Space Battle Update

[Albert]

I just spent some time playing the latest version of Space Battle. The changes you made definiltey help polish the game further. Some comments:

 

- The random boops and beeps when the game starts up are a bit jarring (and I had my volume turned up pretty high so they caught me off guard!) Any chance of maybe doing a catchy little tune or something along those lines?

 

- While at the title screen, when you press up, you hear a solid tone. Only happens when you press up. Seems to be the same sound that is played when you activate your shields in the game.

 

- When you destroy the larger enemies on the second stage there's no indication that you actually destroyed them, except for the screen going black. Would be nice if there was some satisfying explosion effect and/or accompanying audio.

 

- After landing on the landing pad once, a vertical line appeared on the next screen. It quickly went away, but I did take a screenshot:

 

 

- I've seen enemy bullets appear near the bottom of the screen even though there are no enemies anywhere near there. I've seen this twice when there was only a single enemy at the very top row of the screen. One time I noticed it happened not too long after I destroyed the last enemy on the bottom row.

 

- If you die due to running out of fuel, you hear your ship's explosion but you do not see your ship (it simply disappears).

 

- I sometimes see the scanline count change briefly on the screen with the many rows of enemies (after the landing sequence). Only appears to jump one scanline, but it is noticeable. This often happens if you press Up to activate your shield.

 

- After landing, it would be nice if there was a brief pause before moving onto the next screen.

 

That's all for now, keep up the great work!

 

..Al

[Dave Neuman]

I just spent some time playing the latest version of Space Battle. The changes you made definiltey help polish the game further.

Thanks!

Some comments:

 

- The random boops and beeps when the game starts up are a bit jarring (and I had my volume turned up pretty high so they caught me off guard!) Any chance of maybe doing a catchy little tune or something along those lines?

 

- While at the title screen, when you press up, you hear a solid tone. Only happens when you press up. Seems to be the same sound that is played when you activate your shields in the game.

It has startled me a couple of times also. I was going for a random computer-like startup tune, but it didn't come out too well. I'll put something in that is more pleasing and fix the "shields up" sound bug.

- When you destroy the larger enemies on the second stage there's no indication that you actually destroyed them, except for the screen going black. Would be nice if there was some satisfying explosion effect and/or accompanying audio.

I'm not sure why I didn't think of that ... I'll add it in.

- After landing on the landing pad once, a vertical line appeared on the next screen. It quickly went away, but I did take a screenshot:

 

Opps, thought I fixed that one.

- I've seen enemy bullets appear near the bottom of the screen even though there are no enemies anywhere near there. I've seen this twice when there was only a single enemy at the very top row of the screen. One time I noticed it happened not too long after I destroyed the last enemy on the bottom row.

 

- If you die due to running out of fuel, you hear your ship's explosion but you do not see your ship (it simply disappears).

 

- I sometimes see the scanline count change briefly on the screen with the many rows of enemies (after the landing sequence). Only appears to jump one scanline, but it is noticeable. This often happens if you press Up to activate your shield.

I'll track down these bugs.

- After landing, it would be nice if there was a brief pause before moving onto the next screen.

Yes, that would look a lot better!

That's all for now, keep up the great work!

 

..Al

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions. You seem to have checked it out pretty thoroughly and I appreciate it.

This coding is fun stuff !!

 

Dave

[Dave Neuman]

Hi,

 

Another update

 

Changed opening tune to something better...kinda catchy...maybe.

Fixed shield sound during title screen bug.

Added explosion annimation and sound to large enemies when they die.

Fixed landing pad graphics glitch.

Fixed no explosion after running out of fuel bug.

Fixed scanline jump on shields up bug.

Added brief pause after landing.

 

Still looking at random bomb appearances.

 

SpaceBattle.bin

 

Dave

[+Nathan Strum]

This is coming along very nicely. I'll have to do some more thorough play-testing of it when I get the chance.

