Planet Bob

I like the autofire, too. But I'd like to be able to press fire to start a level - it feels weird not being able to initiate the autofire - and then maybe not have the smart bomb be usable for a few seconds until the first enemies materialize, so you don't accidentally use one up when starting a level.

Hm... the intermission sequence is running by timers, it doesn't react on the fire button anyway, so why would you want to press it then?

It's just kind of weird not pressing fire at all for the cannons. But I can live without it.

 

[*]After you die, it shouldn't entirely rebuild your cities and shields. I think it should only do this when you reach certain point levels (but it should always rebuild your cannons).

This is modeled after the arcade, I'm not sure if I want to change this.

- after losing a life, the game should continue from where it stopped (e.g. the same amount of remaining enemies). I find it rather irritating to have to restart the same level from start. This does break the flow of the game, IMO. (like commercial breaks on TV)

I think you're right on this one!

Aren't those two suggestions related?

 

There's not a single scanline left. The remaining smart bombs are indicated via the animated bottom thingies. If you use them, they stopped animating. And if an enemy shoots them they're gone. I think that's a pretty cool design from Taito

I forgot about that. Nevermind.

 

I will have to think of other means of making it more difficult, as it probably won't speed up at all :)

I'm sure you'll come up with something.

- play a short "requiem" jingle a the game over screen.

I'm not good at all at doing jingles, so here is a deal: If I get a good jingle submission from someone, I'll use it

How about this? Just hold out the last note longer.

That's an interesting point. It should indeed be sufficient, however I found that while playing I tend to forget how many lives are still left.

I guess that's because a life is basically made out of two chances (two bases), so once you lost one and consequently things start to get intense, your attention focuses on the single base and the memory page in your brain where you had stored the life numbers gets erased.

Well, Freud, I'm not - not sure whether that makes sense...

 

I'll just keep the color coding in mind. If there's a few bytes remainig in the end, I'll add it

 

I guess my wording gets too pompuous at times

A two or three tones sound would perfectly do the job actually.

Same applies to the earlier proposed "jingles": just some accoustic effect to enforce the emotion of loss (game over), alert (siren at wave begin) and relief/clearance (end of wave) ...

That should also lessen ROM headaches

 

I'll see what I can do. I really like the idea of an alarm siren. It can be hard to create such special sounds though, I remember how I spent hours on creating a sonar ping for Seawolf, until I gave up and just ripped it from "Polaris"

It's just kind of weird not pressing fire at all for the cannons. But I can live without it.

 

I'll try to make it at least impossible to waste a smartbomb accidently when coming straight from the title or intermission screen

 

Aren't those two suggestions related?

 

Good catch!

 

It's just my personal impression here, that not resetting the enemy counter is a fair game. Completely restoring the colony for another "life" also feels naturally. That's just regarding the status quo though. Maybe it feels different once I see what can be done regarding repairs.

 

I will have to think of other means of making it more difficult, as it probably won't speed up at all :)

I'm sure you'll come up with something.

 

I have some ideas now for getting differet speeds. It's really funny: I had reserved two RAM bytes for each fighter to model their movement code after the arcade, but yesterday I found I can get it pretty close - without needing any RAM at all

 

I'll post a version tonight. I just didn't fully finish it last night, also not sure if I broke some things and I still want to tweak the behaviour some more

 

How about this? Just hold out the last note longer.

 

Cool!

- sounds: it would be nice to have an "alarm siren" at the begin and a victory jingle at the end of each wave. Also, if the bonus score would visualy and accustically add up instead of just display. Such small effects could enliven the game quite some and give it more drama, I believe.

 

Ok, I attached a version with a siren

Next I will try the bonus count and the Game Over jingle as suggested by Nathan.

 

I don't think a victory jingle is required, since inbetween levels there's already the bonus counting and the siren then.

 

- display the last wawe number at the game over screen.

Should be easy.

 

Uh... how wrong I was. The intermission sequence screens are so hardcoded to display two lines of text, I decided to not even try to entwine that ever again

 

A request for future builds - could you add the date to their names? It's easier to keep track of them, which is often handy when trying to compare them with previous builds.

 

Maybe if I manage to write a script/batch for that one day, I'm too lazy to do that manually

Ok, I attached a version with a siren

Next I will try the bonus count and the Game Over jingle as suggested by Nathan.

