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Zoo Keeper (2600, Champ Games)


johnnywc

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5 hours ago, Albert said:

Without further ado, here's the Zoo Keeper box, front and back, designed by Nathan Strum.  I think this really came out great, and does a wonderful job of conveying the frenetic nature of the game!  Click on the image for a larger view:

 

2600_ZooKeeper_Render_Boxes.jpg

Soon!

 

 ..Al

aaEsR4Q.gif

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9 hours ago, Albert said:

Without further ado, here's the Zoo Keeper box, front and back, designed by Nathan Strum...

That looks great, but it's just not as good as his art from post #126.

 

teaser-label.jpg

 

 

 

Seriously though, that's probably my favorite box ever so far.

The colors, the way the art bursts out of the border area... just perfect.

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On 5/18/2020 at 10:14 PM, spspspsp said:

Does the high-score table in ZooKeeper function like that in Robotron? Specifically, for scores over 1M, will the "rank" number disappear? I am not to 1M yet, but with a bit more practice should be able to get there. Again, this may be trickier in the full version, but given how the points awarded for jumps doubles each time you jump over an additional animal, this shouldn't be too hard.

Hello there!  As we near the release of ZK, I've been going through the old development thread and I completely forgot to answer your question - sorry about that!

 

Yes, the ZK high score table will display scores up to 99,999,999 by removing the rank #. :D 

On 5/18/2020 at 10:14 PM, spspspsp said:

Also, I think I noticed a bug: I was on level 1 and there was a net on the outside of the cage, but then an elephant escaped at exactly the spot where the net was located and the net disappeared. Usually, items aren't supposed to disappear like that, right? This was the last item and the level hadn't ended yet.

Hmmm, that's strange.  I'm pretty sure on level 1 the net is the 2nd to the last item that appears (one more root beer appears before the end of the level).  I haven't seen this happen over here but will keep an eye out for it.  

 

Thanks!

John

 

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I have only played this game for two days, and never played the arcade version, so my experience is limited. But maybe I can already give a bit of feedback. First of all: I think the game is great. Technological marvel, the gameplay is also solid. It seems very fast paced. The easy mode seems a tad bit simpler than standard, with one more life, but not much easier. It is really fast paced and this shows as I lost even the first level in the first couple of tries. Right now my skill is at beating round 5 on easy and round 3 on standard. 

 

The menu feels a bit janky, i.e. is reacts too quickly to joystick movements? Not sure about that, but it felt more relaxed in Mappy. The latter being much more slowly paced overall. But I guess the arcade version of Zookeeper is similar to this. A whole game definitely takes much less time for me. But maybe that will change in the future when I get better.

 

One minor gripe: Can we use AAA as the default letters for the highscore? PL1 is subjectively so far away from useful letters for the highscore table... I already disliked that in Galagon. :-D

 

The whole gameplay is interesting, much like a reverse breakout. Never seen it before, but alas, we didn't have arcades in Germany when I was a kid. Arcade games were strictly for 18+ grown ups, so were not popular here.

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On 8/11/2020 at 2:44 PM, root42 said:

I have only played this game for two days, and never played the arcade version, so my experience is limited. But maybe I can already give a bit of feedback. First of all: I think the game is great. Technological marvel, the gameplay is also solid. It seems very fast paced. The easy mode seems a tad bit simpler than standard, with one more life, but not much easier. It is really fast paced and this shows as I lost even the first level in the first couple of tries. Right now my skill is at beating round 5 on easy and round 3 on standard. 

Yes, the game is very fast paced!  FYI we have made numerous changes since the last demo (about 50), including balancing the difficulty between the skill levels. :thumbsup: 

On 8/11/2020 at 2:44 PM, root42 said:

The menu feels a bit janky, i.e. is reacts too quickly to joystick movements? Not sure about that, but it felt more relaxed in Mappy. The latter being much more slowly paced overall. But I guess the arcade version of Zookeeper is similar to this. A whole game definitely takes much less time for me. But maybe that will change in the future when I get better.

Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean here.  I'll fire up Mappy and Zoo Keeper and compare the menu navigation and see if they are similar.  Certainly as you get better a game can take a while, especially if you use the continues.  I will typically play a game plus 3 continues and it takes about 20 - 30 minutes. :D 

On 8/11/2020 at 2:44 PM, root42 said:

One minor gripe: Can we use AAA as the default letters for the highscore? PL1 is subjectively so far away from useful letters for the highscore table... I already disliked that in Galagon. :-D

Hmm, I'll think about this.  I like to keep certain things consistent between all the Champ Games (including default initials).  :idea: With that said, if you have an AtariVox/Savekey to save your scores, it also saves your last initials (for both Player 1 and Player 2) so you only have to change "PL1" once. ;) 

On 8/11/2020 at 2:44 PM, root42 said:

The whole gameplay is interesting, much like a reverse breakout. Never seen it before, but alas, we didn't have arcades in Germany when I was a kid. Arcade games were strictly for 18+ grown ups, so were not popular here.

