Ninja Wall Jump game - WIP

[walaber]

OK I've addressed the "power up appears early and wraps around the screen" issue. unfortunately because of the way the code it set up, it now means that spikes will disappear a bit earlier than they should when you leave them behind.

 

Here's a "Release Candidate 2" build, if anyone has time to play test and give any additional feedback I'd really appreciate it!

 

wall_jump_ninja_20141228_RC2.bin

[Brian O]

Looks great! This game is a lot of fun. It also feels like one of the games my kids download to their phones, which would explain why they like it so much. Can't wait to see the finalized label art.

[CoreyremarK]

Well here's a colored version... wasn't sure if you had a title yet so I mocked one of those up as well (and of course threw in the AtariAge logo!) whatta ya think?

[walaber]

This is looking awesome! Since the game graphics are all silhouette, what would you think about giving the ninjas some rim lighting to indicate they are being lit from behind?

 

And maybe the wall most in the foreground could be darker and have a wall texture/pattern on it?

 

Overall this is looking fantastic!!! Maybe we should change the title screen letters to match better the final font on the label? In particular the "NINJA" part.

[CoreyremarK]

 

A couple of tweaks... added some subtle texture to the walls and silhouetted the ninjas a bit more... I can still "shadow up" the closest ninja some... I didn't want to lose too much detail with him.

[Jinroh]

Wow, very great label! That art is pretty killer.

[LS_Dracon]

Yes, very good, I like the style.

[walaber]

Looking awesome!!! I better get working on the PAL version so we can get this thing on a cart!

[Brian O]

Nice job on the label!

[walaber]

Tonight I took on the challenge of making the code support compiling to NTSC, PAL60, and regular PAL. This involved mostly providing alternate color data, and also allowing for different scanline counts. rather than stretch the game to fill the PAL screen I opted to center the content in the middle by adding blank scanlines above and below the game content. this required more code of course, which pushed me over 4K, so I had to look around in the code for ways to optimize. I found several

 

I also fixed that there was 1 frame that wasn't the proper number of scanlines when transitioning between title screen <--> gameplay. Also required more code

 

Here is a Release Candidate 3 set of builds, in all formats. can anyone with a PAL or PAL60 system please try this out on hardware and let me know if it runs/looks OK?

 

All-in-1 zip file: wall_jump_ninja_20141229_RC3.zip

NTSC: wall_jump_ninja_20141229_RC3_NTSC.bin

PAL: wall_jump_ninja_20141229_RC3_PAL.bin

PAL60: wall_jump_ninja_20141229_RC3_PAL60.bin

 

[DT Kofoed]

Good on you, sir! This is a ton of fun, and well polished.

 

[57 so far]

Edited December 30, 2014 by DT Kofoed

[classiccollector]

Thank-you for this, This is a great game. Very addictive and fun. Anyone who hasn't tried this out yet is missing out on a great game. This has become one of my favorite games. Now off to beat my High score, Which is not all that high.

[walaber]

I took a stab at a new logo for the title screen with a slightly more "Ninja" style font for the game, and also added the word "Ninja" in Japanese (忍者) into the logo.

 

thoughts?

 

Edited December 31, 2014 by walaber

[CannibalCat]

This game is awesome... addictive as hell!

[Brian O]

I took a stab at a new logo for the title screen with a slightly more "Ninja" style font for the game, and also added the word "Ninja" in Japanese (忍者) into the logo.

 

thoughts?

 

wall_jump_ninja_1.png

I like this, but it's a but hard to read. Perhaps removing the symbols, and just keeping the word "NINJA" would make it easier to read?

[Brian O]

Just got 63, but screwed up the screenshot. Grrrr....

[walaber]

Here's a modified version... easier to read?

 

[Brian O]

Here's a modified version... easier to read?

 

tap_gaiden_042.png

Much. Looks great!

[Brian O]

One more suggestion: perhaps center the word 'NINJA' between the symbols?

[+Atarius Maximus]

Great game, I've had fun playing it tonight. Several times I found myself hitting the fire button too quickly after I died and not seeing how far I got... it'd be great if you could add the highest room number (high score) to the title screen. No big deal either way, fantastic work!

[KevinMos3]

Several times I found myself hitting the fire button too quickly after I died and not seeing how far I got... it'd be great if you could add the highest room number (high score) to the title screen. No big deal either way, fantastic work!

Consider that "thirded".

I would love to see a high score along with AtariVox high score saving. Now that they are available in the AtariAge store again, I hope more homebrews will support it.

 

Awesome job on this! I do greatly prefer the previous title screen though, without the colored bar going across the screen. With or without the Japanese characters, it looks much better with an outline than with the bar.

[+Philsan]

Does "Wall-Jump" have a dash (like titlescreen) or not (like label)?

[Rhomaios]

I heard rumors that Atari released a variant of Wall Jump with a dash in the label. It's uber rare!

[walaber]

Good call, I'll remove the dash from the title screen while I take yet another pass at the logo. I'm also going to try to squeeze in a high score display.

[walaber]

Alrighty, here's Release Candidate 4, in NTSC + PAL60 + PAL flavors. I've adjusted the title screen one last time, simplifying it a little (and saving some ROM space in the process), which allowed me to add a best score counter on the title screen. It only lasts as long as the game has been running, as I don't have any room left in the code to squeeze in the VOX+ read/write routines

 

Or I should say that all the low-hanging fruit for reducing ROM size is basically gone, and it's getting harder and harder to find extra bytes. I know I could make it work if I had to, but for my first game I think this is passing the return-on-investment threshold for me... I'd rather start on a new game!

 

Here's two updated screenshots, one of the "Ninja Dash" (since I'd never posted a screen of that), and also the new title screen. BTW that score is legit (from Stella)... but don't compare it with previous versions, because the layout of the rooms has changed as a result of changing the code (the position of the walls is based on interpreting the code itself as a string of numbers that drive the placement logic).

 

Screens:

 

And build(s):

All-in-1 ZIP wall_jump_ninja_20141231_RC4.zip

NTSC: wall_jump_ninja_20141231_RC4_NTSC.bin

PAL: wall_jump_ninja_20141231_RC4_PAL.bin

PAL60: wall_jump_ninja_20141231_RC4_PAL60.bin

 

Unless anyone reports and bugs or issues, I think these might be the final builds!

 

[EDIT] looking at the "Ninja Dash" screen now there's an incomplete scanline at the bottom, I'll try to patch that up for the final build

Edited January 1, 2015 by walaber