r_type2600

Cool game core with great potential! Already has: smooth and fast gameplay, clever game controls, and atmospheric, entrancing music. Main missing ingredients: - purpose. What's the long-term motivation of shooting blocks? It's sure fun, but becomes pointless quite quickly. (A bit like punching holes into a sheet of paper). - punch. As a result of above, the player can as well content himself with just avoiding the blocks. That's not so good, since excitement mostly stems from keeping the player on his toes, be it through relentless action or challenging puzzles. Suggestion: (of course subject to technical feasibility) - introduce "rescue" items. A single sprite would already be sufficient to implement this idea. Displayed at random on the screen for a limited time, the player would have to race to get it before it vanishes. One level would then last for 10 or 20 such consecutive sprites. Get all of them for a "perfect" score bonus. (a counter could keep track of the rescue items). Additional "punch" factor: the score for rescued sprites decreases with time: say, 30 pts. within the first 5 secs., 20 pts between 6-15 secs, 10 pts until 30 secs. The sprite then disappears (= 0 pts) Later game levels could then raise in difficulty by giving increasing motion to these sprites (from static to 8-ways, fix pattern to random, different speeds, etc.) This could at once fill the deficits described before, keep the player motivated and in constant motion, and open lots of possibilities for a full-blown, multi-level, exciting game experience... (thinking about it: it's basically Robotron's success ingredient. How boring would that be without all the little humans to rescue?)

Got to agree - the C64's version colors are more easy on the eyes, the color combinations in the Atari version are really a bit unusual. On the other hand, the Atari is the original and one could guess its colors were intentional to emphasize the outworldish game experience... Best of course would be an option to switch between the two version's palettes But that would be quite a waste of ROM, I guess...

The problem is, that we are absolutely limited to 4 pixels horizontally. So no chance for 5 pixels. But I am always open for good suggestions. Within the limitations. Hm, maybe I expressed myself overcomplicated - what I meant is that any given time the visible diamond would be 4 pixels wide, but since it would animate back and forth horizontally, the first and fifth pixel would both be visible half-time. That might work to burn the picture of the full 5-pixel wide diamond into the player's mind...

Since this is my first comment here: awesome looking conversion, hope this will make it to cart! Not a big issue, but about the only thing that looks off in the graphics is the diamonds' shape. Obviously that's due to the 4-pixels horizontal limitation, so I was wondering whether a different approach might work here? Since the 4 pixels don't seem to allow for a convincing recreation of the original's diamonds, why not try to trick the observer to perceive them as such: The idea would be to expand the diamonds to 5 pixels, and then animate them back and forth one pixel horizontally (instead or in addition to the current vertical animation). Not sure, but I think that if done at a decent speed, this animation could convincingly recreate the original diamond's shape in the player's perception. A 6-line diamond could then look similar to this: - - o - - - o - o - o - - - o o - - - o - o - o - - - o - - That may then perhaps also allow to fill the inner parts in a different color, making the diamonds further distinct from the rocks. Just thinking loud; don't know whether this would make sense (and be doable) in reality...

$50 would be fitting for such a special homebrew release. For one, the licensing issue and technical challenges would justify the higher price. Also, I feel that the game's profile, gameplay and depth are so attractive that most players will accept the higher price, and it will probably go as fast as Adventure II. On the other hand, a price beyond $50 would IMO dramatically reduce the number of potential buyers and limit it to hardcore collectors (and maybe a handful of BD fanatics) only. IMO, if you're targeting a specific total $ revenue for the release, the more promising approach would be a higher number release than a high price (e.g. 300 x 50 instead of 200 x 75). You could then release a fraction of these as boxed editions (say 75) at $75 to milk "satisfy" the hardcore collectors (including myself ).

What a salomonic solution to restore Christmas peace You must have become a master of code optimization, to be able to come back and add last minute features again

Are you sure? I always thought they were kinda "gravity-stabilizer" facilitating the control of the little guy... May be wrong though -

Can't wait to see the label for the game! I figure Albert is already hard at work printing the labels/manuals and burning the ROMs

Ok, got your point Was just thinking that since the squad counter now does go up to 99, it would be nice to have something like a hypothetical chance to at least get halfway there Will just shift the focus from squad numbers to high score then, great fun either way

The new Squad font looks great! Hmm, shouldn't the other text be adjusted in size as well, for consistency? Manuel, the current version always starts at Squad 9 with a score of 080808 (check Nathan's screenshot) For playtesting reasons, I guess? Well, C7 certainly does not suffer from being too easy now. Seems impossible to me to get beyond the 10er squads, even when playing with a joystick. Would still wish for some difficulty finetuning...

