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Draconian (2600)


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Yep, Nathan even touched on it in his review.

 

 

The only thing missing is high score and progress saving with an AtariVox or SaveKey. But adding that would have meant compromising elsewhere, and given how perfect everything else is, it wouldn't have been worth the trade-off.

 

 

Just checked and the free space is:

 ---- RIOT RAM $79 bytes free
 ---- Display Data Game  $1e bytes free
 ---- 0 bytes free for ARM Code, samples, & graphics
 ---- 0 bytes free for table data left
 ---- 3 bytes before FirstResbl
 ---- 0 bytes of Bank 6 left
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are we ever gonna get like a 16 gb game for the vcs in 20 years, is it going to be constantly improved upon or is it going to reach like a point where it cant go further?

 

and if we did have a 16 gb game would it just mean the game is really really long, or i mean could we get a game 16gb that would improve the graphics even more?

 

I would tend to think developer interest would be lost before technical limitations are reached. When will that happen? Who knows..

 

On the flipside, I didn't think of VCS gaming much beyond the mid/late eighties. And here we are!

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...

 

 

I already mentioned "every time I quit stella and start again later".

 

 

 

Nope. It was on the wish list, but there wasn't enough space to add it. Speech samples take up a lot of room.

I'm not quite sure what is meant by "wish list" (a list of things people wish to be included in a later version?), but I'm assuming that means something that might come in the future.

 

Oh and what are the quadrants? I understand that the sectors are like the levels but I've never encountered any progression that involves going through quadrants.

Edited by Tangentg
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The universal solution to high-score saving for ALL games.

 

attachicon.giflined-paper-and-yellow-pencil-free-clip-art.png

I mean I was not asking because I was too lazy to keep track of scores myself. I've always kept track of them with a sheet of paper on my desk or with pictures if I were competing with friends. I just wanted to know if it saved scores in-game.

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I'm not quite sure what is meant by "wish list" (a list of things people wish to be included in a later version?)

 

 

When developing software I maintain 2 lists.

  • To Do - things I plan to do
  • Wish - things I'd like to do

In both cases items on the list come from myself as well as things suggested by other people. Being on either list does not guarantee something will be done. To Do list items have a higher priority than Wish List items.

 

AtariVox/SaveKey support was on the Wish List, as was the Epsilon Quadrant. As explained in Reply #443 I had to decide between the two and chose Epsilon Quadrant.

 

 

but I'm assuming that means something that might come in the future.

 

Correct, at the time I posted that it was something that might be added later. However Later is Now, and might became did not.

 

 

 

Oh and what are the quadrants? I understand that the sectors are like the levels but I've never encountered any progression that involves going through quadrants.

 

post-3056-0-48843300-1550522543_thumb.png

 

post-3056-0-30894600-1550522547_thumb.png

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Hi, i bought Draconian in early january after finding a 4 switch woody near my home. The game arrived at the end of the month, and i was atonished at the quality of the whole package. I got sold on the game after seeing a video of it on Youtube and being very impressed at it, looking very close to Bosconian, one of my favorite arcade games. The graphics quality and the sound (especially the sound, the voice samples took me by surprise when i first saw the game) are amazing, the gameplay is top-notch and the inclusion of all the arcade levels plus exclusive new ones make Draconian vastly superior to the original arcade game. Also, i was stunned when i saw Nathan Strum's artwork on the box, i absolutely love it! Great job to everyone who worked on this game!

Edited by Colonel Llama
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When developing software I maintain 2 lists.

  • To Do - things I plan to do
  • Wish - things I'd like to do

In both cases items on the list come from myself as well as things suggested by other people. Being on either list does not guarantee something will be done. To Do list items have a higher priority than Wish List items.

 

[...]

 

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2019-02-18 at 2.41.37 PM.png

 

attachicon.gifScreen Shot 2019-02-18 at 2.41.41 PM.png

I see. Thanks! The quadrants are actually very nice ideas, though I wasn't aware there were Midway/Namco level differences, if it meant the original 2 arcade versions had different levels.

Edited by Tangentg
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Midway has 17 levels, though levels 13-15 are repeats of prior levels:

 

const unsigned char * const alpha_levels[] =
{
    alpha_1,    // 1
    alpha_2,    // 2
    alpha_3,    // 3
    alpha_4,    // 4
    alpha_5,    // 5
    alpha_6,    // 6
    alpha_7,    // 7
    alpha_8,    // 8
    alpha_9,    // 9
    alpha_10,   // 10
    alpha_11,   // 11
    alpha_12,   // 12 18 24
    alpha_9,    // 13 19 ...
    alpha_5,    // 14 20
    alpha_10,   // 15 21
    alpha_16,   // 16 22
    alpha_17    // 17 23
};

Namco has 22 levels, and reuses some of the Midway levels in a different order.

