cmadruga

Demonstrating: - new intro screen - debug mode command: level selection (all 5 levels implemented) - collapsing walls: activated when player walks by an invisible trigger in certain screens. Creates a persistent obstacle to movement. - new gfx for rescued people inside cells

Very impressive, thanks for sharing!

New enemy introduced: the ghost. The ghost is a true pest. It will appear in some rooms and then proceed to chase the player. It is capable of passing through anything, no obstacles can contain it. Punches will push it back, but it takes several hits to kill it. Even then, it will just re-spawn. Better to avoid it and move on! BTW these are Stage 4 screens. The ghost is intended to be an advanced type of enemy.

Finished porting stages 4 and 5. The game now has 100 screens in total. Phew! That's enough.

Clever trick and nice visual effect!

A few suggestions based on my reading of some of the communication around the 2018 contest: It may be worth revisiting the scoring system. It felt a little over engineered, with 9 attributes and a 1-10 scale for each. I would suggest reducing the number of attributes (stick to objective vs subjective ones), simplifying the scale, and adding some objective descriptions of what "poor", "average" and "good" look like. Also, personally I don't think the non-submission of source code should drive any scoring penalties. This makes the whole thing intimidating to beginners. Plus, expert level folks won't necessarily feel inclined to share some of their most impressive techniques. I think it should be completely voluntary. Finally, when looking at some of the feedback provided to participants, I think it's worth striking the right tone. The general tone should be one of encouragement and recognition for the efforts. Words like "pedestrian" and "lackluster" do not belong anywhere. Also, I think folks need to be tactful when reacting to submissions made throughout the contest, even if the author would say something like "I would welcome your thoughts". Receiving 10-15 immediate suggestions/requests may seem helpful, but it actually creates pressure to respond, and feels intimidating to anyone considering joining the competition.

Thanks! I'm using just 2 background tunes at the moment, contributed by Nyuundere and Carlsson. No MUSIC GOSUB used. Let me send you a PM.

Excellent. Would deadlines be the same for all productions?

Ahhh... Stop the Express. Very difficult game, but fun. Very doable on the Inty.

I don't know, 6 months feels like a looooong time. I got dibs on @carlsson, @skywaffle, @TIX, @artrag and @nanochess. We are finally doing Metal Gear on the Inty. It's a done deal. Joking!!! (sort of)

I think contests are needed to keep the community engaged and growing. Contests bring encouragement, recognition and visibility if well managed. To the point that Carlsson was making about the evolution of the scene and how previous competitions connected to the different maturity stages at each point... I think we may have reached a point where there is a critical mass of coders that seem to be at different points in their journey. So if that's the case - and I would normally try to confirm it through some sort of interest check or survey - we could consider more than 1 competition category. Here is an idea "Rising star" category: - Objective would be to encourage folks wanting to get their feet wet. So, folks with published games or any known advanced works would not be eligible. On the other hand, rookies would be invited and encouraged to participate. - Take some skeleton code, and build something based off it. - One or more experienced coders would be available to support competitors. Not to do their work for them, but to answer questions and provide encouragement. "Veteran" category: - Open to anyone not competing in other categories. - Need some technical limitations to level the playing field. "Expert" category: - Open to anyone. - Sky is the limit. No technical restrictions. - An ambitious technical challenge could be put on the table. - Submissions could be demos or prototypes, and not necessarily games. Anyway, those are just some ideas.

Tested Gooninuff today on an LTO, and confirmed that bat glitch. Will be doing some investigation. On a side note, I just ported all Stage 3 screens. Thanks to encoding and compression improvements, the rom still shrank 10% in size after plugging Stage 3. It looks like there will be sufficient space to bring in Stages 4 and 5 after all! 🙂

Yes, exactly. In addition, the bat will gradually adjust the center of that sine based on whether the player Y is above or below it. I should get my hands on an LTO this week. Hopefully I will be in condition to isolate the issue. Also, I confirmed by looking at the .lst that segments are ok, and no errors came out.

Hmmm... No segments were going over on this last published file as far as I remember.

Oh so you never saw it on the Jzintv either? I was going to say I’ve been unable to replicate it so far, and I have been using Jzintv only. I’m not doing page flipping, to be honest my goal is to make it fit without it. I did some tweaks to encoding since this last alpha that I think will give me a realistic shot, even though it may be tight. Could it be something related to where I’m starting/stopping each segment?