HSC Season 5 Week 26: Planet Patrol

[aftermac]

I typed the following in Stella's debugger:

rom f378 $30
rom f43a $30
saverom ppbigbullet.bin

 

Vast improvement! I just gave it a test run, and not one of my shots passed through an enemy. I scored 19,320 despite having a few navigational errors!

[+SpiceWare]

Yep - I don't think it's fair to use it for this week's scores though since it's almost over.

[aftermac]

I agree, I only posted my score for dramatic effect. We should all be using the beta... er... original to finish out the week.

[keilbaca]

No more scores for me, family issues has me too rattled to do anything. I'll see you guys next week.

[toymailman]

Final submission for me.

 

18,880

 

 

Great fix SpiceWare!

The other things to make this game great would be...

 

1) Slightly slower difficulty ramp (mentioned before)

It seems wave 1&2 are very slow. On a difficulty scale of 1-10 maybe a 1 and 2 repectivly (2 because of the night time portion. Waves 3&4 pick up a little but not too much maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10. Then wave 5 is crazy fast; at least a 9. If changing it I would keep waves 1-3 the same but scale wave 4 up a bit and 5 down a bit. Then instead of going back to wave 2, keep the difficulty (and scoring) on par with the wave 5 level.

 

2) Bonus points for energy/fuel left after landing on the runway.

 

3) Replenish energy with every new ship. Currently if you die on any wave then the new ship retains the fuel level of the ship that was just destroyed.

 

4) The "bug" about running into the force-field isn't a bug. The manual states that running into it destroys all remaining lives (ends the game). Stinks now, but with the fixed collision detection it should be fine to leave this in.

 

This is my 2-cents for the game. I think it could be really fun with the fixes.

[Captain Beard]

I think it could be really fun with the fixes.

I completely agree.

Especially with #1. I never did make it through the 5th level!

[aftermac]

Great fix SpiceWare!

The other things to make this game great would be...

 

1) Slightly slower difficulty ramp (mentioned before)

It seems wave 1&2 are very slow. On a difficulty scale of 1-10 maybe a 1 and 2 repectivly (2 because of the night time portion. Waves 3&4 pick up a little but not too much maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10. Then wave 5 is crazy fast; at least a 9. If changing it I would keep waves 1-3 the same but scale wave 4 up a bit and 5 down a bit. Then instead of going back to wave 2, keep the difficulty (and scoring) on par with the wave 5 level.

 

2) Bonus points for energy/fuel left after landing on the runway.

 

3) Replenish energy with every new ship. Currently if you die on any wave then the new ship retains the fuel level of the ship that was just destroyed.

 

4) The "bug" about running into the force-field isn't a bug. The manual states that running into it destroys all remaining lives (ends the game). Stinks now, but with the fixed collision detection it should be fine to leave this in.

 

This is my 2-cents for the game. I think it could be really fun with the fixes.

 

1 & 2, I definitely agree with.

 

3, I don't totally agree with, however the fuel situation needs to be fixed. If your fuel refills with every new ship, then you will never run out of fuel, unless you just don't refill. Perhaps, if you run out of fuel it costs you a life, but your fuel refills, not sure about this one.

 

4, My mistake for calling it a bug, however coupling it with bad collision detection made the game awfully frustrating. I agree with the fix, this can probably stay in.

 

I was actually pretty excited to play this game at the beginning of the week, because I thought it was fun as a kid... I could just never make it that far because I kept running out of fuel and didn't know how to refill. With a few fixes this would be a fun game.

[Shannon]

Boy the collision detection in this game sure is wonky...

 

4180

[atariwarrior]

This is my first contribution to this forum. My score is 6,710.

[Ze_ro]

4180

6,710

Sorry guys, you both missed the deadline.

 

--Zero

[Shannon]

Whoops not sure how that happened. Ahhh well..

[Chris-in-NJ]

Just bought this game last week for $2.99 at the Digital Press store, and can't for the life of me figure out how to finish a level. I think I'll give it a few rounds right now, assuming it stays inside my 7800's cartridge slot -- it has a tendency to get loose with the slightest movement of the console.

[Chris-in-NJ]

Figured it out. First score: 4820. Man, this gets hard fast!

 

Still, for $2.99 I shan't complain. Plus, it shares its name with the American title of a British puppet series that I'm watching on DVD now -- Space Patrol.