ABBUC Software-Contest 2013 - Entries

[popmilo]

Can not say much, but based on watching youtube videos here are my thoughts:

 

The Hunt - Most original game out of all. Best manual I've seen in years. I like excellent monochrome graphics, there should be just a little more color during actual game.

X-8 - Shooter as they should be - fast, lots of sprites, weapon upgrades... Well done Xuel and Jose!

Heli in the Caves - Very well put together, where else you get to fly a chopper in caves with shops, shooting, scrolling, and upgrades

Assembloids XE - Original graphics ideas, nicely put together.

Battle Eagle - Fast shooter with large gtia pixels - another 'new' graphics idea.

Rolltris - Looks and feels like it can be played for hours

[Grevle]

Paddle Control is a good idea, But it requires a Rewrite of Control routine and even the Controls for the menu in the game And my experiense With Paddle Controls code is zero so i doubt it gonna happen soon, but maybe sometime in the future.

 

Thanks Everyone for the Great games and software for Abbuc 2013 , when will the ATR,s be avaible so that we can play the game on Our Atari Computers ?

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

I can't remember how many points I gave each entry, but I can say the following:

 

Assembloids XE: Nice game, nice concept, graphics very good, at the end, it's way to fast for me. Got a lot of points from me.

ATL/ATL Viewer: Not sure I/we need this, but the idea is nice. The future will tell if I'm gonna use it or not. But I gave it a chance and IIRC 7 points.

Battle Eagle: I had high hopes after seeing a video here on AA. But graphics on a real 8 bit Atari suck big time. So it only got a few points.

DeathchaseXE: Very nice, reminds me a bit for Space Harrier. If only those trees wouldn't get in the way all the time. Starts to get boring after a while.

DevWar: Looks like Asteroids, which I never liked. Not a lot of points, if any.

Fujitime: Do we need this. Nope. But I really like the idea. Here, somebody thought outside the box. Execution is perfect. This piece of software does what it was intended for. Got lots of points from me.

Heli in the Caves: Takes way to long in my opinion to gets interesting for somebody who's not much of a game player. Sorry, not many points.

RollTris: Very nice game. New concept for an old but nice game (Tetris). Here again, somebody thought outside the box. Graphics are very nice. Very hard to get used to, but the rest of the game more then compensates this. Lots of points.

Slovenian Quiz: What should I say. Not many points.

Speedway One: Old school graphics. Which were nice when the 2600 was sold, but this is the 21st century. Plus I'm not fast enough for this kind of game. Sorry.

Basic Ten-Liners: I was present when they were written. Nice for 10 line games, but in my humble opinion, they should not have been submitted to the contest.

The Hunt: Major bug right at the beginning. Toke me some time to find out it would load after pressing Fire, which was soon after I concluded that the screen problems were not caused by my hardware. After seeing a video SKR made of all the games, I might have awarded it more points then I had wanted to give it at first, but I'm not sure. Plus it's not my kind of game, just like MULE.

X-8: Very nice game. Graphically very pleasing. Lots of points.

Xirius Defect: Nice game, but the level of difficulty doesn't increase enough during the game. I like games where you have to think. But this one is to easy. I played it once, paused to eat and played through it till the end. Would definitively have gotten more points from me if it would have been harder.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[ilmenit]

Could you guys check if the attached version has the title-screen problem fixed?

thehunt-post-abbuc.xex

[+Adam+]

And there should be also "Assembloids XE" instead of "Assembloids", "Deathchase XE" instead of "DeathchaseXE", "Heli in the Caves" not "Heli in the Cave", "Dev War" not "DevWar".

 

Sascha, PLEASE correct those titles, at least "Assembloids XE" and "Heli in the Caves".

[Grevle]

Could you guys check if the attached version has the title-screen problem fixed?

 

Title sceen looks good, No visible Problems, Tested on Atari 130XE PAL Connected to a CRT Tv.

[ilmenit]

 

Title sceen looks good, No visible Problems, Tested on Atari 130XE PAL Connected to a CRT Tv.

 

Thnx. The fix was trivial... :-/

[Marius]

Well... I certainly now want to understand the game. I'll give it a try soon, and check it out again.

[Yautja]

Will Assembloids XE and Heli in the Caves be (soon) available for download too?