Great siren - .. much better than I would have hoped for!

Somehow reminds me of that cheesy 70's UFO series - perfect fit for the game!

Maybe you could make it one or two cycles longer? The siren itself should be a bit longer than the "switch on" sound (that's at least how I interpret the first few bits of sound)..IMHO

I don't think a victory jingle is required, since inbetween levels there's already the bonus counting and the siren then.

Hmm, don't know...I just feel it would round up a level nicely.

I think it's a bit comparable to a good movie, that does not finish by suddenly displaying the credits, but has either the classic "The End" or some other dramatic effect to mark the ending (fade out, still shot, etc.)

 

As for a victory jingle - why not just apply the same approach as for the "Game Over" jingle and scavenge the title tune? I find the cheerful last bits of the title tune would nicely fit that role

Uh... how wrong I was. The intermission sequence screens are so hardcoded to display two lines of text, I decided to not even try to entwine that ever again

Maybe a trick around it would be to alter between "Game Over" and "Stage X" for a while?

Or a shorter version: display "Game Over" first for a few seconds, then "Stage X", before returning to the title screen.

A request for future builds - could you add the date to their names? It's easier to keep track of them, which is often handy when trying to compare them with previous builds.

Maybe if I manage to write a script/batch for that one day, I'm too lazy to do that manually

Add me to those looking forward to this

Maybe a trick around it would be to alter between "Game Over" and "Stage X" for a while?

Or a shorter version: display "Game Over" first for a few seconds, then "Stage X", before returning to the title screen.

Either that, or how about alternating between the score and the level number, during the title screen?

 

I have another suggestion - could you make it so enemies can't strafe you, if they materialize right above your gun? Maybe make them travel a given distance before firing? The enemy is so dead-on, if your cursor isn't in exactly the right place, you're toast, with no chance of taking him out. At the least, they shouldn't be allowed to do that at the very beginning of a level or new life, since I had one take me out instantly. Seemed like kind of a cheap shot.

 

I'm used to the auto-fire now. I really like it. :)

Found a scoring exploit. In the first level - just wait for a Scout to come out, and let if fly around unharmed. It never goes away, your timer increases, and you can just sit there and shoot Fighters on level one forever. Boring yes, but still an easy scoring exploit.

 

I'd suggest for the first couple of levels, the Scout goes away by itself after a short time, or doesn't come out at all.

Oh Dear, you guys are really killing me!

 

I've to apologize in advance, but I have to say "no" to most suggestions. As simple some may sound, they just kill the specs for certain code passages, ie. worst case require a total rewrite.

 

For example are certain variables either dedicated to music in the intro, or SFX in the game. The siren for example uses the intermission timer as index into its music data, etc, etc.

 

That's just the usual struggles of not enough ROM/RAM/cycles that lead to some rather ugly descissions, which in return will make some very simple sounding tweaks next to impossible.

 

Maybe you could make it one or two cycles longer? The siren itself should be a bit longer than the "switch on" sound (that's at least how I interpret the first few bits of sound)..IMHO

 

That's the first of them. If it helps any, the Build-Up to Up time is already 3:5

 

Hmm, don't know...I just feel it would round up a level nicely.

I think it's a bit comparable to a good movie, that does not finish by suddenly displaying the credits, but has either the classic "The End" or some other dramatic effect to mark the ending (fade out, still shot, etc.)

 

It would require adding a third ("Victory!") screen to the in-between-levels sequence, which'd also add another 128 frames to the pause inbetween levels. I may consider this when there's some ROM left in the end, but I bumped this to the end of the "ideas" block.

 

Maybe a trick around it would be to alter between "Game Over" and "Stage X" for a while? Or a shorter version: display "Game Over" first for a few seconds, then "Stage X", before returning to the title screen.

 

This also falls under the problems described above, I'm sorry. => Why not just memorize the last stage?

 

Add me to those looking forward to this

 

I'm working on it. I already figured that in a batch you have access to the actual date with "date/t"

 

@Nathan: Will answer your comments later. I need to do some work first

I have another suggestion - could you make it so enemies can't strafe you, if they materialize right above your gun? Maybe make them travel a given distance before firing? The enemy is so dead-on, if your cursor isn't in exactly the right place, you're toast, with no chance of taking him out. At the least, they shouldn't be allowed to do that at the very beginning of a level or new life, since I had one take me out instantly. Seemed like kind of a cheap shot.

