19 replies to this topic

[Philsan]

A new game has been released by AtariAge user Grevle
Rocket Rescue (scroll the page)
programmed with Turbo Basic XL.

[TwiliteZoner]

Very nice. Thanks for the link.

[Gunstar]

Great game! I just played it, made it to mission 3 before I ran out of ships. It has all the basic features of three great games; Lunar Lander, Choplifter and Gravitar (three vintage favorites of mine).

By the way, does Gravitar or a clone exist for the A8? Anyone? (found Gravitar listed at Atarimania, but the image is missing. German made game I guess)

Edited by Gunstar, Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:03 PM.

[José Pereira]

Gunstar, on Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:49 PM, said:

Great game! I just played it, made it to mission 3 before I ran out of ships. It has all the basic features of three great games; Lunar Lander, Choplifter and Gravitar (three vintage favorites of mine).

By the way, does Gravitar or a clone exist for the A8? Anyone? (found Gravitar listed at Atarimania, but the image is missing. German made game I guess)

Never tried it but you have it here at AtariOnline:
http://translate.goo...8gVonQ#Gravitar



EDIT:
But is this the Gravitar you're thinking?
http://atari.fandal....p?files_id=5193
Because I am sure you thought that Gravitar was a port of this:

Edited by José Pereira, Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:14 PM.

[ProWizard]

It's a nice game!

The nicest part is the rescuing people part. It is like Thrust. Also very hard to control. But it's great!

And that in Turbo Basic. +1

[CharlieChaplin]

Gunstar, on Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:49 PM, said:

Great game! I just played it, made it to mission 3 before I ran out of ships. It has all the basic features of three great games; Lunar Lander, Choplifter and Gravitar (three vintage favorites of mine).

By the way, does Gravitar or a clone exist for the A8? Anyone? (found Gravitar listed at Atarimania, but the image is missing. German made game I guess)

Hmm,
not sure. The game "Orbit" seems to be a clone of Gravitar, not sure if its a good or bad clone... Some short english blurb/doc included.

The german game "Gravitar" which is mentioned here was once programmed by Kemal Ezcan in TB XL for his ZONG magazine. Why Kemal took an already existing and well known name for this game is unknown to me. -Andreas Koch.

Attached Files

•  orbit.zip   10.15K   54 downloads

Edited by CharlieChaplin, Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:04 PM.

[Gunstar]

José Pereira, on Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:07 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:49 PM, said:

Great game! I just played it, made it to mission 3 before I ran out of ships. It has all the basic features of three great games; Lunar Lander, Choplifter and Gravitar (three vintage favorites of mine).

By the way, does Gravitar or a clone exist for the A8? Anyone? (found Gravitar listed at Atarimania, but the image is missing. German made game I guess)

Never tried it but you have it here at AtariOnline:
http://translate.goo...8gVonQ#Gravitar



EDIT:
But is this the Gravitar you're thinking?
http://atari.fandal....p?files_id=5193
Because I am sure you thought that Gravitar was a port of this:

That last link is nothing like the REAL Gravitar. Yeah, that movie is Gravitar arcade. Great game. I didn't realize that was a movie, and not just a screen shot. But, that movie hardly show the game at all, you have to go to those planets, then it turns into a game of garvity and thrust.

Edited by Gunstar, Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:58 PM.

[Gunstar]

Here is a link to the 2600 screen shots of Garvitar, orginally an arcade game with far superior graphics (but nothing the A8 can't handle): http://www.atariage....wareLabelID=223

here's an ancient commercial for Gravitar Arcade:

A dedicated website with a lot more links: http://www.cooganpho...r/gravitar.html

Edited by Gunstar, Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:52 PM.

[Grevle]

Hello.

I did add a feature that seemed to be missing from the game.

Now its possible to have some control of the speed of the rocket traveling upwards in the space shooting scene.

Pull back joystick for a little slower speed and push up joystick to shift into a little faster speed.

This makes it more fair when navigating the obstacles when ufos comes towards the rocket.

http://www.grevle.ne..._Rescue_1.1.zip

[Gunstar]

Good improvement. This is one of my current favorites. I played it for 30 minutes straight last night (still haven't made it past mission 3, due to various reasons, lack of fuel, just crashing, can't negotiate obstacles, etc.). Played it again just a few minutes ago, and plan to play more after I leave this post. I don't know what awaits me after mission 3, but if this is a work-in-progress (and my idea isn't already there in later levels), may I make a suggestion of longer twisting caverns with an extra fuel reserve to pick up in the extended cavern at some point? Maybe also allow one "knock" against a wall before exploding (shield)? Or, have it as it is now, and add the other options in difficulty settings or something. Of course, I'm happy either way, it's great for it's simplicity, like SuperFly.

Regardless, fantastic game, and being so playable considering it's BASIC, even if compiled turbo basic.

Edited by Gunstar, Tue Mar 20, 2012 8:44 PM.

[Gunstar]

CharlieChaplin, on Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:01 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:49 PM, said:

Great game! I just played it, made it to mission 3 before I ran out of ships. It has all the basic features of three great games; Lunar Lander, Choplifter and Gravitar (three vintage favorites of mine). By the way, does Gravitar or a clone exist for the A8? Anyone? (found Gravitar listed at Atarimania, but the image is missing. German made game I guess)

Hmm, not sure. The game "Orbit" seems to be a clone of Gravitar, not sure if its a good or bad clone... Some short english blurb/doc included. The german game "Gravitar" which is mentioned here was once programmed by Kemal Ezcan in TB XL for his ZONG magazine. Why Kemal took an already existing and well known name for this game is unknown to me. -Andreas Koch.

