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Star Crusade (Demo)


jrok

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Hey guys - Long time, no post. Thanks to Al and RevEng for nudging me out of my AA coma.

I've been trying to climb back into the homebrew hobby a bit over the past few weeks, and in the process I dusted off a couple of old projects I'd been tinkering with last year. One of them was called "Star Crusade." I basically set out to do a space shooter in the Star Raiders/ Starmaster/ Phaser Patrol tradition, with all of that genre's familiar conventions plus a few new twists that would hopefully set it apart from the crowd.


I'll be updating the below instructions regularly to reflect new features and changes in the project.

Cheers,
J


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post-21152-0-84536200-1354569413_thumb.png

post-21152-0-90819400-1354548113_thumb.pngpost-21152-0-83539100-1354550277_thumb.pngpost-21152-0-63176400-1354548669_thumb.pngpost-21152-0-53239900-1354550079_thumb.png


Starting the game:

- Press fire at the title screen to begin a new game.


Rules of play:

This demo pits your space cruiser against three units of enemy fighters (30 ships total). After the game starts, press the Game Reset button to view your Star Map. Each new game will randomly position your ship, two enemy squadrons (6 ships each), one enemy flotilla (18 ships) and three planetary systems on the map. Using the Command Menu, navigate your ship towards one of the enemy units. When your ship moves within combat range, the Star Map will automatically switch back to the Battle Viewscreen.

Use the radar in the center of your command console to track enemy positions and maneuver them into firing range. Enemy fighters are classed 1 - 3, with Class 3 being the fastest and most aggressive. They will attack you two at a time, zooming and weaving around your ship. Avoid their fire as best you can and blast them to pieces. Once the last ship in the unit is destroyed, you can press Game Reset to switch back to the Star Map and plot your next move. Clear the map of all enemies to win and end the demo.


Battle Viewscreen controls:

- Tap and release the fire button to fire your Laser Array (cost: 100 fuel per shot)
- Hold the fire button to charge up your Photon Blast superweapon, then release to fire it (3 uses)
- Push up/forward to climb
- Pull down/backward to dive
- Press left or right to steer sideways

- Press the Game Reset switch to view the Star Map (the map will not appear if a space battle is in progress).


Star Map controls:

- Tap the joystick up, down, left and right to move the cursor around the screen.
- Press the fire button to open your Command Menu, then tap left or right to select the desired command.
- Press the fire button again to execute the selected command.

Map Legend:
post-21152-0-99034100-1355170949.jpg - The player's current location
post-21152-0-68886000-1355170943.jpg - A inhabited solar system.
post-21152-0-24244800-1355168960.jpg - A squadron of 6 enemy fighters.
post-21152-0-42161400-1355168954.jpg - A flotilla of 18 enemy fighters.

Commands:
post-21152-0-70261800-1355167998.jpg - Navigate to the selected area using standard thrusters.
post-21152-0-93149500-1355168005.jpg - Move instantly to the selected area using your warp drive (cost: 10,000 fuel per warp).
post-21152-0-53829000-1355168018.jpg - Scan selected area (not implemented yet)
post-21152-0-78953400-1355168034.jpg - Cancel / Close Command Menu.


Heads-Up Display:

At the bottom of your screen is a HUD dashboard that shows you important information about your ship. This HUD persists whether you are viewing the Star Map or the Battle Viewscreen.

Photon Bombs - Remaining Photon Bombs, indicated by the orange icons at the top of the dashboard.

Shields - Remaining power to your shields, indicated by the status bar next to the letter "S".

Radar - A display in the center of your console that shows the location of nearby ships as light-blue blips. Ships in the gray outer rectangle are beyond your firing range, while those in the interior dark-blue rectangle are within range, and will appear in your forward viewscreen (Battle Viewscreen only).

Command Menu - A menu that allows you to issue orders to your crew (Star Map only).

Fuel - The number in the green box at the bottom of your display represents your remaining fuel/hull integrity. Once this drops to zero, you are dead.


