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Cave-In (PAL50/60 versions available)


Atarius Maximus

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Wow, this game is coming together pretty fast! Awesome job! :thumbsup:

And espire8's graphics are awesome too!!

 

I have a few thoughts and suggestions on the game:

 

- I played for a while and i think that 161 screens are enough, i got lost quite a few times... IMO using all the possible 255 screens might even be a bit too much...

 

- As you're thinking about a final boss for the game, why not make the goal of the game to find 4 pieces of a legendary sword (or another weapon)? Once you have all the 4 pieces you'll have to bring them to a special (magic?) place in the cave where the "special weapon" is "rebuilt" again.

When you have the "special weapon" you than have to find the final boss and kill him with it.

 

- I like the idea of hidden treasures in the game. Even if you have completed it once you could play again and try to find all the treasures and score as much points as possible.

 

- A few "side-quests" like finding a captured girl or searching for a well hidden treasure would be nice too.

 

- Besides the monsters you could also have some other obstacles in some rooms, maybe falling boulders (which would fit quite well to an "Indy-style" game) or bats... Something you can't kill and just have to run away from.

 

- If ROM-Space allows it would be neat to have an ending-sequence after completing the game.

 

That were just a few thoughts that popped into my head...

 

Keep up the good work, i'd love to see this game finished one day!!! :lust:

Edited by Impaler_26
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Maybe instead of castle entrances and keys, you could do boulder piles and dynamite sticks. Flashing both sprites together, quad size, with the proper sprite and color, makes an awesome large explosion. That's one time when I would think flickering your player would be ok, and if not, a quad size single sprite explosion would work too.

 

Also, If you are using 32x32 playfields, I'd suggest trying to work in some software sprites that add to the game so you don't have to worry about flicker. Flapping bats, falling...stalagtites? whatever they're called, bubbling tar pits, snakes, etc can all be done with playfield sprites without looking to awful.

 

You can also use the playfield to add fun puzzle elements, indiana style, like checkered floors that have to be walked on in certain patterns to open a door, lines that have to be straddled or daggers shoot out the walls, giant rolling boulders, etc.

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I could easily add some treasure or other items to pick up (as sprites), I just wouldn't be able to have an enemy on the screen at the same time - I'm trying to avoid any flicker in this game. I may be using the score display as an inventory screen for keys, though. If there's no scoring points, I'm not sure what the motivation would be to search for random treasure in the game. Something else to ponder while I try and figure out the whole theme (and ultimate goal) of this game. ;)

I saw your request about the inventory strip in another thread, I'll see about making that customization for bB v1.0 as well, but it might take me several nights to get around to it.

 

As for enemies and treasure on the same screen, and flicker, there are at least two ways you can deal with that: (1) In the "Reventure" game that I started a few years back, I have monsters, items, and even "room fixtures" (stairs) on the screen at the same time as the hero, but if more than two sprites are in a room at the same time, the non-hero sprites are prioritized, and only the highest priority sprite is drawn-- usually the monster. So the treasure won't appear until the monster is killed (although I did not get around to adding a way to kill the monster), and any room fixtures such as stairs won't appear until any traps are eliminated and any treasures are collected. Or (2) you could use the multisprite kernel but make sure that none of the extra sprites overlap each other on the scan lines-- such as putting the treasure in a niche at the top or bottom of the room, and making sure the monster never goes that high or low on the screen.

 

Michael

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I don't think he could do 32x32, asymetrical, multicolor playfield/sprites, with the multisprite kernel could he? If so we'd have no reason not to use it all the time instead of the standard. I was also meaning to ask you about the inv strip but figured I'd at least try it and see if it worked with 1.0 before I did, too bad it dosn't but really glad to see that you'll be updating it!

Edited by MausBoy
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I could easily add some treasure or other items to pick up (as sprites), I just wouldn't be able to have an enemy on the screen at the same time - I'm trying to avoid any flicker in this game. I may be using the score display as an inventory screen for keys, though. If there's no scoring points, I'm not sure what the motivation would be to search for random treasure in the game. Something else to ponder while I try and figure out the whole theme (and ultimate goal) of this game. ;)

I saw your request about the inventory strip in another thread, I'll see about making that customization for bB v1.0 as well, but it might take me several nights to get around to it.

 

As for enemies and treasure on the same screen, and flicker, there are at least two ways you can deal with that: (1) In the "Reventure" game that I started a few years back, I have monsters, items, and even "room fixtures" (stairs) on the screen at the same time as the hero, but if more than two sprites are in a room at the same time, the non-hero sprites are prioritized, and only the highest priority sprite is drawn-- usually the monster. So the treasure won't appear until the monster is killed (although I did not get around to adding a way to kill the monster), and any room fixtures such as stairs won't appear until any traps are eliminated and any treasures are collected. Or (2) you could use the multisprite kernel but make sure that none of the extra sprites overlap each other on the scan lines-- such as putting the treasure in a niche at the top or bottom of the room, and making sure the monster never goes that high or low on the screen.