[mos6507]

I like what you did with the sprite width to make a kind of "boss" wave.

[Dave Neuman]

This is coming along very nicely. I'll have to do some more thorough play-testing of it when I get the chance.

Thanks! It helps alot to have other sets of eyes looking at it as I seem to overlook some of the bugs and glitches.

[Dave Neuman]

I like what you did with the sprite width to make a kind of "boss" wave.

Thanks! I tried to save space by re-using the existing sprites and make them more menacing looking.

[Dave Neuman]

Hi,

Another Update

 

Fixed random bomb appearances.

Inhibited Fuel consumption after Last Enemy has been hit.

Inhibited Bomb drop after Last Enemy has been hit.

Fixed frame rate skip.

Fixed "slow bombs" in Boss Level.

 

Any Feedback is appreciated.

 

SpaceBattle.bin

Thanks,

Dave

[+Nathan Strum]

I got hit once in the boss wave, and the player froze:

 

 

The sprite was stuck mid-explosion, and wouldn't move or shoot, although I could still activate the shields. The boss continued to move and fire.

 

I saved a state for it in Stella (which I can reload), but I can't figure out where Stella put the state file, so I can't upload it here. It's not in the State folder.

[Dave Neuman]

I got hit once in the boss wave, and the player froze:

 

 

The sprite was stuck mid-explosion, and wouldn't move or shoot, although I could still activate the shields. The boss continued to move and fire.

 

I saved a state for it in Stella (which I can reload), but I can't figure out where Stella put the state file, so I can't upload it here. It's not in the State folder.

 

This bug would occur if you're base was hit after you had hit the Boss four times. I add some code to eliminate this and rechecked Base hits after Boss Hits 1 to 7. Thanks for finding this ... it was a nasty one.

 

Thanks Dave

 

SpaceBattle.bin

[+stephena]

I saved a state for it in Stella (which I can reload), but I can't figure out where Stella put the state file, so I can't upload it here. It's not in the State folder.

Depends on which OS you use:

 

1) Linux: $HOME/.stella/state

2) OSX: same as Linux

3) Win32: state dir where-ever Stella was installed

 

Currently, the state files are saved as the md5sum name, so it will be named something like:

mmm (32 characters long).stx, where 'x' is the state number. I'm looking into better ways of naming these files, perhaps with a toggle for romname (similar to the snapshot options).

[+Nathan Strum]

1) Linux: $HOME/.stella/state

2) OSX: same as Linux

 

That explains it. In OSX, any folder that starts with . is invisible to the GUI (they're reserved for system use). I can only see it using terminal. It's contents won't even show up using any of the GUI's search features.

 

Can this be changed to be user-selectable for OSX? Or to automatically use a state folder within the Stella application folder? (This is how it seemed to work prior to Stella 2.0.)

[+stephena]

1) Linux: $HOME/.stella/state

2) OSX: same as Linux

 

That explains it. In OSX, any folder that starts with . is invisible to the GUI (they're reserved for system use). I can only see it using terminal. It's contents won't even show up using any of the GUI's search features.

 

Can this be changed to be user-selectable for OSX? Or to automatically use a state folder within the Stella application folder? (This is how it seemed to work prior to Stella 2.0.)

I can easily add an option to specify the base stella directory (in this case, something instead of '.stella'). The state directory, and everything under it, would be named the same way, but none of those begin with a dot anyway.

 

As for placing it in the same folder as the application, I want to avoid that. I want to be able to install Stella on a read-only file system, and still have per-user settings saved in their $HOME directory. The fact that Windows does it the former way is a bug, and will be fixed eventually.

 

Edit: Also, I'm about to commit code that removes the naming of statefiles as md5sum, and instead use romname as specified in its properties. And I'm removing a similar option for snapshots, and not allowing them to be named as md5sum either. This naming is a holdover from when Stella used external launchers, and is no longer required.