Yeah, I know...working on streamlining that tendency of mine, (at least I didn't cluster the forum with my elaborations ) Yup!

Great release candidate Can't wait to play this game on the real thing, should grant a higher score than using the arrow keys Wanted to playtest this long enough to see what happens after squad 9, but glad to hear that the level number display has already been upgraded (and yes, SQD is definetely preferable to SQUA ) Cool what you all managed to fit into the limited space - no reasonable wishes left open! What's most important, the game now really is fun to play, being both challenging and long-term motivating (with the improved SQD# feature). Only a small issue here maybe: any chance to still address the "all cities gone = automatic doom" problem? What about just renewing the colony shields after a set number of levels (every 5? or 8? something along these lines). Should hopefully be simple to implement, and give players a fairer chance to survive longer... Hmm, and I guess the enemy reset switch option had to be sacrified on the altar of ROM? Really like the extra sound bits for the scout and bomb intercept, btw, they nicely enrichen the atmosphere and game experience...

I'm also not very keen of the half rate fire: while it does make the game more difficult, it feels unfair to further reduce the player's odds after he already lost a cannon... Maybe this feature could be included in another way? What about halfing the fire rate of the (remaining) cannon(s) for a short while after shooting a particular enemy, and return to the normal fire rate after 5 seconds or so? I was thinking of the white alien here, who does not seem to have any particular characteristic at the moment. That way the game would also get a nice little tactical component (go for the extra score or play it safe)...

... Awesome! ... Perfect! ... Rules! ... :!: Congratulations for finalizing this masterpiece Simone! (only a miniscule observation: pressing the fire button during the demo screen will first bring you to the title screen, and not directly start a game. Only reporting it for the records, a completely negligible issue actually) Cheers, Eric

Wow, love that label! Something different from your other work, as you mentioned, and a complete success! One can imagine the difficulty to come up with something fitting for such abstract game concepts, and I think you found the golden path here. I find it in the tradition of classic modern (Mondrian, Delaunay, Bauhaus, etc.), and as such a perfect messenger for the combination of pure gameplay and simple graphical elegance found in Simone's games. The beautyful title logo being the icing of the cake, adding life to the "intellectualy" cool basic label. Also great to see the homebrew scene continually expanding into new territories, not only regarding the games themselves, but also their presentation and "branding" Hope to see more homebrewers moving towards building "brand" identities for their work, as seen with the Xype/Cybergoth or Champ games...

I personally like the green, as it stands out a bit better. ..Al Would second that - the different colour adds variety and counters monotony... Eric

- Yes - like the additional ear candy as well (I wouldn't mind to have the last note left in there though, makes the game over jingle feel more rounder IMHO - just a personal preference) - "Press Fire" -> Certainly a worthy alternate to the extra presentation screen, if that can't make it. As simple as it it, the flashing text provides for enough visual stimulation to counter visual tiring. Only one small request here - instead of a continuous loop of the title tune, it would be nice if you could wait (silence) for a set time after a full sequence, before starting it again then. A continuous loop has a certain supermarket background music risk - "framing" the tune by moments of silence should considerably reduce that risk and allow to much better appreciate it... A pleasure to follow this game improving step by step!

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)

Cool - looking forward to it! Sounds promising! Main (design) challenge here, I guess, would be to find the best balance of boni. Maybe only award a bonus every second screen? Would really hope to see this implemented in some way. I have a feeling especially the "atmosphere" changes could add quite some lasting power to the game...(aside addressing the cited issues) Regarding the ground colour changes, a more decent approach could be to just change the bottom line colour with every new wave. That way the characteristic ochre ground tone would be kept throughout the whole game; yet every wave would now gain a distinct colour code, allowing to identify it a glance... Uh, my blunder Though you must admit the s can be easily taken for a 5 Maybe you could make it a bit rounder ...? Other than that, the presentation is set to become as perfect as it can get

