Entry 2018: Ouranos!

[carlsson]

Sorry for being late to the party, but finally I have a mostly playable version of my game, which I can post about without too much apologizes.

 

This is Ouranos! a.k.a. Weather Wars, originally developed by Kathy Higby for the Commodore PET, eventually ported to the C64 and many years later other formats including the Tandy MC-10.

 

The game is for two players in the style of artillery war except that shooting missiles at eachother, you get to control four different types of weather: rain, hail, tornado and lightning. The outcome of a weather is a combination of the starting location (the cloud), the wind strength and your charge. The weather types have different properties regarding how much damage they cause and how easy they are to control, for instance the lightning is not affected by wind at all.

 

You take turns against eachother, using either controller. After each turn there is a 20% chance that a so-called act of nature will take place. It means a random weather will take place, at random starting position, random wind and random strength meaning it can affect either or neither player. When one player has had their house eliminated, the game ends and you get to play again.

 

Shoot me with feedback, though I can't promise I'll have time to implement any changes before the deadline on Friday.

 

ouranos.zip

 

[mthompson]

Neat. Very quickly, it would be cool if the screen could flash when the lightning strikes, and maybe make a deeper sound for thunder. Also, the tornado seems a bit too wide at the top. Is it possible to modify the tornado's tiles so they suggest a horizontal swirl or rotation?

 

I'd never heard of this game before. Your name for it is very clever!

 

Is a one-player version possible? Not before Friday, I realize

[+nanochess]

Maybe some background clouds that move relative to the wind speed?

 

A random duck flying thru the screen?

 

Also at end of game, I don't know if it should return to title screen.

[+DZ-Jay]

It's an interesting game, but it seems much too simple for the Intellivision. It reminds me of one of those BASIC programs you type in from a magazine.

 

It's a good implementation, but perhaps it could use some more sophistication, like smoother movements rather than the stepped jumps it has right now, or more detailed graphics. Also, the blocky "card-alignment" of the weather attacks and house destruction looks too abrupt.

 

I know you may not have the time for that right now, but I'm thinking for a future revision. Not bad, though.

 

-dZ.

[PuzZLeR]

Interesting and original.

 

I too, like mthompson, have never heard of this game. But I too really like the name. If I'm correct, "Ouranos" is the Greek word for "sky". Quite beautiful.

 

Nice work. Looking for a partner now to play this with.

[carlsson]

Regarding flashing the screen, that is something I considered implementing so it would definitely go on my TODO list. Better graphics yes, and I realize that a bit of GRAM cycling would be a cheap way to spice up the weather effects. The tornado as per the original implementation starts off wide and narrows down, though it might seem strange at first.

 

An AI would be on the longer term of TODO.

[+nanochess]

I had to throw some quick ideas about an AI.

 

* A variable with a coefficient of sillyness that would start "big" and would reduce in each turn. This would make the machine to look like "learning" to shoot. (two difficulties here, "easy" and "hard")

* A pattern of shooting, like using rain at start, then alternate hail. And a "finish him" with a Tornado or lightning.

* A surprise turn, if player destroyed a big chunk of AI house, then it would fail to select right angle for next turn.

[carlsson]

Submitted with 100 minutes to go!

 

As expected, I didn't have much time for improvements, but I managed to put some lipstick on the pig:

• The weather types rain, hail and tornado now are animated through GRAM recycling. It could be made much prettier, but it was better than nothing.
• The lightning now is a little lower in frequency and flashes the screen, but the lightning itself also is inverted which should be fixed by redefining two sets of the graphics.
• The game goes back to the title screen after game over.

Yep, that is about as much as I had time for.

 

ouranos.zip

[+nanochess]

Just made a video of it:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoNL97F0xc