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TwentySixHundred

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Posts posted by TwentySixHundred

  1. Posted

    22 minutes ago, Trebor said:

    That's me in a nutshell.  The game looks so great and the gameplay is enjoyable, just a bit too difficult, too much of a struggle to perform some functions 'just right'.

    Exactly! The game looks great, it makes me want to play it and i want to beat it :). The rage kicks in after making it a decent ways through and losing all my lives. That's all well and good, until restarting and blowing out 3 of my lives on the first few screens again 😄. Personally i think if the first checkpoint was a little easier to reach, it will lower the punishment 😉

    • Like 2

  5. Posted

    14 minutes ago, Alasdair Campbell (BSc.) said:

    Have you ever tried for a long time, resetting over and over, to get that high score, only to get it and immediately reset before you could take a picture? Fortunately a wise man taught me to record all your gameplay, so my dread was short-lived. 

    City Defence- 19,017Capture.thumb.PNG.47bb8821b27c670be5014be042f40b36.PNG

    Brilliant score! Im sure cracking 20k is possible and was trying last night.

     

    In regards to not getting the snapshot of a high score, i did that last night and had to rerun for the 16k i got lol. OBS on captured the top half of the screen and i didn't noticed while playing, so the footage was useless and needed to rerun. I feel your pain with that one...

    • Like 3

  6. Posted

    The 5th demo of Captain Comic showing the first 10 screens of level 1. The design of the screens were mapped out properly on graph paper and Paint.NET to help get more of a fluent level design. The plan is to atleast complete level 1 before releasing a ROM, cheers 👍

     

     

    • Like 5

  8. Posted

    Hi James, i missed the HSC games on the stream however went back and rewatched later. Great effort and score with City Defence considering it's basically your first time playing in it's current state. The game is definitely an acquired taste much like Missile Command. Takes alot of practice and timing is everything (much like Bass Fishing). Thanks for giving CD a run and yeah Expert difficulty is no joke, so without a fluent feel for the game, it's intense. Cheers mate 👍

  9. Posted

    9 minutes ago, Rogerpoco said:

    Sometimes it takes more than a "first glance" to really appreciate something-

    The cursor being crippled by the loss of the Power Base is a super sweet touch, if only the Base weren't so far away from your cannon, and hard to defend!

    :P

    (Teasing, it's "perfect", nice!)

     

    Love my Aussies, too, BTW, couple of my best game buds are down there!!!

     

    It seemed to me like at first the cursor didn't really properly respond to what I thought I expected, but after a few tries it was pretty intuitive as to how to move it, and very "fair".

     

    No lie, if it were this or Missile Command, "stuck on a deserted island"(...with electricity.)(and an Atari, etc...), I'd pick City Defense, hands down!

    Thanks mate :) Yeah there is some reasons behind the powerstation and how it came to be. First off with the game in general, rather then trying to push the 2600's limits i went in a different direction with CD. I wanted to concentrate more on the gameplay aspect and strategy, more-so then a clone of Missile Command. Hence the reason the graphics are nothing spectacular.

     

    The powerstation actually became a feature after thinking long and hard about a limitation of BASIC itself. By default bB does not utilize the outer reaches of playfield (P0) to save machine cycles unlike assembler. So once again rather then pushing the limits i decided to fill that space with an additional "special" building. This worked in my favor as with the early builds of CD i noticed many would play defensive protecting the inner city and could play wave after wave without much of a threat.

     

    So by adding the special building that actually cripples the player and prevents them from gaining a high score. It actually pulls the player out to take risks and protect it. Having the faster targeting system is an advantage as you can save more buildings. The more buildings saved per round the higher the rewards after each wave.

     

    So from what was a limitation became a feature of risk verses reward that then later improved gameplay 😉

     

    I know the game is an acquired taste much like Missile Command however im glad you enjoy it 👍

    • Thanks 1

  11. Posted

    21 hours ago, Jason_Atari said:

    Ms Galactopus: 14,330

    Doggone It: 36,626

    City Defence: 13,970

     

     

     

     

    IMG_1975.jpg

    IMG_1939.jpg

    IMG_1976.jpg

    I really should have compiled a PAL50 version so you could have played on Harmony cart with the correct colours. Sorry about that mate, nice score though 👍

    1 hour ago, Redmiller said:

    Since I don’t have those three nor can I find anywhere to buy them. I posted

     

