post.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I think I'm finally done with this game.

 

I posted the "final" version (1.0) earlier this week in the first post of this thread, and everything in the game seems to be working fine. I'm going to call this game done so I can start working on my next idea. Thanks again to all who have provided feedback and suggestions, it was a great help!

 

Steve

[Brad2600]

Here's my first attempt at a bB game. It's a complete, playable game, although I'll probably spend more time tweaking it in the coming weeks. I struggled for a long time getting certain components of the game correctly, so I didn't comment the code very well because of all the changes I made when testing it -- I plan on going back and doing that soon.

 

You have a missile equipped car, and can shoot oncoming traffic for points. Your score also increases the longer you stay on the road. Randomly appearing road blocks get in your way and can push you into oncoming traffic. The object is to shoot as many oncoming cars as possible without running into them. Your car has "hit points", and the game will end after multiple collisions with oncoming cars. When your hit points run out, you go to a "game over" screen with your final score. I haven't yet figured out how to reset the game correctly...I can't seem to get the inline asm 'clear playfield' code to work. As a result, you have to exit and reload the game in the emulator when it ends.

 

Anyway, here it is, RoadBlaster v0.1. I've attached the bin and bB code. Any comments or suggestions about improving the bB code or the game itself would be appreciated! This was a lot of fun to make, thanks for making it possible, batari!

 

This post will be updated with the latest versions of the game as they are released.

 

So you don't have to scroll through the post to see what the latest revisions contain, here's the verison notes from the source code:

 

v0.65 Updates - Both cars can now be shot individually before they scroll off the screen, and will disappear when shot. Powerups now appear randomly after you shoot a car. Road was widened, a few colors were changed.

 

v0.66 Updates - Attempting to fix problem of cars starting out off the road at the top of the screen after you've shot both of them. My playtesting so far hasn't shown any problems, it seems to be working. Sorry to anyone who downloaded this version -- I accidently left my "debug" mode on -- the car was invincible. I just noticed it as I'm posting the 1.0 version.

 

v 1.0 Update - It seems to be ready for the 1.0 release - I've played it quite a bit and can't find any glaring gameplay bugs. Unless someone finds something wrong, this is the official release.

 

Steve

 

I hope it's not too late to comment. I like this game but it is very challenging even for me. A good effort though!

[+Atarius Maximus]

Here's my first attempt at a bB game. It's a complete, playable game, although I'll probably spend more time tweaking it in the coming weeks. I struggled for a long time getting certain components of the game correctly, so I didn't comment the code very well because of all the changes I made when testing it -- I plan on going back and doing that soon.

 

You have a missile equipped car, and can shoot oncoming traffic for points. Your score also increases the longer you stay on the road. Randomly appearing road blocks get in your way and can push you into oncoming traffic. The object is to shoot as many oncoming cars as possible without running into them. Your car has "hit points", and the game will end after multiple collisions with oncoming cars. When your hit points run out, you go to a "game over" screen with your final score. I haven't yet figured out how to reset the game correctly...I can't seem to get the inline asm 'clear playfield' code to work. As a result, you have to exit and reload the game in the emulator when it ends.

 

Anyway, here it is, RoadBlaster v0.1. I've attached the bin and bB code. Any comments or suggestions about improving the bB code or the game itself would be appreciated! This was a lot of fun to make, thanks for making it possible, batari!

 

This post will be updated with the latest versions of the game as they are released.

 

So you don't have to scroll through the post to see what the latest revisions contain, here's the verison notes from the source code:

 

v0.65 Updates - Both cars can now be shot individually before they scroll off the screen, and will disappear when shot. Powerups now appear randomly after you shoot a car. Road was widened, a few colors were changed.

 

v0.66 Updates - Attempting to fix problem of cars starting out off the road at the top of the screen after you've shot both of them. My playtesting so far hasn't shown any problems, it seems to be working. Sorry to anyone who downloaded this version -- I accidently left my "debug" mode on -- the car was invincible. I just noticed it as I'm posting the 1.0 version.

 

v 1.0 Update - It seems to be ready for the 1.0 release - I've played it quite a bit and can't find any glaring gameplay bugs. Unless someone finds something wrong, this is the official release.

 

Steve

 

I hope it's not too late to comment. I like this game but it is very challenging even for me. A good effort though!

 

It's never too late to comment...sorry it took me so long to comment on your comment. I've got a new version to post, I revisited this game when I discovered that v1.0 wasn't compatible with real hardware, this one is. The new version is attached to the first post in this thread.

 

v 1.06 Changes:

 

Color/BW switch toggles between normal mode(color) and invincible/practice mode (BW).

Left difficulty controls size of player car, right difficulty switches roadblocks on and off. I thought the ability to turn off the roadblocks would decrease the difficulty a little bit... I know this game can be quite challenging when the enemy cars are moving at the fastest speed.

New animated Title Screen Changed - it's much better than the playfield block title screen used previously.

Audio sound added to death, animated sequence of car scrolling off the top of the road after death also added.

Powerups do not appear if you're pushing up on the joystick to go faster, just to make going faster even more challenging.

Scroll speed of the roadside slows when you slow down.

Sprites changed

[Piggles]

I love how the cars jiggle about.

 

Nice game!

[+atari2600land]

Is this named after the NES game RoadBlasters?

[+Atarius Maximus]

Is this named after the NES game RoadBlasters?

I actually was thinking of the old Atari Arcade game Road Blasters when I started working on it, which of course may also have been the basis for the NES game. I've never seen or played the NES version of the game.

[+atari2600land]

Is this named after the NES game RoadBlasters?

I actually was thinking of the old Atari Arcade game Road Blasters when I started working on it, which of course may also have been the basis for the NES game. I've never seen or played the NES version of the game.

The NES version says ©1989, 1986 Atari Games Corp., so you're probably right.