Duck Attack! - new Atari 2600 homebrew (NTSC & PAL)

[Shannon]

I dunno if the tia can do it you oughta see if you can do the sound similar to the bee in Picnic Paranoia for the 8-bit. The bee shows up at 50seconds.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmHacmvlfNQ

[e1will]

On some occasions when pausing the game, the text at the bottom of the screen is "AUSED: ", with the left half of the "A" missing. I'm not sure what causes it, though it seems to be when there is a lot of objects on the screen.

 

I'm having trouble getting it to do that. Do you recall any other details, like which level, which room, what objects you were carrying, etc.?

 

--Will

[Nostalgic]

On some occasions when pausing the game, the text at the bottom of the screen is "AUSED: ", with the left half of the "A" missing. I'm not sure what causes it, though it seems to be when there is a lot of objects on the screen.

 

I'm having trouble getting it to do that. Do you recall any other details, like which level, which room, what objects you were carrying, etc.?

 

--Will

Unfortunately, I don't. It's only happened to me twice. The first time I didn't mention it since I thought it might be a fluke in Stella; the "BW Mode" message from Stella appears on top of the "PAUSED" message from the game. Since it happened a second time, I figured I would mention it.

 

If it happens again, I'll make note of the room, level, and other circumstances.

 

By the way, the forum system converted the colon and D at the end of "AUSED: " into a smiley. There aren't random smileys appearing in Duck Attack... unless you hid Evil Otto in the Berzerk rooms.

[Nostalgic]

Sorry to post again after mine was the last post... I haven't been able to recreate the garbled pause message, but I have made progress. I've managed to make it to level 6 without warping! This game is definitely getting more challenging, both in avoiding a horde of ducks, tanks, and bees, and in remembering where all the doors are.

 

The darker bees are difficult to avoid. I'm curious to hear how other players manage to not get hit by them. It seems they home in on you if you get too close.

 

I found that in rooms that have two exits on the top, that when you go through the leftmost one, there is a bee in the lower-left corner of the room, essentially appearing directly on top of you. Like when the snake appears right at the edge of the screen where you enter in earlier versions, this is a frustrating way to lose a life. Could the bee start closer to the middle, or could you be given a grace period upon entering a room?

 

If a duck is at the edge of the screen and you go off that edge and try to reenter the screen, you might get bounced back as if you hit a wall. Is this by design? Normally you can pass through a duck as it attacks.

 

If you are carrying an egg and the shield at the same time and press the trigger to drop an item, both get dropped in the same location. Since they're both roughly the same size, it's difficult to then pick one up without picking the other up. When dropping two items, could they be placed near each other instead of right on top of each other?

 

I can see myself using the super zapper with so many ducks around! I think in all of the chaos of several ducks around, it might be useful to have a signal as to which duck was hit with the super zapper so that it won't revive. Maybe a different set of symbols, or a "ZZZ", or X's for eyes - just something so you know it's not waking up, unlike the other ducks.

 

On level 6 some of the rooms that were previously lit turned dark. Was this intentional? (This might be particularly tricky in the black diamond-shaped room, as it obscures the parts of the robot that are already black.)

 

After losing my last life on level 6, I was presented with "Continue? 9". It's nice that there is a continue option! I can see it taking several attempts to get through each of the higher levels. I noticed that the 9 didn't count down either as a timer or when I was defeated on level 6 after continuing. Has decrementing the continue counter not been implemented yet?

 

Thanks for listening, again!

[e1will]

If you are carrying an egg and the shield at the same time and press the trigger to drop an item, both get dropped in the same location. Since they're both roughly the same size, it's difficult to then pick one up without picking the other up. When dropping two items, could they be placed near each other instead of right on top of each other?

 

Yeah, I've found that annoying as well. I'll see if I can squeeze in some code that offsets the objects when you drop them.