 

Michael

 

Thanks for looking at updating the inventory strip patch, that could prove to be very useful. I'm still not sure yet if this game needs to have a score, or if it should just be to get to the end and win. I'm still struggling a little bit with coming up with a good storyline and objectives for this game.

 

I never thought about have sprites appear conditionally, that's a good idea. I could easily have a treasure item appear after the monster is killed. Never thought about doing it like that! ;)

 

You're right in that I could use the multisprite kernel, but I don't want to give up the multicolored player sprite and the assymmetrical playfield. I've got a busy week at work this week, I'm probably not going to have time to do much on this game until this weekend or next week. I'm back to needing to free up space in bank 1 again... I've got to find some ways to tidy up the code and maybe move some stuff around again. Thanks again for posting the original demo - I'm not sure I could have pulled this off without your initial example! :D

 

Steve

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I thought I'd post the latest update, as I probably won't have time to get back to this until next week. It should be possible to win the game now, although haven't had time to actually play through the game from beginning to end, I just changed the code to start in specific rooms to test them.

 

The game has somewhat of a story, I'll flesh it out later: You're in an underground mine, searching for an ancient lost crown. Your research has shown that it was broken into three pieces and hidden in the mine. Once you enter the mine, the entrance caves in and you're trapped. Now you have to recover the crown and find a way out. After you return the three pieces of the crown to the throne room you'll find some dynamite in the same room, which you can use to make your escape. The dynamite can only be used in a special, hidden room. The hidden room is activated by a switch that you'll also have to find. After you activate the hidden room and have the dynamite, you'll be able to make your escape.

 

Here's what's new in this version (I may forget a few things):

 

* The room graphics were changed again. I compromised this time - keeping the underground theme while making the rooms more open. It's now possible to run around and avoid the monsters if you want to.

* Random Treasure will now appear after you kill a monster. It doesn't appear every time.

* As explained above, after you return all 3 pieces of the crown to the 4th cave, you have to pick up and carry the dynamite, which is again the ball. This time, the ball will stick to you when you touch it, you'll have to carry it to the hidden exit.

* A switch room was added. When you flip the switch, the exit will appear somewhere else in the mine. If you don't know where it is it will be pretty difficult to find. Highlight the black bar to get the answer:

 

To activate the hidden room, go to room 43, that's where the switch is located. The hidden exit is in room 128. Check the map that was posted to find those rooms. If you enter the exit room without the dynamite, you'll just find a dead end.

 

* The left difficulty switch will change the monster's speed, if you want to add a little challenge.

* Enemies will now bounce back on the same side you hit them on, instead of just going to the left.

* Some rooms have a rolling boulder. If it hits you, you'll take a lot of damage. Be careful!

 

Here's what is still on my to-do list:

* Add Sound

* Change End of game and player death sequences. I may have a "boss" enemy you have to fight at the end, haven't tested that yet.

* Add a title screen

* Look into having an additional weapon as an option

* Changing enemy sprite graphics. I don't think I'll have enough ROM space to animate them. espire8 - if you want to help with this, that'd be great.

* I may add a few more secret rooms that just give you bonus treasure/points

* Change the playfield colors so they have some consistent theme in different areas of the mine.

* Looking into randomization of rooms or objects, but I probably won't have enough space to do this.

 

Steve

adv50.txt

adv50.txt.bin

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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Thanks for posting this new update Steve, it looks and plays wonderfully! The boulder is a fantastic addition. I found the boulder stuck in the corner after getting the 1st piece of the crown, was that intentional? The new look of the maze is excellent, much better than your first version.

 

The player (indy) sprite seems to have a 1 second delay before animating -making him float instead of run for that one moment. other than that this is great!

If you don't have space left for creature animation that's ok. I just wanted you to know I have no problem doing the animation of the pixel art for you if you happened to go that route.

 

I was thinking the player character could be Indy's colleague, Abner -from the first film who was killed in the spikes while looking for the idol. Could be a nice "what if you were in Abner's place" kind of game while avoiding copyright issues.

 

I'll hack in some creatures in your latest build just to see how it looks and plays! :D You've done an admirable job so far!!

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Thanks for posting this new update Steve, it looks and plays wonderfully! The boulder is a fantastic addition. I found the boulder stuck in the corner after getting the 1st piece of the crown, was that intentional? The new look of the maze is excellent, much better than your first version.

