Cave-In (PAL50/60 versions available)

[+Atarius Maximus]

I think the cobra is the better choice myself. I was'nt sure how it would turn out at first because I had no starting point as I had with the dragon, especialy with the animation but it pulled off well. Drawing and animating are two different skills and I'm glad I was here for this.

 

I think the Cobra is better too, it fits the theme of the game much better. You did a great job on it.

 

Btw, just an idea. Maybe you can have two boss fights in different areas on the map (one easy and the other hard) using the same cobra sprite each in a diffrerent color, making the hard one move faster as you have done with some of the normal cave critters and perhaps in a different type room. I don't know if you have space left for that but it would cool to fight a huge boss twice!

 

That's a great idea, I don't think it would be too hard to implement that. I'd just have to decide when you'd encounter the 2nd one. What do you think?

 

Steve

[mos6507]

Well, I tried out your demo and I was elated to see such a phenomenal looking game for the 2600, I hope you (and Michael) bring this game to a fully playable game, its remarkable in what I see. I like the whole Indiana Jones look as well, I personally loved RoTLA, though many seemed to pan it, so having a sort of hyped-up super-sequel would be great, if I can help you out please let me know.

 

I also loved Raiders of the lost Ark, it was one of my favorites as a kid. I appreciate your offer to help, I may shoot some technical questions your way as I continue to work on this.

 

My biggest concern now is about gameplay elements, I'd love some more feedback on that. As it stands now, without really going into detail about the story of the game, you simply have to collect three items and take them to a specific location, which then gives you a special item that you have to take with you to a hidden exit. The hidden exit is opened with a switch in a certain room. There is a health powerup room, two warp rooms, and a shield that you can carry that makes you invulnerable to enemies. That's pretty much all there is to it, besides killing the enemies and collecting random treasure. Is there enough to the gameplay now to make it fun to play, or does it need more? It's already been mentioned that an improved enemy AI system would be nice, but I keep thinking about all of the other things that made the original Atari adventure so much fun, like the bat, the bridge, the magnet, random placement of objects, etc... all things that were'nt neccessarily essential to win the game but added that extra "something" to make the game more interesting to play. I'm just a little stuck as to what to try to add next.

 

Steve

 

 

 

I think you have a great game engine but just killing enemies endlessly gets tedious fast. It's kind of like Secret Quest or Venture in that respect.

 

The short range of your shots make it hard to exercise much in the way of technique when you battle the enemies either.

 

I think you have to make a real inventory system ala Indy and E.T. and get creative there. OR make the enemies persistent and be able to go from room to room like in Adventure/HH/Superman.

 

Or maybe add some new game mechanism to the game, maybe something more fast-paced like the railcars in Temple of Doom.

Edited August 18, 2007 by mos6507

[gambler172]

Well, I tried out your demo and I was elated to see such a phenomenal looking game for the 2600, I hope you (and Michael) bring this game to a fully playable game, its remarkable in what I see. I like the whole Indiana Jones look as well, I personally loved RoTLA, though many seemed to pan it, so having a sort of hyped-up super-sequel would be great, if I can help you out please let me know.

 

I also loved Raiders of the lost Ark, it was one of my favorites as a kid. I appreciate your offer to help, I may shoot some technical questions your way as I continue to work on this.

 

My biggest concern now is about gameplay elements, I'd love some more feedback on that. As it stands now, without really going into detail about the story of the game, you simply have to collect three items and take them to a specific location, which then gives you a special item that you have to take with you to a hidden exit. The hidden exit is opened with a switch in a certain room. There is a health powerup room, two warp rooms, and a shield that you can carry that makes you invulnerable to enemies. That's pretty much all there is to it, besides killing the enemies and collecting random treasure. Is there enough to the gameplay now to make it fun to play, or does it need more? It's already been mentioned that an improved enemy AI system would be nice, but I keep thinking about all of the other things that made the original Atari adventure so much fun, like the bat, the bridge, the magnet, random placement of objects, etc... all things that were'nt neccessarily essential to win the game but added that extra "something" to make the game more interesting to play. I'm just a little stuck as to what to try to add next.

