Jaynz Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 All right, keeping KC Munchkin as a much-needed learning experience I'm just about ready to dive back into things with another of one of my favorite games - Phoenix. Again, my knowledge of 7800 program is pretty weak (though not quite as bad anymore, thankfully), so I'm not going to make any promises at the moment. So, my thoughts on the game design... The basic Phoenix game has five distinct levels which ramp up in difficulty. Beat the alien boss in #5 and you go back to a faster level 1 with a different arrangement. Basic game play is a vertical shoot-em-up... kill all the aliens on each screen, or the boss Queen, to move on. Player's ship is a bit 'bird-like' as well, with the wings expanding or contracting depending on the ship's horizontal placement at the bottom of the screen. Player has the usual one-shot fire button, though levels 2 and 4 inexplicably double this. The player also has a shield will kills movement for a few seconds but makes the ship invulnerable. The game levels: Introduction Tune 1) Warbird level 2) Warbird level 2 (double fire rate) 3) Phoenix level 4) Phoenix level 2 (double fire rate) 5) Boss level Finish Tune, return to 1 Okay, easy enough, three 'unique' stages with pattern variants on 2 and 4. When the game levels cycle around there are different layouts and higher speed, but gameplay is largely the same. The game also uses a 'scrolling tile background' for the stars AND for the mother ship, which makes things a smidge easier. Player control, based on the 2600, left/right, fire. Button 2 or down for temporary shield. Regular cart should suffice for the game, with the possible exception of the musical interludes which MAY benefit from Pokey. (Romance de Amor and Für Elise) This may make more sense for an XM or on-board Pokey detect than dedicate the cart to it outright. It may also be fun to have an 'Imagic' mode where levels 2 and 4 are swapped with Demon Attack's waves of splitting birds... also, the Intellivision and C64 bosses may be fun to swap in as alternate boss levels, depending on cart size and complexity... 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BioForceApe Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 I suppose 320 Mode will be fine for this since the arcade version has simple sprite palettes, not so edgy for the limitations... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Phoenix is was one of my top favorite games on the 2600 (and arcade). I'll follow this with great interest. Always thought it should have been on more platforms. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+evg2000 Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 It may also be fun to have an 'Imagic' mode where levels 2 and 4 are swapped with Demon Attack's waves of splitting birds... also, the Intellivision and C64 bosses may be fun to swap in as alternate boss levels, depending on cart size and complexity... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireTiger Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Love this idea- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Can't wait to see what you develop, Jaynz! It looks like you're off to a good start with some great ideas. Take your time and wishing you all the best with your Phoenix project. Joining the ranks of it being a fav of mine as well - probably more so than any other vertical shooter of the golden era. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stun Runner 87 Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 I love this game. The 7800's future keeps getting brighter. Its gonna be a good year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BioForceApe Posted July 5, 2014 Share Posted July 5, 2014 Any progress so far? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted July 5, 2014 Share Posted July 5, 2014 I'd buy this game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaynz Posted July 6, 2014 Author Share Posted July 6, 2014 Daughter's birthday and 4th of July weekend.... so just getting stuff together with nothing momentarily to show. Sadly, some of us aren't quite up to the abilities of PMP just yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 Great minds Any news? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaynz Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 Guys, feel free to shoot me. Paying gigs took over my life for the past few months so that took priority for the time being. I'm going to have to deliberately schedule and block out some time soon to work on this to get any progress and treat it like a gig rather than a side-thing, just to ensure SOMETHING gets done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YANDMAN Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 i love phoenix id definitely purchase a cart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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