Abstract co-op arcade game "ATOMIC DISCO" for testing

[graywest]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm excited to post my first Batari Basic game! I've wanted to learn bB for a quite awhile, but have only recently sat down to gave it a shot.

 

I'm still learning, so I'm definitely open to criticism. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for making my game better.

 

The game is called "Atomic Disco" and is a TWO-PLAYER ONLY game. So unless you have a friend who wants to play (or are ambidextrous) you might find it difficult to test. Also, the game is intended to be a COOPERATIVE experience rather than a competitive one.

 

 

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

When the title screen appears, press the fire button or reset lever to begin. Each player controls an atomic paddle inside a nuclear accelerator. Push up and down to move your paddle up or down. Pushing left or right will have no effect.

 

Particles will begin to fly in from the left and right sides of the screen. Collect the particles that are the SAME color as your paddle to score points. Making contact with a particle that is a DIFFERENT color from your paddle will not score points, and you will be repelled slightly toward the edge of the screen.

 

Pushing the fire button will change your paddle from an "atomic absorber" to an "atomic reflector". When your paddle is in the form of an atomic reflector, particles of both colors will bounce harmlessly off of your paddle. NOTE: ONLY ONE PLAYER CAN USE ATOMIC REFLECTOR MODE AT A TIME. You should only use the atomic reflector mode when you really need it, rather than holding down the button all the time. Your partner will need to reflect particles too, and you cannot score points in atomic reflector mode!

 

If one paddle absorbs too many particles of the opposite color, they will be repelled to the edge of the screen and outside the bounds of the nuclear accelerator. If this happens, BOTH paddles will explode. Thus, it is in both players' interest to work together. If one paddle is nearing the edge of the screen, the other player can attempt to rescue it. To rescue a paddle, reflect a particle of its own color toward it. For example, if the yellow paddle is getting too close to the right side of the screen, the blue paddle should reflect a yellow particle. If the yellow paddle absorbs the reflected particle (it will begin to flash to indicate that it is reflected), it will be pulled a short distance toward the center of the screen. There is no limit to the number of reflected particles that a paddle may absorb, but the paddles cannot be pulled past the center of the nuclear accelerator.

 

There is a bit of a risk vs. reward element to the outside edge of the screen - the closer you are to the edge of the screen, the MORE points you will receive for absorbing particles of your paddle's color. However, being close to the edge of the screen makes it harder to dodge incoming particles.

 

Charging particles: the big points in the game are scored by working in concert with your partner to continuously bounce particles between your paddles. When a reflected particle is reflected for the SECOND time, it will begin to glow orange. For each additional bounce, the bonus multiplier increases. You will score 200 points for the first charged bounce, 400 for the second and 600 for the fourth. On the fifth bounce however, the particle will begin to glow RED. If the particle is charged to this state, it is DEADLY and will destroy the next paddle it touches. Move your paddles out of the way, let it go and try again with a different particle.

 

Note: when charging particles, only the paddle of the particle's ORIGINAL color may absorb it. For example, if the particle was originally blue, but is now charged orange, only the blue paddle may pick it up for score. The yellow paddle would be repelled and the bonus would be lost. Work in concert with your partner to absorb the appropriately charged particles.

 

The score applies to both players. As this is a cooperative game, you and your partner are working together to increase the same point tally. You also use the same pool of 3 lives. When one player explodes, the other player will explode as well. Help each other out to make sure this doesn't happen.

 

The game starts out at level 1. At certain score thresholds, the level will increase and the particles will begin to move faster. (5,000 pts., 10,000 pts, 20,000 pts. and 60,000 pts.)

 

Every so often, you will enter a phase when moving laser walls will try to blast you into dust. When you hear the alarm and the lasers appear at the left or right edge of the screen, position your paddle so that it will fit through the gap in the laser wall. If either paddle is hit by a laser wall, both paddles will be destroyed. You receive 50 points for each laser wall that is successfully dodged by both paddles. The frequency and length of the laser wall phase is determined by your score and game level. When the laser wall phase ends, you will return to the phase with the moving particles.

 

I think that's everything - let me know what you think. Thanks!!

 

UPDATE: Here's the latest - revision 5 uses the 6 lives minikernel to display lives remaining. It also features some minor graphical changes and difficulty tweaks.

AtomicDisco v4.bin

AtomikDisco v5.bin

Edited March 19, 2015 by graywest

[neotokeo2001]

Very cool concept. I would love to see a one player version incorporated into the game as well. You would lose the charging particles aspect but maybe you could have other particles that do different things. To spice up the game you could have large and small particles, particles that have diagonal movement. Really bad particles that knock you back further and maybe one that will allow you to recover a little back to the middle. And there is the always hated reverse or psycho particle that reverses movement for a few seconds.