 

After losing my last life on level 6, I was presented with "Continue? 9". It's nice that there is a continue option! I can see it taking several attempts to get through each of the higher levels. I noticed that the 9 didn't count down either as a timer or when I was defeated on level 6 after continuing. Has decrementing the continue counter not been implemented yet?

 

Looks like you found another bug! It used to work, but I see it's not decrementing now.

 

--Will

[e1will]

Here's the latest version, v0.23.

 

Changes and fixes include:

* New bee buzz sound (closer to the one in the video Shannon posted)

* Mains hum sound for the recharging stations as suggested by thegoldenband (50 Hz or 60 Hz depending on the TV format)

* "Continue?" counter fixed

* When dropping objects, the objects are no longer dropped in the same place (as suggested by Nostalgic)

* All but one of the scanline issues have been fixed. Should always be 312 for PAL-50, and (almost) always 262 for NTSC and PAL-60.

 

--Will

 

Edited January 28, 2010 by e1will

[e1will]

Unfortunately, I don't. It's only happened to me twice. The first time I didn't mention it since I thought it might be a fluke in Stella; the "BW Mode" message from Stella appears on top of the "PAUSED" message from the game. Since it happened a second time, I figured I would mention it.

 

If it happens again, I'll make note of the room, level, and other circumstances.

 

By the way, the forum system converted the colon and D at the end of "AUSED: " into a smiley. There aren't random smileys appearing in Duck Attack... unless you hid Evil Otto in the Berzerk rooms.

 

Found it! One of the playfield definitions was crossing a page boundary, which screwed up the cycle timings. I think the only such playfield was the berzerk room with the red robot. Does that ring a bell? Or do you recall seeing it someplace else?

 

And as to whether there are hidden Evil Ottos in the Berzerk rooms... well, you just might be surprised.

 

--Will

[+HatNJ]

WOW When/If this becomes a Cart I want in!!! Great game

[Nostalgic]

Found it! One of the playfield definitions was crossing a page boundary, which screwed up the cycle timings. I think the only such playfield was the berzerk room with the red robot. Does that ring a bell? Or do you recall seeing it someplace else?

That does indeed ring a bell! Thanks for continuing to look for such an obscure bug with little information from me as to where it was occurring.

[+johnnywc]

First off - I must say this is a fantastic game! It certainly has that ability to want you to play 'one more game' to see what surprises the next level will bring. Great job!

 

I have managed to reach Level 10 and this is certainly a challenging game! I have a few comments but will add spoiler tags to save the surprises for the other players:

 

 

The bonus items are really neat, but why are some of them extremely large, like the candy cane and the Defender lander/human?

 

 

 

There are two doors in the area behind the brown door (purple and yellow) that lead to areas where you are trapped. I assume I'll need the blue balloon to traverse these walls? Is there a warning that these doors are 'death doors'? Seems a bit unfair, especially when you lose your last life stuck in the pen in the Pacman maze...

 

 

I have been playing this through emulation but you've inspired me to break out my Cuttle Cart and Atarivox so I can start saving my progress.

 

I haven't experienced any bugs with this latest version, but I'll keep my eye out for anything peculiar.

 

Thanks for a great game and good luck getting it finished... can't wait to see this one on cart!

Edited January 25, 2010 by johnnywc

[e1will]

First off - I must say this is a fantastic game! It certainly has that ability to want you to play 'one more game' to see what surprises the next level will bring. Great job!

 

I have managed to reach Level 10 and this is certainly a challenging game! I have a few comments but will add spoiler tags to save the surprises for the other players:

 

 

The bonus items are really neat, but why are some of them extremely large, like the candy cane and the Defender lander/human?

 

 

 

There are two doors in the area behind the brown door (purple and yellow) that lead to areas where you are trapped. I assume I'll need the blue balloon to traverse these walls? Is there a warning that these doors are 'death doors'? Seems a bit unfair, especially when you lose your last life stuck in the pen in the Pacman maze...

 

 

I have been playing this through emulation but you've inspired me to break out my Cuttle Cart and Atarivox so I can start saving my progress.

