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Super Game Module 2


opcode

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Ok, so let's do a recap of where we are now in terms of games:

 

- We have 3 games in different stages of development already running in the new hardware, Donkey Kong, Moon Patrol, Zaxxon

- 1 game has been started but still not running, Galaga

 

Those are the 4 launch games we selected. It would be a good idea to decide on improvements as soon as possible, so I can plan and get those games completed on schedule. Some of them pose some challenges in themselves:

- Moon Patrol uses 3 planes, and we have 2. I will have to be creative here.

- Zaxxon uses a very unusual hardware for background graphics, will require custom engine and possibly huge number of tiles and VROM

- Galaga uses two CPUs in parallel for game processing, I am assuming that isn't a big deal, but until I can get the game running, that is a red flag

 

So while we may dream with a lot of stuff, I must keep things down to Earth in terms of new content we will include.

 

Here are some suggestions:

 

- DK: 2-players simultaneous. 2~4 new screens. After further consideration, I think we should go for exclusive new screens instead of using existing material.

- Galaga: 2-players simultaneous. New thematic stages?

- Moon Patrol: New course. What else for 2 players?

- Zaxxon: New asteroid. What else for 2 players?

 

And with the remixed graphic modes (16-bit style), that should be pretty good content.

 

BTW, fun fact: did you know there is vestigial evidence of a 5th stage in Donkey Kong?

 

DK - exclusive new screens sounds like fun - plus a chance for you to show off your creative talents, which is always a good thing.

 

Galaga - how about including Galaxian instead of new stages? Or is that completely out of the question?

 

Moon Patrol - whatever you decide (I've always sucked at that game so its not high on my list).

 

Zaxxon - when you ask "what else for 2 players" are we talking 2 player simultaneous? One of my favorite Neo Geo titles is Viewpoint (a definite homage to Zaxxon) and enabling 2 player simultaneous play via the debug BIOS has always been the best part.

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Well, since you're asking for ideas... :D

 

- For DK 2-player mode, how about having a mode where one player would be able to control Donkey Kong himself? Perhaps rolling and throwing the barrels at will?

- Perhaps this would be too tough to implement, but for two-player Moon Patrol how about having a "race" feature, where it's split screen with the upper half showing one player's course and the lower showing the other's?

- For Zaxxon how about sort of an obstacle course, where one has to navigate narrow passages and such, rather like a 3-D version of what Scramble does at one stage?

- For a Galaga two-player option, how about a competitive/war mode, with one player at the top of the screen shooting down and the other on the bottom?

 

 

- DK: interesting

- Moon Patrol: love the idea, not too though to implement actually

- Zaxxon: I guess that is the idea with the new asteroid, probably harder, but we must still have some enemies and fuel tanks

- Galaga: not sure how we can add Galagans in that

 

 

DK - exclusive new screens sounds like fun - plus a chance for you to show off your creative talents, which is always a good thing.

Galaga - how about including Galaxian instead of new stages? Or is that completely out of the question?

Moon Patrol - whatever you decide (I've always sucked at that game so its not high on my list).

Zaxxon - when you ask "what else for 2 players" are we talking 2 player simultaneous? One of my favorite Neo Geo titles is Viewpoint (a definite homage to Zaxxon) and enabling 2 player simultaneous play via the debug BIOS has always been the best part.

 

Galaxian: well, we can add the Galaxian aliens theme to Galaga, that should look cool

 

Zaxxon: I didn't know that. Interesting. So perhaps we can have a 2 player simultaneous mode for Zaxxon as well

 

I like the idea of 2 players simultaneous mode for games. Those retro games are a lot of fun when we can play competitively with friends and family.

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- Galaga: not sure how we can add Galagans in that

 

 

Maybe have them spawn out of the center of the screen, some facing and heading upwards and others downwards, or even have the same ones randomly change direction? That way both players would be doing their own battles against the aliens while having to worry about getting shot from the opposing player.

 

If you want an idea for a whole new game I suggest a sequel to Moon Patrol, perhaps called "Mars Patrol" or something, I've always thought that game deserved a direct follow up! I once played around making one myself using Yo Yo Game's Gamemaker program and got a little ways into it but gave it up because I didn't have the spare time.

Edited by Tornadoboy
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DK - 2 player plus new exclusive screens sounds great.

 

Galaga - if I was making an enhanced version, Id mess around with power ups - charge shot, rapid fire, etc. they might need to be temporary though as they could be too powerful.

 

Another idea would be a new enemy that explodes and can possibly take out surrounding enemies with it - or it could act like the exploding bee from DK3. Or a rare bonus enemy that if killed, you get a temporary 2x score bonus when killing enemies.

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Zaxxon - it would be cool to see those roomba enemies from the Colecovision version included. How about an alternate form of Zaxxon with a different attack? Perhaps a different color palette for the new asteroid?

 

How difficult would it be to incorporate a random mode like Crossy Road?

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I would love to see Gaplus also known as Galaga 3, one of my favorite versions of Galaga, being able to go up and down as well added a lot to the amped up frantic game-play.

 

Hey Opcode maybe you can take some inspiration from Gaplus for an interesting mode in your version?

 

I have to say I am really digging the community / developer involvement in these concepts, they I think will make for some excellent titles.

 

Those pics of Moon patrol looked great, I wonder if adding alien / Armageddon attack mode with lots of aliens, saucers, tanks and jumps would be fun with an added shield for both the aliens and the moon rover with some level of reflecting being interesting.. I wonder if something like this can be a Challenging stage, or modes that let you elect to use/ not use shield for those that want to go all crazy commando on that mode?

 

Of course Opcode you can also go the other way and do the hidden "duck hunt" multplayer mode would be great.. in Duck Hunt for NES if your buddy picks up the other controller he/she can control one of the ducks on a drop in / drop out way.

