Droid

[Tyrant]

I first played this little gem back in 1992... and I'm really proud to say that I've FINALLY completed it tonight.

 

I'm quite amazed that I managed it actually.

 

I don't really know what purpose this thread will serve, other than perhaps to inspire a few more people to pick up such an excellent game, and maybe start a little discussion about it.

 

http://lgd.fatal-des...view.php?id=482

http://www.stformat....tf37/index.html

[Junosix]

Good work! I played it back when it was released on the cover disk and remember it being a really solid game. Tough, too. Well done for having the tenacity to complete it! I'll fire it up later and have a go. Be good to read a write-up of your experience playing it again.

 

Entombed was another ST Format cover disk game that was hard but charming.

[Junosix]

(I remember the sound effects being a bit harsh. I'm after a project - might have a go at hacking in some STE support to replace them with samples)

[Junosix]

Looks like there was a sequel too but the link doesn't work. Ironic that the original is preserved but its far more recent follow-up is now potentially lost in time: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3427

[Tyrant]

Entombed was EEEVIL! Great fun, but incredibly hard. There's a cheat program for Entombed (and for Droid, although I couldn't get it to work under Hatari) on STFormat disk 59.

 

I had a look at Droid2 (and have pm'd you the disk image since I can't remember where I downloaded it from), but tbh I wasn't that impressed. The nice tight control and weapons of the first game were gone, and it looked like just another platformer with overly large sprites, but I might give it another go. Again, it doesn't help that it crashed several times under emulation but then Hatari isn't the best emulator out there (I wish someone would port Steem to OSX).

[Junosix]

Thanks for the disk image, I'll check it in a bit Shame it feels different, but at least he had a crack at reworking it rather than just being tacky and simply sticking new levels onto old code.

[+Sauron]

Good to see I'm not the only one who enjoyed this game. I played the hell out of it back in the day, after getting it on the ST Format cover disk (yes, even here in the US!). A while back, around the time of the thread I created on AF, Miles Lord had emailed me out of the blue and sent me the disk image of the game. I still have the emails from him, but the disk image is no longer attached.

 

Droid II wasn't actually finished, from what I recall. The game was actually completely done design wise, but there were still bugs that hadn't been squashed, which is why it wasn't released back in the day. I remember him telling me some things about Hoog and another game. I'll have to dig up those emails again.

[+Sauron]

Ok, here we go. I found the email from around 8 years ago, in which he gave me some background info on Droid II as well as Hoog and Graveyard.

 

Valued comments there - DroidII does suffer from I think 2 bugs, on

destroying a type of enemy or the POW silo (not that it is obvious what this

is!)

I think my object count doesn't decrease on destruction, invalid pointers

blah etc. Most unfortunately, my source code disk image corrupted and I'm

working to restore this.

 

Hoog cost me 4 years of development (from 17-21)! It changed form about 5

times - at one point you could push rocks around!

I was influenced by Repton from my Acorn Electron days, Flood, graphics

partly came from Droid (especially the night rock and doors), parallax

scrolling from Xenon and the 'save children' mentality of Lemmings.

 

I made Graveyard harder and harder according to the amount of whiskey I

drank while making updates when my parents were away - I definately pushed

this one over the edge of playability. - BTW the sampled voice is my own!

 

Mentioning the Falcon - it was a machine I desperately wanted to own (it

seemed to be the first machine able to do direct to disk audio?), but

arrived in the void between school and University for me. Therefore I was

introduced to the nightmare of Win3.1 in a business world and couldn't go

back!

[Junosix]

Crikey, he was young! What age was he when he did Droid?

[TwiliteZoner]

Any chance you gentlemen could post some of those files in here. That site appears to be down. Thanks.

[+DarkLord]

Is this it?

 

DroidII.zip

 

HTHs!

[+Sauron]

Here's the original Droid also, well worth checking out.

Droid.zip

[TwiliteZoner]

Thanks guys.