 

I'll make sure to fix that!

 

I'm used to the auto-fire now. I really like it. :)

 

Way cool!

 

Found a scoring exploit. In the first level - just wait for a Scout to come out, and let if fly around unharmed. It never goes away, your timer increases, and you can just sit there and shoot Fighters on level one forever. Boring yes, but still an easy scoring exploit.

 

Doing that must really be boring. I'm not sure if such a tactic is really worth it either, since you'll never get any bonus, yet even the single remaining fighter will eventually wreck your colony. They player should be movivated by the higher scores in higher rounds, as in the second level he scores already twice as much.

 

With normal playing I get over 100K, I wonder how long does that take when just sitting in level 1?

 

But you're right, maybe I shouldn't spawn Scouts in levels 1 & 2

Oh Dear, you guys are really killing me!

 

(Cyber)Goethe: „Die ich rief, die Geister, / Werd' ich nun nicht los."

(eng.: "The spirits that I called" from the Sorcerer's Apprentice)

 

For example are certain variables either dedicated to music in the intro, or SFX in the game. The siren for example uses the intermission timer as index into its music data, etc, etc.

 

That's just the usual struggles of not enough ROM/RAM/cycles that lead to some rather ugly descissions, which in return will make some very simple sounding tweaks next to impossible.

 

Got your point, though I can't pretend I fully understand the technical issues yet. But will try! (sooner or later)

Thanks for listening anyway

 

Maybe you could make it one or two cycles longer? The siren itself should be a bit longer than the "switch on" sound (that's at least how I interpret the first few bits of sound)..IMHO

That's the first of them. If it helps any, the Build-Up to Up time is already 3:5

 

I like that build-up actually!

It opens the door to another trademark of classic games: creative storytelling. One could blame it on the badly trained alarm unit of Colony 7, who is just way slow to react.

 

It would require adding a third ("Victory!") screen to the in-between-levels sequence, which'd also add another 128 frames to the pause inbetween levels. I may consider this when there's some ROM left in the end, but I bumped this to the end of the "ideas" block.

Keeping fingers crossed!

 

This also falls under the problems described above, I'm sorry. => Why not just memorize the last stage?

'cause players have a short attention span per default

Hmm, another approach: maybe there would be some way to display the last stage (and score) of the last game during the title/attract screen(s)?

...just continuing dumping ideas

...just continuing dumping ideas

 

Fine!

 

Though the next release will probably have almost new features, but mainly a couple of bug fixes.

How about this? Just hold out the last note longer.

 

It's more than two times too long. It requires over 300 frames, but the timer for the Game Over screen is only running for 128. Neither speeding it up nor cutting it did work, I think I spent over 2 hours on it now.

 

I need one that is way shorter.

Just take the last three notes.

My best effort so far is attached to the main entry. It is shifted one octave down, is played 33% faster, cuts the beginning a bit and I made the last note a tad longer and the one before it shorter. The Sorcerer's Apprentice I am, totally clueless about music

 

Is it any good?

I think it's pretty good.

Great! Happy to see the GameOver tune is gonna make it as well!

I like the tune, perhaps you could just stretch the notes some more?

That might help to add further gravity to the "final curtain": player

(it's always a good thing to generate emotions in a game)

I like the tune, perhaps you could just stretch the notes some more?

 

It's using precisely 128 frames now and that's all the time I have, unless I rewrite the intermission sequence system.

 

I can post the note sequence I'm using now this evening, so maybe some musician can have a look and tweak it for the better

Sounds good to me, too. Can you get the second channel in there?

Sounds good to me, too. Can you get the second channel in there?

 

Yup, that's no problem

Sounds good to me, too. Can you get the second channel in there?

Yup, that's no problem

 

Technically at least

 

After wasting another fruitless night trying to make it sound good I threw it all away. Listening to 200 SID tunes later, I now converted a small jingle from Park Patrol that seemed to fit. Hear it attached. It's either that - or "no" Game Over Jingle

That works. I think you could even do without the last note (the "boop"). It sounds a little out of place with the rest. Then you could hold the new last note out a little longer, and I think that would sound good.

Definitely an improvement, thanks