I agree, the gameplay is very unique and one of the reasons why it quickly became one of my favorites to play on MAME (I never saw or played Zoo Keeper "back in the day") and ultimately why I decided to make a 2600 version. :)

 

Thanks for the feedback, it's very much appreciated!

 

John

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On 8/11/2020 at 2:44 PM, root42 said:

The menu feels a bit janky, i.e. is reacts too quickly to joystick movements? Not sure about that, but it felt more relaxed in Mappy. The latter being much more slowly paced overall. 18+ grown ups, so were not popular here.

@root42 You were right, there is a bug in the menu navigation code. :P  I had made a change to allow the letters when selecting high scores to scroll faster, but that uses the same timer as the menu navigation so it made that faster too. ?  I fixed it for the final release of ZK; unfortunately the 'bug' is in Galagon and WoW Arcade, but this is the first of it ever being mentioned so it's probably not a big deal, but I'm glad it's fixed now! :thumbsup:  

 

Thanks again!

 

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2 hours ago, johnnywc said:

@root42 You were right, there is a bug in the menu navigation code. :P  I had made a change to allow the letters when selecting high scores to scroll faster, but that uses the same timer as the menu navigation so it made that faster too. ?  I fixed it for the final release of ZK; unfortunately the 'bug' is in Galagon and WoW Arcade, but this is the first of it ever being mentioned so it's probably not a big deal, but I'm glad it's fixed now! :thumbsup:  

 

Thanks again!

 

 

What's the call on the 'bug' in those games?  Produce all future carts with the fix included, or leave the bug as-is in those?

 

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10 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

What's the call on the 'bug' in those games?  Produce all future carts with the fix included, or leave the bug as-is in those?

 

I'll check with Al, but since it's not a critical 'bug' (and I use the term loosely as it's really just a smaller delay than my original intention when holding down the joystick when navigating the menus), I don't think there will be a rush to build new carts with an updated binary. ;)  Plus, both of those games have < 8 bytes free and adding in this fix takes 8 bytes so it's not as simple as fixing the 'bug' without potentially breaking something else.   ? 

 

From this point on we'll consider it a feature:  "Both Galagon & WoW 'feature' blazingly-fast menu turbo-navigationTM "  :lol: 

Edited by johnnywc
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18 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

but this is the first of it ever being mentioned so it's probably not a big deal, but I'm glad it's fixed now! :thumbsup:  

I don’t think this is a big deal at all. It doesn’t break anything, doesn’t affect gameplay. I didn’t even notice it until it was mentioned here and I like the current setting.

 

8 hours ago, johnnywc said:

 

From this point on we'll consider it a feature:  "Both Galagon & WoW 'feature' blazingly-fast menu turbo-navigationTM "  :lol: 

? I’m fine with this feature.

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  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, johnnywc said:

Hi there!  @Albert has had some delays in the current run of games but is working hard to get them in the store by the end of the month.  I'll let him add any specific details. :)  

 

Thanks!

John

 

He's really cracking the whip on those poor elves to move the store up North! @Albert is a great person don't get me wrong here, but he really bent some labor laws by getting the elves classified as non-human. The whole ordeal was a little bit shady...

 

 

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Soooo looking forward to this release and will be purchasing a CIB example, but an observation about the art on some of the latest releases as I couldn't help but notice a pattern. This is NOT meant to be a rip on anyone's drawing skills at all as they're obviously great. This observation is merely a stylization preference. The look just reminds me of when I lost interest in cartoons in the 80's on. It occurred around the same time they lost frames (weren't animated as smoothly), looked less cartoony and were drawn with sharper, more pointy edges.

 

When it comes to this particular artwork or style (called simple cel shading?), noticed something missing which makes them look so flat, that I *think* may help bring more of a classic or "vintage" style to the characters. Believe it's called 'spotlighting'... when you see white outlines on various features that are closest to a presumed, but faux light source. The original art has it in spades and makes the characters more compelling to look at IMO:

 

 

2082905480_ScreenShot2020-11-15at11_51_53AM.thumb.png.462668f1f85e8aeca72585f34e98d79e.png

 

418238262_ScreenShot2020-11-15at11_52_04AM.thumb.png.6f0121c18e41f67c946ba51d05661489.png

 

 

...you see it on the games' name below, but not the characters.

 

To me the flying bricks, animals and Zeke look slightly out of place. Would adding something like a little spotlighting even help or am I way off base here? As-is, that part of the art just looks a little too "modern" or stylized - again, IMO. 

 

 

1159794468_ScreenShot2020-11-15at12_04_09PM.thumb.png.55efeed3424dbdcb8d2464a7a42f6f2c.png

 

 

...all good if this has been thought out by the artist(s) and totally intentional, just wanted to give my $.02 to the subject.  :)

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Prizrak said:

I am a fan of @Nathan Strum work. He's got a unique art style and you've done good for all the other releases I've seen.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 

I second that.  Love the artwork he's done.  Love the graphics and artwork for Aardvark, Mappy, Super Cobra Arcade, Galagon... etc., keep up the great work!

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