That's a good try, but as far as I can tell, Orbit is only similiar in that Gravitar's initial screen is similiar. Gravitar is part Space War, part Thrust, part Lunar Lander and part something else. There are 12 planets or "levels" each more difficult and enemy filled than the last, plus an occasional space-war between base and the next planet.
Rocket Rescue is similiar only in ship control and objectives to Gravitar planet-side.

I'm not really sure what the objective, if any, there is to Orbit after connecting wth the Orbiter capsule(which I did
VERY easily by accident), I couldn't do anything else...not much of a game there that I can see...am I missing something?

Edited by Gunstar, Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:47 PM.

[Grevle]

Thanks for your comments.

I consider the game to be finished, Theres isnt any more memory to do anything since graphics 7 alone witch this game uses takes up 8 k of memory and the basic code
is not possible to squeeze any more memory off, well maybe a few bytes but not enough to add any new stuff...


Its actually not compiled basic, but clean turbo basic xl running the game, my programming style i think its impossible to compile because of the tricky way to use sub
routines, the sub routines are going arond itself in a way the compiler dont like. the compiler need a more Sensible way of programming, hehe.

Extra fuel pods, hmm i see what you mean, there is some sort of logic to the fuel system, if you pickup fuel then you get the tank full, even if you crash the
rocket the next rocket keeps the fuel you picked up, and if you crash when fuel is below ca 65% then the fuel bar always fills up to 65% again.

The game is possible to complete with some good skill, heres a tip for the game, everytime you kan kill at least 8 ufos during any of the space shooting levels then you can  get 1 extra life if you dont have all 5 lives when the scores are shown after each teleport.

And when the first mission start when you arrive at the first planet then the fuel is full so you save the pod until you have picked up the men and
then carefully fly up again and pickup the fuel pod then this way you have full fuel ready for next level.

Regards.

Edited by Grevle, Tue Mar 20, 2012 10:53 PM.

[Grevle]

If you load in the basic code and look at free memory it will say about 5310 bytes but all that is used for Strings and defining of player missiles when the game runs so its realy not possible to use maybe 15 more bytes and the game wont work...

I hope to make some new games in the future, some small games just for learning even more about atari computer and Turbo basic xl.

Regards.

[Grevle]

Fixed a bug, Sometime when carrying men in rocket and going into the teleport circle a bit of the rockets flame would get stuck on the screen.

did anyone see this bug ?

Should be fixed in this version:

http://www.grevle.ne..._Rescue_1.2.zip

[therealbountybob]

Hi Jan, nice game really atmospheric (reminded me of Journey to the Planets), great sounds and good controls which is unusual for this type of game    I've nearly completed 3rd level but will play more...

Rocket Rescue is well worth checking out folks - additional hazards on each level as is 'Dracula Lives' a classic platformer with an adventure element, takes a while to get the jump timing right though Post some feedback and support one of our newest authors

Not sure what hits do for you - more score? [I see extra men!] I think for "Total and Saved"  "% Rescued" might look better? You might want to also add START key to run game. [on your web site you don't need "BASIC  needs to be disabled" as TB boots OK either way; you could put "requires Atari XL/XE"]

Had a quick look at the code   I must get back into a project - If you want more RAM I noticed you didn't use the turbo basic constants %0 instead of 0 etc [this will free up lots]... and where you have the same code on two lines for the gosub loops you could just put a rem in on the first line and it will skip to the 2nd line. (checkout my GSB TB code it's heavily optimised)

Keep up the good work

Jason

p.s. What were the changes in 1.73 of Drac? I think the game is faster moving

[Grevle]

7 ufo hits during any of the ufo shootings gives extra rocket and more ufo hits in general improves ranking when game is over.

Dracula lives 1.73 was mainly the final touch up. som bug fix .. i noticed the bullet of the gunner was showing in the overscan area, and since v.170 the ending of the game is improved (when game is played all way trough) and the coming of dayligt is a bit more challenging.

These 2 Games was my first programming on the atari 8-bit since 20 years ago and the games is also som training exersize to learn to programm better.

Dracula lives is using Graphics 1+2 mixed mode with custom charahter set and pm graphics,,and Rocket Rescue is Graphics 7+16 using mainly simple plot and drawto
and text commands do draw backround  graphics and pm graphics for rocket etc.. the rocktes flame is actually a missile size 2 , so my next game will be a evolvment to using graphics from pictures and using graphtofont to convert to micropaint images and load images in the game program it selft and also using tracker music files to have music in the game thanks a machine language routine called from basic.

Regards.

Jan.

Edited by Grevle, Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:06 PM.

[Grevle]

The Realbountybob was able to squeeze more memory of my Basic code, and now it would be possible to add a more proper title screen to Rocket rescue.

Do you think its worth doing a update only to add a better title screen ?

thanks.

Jan.

[potatohead]

Yes.  Title screens are cool.  

[Grevle]

With the assistance of TherealBountyBob i as able to free up more memory, so now i have added 2 new title screens, with a simple musical tune and also a new takeoff
Scene when the rocket is leaving earth,and also some color adjustments and some minor improvements to the game.


its here at my page www.grevle.net

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Considering it's TurboBasic, even uncompiled, it isn't that bad at all.  I expected it to be much slower.  Too bad I suck at playing it (rank: lost in space :-) )


b.t.w: if you ever need to do make adjustments, you can free up more memory if you want.  Especially the use of the %0 variable will free up some bytes as there are lot's of them.