 

Steve

 

 

 

I think you have a great game engine but just killing enemies endlessly gets tedious fast. It's kind of like Secret Quest or Venture in that respect.

 

The short range of your shots make it hard to exercise much in the way of technique when you battle the enemies either.

 

I think you have to make a real inventory system ala Indy and E.T. and get creative there. OR make the enemies persistent and be able to go from room to room like in Adventure/HH/Superman.

 

Or maybe add some new game mechanism to the game, maybe something more fast-paced like the railcars in Temple of Doom.

 

Hi

If you do not see it .The game has a goal.So read the manual,which is posted here somewhere in this topic.It is not only "Stupid Monster Killing".......Before writing......just play yourself and read the manual.And yes,if you pick up an important item,this is shown.So,there is kind of inventory.And(If you did not find out),there are enough elements in the game,which make it worth,playing this game.But if you do not like,nobody forces you to play.

greetings gambler172

[gambler172]

I think the cobra is the better choice myself. I was'nt sure how it would turn out at first because I had no starting point as I had with the dragon, especialy with the animation but it pulled off well. Drawing and animating are two different skills and I'm glad I was here for this.

 

I think the Cobra is better too, it fits the theme of the game much better. You did a great job on it.

 

Btw, just an idea. Maybe you can have two boss fights in different areas on the map (one easy and the other hard) using the same cobra sprite each in a diffrerent color, making the hard one move faster as you have done with some of the normal cave critters and perhaps in a different type room. I don't know if you have space left for that but it would cool to fight a huge boss twice!

 

That's a great idea, I don't think it would be too hard to implement that. I'd just have to decide when you'd encounter the 2nd one. What do you think?

 

Steve

Hi Steve

More boss fights are a great idea.Maybe espire8 can make some different Cobra Sprites?????How about a final boss at the end od each sector?????

greetings Walter

[+Atarius Maximus]

Well, I tried out your demo and I was elated to see such a phenomenal looking game for the 2600, I hope you (and Michael) bring this game to a fully playable game, its remarkable in what I see. I like the whole Indiana Jones look as well, I personally loved RoTLA, though many seemed to pan it, so having a sort of hyped-up super-sequel would be great, if I can help you out please let me know.

 

I also loved Raiders of the lost Ark, it was one of my favorites as a kid. I appreciate your offer to help, I may shoot some technical questions your way as I continue to work on this.

 

My biggest concern now is about gameplay elements, I'd love some more feedback on that. As it stands now, without really going into detail about the story of the game, you simply have to collect three items and take them to a specific location, which then gives you a special item that you have to take with you to a hidden exit. The hidden exit is opened with a switch in a certain room. There is a health powerup room, two warp rooms, and a shield that you can carry that makes you invulnerable to enemies. That's pretty much all there is to it, besides killing the enemies and collecting random treasure. Is there enough to the gameplay now to make it fun to play, or does it need more? It's already been mentioned that an improved enemy AI system would be nice, but I keep thinking about all of the other things that made the original Atari adventure so much fun, like the bat, the bridge, the magnet, random placement of objects, etc... all things that were'nt neccessarily essential to win the game but added that extra "something" to make the game more interesting to play. I'm just a little stuck as to what to try to add next.

 

Steve

 

 

 

I think you have a great game engine but just killing enemies endlessly gets tedious fast. It's kind of like Secret Quest or Venture in that respect.

 

The short range of your shots make it hard to exercise much in the way of technique when you battle the enemies either.

 

I think you have to make a real inventory system ala Indy and E.T. and get creative there. OR make the enemies persistent and be able to go from room to room like in Adventure/HH/Superman.

 

Or maybe add some new game mechanism to the game, maybe something more fast-paced like the railcars in Temple of Doom.

 

I agree that just mindlessly killing enemies screen after screen can get a little tedious, but I've tried to put in a few extra gameplay elements and goals to make it a little more fun to wander the map. I did limit the shot range to increase the difficulty a little bit, but it would be easy to make the range of your shots a setting that could be changed with the left or right difficulty switch. I'll look into that.

