Game design thinktank - Retrogaming

[kiwilove]

It would be nice if I could talk freely here --- but I have to remain tight lipped about possible projects I may work on? and I don't wish to comment upon what I am doing now - a WIP.

 

I do like to see games finished to a high standard - and am always disappointed by those, which lack that extra touch or finish. Graphics design being what I do - I am especially critical about that area.

While I don't really play videogames anymore - I remain appreciative of any new games that try to deliver - that appear to be fun to play, and have the traditional elements of being a good game to play.

 

I guess I regard retrogame development as being like those railway enthusiasts - who end up keeping an old railway line - with it's locomotive engines, etc running - that give people today, a taste of what it was like all those years ago, when steam locomotives were in daily use, etc etc. Or exactly like car enthusiasts who'll keep their old car running - just like the day they were first bought. But the difference is --- that new games can be developed and finished - which could have? and should have? been developed back in the day....

 

Harvey

[kiwilove]

Something I may as well mention - is that retrogaming development - can be regarded as being an art form.

And because there is not the time pressure being present (as it was - back in the day...) and that development takes a more leisurely approach - this can allow experimentation to take place - in which you have the time to do so. And experimentation is key - to doing things differently, in finding new? ways of doing things.

And this can certainly affect game design and gameplay.

It can be possible to start with one kind of game design in mind - and to be able to change that during it's development.

Traditionally you may start with a fixed game design in mind - but you can also be open to doing things differently - when you are forced to do what the hardware allows you to do,

since you do not want to restart from scatch again - rewrite the whole game all over. This - we'll make it up as we go along - is not ideally the best way of doing things - but it can be possible for it to work out, to it's best advantage - if it manages to all fall into place eventually....

[popmilo]

It would be nice if I could talk freely here --- but I have to remain tight lipped about possible projects I may work on? and I don't wish to comment upon what I am doing now - a WIP.

You are not alone in this, I bet there are dozens of coders out there, sweating and bursting inside, wanting to let the world know about their masterpiece. But they can't, not yet...

 

Sometimes people think their ideas are unique and that if they show early work, someone else will 'steal' their idea and come out with a game before they do. Good thing is that 99% of finishing a product is not about the idea

 

Something I may as well mention - is that retrogaming development - can be regarded as being an art form.

And because there is not the time pressure being present (as it was - back in the day...) and that development takes a more leisurely approach - this can allow experimentation to take place - in which you have the time to do so.

That is what Indie games are all about

 

They say everybody should in their lifetime paint with proper brush, canvas and paint. They say it's good for body and soul

 

Well paint, canvas, brushes... We don't have room for that, but we do have keyboard, canvas and 256 colors to choose from

Edited May 9, 2014 by popmilo

[snicklin]

A new thread within a thread....

 

Why do people think that there are so few end-of-level bosses in Atari games?

 

When speaking to Jason/TMR, he stated that bosses are difficult to program as in that they can't be too easy and they can't be too difficult and getting that blend is difficult.

 

Is there more to it though? Could it be that a lot of them tend to be large and moving that many characters at once is difficult for the Atari? Or is it down to a lack of time for programmers, they put their efforts in elsewhere but try to throw out a quick version for the Atari as it wasn't so profitable?

 

Or was it just chance? Or maybe the taste of Atari fans?

 

Do we need them?

[snicklin]

And another one....

 

What do people think about loading time (from disk)?

 

I'm restructuring my game to load more data from disk and not so much from the original binary. The advantage of this is that I can load in just what I need, when I need it. This means that I can add more features into the game, making it a lot more interesting. I don't want every level to be the same game concept as the previous level. To interest the players, I want different dynamics on different levels. It's almost like the player has "earned" the new dynamic.

 

The downside to this is loading time being increased (during active play time) if levels are constantly loaded.

 

I have different options in mind.....

 

A) Load binary with level 1 included in the binary. Levels 2,3 etc are loaded over the top of level 1 in memory. The advantage of this is that if you don't get past level 1, you don't have to load it multiple times. Slightly more difficult to code than option B.

 

B) Load binary with no included levels, then load each level as required.

 

C) Cram all levels (which are compressed) into binary. Advantage=1 load. Disadvantage=longer to load (and you may never reach the latter levels). Disadvantage 2=less memory available for additional features.

 

What do people prefer?

 

Or are you not bothered? If loading through an emulator, it's so quick it hardly matters....

[TMR]

Is there more to it though? Could it be that a lot of them tend to be large and moving that many characters at once is difficult for the Atari? Or is it down to a lack of time for programmers, they put their efforts in elsewhere but try to throw out a quick version for the Atari as it wasn't so profitable?

