DZ-Jay

Them's fightin' werds!

Not much progress to report. After adding the elf characters to the beginning of the story and editing a few things here and there, I completed the Snowflake Gardens chapter and started on the next. As predicted, I added yet another chapter to the story. For those keeping score, the outline now sits at 13 chapters plus an epilogue. I have a strong suspicion that the last two chapters will be turned into at least four, so that'll bring us to a grand total of 17 to 18 chapters plus the epilogue. The current chapter I am in -- the new one I added -- is #11 and I titled it "Bad Toy!" with the quotation marks and all. That's what Carol Greenleaf yells at the toy robot when it zaps her with his modified laser. She actually says: I thought it was funny and I needed a name for the chapter, so there it is. In the previous chapter (back in the yonder days of the "Snowflake Gardens"), Carol was introduced to the magical snowflakes. Rather than eating them like in the game (which is a staple game mechanic but doesn't work so well in a story narrative), she makes snowballs out of them. Magical snowballs. She then whacks the Bad Toy over the head with one and learns about their magical properties; to wit, that they stun severely the victim, allowing her time to escape. It was a lot of fun to write all that, and at least to me it seemed to work. Another fun part was coming up with onomatopœic phrases for the Bad Toy's sounds. I settled for three: Grumble, grumble, grumble - for when it's rolling around in its tank-like treads. Whir ... whir ... whir ... plonk. Bleep! - for when it's scanning around, swiveling its head from side to side looking for a target. Bleep! Bloop! Bwoop! Bwoop! - for when it locks on a target and is ready to zap it. Here's how they sound read in context: Then a little bit later ... That was fun and describes how they sound in my head. I just feel very stupid when I read it back to my wife out loud. Then, of course, there's the classic "Bzzzzzt!" for the actual laser blast. I even described the blast in terms of how it appears in the game. Here's a video of the sequence: https://vimeo.com/301452441 Anyway, I did my best to describe it as an electric shock running through her body, making even her bones glow. I think it's quite effective, and just vague enough to leave most of it to the reader's imagination, but still suggestive of the overall concept. And that's all the progress we have. Right now I'm trying to get Carol out of the Snowflake Gardens and back into the action with the rest of the characters. The Evil Snowman is about to get a magical snowball splattered on his face, and the Ghost Of Christmas Presents will just laugh at the whole thing -- and true to his prankster nature, he will steal the stunned Snowman's twiggy arms and wear them like antlers, running around mocking the paralyzed foe. It's a scene from one of the game's cut scenes, and it needs to be in the story. Those cute little antics in the cut scenes are what originally drove my interest into writing the story. Here's a video of the in-game cut-scene of the Ghost mocking the Evil Snowman which inspired the current chapter in the story. https://vimeo.com/301452123 Anyway, that's all I have for now. Until the next time. See ya'! -dZ.

Ah!

I'm confused ... I thought the hardware guy just told you it has 8K and showed Locomotion playing on it ...

Dude, you shouldn't just give up. I remember when you wanted to give up with GoSub, Government Waffle Project, and even UpMonsters; but you didn't and look where they ended up! UpMonsters even won second prize in the IntyBASIC Programming Contest. That said, Killer Heads Of Lettuce also looks promising, so maybe you just need to focus on one game or platform at a time?

BSR catsfolly once mentioned that back in the day, they avoided putting any important detail on the outermost fringes of the screen because depending on the CRT, they could their curvy analogue nature could end up hiding it or distorting it. Nowadays, we sort of expect people to use modern TVs, so it's not such a big concern. However, if you plan on playing it on an old CRT TV, you may want to take that into consideration.

Looks like a Robotron. Could be fun! I say, go for it.

Hey dude, did you notice that you placed second in the IntyBASIC Programming Contest? Are you going to blog about it? .... Congratulations!! -dZ.

Wait! Where are you downloading that from? Who's broadcasting?

Latest concept artwork

It need not be. There's more than one way to skin a ... er cat. Hmm ... That looks even more ... weird to me.

