Seaweed Assault

[+Random Terrain]

I've been playing this game today and I'm impressed. I should have played it sooner. I like the way the wrothopods, health canisters, and tentacles force me to play. The wrothopods force me to work on the bottom half of the screen so I have room to dodge them, the health canisters force me to work on the top half of the screen so I have room to catch them as soon as possible, and the tentacles force me to keep moving but if I'm stuck they can help me out. It is a perfect balance. Adding any other moving thing would ruin that balance. Only add other creatures like crabs to pop up like the seaweed to shoot for bonus points. Don't have them shoot or move around on the screen. Just have them as more eye candy and bonus points. I also like how you get more points for how much seaweed you kill with one missile(torpedo?). It rewards with bonus points but punishes you because it will be harder to dodge the wrothopods and harder to catch the health canisters with seaweed everywhere. Another perfect balance.

Yeah, I should change missile to torpedo in the description.

 

There can only be one bonus item or creature on the screen at the same time.

 

The plan was to add other creatures that will come down similar to the Wrothopods, so there will be more variety and people won't get bored seeing the same creature over and over. I'll have to create new sound effects, new animations, and new propulsion patterns. Wrothopods swim forward using an alternating push, push pattern, but other creatures will swim forward differently, based on their animations.

 

Once in a while, when the player shoots a piece of seaweed, a creature or bonus item of some kind will randomly pop up from behind that piece. Like I said above, it can only be on the screen if nothing else is, so it won't interfere with anything. I'm just not sure what it should be. I just had an idea:

 

I'm thinking that maybe it could be some kind of electric eel. When it is revealed, it would swim left or right off the screen into and wriggle into the safety of the adult seaweed. If the player can touch it before it escapes, the ship will absorb some of the energy and get a small health boost (without damaging the eel).

 

 

Here's a better idea:

 

To make it easier to have other creatures in the game, such as crabs or seahorses or whatever, instead of having an eel that you can suck energy from, the creature that pops up won't be hiding behind a piece of seaweed, it will be trapped. When a creature is rescued, it will swim up and off the top of the screen. You'll get some points for each rescued creature and if you rescue enough (5 or 10 or whatever) a health canister will be dropped down to you. To be clear, the player does not touch the creature. All the player needs to do is shoot seaweed. Now the player will have another reason to shoot seaweed instead of letting it build up.

 

 

 

 

What I would love to see is combining new creatures with the bonus points of killing more seaweed with one missile. It will work like this: You shoot the first seaweed in a row, and then when the missile hits the next seaweed a crab pops out, when the missile hits the seaweed after that a sea horse pops out, when the missile hits the seaweed after that... When the combo is over you get the points you normally would and the creatures sink back underwater. They won't be something else you shoot but creatures you see for doing a combo as a reward. The more seaweed you kill with one shot the more creatures you get to see to tell you how big your combo was.

 

Also, if the above works then make the combos also keys to unlock those creatures to randomly pop up just like the seaweed but with the same points as when they are in a combo. So, the bigger your combos the more creatures randomly pop up with bigger bonus points.

 

These two suggestions would add more than just points to the combos. They would add eye candy to confirm the combos and unlock the creatures to randomly take the place of seaweed.

I don't think I can do that.

 

 

 

 

I like how the sub glides like it is in water but that makes it hard to get your aim right. The gliding plus the size of the sub makes it hard to do combos too. Sometimes I squeeze my sub at the end of a row of seaweed and when I turn towards it to shoot I ram into it. I would like the gliding to stay but I would like the aiming and setting up combos a little less frustrating. Maybe if the sub was smaller and the missiles somewhat moved with the sub to steer them it would be less frustrating.

If the player is good at moving a little and coming back once or twice or three times until he is lined up, he can shoot up or down at thin lines of seaweed without much of a problem. People who aren't as good at zipping around can shoot left and right at the larger targets.

 

The gliding effect only happens when the player stops moving, so a quick player can shoot at a lot of seaweed without seeing the ship glide that much.

 

Beginners should mostly shoot left and right and try to stay out of sticky situations.

 

 

 

 

I wish the health canisters would fill up just as much health as I need for a fill up and the rest would go into a reserve health canister. Next to my health it can have a reserve canister with a number of how many parts of health I have in it and the canister will empty before my health meter does because it is constantly filling up my health meter. That would be better than gaining extra lives because the canisters would work the same and I'll just gain parts of health with only one life.

I like that idea.

 

 

 

 

I like the game. It is awesome!

Thanks. I hope it will get a little more awesome before October.

 

It would be cool if the only creatures I need to add are the random ones trapped behind bits of seaweed. They will be fairly easy to do compared to any alternative Wrothopod-style creatures I'd have to make.

Edited September 6, 2011 by Random Terrain

[Schizophretard]

I'm glad you like the health canister idea. It isn't very rewarding when your health is full or some of the health canister is wasted when it fills you up. If there was a reserve health canister then the number of it would be like a score to show you how well you are surviving and how quick you are grabbing the canisters. You will also be rewarded for doing well by your health meter basically being increased so you have a better chance at surviving as the game gets harder. Also, one life means no being brought back from the dead.

 

I like the idea of adding an electric ell but I rather it was dangerous. If you decide to add the reserve health canister you probably wouldn't need another source of health other than earning health by having something else to shoot at for bonus points. You already have enemies coming from the top and bottom. How about just adding two more that come from the sides but not aiming for you like the wrothopods and tentacles? Just have them go from side to side like the scorpions in Centipede. Maybe an electric ell coming from a random spot on the right and a stingray coming from a random spot on the left? Since most of the shooting is horizontal, having two random creatures going from one side to the other would give you something to shoot at vertically and other things to dodge. Have them worth bonus points but play on a similar theme as the health canisters losing energy as they drop. When the creatures first come out they are worth the most points and when they are about to leave on the other side they are worth the least points. You could also give them two different animations. The electric ell would swim like a snake slithers and the stingray would swim like a bird flies but both would shock/sting you in a Berzerk like fashion stunning you long enough for the tentacle to start coming for you and maybe the wrothopod if the timing was right. The stun won't harm you but would put you in a position to get harmed by the tentacle and maybe the wrothopod. That should shut up the people that don't see the tentacle enough. You could add sounds from E.T. to the electric ell and the stingray. You could make the electric ell sound like the UFO and the stingray sound like when E.T stretches his neck. It could be like an Easter egg. I know I said that adding any other moving thing would ruin that balance but maybe that would work? Two creatures coming for you from the top and bottom and two creatures swimming from the left and right . Two creatures you don't want to shoot and two creatures you do. Seaweed you shoot horizontally for points and creatures you shoot vertically for bonus points. Health canisters that drain as they fall and creatures that get worth less points as they swim. That sounds balanced. What do you think?

[+Random Terrain]

I'm glad you like the health canister idea. It isn't very rewarding when your health is full or some of the health canister is wasted when it fills you up. If there was a reserve health canister then the number of it would be like a score to show you how well you are surviving and how quick you are grabbing the canisters. You will also be rewarded for doing well by your health meter basically being increased so you have a better chance at surviving as the game gets harder. Also, one life means no being brought back from the dead.

I have added a reserve bank. When the main bank is full, whatever energy you collect will go into the reserve bank. If both banks are full, any extra shield energy that is collected will be lost.

 

When damaged, energy from the reserve bank on the left will be lost first, then when that's empty, energy will be lost from the main bank on the right.

 

 

 

 

I like the idea of adding an electric eel but I rather it was dangerous. If you decide to add the [reserve shield health bank] you probably wouldn't need another source of health other than earning health by having something else to shoot at for bonus points.

In the game as it is right now, you only get a health canister every 1,000 points and every time you shoot 100 pieces of seaweed, so the game isn't exactly raining health canisters. The game also gets harder every time you shoot another 100 pieces of seaweed, so players will probably need a little more help.