 

I haven't experienced any bugs with this latest version, but I'll keep my eye out for anything peculiar.

 

Thanks for a great game and good luck getting it finished... can't wait to see this one on cart!

 

Thank you!

 

The bonus dimensions are all over the map, aren't they? Mainly, I thought big bonus items went well with the aesthetic of the game (i.e. enormous, cartoony sprites.) But with some of the "borrowed" bonus designs, an addition factor was the fact that I'm using a 3-line kernel, and the original versions were from a 1-line kernel game, so unless I stretched the image horizontally, the aspect ratio would look way out of whack. As it is, the "borrowed" bonuses are going to be somewhat stretched either vertically or horizontally no matter what, since none of the games they were borrowed from used a 3-line kernel. (Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever seen another 2600 game that uses one.)

 

There is a warning about deadly doors in the updated version of the manual, but I haven't posted that addition online yet (hopefully soon). There's not an in-game warning; you just have to learn which doors lead where, and/or carry a shield and/or blue balloon when you venture through unfamiliar doors. With a blue balloon, they're quite handy shortcuts. Without it, well...

 

--Will

[e1will]

Latest version attached: v0.24.

 

Mostly behind-the-scenes changes this time, partly to ensure 100% stable scanline counts. Added a "fast-forward" feature that lets you skip the "Level completed" and "Level start" screens by pressing the fire button when they appear.

 

As always, please let me know if you see any bugs, or have any other comments or suggestions.

 

--Will

Edited January 28, 2010 by e1will

[Shannon]

Hmmm just had an idea for a new name...

 

"Deadly Ducks.."

[e1will]

Hmmm just had an idea for a new name...

 

"Deadly Ducks.."

 

I think that's already taken.

 

--Will

[e1will]

Trying to get caught up with some comments...

 

I found that in rooms that have two exits on the top, that when you go through the leftmost one, there is a bee in the lower-left corner of the room, essentially appearing directly on top of you. Like when the snake appears right at the edge of the screen where you enter in earlier versions, this is a frustrating way to lose a life. Could the bee start closer to the middle, or could you be given a grace period upon entering a room?

 

I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that... There isn't enough space left to calculate a true "bee radius" to give you ample warning in all cases without generating a lot of annoying false alarms; the "bee is in the room below you" buzzing sound will help in many cases, but not all, as you point out.

 

If a duck is at the edge of the screen and you go off that edge and try to reenter the screen, you might get bounced back as if you hit a wall. Is this by design? Normally you can pass through a duck as it attacks.

 

Yep, that's by design. You can tear yourself out of the duck's clutches, but otherwise the duck is a solid object, except when it's zapped. Only when it's zapped (or there are enough objects on the screen to force flicker) can you pass through one.

 

I can see myself using the super zapper with so many ducks around! I think in all of the chaos of several ducks around, it might be useful to have a signal as to which duck was hit with the super zapper so that it won't revive. Maybe a different set of symbols, or a "ZZZ", or X's for eyes - just something so you know it's not waking up, unlike the other ducks.

 

Good suggestion... There isn't any space left for additional graphics, but I did find enough bytes to cause a super-zapped duck to glow red (the same color as the super-zapper), which should do the trick. That'll be in the next posted version.

 

On level 6 some of the rooms that were previously lit turned dark. Was this intentional? (This might be particularly tricky in the black diamond-shaped room, as it obscures the parts of the robot that are already black.)

 

Yep, that's intentional... the further you get, the more rooms go dark. The flashlight becomes more valuable as you progress, unless you've managed to memorize where all the walls are.

 

Thanks for listening, again!

 

You bet... I really do appreciate all your feedback. Keep it coming!

 

--Will

[e1will]

Hello everyone,

 

The latest version is attached: v0.25.

 

The biggest change in this version is to the "Continue?" logic at the end of the game. Previously you could continue at the level you were on when you finished the last game. The problem with that was, with the warp of death you could effectively leapfrog up to an extremely high level by using all your lives on the warp, continuing the game at that level with three new lives, using them on the warp, etc.