Edited November 12, 2006 by stephena

[+Nathan Strum]

Okay, I've been playing Space Battle quite a lot today. And since you've been asking for feedback... here goes.

 

It seems to announce the levels at different times. Level 01 shows up between the first round with the armada and the first boss. Level 02 shows up right after the first boss. Level 03 shows up right before the third boss. It's confusing as to where the levels start. I'd suggest that the beginning of the game should say Level 01, and after each boss is when the next level begins.

 

Some upward momentum when thrusting during the landing phase would be nice (like flapping in "Joust", or thrusting in "Gravitar"). Also, some penalty (losing energy more rapidly) when missing the platform would be good.

 

From a graphics standpoint - having the ships continually morph from one into another is a little confusing. Also, the color scheme seems a bit disjointed, too.

 

 

Currently, you have eight ship designs, which morph by swapping sprites in pairs (top two rows, next two rows, etc.)

 

But design-wise, they seem to fit together in different pairs (most notably the top four rows):

 

 

My suggestion is to assign them colors based on the color spectrum:

 

 

Then order them, top to bottom, according to those colors and designs:

 

 

The reason I placed the ones at the top that I did, is that they're narrower, and therefore harder to hit. (And should be worth the most points.)

 

With this layout, there now appears to be an intentional hierarchy among the ships.

 

If you still want them to morph, I'd suggest moving them all in a uniform manner, so that as they morph, the entire group is moving together. So the top group moves down a row (in color and style) and every row shifts down accordingly, with the bottom row reappearing at the top. So the whole group would be cycling around the screen as if on a conveyor belt. However, I don't think that's really necessary. There's enough visually going on already with them being animated (by flip-flopping the sprites left-to-right), dropping bombs, dropping fuel, and turning their shields on and off.

 

A couple of bugs:

 

If I score more than 10,000 points, it starts my next game out with 10,000 points. It doesn't seem to reset that digit.

 

Also, there are numerous times when my shots will pass right through an enemy ship without hitting it. It's as if a group has raised it's shields without the sprite changing to indicate that, or the shields staying raised after the sprite has changed back to normal. Sometimes I can't hit anything on the screen, and I'll just sit there wasting fuel while my shots pass harmlessly through everything.

 

Overall, I think the game is coming along really nicely. The ideas of having to catch fuel, giving the enemies shields, the bosses, and the landing sequence are all really nice touches that distance it from other "death-from-above" games. It just needs a little bit of polishing.

Edited November 13, 2006 by Nathan Strum

[+SpiceWare]

1) Linux: $HOME/.stella/state

2) OSX: same as Linux

 

That explains it. In OSX, any folder that starts with . is invisible to the GUI (they're reserved for system use). I can only see it using terminal. It's contents won't even show up using any of the GUI's search features.

 

Can this be changed to be user-selectable for OSX? Or to automatically use a state folder within the Stella application folder? (This is how it seemed to work prior to Stella 2.0.)

 

You can make the Finder show a hidden folder by going directly to it:

• activate Finder(so it says FINDER in the menu bar)
  
• select GO menu
  
• select GO TO FOLDER option
  
• type ~/.stella
  
• hit GO button
  

[+Nathan Strum]

Another idea...

 

How about starting out the earlier levels with fewer enemies?

 

So the wave progression would be something like this:

 

Level 1:

 

Level 2:

 

Level 3:

 

Level 4:

 

Level 5:

 

The idea behind all of this is to give the player something to look forward to, and work towards, rather than giving it all away up front. It also gives beginners a couple of levels to get used to the game before having enemies directly over their heads. The difficulty would have to be balanced out so that the early levels weren't too easy though . One way to do this is that the player would start out with less fuel on Level 1, and would get more at the start of each subsequent wave up until Level 5, where it would be maxed out (and then would start being used up faster).

 

Also, in keeping with this, would be to start out with just the smallest Destroyer (boss) at the end of the first level, then each level you'd get a successively larger one that took more hits to destroy (and became faster, fired more often, etc.)

