Thomas Jentzsch
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Content Count
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Joined
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Days Won
3
Posts posted by Thomas Jentzsch
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2 hours ago, alex_79 said:I played a bit last evening.
The gameplay feels "right" to me already, so I find difficult to suggest any specific change to the parameters. Maybe it's best to post a few variations to compare?Yes, that might work better. @Keatah provided some feedback into which direction I should go for some parameters. And I think I will extend the average boost lengths (mainly reducing the 2s and 3s boosts).
2 hours ago, alex_79 said:Maybe you could have (optional, e.g. selected using a difficulty switch) some extra boost inversely proportional to the position, so it's easier to catch up making the race challenging until the end.
A "bonus" of some kind might work too (this could be optional as well), like the power boost suggested by @azure. It should be short (single arrow), so it's difficult to catch.
I am still thinking about game variations and tweaks. They just have to fit into a party game. That power boost might work.
Currently the skills between players (not computers) are a bit compensated by the leading player's cars positioning more to the right. Which is currently (it could be in short games too) more pronounced in longer games. So the leading players have less reaction time for new boosts.
If I implement a more random boost generation mode (currently each player gets the same boosts), I could increase/reduce the boost based on player position.
2 hours ago, alex_79 said:I prefer the audio of the previous version, without the brake sound.
Hm, some like it and some not. And I suppose no one has played this with 8 people yet.
Is it the braking sound which makes it worse? Or the different engine sound compared to previous versions? I could create a version which produces the same engine sound as the old one, but with additional brake sound.
2 hours ago, alex_79 said:Autodetection works correctly, I can now control a single car without the QuadTari.
Cool! Have you tried all four possible combinations?
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12 minutes ago, Keatah said:AI needs to be more random. The grey/white car never wins. The two red ones win nearly all the time. AI should be less perfect.
Actually that's intentional. The AI has different skill levels (hot colors are faster, cold colors are slower), so that it offers competition for more or less skilled players.
12 minutes ago, Keatah said:The 6 players I asked to try this never won against AI.
IMO that's fine. Players should be somewhere in the middle of the field and try to improve from there. When one can beat the AI easily, why would one need an AI at all?
12 minutes ago, Keatah said:Should be adaptive to where it sometimes just lags behind human players (by messing up the timing) and other times where it's spot on and pulls ahead.
It is adaptive already. The better the position, the worse it becomes. But this has to be balanced with the initial AI skills.
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Just now, ZeroPage Homebrew said:It's hard to see the last bit of acceleration arrows turn black as they go off the screen...
It is easier when you are more to the right, leading the pack.
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5 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:Temp cart graphics for next Tuesday's show.
- James
(NOTE: I didn't draw the cars, I found the graphic)
Quite OK.
What the game really needs is play testing to fine tune the parameters.
- How strong should the boost be?
- How strong should the braking be?
- How should the boost arrow density be (more or less longer ones)?
- Should there be more or less friction?
- How about the minimal speed?
The current values are resulting from only a little bit of play testing myself. I hope you and others can provide some good input here.
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43 minutes ago, Keatah said:This would work nice, have it display for a few seconds. Once the race starts it disappears. Or, as mentioned earlier, use colored stickers. Make them a pack-in extra.
I still don't get how the numbers would help. The paddles are not numbered too.
43 minutes ago, Keatah said:Don't like the new sound mixing. Or whatever happened to it. Sounds disjointed and tedious. Can also do without the breaking sound.
Too bad. Now I am waiting for more feedback here.
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22 minutes ago, azure said:I was thinking something. This game would work nicely in the vertical direction but with rockets instead of cars. Although limited to 6 rockets for non-flickering sprites. Instead of acceleration arrows, maybe acceleration clouds. Heh.
Vertically wouldn't work, way too much flicker even with just six rockets.
But the current game could be easily converted into spaceship racing. Just change the few graphics and colors, plus sound.
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32 minutes ago, azure said:What if you had a little on-screen indicator in each lane that blinks on and off when you press and depress the button? The visual feedback would tell you which car is yours, because it will blink in synchronization with your button presses. It would have to be during the waiting time before the race starts. That's kind of how it works in Nintendo multi-player games where you're selecting a character. There's on-screen feedback when you press buttons.