[Junosix]

I've got a cold and had trouble sleeping this morning so grabbed Digger v8 and disassembled Droid. Found that the sound effects were XBIOS calls so patched in a quick-and-dirty DMA playback routine. The sampled sounds are ones I just grabbed off the net and converted to 8-bit signed, but even as placeholders they sound alright! There's actually 7 sound effects in the code but I can only see 4 of them being called, so I've only made 4 samples.

 

Let me know what you think! One thing I need to do is disable the keyclick, which the original programmer didn't do.

DROIDDMA.zip

Edited December 13, 2012 by Junosix

[Junosix]

It's still flippin' tough, mind. I'm stuck after opening the second door, I run out of orange keycards and can't see where there are any more! Any clues?

[MrMaddog]

It's still flippin' tough, mind. I'm stuck after opening the second door, I run out of orange keycards and can't see where there are any more! Any clues?

 

I know, I had to use the cheat trainer that came on an ST Format disk just to have unlimited keys cause I could never get passes that one part... BTW, will try out your DMA version once I get Hatari reinstalled.

[Junosix]

I've figured it out - there are other doors that you have to stand in front of and press fire to go into (that's not mentioned anywhere in the readme!) and it's vital to get the sequence of key collecting/usage. Proper memory test, that game.

 

Here's a video I uploaded showing the new sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A8DutImrbw&feature=youtu.be

Edited December 14, 2012 by Junosix

[+DarkLord]

Heh. I reckon.

 

Nice game though, like the graphics and the sounds are better now with

your efforts.

 

Thanks!

[Kirkman]

I never got close to beating this game, but I loved to play it back in the day. Just fired up it up again over the weekend, but couldn't get past the first jump. It's been a long time since I last played.

[Charlie_]

I never got close to beating this game, but I loved to play it back in the day. Just fired up it up again over the weekend, but couldn't get past the first jump. It's been a long time since I last played.

 

The game had me confused when I first tried it too. I couldn't reach the first ledge.

 

Try holding down and then up to jump farther.

 

Sent from my Windows Phone 8X by HTC using Board Express

[+Sauron]

One of these days, when I have the time, I'd love to do a full play-through of it again, and maybe make a walk-through video.

[galax]

My brother always liked this game, he left this comment on LGD ( http://ftp.atari.st/view.php?id=482) in 2002...

 

Hyrax wrote ... 2002-01-15 23:47:51 AH! I remember this little gem of a PD game... Kind of like xenon but platformer with cool weapons. Never got very far on it though

 

.. and received this email in 2004 from Miles Lord:

 

From: Miles Lord
Sent: 27 May 2004 23:53
Subject: DROID & DROID II for AtariST

 

Hyrax???,

I don't know you. But your comment I found on LGD about Droid inspired me to contact you (in fact I was flattered to receive the comments!)

 

Without the waffle, I thought you might like a copy of Droid II, which I wrote during my University days in Sheffield. I never got round to releasing it, because the PC was taking over then blah blah.

 

I must admint that there is a bug about half-way through that is 50/50 likely.

 

I'm floating a few ideas around getting a group of inspired Atari users together, to relive the old scene perhaps, or come up with a totally new deal. If you're interested, just reply.

 

Well anyway, contact comes first, followed by ideas, inspiration and commitment.

 

As an aside, did you see Hoog?

 

Thanks for commenting against Droid, I'm offering you the first chance to have Droid II before trying to make 2 pence a day through other means.

 

Thankyou,

Miles

 

Edited September 18, 2015 by galax

[ataricrypt]

That's some accomplishment as I found it a really hard game!

Well, I sucked.... ahem...

Edited September 18, 2015 by ataricrypt

[galax]

That's some accomplishment as I found it a really hard game!

Well, I sucked.... ahem...

 

Me too, painfully hard, and I find anything like this that demands precision to be too frustrating nowadays, for more than a few minutes without some sort of cheat mode. Apparently some people are able to play it though!

[ataricrypt]

Don't believe you. That's a myth surely? (otherwise it means I suck at games like this!)

.....darn!