 

That didn't seem quite right, so now the Continue logic deducts the number of times you used the warp from the level you start the next game on. If you ended the game on Level 10 but used the warp 3 times to get there, choosing "Continue" starts you at Level 7. That seems more fair.

 

Other changes include:

* A new sound for picking up bonus items

* Save & Load game states now chirp or buzz to indicate success or failure (in addition to moving you to the score room or egg shelf room respectively)

* As requested by Nostalgic, a duck hit by a super-zapper now has a visual indicator of this. (It will glow red instead of returning to its normal color.)

* Some extra challenges added to the extremely high levels.

 

Enjoy!

 

--Will

Edited February 22, 2010 by e1will

[Shannon]

Hmmm just had an idea for a new name...

 

"Deadly Ducks.."

 

I think that's already taken.

 

--Will

Bummer.. I thought the name sounded familar.

[e1will]

Found a bug that was preventing the recharging station and warp of death background sounds from triggering. Fixed version attached: v0.26.

 

--Will

Edited February 22, 2010 by e1will

[e1will]

Hello again!

 

Attached is the latest - and possibly final - version of Duck Attack! (v0.27)

 

The main changes are the addition of a second bonus item in each level, implementation of the "elusive red balloon," and a fix to the "jitter bug" which would cause the screen to flip back to the old screen briefly when moving from one screen to another horizontally while hugging the walls. That took a long time to fix, but it's fixed.

 

Also included is a tweak to the logic that controls when a duck throws a fireball (previously there was a slight chance a duck would get into a loop, sitting in one place blowing fireballs and not chasing you.) I also changed the "permanently zapped" duck color from red to yellow since it wasn't very distinct from the color of the red duck being temporarily zapped if there were more than 2 objects in a room.

 

Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions... I'm really glad you did; I think the game is a lot better because of it.

 

--Will

Edited May 4, 2010 by e1will

[Nostalgic]

I spent some time playing version 0.27 tonight. I finally made it through levels 6 and 7. I'm struggling to even find an egg on level 8, but I'm probably just missing an area that I assumed that I went to. I'll admit that for testing purposes, I am creating save states, so that I don't have to play through lower levels.

 

I noticed some fairly nasty surprises, such as how to get (or miss) the final egg on level 7 and a certain path on level 8 that should not be taken. In an earlier post you stated that the manual will warn of such things. I'm not able to access the manual at http://www.willnicholes.com/duck/; I am getting a "server not found" message.

 

I did come across a couple of things that I wanted to mention. I'm not sure if they're by design or not, again because I can't get to the manual right now.

 

If I am carrying the flashlight and another object and try to drop one item, both of them are dropped. I noticed this first while carrying the flashlight and magnet; upon dropping, the magnet was dropped with the flashlight attached to it. I also witnessed this with the flashlight and an egg.

 

While carrying the zapper and an egg through the gray area in which you pick up the flashlight, when I collided with the flashlight, the egg was dropped such that it was completely enclosed in the bottom wall. This made it necessary to get the magnet, which was an irritant. Would it be possible to modify the drop logic so that items are dropped a minimum distance away from the outer walls? It probably would be difficult in odd-shaped rooms, though. Perhaps just a minimum distance away from the edges of the screen would be fine. Another alternative would be to always drop toward the center of the room (ex. if I'm in the lower-left quadrant of the room, the dropped item appears to my upper-right), but that could make it difficult to drop objects while moving toward the center, since the object would be positioned in front of your movement path.

 

While in the pink diamond room, I launched the zapper toward the left side, where a door is. The zapper wedged itself to the left of the door. Due to the position of the door and the surrounding walls, it was impossible to get the zapper out without the magnet. What do you think of having doors stop the zapper in its flight?

