(2600) Pitch'n Catch

[seemo]

Choose a play and watch it unfold, as your teammates run along their routes...

 

Get ready to pass the ball to an open catcher, and lead him to the goal zone !

 

But watch out for the blocky-blocker, who can intercept the ball and stop your catchers before they score.

 

Simone

pitch_n_catch_20080723.zip

[Kojote]

that's fun to play, thanks!

[Impaler_26]

Oha, i totally suck at this!

But the game is really nice, great job!

[HammR25]

That's an excellent game. Lots of fun. It reminds me of playing american football on the playground. It runs flawlessly on my 7800.

Edited July 24, 2008 by HammR25

[+johnnywc]

Hello there,

 

Great work! I've been playing for the last hour and this game is a lot of fun! Computer is quite a challenge but I've gotten pretty good where I can win *most* of the time. The play editor is really cool too - I made a play that the computer couldn't stop ...

 

Again - great game - and here's hoping to see it on cart soon!

[seemo]

Thanks a lot for your feedback

 

Simone

[+johnnywc]

Thanks a lot for your feedback

 

You're welcome! I've been playing a bit more and noticed a few things:

 

- I think I may have found an exploit: On defense if you move the block over each receiver and press the button, I think this 'knocks down' the catchers temporarily so that they can't catch a pass. If you keep knocking them down, the computer will either always run out of time or throw an interception. I'm able to beat the computer 9-0 almost every time. Perhaps you can either make the knock down feature random (like in Ice Hockey) or limit whether both receivers can be knocked down at the same time?

 

- When the offense throws the ball out of bounds on it's last try, I think the message should say "Turn over" instead of "Out of bounds" IMO.

 

- The first play I made had the left receiver doing a fly pattern (straight up the screen) and the other receiver doing a post to the right corner; I was able to score almost every time with this. Not sure how to prevent that, but it was a lot of fun!

 

Other than that, it's great!

[r_type2600]

Hey, cool to see another seemo creation!

 

Something different, I like the tactical touch to the game.

While it makes the game less immediately accessible, it certainly adds longevity to it!

This is the type of games to dig on a rainy autumn sunday

 

Just a small suggestion for a simplistic yet motivating "victory" screen: color the lawn (strip by strip) corresponding to the winner in his honor.

Of course, if you'd like to get really fancy, in addition you could have the three team players performing a victory dance (could be really primitive: e.g. a single frame alternating with its mirror image) at the bottom.

[seemo]

Hi,

here's an updated version of the game

 

- Atarivox : changed some parameters to make the voice sound more 'lively'

 

- eeprom : included Thomas Jentzsch updated I2C library - now you can load/save your plays with the Stella emulator, too

 

- 'turn over' message has priority over both 'out of bounds' and 'time's up' messages

 

- new gameplay element: you now have 4 seconds to choose a play (and so does the CPU), otherwise you get a 'time's up' 'penalty'

 

- when the blocker tackles a catcher, it is slowed down due to the effort (this should make harder to go tackling both catchers at will - so to prevent the cpu pitcher from throwing the ball)

 

- at the end of the game, a simple 'victory dance' is performed by the winning team

 

Have fun !

Simone

pitch_n_catch_20080914.bin

[seemo]

Hi,

here's another update

 

- now every notify screen (time's up, out of bound, ecc...) is closed automatically after a short amount of time, so that the rhythm of the game cannot be slowed down by leaving the game on a notify screen

 

- the victory screen now features a short tune and a simple color effect on the field

 

- the default winning score has been reduced to 5

 

Thanks for playing

Simone

pitch_n_catch_20080920.bin

[+johnnywc]

Great update! Game plays even better now - and the computer is more of a challenge... hopefully this one will be on cart soon!

[seemo]

Hi,

here's another update of the game: before the ball is thrown, you can press DOWN to control the selected catcher.

 

When you want the pitcher (that will automatically 'align' to him) to throw the ball, press FIRE.

 

I also reworked the digit bitmaps

 

Bye !

Simone

 

edit: bug fixed binary

pitch_n_catch_20081004.bin

Edited October 4, 2008 by seemo

[+Nathan Strum]

Very nice! This game is coming along great!

 

(I like the fact that the blocky blocker gets to celebrate along with his teammates. Nice touch. )

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

We'll be checking out Pitch'n Catch on tomorrow's (Tue Jul 14) ZeroPage Homebrew stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch!

 

Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• BLiP Football (2007) by David Galloway (@djmips)  & Bob Montgomery (@vdub_bobby) (Programmer) | Tommy Montgomery (@tmont) (Music) | Peter Hirschberg (Designer)
• Pitch'n Catch (2008 WIP) by Simone Serra (@seemo)
• Pro Football 1770 (2015) by (@Retro Lord)
• Back Yard Football (2020) by Edward Smith (@easmith)

 

(SET VIDEO TO 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

Edited July 16, 2020 by ZeroPage Homebrew