 

Now that there is a reserve bank, if I decide to have it empty at the start of the game and leave it up to the player to fill up, it wouldn't hurt to give the player more chances to get extra shield energy. Although I left the eel idea in my post, I like my second idea better:

 

Here's a better idea:

 

To make it easier to have other creatures in the game, such as crabs or seahorses or whatever, instead of having an eel that you can suck energy from, the creature that pops up won't be hiding behind a piece of seaweed, it will be trapped. When a creature is rescued, it will swim up and off the top of the screen. You'll get some points for each rescued creature and if you rescue enough (5 or 10 or whatever) a health canister will be dropped down to you. To be clear, the player does not touch the creature. All the player needs to do is shoot seaweed. Now the player will have another reason to shoot seaweed instead of letting it build up.

 

I'm guessing that they'd send down a health canister after you rescue 5 creatures. That seems like a good number. I'll just need to figure out how often a creature will appear. It will probably be a mix of minimum number of seaweed that must be shot (10?), minimum amount of time that must elapse since the last creature was rescued (10 seconds? 20 seconds? 30 seconds?), and a good random number check that won't make it happen too frequently/infrequently after the other requirements have been met.

 

Speaking of the creatures you can rescue, I made this last night:

 

 

Since the creatures will be almost immediately 'beamed up' to the top of the screen, I may not have to animate them (or won't have to animate them that much). That means I could add more creatures that can be rescued.

 

 

 

 

You already have enemies coming from the top and bottom. How about just adding two more that come from the sides but not aiming for you like the wrothopods and tentacles? Just have them go from side to side like the scorpions in Centipede. Maybe an electric eel coming from a random spot on the right and a stingray coming from a random spot on the left? Since most of the shooting is horizontal, having two random creatures going from one side to the other would give you something to shoot at vertically and other things to dodge. Have them worth bonus points but play on a similar theme as the health canisters losing energy as they drop. When the creatures first come out they are worth the most points and when they are about to leave on the other side they are worth the least points. You could also give them two different animations. The electric eel would swim like a snake slithers and the stingray would swim like a bird flies but both would shock/sting you in a Berzerk like fashion stunning you long enough for the tentacle to start coming for you and maybe the wrothopod if the timing was right. The stun won't harm you but would put you in a position to get harmed by the tentacle and maybe the wrothopod. That should shut up the people that don't see the tentacle enough. You could add sounds from E.T. to the electric eel and the stingray. You could make the electric eel sound like the UFO and the stingray sound like when E.T stretches his neck. It could be like an Easter egg. I know I said that adding any other moving thing would ruin that balance but maybe that would work? Two creatures coming for you from the top and bottom and two creatures swimming from the left and right . Two creatures you don't want to shoot and two creatures you do. Seaweed you shoot horizontally for points and creatures you shoot vertically for bonus points. Health canisters that drain as they fall and creatures that get worth less points as they swim. That sounds balanced. What do you think?

Speaking of the tentacle, I'm going to decrease the time you can sit still before the mature seaweed tentacle reaches up.

 

I could add a horizontally moving enemy or two. If you're on the lower half of the screen, it would appear within the top half and if you're on the top half, it would appear within the lower half of the screen. I'd probably use something other than an eel. I only mentioned an eel when I thought the player might be extracting energy from it.

 

Players might like to shoot at something that isn't seaweed once in a while. I'll have to think about what creatures might be wriggling through the tall strands of mature seaweed that players could shoot without feeling guilty.

 

I've been slowly updating some of the text in the first post. I haven't added the story yet, but I have added some photos from Flickr that might give people more of an idea about what the mature seaweed tentacles might look like in real life.

Edited September 7, 2011 by Random Terrain

[Schizophretard]

Is the reserve bank the same size as the main bank? Like a second life you fill up? I understand that it isn't raining health canisters but if the reserve bank was huge like numbers going up to 99 and none of the extra shield energy that is collected was lost then it might be enough. It seems like adding more ways to earn health canisters would be just making up for the limitations of a reserve bank that causes you to lose extra shield energy.

 

Even if you use a limited reserve bank that requires more ways of earning health canisters, I don't understand why you would have to set up something where a health canister is sent down after you rescue 5 creatures because you would either have to make a counter for how many creatures are rescued or have the player count in their head. The score is already a counter so why not make rescuing a creature worth 200 points? 5 creatures times 200 points is the 1000 points for a canister.

 

I kind of like the idea of creatures being stuck in the seaweed but rescuing them instead of killing them seems like pulling over during a police chase to take a box turtle out of the road and move it to safety. It doesn't seem like a gameplay problem but a plot problem. While you're saving your underwater civilization you're rescuing baby crabs, star fish, and sea turtles and your civilization is rewarding you for it with more energy reserves? If your civilization is being attacked by seaweed why not scuba divers, submarines, submersible flying saucers, terraformers, or something else underwater civilization related?

 

I like the idea of having creatures going across the top when you're on the bottom and going across the bottom when you're on the top. A creature I think would look cool going across the screen is a lobster swimming backwards. I used to watch crawdads swim backwards in creeks when I was a kid. The way they swim looks cool and that would be something interesting to see in a video game. Since wrothopods are made up maybe it could be some kind of lobster mutant? Maybe a one eyed mutant lobster called a cyclobster that makes all the seaweed it touches more dangerous by removing the parasites(the parasites are dangerous to cyclobster eggs)? The seaweed becomes more dangerous because out of instinctive reflex from the lack of parasites it needs it turns red and does more damage to the Manatee when touched. Also, if a wrothopod touches red seaweed it becomes furious just like when it gets shot because it has no parasites to eat. When a cyclobster swims across the screen removing parasites it also randomly hides cyclobster eggs in the red seaweed. You can either shoot the red seaweed(worth double points?), the cyclobster(maybe 400 points?) or it's hidden eggs (maybe 200 points?) for points towards health canisters.

[+Random Terrain]

Is the reserve bank the same size as the main bank? Like a second life you fill up? I understand that it isn't raining health canisters but if the reserve bank was huge like numbers going up to 99 and none of the extra shield energy that is collected was lost then it might be enough. It seems like adding more ways to earn health canisters would be just making up for the limitations of a reserve bank that causes you to lose extra shield energy.

Yep, it's the same size as the other health bar. Check out this example program:

 

pfscore Lives and Health Example

 

That program will let you play with both pfscore bars. We can either have dots (that usually symbolize lives) or we can have full bars (that usually symbolize health).

 

 

 

 

Even if you use a limited reserve bank that requires more ways of earning health canisters, I don't understand why you would have to set up something where a health canister is sent down after you rescue 5 creatures because you would either have to make a counter for how many creatures are rescued or have the player count in their head. The score is already a counter so why not make rescuing a creature worth 200 points? 5 creatures times 200 points is the 1000 points for a canister.

That would be less work for me. I'd just have to be careful because I'm using Nukey Shay's Points Roll Up code. Point values roll up instead of being instantly added to the score, so I have a limit of 255 points at any one time. For example, if the player gets 100 points for a health canister and 94 points or more for shooting a line of seaweed soon after, I'd be getting dangerously close to the 255 limit if any more points were added within a short amount of time.

 

I didn't time it, but it looks like it takes 2 or 3 seconds for 100 points to be added to the score. To be safe, rescued creatures probably shouldn't be worth more than 100 points. And so they won't conflict with the 'clear or accumulate' dilemma, the rescued creatures should probably be worth only 50 points.

 

Another thing to think about is that the game already gets harder and rewards you every time you shoot 100 bits of seaweed. I don't expect the player to count every piece of seaweed that he shoots and I don't have an indicator showing how many have been shot. It just happens at some fuzzy time in the future. It would be the same for rescuing creatures. If they'd send down a health canister after every 5 or 10 rescued creatures, it would just happen at some fuzzy point in the future. The player wouldn't have to count and the program wouldn't have to show how many have been rescued. But like I said, if it sounds like a bad idea, it's less work for me. The less I have to do, the more time I can spend improving other parts of the game.

