Tombstone City - anyone go past day 1?

[rickneff68]

This was the first game that we had when my Dad brought the TI-99/4A home. We played it for hours and got past the first day multiple times. Of course, it does become repetitive after hours of playing. (This caused me to break open the blue programming book and learn BASIC programming. Which, in turn, took me down my career path in the computer field. But, I digress.)

 

I still like the game, but I'm not nearly as good at it as I used to be. But, once you learn how to take out the cacti, it's not really all that bad.

[Airshack]

On 9/8/2016 at 7:32 PM, Retrospect said:

Speaking of the music, is it based on a real song?

“Hell in Texas” is mentioned twice in the source code as the title of the music.

 

That’s a real Cowboy folk song from way back around 1870. Apparently a Yankee soldier stationed down in Texas wrote it.

 

 

[Airshack]

On 9/3/2016 at 6:38 AM, sparkdrummer said:

Try This'n.

 

Loads into Extended Basic, 32k required. uses speech as well.

 

TCII.dsk 90 kB · 35 downloads

 

Apparently a more-ammo 1999 TC hack from Mark Griffin. One would think with the code just sitting out there that we'd have a few more hacks of Tombstone City. 

 

[trapperkeeper]

The key to higher scores is you want to stay on day 1 as long as you can.  Here is a high score video where gamer got over 100k and stayed on the first two days:

 

The manual says you move to the next day when all the morgs and morg generators are destroyed:

http://www.ti99db.org/images/Tombstone_City.pdf

[senior_falcon]

On 4/2/2021 at 5:13 PM, Airshack said:

“Hell in Texas” is mentioned twice in the source code as the title of the music.

That’s a real Cowboy folk song from way back around 1870. Apparently a Yankee soldier stationed down in Texas wrote it.

General Phillip Sheridan wrote:

“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell”

 

[Airshack]

6 hours ago, trapperkeeper said:

The manual says you move to the next day when all the morgs and morg generators are destroyed:

The new day starts when there are no Morgs AND no longer two cacti adjacent. Two touching cacti are Morg Generators.

 

 

[+acadiel]

On 9/8/2016 at 8:00 PM, matthew180 said:

I like it for a quick game. I wish the music continued during game play.

I had hacked the source code and reassembled it back in high school to do that.  If my almost 30 year old memory isn't failing me, I think I just remarked out the other noises (the shooting noise, the "eaten" noise, etc.)  I found that if I just jumped over those that the title music kept playing though the whole game.

 

I was also bored back then (I learn the most when I mess around and am bored.)  I created a XB executable that had the Tombstone City sounds (you could CALL LINK "SONG", "SHOOT", and "GULP").  I actually had probably half the game play implemented in XB at one point but it was sloooooow.

 

[+acadiel]

On 4/8/2021 at 5:11 PM, Airshack said:

The new day starts when there are no Morgs AND no longer two cacti adjacent. Two touching cacti are Morg Generators.

 

 

Yep.

 

And Day 3 and beyond are insane.  I'm quite impressed with Matt getting to day 7.  I always got creamed at day 3 - but then again, these were TI joysticks.  LOL

 

[Airshack]

A nice change would be allowing turning and moving while shooting, and also pivoting in place vs jumping a tile to change directions. 

 

It appears the code plots the projectile tile all the way to the edge of the screen before returning to the player movement routine. Causes the entire game to stutter-step during shooting. 

 

In later levels the ramp-up in difficulty is significant in a discouraging way. I’d prefer to see different challenges vs just faster Morgs and more Morg generators.

[+mizapf]

10 hours ago, acadiel said:

And Day 3 and beyond are insane.  I'm quite impressed with Matt getting to day 7.  I always got creamed at day 3 - but then again, these were TI joysticks.  LOL

You mean on Insane level? Really, everything below is boring as hell in Texas... (See my posting some time ago on this thread.)

[Retrospect]

On 4/10/2021 at 7:39 AM, Airshack said:

It appears the code plots the projectile all tile all the way to the edge of the screen before returning to the player movement routine.

That's something I noticed.  He could of done it the other way, updating the player missile whilst things are still moving around, the speed of the player missile would of been slightly slower but not prohibitively slower.  Suppose it was to save bytes?

[Airshack]

On 4/11/2021 at 5:47 AM, Retrospect said:

He could of done it the other way, updating the player missile whilst things are still moving around, the speed of the player missile would of been slightly slower but not prohibitively slower.  Suppose it was to save bytes?

