Ghost

[Lodmot]

Alright. After a long hiatus of no new games, here's my next one finally.

 

This is my first game that makes use of the DPC+ kernel. The object is to shoot the ghosts floating around. As you progress, the ghosts will get faster and smarter. As of now, the game is nearly finished. I made music for each of the three levels, and the player is able to instantly switch between music and SFX, like in Game Catcher.

 

 

Update - 4/24/2012

After messing around a bit with the code, I've managed to fix the levels system. Before there were 5 level variations, now there are 8.

Now if you make it past level 4, the ghosts will deliberately chase you down, slowly at first, then faster and faster as you progress.

Because these extra levels require 3-digit scores in order to activate them, they won't activate during 2P Versus mode. (But they will

work in 2P Co-Op mode) Hope you like this new build. ^^

 

Here's some screenshots, and the current build is attached so you can try it out:

 

 

 

default.bas.bin

Edited April 24, 2012 by Lodmot

[Byte Knight]

Good start! Looks like Night Stalker or Berzerk. I've often thought about making a Night Stalker-like game with DPC+.

 

Unfortunately the missiles do not work very well in DPC+, as they take on colors of other sprites and one of the missiles (can't remember if it's missile0 or missile1) eventually stops working completely. You're probably better off using the ball sprite for your bullets.

[+SpiceWare]

Unfortunately the missiles do not work very well in DPC+, as they take on colors of other sprites

 

Missiles always share the color of the corresponding sprite. Likewise the ball always shares the color of the playfield.

[Byte Knight]

Missiles always share the color of the corresponding sprite. Likewise the ball always shares the color of the playfield.

 

Yes, and I wish the missiles would just take on one color. The problem is that when you have a multi-colored sprite, the missile will take on multiple colors if it's more than one pixel high, as seen in Lodmot's Ghost game. Unfortunately the COLUM0 and COLUM1 commands do not seem to help...

[Lodmot]

Yeah, I had a really tricky time trying to get the bullets to shoot.

In earlier builds of the game, they wouldn't even fire at all. The way they work now is the best I've been able to get them.

Also, to get the 2nd player to collide into walls, I had to resort to using the ball object as a sort of collision mask for the 2nd player, because the collision function doesn't seem to play nicely between players 2-9 and the playfield.

Collision against playfield pixels is tricky anyway. I can't seem to do it without there being a way for the player to fly through the walls. xDD

Edited April 20, 2012 by Lodmot

[+Random Terrain]

Collision against playfield pixels is tricky anyway. I can't seem to do it without there being a way for the player to fly through the walls. xDD

 

If you were using normal bB, I'd recommend that you look at this example program:

 

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

 

It has the best sprite/wall 'collision' I've done so far. It's smooth like butter.

[Lodmot]

That's pretty interesting the way you set it up.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much I can put before I run out of scanlines. I'm thinking this game will not nearly use as many as Auto Mayhem did, but I could be wrong.

I've implemented the other player's shooting and all I really need to do is fix the missile collision with the ghosts, and then the scoring and level system, and then the game's main loop will be done. (Besides sound of course)

Edited April 19, 2012 by Lodmot

[+Random Terrain]

This one uses a different kind of 'collision,' but it really only works for Pac-Man style games:

 

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#maze_32x23

[+atari2600land]

How did you get the score different colors?

[TrekMD]

Looks nice!

[Lodmot]

Thanks Trek! ^^

 

@ atari2600land: With the DPC+ kernel, one of its features is multi-colored score text.

[Lodmot]

Just tested this game on real hardware today. The playfield is very fidgety. It keeps scrolling up and then re-appearing...

Everything else seemed to work fine though. Anyone have any ideas as to what it could be? If I have to, I'll make two separate versions of the game for emulators and real hardware.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out. Game works great on real hardware now! XD

Edited April 19, 2012 by Lodmot

[Lodmot]

Big update. Game is now nearly complete. And DAMN, it was totally worth the work! :3

[Lodmot]

Gah... Bad news guys...

As I was getting ready to install Ubuntu, I forgot to back up my Atari source code folder, so the source code to all the games I made, including Ghost and Auto Mayhem (which weren't finalized yet), is gone. :l

 

The good news though is, these two games happened to be in a very finished state as they were last compiled, and I really wasn't planning on doing anything more with them, so I'm going to deem both Ghost and Auto Mayhem finalized.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Lodmot

[TrekMD]

Sorry that you lost all the source code for the games. At least you had finished them!

[+Random Terrain]

As I was getting ready to install Ubuntu, I forgot to back up my Atari source code folder, so the source code to all the games I made, including Ghost . . . is gone.

 

Are you sure Patrick Swayze didn't have something to do with it?

[Lodmot]

As I was getting ready to install Ubuntu, I forgot to back up my Atari source code folder, so the source code to all the games I made, including Ghost . . . is gone.

 

Are you sure Patrick Swayze didn't have something to do with it?

Who? o.o

xD

[Piggles]

I like the music. It reminds me vaguely of Thunder Castle for the Intellivision.

[Lodmot]

Thanks ^^