 

The player (indy) sprite seems to have a 1 second delay before animating -making him float instead of run for that one moment. other than that this is great!

If you don't have space left for creature animation that's ok. I just wanted you to know I have no problem doing the animation of the pixel art for you if you happened to go that route.

 

I was thinking the player character could be Indy's colleague, Abner -from the first film who was killed in the spikes while looking for the idol. Could be a nice "what if you were in Abner's place" kind of game while avoiding copyright issues.

 

I'll hack in some creatures in your latest build just to see how it looks and plays! :D You've done an admirable job so far!!

 

Thanks, espire8. I just played it for a while and saw that the boulder gets stuck just like you said. I've probably re-used a variable or forgot to reset it when you leave the screen...it should be easy to fix. I won't have time to look at it for a few days, I'm the best man in a wedding this weekend and I'm hosting the bachelor party tonight. Time to do some non-Atari related stuff for a little while... :)

 

I still need to update the player charater animation with the latest sprites you posted, I haven't done that yet. That should smooth it out a little bit. I can also tweak how the animation runs. I'm sure it will take quite a bit of time to polish everything once I've got the basic game completed. I'm still going to see if I can fit in some enemy sprite animations, but I've got so little space left now, and I've done just about all the optimizing I know how to do. I like the Abner idea....I really need to come up with a copyright friendly name for this game, it's still "unnamed adventure" right now. ;)

 

Steve

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I thought the boulder stuck in the corner after finding the first piece to the crown was a way of granting entrance to the next area of the map without getting killed. Maybe you can leave it as a feature, I think it works well there.

 

As for a name, since he's caved in, how about "Cave 'N' Run (Cave-In-Run)" or "Pit Trap" or "Cavern Scram". "Whip 'N' Run"? ah, how 'bout "Foot Falls!" --all you hear are the sound of running footsteps! :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been working for the past week on this game almost every day, and I've made lots of updates, but I've mostly been working on debugging the game and making sure it's compatible with real hardware. Some of the revisions I intended on making just won't work because they use too many machine cycles. The latest version is working pretty well on my Cuttle Cart 2, there's just a very slight screen jump every time you change rooms. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out what's causing that.

 

I'm not quite ready to post the latest revision yet as there's still lots of graphics updates that I haven't applied yet and a few more bugs that need to be worked out, mostly related to making it work on real hardware. Espire8 has been kind enough to help me work on some new sprite graphics and a title screen. The basic goal will remain the same - collect three crown pieces and take them to the correct place, grab the dynamite, find the switch to open up the hidden room, and take the dynamite to the hidden room to make your escape from the mine. I've added a few rooms with "hot lava", if you touch the walls you'll take damage. I was working on a rock slide room, but the scrolling seems to take too many cycles. I've added another hidden room with a bonus treasure to collect, and a new high res 96x40 title screen is in place, but I need to work on the actual graphics for it (Espire8's helping with that).

 

Anyway, here's a few pictures of the game running on real hardware. I hope to post a new revision soon!

 

Steve

post-2143-1184211755_thumb.jpg

post-2143-1184211801_thumb.jpg

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Very impressive! The little guy you control doesn't seem to be able to pull out his thing when he's facing left, though. You have to make him face right, hold the fire button and then make him face left.

 

Thanks. I never noticed that issue with pulling out the sword, but it's not happening in my latest revision. I changed the sword so that you have to push the fire button to "swing" the sword. Just holding down the button doesn't keep it out all the time anymore.

 

As for a title, how about "Caving In"?

 

I would like to use the word Cave somehow in the title. My working title has been "Cave In", but that may change.

 

Steve

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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I'm almost done with the game now, I just need to come up with the name, finish the titlescreen, and update some of the sprite graphics. I've changed the colors in all of the rooms to follow a more consistent theme, the different areas of the game now all have a similar color so you can more easily keep track of where you are.

 

My biggest challenge now is making it 100% compatible with real hardware, although it runs perfectly in emulation. There is a slight screen roll when you change rooms, and there is a barely perceptible screen shake if you constantly press the fire button after you kill an enemy on the screen -- I had to look really closely at the TV screen to notice it. I'm also struggling a little bit with sprite positioning on the titlescreen. The titlescreen is pure asm, so I've been having to study examples and use lots of trial and error testing to get it right. The sprite shows up farther to the left on real hardware than it does on Stella, so I must be doing something wrong.

 

Micheal or Fred, do you think you could assist with the screen roll issue when changing screens? I'm sure it's because I've got too many instructions in the draw_room subroutine, which is called with a gosub and goes through several steps (including a call to a different bank) before returning. I just can't figure out a different way to do it. I also have no idea how to position a sprite in asm. Any suggestions you could make would be great!