With one bit in a dedicated status byte set for projectile inflight, I say no. If anything, he saved managing just one bit. The approach of staying inside a bullet movement sub-loop causes the game to stutter. He could have moved the bullet a little, maybe 1-to-4 pixels per pass, at a rate of 60 (or 50 PAL) passes per second. Resetting the bullet inflight status bit (to zero) if there’s a collision or off-screen event.

 

This means he could have returned to the main game loop after moving the bullet (a smidgen) and checking for collisions and screen edges. The rate of travel for the bullet would be 60-to-240 pixels per second, or 50-to-200 PAL rate pixels. Plenty fast.

 

Picture code running at about 600 commands/operations per pass, at 60 or 50 passes per second. That’s the beauty of assembly.

 

Of course this criticism comes after 40 years of technique sharing and improvement. The author wrote a great game for its era.

 

Another big problem with TC shooting is the schooner can’t turn or retreat while shooting. You’re stuck in one position while firing. A twin-stick control scheme would be ideal here. Something Robotron-like or perhaps a two player version: one player moves the schooner, another player shoots in all directions.

 

Has anyone developed one of those twin-stick couplers for the 99/4A controller?

 

 

 

[Airshack]

Or this plugged into an Atari adapter:  https://edladdin.com/Super-Twin-78-ec-1-002.htm

[Retrospect]

Yes, the author wrote a great game for the time.  I remember reading how it was his first arcade style game that he'd wrote, and he'd never played any arcade videogames before that.  All things given, it could of been a lot worse of an effort.  I must admit though it would of been better if we could fire whilst at least moving where we face, even if stood still.  I think I did put that functionality into one of my games which had a similar style to Tombstone.  

 

Actually Tombstone was the first ever videogame I saw, when I went to my uncle's house and they were playing it on the TV downstairs in the living room.  That must of been around 1983.

[+mizapf]

I found the lock during firing at first annoying, but now it's somewhat fun when things become a bit tricky, as you have to get your finger off the trigger for a short moment to move. The morgs are approaching, but you can't help but press the fire button as in a cramp ... and <gulp>.

 

BTW, I now played on insane level several times, but I am also stuck at day 3. We should consider it for the monthly competition.

[Asmusr]

Tombstone City is one of the two came carts I had for my TI as a kid. That and Parsec. Nobody can improve Parsec, but maybe this one could be improved? Is it time for a Tombstone City 2 competition? ?

[Airshack]

4 hours ago, Asmusr said:

Is it time for a Tombstone City 2 competition? ?

When Hank Aaron suggests a hitting contest...silence.

[Retrospect]

8 hours ago, Asmusr said:

Is it time for a Tombstone City 2 competition? ?

Yes that sounds interesting!   

[Retrospect]

One thing to note about the player movement in Tombstone; And I've never been able to perfect this in my games, when the player changes direction if you just lightly tap it up,down, left or right, it won't move straightaway in that direction it faces that way first and if you have it still held down, it then moves.

 

I can see the benefit to this as you don't walk into a Morg unintentionally but I aren't sure if it made the player movement slower ?

[senior_falcon]

Here is Day 4 on "Level 3 - Insane"

This is with the keyboard controls, which I have a lot of trouble with. I'm sure I could at least get to day 5 with joysticks.

[Retrospect]

14 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Here is Day 4 on "Level 3 - Insane"

That's quite a feat - I can't even get past day 1 on Insane.  Do you use the panic-key (space bar?) at all on insane?

[senior_falcon]

20 minutes ago, Retrospect said:

That's quite a feat - I can't even get past day 1 on Insane.  Do you use the panic-key (space bar?) at all on insane?

Nope, I don't even know what that does!

[+mizapf]

The problem is when the number of cacti gets too high, your chances to survive the day dramatically decline in insane mode. In the other modes, you have a good chance to clean up the screen even when it is half-filled with cactus pairs.

[Retrospect]

5 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Nope, I don't even know what that does

It places you in the protected city area, except if the area is surrounded on all sides by Cacti then it places you in a random area of the screen

I only discovered it last year

[Airshack]

On 4/16/2021 at 6:29 PM, Retrospect said:

 

One thing to note about the player movement in Tombstone; And I've never been able to perfect this in my games, when the player changes direction if you just lightly tap it up,down, left or right, it won't move straightaway in that direction it faces that way first and if you have it still held down, it then moves.

 

That’s true yet I find I often attempt to pull this pivot move off only to walk into an approaching Morg. I panic probably.