 

I would love to implement a real inventory system that has selectable items, however it's a little beyond my programming ability, and it's probably not completely necessary for the game as it is -- you don't really need to change items, once you pick something up it's added to your inventory and always accessible. Currently, the only inventory items are the crown pieces and keys you collect, however I was going to look into a selectable weapon (probably a sword or gun), but I'd have to come up with a reason to switch weapons - each would have to have certain advantage in special situations and I'm not sure what that would be yet. The inventory system that's in place is simply remapping the score digits to graphic images, so in the code I just set a static score that displays the items you've picked up.

 

I personally like the different enemies on each screen, although I can see why some people may prefer the persistent enemies that would follow you around. I can appreciate your opinion, but I don't think I'll be changing that.

 

Your idea about a fast paced minigame has definitely crossed my mind already, and I've experimented with a few. I've had a problem with making any of the playfields move, as it seems to use too many machine cycles and the screen rolls. That was before I started my cycle-saving code cleanup last week, so I'm planning on revisiting that idea.

 

The game's not done yet - I hope to add a few more really cool features before I call it complete.

 

Steve

[+Atarius Maximus]

I think the cobra is the better choice myself. I was'nt sure how it would turn out at first because I had no starting point as I had with the dragon, especialy with the animation but it pulled off well. Drawing and animating are two different skills and I'm glad I was here for this.

 

I think the Cobra is better too, it fits the theme of the game much better. You did a great job on it.

 

Btw, just an idea. Maybe you can have two boss fights in different areas on the map (one easy and the other hard) using the same cobra sprite each in a diffrerent color, making the hard one move faster as you have done with some of the normal cave critters and perhaps in a different type room. I don't know if you have space left for that but it would cool to fight a huge boss twice!

 

That's a great idea, I don't think it would be too hard to implement that. I'd just have to decide when you'd encounter the 2nd one. What do you think?

 

Steve

Hi Steve

More boss fights are a great idea.Maybe espire8 can make some different Cobra Sprites?????How about a final boss at the end od each sector?????

greetings Walter

 

A boss at the end of each cave area is a pretty good idea, but I'd have to make them easier than the final one. I'll play around with that idea and see how it goes.

 

Steve

[+Atarius Maximus]

This isn't a major update, but a few cool things were added. There is now one interactive room (think "minigame") in which you have to navigate a rail car from one side of the screen to the other. The screen scrolls left or right (depending on which side you entered the room), and you'll have to avoid the obstacles as you ride the rail car or you'll lose health points. I'm testing out some other ideas, as well -- I hope to add at least a few more rooms like this one. To see it, go a few rooms down from the Green Cave and go east, or go one room down from the Health recharge room and go west. It connects those two rooms, which makes a shortcut from the final cave to the health room - I thought that might prove useful.

 

I've also added a death animation to the enemies when they're killed. The animation is in place, but it may get tweaked and changed a little bit.

 

Steve

 

 

EDIT: Just to make it a little easier to see the new room, the cheat binary starts you in the room just to the left of the rail car room.

adv134.bin

adv134source.txt

adv134cheat.bin

Edited August 24, 2007 by Atarius Maximus

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

I checked the new version. Really nice,your "Railcar Sequence".Maybe i have another idea.How about a room,with more than one enemie?Maybe a little bit,like Berzerk?But i do not know,if this would be possible,because i am no programmer.Or how about a Mystery Room,where you must find the right combination to continue????Or another Minigame Idea.How about a Minigame,like "Surround",where you must win against an oponent?And you can continue,only when you win????

Or how about adding a Super Weapon????This should help against some special enemies.

Maybe you can do some Minigames,like in "Swordquest" games?????