 

 

 

 

I kind of like the idea of creatures being stuck in the seaweed but rescuing them instead of killing them seems like pulling over during a police chase to take a box turtle out of the road and move it to safety. It doesn't seem like a gameplay problem but a plot problem. While you're saving your underwater civilization you're rescuing baby crabs, star fish, and sea turtles and your civilization is rewarding you for it with more energy reserves? If your civilization is being attacked by seaweed why not scuba divers, submarines, submersible flying saucers, terraformers, or something else underwater civilization related?

The creatures are just semi-random bonuses. The player will never know when the next one will be 'rescued.' They are nothing but an extra temptation that adds to the 'clear or accumulate' dilemma. If we add more important things that are trapped, it would change the tone of the game too much. The player would consciously or subconsciously feel like he should be shooting seaweed all of the time to rescue scuba divers and so on. That would ruin the balance of the clear or accumulate dilemma.

 

The game already shows that your people have a respect for sea life (Wrothopods are protected), so it wouldn't be out of character for your people to reward you for rescuing sea creatures while battling the seaweed. Remember, the player won't know where the creatures are trapped, so it's not like he'll have to go out of his way to rescue them. They'll not only act as a possible temptation, they'll also spice up the game a little.

 

 

 

 

I like the idea of having creatures going across the top when you're on the bottom and going across the bottom when you're on the top. A creature I think would look cool going across the screen is a lobster swimming backwards. I used to watch crawdads swim backwards in creeks when I was a kid. The way they swim looks cool and that would be something interesting to see in a video game. Since wrothopods are made up maybe it could be some kind of lobster mutant? Maybe a one eyed mutant lobster called a cyclobster that makes all the seaweed it touches more dangerous by removing the parasites(the parasites are dangerous to cyclobster eggs)? The seaweed becomes more dangerous because out of instinctive reflex from the lack of parasites it needs it turns red and does more damage to the Manatee when touched. Also, if a wrothopod touches red seaweed it becomes furious just like when it gets shot because it has no parasites to eat. When a cyclobster swims across the screen removing parasites it also randomly hides cyclobster eggs in the red seaweed. You can either shoot the red seaweed(worth double points?), the cyclobster(maybe 400 points?) or it's hidden eggs (maybe 200 points?) for points towards health canisters.

I'll see if there are any YouTube videos showing one of those swimming backwards. I probably won't be able to do the other stuff. You can only change row colors, not individual bits of seaweed.

 

 

I'm glad we're talking this stuff out. The more brains working on this, the better. I like to battle with ideas to make sure they're good enough to keep.

 

 

Thanks.

[Schizophretard]

With the bars for health is there a way for it to work similar to what you are saying about counting 100 pieces of seaweed and counting rescued creatures without an indicator? Could it work like this?:

 

When there are extra units of health they are remembered by the game but there is no indicator of them. When the remembered extra units add up to a full health meter then you get one unit added to your reserve meter. If your health meter goes empty then one of the units of the reserve meter are used to fill the health meter. In other words, the health meter is made up of units of health but each unit of the reserve meter is a full health meter. If that is possible then you could have a much bigger health reserve.

 

To solve the problem of the limit of 255 points at any one time could you lower the scores of everything kind of like how Imagic lowered the scores of Atlantis for Atlantis II? It would also make it harder to roll the score. When people are competing for a high score it makes more sense to just have a screen shot of your score instead of a screen shot of your score plus saying how many times your rolled it before you got that score. And if you make it harder to roll the score it adds more replayability because people would have to play it over and over more before they reach their goal of rolling it.

 

I see what you are saying about the people having a respect for sea life because the Wrothopods are protected but it still doesn't feel right. The Wrothopods and the sentient killer seaweed give the game an out of this world sci-fi feel kind of like the mindworms and fungus in the oceans of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Rescuing real creatures like crabs would feel out of place. Being real creatures, being small in comparison to the seaweed and wrothopods, and not being dangerous would give them a cute little crab baby feel to them. It just doesn't fit. The whole environment should be sci-fi and dangerous. How about this?:

 

The creatures you rescue are baby wrothopods. They look different than adult ones to add some variety. They have three tentacles instead of four and are shaped slightly different than their parents but you can still tell they are wrothopods. They come in three colors: blue, yellow, and red. The exact same blue, yellow, and red as the falling canisters and have the same value. Blue(3 units of health and 100 points), yellow(2 units of health and 50 points), and red(one unit of health and 25 points). Red ones show up more often than yellow ones and yellow ones show up more often than blue ones. When you shoot a piece of seaweed with a baby wrothopod hidden under it, it shows up and swims in place. If you touch it then it does damage to the Manatee. If you shot it then it dies, you get no points, and the next time an adult wrothopod comes down it is automatically furious. If you don't shoot the baby wrothopod then after a few seconds it swims off the top of the screen to it's parents and you instantly get rewarded the appropriate units of health and points.

 

Also have the cyclobsters work the same way as wrothopods but they go in a straight line across the screen towards you without turning like wrothopods and all you have to do is dodge them. If you shoot them they get furious and go faster. They also have blue, yellow, and red babies but their babies swim towards the adult seaweed where the cyclobsters come out of and all the same rules apply like automatically furious if you kill a baby...

 

Rotate back and forth between the wrothopods going down the screen and the cyclobsters going across the screen. Also, have only one baby creature hidden on the screen at a time so you don't get seaweed everywhere trying not to shoot a bunch of them.

 

I'm glad that you're glad. I don't know how to program or what the 2600's limitations are so I'm just crapping out ideas I would like to see, giving my constructive criticism, and hoping I give you something you can use. No matter what you decide to do the game is already pretty awesome as is. You talk about getting it done but it already looks done to me. Everything else you add is just an expansion pack. Out of all the suggestions I'm giving you the ones most important to me are the health meter and reserves. It is real frustrating when I keep my health full, health canisters get wasted, and then when the game picks up pace I don't get a health canister when I really need it.

 

In this video you can kind of see how the lobster swims. It is a jerky motion from them pulling the flipper part their tails under the rest of the tail.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMpChjw4SY

[Christophero Sly]

With all the recent changes you've proposed or already implemented, I've lost track of where you are with this, but I just wanted to drop in and say that I'm still interested in this game and look forward to seeing where you take it.

[+Random Terrain]

With the bars for health is there a way for it to work similar to what you are saying about counting 100 pieces of seaweed and counting rescued creatures without an indicator? Could it work like this?:

 

When there are extra units of health they are remembered by the game but there is no indicator of them. When the remembered extra units add up to a full health meter then you get one unit added to your reserve meter. If your health meter goes empty then one of the units of the reserve meter are used to fill the health meter. In other words, the health meter is made up of units of health but each unit of the reserve meter is a full health meter. If that is possible then you could have a much bigger health reserve.

Yep, I can do that. But although the player can be kept in the dark about how many pieces of seaweed they've shot and how many creatures have been rescued (or whatever I'm going to do), they must know exactly how much energy they have left. If not, every time they are about to run out of energy in the main bank, they'd wonder if that's all they really have left.

 

Now that I've been using two shield banks when I test the game, I kind of like it. The game originally had just one bank that could hold only 8 units of energy. Now players will have an extra bank that allows them to have 16 units of energy. I think that might be enough, especially being the type of game that wasn't meant to be played for a long time.

 

If the player would manage to collect more than 16 units, it would be a reminder that life isn't fair. They'd still get points for grabbing the Health Canister, so it wouldn't be a total loss.

 

 

 

 

 

To solve the problem of the limit of 255 points at any one time could you lower the scores of everything kind of like how Imagic lowered the scores of Atlantis for Atlantis II? It would also make it harder to roll the score. When people are competing for a high score it makes more sense to just have a screen shot of your score instead of a screen shot of your score plus saying how many times your rolled it before you got that score. And if you make it harder to roll the score it adds more replayability because people would have to play it over and over more before they reach their goal of rolling it.

You mean instead of giving 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 for the seaweed, I should use something like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11?

 

And instead of 100, 50, and 25 for Health Canisters, I should drop it to 50, 25, and 10?

 

I wonder if people would accept the seaweed point decrease?