Depending on how you do it the actual code for a boss is at least relatively easy but the problem is that even a relatively simple single firing pattern boss creates a spike in your otherwise nice difficulty curve so getting them to "flow" is a bugger.

 

And some of it might be "get it out the door" syndrome, but i suspect that there aren't many in A8 games due to when they were released; A8 software started drying up around the mid 1980s and that's when the bosses started appearing with any kind of regularlity, first in coin-ops and then in the 8-bit games they inspired.

 

Do we need them?

Need? Not really, no.

 

What do people think about loading time (from disk)?

Two answers for this one...

 

As a gamer i prefer next level to be waiting as soon as the end of the previous one rolls past, it sort of breaks the forth wall (and the adrenalin rush) if i get through one challenge only to see a "please wait - loading" message. That doesn't mean i can't enjoy a multi-loading game (and if it's done well, the loads can be pretty fast anyway), but my preference is to have everything in one bundle.

 

And from a programming point of view i can see the merits, but avoid loading personally (regardless of platform, every 8-bit game i've ever written is all in memory by the time the title page is running) because my inspirations as a coder tend to be the 1980s games that arrived as a single load; if Zybex, Io, Killer Cobra, Warhawk or Chronos can do multiple levels from a single load i'm going to at least try to emulate what those coders did. =-)

[kiwilove]

The reason why I don't want to mention what I may work on next ... is that someone else may have that same idea? or work on that gametype...

 

It'll seem silly if two teams/whatever were working on a space harrier game - for example.

 

Few people create original concept games - especially ones that become popular, etc etc.

The rest of us tend to copy something already proven - and do a variant on it.

Copying other peoples' ideas seem to be a frequent activity in videogame development - it happens in other creative industries/etc etc.

[TMR]

The reason why I don't want to mention what I may work on next ... is that someone else may have that same idea? or work on that gametype...

 

It'll seem silly if two teams/whatever were working on a space harrier game - for example.

That's more likely to happen these days if the two people/teams didn't announce an interest really, but we're all here for the fun of it so repeating projects isn't an issue at all unless one side is worrying about selling their product and the other does a better job... Sheddy announced Space Harrier very early on and nobody else jumped on the bandwagon.

 

Few people create original concept games - especially ones that become popular, etc etc.

Originality in games is overrated.

[Creature XL]

And another one....

 

What do people think about loading time (from disk)?

 

I'm restructuring my game to load more data from disk and not so much from the original binary. The advantage of this is that I can load in just what I need, when I need it. This means that I can add more features into the game, making it a lot more interesting. I don't want every level to be the same game concept as the previous level. To interest the players, I want different dynamics on different levels. It's almost like the player has "earned" the new dynamic.

 

The downside to this is loading time being increased (during active play time) if levels are constantly loaded.

 

I have different options in mind.....

 

A) Load binary with level 1 included in the binary. Levels 2,3 etc are loaded over the top of level 1 in memory. The advantage of this is that if you don't get past level 1, you don't have to load it multiple times. Slightly more difficult to code than option B.

 

B) Load binary with no included levels, then load each level as required.

 

C) Cram all levels (which are compressed) into binary. Advantage=1 load. Disadvantage=longer to load (and you may never reach the latter levels). Disadvantage 2=less memory available for additional features.

 

What do people prefer?

 

Or are you not bothered? If loading through an emulator, it's so quick it hardly matters....

 

Can't speak with experience, as the game I currently work on will be the first which loads level data from disk (using xBIOS).

Have you considered with your option A that the player can restart the game and oyu have to load level 1 again?

 

For my project the idea was to make a HUGE binary file and use the POINT/NOTE functions from xBIOS to point to teh right spots.

A first test reveled (not much to my surprise) the POINT simply scans the whole binary to get to the point (pun intended) where i want to start loading.

So its no option as it seems. So I guess have to make a levelX.dat for each level, which I do not like. Is there any possibility (with xBIOS!) I haven't seen yet?

 

W.r.t. loading times: I hope a level in my game takes about 5 to 15 minutes (depending on the ability of the player). I guess I have to load 16-20Kb per level. this might result in 10 seconds on an normal 1050 with 19200baud (please correct me). And I asume not many people use a standard 1050.

So the loading time should be OK, right?

 

Lastly, I don't want to make my game ideas public as well. It might be dumb as I guess no one will "copy" it anyways. But I don't do it anyways.

 

@end-bosses:

They are over-hyped in opinion. They add a cool achievement, but in the end its often "doge the shot, shoot the sweet spot. Rinse, repeat".

Which makes remembering the patterns the only challenge.

