Turbo-Torch Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 (edited) This game is great! Simple, addictive and it even gets you into the trance like zone which so few games do. 1338 is my high so far. Edited June 22, 2015 by Turbo-Torch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Ok, new high score of 7496. Would it be possible to increase top speed in higher levels or maybe add more double cars? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 I like the classic style. Aww, no paddle controller. (Merely a reflection of my weird game play preferences, not a knock against the game.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Ok, new high score of 7496. WOW! I'd like to see a video of your gameplay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Ok, new high score of 7496. Would it be possible to increase top speed in higher levels or maybe add more double cars? Killer score!! (Pun intended) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 I will see what I can do about adding a difficulty level for the pro's. I must see if I can optimize my code first so I can fit it in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerSpaceFan Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Aww, no paddle controller. I second the motion. Totally no problem if there isn't a way to implement it but paddle control would be nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Okay, I believe I have succeeded with adding the ultimate pro difficulties. If you beat the first 3 levels you go to the pro levels which are a bit more difficult then the first levels. If you beat those 3 pro levels you go to the super pro levels which are insanely hard. Not sure if they are possible to even beat, so playtesting is greatly appreciated =) Download latest version : Dead Road 2.2.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 I have only made it to level 4 personaly in version 2.2 with the highscore 1183. I'm not very good, haha I'll see if I can do paddle controllers later on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Retro Lord, I read of some people hacking Batari Basic to put more into their 2K games, I don't remember if it is also done for 4K games. That's kind of an advanced tip as you need to know what routines you are using and what routines can be dropped. If you want to PM the bas file, I can point out ways to recover ROM space. I'm great at that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Thank you for the offer, iesposta. I'll take you up on that offer if the need arrives. At the moment I managed to free up enough space to add extra difficulty levels with 180kb to spare, so for now it's fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seemo Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Nice game - having the background color randomly picked detracts from the feel of progression through the levels, imho - sometimes it is hard to read the score due to the playfield color: score should be presented below the colored playfield, over a fixed background color (e.g. black) - when the game is over, the hi-score should be displayed, alternating with the last score - I attached an alternative bitmap for the car - when the game ends because of a collision with two cars, one car disappears (this does not happen when the car that caused game over is a single car) - the nice level up sequence could benefit from a (very) short music/audio effect (silence contrasts too much with the nice visual effect, imho) - what about implementing 'Near Misses' a-la burnout ? If you can 'measure' the horizontal distance, between the player car and the enemies, whenever an overtake happens, you could add an amount of points inversely proportional to such distance. The audio effect could reflect the amount of points awarded for each overtake (risky overtake --> more points --> high pitched / safe overtake --> less points --> low pitched) Keep up the great work! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Hm, true. I guess I could do it so the background color only changes when you advance to the next difficulty level. I.E every third stage. Thanks for pointing out that the score is hard to read, I'll fix that. Highscore support would be cool, but I never saw the point for it since it gets reset when you turn the game off =/ I could do more detailed graphics but I personaly think the "early 2600 game" style is fun. We'll have to vote on that I believe. If I update the graphics I'll make it so that only the hood of the car goes red when you run over a zombie. A musical jingle would be great, but I can't do music. I would need help with that I'm afraid. Near misses, that's a fun idea. I'll see what I can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloth-machine Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 (edited) Hm, true. I guess I could do it so the background color only changes when you advance to the next difficulty level. I.E every third stage. Thanks for pointing out that the score is hard to read, I'll fix that. Highscore support would be cool, but I never saw the point for it since it gets reset when you turn the game off =/ I could do more detailed graphics but I personaly think the "early 2600 game" style is fun. We'll have to vote on that I believe. If I update the graphics I'll make it so that only the hood of the car goes red when you run over a zombie. A musical jingle would be great, but I can't do music. I would need help with that