I went back and noticed you do indicate which lane you're in by changing from grey to color. It's easy to miss though if you're not paying close attention.
Good idea. Since the computer cars permanently change color, I could add that feedback for the boost arrows. Or vice-versa.
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Added version 0.5 to first post.
Changes:
- improved sound, with brake sound (based on @SpiceWare ideas, thanks)
- fixed QuadTari detection (thanks @alex_79)
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36 minutes ago, alex_79 said:What about refueling?
This would involve a new "pit stop" zone on the track. On this zone pressing the button would brake, while releasing it would accelerate (to be able to restart after refueling).
Deceleration should be greater than on normal "non boost" zones, and it should be possible to stop the car completely. When the car is stopped it should be refueld.
This zone should be short, so that you would miss it if running too fast. Therefore it should be preceded by a long enough "non boost" zone to be able to reduce speed.There's not much room for a fuel gauge, maybe a simple indicator based on colors would suffice. (E.g. green,yellow,red). There are three scanlines without hblanks to the left of each track, before the lower curb that could be used for that.
I think refueling would break the flow of the game. And I don't want the game to become overly complicated. It should be easy to understand and quick to play.
Maybe there could be game variations which are longer and a bit more complex.
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1 hour ago, s0c7 said:Have a game variation where the speed boosts come in a predefined order (giving the potential for a "perfect run") and one where they are random (to help offset the skill difference of the players).
Booth options would be easy to implement. I only have to find a way to make them easily selectable without making the selection overly complicated.
1 hour ago, s0c7 said:In keeping with the early Atari arcade theme, maybe a B&W mode (although it may be difficult to get all 8 with a unique shade).
I don't think that would work. At least the cars have to stay colored to be distinctive.
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1 hour ago, Karl G said:If you have all of the features that you want, and still have space left over, a title screen might be nice. If one player hits the button to start, maybe it could start a countdown timer for other human players to hit the button if they want to participate, with those who didn't do so being computer opponents as it is now.
A title screen is planned if I can come up with something nice, e.g. the name in pop art style.
But I suppose I will need some help here.
Regarding starting the game with a controller button, I am not sure if that's a good idea. After a race is over, people might not like to have the result removed by someone accidentally pressing a button. Maybe this is one of the exceptions, where this function should be limited to the console only.
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1 hour ago, Bomberman94 said:Maybe you can add a number „1“ (maybe left) next to the car the player chooses and „2“ to the second and so on - else it is hard to see what car a player controlls.
The cars are fixed assigned to a controller. I suppose when this is played on a party, the controllers would be marked with colored stickers.
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2 minutes ago, alex_79 said:As you say, if the cap for INPT0 is charged (negative value) after a few frames, then it means that you have a paddle directly plugged in, else you have a Quadtari.
No need to check INPT1.
OK, I will post an new version with updated checks. Wait with your test until then, please.
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31 minutes ago, alex_79 said:So detection in this case could work like this:
- set the DUMPPORTS bit in VBLANK to discharge the caps
- wait a little (the caps discharge very quickly, but not instantly. wait one or two scanlines to be sure)
- clear DUMPPORTS
- wait a few scanlines (just enough to let the caps charged by the small pullup)
- read paddles
- if INPT0 is HIGH and/or INPT1 is LOW, there's no QuadTari in the left port
- if INPT2 is HIGH and/or INPT3 is low, there's no QuadTari in the right port- wait enough time to allow a standard paddle set to max resistance (1 Mohm) to charge the caps (I think this would take a few frames, like 2 or 3)
- read paddles again, and use the same conditions as above to check the presence of the quadtari.
The reason for checking the inputs twice is to avoid false positives in case of one paddle knob turned to minimum resistance and the other one turned to max.Thanks for the explanation. My current check is much simpler, I am only checking INPT1/3. And I am only waiting one scanline.
