Aardvark for Atari VCS/2600

[iesposta]

Feedback.

 

Like: All of the game.

.

 

Improve:

 

Gameplay:

Just joystick down keeps moving last left/right + down, but I think you have that.

 

Graphics:

Does the tip of the tongue have to be a different color? Can it be the same color, or same color + one luma lighter?

 

Sound:

Lower volume on the harmony channel than the main note channel, because of the TIA close but not perfect pitch (out-of-tune)?

.

 

Missing:

Tribute to insects from other games? i.e. Flea from Centipede? (Not exactly lovable although sometimes more useful than hated spider or scorpion); Head from Millipede peeks out from sides of tunnel? Doesn’t need to touch, score, etc., just funny.

.

 

Very hard to suggest feedback because it is already so impressive and so good!

[iesposta]

ZeroPageHomebrew’s hosts reaction to questioning “why username nanochess” in chat when I said, “He wrote chess.”: Priceless

 

(I meant - “wrote a tiny chess playing program”, but they didn’t put it together. As in, “nanochess He wrote chess? Nano means tiny, a tiny chess program?)

 

I was too vague, I was allowing nanochess to answer their inquiry about his username.

When no more replies and they didn’t understand me I enjoyed their confusion.

It was chat! I couldn’t think to clarify what I meant, and was allowing nanochess to reply (I am not an annoying chat hog know it all, althought it may appear I play one on the Internet.)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Feedback.

 

Like: All of the game.

 

Improve:

 

Gameplay:

Just joystick down keeps moving last left/right + down, but I think you have that.

Yup.

 

Graphics:

Does the tip of the tongue have to be a different color? Can it be the same color, or same color + one luma lighter?

That's intentional for various reasons.

• Anteater arcade has a different colored tip too
• the tip of tongue behaves/reacts different than the tongue itself
• technical limitation: only one global tip color possible, and we want the tongue to have different colors

Sound:

Lower volume on the harmony channel than the main note channel, because of the TIA close but not perfect pitch (out-of-tune)?

I will leave this to nanochess, he is doing all the sounds and music.

 

Missing:

Tribute to insects from other games? i.e. Flea from Centipede? (Not exactly lovable although sometimes more useful than hated spider or scorpion); Head from Millipede peeks out from sides of tunnel? Doesn’t need to touch, score, etc., just funny.

Interesting idea. If we have time, space and motivation left, we may add some eye candy e.g. in intermissions. But most likely inside the main game.

 

[+sramirez2008]

Wow, that is quite impressive. Looking forward to your scores when the cart is released.BTW: Anything new you can add to the comments above?

Other than a score table, I honestly don’t have anything else to add. I think the gameplay is smooth. The colors and animation are soo good that I like watching someone play as much as playing the game myself.

[keebz]

The fluidity of the Aardvarks walking animation is (In my opinion) the best I have EVER seen on an Atari game with such a large sprite. I don't think I've ever seen anything that clean and that big. Please... release this soon

Edited December 2, 2018 by keebz

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The fluidity of the Aardvarks walking animation is (In my opinion) the best I have EVER seen on an Atari game with such a large sprite. I don't think I've ever seen anything that clean and that big. Please... release this soon

The animation graphics were (of course!) done by Nathan.

[+nanochess]

ZeroPageHomebrew’s hosts reaction to questioning “why username nanochess” in chat when I said, “He wrote chess.”: Priceless

 

(I meant - “wrote a tiny chess playing program”, but they didn’t put it together. As in, “nanochess He wrote chess? Nano means tiny, a tiny chess program?)

 

I was too vague, I was allowing nanochess to answer their inquiry about his username.

When no more replies and they didn’t understand me I enjoyed their confusion.

It was chat! I couldn’t think to clarify what I meant, and was allowing nanochess to reply (I am not an annoying chat hog know it all, althought it may appear I play one on the Internet.)

My fault, I got distracted in that moment by my baby daughter and I didn't hear the question.

 

Now let us keep it in the mystery for a few twitches more until the release

[Arenafoot]

ZeroPageHomebrew’s hosts reaction to questioning “why username nanochess” in chat when I said, “He wrote chess.”: Priceless

 

(I meant - “wrote a tiny chess playing program”, but they didn’t put it together. As in, “nanochess He wrote chess? Nano means tiny, a tiny chess program?)

 

I was too vague, I was allowing nanochess to answer their inquiry about his username.

When no more replies and they didn’t understand me I enjoyed their confusion.

It was chat! I couldn’t think to clarify what I meant, and was allowing nanochess to reply (I am not an annoying chat hog know it all, althought it may appear I play one on the Internet.)

Its just like I've been asked about "Arenafoot" and someone thought I was a foot doctor! LOL

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Other than a score table, I honestly don’t have anything else to add.