 

 

 

 

 

I see what you are saying about the people having a respect for sea life because the Wrothopods are protected but it still doesn't feel right. The Wrothopods and the sentient killer seaweed give the game an out of this world sci-fi feel kind of like the mindworms and fungus in the oceans of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Rescuing real creatures like crabs would feel out of place. Being real creatures, being small in comparison to the seaweed and wrothopods, and not being dangerous would give them a cute little crab baby feel to them. It just doesn't fit. The whole environment should be sci-fi and dangerous. How about this?:

 

The creatures you rescue are baby wrothopods. They look different than adult ones to add some variety. They have three tentacles instead of four and are shaped slightly different than their parents but you can still tell they are wrothopods. They come in three colors: blue, yellow, and red. The exact same blue, yellow, and red as the falling canisters and have the same value. Blue(3 units of health and 100 points), yellow(2 units of health and 50 points), and red(one unit of health and 25 points). Red ones show up more often than yellow ones and yellow ones show up more often than blue ones. When you shoot a piece of seaweed with a baby wrothopod hidden under it, it shows up and swims in place. If you touch it then it does damage to the Manatee. If you shot it then it dies, you get no points, and the next time an adult wrothopod comes down it is automatically furious. If you don't shoot the baby wrothopod then after a few seconds it swims off the top of the screen to it's parents and you instantly get rewarded the appropriate units of health and points.

 

Also have the cyclobsters work the same way as wrothopods but they go in a straight line across the screen towards you without turning like wrothopods and all you have to do is dodge them. If you shoot them they get furious and go faster. They also have blue, yellow, and red babies but their babies swim towards the adult seaweed where the cyclobsters come out of and all the same rules apply like automatically furious if you kill a baby...

 

Rotate back and forth between the wrothopods going down the screen and the cyclobsters going across the screen. Also, have only one baby creature hidden on the screen at a time so you don't get seaweed everywhere trying not to shoot a bunch of them.

With the version of batari Basic that I'm using now, you can only have two sprites on the screen without flicker. Don't worry, there can only be one creature or bonus item on the screen at the same time. For example, the Health Canister can't come down until the Wrothopod is off the screen.

 

The creatures I was talking about would only be trapped behind the seaweed in theory. Through the magic of

Communist Mutants from Space style animation, they would quickly go from a blob to full size. Here's what the crab looks like next to a Wrothopod:

 

 

I wouldn't have to use creatures based on real life. They could all be weird looking.

 

But I'd be happy to not have to draw a bunch of random creatures. It would help me finish the game sooner.

 

If I go with baby Wrothopods, I can have them hurt you if they touch you or if you shoot them, but the color thing and point thing would probably have to be dropped. The Health Canister glows certain colors as it weakens to let you know exactly how much they're worth. I wouldn't want a random copy of that with no sense to it.

 

The whole point of having a bonus item that semi-randomly pops up from behind a piece of shot seaweed is for it to be a temptation and to spice up the game a little. I want it to be as simple as possible.

 

 

I think I might have a solution:

 

Instead of rescuing creatures or baby Wrothopods or divers or anything like that, the bonus item will be old, weakened, beaten up Health Canisters that were dropped long ago. As soon as one is let loose from behind a piece of shot seaweed, it will instantly zoom over to the Manatee and give one unit of energy and some points. The points could be random within a certain range. Maybe 5 to 25 points.

 

Sounds good to me. I think we have a winner.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm glad that you're glad. I don't know how to program or what the 2600's limitations are so I'm just crapping out ideas I would like to see, giving my constructive criticism, and hoping I give you something you can use. No matter what you decide to do the game is already pretty awesome as is. You talk about getting it done but it already looks done to me. Everything else you add is just an expansion pack. Out of all the suggestions I'm giving you the ones most important to me are the health meter and reserves. It is real frustrating when I keep my health full, health canisters get wasted, and then when the game picks up pace I don't get a health canister when I really need it.

If I keep it the way I mentioned above, your shield energy banks will hold 16 units of energy instead of 8 and the beaten up Health Canisters will keep the energy coming as long as you keep shooting seaweed.

 

 

 

 

 

In this video you can kind of see how the lobster swims. It is a jerky motion from them pulling the flipper part their tails under the rest of the tail.

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

With all the recent changes you've proposed or already implemented, I've lost track of where you are with this, but I just wanted to drop in and say that I'm still interested in this game and look forward to seeing where you take it.

Thanks. I hope the changes will make it more fun. I also fixed a bug where the game can end after the player gets more energy. You won't have to worry about that in the next version I post, which I hope won't be too long from now.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Random Terrain

[Schizophretard]

You only gain one reserve unit(equal to 8 units of health) for every 8 you collect. So, if you have a full health meter and have only collected 7 then you still only have the original 8 until you collect the 8th unit. You don't have 15 units of health. If you lost all 8 then you're dead because you don't get to use the other 7. The game counts how many units you have collected without you knowing the number(just like it counts the seaweed) and when you have collected 8 it rewards you a reserve unit. If you have a reserve unit and your health meter goes empty then the entire reserve unit is used to fill up your health meter. You could potentially have a full health meter(8 units of health) plus a full reserve meter(64 units of health) for a total of 72 units of health. But reaching that potential would be very hard because the game is only adding up the extra units of health after your health meter is full. If you have 6 units of health in your health meter and get a health canister worth 3 units then 2 of them go to filling up your health meter and the 1 left over goes towards earning your reserve unit. If you kept losing 2 units and gaining 3 units over and over then you would have to collect 8 health canisters worth 3 units before you earn your first reserve unit. Think of it as earning extra lives but not as simple as earning a specific amount of points. You have to earn the points(100 pieces of seaweed or 1000 points) to earn a health canister, you have to collect the health canister fast(blue=3 units, yellow=2 units, and red= 1 unit), you have to do well to keep your health meter as full as possible, and you have to have collected a total of 8 extra units after all of that before earning a reserve unit. So you are earning "extra lives" for playing the game well in every way.

 

Yes, something like that. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't accept a seaweed point decrease as long as you have them balanced the same. It is like inflation. The price of gold goes up but it's value is the same because what is really happening is the purchasing power of the dollar is going down. If the purchasing power of the dollar went up then the price of gold would go down. It doesn't matter if you destroyed half of the dollars in the world or doubled them. The value of gold would stay the same because there is still the same amount of gold in the world. My dad told me stories about his mom going to the movies and buying popcorn for a quarter. I used to think,"Wow! That is cheap!" but now I know that back then a silver dollar was a dollar and today I would have to pay $20 for one silver dollar. I don't know if all that is 100% correct but I think you get the idea. The price of a health canister could change but if everything is balanced the same then a health canister has the same value. The only thing that would change is how long it takes to get to 999,999 points. If you doubled all the points it would take half as long to roll the score. If you halved all the points it would take twice as long to roll the score. The point of a high score is to beat your high score and others high scores. Rolling the score it just reaching the limit of how many digits a game's score has and then after that people count how many times they rolled it to show their high score. They do that because 999,999 points is a limitation. The easier it is to reach 999,999 points the more of a limitation it is and the less of an achievement it is. The harder it is to reach 999,999 points the less of a limitation it is and the more of an achievement it is. I prefer it to be less of a limitation and more of an achievement.

 

I kind of like the beaten up health canister idea. Can you show me a ROM with the beaten up health canisters and the reserve meter to test it?

 

Can you affect the speed of the torpedoes?

