InfernalKeith
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Posts posted by InfernalKeith
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Aww, thanks, you guys. I hope the concept and gameplay help it rise above its more primitive look. My philosophy is always 'less is more' in that department - and besides, I can't draw for crap.
The one Achilles heel of the game, potentially, is speed. I'm sure that will come as no surprise to anyone, as it's coded 100% in XB at the moment. So far I find it works for me -- it's obviously not meant to be a fast-action thriller, and I enjoy setting the tools to work and then letting it go for a bit to see what the cats end up doing. It remains to be seen if it's too slow for everyone else, or if the pace works. There's always CPU Overdrive...
Or an eventual assembly rewrite. Heck, the code is an unsightly mess right now. I know there are places I can tighten it up and probably speed things up a bit, once I get the whole thing working and have time to finesse.Again, thanks for all the encouragement. I'll probably lay off the further updates till I turn in the finished game, so I can focus on getting it done. No sleep till beta test!
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Level 1: Nice and Easy. (This stocks you up with points to 'spend' on tools later.)
Level 2: Mind the Holes
Level 3: Wrong Side of Trax (Daunting looking, but a simple tool tames this board quickly)
I only have 99999 points on the level 3 screenshot because I used the 'easter egg' I had to add, to make sure I could test higher levels easily.
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You could have speech for each of the cartridges. Each cartridge would 'say' it's name, and possibly a phrase associated with that game.
So,
"Parsec - Great shot, pilot!"
"Alpiner - Look out!"
"Super Demon Attack - You are mine, earthling!"
"TI Invaders - Downright aggressive"
You get the idea...
"Zerozap - Does anyone know when the fun is supposed to start?"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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Update: the first three REAL levels of the game, not just test modes, are finished. "Nice and Easy," "Mind the Holes," and "Wrong Side of Trax," they're called. Seeing actual game levels has changed my whole outlook on this thing, as I was beginning to get a bit bogged down in the details and second-guessing the whole idea a bit.
Speaking of getting bogged down, I did some bug fixes tonight, and started coding the "cat bookie" -- you'll be able to bet the house on how many of your cats make it, or, if you're a sadistic bastard, how many will bite the dust. The cat bookie will taunt you accordingly and calculates the wagers based on how many cycles are left in the round, how many cats are still onscreen, etc.
Many of the other cat tools yet to be coded - the "cat rapture," building wall segments, etc. - are a matter of a few lines each. We may actually be getting to the home stretch here!
If I make it late enough tonight I'll post pix of the finished levels.
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Well, for various reasons less and less time has been spent on this project.
I hope everything's ok? :/
Unfinished Destroyer can still kick my game's butt. We'll be happy to have it if you can knock it together, but we all understand that life gets in the way, a lot. My "all day programming day" just started over here... at 8:30pm. hehe
Good luck man!
Keith
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Ai yi yi!!
Working on the user tools to finish the game by this weekend, and I had a sudden bolt of inspiration -- WAY too big to add before the contest ends!
So, as it stands now, Herding Cats Beta will be released by the deadline, as a one-player game...
But when I release the official Herding Cats 1.0, it will have a two-player competitive mode!
TWO exits, one on either side of the screen... you against an opponent or the computer... each of you doing things to manipulate the board and get more cats to your exit, AND undoing your opponent's work, AND sabotaging their efforts.
That actually pretty much makes it a different game! I may do "Herding Cats I and II" and when I do the physical release, package them together.
Back to work... hopefully more photos tonight as I near completion...
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Oh, and don't think that the "Bill McBoulder of Grand Junction, Colorado" reference slipped by unnoticed, either. Well played, sir.
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I don't know much about it at all, I'm just learning a little bit myself, having heard of the term and seen some work being done on a couple games over on the vic-20 forum. If a contest is held too soon after the current one, I won't be able to play -- I've gotta get some other projects wrapped up, and I really want to get started on my Downward game soon. And one of these days, because I'm insane, I want to get up to speed on Vic-20 BASIC so I can start converting my games to that platform too.
If only I could get someone to pay me to retro-code full time...
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I'd never heard the term "roguelike" till fairly recently, over on the Denial Vic-20 boards, but I'm definitely intrigued. I think the potential for a game like that, perhaps combined with elements of interactive fiction (text adventure), would be huge. And if you went really roguelike and did it all in text, you could bust out 40-column mode.
Focus, Keith... one thing at a time...
Herding Cats will definitely not be 100% complete by the deadline, but it will be playable and all the levels will be installed. Before I put it out as a final version, though, I definitely want to refine it a bit more.
With this snowstorm blowing in, I may have more TI time than I thought over the next couple days... as long as the power stays on. :/
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So as we hit the home stretch, are there any games besides Destroyer, Honeycomb Rapture, and Herding Cats going into consideration? Is Pong going to be an entry?