I have so many ideas for Minigames.........

greetings Walter

[+Atarius Maximus]

Hi Steve

I checked the new version. Really nice,your "Railcar Sequence".Maybe i have another idea.How about a room,with more than one enemie?Maybe a little bit,like Berzerk?But i do not know,if this would be possible,because i am no programmer.Or how about a Mystery Room,where you must find the right combination to continue????Or another Minigame Idea.How about a Minigame,like "Surround",where you must win against an oponent?And you can continue,only when you win????

Or how about adding a Super Weapon????This should help against some special enemies.

Maybe you can do some Minigames,like in "Swordquest" games?????

I have so many ideas for Minigames.........

greetings Walter

 

Walter,

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I can't add more than one enemy to the screen without flickering them, and I don't want to do that. I like your idea of the 'mystery' room, although I'm not quite sure how I'd implement that - I'd probably need to place more items on the screen than I'm able to in order to do that correctly. I do plan on adding some minigames (like swordquest), although I won't be able to do very many, maybe 2 or 3 more. While your surround idea is a good one, I want to make the games fit in to the story of the game, they'd have to be somehow related to being in an underground mine. If you have any other ideas for minigames I'm open to suggestions. I may have to play some of the swordquest games again. I don't really like those games much, but I remember some of the minigames in them were kind of fun - it might give me some inspiration for what else to put in my game.

 

I've attached another minor revision, this one fixes a few gameplay bugs: You can no longer get stuck in a wall when going up and down between rooms, the firing sound now continues to work after you kill an enemy, you can no longer shoot the entrances to the tunnels (the warp zones), and the crown pieces in the castle are now the correct size again. It's easy to create more bugs as I get further into this game, as I end up moving code around and changing stuff around. I made one other change, the rockslide room is now animated (which was my original intention anyway), the rocks slowly slide from the right side of the screen to the left. If you touch them, you'll slide toward the bottom of the screen.

 

Steve

adv136.txt.bin

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

Played your actual version on my Pal system today.At the beginning (with the moving rocks),i moved to the left. I found a big suare,which saves me from enemies a few seconds.Is this a shield????Nice idea.The game itself plays very well.The only enemy,i do not like,is this big Mouse(Rat???).It looks too funny,to be a real enemy.Maybe,you can change it a little bit,so that it looks more agressive????And maybe you can animate the Spider a little bit???If it moves at the player,it should move with her head forward.

greetings Walter

[+Atarius Maximus]

Hi Steve

Played your actual version on my Pal system today.At the beginning (with the moving rocks),i moved to the left. I found a big suare,which saves me from enemies a few seconds.Is this a shield????Nice idea.The game itself plays very well.The only enemy,i do not like,is this big Mouse(Rat???).It looks too funny,to be a real enemy.Maybe,you can change it a little bit,so that it looks more agressive????And maybe you can animate the Spider a little bit???If it moves at the player,it should move with her head forward.

greetings Walter

 

Yes, the big square is a shield. When you're carrying it you are invulnerable to enemy attacks. You'll drop it if you touch a wall, you can't carry it into the locked caves, and you can't carry it on the railcar. If you do drop it, it will reappear in it's original location and you can go back and pick it up again. I messed up again on my last post and forgot to set the game back to the starting room - you're really not supposed to start in the rock slide room.

 

The big mouse/rat doesn't look very threatening, I agree. I may make a few more sprite changes before I call the game complete. Adding animation to the enemy sprites has been on my to-do list since the beginning. My first attempt didn't work, I'll revisit that again and see if I can squeeze it in.

 

Steve

[Csonicgo]

WOW. the only way this could be cooler is that there were music.

[espire8]

The big mouse/rat doesn't look very threatening, I agree. I may make a few more sprite changes before I call the game complete. Adding animation to the enemy sprites has been on my to-do list since the beginning. My first attempt didn't work, I'll revisit that again and see if I can squeeze it in.

 

Steve

First let me say the rock slide and railcar scenes are so well done like in the Last Crusade! It helps to vary the pace of exploring the cave system. I'll see what I can do to spruce up the giant rat creature.

Your latest build is fantastic! your best work so far.

[+Atarius Maximus]

WOW. the only way this could be cooler is that there were music.

Thanks! If only I was better at making music.