[+Random Terrain]

You only gain one reserve unit(equal to 8 units of health) for every 8 you collect. So, if you have a full health meter and have only collected 7 then you still only have the original 8 until you collect the 8th unit. You don't have 15 units of health. If you lost all 8 then you're dead because you don't get to use the other 7. The game counts how many units you have collected without you knowing the number(just like it counts the seaweed) and when you have collected 8 it rewards you a reserve unit. If you have a reserve unit and your health meter goes empty then the entire reserve unit is used to fill up your health meter. You could potentially have a full health meter(8 units of health) plus a full reserve meter(64 units of health) for a total of 72 units of health. But reaching that potential would be very hard because the game is only adding up the extra units of health after your health meter is full. If you have 6 units of health in your health meter and get a health canister worth 3 units then 2 of them go to filling up your health meter and the 1 left over goes towards earning your reserve unit. If you kept losing 2 units and gaining 3 units over and over then you would have to collect 8 health canisters worth 3 units before you earn your first reserve unit. Think of it as earning extra lives but not as simple as earning a specific amount of points. You have to earn the points(100 pieces of seaweed or 1000 points) to earn a health canister, you have to collect the health canister fast(blue=3 units, yellow=2 units, and red= 1 unit), you have to do well to keep your health meter as full as possible, and you have to have collected a total of 8 extra units after all of that before earning a reserve unit. So you are earning "extra lives" for playing the game well in every way.

I'll PM you the way it is, before changing it, so you can see how the reserve bank is working right now.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, something like that. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't accept a seaweed point decrease as long as you have them balanced the same. It is like inflation. The price of gold goes up but it's value is the same because what is really happening is the purchasing power of the dollar is going down. If the purchasing power of the dollar went up then the price of gold would go down. It doesn't matter if you destroyed half of the dollars in the world or doubled them. The value of gold would stay the same because there is still the same amount of gold in the world. My dad told me stories about his mom going to the movies and buying popcorn for a quarter. I used to think,"Wow! That is cheap!" but now I know that back then a silver dollar was a dollar and today I would have to pay $20 for one silver dollar. I don't know if all that is 100% correct but I think you get the idea. The price of a health canister could change but if everything is balanced the same then a health canister has the same value. The only thing that would change is how long it takes to get to 999,999 points. If you doubled all the points it would take half as long to roll the score. If you halved all the points it would take twice as long to roll the score. The point of a high score is to beat your high score and others high scores. Rolling the score it just reaching the limit of how many digits a game's score has and then after that people count how many times they rolled it to show their high score. They do that because 999,999 points is a limitation. The easier it is to reach 999,999 points the more of a limitation it is and the less of an achievement it is. The harder it is to reach 999,999 points the less of a limitation it is and the more of an achievement it is. I prefer it to be less of a limitation and more of an achievement.

It would be nice to not have to worry about the 255 limit as much. I'll create a poll and ask people what they think.

 

Forget the poll. I messed up when adding the numbers before. Here's the correct total:

 

2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 16 + 18 + 20 = 110

 

If the player would get more 20 point shots after that, then get bonus points from a Health Canister, they could get way too close to the 255 limit.

 

This would be safer and it should be enough points to still be a temptation:

 

2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 = 65

 

It's certainly better than if there were no multiplier and all bits of seaweed were only worth 2 points each. Instead of 20 points for 10 bits of seaweed shot in a row, the player will get 65 points, plus 11 points for each bit of seaweed hit after the 10th piece.

 

 

 

 

I kind of like the beaten up health canister idea. Can you show me a ROM with the beaten up health canisters and the reserve meter to test it?

I'll be sending you a PM before it's added, then another one after it's added.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you affect the speed of the torpedoes?

I can make them slower, but not faster. If torpedoes go any faster, the player could miss a bit of seaweed when it clearly should have been shot.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Random Terrain

[Schizophretard]

Sounds good.

[Schizophretard]

Forget the Poll!

 

Okay, I think you were right about how to set up the reserve bank. At least you were right for me because I suck so bad that none of my energy units went to waste and after four games I never filled up the reserve bank. I experienced none of the frustration of wasted energy units and if someone is good enough to keep their reverse bank full then I doubt they will be frustrated with wasted energy units. BUT I thought up another impossible programming suggestion. If someone is good enough to keep both banks full then the units that would be wasted should be converted into bonus points. It shouldn't be something super high like 500 or 1000 points because they could constantly have health canisters falling and basically be immortal. Maybe just double the health canister's points. Since a blue one is worth 3 units of energy and 100 points then they should get 200 points for 3 extra units. Since a yellow one is worth 2 units of energy and 50 points then they should get 100 points for 2 extra units. Since a red one is worth 1 unit of energy and 25 points then they should get 50 points for 1 extra unit. I think that would work well. The people that struggle to survive like myself wouldn't lose any units from health canisters they desperately need because of the reserve bank and the people who are good enough to keep both banks full would be rewarded with double points for their extra units. No units would be wasted. But to do that you would probably have to lower all the points because of that problem with the limit of 255 points.

 

Is it possible to move the main bank to the left side and move the reserve bank to the right side? It seems backwards. I feel like I'm reading Arabic with dyslexia. The only way I can make sense of it as is, is to call the reserve bank shields and the main bank health because damage happens to your shields before damage happens to your health.

 

Is it possible to program the difficulty switches where one selects either 100 bits of seaweed or 200 bits of seaweed for increasing the rate of seaweed reproduction and the other switch selects rather or not you start with a full reserve bank?

 

I like how you reduced the seaweed tentacle grab down to a second instead of a second and a half. I still rarely ever see the tentacle because I'm constantly moving but I hear the Jaws like sound more often which is what keeps me moving. I noticed that at the third tone it comes out. It is like ,"1 ,2, 3, Here I come!" If you kept it at one second but had it come out at the second tone then I would hear the sound just as often but see it more often. Instead of,"1 ,2, 3, Here I come!" it could be,"1 ,2, 3, Here I AM!" Or ,since it takes time to travel to the top, it would work well if he comes out at the first tone when you are in the top third of the screen, second tone when you are in the middle third of the screen, and third tone when you are in the bottom third of the screen.

 

Is it possible to make the tentacle wavy like the seaweed on the copyright screen? Maybe have the first green rectangle going at you, the second one over one space, the third one back to where the first one is..... back and forth? Or do a trick with making the rectangles half blue and half green to give the same appearance but thinner? Or maybe have the one that grabs you shaped like a grouping of tentacles like the back of a wrothopod so it could look hand like?

 

Okay, you can't change the speed of the torpedo but what can you change? Color, length, thickness, multi-colored, changing colors, shape, flickering,...?

 

Can you explain the design of the Manatee? Why it looks the way it does?

 

As I was playing I was thinking about your idea with the hidden canisters. I noticed situations where the screen is full of seaweed and it could be hard to find that hidden canister. Like the top row is so full and the seaweed is growing so fast that I would die trying to find that canister that is hidden in the top corner, so finding it isn't even worth it. The only benefit would be actually finding a hidden treasure but since it is staying in that top corner the rest of the game it won't really be serving the purpose of getting more canisters. It would probably work better if it is constantly moving under all the seaweed and then when I shoot the one it happens to be under at that moment then it appears to me that I found it under the one it has been under the whole time. Or maybe have the game pick a random number from 1-100 pieces of seaweed. When I shoot that many it shows up and it just looks like I found it. Then the game picks another number from 1-100....

 

I like the new copyright. I think this is an issue with Stella and the real hardware because I noticed some differences. The 2010 copyright screen looks correct on Stella. The lettering is smooth and solid but on my modified Colecovision expansion module with s-video on a CRT TV it looks wrong. The writing looks thinner and there are gaps. So thin that the 1 in 2010 looks like the thin line on the back of the last 0. The last 0 looks kind of like [l and all of 2010 looks something like 2[ll[l. The 2011 one looks much better. Both versions have three extra green lines floating above the last strand of seaweed but they don't show up on Stella. Only on Stella does all the words somewhat bounce. Also, on Stella the game over screen goes all the way to the top. On both versions ,on real hardware, there is a big blue gap on the top of the game over screen.

 

Over all though it looks infinitely better on real hardware than on Stella. I think there are probably just some bugs since you started programming it on Stella before you had your Harmony Cart. Some of these bugs you can probably solve from viewing it with your Harmony Cart but some you might not because you are using RF and the dot crawl and color bleed might cover them up. It could just be my Colecovision expansion module with s-video on a CRT TV but just in case see if you notice any of this and see if others playing with a Harmony Cart and/or s-video mod notice. If you get it to look the best through an s-video mod through a CRT TV then it will look the best it can on all TV's.