 

- Y -

[+skr]

Sascha, PLEASE correct those titles, at least "Assembloids XE" and "Heli in the Caves".

Ok, next time I do not post anything before all the beer really left my body...

 

Corrected. Thanks for the hints and do not stop telling me, help is always appreciated.

[Creature XL]

Will Assembloids XE and Heli in the Caves be (soon) available for download too?

 

- Y -

The ABBUC version?

Can do tomorrow.

[Yautja]

The ABBUC version?

Can do tomorrow.

Counting the hours already

[Creature XL]

Counting the hours already

 

Stop counting already!

[+skr]

There won´t be an official release of all entries for the public. This is only available as download for ABBUC members. The ABBUC only has the rights for the first release, which is done now with the magazine disks for the members. So you have to wait until every single author makes their contribution avialable online somewhere else. Or become ABBUC member and download the two disks with all contributions from the members area.

[popmilo]

Could you guys check if the attached version has the title-screen problem fixed?

No problems over here...

Played it couple more times, surprised how complex game turned out too be after a while.

Bursted into surprised laughter when the guy with flamethrower burned me to crisps

 

Jumping, grenades, spear throwing, dogs, above mentioned flamethrower, upgrade crates... Awesome effort.

My hat goes down to you ilmenit

[matosimi]

The Hunt is really complex game, but it suffers from good presentation video. I know Ilmenit's HDM and I remember how I prejudged that game for same reason as I would prejudge The Hunt (if I don't know Ilmenit's work).

I saw HDM at Forever party few years ago, I remember Ilmenit on stage speaking about game and describing what is it about, showing basic gameplay, but that's the kind of game which is hard to watch. It really was hard for me then.

I believe The Hunt is even harder to watch, because you have no clue WTF is going on (if you are not the one who controls the game) - I mean that youtube video that was released when game was announced. It would need kind of commentary(commented review would do the trick), because I was unamused after 15 seconds of watching that gameplay video. - and I'm not telling that game sucks, quite the opposite, but watching recording of that gameplay was torture that did not make sense so game was not understood.

 

I would also suggest to create ingame version of manual which would be accessible anytime during gameplay, just to be able to understand what is currently going on or what just happened. -it would definitely help me to dive into game, but maybe its just me.

I don't want to strew ashes on my head, but i consider The Hunt bit underrated, but I believe it's mainly because of reasons I described above.

Edited October 28, 2013 by matosimi

[ilmenit]

I don't want to strew ashes on my head, but i consider The Hunt bit underrated, but I believe it's mainly because of reasons I described above.

I agree that in-game tutorial would be helpful, because nobody reads manuals (not even me) I thought that well-prepared manual will catch eyes enough. Definitely times changed and people used to modern games that take your hand and slowly introduce you to a game that you cannot loose.

Edited October 28, 2013 by ilmenit

[matosimi]

I agree that in-game tutorial would be helpful, because nobody reads manuals (not even me) :-) I thought that well-prepared manual will catch eyes enough but it seems that it was not enough. Definitely times changed and people used to modern games that take your hand and slowly introduce you to a game that you cannot loose.

yes, exactly. your game is not self explanatory at all so it is hard to start. i just played it, got 13 points, threw spear on 1 soldier and all icons turned to "x", so i could only run ... then i took upgrade crate and ran away from soldier to next screen. there i saw same thing, killed 1 guy, ran away as chicken from others because no clue how to use my freakin' spear again, but surprisingly enemies got killed when they attacked me. then i entered 3rd screen and got ripped by evil wolf.

 

Ingame manual would be really neat, especially when PDF ones cannot be downloaded.

Edited October 28, 2013 by matosimi

[pseudografx]

Nowadays there is a standard to incorporate some kind of tutorial level for the new players, which explains the gameplay step by step. This makes learning the rules much more fun since you learn while actually playing instead of reading instructions, which is unenteraining. Perhaps something like that could also be included in The Hunt?

[+skr]

Last year I did an exhibition at a local school with 14-16 years old pupils. I´ve showed them Ridiculous Reality for example, but they didn´t get it. They even did not give it a try, because there was no "success" after 10 seconds.

 

Really: I don´t like the idea of implementing ingame-tutorials in Atari 8 Bit games. Why make life even harder for programmers? Why not just read the f*****g manual? Don´t try to bring bad behaviours from modern, mostly meaningless games for phones to the Atari 8 Bit. There IS a manual available for The Hunt. And it´s one of the best made manuals I´ve seen for years.