 

Reading the story of the game in the first post, this ties in with the idea of coming up from behind a convoy. You'd catch up to the slower stragglers first, and gradually work your way up to the main body of the convoy. Then the Destroyers would come in to protect the ships as you fought your way through to the next convoy, the bigger, more powerful Destroyers protecting the larger convoys.

[+Nathan Strum]

One last note for the evening...

 

In this earlier version of Space Battle, I really liked the way the enemies appear at the beginning of the level (where they "slide out" from the darkness). It's a nice effect.

[Dave Neuman]

Okay, I've been playing Space Battle quite a lot today. And since you've been asking for feedback... here goes.

 

It seems to announce the levels at different times. Level 01 shows up between the first round with the armada and the first boss. Level 02 shows up right after the first boss. Level 03 shows up right before the third boss. It's confusing as to where the levels start. I'd suggest that the beginning of the game should say Level 01, and after each boss is when the next level begins.

Initially, the landing screen was just at the beginning of the game, so it was not actually a level. It's fully integrated now so it should behave as you outlined. I'll fix it!

Some upward momentum when thrusting during the landing phase would be nice (like flapping in "Joust", or thrusting in "Gravitar"). Also, some penalty (losing energy more rapidly) when missing the platform would be good.

I will add in momentum if I can find the space...it would look much better. I like the penalty for missing the platform ... I'll add that!

From a graphics standpoint - having the ships continually morph from one into another is a little confusing. Also, the color scheme seems a bit disjointed, too.

 

Currently, you have eight ship designs, which morph by swapping sprites in pairs (top two rows, next two rows, etc.)

 

But design-wise, they seem to fit together in different pairs (most notably the top four rows):

 

My suggestion is to assign them colors based on the color spectrum:

 

Then order them, top to bottom, according to those colors and designs:

 

The reason I placed the ones at the top that I did, is that they're narrower, and therefore harder to hit. (And should be worth the most points.)

 

With this layout, there now appears to be an intentional hierarchy among the ships.

 

If you still want them to morph, I'd suggest moving them all in a uniform manner, so that as they morph, the entire group is moving together. So the top group moves down a row (in color and style) and every row shifts down accordingly, with the bottom row reappearing at the top. So the whole group would be cycling around the screen as if on a conveyor belt. However, I don't think that's really necessary. There's enough visually going on already with them being animated (by flip-flopping the sprites left-to-right), dropping bombs, dropping fuel, and turning their shields on and off.

You have a good eye for detail and color ... I already changed it ... looks much better!

A couple of bugs:

 

If I score more than 10,000 points, it starts my next game out with 10,000 points. It doesn't seem to reset that digit.

 

Also, there are numerous times when my shots will pass right through an enemy ship without hitting it. It's as if a group has raised it's shields without the sprite changing to indicate that, or the shields staying raised after the sprite has changed back to normal. Sometimes I can't hit anything on the screen, and I'll just sit there wasting fuel while my shots pass harmlessly through everything.

 

Overall, I think the game is coming along really nicely. The ideas of having to catch fuel, giving the enemies shields, the bosses, and the landing sequence are all really nice touches that distance it from other "death-from-above" games. It just needs a little bit of polishing.

 

I'll check out those bugs and fix them. Thanks for spending so much time playing it! Great Feedback! I will post a new version as soon as I can... This is fun stuff.

Thanks,

Dave

[Albert]

I'll check out those bugs and fix them. Thanks for spending so much time playing it! Great Feedback! I will post a new version as soon as I can... This is fun stuff.

I look forward to the next version with Nathan's suggestions implemented and the bugs squashed!

 

..Al

[Dave Neuman]

I'll check out those bugs and fix them. Thanks for spending so much time playing it! Great Feedback! I will post a new version as soon as I can... This is fun stuff.