 

Anyway, the new version is getting better. I'll give as much feed back as I can until it is done ,to give you ideas, or to help inspire your own ideas. Don't stress. This game is awesome and it will be even more so.

[abaudrand]

Can't wait for a cartridge release, the game is very challenging.

[+Random Terrain]

Okay, I think you were right about how to set up the reserve bank. At least you were right for me because I suck so bad that none of my energy units went to waste and after four games I never filled up the reserve bank. I experienced none of the frustration of wasted energy units and if someone is good enough to keep their reverse bank full then I doubt they will be frustrated with wasted energy units. BUT I thought up another impossible programming suggestion. If someone is good enough to keep both banks full then the units that would be wasted should be converted into bonus points. It shouldn't be something super high like 500 or 1000 points because they could constantly have health canisters falling and basically be immortal. Maybe just double the health canister's points. Since a blue one is worth 3 units of energy and 100 points then they should get 200 points for 3 extra units. Since a yellow one is worth 2 units of energy and 50 points then they should get 100 points for 2 extra units. Since a red one is worth 1 unit of energy and 25 points then they should get 50 points for 1 extra unit. I think that would work well. The people that struggle to survive like myself wouldn't lose any units from health canisters they desperately need because of the reserve bank and the people who are good enough to keep both banks full would be rewarded with double points for their extra units. No units would be wasted. But to do that you would probably have to lower all the points because of that problem with the limit of 255 points.

Yeah, I was thinking about converting extra energy to points and it wouldn't be that hard to do. (I just added it.)

 

 

 

 

 

Is it possible to move the main bank to the left side and move the reserve bank to the right side? It seems backwards. I feel like I'm reading Arabic with dyslexia. The only way I can make sense of it as is, is to call the reserve bank shields and the main bank health because damage happens to your shields before damage happens to your health.

I PMed you a version with both banks filled and you'll probably want to keep them the way they are. The limitations of the Atari 2600 make the bank on the left empty backwards.

 

 

 

 

 

Is it possible to program the difficulty switches where one selects either 100 bits of seaweed or 200 bits of seaweed for increasing the rate of seaweed reproduction and the other switch selects rather or not you start with a full reserve bank?

I could do it, but there are two problems with that. Based on years of posts in the Atari 2600 forum, it seems the first problem is that most people don't read the manual. However the game is when they turn on the Atari 2600, that's the way they'll play it. The second problem is that it seems like most people don't pay attention to the difficulty switches. Atari decided to hide the difficulty switches on the back of their newer consoles and more and more classic games stopped using them. Do most emulator users even know which F keys are used to switch between A and B or what the default setting is?

 

Since I have to redo the title screen anyway, maybe I can add a small menu of some kind.

 

 

 

 

 

I like how you reduced the seaweed tentacle grab down to a second instead of a second and a half. I still rarely ever see the tentacle because I'm constantly moving but I hear the Jaws like sound more often which is what keeps me moving. I noticed that at the third tone it comes out. It is like ,"1 ,2, 3, Here I come!" If you kept it at one second but had it come out at the second tone then I would hear the sound just as often but see it more often. Instead of,"1 ,2, 3, Here I come!" it could be,"1 ,2, 3, Here I AM!" Or ,since it takes time to travel to the top, it would work well if he comes out at the first tone when you are in the top third of the screen, second tone when you are in the middle third of the screen, and third tone when you are in the bottom third of the screen.

I just changed it so you have warning if you're in the bottom 3rd of the screen, but if you're higher than that on the screen, the seaweed tentacle will come up at the same time the sound starts playing (no early warning).

 

 

 

 

 

Is it possible to make the tentacle wavy like the seaweed on the copyright screen? Maybe have the first green rectangle going at you, the second one over one space, the third one back to where the first one is..... back and forth? Or do a trick with making the rectangles half blue and half green to give the same appearance but thinner? Or maybe have the one that grabs you shaped like a grouping of tentacles like the back of a wrothopod so it could look hand like?

I could do something like that in a special DPC+ version of the game where I'll have 10 sprites instead of two, but for now, the seaweed tentacle is the ball:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#ball

 

It can't wiggle (unless you're an assembly language programmer, then you could make it do all kinds of things).

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, you can't change the speed of the torpedo but what can you change? Color, length, thickness, multi-colored, changing colors, shape, flickering,...?

You can read more about it here:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#missiles

 

It has to be the same color as the Manatee. It can be 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels wide and can be about as tall as you want it. I could flicker it by turning it off and on, but I wouldn't want to since I hate flicker and it might miss a bit of seaweed while it was off.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you explain the design of the Manatee? Why it looks the way it does?

Just like the Wrothopod, I started drawing and let it create itself. All I know is that it's a semi-organic submarine that swims instead of using a propeller. It's kind of like something out of a Star Trek episode. It's a one-person submarine with thick shark-like skin.

 

 

 

 

 

As I was playing I was thinking about your idea with the hidden canisters. I noticed situations where the screen is full of seaweed and it could be hard to find that hidden canister. Like the top row is so full and the seaweed is growing so fast that I would die trying to find that canister that is hidden in the top corner, so finding it isn't even worth it. The only benefit would be actually finding a hidden treasure but since it is staying in that top corner the rest of the game it won't really be serving the purpose of getting more canisters. It would probably work better if it is constantly moving under all the seaweed and then when I shoot the one it happens to be under at that moment then it appears to me that I found it under the one it has been under the whole time. Or maybe have the game pick a random number from 1-100 pieces of seaweed. When I shoot that many it shows up and it just looks like I found it. Then the game picks another number from 1-100....

I guess I didn't explain it clearly. There won't really be a canister that is trapped behind seaweed. That's just what the player will be told. In reality, a beaten up canister will pop up when a bit of seaweed has been shot only when a minimum number of seaweed has been shot, mixed with a minimum amount of time, mixed with a random number that is fair. There will never be a specific bit of seaweed on the screen that you'll have to shoot.

 

 

 

 

 

I like the new copyright. I think this is an issue with Stella and the real hardware because I noticed some differences. The 2010 copyright screen looks correct on Stella. The lettering is smooth and solid but on my modified Colecovision expansion module with s-video on a CRT TV it looks wrong. The writing looks thinner and there are gaps. So thin that the 1 in 2010 looks like the thin line on the back of the last 0. The last 0 looks kind of like [l and all of 2010 looks something like 2[ll[l. The 2011 one looks much better. Both versions have three extra green lines floating above the last strand of seaweed but they don't show up on Stella. Only on Stella does all the words somewhat bounce. Also, on Stella the game over screen goes all the way to the top. On both versions ,on real hardware, there is a big blue gap on the top of the game over screen.

The title screen mess up is explained here:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169819-the-titlescreen-kernel/page__st__100__p__2369854#entry2369854

 

I'll have to relearn how, then redo the title screen.

 

The blue gap isn't seen in Stella because the default YStart number is 34 (under the Display tab in Game Properties). I adjusted YStart until it looked like what I was seeing using my real Atari 2600 and it appears that the correct number to use is 28.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, the new version is getting better. I'll give as much feed back as I can until it is done, to give you ideas, or to help inspire your own ideas. Don't stress. This game is awesome and it will be even more so.

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

Can't wait for a cartridge release, the game is very challenging.

Thanks, but there probably won't be a cartridge release. I don't have or know how to do all of the stuff that is required (boxes, labels, expensive PDF software, a high-quality printer, the ability to write coherent sentences, artistic talent, and so on).

Edited September 12, 2011 by Random Terrain

[+D Train]

Thanks, but there probably won't be a cartridge release. I don't have or know how to do all of the stuff that is required (boxes, labels, expensive PDF software, a high-quality printer, the ability to write coherent sentences, artistic talent, and so on).

 

What's that projected up on the clouds? Is it a little red guy falling through a hole? It is!

 

This is a job for....Brian O!

 

I spend most of my time lurking...but it would be very sad if this game never made it onto a cartridge. It's certainly interesting and creative enough, especially compared to some of the atari cartridges that I can remember buying in the late 70s...