Coding them isn't that hard, but it "breaks" the game engine. In "Heli in the Caves" I used two NPC to form a kind of end-boss. That is easy as it uses the engine.

For a "real" boss I would have needed to write more code which wouldn't have fitted in the memory. I like single-loads much more then disk-based games.

[snicklin]

 

Have you considered with your option A that the player can restart the game and oyu have to load level 1 again?

 

 

The way I thought that it would be is that if the player has reached level 2, when restarting I will have to load level 1. But if they do not manage to get to level 2, there will be no reload required.

 

 

 

A first test reveled (not much to my surprise) the POINT simply scans the whole binary to get to the point (pun intended) where i want to start loading.

So its no option as it seems. So I guess have to make a levelX.dat for each level, which I do not like. Is there any possibility (with xBIOS!) I haven't seen yet?

 

 

That is disappointing. I have been working with "levelX.dat" too, which seems a bit clumsy but must be the best option as far as I know. I don't know of any xBios function to resolve this.

 

 

So the loading time should be OK, right?

 

 

10 seconds per level sounds OK to me. As a gameplayer, this wouldn't annoy me. Pahh, I had to put up with "Ace of Aces" on cassette. You would have 1 game (which was really slow and jumpy) and then you had to reload it again from the start. I think it was around 20 minutes a load. Dreadful.

 

 

but in the end its often "doge the shot, shoot the sweet spot. Rinse, repeat".

 

 

Maybe people should be a bit more creative with end bosses? Maybe you don't shoot them but avoid them for a certain amount of time? Or you complete a puzzle to get past them?

[TMR]

W.r.t. loading times: I hope a level in my game takes about 5 to 15 minutes (depending on the ability of the player). I guess I have to load 16-20Kb per level. this might result in 10 seconds on an normal 1050 with 19200baud (please correct me). And I asume not many people use a standard 1050.

So the loading time should be OK, right?

Personal opinion here, but if your levels take that long the loads will act as a needed breathing space for the player.

 

Lastly, I don't want to make my game ideas public as well. It might be dumb as I guess no one will "copy" it anyways. But I don't do it anyways.

i tend not to because people start nagging you for the finished project. =-)

[TMR]

Maybe people should be a bit more creative with end bosses? Maybe you don't shoot them but avoid them for a certain amount of time? Or you complete a puzzle to get past them?

That can lead to a very disjointed experience, going from hardcore "get in the way of my lasers" action to actually having to think at the end of a stage...!

[snicklin]

That can lead to a very disjointed experience, going from hardcore "get in the way of my lasers" action to actually having to think at the end of a stage...!

 

Yes, true, with a shoot 'em up.

 

What I don't like is when you get to the end of a level and you haven't a clue what you are supposed to do. You know the type where you are firing at a boss constantly waiting for it to die, you've hit it 100 times and you think "How many more times do I need to shoot him?". And the whole time you were supposed to be shooting their feet or something, so all your shots haven't registered! Or maybe you were supposed to bounce on their head....

 

What do people think of sub-games? For example, the number swapping game in "Joe Blade". It seemed nothing to do with the main game, so I always found it a bit odd.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

here is my personal + subjective opinion.

 

- regarding Joe Blade: I really like this game, especially the first version. But I absolutely hate the sub-games, I wish there were hacked/patched versions of Joe Blade and Joe Blade 2 without these sub-games. Fandal (or anyone else), can you remove or de-activate these awful subgames, please ?!?

 

- regarding end-bosses: Since there are not so many A8 games that feature end bosses, I would like to see a few more games that include them. But these should be different end bosses, not always one and the same end boss. And they should look and move differently. I personally prefer it, if you have to hit the end boss a certain number of times. This should not be 1000 hits, 10-50 hits are more than enough. I am not such a big fan of end bosses that must be hit at a certain spot (head, foot, eyes, whatever) and will not die if you hit them elsewhere.

 

- regarding extra weapons: Its great to have many extra weapons. Its also cool if you can upgrade the power of these weapons. If you lose a live, you should not lose (one or more of) the extra weapon(s), only the power of the weapon(s) should get weaker. But if you lose one or all extra weapon(s), make absolutely sure, that enemies and end-bosses can be killed with the standard weapon also. Its absolutely frustrating, if you lose an extra weapon and because of that cannot finish a level...

 

- regarding extros: Nowadays most games should include an extro, might it be a colourful picture with some sound or a nice animation with sound. If you lose your last live in a game you read "Game Over", if you finished the game there should be something more than just a simple text like "Congratulations, you made it! Game Over". Especially games that have intros should also have extros.