I look forward to the next version with Nathan's suggestions implemented and the bugs squashed!

 

..Al

 

Hi,

Another update with most of Nathan's suggestions implemented:

 

Levels follow a consistent pattern now.

Enemys have been paired, colored and ordered.

Morphing has been eliminated.

Missed landings cause a severe fuel penalty.

Score reset bug fixed.

Collision detection improved.

Enemy shields are more responsive.

Enemies "slide" out of the darkness again at start of level.

"Standard" Enemy waves begin with fewer enemies and reach full strength by level 10.

Top two rows of Enemies are worth double the points.

 

Thanks,

Dave

 

 

SpaceBattle.bin

[Albert]

Another update with most of Nathan's suggestions implemented:

Great update, thanks! Just spent some time playing and have the following suggestions:

 

- After shooting the last alien on the first wave, I died.. Then before the next wave appeared, I saw "GAME OVER" at the top of the screen, even though I had two lives remaining.

 

- On the wave with the two larger ships, if you die during that wave, is it supposed to reset those aliens to their original (large) size?

 

- On the landing screen, is it possible to make the "thrust" two pixels wide so it is properly centered below the ship? Right now it's off a bit to the right.

 

- On the screen with the many rows of invader, I still see the scanline count jump sometimes (this is when using Stella to emulate the game--need to try it on a real system). Happens fairly frequently so should be easy for you to reproduce.

 

- For the "Level 01" display, I think a "Level" should comprise of a set of the three different waves. For instance, when you start the game, you'd immediately see "Level 01", then the landing screen, then the main wave of invaders, then the boss screen, and then after that, "Level 02" before you start the next landing sequence.

 

- Enemies do not always "fade out" when you shoot them. Many times they simply disappear immediately. Is this intentional?

 

- When you die, you can still press "Up" and hear the shield sound.

 

- When you land on the pad, it would be nice to hear some kind of "confirmation" sound

 

- When shooting an alien that has shields on, would it be possible to have your bullet stop (and maybe make some sort of unique "you hit a shield" sound) instead fo passing right through the enemy?

 

Keep up the great work!

 

..Al

[+Nathan Strum]

- For the "Level 01" display, I think a "Level" should comprise of a set of the three different waves. For instance, when you start the game, you'd immediately see "Level 01", then the landing screen, then the main wave of invaders, then the boss screen, and then after that, "Level 02" before you start the next landing sequence.

I was going to suggest that as well.

 

A few other suggestions:

 

That you only get an extra ship after defeating a boss. Right now, it's too easy to build up extra ships.

 

Maybe even make it so that you only get an extra life if you defeat the boss without dying.

 

Whatever fuel you end up with after landing, is what you start out with in the main invader level. That gives more incentive to land quickly, but accurately, and also to catch fuel right away from the invaders.

 

If you die on the landing screen, it'd be nice to restart a little higher off the ground, so you didn't immediately hit the ground after coming back.

 

It'd be nice if an earlier fuel warning alarm went off when you were getting down to the yellow zone, rather than only having one in the red zone.

 

How about a laser power-up (that shoots a beam straight up instantly)? Every once in awhile (like a reward for hitting x number of enemy ships without missing) they drop a laser cannon (orange maybe?) that if you catch, you can use for a few seconds to zap invaders. Either a laser, or faster missile. (The laser idea came about because of the vertical line bug, mentioned below.)

 

Color suggestions - instead of pink (looks like 5/2-3 on the TIA chart) for the third ship from the bottom, I think purple (6/2-3) would look better. For the bottom row, instead of dark blue, I'd suggest a blue-green color, like A/2-3. (These are close to what I'd put in the mockup screenshots).

 

 

Some bugs:

 

The first level of invaders doesn't always start with just one in the top row. Sometimes it's two or three.

 

The 4 in the level number and score looks like a 7. The middle line in the 4 should be moved down a pixel.

