[KM] Lessons Learned from the HSC

Karate Master

Entry posted by Hornpipe2 October 21, 2008

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Progress has been very slow lately. I set in to work on some AI so I'd have an opponent to test against, but in the meantime the HSC has taught me a valuable lesson, and I am now going to have to re-do the title screen a bit (which I am dreading). That lesson is:

All 2600 games should have a high score counter.

Modern games, it's said, have long since moved past the need to keep track of points. We can have full-on FMV endings, elaborate stories - beating the game can be an end in itself. But this is the VCS, and IT never moved on... and that's the entire appeal right there! I think of the Atari as the ultimate casual gaming machine - nearly every (good) title can be played in five minutes or less, and the best games are those that keep you hitting the RESET button "one more time".

So instead of selecting between Human or Computer Level X, I'm going to change it to Human or Atari. Playing "Atari" will pit you against enemies of ever-increasing difficulty until they kick your face in without mercy. Points scored for hits, bonus points for awesome hits, extra points for defeating an enemy, and mega-bonus-points for flawless victory. The display on the bottom will be a Record for vs. human matches, but will show a six-digit High Score for vs. Atari matches.

Now to rip out my old code and stick in the new. Ugh...

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