 

- regarding cheats/passwords: If the game is level based (and the levels are loaded one after another from disk) and there are more than say 3-10 levels, it would be cool if the game features passwords to start at a certain level. There are dozens of freezers, disk/sector-editors, etc. which you can use to type in "freezer-pokes" or to change certain hex-bytes to give you more lives, energy, etc. I find it much cooler if the game includes one or more cheats which you can type in (similar to passwords) or use by pressing a certain key or key-combination for more/unlimited lives, more/unlimited energy, etc. so no freezer-poke is required. If using a key-combo is required to cheat, don`t make it 10 or more keys to activate the cheat, 1-3 keys (simultan., NOT like in Rid. Reality) are enough. Its also nice, when the game makes a sound or displays something, so you know that the cheat has been activated.

 

- regarding number of players: Most of the time (98%) I play A8 games alone, thus a 1-player game is enough for me. But if you code a game for two or more players, make sure, that the game is also playable (finishable) with only one player. I know there exist games without a computer opponent and a minimum of 2,3 or 4 players is required - but if you code a game for 1 or 2 players, make absolutely sure you can beat this game when playing alone.

 

Enough for now. Let`s wait and see for the update of X8...

Edited May 11, 2014 by CharlieChaplin

[kiwilove]

OK... I'll say that there is not really direct competition against each other (developers) these days - but hopefully there is a co-operative attitude present. Namely we all are fans of this wonderful hardware that we work on - and we certainly like to see projects completed to a high standard.

 

We all have particular game types in mind - to work on, each having our own individual preferences and the like. Maybe some people are truly versatile and can work on anything they put their mind to, while others may be so tightly focused on one or a few types.

 

The main reason for not mentioning possible projects - is in case someone else may work on that idea/theme/etc too. And when it does end up, with 2 developers/teams/whatever working on the same kind of project - comparisons inevitably arise. Though there may be no competition there, in the first place - because these days there is no commercial incentive present.

 

Of course talking about a project is one thing - actually doing it and making progress with it, is another.

 

I can imagine some projects not being able to be completed successfully - simply because the hardware is not up to it. But I could be wrong about this... maybe... Or I view the end result - as simply not worth the time and effort put into it. This is just my own personal opinion.

[TMR]

The main reason for not mentioning possible projects - is in case someone else may work on that idea/theme/etc too. And when it does end up, with 2 developers/teams/whatever working on the same kind of project - comparisons inevitably arise. Though there may be no competition there, in the first place - because these days there is no commercial incentive present.

Personally, i just keep the majority of stuff under my hat because i don't want to get into that position where i announce and then have to field loads of "when will it be done" messages. If i announce something it's usually got at least a vague deadline for release and has most of it's actual logic code written so i know it can actually be done.

 

If someone else were working on a similar project that's absolutely fine and dandy because i want other people to write the kind of thing i'm writing so i can play theirs! It sort of happened in last year's ABBUC when i was doing a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up and the team behind X:8 were doing a horziontal one, we chatted "behind the scenes" and i ended up sending them a player ship animation. =-)

 

I can imagine some projects not being able to be completed successfully - simply because the hardware is not up to it. But I could be wrong about this... maybe...

It's even simpler than that, everybody writing these things is working on borrowed time away from their jobs, families and other responsibilities; sometimes those other factors just get too great and the code has to be back-burnered to make time for them, others it becomes more of a chore and the people behind it just need a break... and some people just burn out in some form and wander off.

 

Or I view the end result - as simply not worth the time and effort put into it. This is just my own personal opinion.

It's always worth the time and effort to the person doing it because if it wasn't they wouldn't started putting that effort in. And even those cases where something goes awry and doesn't get finished are good programming experience, for every finished piece of code there are usually several unfinished prototypes lying around.

[snicklin]

I like to think that most people here are co-operative which is the better way to be. At least with co-operation, we are dragging everyone's standards up.

 

Of course, probably most people that are unco-operative just do not reply on here, but there's usually someone that will.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

"My A8 games: Reaxion :: Callisto :: Battle Eagle :: Lunar Blitz"

 

there is one thing I would like to ask you for future A8 games: Don`t make them Reset-proof !! Instead Reset should cause a coldstart/reboot. How does a light-bulb die ? By constantly switching it off/on. How will the *real* and more than 30 years old A8 die ? By constantly switching it off/on due to programs that are completely Reset-proof...

[TMR]

there is one thing I would like to ask you for future A8 games: Don`t make them Reset-proof !!

Don't look at me, i was told ages ago that, if i was going to use most of the available RAM, to disable reset!

[xxl]

For my project the idea was to make a HUGE binary file and use the POINT/NOTE functions from xBIOS to point to teh right spots.