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Keith---I was thinking, why don't you send Hal (from CTIUG) an email and demo "Herding Cats" this year at the Faire? It's definitely a cool and original concept, and you would certainly be able to sell some there.... Make your gas money back.
Hal is always eager for new demonstrators.My goal is to have Herding Cats and Downward both finished by then, and to demo them both at the Faire. I'm not 100% sure I want to release HC on its own yet, or if I can have Downward finished in time -- I want to see how it's coming along in a month or two and then decide. If Downward turns out really good, I might "release" it in a package, and put HC on it as a bonus, or something. It's all still too nebulous right now for me to make a final decision. Ideally, I'll be done with both games and on to the next project by then, but life has a way of sneaking in there and messing up plans...
Right now I just gotta focus on getting HC done this week. I still have to finish designing all the levels, once the actual functionality of the game is done.
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OK, photo tour of the game so far:
The title screen. The border of cats is animated.
Credits screen. I stole the idea of 'cup-of-coffee-ware' from someone else's site, I don't remember who. If you like my game, PayPal me $2 for a cup of coffee.
The first level's goals are explained. Basically, level 1 is a blow-off, to let you get used to the tools and mess around, but you can still lose in the first round.
And here we are, level one, cats merrily roaming...
You've pressed space, and are now scrolling through your menu of options. You can use the arrow keys or type the letter of the individual tool to select it.
Oh dear! You've chosen the "cat-pocalypse," and your cats are blowing up, one by one.
Ah, here we are. Level two, and a slew of cats all jumbled together. Sure, they explode on contact with each other now, but they wouldn't be dumb enough to run into each -- oh.
Well, if they're going to blow each other up anyway, why not cut the table in half, sacrifice some, and keep the others from wandering too far off?
Well, that's less area to keep track of, and an ever-so-fancy wall to keep the little furry geniuses from wandering randomly off into the abyss. Surely now we'll reach our goal of 20,000 points, right?
Uh... right? Oh dear.
This game isn't even beta tested yet, and already, I suck at it.
More tools enabled tonight!
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I think people on AA appreciate homebrew titles being developed for any retro machine not just the TI99.
I hope folks here are keen on remakes as well, because I've got another TI one underway and an A2600 one I'm looking to revive. Perhaps one day I'll get up enough gumption to try homebrewing too.
Another idea I have, which I touched on briefly in Retrogaming Times this month, is revamps of, or sequels to, existing (and possibly forgotten) games. One that comes to mind for me is Lost Ruins, originally a 99'er magazine type-in game. Lots of potential there for a more fully-developed game concept. I'd love to do a one-player version of Hordes with some decent AI, too, so I could play it against the computer.
Too many projects for one lifetime!
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Well, the "all nighter" only lasted till about 3am. I guess I'm getting old.
Got quite a bit done, though, and a lot of the remaining work is easy stuff. I hope to get a bunch more of the player functions installed tonight, and I will definitely post some pix later today. I have to go spend some time with those small humans who live in my house, though - not sure what they're called, again? Perhaps I do need a break from the TI...
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Still plugging away at 2:30am... you can now cut the playfield in half, which dooms any kitties on that side to oblivion, but which keeps the rest from wandering too far from the exit. Next function: the "cat bookie," who allows you to bet some of your points on how many cats you actually save...
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So far so good... when you hit space to pause the action and use your tools, my little menu works -- you can page through all your options quickly with the arrow keys, or pick your tool of choice with a letter command. All you can do is resume the cats' wandering or quit to main so far, but it's all formatted properly and works right, so we're cookin'.
Once I get a few more of the tools implemented, I'll copy it over to the PC so I can get a few screen grabs to post. Getting 'in the zone' now, though - caffeine is kicking in and I'm jazzed on some minor successes.
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I'll be around tonight working on my TI remake, so feel free to ping me if you need to vent or anything.
Thanks! I just realized where my bad values were coming from. So stupid... I typed over a line that checked to make sure a particular cat wasn't already offscreen (dead or at the goal). If that cat is gone, the X value is SUPPOSED to be zero, but it's supposed to cycle on to the next cat, then.
Tell me again why I thought coding this on real gear was a good idea? :/
Anyway, problem solved... onward and upward!
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Tonight marks the final push... gonna try to have at least a good bit of the game functionality working by the time I go to bed (which could be sunrise, at the rate I'm going).
Dealing right now with bad values coming in when the cat moves - an x-coordinate of zero is somehow getting through even though I check for it in all directions (if the coordinate is zero, the cat either "wraps" to the other side of the screen, or just goes "bump" and picks a new direction, depending on whether screen wrap is activated on that level). Also, the multitude of IF-AND-AND-AND-THEN statements to make the cat repellent/attractant tools work is slowing things down a bit... I need to puzzle out a better solution there.