 

After you shoot the boss, you still hear the sounds of the boss firing at you while he's blowing up. As soon as he's hit for the last time, that should probably stop.

 

Also, after dying on the landing screen, I hit reset then select, and got a vertical line running down the screen:

 

 

If you start a game in option 4, play for awhile, then hit reset to get back the title screen, change to option 2 and hit fire to play a new game, several things happen:

1. You start at the level number you ended at in option 4
   
2. You start with the score you had before
   
3. You start with the same fuel amount
   
4. Collision detection starts having severe problems where shots pass right through the enemies (especially with the yellow ships)
   

Edit: Actually, this seems to happen whenever you switch from one game option to another.

 

Collision detection seems pretty spotty on game option 2 in general.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Nathan Strum

[+Nathan Strum]

More notes:

 

If you die after shooting the last alien on the invader screen, you won't finish blowing up until after the boss screen has started. There should be a check in place that it won't change screens until after you've blown up completely, or there's no more chance of you getting hit.

 

On the landing screen, sometimes (although rarely) you'll appear right on top of the alien guarding the landing platform, and instantly die. It should put the platform at least a minimum distance from where you appear.

 

Also, the enemies can drop fuel at the edges of the screen, beyond your reach. They probably shouldn't drop anything beyond the limits of where your ship can travel.

 

More suggestions:

 

I'd suggest increasing the point value on a per row (or every other row) basis, rather than just having the top two rows be worth more.

 

Maybe:

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

 

Additionally, I'd suggest starting out with the lower point value ships, rather than the high point value ones, in the early levels (but place them higher on the screen). Then, as the levels progress, everything drops down a row, and you're rewarded with higher point values in the new top row. (See post #41 for screenshots.)

Edited November 22, 2006 by Nathan Strum

[Dave Neuman]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all the input! Attached is another update with following changes suggested by Al and Nathan

 

SpaceBattleFinal4N.bin

 

Inhibit shield sound after dying.

Increased bounce up after dying on landing (above enemy high point).

Increase fade out time.

Fixed start with wrong number of enemies bug.

Fixed Game Over bug.

Fixed colors enemy 1 and 3.

Fixed number 4 graphic.

Centered Game Over.

Changed fuel warning to yellow zone and stretched it out.

Changed levels to increase and display only after a successful landing.

Changed enemy armada increase routine to 2 complete rows, 4 complete rows, 6 complete rows, 8 complete rows.

Preserve enemy hits after player dies in a screen to keep boss from reseting size.

No longer resetting base to mid screen after dying.

Earn extra base only after completing landing.

Inhibit base exploding if screen has changed.

Don't reset fuel after landing.

Inhibit sound after last enemy has been hit.

Enemies can't drop fuel at the edges of the screen.

 

To Do

Fix restart bugs.

Collision detection option 2.

Fix scanline jumping.

Fix missile glitch.

 

Possible To Do if space permits

Create landing confirmation sound.

Create shield hit sound.

Stop missile when hit sheild.

Laser power ups.

Momentum on landing screen.

Change points rewarded for enemy hits.

[+Nathan Strum]

Excellent update! Thanks for making those changes - they help the game a lot. It feels much more balanced now.

 

Still ran into the issue on the landing screen where I'll sometimes initially appear in the same place as the alien guarding the landing platform (instantly dying). Can the players ship always come in from the top on the landing screen (as it does after you die)? It looks nicer, plus it gives you a few seconds to get oriented after a boss wave (or at the beginning of a game).

 

Still had an alien drop fuel just out of my reach, on the left side of the screen. It was right next to my base, but I couldn't move over one more pixel to catch it.

 

The bosses seem to all follow the same pattern now (at least as far as I've gotten in the game). The previous version they were less predictable, and more challenging. Now they're too easy.

 

Finally, whenever I died with one ship left at the bottom of the screen, the game ended. Are those counted as total ships (including your current one) or reserve ships? I think it's more intuitive for those to be reserves.