Cave-In (PAL50/60 versions available)

[yuppicide]

Great to hear.

 

Love the "Cave In" moving back and fourth when the game is over. Is that ASM code?

[+Atarius Maximus]

Great to hear.

 

Love the "Cave In" moving back and fourth when the game is over. Is that ASM code?

Nope, it's not ASM. I attached a quick demo that demonstrates how I did it in bB.

 

Steve

spritemove.txt

spritemove.bin

[MausGames]

I had assumed that you were waiting for a new type of board, really happy to hear this is going to be released sooner than that, but I really hope an alternative becomes available this year.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I'm going to bed for the night now, but I promise I'll update this post again as soon as I can with more details about the current revision and include a new binary.

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

Wow, time flies... I didn't think it would take another 5 weeks to post this update.

 

I found some time today to work on the final tweaks to the game. I played around with it for about an hour looking for any remaining issues, I think

I've got everything nailed down now. I'll try and find some time in the next week or so to put several hours in with my cuttle cart to make sure

everything looks good on real hardware as well.

 

It's been challenging finishing up the game, as there's so little space left to work with now, and it seems every tiny change I make causes a problem

somewhere else in the game. Debugging this game has taken countless hours over the past year. With that said, there are a few minor

quirks that I wanted to let everyone know about so they're not reported as bugs. They are known issues that I either can't fix or am just not going to

fix. These items will remain in the final release:

 

1. You might get stuck in a wall. I've experienced this once or twice in the hundreds (over a thousand, maybe? ) of hours of playtime I put in, but

it's been reported by at least one person who's playtested the game. Since I was never able to consistently reproduce the problem, I can't say with

100% certainty that it's fixed.

 

2. Enemy explosions are not red when you're in posession of the shield. A very minor issue that I'm not going to fix.

 

3. If you drop the shield inside the inivisible maze, it changes to half size when dropped. Another very minor issue that I'm not going to fix.

 

4. The Healthpack/gun upgrade may appear in an inaccessible location - I've minimized the probability of it happening, but it might happen.

 

5. If you switch directions with the bullet in mid-path, it switches paths too. It's a compromise for ROM space at this point, I'm not going to change

it. Every adventurer needs a handgun with guided bullets, right?

 

6. Lastly, in the locked caves, rocks will start falling after you kill an enenmy. The first rock to fall will fall from the position that the enemy

was killed, after that they will fall from the top of the screen to the bottom. There isn't enough ROM space to resolve this problem, and I consider

it to be minor anyway.

 

 

Here are some other issues that might be perceived as bugs, but are actually in the game by design. They're not bugs.

 

1. You cannot exit locked caves once you've entered it until you have found the crown piece.

 

2. You can kill enemies by pressing fire when you're holding the shield - even if you don't have the gun. Think of it as swinging your shield at them.

 

3. Enemies will die after you attacking 7 times. This was put in to give you a fighting chance when you don't have a gun - think of this as hand to

hand combat and you will always (eventually) win the fight.

 

4. You drop your gun if you lose a health block (10 hits) in games 2 and 3. A quick note about how the health system works: You start with 80 units

of health, represented by 8 blocks on the on-screen health meter. One unit of health (1 block on the screen) represents 10 points of health. For

every 10 health points you lose, one block will disappear on the screen.

 

5. You lose a heatlh unit with every room change in game 2 after you have 3 blocks left, and all the time in game 3. Once you're down to 3 blocks

left, you have 30 units left, or 30 room moves. You'll have to plan carefully to make it back to the health recharge room when you get low on health.

 

6. You can't re-enter the boss room once you've killed it.

 

7. The screen is supposed to shake when you touch a wall or fire the gun. Some people like it, some don't, but that's how I want it to be.

 

8. Lastly, there is an easter egg that no one has found to date. It does provide an in-game bonus, so it's worth finding.

 

Here's the current differences between the three difficulty levels:

 

Game 1 - Beginner

Enemies move at normal speed and never have a fast attack

No health reduction when changing rooms

Keys are always hidden in the same rooms

You start out with your gun, and you will never lose it.

 

Game 2 - Intermediate

Enemies move at normal speed with occasional fast attacks

1 point health reduction when you change rooms only after you are down to 3 health blocks left

Key locations are randomized

You start out with no gun - you will have to find it, either in the hidden room or dropped by an enemy.