I'm afraid. Near misses, that's a fun idea. I'll see what I can do. I vote for the current car graphics, gives it that classic 4k first generation of Atari games feel. Plus I got a vibe of the Bump n Jump car, which is always a good thing. I do like the idea of a fixed background color for the bottom score, and the playfield changing every third stage. Edited June 23, 2015 by sloth-machine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I'll give the new version a try sometime tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Please keep the various background colors. That's one thing I loved about certain old games like Missile Command, especially when certain colors corresponded with certain levels. When you'd see that bright blue screen from across the arcade, you knew that guy was hardcore. The location of the score seems ok to me. If you look at the score while playing, you won't survive long. Added points for near miss would be cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Added points for near miss would be cool. I second that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 2.2 is definitely much more challenging and fun. The level where 3 cars appear is brutal! I've not counted how many levels in (7 or 8?) but it's around the 2,000 point mark. Also, the first time I made it there, a line of 3 zombies appeared. One was off the road on the right. I ran over the one zombie and then three cars came towards me (one also off the road) and that's when I panicked and died. Next time I made it to that level, 3 cars came down the center but I ended up hitting the right wall when trying to squeeze between them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 25, 2015 Author Share Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) Thank you for the bugreports and congratulations on making it to the 3-car difficulty Turbo-Torch! I will fix that. Big things are happening now. I changed up the playfield a bit and I really like the new style a lot better then the old one. I fixed the gameover screen so if you crah with 2 cars both stay instead of one dissapearing. I've fixed the colors so they correspond to the difficulty. Easiest difficulty is red, the next is violet and the last one is ice blue. It'll be a while 'till it's ready for another release. Just wanted to give a note on how things are going. Edited June 25, 2015 by Retro Lord 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 25, 2015 Author Share Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) Everything is working like it should now I think. Only things left are the 3-car difficulty, a music jingle when you advance a level and near-collisions. I have been thinking about a sign noticing you on what skill level you are if you can stand a little flicker on your car. It would say Novice on level 1-3. Pro on level 4-6 and Super Pro on level 7-onward on the side of the screen. Teaser screenshot: Edited June 25, 2015 by Retro Lord 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Everything is working like it should now I think. Only things left are the 3-car difficulty, a music jingle when you advance a level and near-collisions. I have been thinking about a sign noticing you on what skill level you are if you can stand a little flicker on your car. It would say Novice on level 1-3. Pro on level 4-6 and Super Pro on level 7-onward on the side of the screen. Teaser screenshot: cool.....black screen looks awesome! can't wait for the next update! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 26, 2015 Author Share Posted June 26, 2015 Version 2.3. The 3-car level now works as it should with the cars on the road this time, haha. But it's super difficult. I still need to do a musical tune and near collision, and see if I can get paddles going. DOWNLOAD : Dead Road 2.3.bin 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 26, 2015 Author Share Posted June 26, 2015 Okay, I got paddle controls figured out, contemplating if I should use it. Did a small game demo with it to learn and it seemed weird to me, but I've never used paddle controllers before. Are there any racing games for the 2600 I should play to get a feel for the paddle controllers? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Night Driver is a good driving paddle game. For an object going left/right like Dead Road, Breakout or Astrosmash would be similar. I'm thinking it would be very difficult to not accidentally hit the walls in Dead Road while using the paddle controllers. Personally I think the joystick left/right speed is spot on and excellent, but the option to use paddle controllers too would bring it to a whole new level. Astrosmash for the 2600 can use either joystick or paddle...not sure if that's something simple or very involved requiring a lot of memory? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Lord Posted June 27, 2015 Author Share Posted June 27, 2015 Cheers for the tips! I'll decide on the paddles later, I don't think I can have both joysticks and paddles at the same time, that's beyond my coding knowledge at the moment. I've been working hard trying to do a small musical jingle for the screen where you advance to the next level, and I can say music is not something I am good at at all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I really like how the game has evolved! Great job, Retro Lord! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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