 

I'm going to go ahead and post the latest revision, although the titlescreen is a complete mess. I actually played through the entire game this afternoon, so it is winnable.

 

Steve

adv64.txt

adv64.txt.bin

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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Very cool! How much of the 32k is actually used?

 

I just increased it to 32k on the last build, as running the debugging options pushed me over the limit in bank 4. I'm using around 15.5k of space right now, the game will actually still compile in 16k if I leave out the 'set debug cycles' (or 'set debug cyclescore'), but I've been using that option alot lately. :) I've also not yet added any sound to the game, which will probably push me over 16k.

 

Steve

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first, congratulations for this game

it is really cool

the only thing that bothers me (but it must be me, cause nobody mentions it) is that his sword looks like a giant....retractible...penis..... :twisted:

anyway

otherwise, it is quite fun

I will definitely buy it on cart

and I will try on my CC1

this week end

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the only thing that bothers me (but it must be me, cause nobody mentions it) is that his sword looks like a giant....retractible...penis..... :twisted:
was'nt it just a temporary placeholder gfx? I thought it was a whip. I still think a gun with limited ammo would be nice.

 

btw- the title screen is in process! --will have it in a couple days.

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the only thing that bothers me (but it must be me, cause nobody mentions it) is that his sword looks like a giant....retractible...penis..... :twisted:

 

Try this one...in this version you're firing a gun instead of using a giant retractable penis. ;) I've been working on other optimizations this afternoon, and I think I've got the screen shake problem resolved that happens when you fire the gun (or use the 'sword' in earlier revisions). Now I just have to address that slight screen jump when changing rooms....

adv68.txt.bin

Edited by Atarius Maximus
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the gun is probably better than the "sword"

but now all the villains seem to look the same (well for the first 10 screens I checked)

that giant snake looks cool and is impressive

but I like the diversity that you had in the previous version

even the silly looking enemies, it is different than other games

and gives its own personality

you should keep them

 

ps if it is the title screen, it looks really confusing

but I repeat, brilliant game, I will follow it closely

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the gun is probably better than the "sword"

but now all the villains seem to look the same (well for the first 10 screens I checked)

that giant snake looks cool and is impressive

but I like the diversity that you had in the previous version

even the silly looking enemies, it is different than other games

and gives its own personality

you should keep them

 

ps if it is the title screen, it looks really confusing

but I repeat, brilliant game, I will follow it closely

 

The sprites are all very similar, but only in this revision. I was planning on changing them all to more realistic cave dwelling creatures, it's something that espire8 is helping me with. There will end up being 10-12 different enemies, depending on what I can fit in. I'm not great at sprite design, and so far espire8's designs have been brilliant.

 

The titlescreen is simply a placeholder as well, it will be changed dramatically before the game is complete. That's one of the reasons I didn't really want to post the latest revision yet, but it's hard not to post and share my latest progress! :)

 

Steve

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Nice game.Could you post a map of this really big maze????? :)

greetings Walter

 

The original map I posted is still valid, although I am slowly working on a new map that has pictures of the actual rooms. It's a work in progress and will take a while to complete, considering the number of rooms. ;) I'll go ahead and post another copy of the map here. Keep in mind that the map includes spoilers.

 

Steve

post-2143-1184438547.jpg

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Guest moonshot22

HI,

This game has really progressed fast! Great job!!

After checking out your lastest revision I thought I might toss out a couple more requests /suggestions.

 

Right now the enemies come at you in a very linear fashion and are very predictible. Would it be possible to make some of them have a more "hit and run" scheme so they can circle around you? Maybe some of them could have the ability to warp in and out so they reappear at random places around you? Or since you can only fire to the sides, maybe more difficult enemies could try to stay on top or beneath you.

 

As it is right now, all of these enemies are pretty easy to kill. I think the game might create more tension if there were fewer but more difficult enemies/monsters.

 

cheers---Ron

Edited by moonshot22
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Here's the the new title screen I finished over the weekend, I toyed with the game name title using different words.

I left the name "FOOT FALLS" in there, it has a nice ring to it. Of course you can change it to any name you like, I just did'nt bother putting back the working title again after all the experimenting with it.

Here's the bin:adv54_1_.bin

..and the screen shot.

post-7623-1184597541_thumb.png

 

I'll be away for a couple weeks so I'll post the remaining sprite designs tonight and then go on a short vacation. I'll check in when I can just to read up but other than that I really need to enjoy this warm weather! It's so nice and sunny today! :cool: Catch you all later.

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