Great to see this progressing along, love the cool new features - the added bonus audio & visuals are perfect - much better than hopped for! With this, there's also no need anymore for a vicory jingle, the counting audio delivers perfect accoustic gratification - good decision to colour the alien counter blue. As it shares the same color as the cursor, it nicely integrates into the defense "system". * * * * * Exhaustive list of suggestions: (I hope I'll be forgiven ) - I would still prefer the enemy counter not to reset after loss of a life. It remains a bit frustrating to have to restart a wave from the beginning. Enemy counter reset yes/no might make for a good difficulty switch option though! (default should be no reset ) - talking about difficulty switches: I am personally not so keen on having the cursor wrap (would further ease the game), but can understand other might like it. What about including it as the second difficulty switch selectable option (default = non-wrap)? - level counting, etc.: here's an approach which could hit several flies with one swap: Colour-code the levels. Recolour the ground (every new wave) and then the "atmosphere" above the shields (every 9th wave - the counter should thus only go to 8.) Positive effects: a) level indicator. Players could deduct the level they're on just by looking at the combined color of the ground + atmosphere. For instance, yellow + black = level 1, yellow + dark blue = level 9 (1blue) b) no need to display the last level reached at the game over screen! Players can now simply deduct it. c) additional difficulty factor in later waves: the different coloured background (dark blue, dark green, grey, etc. ) will reduce visibility of enemies, thus increasing the challenge. d) added motivation for the player to continue gaming in order to discover the new color combinations. - repairs (still think this is needed, as the player currently is still doomed to loose no matter how good he plays.) Maybe an alternative approach would be to award the player with some repair at each bonus screen? That should hopefully be simpler to implement than the advisor... After every round rebuild, at random, either a quarter of the shields or one of the buildings (incl. the smartbomb silos). Every fourth round would then rebuild one cannon. If both cannons are still operating, revert to standard bonus rebuild scheme. Well, something like that, that could be fine-tuned for optimal difficulty-balance... - presentation Would be great if you could display the game screen (with colours of last achieved stage) after one full loop of the title tune. Two effects: breaks the static of the title screen (perfect for display on a show floor), and displays game stats of last game. One final observation: the enemy score display shows the multiplier set a the max of 5. Would it be possible to have it loop from 1 to 5? Would be nice...(no big issue though) * * * * * Love the teaser Looks like a perfect fit for another must-have in the 2600 library Cheers, Eric

Hah, that's an original and thoughtful spoof - nails down the depth of the series to the spot Just goes to show the inspirational power of good background music Did see that one before actually - a great collection of mesmerizing scenes (those monsters.. the freaky yeti costume - unbelievable!). Best of all though was the stapler monster!

Great how this game has developed! I was a bit sceptical at first about the control concept, but once you get used to it, it becomes quite natural Would keep the game simple as it is now, it's great fun like that and a nice takeback to the gameplay style of earlier VCS charmers (Sky Diver, Boxing, Frog Pond, Maze Craze,Polo, etc.). It would be great though if you could incorporate an array of game options! A 70's style game option matrix would be a perfect fit for this game Two suggestions of my own: - it would be very nice if the winning bee could perform some kind of short "victory dance". Does not have to be anything sophisticated - he could just turn around himself or move in circle. Just something to visually award the winner. - title screen: as nice as it is, maybe you could try some other color combinations? The background color seems off in my feeling: the usual black(=space/abstraction) doesn't really fit this light-hearted, nature-themed game. Maybe you could experiment with a blue(=sky), yellow(=honey) or green(=field) background, for example? Keep up the great work!

That woman who turned into a bee is real: for the second season they introduced an alien "shapeshifter" character who was able to mute for a short time into other beings through psychic powers - kinda Spock counterpart. Just hilarious! : They should have stuck with the first season's titletrack though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DF9nDJZrdA It's actually surprising how influential these series apparently were in Japan, as testified by this: Made by Konami! And doesn't this Namco Moonbase look suspisciously similar to the UFO moonbase? Returning to Colony7: My vote goes to colour-coding, as the game is on the easy side right now anyway. Also, I don't find the final red really conflicts with the aliens indicators bar - since it's the last life, it feels natural that it would express a similar level of alert as the aliens gauge. It'd be great to see the repair UFOs idea materialize, that would add a tactical dimension and more depth to the game.

Wow, congratulations, this is such a great game and all-around accomplished product And an excellent promotion site! Would love to see it released as a boxed 5200 game! This game oozes quality and would really fit smoothly into the 5200 library. I could imagine it achieving similar success as Adventure II ... Would be great to see it appear in the AtariAge store! Cheers, Eric

Nice new version! Thanks for the color-coding, I think it really does help and add to the game. Moonbase Alpha 1 name suggestion for the green level: "Outpost FEMA" (sorry for being politically uncorrect ) I also like that the enemies now only shoot in the lower half of the screen - works better than expected! Besides making things fairer, the gamer now really gets incited to apply some tactics in playing, e.g. hunt down the lower aliens first. Enriches the gameplay! Also, having the enemies adapt a different behaviour depending on their position, somehow makes them appear a bit more intelligent!