Invisible Maze Demo

[VGAGuy]

So, this game is sort of a combination of Haunted House and Irritating Stick.

You move though a maze and try not to touch the walls(if you do it's game over), but the maze is invisible, you can briefly light the maze up by pressing the button on the joystick, but while the maze is lit you can only move up or down. If you reach the exit before the timer runs out you win the level.

 

I putting this demo out there to see if this concept is any fun.

 

This demo only has one level, so when you get to the level select(by pressing up) just press fire to start the first level.

 

P.s. I tried to make flashing effects that wouldn't destroy the eyes, but I can still slow it down if needed.

 

UPDATE: New demo version, 3 levels, sound, score saving and slight control tweaks. Just move the cursor until it changes color to select that level.

InvisibleMazeDemo1.1.bin

InvisibleMazeDemo1.3.bin

Edited October 30, 2017 by VGAGuy

[fluxit]

Cool idea. It's interesting how the player and timer color is chosen based on when you start the game during the title's color cycling. Was that deliberate?

 

Will you be adding pursuers, maybe a slow enemy that only travels in the dark, and/or an enemy with a speed closer to the player's that only travels in the light? You might have the slow enemy end the game if it catches the player, and the fast enemy only reduce the timer.

 

The demo seems to hang in MAME .185 and Stella 4.7.2 when the timer reaches ~10000. Or was that intended to be 0 on the timer? Reset doesn't reset the game at this point, nor does the fire button have any effect. I've seen it hang at 10002, 10001, and as in this screen shot from MAME.

 

In Stella, when hung, the timer continued to animate as if it was forever rolling over the ones digit while trying to reach 10000, but never actually getting there.

Edited October 28, 2017 by fluxit

[+stephena]

On real hardware, the game resets itself when reaching 10000. This is also happening for me in Stella 5, but not in MAME. In MAME, it does what is stated above. So I suggest upgrading Stella to the latest version (5.0.2).

 

EDIT: Also working fine in Javatari and z26, but locking up in 6502.ts right when the timer reaches 10000 (traps an illegal instruction; undocumented opcodes are still a WIP for 6502.ts).

 

So overall MAME is incorrect here.

[VGAGuy]

I don't know why it crashes at 10,000 it should game over at all zeroes not at 10,000.

As for the color of the player, that happens because I never reset it after the title screen.

BatariBasic has been throwing some random bugs at me lately.

I had to make it check the hex values for the score to get it to work right.

I'll update the files in a second.

I do plan on adding missiles that come from the other side of the screen in later levels, but I hadn't thought of making them only travel while the maze is lit, I might try to make that work.

Edited October 28, 2017 by VGAGuy

[fluxit]

Thanks, Stephen. I updated my Stella.

 

Version 1.1 of Invisible Maze did fix the '10000' hang in Stella and MAME. I did see a single hang upon player collision with the wall in the dark, resulting in a continuous buzzing noise.

 

Version 1.3 seems to work correctly. I was able to complete the three levels, and enjoyed what there is so far.

No crashes during play, but the single time that I allowed the timer to reach 0 to see what would happen, while I got the "GAME OVER" screen, neither up, fire, nor reset would do anything at that point, unlike when a wall collision occurs.

 

Speaking of wall collisions... sometimes when a collision occurs, the death sound and animation is cut to a fraction of a second flash and 'beep,' although the game does seem to properly return to the title when this happens. I haven't noticed whether or not GAME OVER displayed when this happened. I've seen it at least 3 times at this point.

 

-edit-

 

Having let the timer run out 2 more times, the hang at GAME OVER didn't happen again.

Edited October 31, 2017 by fluxit

[VGAGuy]

My timer values get messed up a lot.

I am using every value that Bb gives me with the standard kernel.

Going to start bank switching for the rest of the levels as they have 8 screens instead of 4.

 

Glad to see that this is at least somewhat entertaining.