 

I've made my first attempt with this build. There is now background music that always plays. The tone of the music will change a little bit whenever you shoot something, pick something up, or touch the cave wall. I doubt anyone will interpret this as beautiful music, and I'll probably have to change it, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

 

First let me say the rock slide and railcar scenes are so well done like in the Last Crusade! It helps to vary the pace of exploring the cave system. I'll see what I can do to spruce up the giant rat creature.

Your latest build is fantastic! your best work so far.

Thanks! I added your boss enemy sprite to this build as well, it looks very cool, thanks again. The only other change to this build is fairly minor. Now, when you pick up the shield, it will display in your inventory. When you drop it, it will disappear from your inventory.

 

There's so many things I still want to add, and it's taking way longer than I thought it would. I WILL eventually finish this though, this project has been so much fun to work on!

 

Steve

adv137.bin

adv137source.txt

[+Atarius Maximus]

Well, I just tested out this latest build on real hardware and it's a mess. I won't be able to have music playing in the background, that caused all kinds of problems. There's also a slight screen roll on the rock slide room and rail car room, which I thought might happen - although it doesn't show a problem when you enable debug mode in the bB Code. I guess I'm closer to being finished with this than I thought, adding more code just causes more hardware issues. I'll start removing items and focusing on hardware combatility again, and then just polish up the existing features. I could still put in a title song as there is plenty of space for that.

 

Steve

[lord_mike]

How did you test on real hardware? Did you burn yourself a cartridge rom with a superchip?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

[+Atarius Maximus]

How did you test on real hardware? Did you burn yourself a cartridge rom with a superchip?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

I have a Cuttle Cart 2.

 

Steve

[SeaGtGruff]

I won't be able to have music playing in the background, that caused all kinds of problems.

Where did you add the background music-- in the overscan or in the vblank?

 

Michael

[+Atarius Maximus]

I won't be able to have music playing in the background, that caused all kinds of problems.

Where did you add the background music-- in the overscan or in the vblank?

 

Michael

 

I'm sure I didn't include the music in the most efficient manner - I didn't put it in vblank, the music code resides in bank 6 and I do a gosub call to it in the main loop. Even when I removed the music there were still problems, though. Adding the extra inventory item (shield status) added tons of code too - the method I'm using to display the inventory is horribly inefficient, I just don't know any other way to do it. If I remove that it will probably make a huge difference. The inventory is being called during vblank, I think I may be going over the limit on how much code I moved there.

 

Getting everything I want into the game and maintaining hardware compatibility is proving to be a huge headache. I could make a really cool emulation-only version of this game! I've worked on it a little more this afternoon and tried to include a few more optimizations, but there is still a slight screen roll when you fire the gun and on both of the animated playfields that I included. I'm going to work on this some more later tonight and hopefully get all of these compatibility issues resolved, I'll start removing a few existing features from the game if I have to.

 

The last major item I really wanted was music, especially for the title screen. As I wrote the title screen in pure ASM, and given my lack of experience in that area, I think it's beyond my capability to actually pull that off. I have a 4k ASM binary music file that works when I compile it with the asm tags in a bB program, but it only works when I set the ORG statement to $F000, and I don't know how to adjust that to make it work in the Cave-In game. I can usually experiment and make things work even when I don't completely understand them, but in this case it's just over my head. If you have any suggestions or tips in that area, it would be appreciated.

 

Steve

[Fort Apocalypse]

Really cool game! I really like the cave designs, the player design, some of the enemies are scary looking (like the cobra) and others are hilarious looking! (I mean that as a compliment- it's fun!) I kind of get the feeling that the character is delusional (maybe he hit his head during the cave-in?), because it reminds me a lot of the pink elephants part of the movie Dumbo when some of the enemies appear.

 

Some ideas (if you can still fit them in):

* Would be nice if there weren't so many pink enemies (maybe throw in some other colors?)