 

[graywest]

Very cool concept. I would love to see a one player version incorporated into the game as well. You would lose the charging particles aspect but maybe you could have other particles that do different things. To spice up the game you could have large and small particles, particles that have diagonal movement. Really bad particles that knock you back further and maybe one that will allow you to recover a little back to the middle. And there is the always hated reverse or psycho particle that reverses movement for a few seconds.

 

Thanks!! Those are all great suggestions. I would love to include a single player version, and since I still have 2.5 kb left, I should be able to squeeze that in. I also haven't done anything with the "ball" yet. I was thinking about switching things up at certain points during the game and making some walls with openings fly past that the players must navigate through or around.

 

I also found a bug - when a paddle catches a charged particle, the sound wasn't playing. I've fixed that and uploaded "Revision 2" to the first post above.

[+Random Terrain]

I'm still learning, so I'm definitely open to criticism. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for making my game better.

Remember to add the ability to reset during the game and all of that other good stuff:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-standards-and-procedures.html

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#ex_tinkernut_world_deluxe

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#sprite_missile_bankswitching_example

[graywest]

Remember to add the ability to reset during the game and all of that other good stuff:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-standards-and-procedures.html

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#ex_tinkernut_world_deluxe

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#sprite_missile_bankswitching_example

Good call. Also, thanks for all of your tutorials and documentation - it was a big help when I was putting this together!

[graywest]

I uploaded version 3 of Atomic Disco tonight. (See the first post.) I felt like the game needed more variety, so I added a phase where the atomic paddles have to navigate around moving laser walls. This phase alternates with the "catching/reflecting particles" phase. I hadn't used the ball previously, so this was fairly easy to add.

 

I also took Random Terrain's advice and added some code to reboot the game if the reset switch is pressed. I modified the flashing colors on the title screen as well so that it's more of a slow cycle through multiple shades of a single color, rather than flashing every color at top speed.

 

Maybe someone can help me with this: I used the kernel option "no_blank_lines" to drop the blank lines. However, when the game is playing now, I see some flashing garbage at the bottom of the screen, just above and to the left of the score. Any ideas what might be causing this?

AtomicDisco v3.bin

[graywest]

Oops, never mind my question above. I forgot that using "no_blank_lines" means you can't use missile0, and that was what was causing the garbage above the score. I'm uploading a fixed version 4.

AtomicDisco v4.bin

Edited March 18, 2015 by graywest

[graywest]

Here's the code, if you're interested.

AtomikDisco.bas

[Papa]

This game looks very fun. I am still waiting for a chance to catch my wife long enough to play it together. I wonder how many people here play the majority of games alone, or have a friend to play a game with. This is a very interesting concept! Flashing doesn't bother me unless it's whole screen flashing and is a clear distraction. If you play any modern FPS (or most games for that matter) and don't see flashing all over the place (lights, guns, car lights, lightning) tell me. Some people aren't that nit-picky. Color cycling is widely used in old school arcade games and shouldn't be avoided as an effect, in my opinion.

 

Good game! Can't wait to try it my wife!!

[graywest]

This game looks very fun. I am still waiting for a chance to catch my wife long enough to play it together. I wonder how many people here play the majority of games alone, or have a friend to play a game with. This is a very interesting concept! Flashing doesn't bother me unless it's whole screen flashing and is a clear distraction. If you play any modern FPS (or most games for that matter) and don't see flashing all over the place (lights, guns, car lights, lightning) tell me. Some people aren't that nit-picky. Color cycling is widely used in old school arcade games and shouldn't be avoided as an effect, in my opinion.

 

Good game! Can't wait to try it my wife!!

 

Thanks! Let me know how it goes if you get a chance to play it with your wife.

 

I'm guessing that most people probably play their games alone, but it can't hurt to have a few that are "two-player only" out there. Especially since this one is really a "co-op only" game - I don't know of any others like that. I'd love to add a one player mode, but I'm running into the 8k limit. I'm trying not to go to 16k because I only have 8k EPROMS and I want to have a cart for myself. Maybe I'll use this game as a starting point to make a completely separate one player version.

 

I debated the flashing thing to myself - it doesn't bother me either, but when my fiancee played the game with me, she said it gave her a headache. So I took it out. :-)

 

Right now I'm trying to tune the difficulty. If anyone has a chance to try this out with another player, let me know if you think the difficulty ramps too slowly. The first jump in speed occurs at 5,000 points.

[graywest]

I gave the "6 lives" minikernel a shot tonight, and it works well. Now players can see how many lives they have remaining. I also set up bonus lives that are awarded whenever the players reach the next game level. (At 5,000, 10,000, etc.)

 

Also made some minor graphical and difficulty tweaks.

AtomikDisco v5.bin

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Atomic Disco on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Aug 2, 2022 @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Zoltrix (2022 Exclusive World Premiere | 2600) by Vila Games / Eduardo Vilarinho @Evilarinho
• Secret Collect (2022 WIP | 2600) by Vince Weaver @deater78
• LioLa (2022 WIP | 2600) by Alberto @jab
• Atomic Disco (2015 | 2600) by Jared Gray West @graywest