    Seaweed Assault

    56CA1559-AC53-48E3-8ED0-5C3924052AA0.jpeg

    Seaweed Assault is a great game, Duane really did well with that game. Just thought id let you know that the homebrews can be played on a Harmony cart as City Defence for one was never released on physical cart. You can also use the Stella emulator if you wish however that's entirely up to you 👍

    • Like 3

  12. Posted

    6 hours ago, Electric-Dreams said:

    Considering your nice avatar picture, i'm surprised you did'nt mention Streets of Rage 😉

    How could i forget, although i know i limited myself to two games for the Gen/MD. Streets of Rage 2 was definitely a favorite of mine along with Lotus 2 R.E.C.S and the Strike series. Too many great games i had spent hours playing it's hard to shorten the list 😉

  13. Posted

    On 9/6/2020 at 3:03 PM, GoldLeader said:

    Sorry ...I'm totally in the wrong spot here...

     

    For my one above I was thinking it was in a general area not only in 2600's cars...Whoops!

    It's all good, no stress i had just posted my cars to get the ball rolling. Although most clubs i have noticed get little traffic so to be honest i have kinda forgot about them lol. I have no issues with your post Gold 👍

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    On 9/6/2020 at 11:43 AM, roadrunner said:

    some of the sound fx are from Cruise Missile?

    No they are not however the method used is fairly standard practice. Sound is not my strong point and to be honest i really don't like the music rendition at the title screen. It was ok when i first started coding the game however i find it to just be ear piercing and kinda lame.

     

    I really should have removed it for HSC considering how many times runners would have to hear it when restarting. It probably deters people from wanting to play it IMO. I apologize in advance to those who find the music as irritating as i do.

    • Like 2
    • Sad 1

  15. Posted

    Some great scores by the runners, and i thought id drop in to give some helpful tips. With these tips i will be focusing more on how the targeting system works. One issue i have noticed with friends and family that have played is they tend to want to mash the fire button and they panic. The key is you can only lock on one target at a time until your defense missile has made a full cycle (by design).

     

    It's all about precisely well timed shots and making sure your timings are correct. The missile itself does not take out the ICBM's (2.5d type layout). So the explosion itself is what will make your shots successful. Timing is everything and it can take awhile to get the feel for it however you're basically wanting the ICBM to fall into the explosion. Taking into account of the ICBM droprate then in addition the travel time of your defense missile along with the target position are all factors to consider.

     

    I can't stress enough that timing is everything!

     

    Good luck

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 3

  18. Posted

    First and foremost id like to thank the moderators for choosing my game to be ran this season. Ms.Galactopus and Doggon_it are great games, also congrats to Ric Pryor and Armscar Coder for making the cut 👍.

     

    As promised i will be giving some tips and im sure the runners will find many more that im not aware of along the way.

     

    To begin with for those who prefer console console reset over joyfire make sure to set the console to BW mode so the game can only be restarted by the reset console switch.

     

    Piece of advice is to take note of point rewards from remaining builds at the end of each wave. Depending on the size of the building depends on the reward. So if you have two ICBM's about to destroy your buildings and can only take-out one, it's important to save the larger building as it will yield more bonus points.

     

    Scoring:

    • single story + 10 points at end of round
    • two story + 20 points at end of round
    • three story + 30 points at end of round
    • four story + 40 points at end of round
    • five story + 50 points at end of round
    • six story + 60 points at end of round
    • max total + 730 points at end of round
    • slow warhead + 20 points each shot
    • medium warhead + 40 points each shot
    • fast warhead + 60 points each shot
    • loss of maingun - 200 points
    • loss of powerstation - 100 points

    The other tip is to protect that powerstation! If it gets taken out, your targeting system will only run at 50% crippling your ability to venture out to the far reaches of the city.

     

    The game runs off a month by month system per wave and season to season per yearly cycle. This means after 3 months (waves) you will enter the next season. It's important to note that if your powerstation was taken out, you need to survive the rest of the season whilst it gets restored.

     

    I will drop in to provide more tips if not found by others and questions, i may even compete :)

     

    Make sure to use the .bin provided by Vocelli and not the development .bin. Also make sure to run on expert mode as it was compiled specifically for HSC for validity purposes.