I wondered about that one too, especially because it was a standard on the arcades and most larger, new homebrews have it too. But when I thought more about it and watched other people play games with a high score table, I found it less relevant. In the arcade you were competing with a number of unknown other people, there the scores and initials made perfect sense. Today you are mostly competing against yourself (at least on your own cart) and then only the top high score really counts. And in case you are playing with someone else, then constantly switching back and forth with the high score initials becomes a bit annoying. Also many people do not own a SaveKey/AtariVox and then a high score table becomes even less useful.

 

So currently I tend towards not having such a table in Aardvark.

 

I think the gameplay is smooth. The colors and animation are soo good that I like watching someone play as much as playing the game myself.

Glad that you like it. We took great care to add some extra eye candy e.g. sky, mountain background and underground platforms. And especially on the aardvark animations. There are quite a lot: walking, breathing, idling, pushing and pulling the tongue, eating, dying...

 

The arcade original looks pretty bland, so there was a lot of room for improvement.

[keebz]

Is it just more or does this "demo" port on the 2600 actually look BETTER than the original arcade?

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

The animation of the Aardvark walking and eating the ants is WAY better than the arcade. There are only two frames of animation during the walking sequence in the arcade Anteater and in Aardvark I count EIGHT! During the eating of a bug in the arcade there are ZERO frames and I count FIVE in Aardvark. Of course there are also the graphics behind the Aardvark of the mountains and sky as well. A lot of beautiful graphical work went into the port of this game!

 

Is it just more or does this "demo" port on the 2600 actually look BETTER than the original arcade?

 

[+Nathan Strum]

Is it just more or does this "demo" port on the 2600 actually look BETTER than the original arcade?

It's not just you.

 

Credit Thomas and Óscar for really wanting to push the game beyond its original look (and gameplay). That freed me up to come up with something completely different for the aardvark.

 

Otherwise, we would've ended up with something like this...

 

 

[+Nathan Strum]

My latest HS is 174,250. Played a few rounds tonight on my newly acquired CRT. It's a 14" Toshiba, model 14AF42 with S-video.

 

 

Almost got there...

 

[+sramirez2008]

I wondered about that one too, especially because it was a standard on the arcades and most larger, new homebrews have it too. But when I thought more about it and watched other people play games with a high score table, I found it less relevant. In the arcade you were competing with a number of unknown other people, there the scores and initials made perfect sense. Today you are mostly competing against yourself (at least on your own cart) and then only the top high score really counts. And in case you are playing with someone else, then constantly switching back and forth with the high score initials becomes a bit annoying. Also many people do not own a SaveKey/AtariVox and then a high score table becomes even less useful.

 

So currently I tend towards not having such a table in Aardvark.

 

Sorry, when I mentioned the Score Table, I was thinking about the screen below from the arcade game.

 

[+sramirez2008]

 

 

Almost got there...

 

Aardvark (Demo).png

 

I'm still away for work, you have the rest of this week to break my score.

[+Nathan Strum]

I'm still away for work, you have the rest of this week to break my score.

 

Well... what am I supposed to do with the rest of the week now?

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Nathan Strum

[+Nathan Strum]

I did find a bug (not sure if this has been noted yet - apologies if this is a known issue)...

 

When the Bonus points are being counted up at the end of a round, if you hit the fire button to skip the screen before the points are added to your score, you don't get any points.

 

Either the skip feature should be removed, or skipping should instantly total and add the bonus points before exiting to the next level.

 

Here's a clip - if you watch the end of the wave (about 1:30), the score is at 322,020. Before the bonuses are added up, I hit the fire button to skip through the screen, and the extra points are never added to my score.

 

[+sramirez2008]

 

Well... what am I supposed to do with the rest of the week now?

 

Aardvark (Demo)_2.png

 

Wow...what a score Congrats! I don't see anyone beating this score anytime soon.

 

[+sramirez2008]

I did find a bug (not sure if this has been noted yet - apologies if this is a known issue)...

 

When the Bonus points are being counted up at the end of a round, if you hit the fire button to skip the screen before the points are added to your score, you don't get any points.

 

Either the skip feature should be removed, or skipping should instantly total and add the bonus points before exiting to the next level.

 

 

Yep...I reported this issue too. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/259694-aardvark-for-atari-vcs2600/?p=4159522

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Sorry, when I mentioned the Score Table, I was thinking about the screen below from the arcade game.

 

Anteater Score Table.jpg

Ah, I see. IMO another thing that makes sense in an arcade. But for a homebrew you can always look into the manual. And the instructions on screen will always be incomplete compared to what will be printed in the manual.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

 

Well... what am I supposed to do with the rest of the week now?

 

Aardvark (Demo)_2.png

Now do the same with the latest full version.

[+Nathan Strum]

Now do the same with the latest full version.

 

Much tougher... not even 1/4 of the way there.

 

[+johnnywc]

Much tougher... not even 1/4 of the way there.

 

Aard.png

Great score Nathan - you're more than 1/2 way to my high score on the full version...

 

[+Nathan Strum]

Great score Nathan - you're more than 1/2 way to my high score on the full version...

 

I think I have a moose to go animate...

[keebz]

Look at these scores! Wow! Hope we get a release before someone rolls it.. ::nudge nudge::