Jump to content
IGNORED

Destroyer - game in development


sometimes99er

Recommended Posts

We choose dark blue waters and somewhat dark skies setting the atmosphere of a battle zone scenario. We google a picture of a battleship (in fact a destroyer), decrease the color depth, resize and fiddle around until we get this wonderful and manageable silhouette (64x16 pixels).

0007.png

icon_smile.gif

Edited by sometimes99er
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, thanks for all the feedback.

1979 saw an arcade game from Sega named Deep Scan. Same principle. You control a ship and try to hit submarines below. Deep Scan had colors. And then it had a radar.

0008.png

I’m not going to add radar, but I was thinking about letting the subs travel through to the other side of the screen. Well, we’ll evaluate challenge, chance and realistic factors later.

0009.png

I'll add score, meter, time, lives, level or stuff to the top line. Next two character lines will have some thunderclouds lurking.

icon_smile.gif

Edited by sometimes99er
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The clouds were googled too, decreased etc. They're not final. They will be at least 384 pixels in width. Will detour later and try to generate clouds from software (9900 in cartridge).

 

Are you planning to let the clouds move or change slowly? Or will they be static?

Either way, I like the color combinations icon_smile.gif

Yes, it was going to be a smaller surprise ... but clouds will indeed move.

 

Been working on submarine graphics. They're definitely not final.

 

0010.png

 

Today I will do some experimental animation of depth charges. I think the graphics/pixels will be as in the old arcades, so it’s more a thing of getting the timing right.

 

And don't worry. Explosions will add a bit of color.

 

icon_shades.gif

Edited by sometimes99er
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok, got inspired a little and just had to this mockup for the title screen.

 

destroyer4.png

 

You could have the destroyer ship being black and move it slowly from left to right over the logo.

Ofcourse the "PRESS ANY KEY TO PLAY" font should match the SCORE font and perhaps some more useful text

would be better (like points for destroying submarine).

 

As this will be an 8K rom, don't know if you will still have room for a title screen (compression?)

How about sound effects?

 

This is great stuff, it was fun doing this quick mockup :D

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whauh, that’s indeed very cool. I had already experimented with big capital letters and reuse of graphics in much the same way.

0011.png

The big capital letters only consist of 14 characters (defined for the above purpose only). It’s based on a free font called Armor Piercing from Blambot.

0012.png

Yes, I plan for a few soundeffects and title music. The subs will of course fire back at you with torpedoes, missiles and mines - otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a game. And I still intent for it all to fit in 8K. I can’t afford hordes of different submarine types. I might sacrifice the instructions and the funny idea about settings. I haven’t got any good uncompress routines (other than simple RLE), so I’m not counting on compression for now.

icon_smile.gif

Edited by sometimes99er
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, the animation of depth charges is a bit different than with the 3 arcades mentioned earlier. This animation has a maximum of 30 frames per second. Even that might be a bit too fast. I think I will end up with moving and animating the depth charges only every third or fourth frame.

0013.gif

I should probably try out white water splash pixels instead of those dark blue ones.

Edited by sometimes99er
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Preliminary sprite layout

 

#1 - Helper for no. of depth charges used (to have both black, white and red within one character)

#2-3 - Top of Destroyer (clouds move behind ship)

#4-11 - Depth charges and explosions

#12-17 - Mines (drifting)

#18-21 - Torpedoes

 

Much like the arcade Time Pilot (Konami 1982), the player stays fixed on screen (everything else moves).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Managing velocity

 

Vertically depth charges moves a bit faster thru the air and slows down thru the water. Mines and torpedoes have constant speed.

 

Horizontally the destroyer stays fixed, but you can move it anyway. You move to the left and everything else but the destroyer moves to the right and vice versa.

 

The clouds move slowly (in one direction), but will be affected by your movement.

 

Also the destroyer accelerates to a certain speed and then deaccelerates to a halt. Of course depending on input from the player. This makes it possible to dodge mines and torpedoes, but also making it somewhat harder to hit those deep sea submarines.

 

I better start coding ...

 

:cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Managing velocity

 

Vertically depth charges moves a bit faster thru the air and slows down thru the water. Mines and torpedoes have constant speed.

 

Horizontally the destroyer stays fixed, but you can move it anyway. You move to the left and everything else but the destroyer moves to the right and vice versa.