* Would be nice if the enemies were more colored in (so they don't look like ghosts)

* Would be nice to have multiple enemies per screen

* Would be nice to throw in a pit or two that you have to walk around or you fall into (and die?) with some E.T.-like falling animation would be nice

* The flashing walls rooms might look nicer (maybe) if they were a slightly changing colors of off red to make it look like lava or really hot rock somehow. The flashing just makes it look too spacey to me.

 

Super cool stuff! Haven't found the cool parts yet!

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

It would be great,to have a little title melody.Music during the game is not necessary.I played your last version on real hardware.The music really does not sound exciting.Sometimes the tunes get loud and weird.

But like i said.I do not need music during playing the game.How about a little melody at the beginning in the style of Indiana Jones?????

Another idea,i have.How about a creature,which can steal items from you?

Or how about "Dynamite"in the game.Maybe you could use it to blow up something.

greetings Walter

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

Any progress in the game??????

greetings Walter

[+Atarius Maximus]

Hi Steve

Any progress in the game??????

greetings Walter

 

Hi Walter,

 

Yes, I've been working on the game off and on for the past few weeks. I've been on vacation for the past 10 days, and I'm now back at work and I've got lots of catching up to do at the office.

 

The latest version has addressed most of the hardware issues, and I added a few more things to the game. I added two secret rooms, search for them by simply running into the wall in a room. If there's a secret entrance, you'll enter the room. The first secret room contains a new "warp" zone, which has four passages that will take you directly to each of the cave entrances. The second secret room contains a gun upgrade which makes your weapon shoot twice the distance as the standard gun.

The gun upgrade will appear in your inventory when you pick it up (it's an actual object you have to pick up), and the shield will also now appear in your inventory when you're carrying it. There have been other minor changes to the game that I'm probably not thinking of right now.

 

The railcar mini-game and rockslide rooms have also changed. I've determined that using pfscroll is simply not an option, it just won't work with the high screen resolution. I wrote a simple, stripped down mini-kernel as a test, and simply displaying a scrolling playfield (with nothing else onscreen) causes the screen to roll on real hardware. The railcar mini-game is now multiscreen, you move on to the next screen after you move off the edge of the one you're on. If you touch the side of the screen with your railcar, you'll sustain damage. You'll also have to avoid the falling boulders. The rockslide room is now static, however you'll have to avoid falling boulders on that screen now as well.

 

I also added a cheat mode which may not remain in the final version. Use the right joystick to activate them:

joy1left && joy1fire - opens hidden passage and gives gun upgrade

joy1down && joy1fire - grants all three crown pieces

joy1up && joy1fire - gives all keys

joy1right && joy1fire - gives you the completed crown (note: the shield will not be available when you're carrying the crown)

 

I'm actually running a little low on space now, there's only about 4.5K of space left out of the 32k now (spread out among the 8 banks). I think I'm just about done adding new features, I'm concentrating more on testing the game now.

 

There's still no music in the game, and I am not going to be able to do that myself. I'd need some help.

 

Steve

adv150.bin

[gambler172]

Hi Steve

Played the actual version with the cheats.What should i say????A really nice endscreen.Really great work.

If there is no space for a title music,then this is not a problem.But it would be nice and a little music at the endscreen would be nice too.But like i said:"It is not so important"

Another thing.I checked the actual version with my CC2 on my Pal system.But at the first screen it is dark.When i move up,i can see the next screen.But when i touch a wall in every room,the room scrolls down

for a while,which makes playing difficult.I do not have this problem on the emulator.

Maybe this does not happen on NTSC?????

But all your other versions worked great on my Pal system.

What is the problem???Unfortunately i am not a programmer;only a little hacker and gametester.

greetings Walter

[CurtisP]

I'm actually running a little low on space now, there's only about 4.5K of space left out of the 32k now (spread out among the 8 banks). I think I'm just about done adding new features, I'm concentrating more on testing the game now.

 

If you would like to send me a copy of the source code, I can see if there is anything that can be optimized. I may also be able to help with the music. There's already a machine language 2600 tracker out there that I have wanted to integrate into bAtari Basic, and I have a friend who might want to write some original music.