 

const unsigned char * const beta_levels[] =
{
    beta_1,     // 1
    beta_2,     // 2
    alpha_8,    // 3
    alpha_9,    // 4
    alpha_16,   // 5
    alpha_4,    // 6
    alpha_12,   // 7
    alpha_11,   // 8
    beta_9,     // 9
    beta_10,    // 10
    beta_11,    // 11
    alpha_8,    // 12
    alpha_9,    // 13
    beta_14,    // 14
    alpha_17,   // 15
    alpha_16,   // 16
    beta_17,    // 17 23 29
    beta_18,    // 18 24 ...
    beta_19,    // 19 25
    beta_14,    // 20 26
    alpha_17,   // 21 27
    beta_22     // 22 28      
};

Technically speaking the game was Namco's, and licensed by Midway for North America, so the "reuses" should be the other way around; but we converted Midway first, as those were the levels we were familiar with from back in the day.

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  • 4 months later...

STELLA-THON

12 HOUR TWITCH ZEROPAGE HOMEBREW AUCTION &

GAMING MARATHON FUNDRAISER TOMORROW!

 

Auction includes

A CIB SIGNED COPY OF DRACONIAN

Donated by Darrell Spice Jr. of SpiceWare!!

ALSO:

We will have a CALL-IN by Darrell Spice Jr. at 3PM PT!!

 

61131011_2019StellaFundraiserGraphic-DayBefore.thumb.jpg.1a9f94bd968e0aeca3c4aa5832c3a79b.jpg

 

 

Draconian.thumb.jpg.7d73eb96e4a25bbc3a458b22efba735b.jpg

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS ON ALL THE AUCTION ITEMS!

Edited by ZeroPage Homebrew
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  • 4 months later...
On 5/21/2018 at 1:40 AM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Also THANK YOU so much for Sync Pop, that's EXACTLY what I was looking for to test out the video encoding and streaming!!

 

Just an FYI in case it would be useful for you as well - Nathan needed to be able to sync audio from the AtariVox, so there's an updated build that triggers an AtariVox sound at the end of the blog post.

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10 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

 

Just an FYI in case it would be useful for you as well - Nathan needed to be able to sync audio from the AtariVox, so there's an updated build that triggers an AtariVox sound at the end of the blog post.

That's definitely useful! I run the audio from the AtariVox through the same mixer as the room microphone so your program now does double duty for synchronizing. Thanks so much for the update Darrell!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

@AtariLeaf - I'm currently working on Collect 3 as part of the Harmony/Melody club.  It's a simple game I'm using as a tutorial to teach others how to program games using CDFJ like @johnnywc and I have been doing. @Dionoid's using CDFJ for Fool's Gold - that's a public video on Facebook, be sure to check the replies to the comment by James O'Brien for some extra info.

 

After that I plan to resume work on SpiceC, which will be similar to batari BASIC but the game logic written in C instead of BASIC. As test projects I'll be rebooting Frantic and Timmy! to use SpiceC.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/6/2020 at 6:15 PM, SpiceWare said:

@AtariLeaf - I'm currently working on Collect 3 as part of the Harmony/Melody club.  It's a simple game I'm using as a tutorial to teach others how to program games using CDFJ like @johnnywc and I have been doing. @Dionoid's using CDFJ for Fool's Gold - that's a public video on Facebook, be sure to check the replies to the comment by James O'Brien for some extra info.

 

After that I plan to resume work on SpiceC, which will be similar to batari BASIC but the game logic written in C instead of BASIC. As test projects I'll be rebooting Frantic and Timmy! to use SpiceC.

Please please please don't forget finishing Kaboom Deluxe too! ;) 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After writing my games I tend not to play them often as I get too burned out by all the play-testing that occurs during the development.  

 

With everything going on with COVID-19 I've needed something to take my mind off things, so dusted off Draconian and have been playing a few rounds each day.  Blasting everything away sure seems to help!

 

I've specifically been playing the Δ Quadrant Sectors(winners of the level design contest) and have been averaging around 250K for the past week.  Today I did quite a bit better - even managed to make it to Sector 17 which is when the sectors start to repeat, but with a higher difficulty.

 

IMG_0817.thumb.jpg.65e7a2f8f490043a1e36ac84a9ed49e7.jpg

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