 

The clouds move slowly (in one direction), but will be affected by your movement.

 

Also the destroyer accelerates to a certain speed and then deaccelerates to a halt. Of course depending on input from the player. This makes it possible to dodge mines and torpedoes, but also making it somewhat harder to hit those deep sea submarines.

 

I better start coding ...

 

:cool:

 

sounds very nice.

So, do you think a cartridge run could be made for Destroyer?

That would be really cool. A real new game on cartridge :lust:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

sounds very nice.

So, do you think a cartridge run could be made for Destroyer?

That would be really cool. A real new game on cartridge icon_lust.gif

I'm not taking orders as of now. I had the demos Sudoku, Cockroach (see below), The Castle and Tic Tac on 8K cartridges produced by @mantadoc in 2007. Destroyer might be part of a later special multicart project. Other than that I'm looking into a manual for Destroyer and some cartridge case redesign.

 

0014.jpg

Edited by sometimes99er
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most of the static character patterns are in place. Title screen constructed. Demo attached. Extract bin from zip or rename extension to rpk. Next up ... Joystick and keyboard driver. Title screen selection.

 

:)

 

 

 

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more :)

Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more :)

Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

Thanks for trying it out. Feedback is important.

 

He heh, I have no idea. Other than maybe setting up the keyboard to substitute the joystick. This is probably more useful on the real deal. I was originally thinking about having different sets of colors, but that’s a no go today. Then you might set the difficulty or starting level here. Could set something stupid like volume of sound. I wasn’t going to have in game music, but if the title music works out fine, which it shouldn’t, because there’s not room for any lengthy musical score there. The title music is probably either going to be military drums or a song which recently peaked at chart position 3 around the world. I’m practicing both tracks on my piano synthesizer to get a just a bit of human touch. Will transfer later using MIDI. Maybe a trainer mode with immortality and no scoring.

 

:cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tried it in both classic99 and MESS. Looking forward seeing more :)

Just out of curiosity: What kind of settings will the "settings" section allow you to change ?

Thanks for trying it out. Feedback is important.

 

He heh, I have no idea. Other than maybe setting up the keyboard to substitute the joystick. This is probably more useful on the real deal. I was originally thinking about having different sets of colors, but that’s a no go today. Then you might set the difficulty or starting level here. Could set something stupid like volume of sound. I wasn’t going to have in game music, but if the title music works out fine, which it shouldn’t, because there’s not room for any lengthy musical score there. The title music is probably either going to be military drums or a song which recently peaked at chart position 3 around the world. I’m practicing both tracks on my piano synthesizer to get a just a bit of human touch. Will transfer later using MIDI. Maybe a trainer mode with immortality and no scoring.

 

:cool:

 

 

 

Hope you will be able to fit it all in just 8K ;)

 

Here are some some ideas:

 

1. I don't think it's a big issue scanning both joystick and keyboard.

Having that, there is no big reason for doing a keyboard setup.

In terms of code size the 'keyboard' configuration will most likely take more

space as scanning joystick and keyboard. I guess most folks will be fine with default keys anyway.

 

2. Trainer mode with immortality and no scoring would definitly be very nice.

 

3. At first I was thinking about a code for entering a specific level, but I dunno if codesize will permit that.

However if code size permits, you could also generate a code that identifies your score/level/difficulty level.

On a small companion website you can then enter that code and you will be added to the "hall of fame".

Would be nice for a gaming competition.

 

4. Looking forward to the sound effects :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

0.

It should all fit with 8K. Otherwise I’ll have to make it fit.

 

1.

For this game “standard” keyboard (I think it’s ESDX.) is alright, but with future games I was thinking of TFGHAL (left- and righthand support). I’ll leave keyboard out for now to save some bytes.

 

2.

Trainer mode would be easy to implement. And I probably would want one for tuning anyway.

 

3.

I’m still not sure what the levels are about, so I might introduce lives or a life meter. Life meter with slow repair until score is 100000 (then there’s no repair). I like your idea about entering a code online to share high scores.

 

4.

I guess I’ll spend an entire day, on and off, trying to get them right.

 

This morning my son had a Christmas Sunday Advent gift from his grandma. “Puslespil” is jigsaw puzzle. What are the chances of this being exactly the same font that I chose to use on the title screen. Man, I mean, what are the chances !?!!

 

0016.jpg

Edited by sometimes99er
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...