 

Finally, if you launch the zapper while the magnet is in the room, the magnet affects the zapper's movements. Is this by design? I expected that the zapper would be unaffected while in flight but would then come back it hit something. Perhaps I just need to learn more about Duck Attack physics.

 

Please keep up the good work and the enhancements! (By the way, thank you for adding the indicator that a duck has been permanently stopped by the super zapper. It does help.)

[e1will]

I spent some time playing version 0.27 tonight. I finally made it through levels 6 and 7. I'm struggling to even find an egg on level 8, but I'm probably just missing an area that I assumed that I went to. I'll admit that for testing purposes, I am creating save states, so that I don't have to play through lower levels.

 

I noticed some fairly nasty surprises, such as how to get (or miss) the final egg on level 7 and a certain path on level 8 that should not be taken. In an earlier post you stated that the manual will warn of such things. I'm not able to access the manual at http://www.willnicholes.com/duck/; I am getting a "server not found" message.

 

Ah, looks like my webserver is down; I will investigate.

 

I haven't uploaded the final version of the manual yet, but it doesn't warn about specific paths and doors: just a general warning that some of them lead to traps. There are a finite number of such traps, though, (less than ten, I'm pretty sure), so once you encounter one once, you'll know to avoid it next time around. That is by design: the game is supposed to be full of surprises, some pleasant, others not so much.

 

The magnet-zapper interaction is also by design. I kind of like the boomerang effect.

 

--Will

[e1will]

The manual should be back online now. (Still the old version for now, I hope to have the newer one uploaded this week.)

 

If I am carrying the flashlight and another object and try to drop one item, both of them are dropped. I noticed this first while carrying the flashlight and magnet; upon dropping, the magnet was dropped with the flashlight attached to it. I also witnessed this with the flashlight and an egg.

 

Yep, it's supposed to do that. The fire button drops whatever objects you have, unless you're carrying the zapper, in which case it throws that instead.

 

While carrying the zapper and an egg through the gray area in which you pick up the flashlight, when I collided with the flashlight, the egg was dropped such that it was completely enclosed in the bottom wall. This made it necessary to get the magnet, which was an irritant. Would it be possible to modify the drop logic so that items are dropped a minimum distance away from the outer walls? It probably would be difficult in odd-shaped rooms, though. Perhaps just a minimum distance away from the edges of the screen would be fine. Another alternative would be to always drop toward the center of the room (ex. if I'm in the lower-left quadrant of the room, the dropped item appears to my upper-right), but that could make it difficult to drop objects while moving toward the center, since the object would be positioned in front of your movement path.

 

While in the pink diamond room, I launched the zapper toward the left side, where a door is. The zapper wedged itself to the left of the door. Due to the position of the door and the surrounding walls, it was impossible to get the zapper out without the magnet. What do you think of having doors stop the zapper in its flight?

 

Unfortunately there isn't any room left in the game to do either of those things. The latter would be especially tough since if you have the thrown zapper, the robot and a door in a room, flickering is required and the zapper and door will only be on the same frame sometimes, so a door-zapper collision test would only work some of the time. The only consolation I can offer is that the magnet is usually pretty easy to find, and it will grab anything that's otherwise inaccessible.

 

Finally, if you launch the zapper while the magnet is in the room, the magnet affects the zapper's movements. Is this by design? I expected that the zapper would be unaffected while in flight but would then come back it hit something. Perhaps I just need to learn more about Duck Attack physics.

 

Please keep up the good work and the enhancements! (By the way, thank you for adding the indicator that a duck has been permanently stopped by the super zapper. It does help.)

 

You're welcome! It was a good idea you had, I'm glad I had the room to squeeze it in.

 

--Will

[e1will]

The updated Duck Attack! manual is up:

 

http://willnicholes.com/duck

 

--Will

[+HatNJ]

Great game will definitely buy one when available

LOVE the Cart label hope thats the final that will be used

 

Great work got to get some more time in on playing

[+Nathan Strum]

LOVE the Cart label hope thats the final that will be used

Thanks! And yes.