 

Game 3 - Advanced

Enemies move at top speed all the time

1 point health reduction when you change rooms at all times

Key locations are randomized

You start out with no gun - you will have to find it, either in the hidden room or dropped by an enemy.

Falling rocks in the locked caves will fall twice as fast

 

Now that that's out of the way, I'm posting up the latest source code and binary. Geez, this is the 222nd source code revision that I've saved... I'm

looking forward to being completely done with this one so I can come up with a new project to start on.

 

Steve

cavein222.bin

cavein222.bas

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

I like your game and hope it will be released in the Atariage store soon.

greetings Walter

[Fangorn81]

Very Nice!!

 

Though the sound when you hit the wall is a bit grating.

 

I still want to buy this on a real cartridge!

 

Do you need some artwork?

[MausGames]

Have you checked to make sure you've taken advantage of all possible variables? Since you don't scroll the playfield, the variables assigned to the hidden row can be used for general purposes, and since you are using playercolors, you should be able to use the x/y's of the missing missile as general purpose variables, although I think missileheight is repurposed.

 

edit: Sorry, didn't see that you are out of ROM and no longer updating.

Edited March 8, 2009 by MausGames

[Lendorien]

Here's a question. Have you or anyone else done an instruction manual for this game yet. Seems to me some of your info above would be perfect for it.

 

S

[Impaler_26]

Here's a question. Have you or anyone else done an instruction manual for this game yet. Seems to me some of your info above would be perfect for it.

 

S

The Manual is here.

[+Atarius Maximus]

Here's a question. Have you or anyone else done an instruction manual for this game yet. Seems to me some of your info above would be perfect for it.

 

S

The Manual is here.

 

That manual is pretty old and many of the options have changed. It will still give you the general idea of what to do in the game though. I can post the most recent revision tomorrow, it's on my work laptop which is still on my desk at work. Keep in mind too that the early revision of the manual contains alot of spoilers, the newer version leaves many of the secrets out.

 

I found a few more minor issues with the latest revision that I recently posted, I've been working hard to get all the kinks worked out this week and I'll post what should be the final revision within the next few weeks. There's less than 50 bytes free in the 32K ROM now, so making revisions now is very challenging and time consuming. It takes a really long time to actually complete the game too, especially on level 3, so there's alot of playtesting that needs to be done still.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[+Atarius Maximus]

Very Nice!!

 

Though the sound when you hit the wall is a bit grating.

 

I still want to buy this on a real cartridge!

 

Do you need some artwork?

 

Yeah, I know some people don't like that sound, but I'm going to keep it how it is. As far as the artwork, it's already done and can be viewed here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=4769.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[Fort Apocalypse]

Yeah, I know some people don't like that sound, but I'm going to keep it how it is. As far as the artwork, it's already done and can be viewed here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=4769.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

 

That is sweet! I love that pic.

[+Atarius Maximus]

My playtesting is going well so far, there's just a few very minor things left to do. I just did an AVI recording of the level 1 playthrough I did this morning. I've copied it to http://www.bjars.com/CaveInLevel1Playthrough.zip if anyone would like to download it and take a look. It's only a 12MB download , as I removed the audio from the clip and compressed it. It's about 20 minutes long.

 

None of the secret rooms or the easter egg are revealed in the playthrough, I was just trying to complete the game as fast as I could and watch for any bugs that might have come up. It does reveal how to beat the game, so don't watch if you want to be able to figure that out for yourself. In order to make it easier for me to finish it quick, I enabled a cheat for myself so I could replenish my health at will. You may see me stop in the game for a brief second several times, that's when I'm cheating and adding to my health. The only issue I came across during this playtest was a few times the falling rocks in the locked caves were larger. I'll look at correcting it, although I did kind of like it that way, even though it was unintentional.

 

Things are looking good to be completely finished with this soon.

 

Steve

cavein226.bin

Edited March 13, 2009 by Atarius Maximus

[neotokeo2001]

Edited March 17, 2009 by neotokeo2001

[supercat]

None of the secret rooms or the easter egg are revealed in the playthrough, I was just trying to complete the game as fast as I could and watch for any bugs that might have come up. It does reveal how to beat the game, so don't watch if you want to be able to figure that out for yourself. In order to make it easier for me to finish it quick, I enabled a cheat for myself so I could replenish my health at will. You may see me stop in the game for a brief second several times, that's when I'm cheating and adding to my health. The only issue I came across during this playtest was a few times the falling rocks in the locked caves were larger. I'll look at correcting it, although I did kind of like it that way, even though it was unintentional.

