KK/Altair

That would definitely help. @Everybody: If anyone is interested in helping, this way or another, just let me know. Proper testing of all maps against more or less unsuspecting players would really help getting learning curve right*. And right now I don't have the level editor documented (some numbers and behaviors are hard-coded), so that would take some time (especially that I'm leaving for a week now), but it should be doable, too. Still, because this is zero-budget side project, I won't be able to offer any compensation for this... but if anyone is willing to help, you still could have whole lot of fun in the process. *) Remember that this is a retro game, so expect at least some levels of that "f****** brutally hard" difficulty in the later game. Or a bit above that.

At some point I'd like to try pushing the limits of ARMari 2600, too, but not for this title, as it's already close to being done. Right now I have tons of levels developed for 12x9 tileboard, and not enough stock RAM (no SuperCHip used) for anything larger, so the core design is already closed. It's just the levels, maybe some more tile types/logic and general polishing at this point. But I'd love to try using the ARM at some point to try pushing boundaries of 6507+ARM combo.

That's actually as much as the original VCS CPU can handle. And way more than the chip designers imagined. And I'm not really sure the ARM "bankswitching" format for the colorful tiles came into production, because IIRC it involved forcibly changing the bus state while the CPU was driving it, making it incompatible with some of the console variants.

@iesposta: I'm in touch with AtariAge almost since first version of this project. Also while ARM-based hacks sound fun, I've decided to go full retro and make most of the old plain F4 format. I might try ARM hacks at some point, as it sounds quite fun, especially with all the logic you can do on the ARM.

I've been sick recently, so I had to make a break in this project. I hope to start producing at least #ScreenshotSaturday updates again soon. I'm really greatful for all your level assesments, Thomas. It will still be a major challenge sorting all these levels correctly (I have more than twice than in WIP), though. And while the second boss might be f-hard, it's still by far not the hardest level I designed.

So, you'd prefer a smoother learning/difficulty curve? This was based on the first level of the Robbo, and it's not even a quarter of it. As I've said, I want the difficulty to ramp up a bit at the end of each world, so player has some sense of achievement. Well, that actually is an idea for a difficulty setting. Yes. Excellent. I should figure out some way to attach notes to levels, not to gt lost when I move them around. No. I didn't even use extra RAM or DPC/DPC+/ARM for any dirty tricks. Just plain old F4 32k bankswitching and good old Atari 2600.

No fractional math here. Player uses delays of integer number of ticks, and the rest of the game is synced to music (which uses partially fractional tempo, but I can't change that). It's enough to keep PAL/NTSC speeds the same within a reasonable margin, so I didn't bother more. Sounds that disabling the continue feature in some worlds will do the trick. Especially for worlds where high difficulty kicks in early on. The core problem is, that once you made the game, you are the least qualified person to properly asses level difficulty. Slightly more than 100 now. Every level takes 66 to 120 bytes, depending on enemy and scripts use. Something like it. Yes. I planned the same being true for the continue feature, but after watching some players struggle with some levels I considered easy, the continue feature definitely stays in for casual players.

Disabling continue feature definitely makes a difference, because with continues you can just play like you have infinite lives. I already thought about that, but most levels won't fit this scheme. Well, it still kind of works for me, after playing all the levels more than anybody, so it's definitely something worth having given its low implementation cost. I was thinking more along the lines of disabling the continue feature in certain worlds. Having something unlockable in game immediately calls for save feature, which should be done on cart because most players won't have SaveKey or something similar. I'm now at the level of global code restructuring (e.g. already rewritten entire enemy logic code), so I'll leave local optimizations to when I'll be fighting for single bytes. Right now I have 50-300 bytes left in each bank except in two banks for keeping maps and the music/sfx bank, so I don't feel constrained too much at the moment. It's hard to balance the difficulty when you have played all levels more than you'd like to and knew all puzzle solutions before thy even existed. Still, the A-D words (except boss stage C- are mostly from first WIP, so I might still reorder them further. Also, I'm aiming at having a separate difficulty curve for each world, so while the latter worlds will be more challenging, every world will start relatively easy on its own. That is the plan, but with levels I have currently developed it's sometimes hard to group them this way. You can RESET to lose a life and restart current map, and if you still have lives, you can press SELECT on the "get ready" screen to return to world selection. Thanks! Fixed. There was room for just 2 extra characters on this line. This list is PERFECT! Keep it coming, if you feel like it. C1 - The point here is to avoid opening the baddies completely. You never know which direction they are looking at, so you are risking insta-kill. C2 - OK. I boosted it's difficulty to "medium" in level notes to remember to push it back during next reordering. C4 - That's one of my failed attempts at making hardcore puzzle. Having 12x9 grid overfilled with boxes sounds hard, right? Well, it turned out that the hardest thing here is to make it hard. C8 - That's boss fight, which will stay here because I have just enough bosses to put them every 3rd world. And this is 'C', so... B5 - True. I have also a few other level pairs similar to each other, so a bunch of them will probably get swapped for something else. B8 - It got it spot as '8' because it was designed as hard race against the cannon. That is, until I saw that you can simply block the cannon back with the crate. It would work better with other enemies, because it's too easy to trap the molecules completely. That would be ideal, but considering the levels I have already, they combine all existing elements as they seem fit, while also having varying difficulties. So it would be hard to arrange them by features and at the same time have reasonable difficulty curve. But I will try. Yes, the molecules and the bat were the first enemies developed for the first WIP (released at SillyVenture), so their logic is quite simple. The most recent butterfly (not used in this WIP) and the saw are classic wall followers, so thy would work better here.

