SpiceWare's Blog

Batari used players and missiles to good effect in Rally B. He flickered things at 30Hz, and I think it was something like:

 

Frame 1:

Player car: Draw with blue player

Opponent #1: Blue missile

Opponent #2: Yellow player

Opponent #3: Yellow missile

 

Frame 2:

Player car: Draw with green missile

Opponent #1: Red player

Opponent #2: Red missile

Opponent #3: Green player

 

Thus:

Player car: Cyan, with blue wheels

Opponent #1: Purple, with red wheels

Opponent #2: Orange, with yellow wheels

Opponent #3: Green-yellow, with green wheels

 

Other colors could be chosen, of course.

If you haven't figured out what this is, turn your head sideways . I figured the radar will have to be wide instead of tall, so I rotated the maze.

 

That seems to be the way to go for this layout. I figured the same would work best for Bosconian as well

Hm, the roads in Radar Rat Race look squished too.

 

BTW: I remember a similar game which was done as a mix of Venture (switching between map and rooms) and Rally X. So you don't need the radar screen at all and can utilize the whole screen for gameplay.

 

EDIT: The game is called Route 16.

I'll have to check out Rally B again - I don't recall the cars being different colors. There was probably some updates to it since I last looked.

 

The roads in RRR don't look that squished on the real thing - at least on the NTSC version.

 

EDIT - I take that back - it is pretty squished.

Once it's done, I could license the engine and turn it into Rally-X

Just finished fiscal month end at work and my folks are arriving today for a 2 week visit. As such, I don't expect to see any additional progress on this for a couple more weeks.

Personally, I would prefer normal orientation of the playfield than 90 degree rotation. The radar screen would be tough to do sideways anyway, given that the maze is 32x56 not including the borders.

 

You could simply show a centered strip of radar below the maze, maybe 32x24 or so, or better yet, make the radar a separate screen accessed by a console switch or alternatively, right joystick fire or booster grip's second button or something. You could tap the switch with a foot to briefly view the radar screen, sort of analogous to 2D maps in first person shooters.

56 across wasn't going to work, so I plan to divide both directions in half and use 28x16.