Taking Damage:

When enemy fire hits your craft, you will receive damage to your shields. Once this bar has been fully depleted, enemy shots will damage your ship directly, causing catastrophic fuel losses and system failures. Eventually, the loss of systems will be modeled in a less linear way, but for now system failures occur in this order:

1st shot - Tactical display (targeting crosshairs disappear)

5th shot - Impulse engines (ship will now manuever at 1/2 speed)

6th shot - Radar (can no longer track enemies)


(updated 11/10/13)

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Latest version below:

- Revised controls (GAME RESET now toggles the Star Map before and after battles)
- Added random map layout logic and command logic for player map navigation and warp drive.
- Added logic for multiple enemy unit placement and engagement.
- Revised enemy ship battle movements.
- Revised demo win conditions (player must defeat all three enemy units)

Note: This build will probably still jitter a little on a Harmony cart. It's only really suitable for emulation playtesting, until I rework some code. I recommend using Stella's phosphor setting (ALT-P) to compensate for any flicker.

STARCRUS_DEMO_12_23_12.bas.bin

Edited by jrok
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It's great to see you back! I've been looking forward to seeing more on some of your projects. :)

 

This game looks fantastic! Extremely impressive. It would be good to have a reversed control option -- maybe with a difficulty switch or something. To me, it feels awkward pushing FORWARD to go UP instead of BACK like most space/flight controls.

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It's great to see you back! I've been looking forward to seeing more on some of your projects. :)

 

This game looks fantastic! Extremely impressive. It would be good to have a reversed control option -- maybe with a difficulty switch or something. To me, it feels awkward pushing FORWARD to go UP instead of BACK like most space/flight controls.

 

Thanks, Kevin. I agree that it needs a switch for reversed control. It's just, I've been testing it on Stella a lot, and I find down-for-dive to be somehow a lot more intuitive on a keyboard.

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Yes, this was made using the DPC+ kernel (bB 1.1d).


Have you managed to work around all of the bugs? If so, when you can find the time, can you make a thread about it (what we should do, what we should avoid, what still doesn't work)?


Thanks.

 

Update (2014y_02m_21d)

 

If you are reading this thread for the first time, RevEng fixed up batari Basic, so the DPC+ kernel is working fine now and the bB page even has a DPC+ section.

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Have you managed to work around all of the bugs? If so, when you can find the time, can you make a thread about it (what we should do, what we should avoid, what still doesn't work)

 

As far as I can tell, there are no catastrophic bugs in 1.1d. I've tested several DPC+ projects on my hardware, and the sort of bugs I've found tend to be small issues, many of which I recall were reported on batari's original bb1.1 thread. Still, if you think it's worth it, I'll try to post what little I know sometime tonight or tomorrow.

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As far as I can tell, there are no catastrophic bugs in 1.1d. I've tested several DPC+ projects on my hardware, and the sort of bugs I've found tend to be small issues, many of which I recall were reported on batari's original bb1.1 thread. Still, if you think it's worth it, I'll try to post what little I know sometime tonight or tomorrow.

 

Thanks. What little you know is gallons more than what is in my brain.

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If you get a chance to make your DPC+ thread, here's a related post you might want to look at:

www.atariage.com/forums/topic/172686-destiny-wip/#entry2353011

 

 

 

 

Update (2014y_02m_21d)

 

If you are reading this thread for the first time, RevEng fixed up batari Basic, so the DPC+ kernel is working fine now and the bB page even has a DPC+ section.

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jrok,

Just played on Harmony with Heavy Sixer 27" tube. Is the screen supposed to jitter up and down when the bad guys are in view?

I'll edit in a video clip...

https://www.dropbox....10 36 38 PM.mov

 

If you playtest a bit more, I think you'll find that the jitter happens whenever you press right on the joystick (whether there are enemies on screen or not). This is a known bug that I'm working on. The only unusual thing going on that I can think of is that a negative fixed point variable is used when the player moves to the right. Not sure why (or if) that should be troublesome, so I'll have to attempt some trial-and-error fixes this weekend.

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