 

-- David

[+Random Terrain]

What's that projected up on the clouds? Is it a little red guy falling through a hole? It is!

 

This is a job for....Brian O!

 

I spend most of my time lurking...but it would be very sad if this game never made it onto a cartridge. It's certainly interesting and creative enough, especially compared to some of the atari cartridges that I can remember buying in the late 70s...

Thanks. The most important thing is to get it finished. We can worry about the other stuff later. I'm giving myself the fake deadline of October 1st. If it takes longer, I won't try to French kiss a wood chipper, but I hope the fake deadline will help speed up the process.

[Brian O]

Thanks, but there probably won't be a cartridge release. I don't have or know how to do all of the stuff that is required (boxes, labels, expensive PDF software, a high-quality printer, the ability to write coherent sentences, artistic talent, and so on).

 

What's that projected up on the clouds? Is it a little red guy falling through a hole? It is!

 

This is a job for....Brian O!

 

I spend most of my time lurking...but it would be very sad if this game never made it onto a cartridge. It's certainly interesting and creative enough, especially compared to some of the atari cartridges that I can remember buying in the late 70s...

 

-- David

 

Thanks, David I did some mock art for Seaweed Assault, so if RT ever needs to leverage the artwork all he has to do is ask!

 

I'm hoping that this gets released on cart, too.

 

-B

[Schizophretard]

WOW! Lowing the bits of seaweed from 100 to 10 for the purpose of seeing how the energy conversion works made the rate of reproduction INSANE! I bet D.A.R.Y.L. or the kid from the Wizard couldn't even handle that. It was so fast that I had trouble watching the score and doing the math but I think you did the double canister points the way I suggested. Just to double check, the points work like this?:

 

Seaweed combos: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,11,11...

 

Health canisters when used for health: 10, 25, 50

 

Health canisters when health banks full: 20, 50, 100

 

If that is how it works then that is exactly what I was saying. The only thing that concerns me is the health canister with the guidance system still being 1000 points when all the other scoring has been halved. Well, mostly halved because the double canister points and the seaweed combos still starting with 2 and ending with 11 adds a little bit more. If the guidance system canister was 500 points then the balance might be close to the same as before. But that 2 still being the same for a single piece of seaweed could go a long way, be a lot more than just a little bit more, and 500 points could be too low. If the combos were 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,10... then 500 would be the right number to keep the same balance. Then the double canister points, the health reserve, and the hidden canisters could make survival a little easier. But with reproduction increasing after every 10 pieces of seaweed it is hard to tell.

 

Seeing both banks full at the beginning took away that reading from right to left dyslexia feeling. Since they can't switch sides my vote is they start full. The reserve bank being empty or disabled could be for the difficulty level if you decide to make a menu. Also, since we keep saying energy units, health units, reserve bank, health bank, second bank...., I vote we call the left bank shields, the right bank health, and the units energy because when some Taiwanese pirate tries to translate the box and manual into English he will be more confused than I am.

 

You do make a good point about the difficulty switches. I never thought about how someone could consider how it is when they first play it as the default setting. The new title screen isn't that bad. I recorded a video of it on my wife's flip cam. It was hard to get a clear picture because of the different refresh rates and how much my CRT made the picture blur from the glow. With her flip cam you can look at each frame and take a snapshot. I took a snapshot of the clearest frame. How the copyright looks is close to how the whole screen looks with s-video including the actual game play. Every pixel is sharp and adds texture to the picture. It is beautiful. The seaweed looks nothing like the picture. It also is sharp and textured. Seaweed Assault doesn't have those jagged edges. That's just how it looks in one frame. The only major problem is the three out of place lines above the last strand of seaweed. Then there are almost unnoticeable vertical "cuts" and the most noticeable one is the line in the A of Assault that is directly above the three out of place lines. Otherwise, the title screen is beautiful and very professional looking. It is all sharp, clear, colorful, and textured. Even that ballerina that is taking a crap on the seaweed looks cool. I attached the snapshot for you below.

 

When you redo it, you should just take the bugs out of this one and if you decide to add a menu just put the options on the left and right of the seaweed. Maybe growth rate: x1, x2, x3 (3 being 100 pieces, 2 being 200, and 1 being 300) on one side and shields: full, empty, disabled on the other.

 

I like how you set up the tentacle grab warning only on the bottom third of the screen. It is hard to tell ,with this super hard version you sent me, exactly how it would feel but I can tell it will work better. Is there a way to make it pull down the same length as a piece of seaweed? It seems like it is slowly nudging me out of a piece of seaweed while killing me and it makes it seem weaker than it looks as it is coming for me. It should be strong enough to do a bigger yank.

 

The reason I was asking the limitations on what you can do with the torpedo is to see how close you could make it look like the trail left in the water from an actual torpedo. In Seaquest they make it a straight line but I was wondering if you can do more than making it different sized squares and rectangles.

 

Since you could make wrothopod sized hidden creatures pop out of the seaweed, could you make an explosion pop out? Nothing real extravagant like a big flickering firework distraction, but something a little more than it just disappearing? Maybe like a "creature" that is the same blue as the water with little green squares scattered in a circle that is just there for a spit second? Or maybe a water blue "creature" that has one piece of seaweed in the center that looks half the size of the original seaweed so that when it appears for a slit second it gives the appearance of it shrinking down to nothing? Something that would look ridiculous if you took a snapshot of the frame but happens so fast that it tricks our eyes to think something a little more than the seaweed instantly disappeared happened?

 

What Star Trek episode? If it is original or next generation I'll probably know it.

 

Your explanation of how the hidden seaweed would work sounds perfect.

 

Anyway, I hope I'm not annoying you with these long-winded posts. If I am then I promise I'll stop by the October 1st of 2524 deadline.

 

For those who would like to see it on a cartridge, If you think it is good enough to be on cartridge then it must be good enough for this. After you go there, later on you can ask RT's permission to put it on cart, ask Brian's permission to use his art, and then go here. BAM DONE! Problem solved.

[Mr SQL]

RT,

I tried Seaweed Assault this weekend with some friends - feels like SolarFox mixed with Frogger; excellent game, really cool elements - everyone enjoyed!

[+Random Terrain]

WOW! Lowing the bits of seaweed from 100 to 10 for the purpose of seeing how the energy conversion works made the rate of reproduction INSANE! I bet D.A.R.Y.L. or the kid from the Wizard couldn't even handle that. It was so fast that I had trouble watching the score and doing the math but I think you did the double canister points the way I suggested. Just to double check, the points work like this?:

 

Seaweed combos: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,11,11...

 

Health canisters when used for health: 50, 25, 10

 

Health canisters when health banks full: 100, 50, 20

Yep, that's the way it works, except the last one is only true if your Health Energy Indicator is full. If your health energy is a notch or two down, the extra points will be less. For example, if you get the canister that has 3 units of health energy and you needed one unit before your Health Energy Indicator is full, the bonus points drop from 50 to 25. If you needed 2 units, the bonus points drop to 10.

 

 

 

 

 

If that is how it works then that is exactly what I was saying. The only thing that concerns me is the health canister with the guidance system still being 1000 points when all the other scoring has been halved. Well, mostly halved because the double canister points and the seaweed combos still starting with 2 and ending with 11 adds a little bit more. If the guidance system canister was 500 points then the balance might be close to the same as before. But that 2 still being the same for a single piece of seaweed could go a long way, be a lot more than just a little bit more, and 500 points could be too low. If the combos were 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,10... then 500 would be the right number to keep the same balance. Then the double canister points, the health reserve, and the hidden canisters could make survival a little easier. But with reproduction increasing after every 10 pieces of seaweed it is hard to tell.

Even with the points the way they were before, it could feel like it took forever to reach 1,000 points, so lowering it to 500 is probably a good idea.

 

 

 

 

 

Seeing both banks full at the beginning took away that reading from right to left dyslexia feeling. Since they can't switch sides my vote is they start full. The reserve bank being empty or disabled could be for the difficulty level if you decide to make a menu. Also, since we keep saying energy units, health units, reserve bank, health bank, second bank...., I vote we call the left bank shields, the right bank health, and the units energy because when some Taiwanese pirate tries to translate the box and manual into English he will be more confused than I am.