 

 

I was asked to explain indexing files and indexing data in a file (xBios):

We can index the files on the disk. we can " open " all interesting files "at once".

The benefit is that the "open" indexed file is not related with searching the directory, the file is opened immediately. We can do this by function xBIOS_OPEN_FILE and store the file handle of the variables: xDAUX2 ( xBIOS + $3FD ) , xDAUX1 ( xBIOS + $3fe ) in any momnt we can open this file by function xBIOS_OPEN_DEFAULT_FILE and variable xFILE (xBIOS + $3EE) . OPEN_FILE functions can be replaced by xBIOS_FIND_FILE and take handle directly from the buffer ( save time )

We can also index the data in the file. when we are connect all data in one big file, and we want to have immediate access to them, we can do this: open file, move to the interesting point (i.e. xBIOS_SET_FILE_OFFSET) where interesting data begin (it does not have to be a block in a binary file) then grab the handle from xDAUX2, xDAUX1 and offset (variable xBUFFERO xBIOS+$3EB). If at any time a program want to have access to these data store file handle to xFILE var, do xBIOS_OPEN_DEFAULT_FILE and save offset to xBUFFERO. This operation is immediate - without directory searches or read file from start. also you can do xBIOS_LOAD_BINARY_FILE of any indexed point in file. variables and functions such as file offset now operate from this location in the file.

general indexing files or data in the file is related with a single reading at the begining, later access to anywhere in the file is immediate (write 3 bytes), no longer open operation or directory search. indexing is safe, properly working with different densities, relocation buffer or library.

xB v3 has a lot of new features (i.e. binary lib relocator...)

beta3.atr

[kiwilove]

I think joint projects will probably be likely in the near future? That people will be more open to it - and once a good project results from this - even more may be done likewise.

 

I'm talking about a difficult game that was never satisfactorily done - finished to a very high standard.

One or more programmers may act as advisors - training in someone who really wants to know what it is like to enter the game programming world... but that person has to show all the hallmarks of getting there... but with advisors on hand, he/she'll get there sooner, faster, etc etc...

[popmilo]

I'm talking about a difficult game that was never satisfactorily done - finished to a very high standard.

One man miracles are possible, but rare...

 

Three man team is maybe the most reasonable option: coder, graphics artist, musician...

 

Forums are a perfect place to find any help you might need...

[Rybags]

Actually... having Reset do a coldstart allows more available Ram.

Set COLDST flag ($244) - this then allows locations that if changed might otherwise hang the machine when a warmstart occurs.

e.g. 2,-3, 9, $C-$D - and a few nzp locations.

 

Ideally a game should allow the user to quickly quit to the menu/title screen, serving much the same function as pressing Reset.

[Creature XL]

 

 

 

I was asked to explain indexing files and indexing data in a file (xBios):

[..]

 

This sounds amazing. I will try this definitely out in the next weeks and report back.

There should be a (maybe sticky?) thread with only xBIOS stuff in the programming section.

As I feel I have asked xBIOS questions in a lot of places (including private mail).

 

I know about the xBIOS documentation, but you know, most of the time it's easier to just ask the question

[Creature XL]

I think joint projects will probably be likely in the near future? That people will be more open to it - and once a good project results from this - even more may be done likewise.

 

I'm talking about a difficult game that was never satisfactorily done - finished to a very high standard.

One or more programmers may act as advisors - training in someone who really wants to know what it is like to enter the game programming world... but that person has to show all the hallmarks of getting there... but with advisors on hand, he/she'll get there sooner, faster, etc etc...

 

I am not sure if the ATARI-devs are up to the task.

A year or so ago there was this thread about making "Prince Of Persia" where rendering the sprite behind graphic was made out to be a problem.

I was (and still am) of the opinion that it is not that hard. However, as I have no interest in PoP I wouldn't code it just to prove the point.

So I asked if it wouldn't be nice idea to do it together. No one replied to that post AFAIR.

Another coder said, it is pretty easy to do the collision handling (he posted some pseudo code). I said, in theory it is easy. But when you actually code it you will see that it is not that easy. Again, if he is right, he could have done this part while others...

 

Pretty sure, WE could make awesome games together. It would be a relieve if I wouldn't have to code stuff like loading data or hi-score table sorting or sprite multiplexers and so on. Look at the end credits of f.e. GBA/NDS games like Castlevania. They have developers for everything. one "only" coded NPC, one only coded the map screen and so on.

 

Maybe the ABBUC competition is one part of the problem. At least I - as stated elsewhere - will try to overcome the temptation to make game for the next year's (if there is any).