I'll probably be posting all night as I take breaks from the 99/4A and beat my head against the desk. Make some coffee and stay up with me, won't you?
(or, depending on your locale, wake up to my programming nightmares) -
Also, I recently moved my blog to Wordpress, after Blogspot decided not to support FTP publishing anymore. Like I'd trust Google's servers now... the reason they got hacked was they didn't bother to upgrade past IE6 and an older version of Adobe on their servers. And the hackers KNEW it and wrote a zero-day hack to deliberately target them.
The target controls are going to be really a bother to code and debug. I think I'm in the home stretch; I just need to do the actual controls for moving the cursor about or scrolling a menu. As a bonus, I get the item/spell handling for travel for free, since it and combat use the same system.
Adamantyr
Adam,
Very happy to see you surface here! I've had your blog bookmarked since well before I started my own programming 'rebirth,' and I check it regularly for updates.
I hope this forum inspires you; it definitely seems to have kicked off a little bit of a frenzy of activity.
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Dude, I thought of another one! I have my Lemonade Mafia concept sketched out, and you did Lemonade Stand! You definitely had the momentum on that one, though - it was finished the first time I encountered you, I think, and mine's gonna be notes on graph paper for a LONG time - at least till Downward is done, and I might tackle Manifest Destiny before it, too.
I'm loving the shared knowledge and experiences - I think we're on the verge of a software renaissance for the 99/4A, if not already into it. Getting people from other platforms involved, getting former 99'ers back into the fold, taking advantage of forgotten knowledge and the brainpower of our collected experts... it's a pretty awesome thing to behold.
I'll stop hijacking your thread to gush now.
Onward! -
Looking forward to see this one grow and develop... Owen, we end up on parallel paths on a lot of our endeavors, did you ever notice that? I've got my Downward game that was my 'baby' till the Herding Cats project, and the contest, came up, and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Mine's definitely an "RPG-lite" but it'll have a lot of trading and bartering elements, kinda similar to the old BBS game TradeWars 2002, so adding that in the "map crawl" context should be interesting.
So is Honeycomb pretty much finished? I still have so much to do on Herding, and the days keep getting away from me. I got sidetracked cleaning up my 'war room' in the basement today, so now my Mattel Aquarius and my Apple IIgs are finally set up and in their place of honor, my stereo is back up and running, and my turntable is cleaned up and working... but no TI coding. :/ Eh, it's only 10:30... better put on another pot of coffee.
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I am lucky there. We have a house with a big basement, and as long as my antique 'treasures' live down there, and not where she has to see them, my wife doesn't care what I do. Since I also buy and sell my non-wanted stuff on Ebay, it brings in a little extra $ which she also likes.
I wonder if my hobby will turn into 'collecting' at some point, though... I never wanted to be the guy who wants EVERY cart or game for each system, but I find myself keeping a lot more stuff lately. :/
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You bunch of sissies. I'm finishing Herding Cats on REAL GEAR!!! ARRRRRRRRR!!!!
Actually, I really am doing that, but I may move to Classic99 after this project. I sorta feel like I'm betraying the old girl, working on my PC instead, but it's simply more convenient to work on my main computer, to be able to work on my laptop elsewhere, etc.
I admit to a sort of weird "purity" standard I was trying to maintain for a while... but that's such an arbitrary, self-imposed line to draw in the sand. If I use a 99/4A with a Rave99 keyboard and a compact flash drive, am I really programming on a "true" TI? I think I've decided that for me, as long as my program will run on a stock 99/4A, how it's made isn't as important. When "keeping it real" gets in the way of having fun, or getting work done, then I'm just being ridiculous.
Speaking of which... back to work!
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Neat you met the guy behind Not Polyoptics. I bought some Japanese wargame by them from a computer store. Think it was priated since it didn't contain a black, unlabeled cassette. The manual seemed quite a bit photocopied more than expected. Remember playing the cassette in my mom's '88 Isuzu Trooper 2.
Mu eight-year-old son recently noticed the sound of the TI loading tapes in, and asked what the noise was. I explained that it was how the computer loaded and saved the information to make the program work, and he stood and listened for a little longer, and said "can I have one of those tapes to listen to in my room? I like how that sounds!"
I actually enjoy the sound, too, but I think it has more to do with TI memories than its actual tonal qualities.
It'd be hard to tell if it was a pirated copy or not - I know that stores and mail order places were known to pirate and sell software. Since the "original packaging" often consisted of a photocopied manual and a Ziploc bag, it was easy to do.
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Honeycomb Rapture (RGPC)
in TI-99/4A Development
Posted
I haven't cut-and-pasted any of the code from this game yet, simply because I want to enjoy it as a finished product (well, 'contest ready' at least) when I check it for the first time. Really looking forward to it - the screenshots look awesome!