I don't need that much RAM. And losing 256 bytes per page would mean cutting features too much - at least 10 maps less, removing some tile types (graphics won't fit), and cutting major parts of the music. Not worth it, IMHO. Also I'm really happy I can pull it off on pure F4 bankswitching without using any dirty tricks. FL Studio. With custom VST I made myself. So I think I already harvested any low to medium optimization fruits. I was thinking about varying life count and disabling continue feature on some settings. I was never fan of step-optimizing games, so I'm not really inclined to add that feature. The idea was to add a bit of surprise, and to test how well player remembers various stages. The idea was based on H.E.R.O. system, where you could start from any fourth level (1, 5, 9...), which is I think clever solution without using any permanent storage. It allows keeping some progress, while still losing something upon "game over". I was initially thinking to disallow continues straight away, but after watching ZeroPage Homebrew playing RoboMechanik on stream, it looks like that limitation would take away too much fun. It looked like they used dozens of lives to figure certain stages (especially the boss one), but when they finally did, it was really rewarding. So I don't think I should punish new players for trying. For now, I think the continue option will depend on game mode (selected with switches, or maybe in menu), with some hardcore "go as far as you can" modes included (anybody up to beating whole game on single life?). Any hints on how you would approach this? The manual will definitely be there at some point. That depends on the player level. After developing this for so long, almost all of the levels feel easy for me. Except few ones which have INSANE difficulty and still keep it after lots of play-throughs. But if you think some levels are definitely garbage - don't hesitate to name them. I have quite comfortable level editor, so I can come up with new ones in relatively short time. With 12x9 grid making a reasonable sokoban stuff requires dedicating entire map to it. And it's hard to design, because if I want to make them really hard, testing usually turns out there's still a really easy solution, requiring to almost start the design from scratch. So I don't expect to make any really difficult sokoban puzzles unless I at least partially automate making it (e.g. making sure there are no easy solutions). They are meant to be easy. A lot of other enemies are twice as fast, so I can design for any difficulty I want. Play some more later levels, and you'll find exactly that, even in three forms: - battery, which you can push into a battery slot to activate something (open door, spawn a screw, etc.) - "rune key" which you push into proper door to open them, - the same "rune key" can be pushed into a "run box" to open it, revealing an item inside (there are no levels using that feature in this build) Thanks for all the comments! Keep them coming!

@Thomas Jentzsch: There are some more puzzle levels, but looks like I'm not very good at making hardcore puzzle maps. Have you tried world 'E' in the current build? How would you rate difficulty there? I might focus more on puzzle maps in future releases, but making good ones takes really a lot of time. But you should be happy to hear I have made several Boulder Dash (with boulders) maps already. I have tracing enemies (eyes), but I don't plan on adding timers or similar limits. For one, I don't have memory to store that, and it would require getting rid of map number in-game display. There are two music tracks. One starts when you enter intro screen, and the other when you start new game. But for longer plays, they will both play in turn. And as I already have under 50 bytes left in audio bank, I don't expect being able to add more. How do you think the game should change according to difficulties? The scoring idea is nice, but if I'll be able to add it (RAM!), I'll probably just award points based on level difficulty and you'll be able to see how far you can go without running out of lives. As for replayability, there is world X which serves maps from random worlds. I don't think SaveKey is really needed here, because you can start from first stage of any world. Upon losing last life, you can also choose continue from the last level you played. In general, I'm very near to ROM/RAM limits (except I didn't release all the maps in this build), so my options are a bit limited at this point. @Trebor: Please DO make as much videos if you like. If you could comment while playing (in English) - even better. I love watching these videos, as they give me insight on how new players play the maps, and where real difficulty lies for someone, who hasn't played this game to death already and didn't design the levels himself. "WEAK WALL" is listed twice, but I'll rename the latter to "3 HIT WALL", because it takes three shots to destroy. @Everyone: Thanks for your kind comments! They keep me motivated to try to make this game as good as I can.

Hi everybody! It's been a while since I shared a first WIP version of RoboMechanik, so it's high time to start an official AtariAge thread, where you'll be able to get a newest version and post comments/suggestions. (of course I still read all responses on my Facebook DevKK.net page, too, so give it a like to be up-to-date there) Below you can find attached the second WIP version. The changes are extensive, so let me name just a few: - 49 levels - Special world "X", which lets you play levels from randomly picked worlds - More features, including: - new enemies - automatic doors - surprise boxes - ... and many more - Two BOSS stages - New intro and credits screens Known bugs: - game can randomly lock up when changing levels in world X - I'll be working on this Have fun! And be sure to post your thoughts! Thanks, KK RoboMechanik_by_DevKK__WIP2.zip