Instead of thinking of them as separate, I'll just tell players that they start out with 16 units of health energy. That whole thing down there is a Health Energy Indicator.

 

I wasn't sure if the skin repairs itself or if the submarine just has shields, but looking at the following page about SeaQuest DSV, I think I'll go with skin that repairs itself:

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeaQuestDSV

Living Ship - The ship has an organic, self-repairing external skin (handy if you've just been torpedoed). At least one episode involves it developing an infection and threatening to lose all structural integrity.

 

I'll tell players something like this in the first post:

 

The Manatee is a semi-organic submarine that moves by using two flippers in the back that flap a little, but mostly undulate in a similar way to how certain types of stingrays and skates undulate the edges of their pectoral fins. Below are two examples:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIif0dGWMt0&rel=0&fmt=35&showinfo=0&start=31

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcrAHyOVN7s&rel=0&fmt=35&showinfo=0

 

 

The Manatee has thick, gray, shark-like skin that is self-repairing. Whenever the Manatee is damaged, it will use a unit of health energy to automatically repair itself. The Manatee needs at least one unit of health energy to stay healthy, so when you are down to your last unit, the Health Energy Indicator will turn red, alerting you that any more damage will end your mission. But don't worry, the Manatee starts out with 16 units of health energy and more units can be earned and uncovered.

 

 

 

 

 

You do make a good point about the difficulty switches. I never thought about how someone could consider how it is when they first play it as the default setting. The new title screen isn't that bad. I recorded a video of it on my wife's flip cam. It was hard to get a clear picture because of the different refresh rates and how much my CRT made the picture blur from the glow. With her flip cam you can look at each frame and take a snapshot. I took a snapshot of the clearest frame. How the copyright looks is close to how the whole screen looks with s-video including the actual game play. Every pixel is sharp and adds texture to the picture. It is beautiful. The seaweed looks nothing like the picture. It also is sharp and textured. Seaweed Assault doesn't have those jagged edges. That's just how it looks in one frame. The only major problem is the three out of place lines above the last strand of seaweed. Then there are almost unnoticeable vertical "cuts" and the most noticeable one is the line in the A of Assault that is directly above the three out of place lines. Otherwise, the title screen is beautiful and very professional looking. It is all sharp, clear, colorful, and textured. Even that ballerina that is taking a crap on the seaweed looks cool. I attached the snapshot for you below.

 

When you redo it, you should just take the bugs out of this one and if you decide to add a menu just put the options on the left and right of the seaweed. Maybe growth rate: x1, x2, x3 (3 being 100 pieces, 2 being 200, and 1 being 300) on one side and shields: full, empty, disabled on the other.

Thanks for attaching the image. That weird stuff above the seaweed doesn't show up on my Harmony cart, but the image will probably have to be removed anyway. Changing the title screen will be the last thing I do in case I have to add a menu, but once I do it, most of what you see now will have to be changed or removed because of the various limitations.

 

 

 

 

 

I like how you set up the tentacle grab warning only on the bottom third of the screen. It is hard to tell, with this super hard version you sent me, exactly how it would feel but I can tell it will work better. Is there a way to make it pull down the same length as a piece of seaweed? It seems like it is slowly nudging me out of a piece of seaweed while killing me and it makes it seem weaker than it looks as it is coming for me. It should be strong enough to do a bigger yank.

I just doubled the amount of yankage. Next time I PM you the latest version, you can see if that's enough yank.

 

 

 

 

 

The reason I was asking the limitations on what you can do with the torpedo is to see how close you could make it look like the trail left in the water from an actual torpedo. In Seaquest they make it a straight line but I was wondering if you can do more than making it different sized squares and rectangles.

When I make the DPC+ version in the future, those 10 multicolored sprites should allow me to do various things to make the game look better.

 

 

 

 

 

Since you could make wrothopod sized hidden creatures pop out of the seaweed, could you make an explosion pop out? Nothing real extravagant like a big flickering firework distraction, but something a little more than it just disappearing? Maybe like a "creature" that is the same blue as the water with little green squares scattered in a circle that is just there for a spit second? Or maybe a water blue "creature" that has one piece of seaweed in the center that looks half the size of the original seaweed so that when it appears for a split second it gives the appearance of it shrinking down to nothing? Something that would look ridiculous if you took a snapshot of the frame but happens so fast that it tricks our eyes to think something a little more than the seaweed instantly disappeared happened?

I should probably save that for the DPC+ version since I only have 2 sprites and only one creature or bonus item can be on the screen with the Manatee.

 

 

 

 

 

What Star Trek episode? If it is original or next generation I'll probably know it.

Take a look:

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LivingShip

Star Trek: The Next Generation: there was a being called "Tin Man" (in the episode of the same name) that had been used as a living ship.

 

Also, in the very first episode "Encounter at Farpoint", Farpoint Station is eventually discovered to actually be a living space-jellyfish-type organism that was forced to assume the form of a space station.

 

Star Trek and more. Check out the Live Action Television section on that page.

 

 

 

 

 

Your explanation of how the hidden seaweed would work sounds perfect.

That's good. I'll be adding that next once I figure out what the beaten up Health Canister will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I hope I'm not annoying you with these long-winded posts. If I am then I promise I'll stop by the October 1st of 2524 deadline.

Nope, it just takes me a long time to answer since I'm adding things to the program at the same time, then posting again, adding, posting, adding, posting. . . I'm too slow.

 

If you weren't posting ideas and suggesting improvements, I'd be 'talking out loud' in my blog, trying to figure things out on my own.

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RT,

I tried Seaweed Assault this weekend with some friends - feels like SolarFox mixed with Frogger; excellent game, really cool elements - everyone enjoyed!

Thanks. Hopefully the game will be more enjoyable when I get done.

[Mr SQL]

RT,

I tried Seaweed Assault this weekend with some friends - feels like SolarFox mixed with Frogger; excellent game, really cool elements - everyone enjoyed!

Thanks. Hopefully the game will be more enjoyable when I get done.

Looking forward to trying the next release!

[Schizophretard]

Here is your picture of the energy health canisters from the first page:

 

 

I made this in paint. I shifted each level of it into a pattern that is like a crushed coke can(all crinkled) but still appealing to the eye. Just make the color exactly like the red canister because it is worth one unit and it will pass as a beaten up energy health canister. What do you think?

[+Random Terrain]

What do you think?

I'll probably make it a little darker red than the original red to simulate being all dirty and banged up. I'll try your shape and preview it in Stella to see what it looks like.

 

 

Thanks.

[Schizophretard]

Good idea about making it darker but not just because it is dirty and banged up but because of rust. Could you make it so that it stays in place until you grab it instead of it instantly being collected or at least give it a guidance system? I'm asking so it won't look magical and would look like you're cleaning up your civilizations mess.

[+Random Terrain]

Good idea about making it darker but not just because it is dirty and banged up but because of rust. Could you make it so that it stays in place until you grab it instead of it instantly being collected or at least give it a guidance system? I'm asking so it won't look magical and would look like you're cleaning up your civilizations mess.

Problem is that I need to get them off the screen as fast as possible so they won't interfere with Wrothopods and other Health Canisters. Players could also keep these things on the screen on purpose and block the appearance of Wrothopods.

 

I can either tell players that these things are long lost Homing Health Canisters or I can give these things a short time limit before they explode.

 

I already make the player go after regular Health Canisters, so it might be cool to have Homing Health Canisters that aren't just the ones that appear every 500 points.

 

 

 

I did a version of the beaten up Homing Health Canister using your shape:

 

 

 

It looked a little too beaten up to me, so I played around for a little while, trying to keep the basic shape of the original Health Canister, while making it look a little different and finally came up with this:

 

 

I changed the color, took a piece out of the middle to make it look like it's been compacted a little, and took two small pieces out of it. I kind of like it.