 

I hadn't looked at this game before. It seems quite nice. One caveat, though: it looks as though the screen is bouncing up and down a bit, probably related to sprite positioning. Have you looked into that, or would you like any help?

[+Atarius Maximus]

None of the secret rooms or the easter egg are revealed in the playthrough, I was just trying to complete the game as fast as I could and watch for any bugs that might have come up. It does reveal how to beat the game, so don't watch if you want to be able to figure that out for yourself. In order to make it easier for me to finish it quick, I enabled a cheat for myself so I could replenish my health at will. You may see me stop in the game for a brief second several times, that's when I'm cheating and adding to my health. The only issue I came across during this playtest was a few times the falling rocks in the locked caves were larger. I'll look at correcting it, although I did kind of like it that way, even though it was unintentional.

 

I hadn't looked at this game before. It seems quite nice. One caveat, though: it looks as though the screen is bouncing up and down a bit, probably related to sprite positioning. Have you looked into that, or would you like any help?

 

 

The screen shake is actually part of the story of the game and is intentional. When you fire your gun or bump into a wall it causes a "tremor" in the cave. You'll hear a rumbling sound (which you can't hear in the video clip), and the shaking walls represent the earthquake tremor. In addition, the tremor occurs in the locked caves when there's rocks falling down on you.

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

[+Atarius Maximus]

 

Nice job.

[BSA Starfire]

Really good game Steve, I'm having fun playing this one a lot!

 

Best,

Chris

[yuppicide]

What's the latest on this?

[+Atarius Maximus]

What's the latest on this?

 

Nothing to report, really. I haven't really had any time to continue testing the latest build, but it looked pretty solid with the last playthrough I did. My cuttle cart 2 (and all of my other atari related stuff) is all in storage right now as we're finishing our basement. I don't think I could easily find it to test on real hardware.

 

Hopefully Albert's been able to gather all the superchip donor carts he needs, it would be cool to get this released sometime this year.

 

Steve

[VectorGamer]

Here are my commendations and recommendations. Keep in mind these are from a player's perspective and not a programmer's.

 

Commendations

• Nice concept and challenging game play
  
• Nice intro screen
  
• Our guy looks good graphically
  
• The "Game Over" sound effect is good
  

 

 

Recommendations

• The graphics are too blocky
  
• I got lost in the dark cave and seemed like I was going around in circles. Maybe this was by design to get the character into a dead end. It would have been cool to have monsters attacking while in the dark cave.
  
• What are those blocks moving sideways and falling on our guy? This is an example of where the graphics need to be improved. If the player has to ask what they are, then the graphics need improvement.
  
• I do not like the other sound effects used in the game. They sound too much like what was used in the old Atari games like Superman.
  
• Why are the monsters able to go through walls?
  

[Fangorn81]

Recommendations

• The graphics are too blocky
  
• I got lost in the dark cave and seemed like I was going around in circles. Maybe this was by design to get the character into a dead end. It would have been cool to have monsters attacking while in the dark cave.
  
• What are those blocks moving sideways and falling on our guy? This is an example of where the graphics need to be improved. If the player has to ask what they are, then the graphics need improvement.
  
• I do not like the other sound effects used in the game. They sound too much like what was used in the old Atari games like Superman.
  
• Why are the monsters able to go through walls?
  

 

Um, you realize this game was made for the 2600 right?

[Bakasama]

This game has been WIP for some years. It would be very hard to squeeze any more improvements at this point.

[VectorGamer]

Recommendations

• The graphics are too blocky
  
• I got lost in the dark cave and seemed like I was going around in circles. Maybe this was by design to get the character into a dead end. It would have been cool to have monsters attacking while in the dark cave.
  
• What are those blocks moving sideways and falling on our guy? This is an example of where the graphics need to be improved. If the player has to ask what they are, then the graphics need improvement.
  
• I do not like the other sound effects used in the game. They sound too much like what was used in the old Atari games like Superman.
  
• Why are the monsters able to go through walls?
  

 

Um, you realize this game was made for the 2600 right?

 

Um, yeah - have you ever seen the graphics produced in Medieval Mayhem or Stargate?

[yuppicide]

Those two games you mention weren't produced with bAtari Basic. I think this was. There are limitations.