     

    Thanks and i hope everyone enjoys the line up of homebrew games this season 👍

    • Like 6
    • Thanks 3

  21. Posted

    Thanks for sharing @Lillapojkenpåön the smooth scrolling effect looks great. Id love to see if this is an viable option for the 7800 game i am currently working on. Adds polish rather then abrupt screen transitions that can leave the player needing to adjust their bearings when suddenly appearing on the next screen 👍

  22. Posted · Edited by TwentySixHundred

    Thank you so much for sharing @willbilly , great backstory and an interesting one at that. You can see the resemblance of Captain Comic in the demo from Comics (pixels) space suit to the "bug-eyes" enemies. They even behave in a similar fashion and the spiral enemies behave like the "beach balls". Im assuming Michael had the idea back in 87 when creating this demo then went on to revamp the project for Captain Comic in 89.

     

    Another feature i spotted, that was not added until Captain Comic 2, was the background wall posters. This was absent from the first game IIRC and interesting to see what id call essentially a prototype. It's almost like a look back into the early stages of development for Captain Comic.

     

    Once again thanks for sharing this info, highly appreciated 👍👍

    • Like 3

  23. Posted · Edited by TwentySixHundred

    1 hour ago, SearsRoebuck said:

    One thing about the NES version is that Michael Denio actually worked on it for Color Dreams, so in a way it was an 'improvement' approved by the creator.  Better versions of some of the music he put in?  Bentley Bear proves you can have good classical music renditions. It's almost tempting to ask him for input but I have no idea whats hes doing or if hes even still alive. 

    Here is a small interview with Michael, it's short and judging by the website layout im thinking it's fairly old. Yeah the NES port suffered with the out of place music renditions. Apparently he didn't work for Color Dreams and only met them at a trade show, although who exactly knows if that was a repretiable source. It's a shame because from a graphical standpoint the NES version was quite nice (besides the monochrome captain comic himself).

     

    Edit: I miss interpreted what you said about Michael working on it for Color Dreams rather then working for Color Dreams themselves 👍

  24. Posted

    15 hours ago, willbilly said:

    Btw, I have two boxed copies of Captain Comic II that I can take pictures of for you if you need artwork references.

    Thanks Will, that could really help for design and aesthetics keeping the game true to the originals. At the same time i don't want to completely rip off Michael Denio's (original game creator) work. Thanks that would really help 👍

    13 hours ago, Karl G said:

     

    Depending on how you produce your images, sometimes the palette entries can vary from image to image. Instead of correcting on the fly, you can adjust it once with your import. E.g..:

      

        incgraphic taxi1.png 160A 0 1 2 3
    incgraphic taxi2.png 160A 0 1 3 2

     

    In the example above, the last two palette entries have been swapped for the second frame. You may have to tinker with this a few times to get it right, but then you don't have to worry about it when displaying your image.

    Thanks Karl i had never thought to change the palette entries, that way it wouldn't effect other sprites that share the same pallet. Changing on the fly made that pallet utterly useless for other sprites as those would also flicker 👍

    12 hours ago, RevEng said:

    To avoid having the palettes switch between frames, you can add an extra row of pixels, and ensure that all of the colors are represented in that bottom row. Then convert to indexed and output your png. After that, continue to work with the same png for the rest of the frames, modifying and exporting as needed.

     

    Using that workflow with Gimp, I never have my indexes flip-flop between animation frames. The bottom row of pixels ensures that all colors will be there in each png, even if they're not present in each animation picture.

    Cheers Mike, yeah i am yet to understand how this works. I have noticed in the sample programs this method is used. The part i don't understand is how these row of pixels doesn't get displayed as part of the sprite?

     

    So far im using the built in ADS sprite editor for sprites and Paint.NET for tilemaps. To prevent the colours from mismatching i had worked out that having 4 blanks {transperant+the three colours} (also useful for full coloured tiles) at the start of the tilemap sprite-sheet prevents missmatching ie; transparent first followed by the desired colours.

     

    Just not exactly sure how this method works for sprites, however it does work for numeric and alpha. Im guessing 7800Basic is smart enough to interoperate what they are?

     

    I probably should look into Gimp i have heard good things about it.

    11 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

    Looking really good!

    Thanks for the kind words and support mate 👍

    3 hours ago, SearsRoebuck said:

    Twentysixhundred, if you release a port of this game (or a near port) 100% I will buy it. I wanted a decent console port of this game forever and I hate the NES one, too fast and annoying renditions of the music. 

    Thanks mate, yeah who knows where this project will lead to. One things for sure, i too prefer the MS-DOS version as it's the one i grew up with. Having said that the NES version IMO does have it's standout features but no where near as good. Guess we will see how everything goes and there is no doubt the 7800 community is very helpful. So there is no shortage of talented guidance when asking for help :)

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