 

The standard nowadays is there, because it is so easy to implement. But I do not remember many games with ingame tutorials back in the days. What could be helpful would be a screen tutorial, explaining how to play in a text, so that you do not have to to rely on a PDF which is not readable on an 8 Bit Atari (yet). It´s boring? F**k, you just have to read and understand them once, and then you go.

 

My 2 cents.

[pseudografx]

Just because something is used in modern games and not in the old ones does not necessarilly mean that it is bad. Sure enough, it takes some extra effort for the developers, but why not leave the decision to them (us)?

[Marius]

@skr I understand your point, but I do not agree on everything you write.

 

There is a big evolution, also on atari 8bit platform. The games that are released the last 10 years, do mostly not look like the vintage games we had in the 80's. I'm glad that there are so many new titles, which modern ideas brought to atari 8bit platform; so why not the ideas of an ingame tutorial? Btw. an ingame tutorial is really not something new, but ok.

 

And I have heard some people writing here about how great the manual is. Well... I probably belong to a group of not so smart people; I simply did not understand the game with the manual. So what for you (and others) is a good manual, does not mean it is a good one for me, or other people.

 

It is interesting though that there is so much discussion about THIS particular game. I think it is with this game: you hate it, or you love it. That's why I gave it 1 points, and other people 10 points.

 

I absolutely do not identify myself with a group of 'lazy' people, who want to have success within 10 seconds; I am a teacher by the way, and I also do not recognize this attitude at my pupils. In fact they are more interested and willing to get things, than some grown ups I know. I have a medium size business adminstration, doing on atari 8bit using Syncalc. I had to think over a very neat worksheet setup, with using a manual. Took me weeks before I was satisfied. I love to code in 6502 language. It took me about 20 years before I really was able to write something reaching a certain quality level.

 

I tried all the Abbuc games. And a few titles got my attention at once, and a rather big amount of titles did not. The Hunt did not work right on my setup, and that was that. I read the abbuc magazin (I always do, I love it!) and I read it... and thought: wtf?!? What am I reading?!? ... Ok next.

 

Indeed, I gave up yes. I gave up because the title did not work properly, and I did not understand the manual, and that combination made that I did not have any interest anymore in this title.

 

Anyway, I will look at this game again one day.

[Creature XL]

As there is a discussion about "The Hunt" and "Heli in the Caves" got so little appreciation I wanted to ask,

if there is a need/desire for complex games on the A8 or are simple shooters and puzzler the way to go?

Ofcourse I realize that the beginning of "HitC" is slow and lots of rooms are empty and the overall tuning of parameters is lacking.

However, the question is, would you like such a freely exploration game or not

 

One problem for complex games is that there is not much time to really play the entries for the voting deadline.

Let alone when such a big amount of games are sent in

[popmilo]

What could be helpful would be a screen tutorial, explaining how to play in a text, so that you do not have to to rely on a PDF which is not readable on an 8 Bit Atari (yet).

Would be helpful for sure.

 

But, for me part of what is cool with "The Hunt" is same thing that was cool in a Predator movie - those alien letters and whole mystery about the hunter...

For anyone who loved Preadator and Atari should be a really good experience.

Dying many times before getting the basics of game play was still fun for me.

 

Than again - if you love to stack blocks and shoot at things - skip it...

[+skr]

CreatureXL: Of course there is a need. But I also think, that short and easy to learn games always will be preferred in the beginning. It would be a shame, if programmers would only easy, little programs. Those I can have more than enough on my smartphone or in the internet. For me personally turning on the Atari means travelling back in time and spend more than just a few minutes in front of the machine.

 

It seems to be a matter of fact, that the more complex games have it harder to win the software competition. But what it is your goal? Winning the money or developing a great game?

 

Let´s see, how we can take this year´s experiences into account for the next software competition. Of course there will be some adjustements, but was we can´t know that we have that many contributions again, we can´t change everything.

 

popmilo: Nice said.

 

About the ingame "hand-in-hand" tutorials: If authors do it on A8: great! If not, no problem too. For the competition I just prefer the authors to focus on the game. And I just saw, that most of the authors would not have had any time for such a tutorial. I´m not against it in general.