Hmm... I must have seen a different video because the one I saw had just two-frame animations and the jumping seemed more square than parabolic, halting at the zenith for a few frames. I never played the original, so I do not know to what extent it mimics it, but I am not very fond of the bright colours and changing tile-patterns everywhere: they seem distracting from the action, and it's hard to tell what's what. It does look like it has promise, but I would like to see it when it's more polished. Is the space consumed purely by the level data? Maybe if you post a sample of your data structures and storage scheme we may be able to offer alternatives. 42K is indeed a lot of space, but most definitely not unlimited. In a pinch, you could also try your hand at bank-switching, layering the level data on a single segment. That way only the data for a single level need be made visible at a time. -dZ.

Har! Har! You know, I always liked Star Strike, but winning it always felt to me much less satisfactory than losing. When you lose, you get that great planet-destroying effect; but when you win, all you get is a short jingle and blinking stars. Not even a "Congratulations! You save the planet!!!" Nada. A few times, I just left it there waiting for something to happen; or tried again thinking that perhaps I needed to get a higher score to see the "real ending." I guess I was spoiled by the cheer and fireworks at the end of Bomb Squad, which always felt like the right way to end a game of high stakes -- and what higher stakes are there than the possible annihilation of the entire human race? Still ... Star Wars Death Star trench, so ... -dZ.

Oh, yeah, of course! If all you want is to play your ROMs on a console, then an LTO Flash! will do just fine. -dZ.

It's mostly a closed environment in the Intellivision publishing community, since carts require specialized circuit designs, they are gated by the folks who create them. You will have to contact one of the publishers to get access to them. They will probably charge you not only for the hardware but for the "convenience" of burning the ROMs for you as well. I expect someone with the contact information will post it here soon.

Eek! It does look like a bedpan or a foot massager, indeed! That's not really all that appealing, wow. I think I would have gone with something more angular and ridged, based on contemporary aesthetics of the 1970s and 1980s "futurism" -- sort of like what Atari VCS (Ataribox) did. Jeez, what a way of making the device look dorky. -dZ.

Anybody in for a cheap copy of Christmas Carol? eBay Auction -- Item Number: 253930909530 eBay Auction -- Item Number: 253892138515 Not at all overprice, no siree! -dZ.

"The mad bomber decided to go out and wreck havoc!!!" . . "But he went very slowly because he was in no particular hurry."

You gotta love the heart-warming Intellivision collector community.

Yeah, it's amazing how it works: one moment there's some random, anonymous elf doing something; the next, he has a name and you can identify with his personality. And it's just the name -- with it comes all sorts of information that can be inferred. For example, originally the story had a "toy engineer" trigger the alarm. When I came up with the name Tobias Honeywood, it sounded so important and had such gravitas, that I couldn't help but assume that he was destined for greatness. All of a sudden, he wasn't just an engineer, he was the lead toy designer. Same with Patricia Dashington. When my wife suggested that all the other elves call her "Trish" for short, she immediately popped into my mind as a little doe-eyed girl elf. It's funny how that works. -dZ.

Funny story about one of those names: Back when we were younger, I used to send flowers to my wife addressed to funny names. One such names was "Mrs. Waffleson," which I thought sounded so silly, it still makes me giggle. My sister was visiting one time and saw the flowers on the table and just assumed my wife's last name was "Waffleson," but felt too embarrassed to ask. For a while she used to call her "Waffleson," and we thought she was just being silly like us. We thought it was weird that she would joke that way when it was our joke, but hey, she's family. Then for our wedding, she saw that her real last name was different and asked me "wasn't it Waffleson?" We all laughed at the whole thing, including her. It was all so silly. To this day, she still has "Mrs. Waffleson" as the name for the contact in her iPhone's address book. LOL! -dZ.

There were a few other names which didn't make the cut. Among them, Rudolph "Rudy" Willymeyer Fig Waffleson

Another good one was intvnut's Doom port to the Intellivision. http://spatula-city.org/%7Eim14u2c/intv/doom/