Now I have to wrap my head about your improved check (BTW: "and/or" means what? AND or OR?). I am not into hardware at all, so I have to understand from a software perspective. Let's see if I got it right (only considering left port here):
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Directly (a few scanlines) after dumping:
- Paddles: INPT0 and INPT1 are usually HIGH (both could be LOW if a knob is turned to maximum resistance)
- QuadTari: INPT0 is HIGH, INPT1 is LOW (due to pull up)
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After some frames:
- Paddles: INPT0 and INPT1 are LOW
- QuadTari: INPT0 is HIGH(?), INPT1 is LOW (due to pull up)
Note: LOW means INPTx, bit 7 is SET, right? The reversed result is quite confusing for me.
Is this correct so far?
But then the logic is in INPT0 only, no? And then I only have to check INPT0 after some frames. If INPT0 is LOW, we have a paddle, if it is HIGH we have a QuadTari. INPT1 plays no role here, because it can be LOW either due to the pull up or due to the paddle.But that doesn't fit to your logic, so where is my mistake?
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Directly (a few scanlines) after dumping:
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Quick update: Added V0.4 to the first post.
The only difference is the QuadTari detection. It works in Stella, but I do not have the hardware yet to test on the real thing. Can someone please test for me?
- Normal paddles (top 4 cars should be selectable during countdown)
- QuadTari in left port (top 6 cars selectable)
- QuadTari in right port (top 4 and bottom 2 cars selectable)
- QuadTari in both ports (all 8 cars selectable)
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Thanks. I will both suggestions a try.
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11 minutes ago, Keatah said:How would you keep score? At the end of the game toggle a difficulty or b/w switch to swap between displaying the track display and distance traveled? Or do it automatically at the end?
Maybe include a max & average speed if you care to..
This is planned as a party game, where people a competing against each other. So why would it need a score?
However I could provide points based on positions and then the players could play e.g. 3 rounds and accumulate points (displayed on a separate screen). But I am not sure of that fits well to the target group.
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4 minutes ago, azure said:That way all players would be interactively contributing to the sound rather than the top 2 leaders and you'd still get throbbing ups and downs.
Effectively the values would be averaged. And since some cars are accelerating while others are slowing down, the ups and downs would mostly get lost.
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Hm, the paddle lines are used for switching. So how can I use them for detection? If they would work, paddles would work with a QuadTari too.
Or is only one lines (INPT0) used and INPT1 is still unaffected? Wouldn't that mean that the 2nd paddles of each pair would work with a QuadTari?
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Thanks. Sounds easy.
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6 minutes ago, alex_79 said:Do you plan to add auto detection so that it will work without a QuadTari too? Or even with "half" of it, that is connected only to one of the ports ("DuoTari"?)
How can I detect if a QuadTari is attached to a port?
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41 minutes ago, azure said:I think you'd have to play them at two different pitches and shape their sound envelopes with offset attack and decay so they contrast. When I loaded up the game I immediately thought of the sounds at Disney's Tomorrowland Speedway (better with earphones), but louder and sped up. It sounds like a back to back series rising and falling motor sounds shaped by a combination of throttling and the Doppler effect
I am not very talented when it comes to sound design. The current version uses two different engine sounds in parallel (AUDC0 = $3, AUDC1 = $f). The current noise is OK, but any useful help is welcome.
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Next update V0.3 (see 1st post).
Major additions:
- timer (30, 60 and 90s races) and start countdown
- some sound (not final yet)
- human vs computer players
With SELECT you can select a race time, RESET starts the game. During the countdown, the human players have to press their buttons, this will brighten their cars. The other, darker cars will be controlled by the computer. During a race, the position of a car represents its current placement (not distances between cars). The visible gaps slowly increase during a race and are maximized at the finish.
Feedback welcome! The game still fits easily into 2K, so there is plenty space for further improvements.
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That might work (or maybe not), but even two engine sounds are hardly distinguishable.
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in Homebrew Discussion
Posted
I see. However, James seems to like that. Personally I don't mind too.
But can you hear that when playing against 7 other players? The revs have to be based on a car which is not necessary yours.
OK, that's a passed negative test. Thanks! Now I need someone with a QuadTari for the three remaining positive tests.