Maids + Elevators = 2600 Homebrew

[128bytes]

Maid In Voyage?

 

 

Even better! I think "Maid In Voyage" is perfect!

 

That name is a winner - it perfectly describes the game, even if you don't get the pun, and the pun is really easy to figure out.

Edited November 30, 2006 by 128bytes

[Albert]

Maid In Voyage?

 

 

Even better! I think "Maid In Voyage" is perfect!

 

That name is a winner - it perfectly describes the game, even if you don't get the pun, and the pun is really easy to figure out.

Awesome name, gets my vote!

 

..Al

[NovaXpress]

"Maid In Voyage" is corny as hell, but it works. The game itself keeps getting better as well. I smell a homebrew hit.

 

Maid For Action?

[+batari]

Maid In Voyage?

She'd have to be a maid in a cruise ship for the pun to work. Whoops, I hope nobody is dis-maid by that comment...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Somebody should explain the joke to non-native speakers.

 

E.g. me!

[NovaXpress]

Most of the jokes are based on the word "made" which is pronounced just like "maid."

 

"Maiden voyage" is a term used for the first launch of a boat. In this case, the word "maiden" is synonymous with the word "virgin." So a ship taking its maiden voyage is losing it's sea virginity.

[Cybergoth]

Most of the jokes are based on the word "made" which is pronounced just like "maid."

 

"Maiden voyage" is a term used for the first launch of a boat. In this case, the word "maiden" is synonymous with the word "virgin." So a ship taking its maiden voyage is losing it's sea virginity.

 

Now try to explain "Iron Maiden" without getting banned

[NovaXpress]

Easy. An "iron maiden" is an old torture device. The original one is still located in Nuremburg if you Germans want to go take a look at it.

[Cybergoth]

I've seen it on pictures, but I think the one from Nuremberg got destroyed in WWII.

[+atari2600land]

I've noticed the elevators are in the same position every time you start the game. Is there some way to make the elevators be in random positions from the start?

[Zach]

Maid In Voyage is a great idea. The made/maid thing is overdone, no offense to anyone here.

Edited December 1, 2006 by Zach

[vdub_bobby]

I've noticed the elevators are in the same position every time you start the game. Is there some way to make the elevators be in random positions from the start?

Yeah, there is. I haven't decided yet if I want to do this.

[+SpiceWare]

I've noticed the elevators are in the same position every time you start the game. Is there some way to make the elevators be in random positions from the start?

Yeah, there is. I haven't decided yet if I want to do this.

It might make sense to offer that as a variation, like Barnstorming where the first 3 game variations have fixed maps(I think each # has it's own fixed map) and the 4th variation which is random every time.

[vdub_bobby]

It's been a while!

 

New version!

 

ElevRep20070225.bin

 

Changes:

-Added short death sequence

-Stopped elevators from moving during death sequence

 

Not a big change, but it should really help playability, since you are much less likely to lose all your lives in a big, unfortunate burst.

 

In other news...

 

I am looking for some graphics help. I would like my intrepid maid to be animated, but my own skills are failing me. I don't care if you animate the current maid or if you create a new maid sprite and animate it. I also would like a single-color version of the maid (also animated).

 

Technical details:

-the maid is composed of two sprites laid on top of each other. One is black, the other can be any color(s), with the colors changing every *other* line.

-the single-color maid: this will be used for a possible two-player simultaneous gameplay mode; one maid must be black and one can be any color.

-Standard 2600 sprite limitations apply: 8-pixels wide, etc.

 

For reference, here is the current sprite and its parts:

Edited February 26, 2007 by vdub_bobby

[Albert]

I am looking for some graphics help. I would like my intrepid maid to be animated, but my own skills are failing me. I don't care if you animate the current maid or if you create a new maid sprite and animate it. I also would like a single-color version of the maid (also animated).

Have you asked Nathan Strum if he is interested in helping with the sprites? He's created some great looking graphics in other 2600 games.

 

..Al

[vdub_bobby]

I am looking for some graphics help. I would like my intrepid maid to be animated, but my own skills are failing me. I don't care if you animate the current maid or if you create a new maid sprite and animate it. I also would like a single-color version of the maid (also animated).

Have you asked Nathan Strum if he is interested in helping with the sprites? He's created some great looking graphics in other 2600 games.

 

..Al

I'd love to see anything he can come up with.

 

But he seems to be so busy lately that I thought I'd make an open call for any and all help.

[+Nathan Strum]

Hey, I'm always willing to take a shot at drawing cute women in maid costumes.

[espire8]

[Gregory DG]

^^ Wow. She's pretty bouncy. Reminds me of the Dead or Alive games.

[vdub_bobby]

That's pretty good, but it won't work. My fault, I wasn't entirely clear. When I said that the color could change every other line, I meant that the color changes had to happen at fixed lines:

 

So the boundary between the white color and her neck can't move up by a single line.

[espire8]

[Bakasama]

 

I see you kept the bounce. That gives a vague idea what the character might look like on the label and box art.

[supercat]

 

I don't like the animation nearly as much with the stretchy-neck. I wonder if vdub_bobby could rework the kernel to ease the restriction.

 

Given that there are only two colors for that sprite, I would think that it should be possible to do something like:

 

 cpy colorswitch_y
 bne dont_switch
 lda #$0E
 sta COLUP1
dont_switch:

or, if the y value works out particularly favorably:

 cpy colorswitch_y
 bne dont_switch
 sty COLUP1
dont_switch

The latter would assume that the Y value for the switch would always be the proper COLUP1 value--probably too optimisic, but nice theory.

[+batari]

That's pretty good, but it won't work. My fault, I wasn't entirely clear. When I said that the color could change every other line, I meant that the color changes had to happen at fixed lines:

 

So the boundary between the white color and her neck can't move up by a single line.

Is there any reason why you couldn't just adjust the maid's Y-value by 1 every time the collar would raise by a pixel? It seems that this would remove the color change restriction and avoid the somewhat unappealing stretchy-neck, plus there would be no reason to change the kernel.

Edited March 1, 2007 by batari

[supercat]

Is there any reason why you couldn't just adjust the maid's Y-value by 1 every time the collar would raise by a pixel? It seems that this would remove the color change restriction and avoid the somewhat unappealing stretchy-neck.

 

I would guess that he's using a 2LK, and only one scan line of each pair contains a color update.

 

On the other hand, I would think that if updating the color is sumply a "do I or don't I" question that might simplify the color update enough to allow it to be handled on both lines.

 

In the worst case, if there are alternating "easy" and "hard" scan lines, one could make the decision to change colors on an "easy" scan line and jump to a separate copy of the "hard" scan line code which includes a simple color store (e.g. "LDA #$xx / STA COLUPx". This might work especially well if data byte for one of the sprites happened to match the necessary color value.