 

I would love to see your games or modes that allow a 2nd player to pick up and become an enemy, I can only imagine the hi jinks of taking control of Donkey Kong (as someone mentioned earlier) or a Fireball / Foxfire, or being able to control 1 enemy spy at a time on elevator action, if the spy dies the player gets to control another one... I think anyway a game can mess with your friend would be a riot on your games... and of course if no one joins then the game just goes on without a care in the world.

 

In any case just some suggestions since you are so receptive to listening to crazy ideas like mine! ha ha I just appreciate you listening..

 

Wow it sure is fun dreaming up modes for these games..

Edited by imstarryeyed
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If you want an idea for a whole new game I suggest a sequel to Moon Patrol, perhaps called "Mars Patrol" or something, I've always thought that game deserved a direct follow up! I once played around making one myself using Yo Yo Game's Gamemaker program and got a little ways into it but gave it up because I didn't have the spare time.

I like this idea for a future game but how would you make it different to Moon Patrol?

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For Galaga it would be cool to mix some elements from all of the Galaga series into the enhanced mode. You can have a pathway system that offers different routes to get to the different Boss ships (similar to Galaga 88). You can have different weapon systems. Some where you can get a three ship mount (Galaga 88) and another where you cam capture enemies to fight along with you via a tractor beam (Galaga 3). You can also have speedy shots, lasers, three way bullets, and bombs. You can collect dimensional pods that will allow you to change paths after challenge stages (Galaga 88), but also get dimensional time pods that will reverse direction of the stage (kind of like Galaga 3's stages that go backwards) to potentially allow you to change a dimensional direction that you previously missed. During these stages that reverse if you collect another time dimension pod you can get transported to the past where you attack Galaxian ships. You can also change the way your ship behaves during this point by slowing things down changing the bullets that you shoot to match those of the Galaxian game (slow) and potentially collect an item during these times that will allow you to steer your bullets (Like some Galaxian machines).

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I like this idea for a future game but how would you make it different to Moon Patrol?

The ideas I was working on were basically to keep the game play like the original but add a whole lot of new characters and scenarios, like going into caverns with falling stalactites you have to shoot and low ceilings you have to be careful not to hit when jumping, also instead of going uphill you go downhill at one point and have to backwards jumps over boulders rolling down the other way, also having level bosses of some kind would be cool. It's all ideas that of course could be implemented in the original but with all the additional things I was thinking of it might as well be a sequel, not to mention you have the excuse to make serious changes to the background.

 

Back to Galaga - How about a bonus round where you take on a formation of the Space Invader aliens? Or to be funny have one where you're in the game Carnival and shooting the targets with the Galaga ship?

Edited by Tornadoboy
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I was just talking to the hardware team. They asked me about including the 68000. We discussed some of the pros and cons. The pros are fairly obvious, the cons are mostly related to the SGM2. As you know, SGM2 and OMNi share the same architecture. If we go 68000, things start to get complicated with the SGM2. I don't want two platforms, I want a single platform that I can feed. So my question is, and I don't think I ever asked that before, how important is the SGM2 for you? Do you favor the SGM2 more, the OMNI more, or just don't care (meaning you are fine with either)?

One idea the hardware team floated was to make the SGM2 only partially compatible with OMNi (Z80 mode), while the OMNI adds a 68000 mode. Not sure if I like that either. Or we can just keep things as they are, Z80 only. Please feel free to comment. Decisions must be made ASAP.

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I was just talking to the hardware team. They asked me about including the 68000. We discussed some of the pros and cons. The pros are fairly obvious, the cons are mostly related to the SGM2. As you know, SGM2 and OMNi share the same architecture. If we go 68000, things start to get complicated with the SGM2. I don't want two platforms, I want a single platform that I can feed. So my question is, and I don't think I ever asked that before, how important is the SGM2 for you? Do you favor the SGM2 more, the OMNI more, or just don't care (meaning you are fine with either)?

One idea the hardware team floated was to make the SGM2 only partially compatible with OMNi (Z80 mode), while the OMNI adds a 68000 mode. Not sure if I like that either. Or we can just keep things as they are, Z80 only. Please feel free to comment. Decisions must be made ASAP.

I'm going to go out on a limb and simply say that you should concentrate on the Omni and create a cartridge adaptor for ColecoVision carts. If SGM support is built into the Omni, a cart adaptor should be all that is needed. For those who are interested in the Omni but already pre-ordered a CollectorVision Phoenix, they can simply buy the Omni and skip the cart adaptor if they wish.

 

Frankly, it doesn't make much sense to me to release such an advanced module for a 35-year-old problem-prone gaming console. This is the fact that motivated the creation of the CollectorVision Phoenix in the first place.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and simply say that you should concentrate on the Omni and create a cartridge adaptor for ColecoVision carts. If SGM support is built into the Omni, a cart adaptor should be all that is needed. For those who are interested in the Omni but already pre-ordered a CollectorVision Phoenix, they can simply buy the Omni and skip the cart adaptor if they wish.

 

Frankly, it doesn't make much sense to me to release such an advanced module for a 35-year-old problem-prone gaming console. This is the fact that motivated the creation of the CollectorVision Phoenix in the first place.

 

 

You have been missing team meetings. OMNI isn't backward compatible with ColecoVision. :P

 

EDIT: so yeah, no cartridge adaptor is possible, unless we put the whole ColecoVision inside the cartridge adaptor. Problem with being CV compatible is that we would need to go the FPGA route to get digital video, and I don't want to go FPGA.

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The key point here is probably the 68000, if it is worth the trouble or not. Advantage is compatibility with some more advanced arcades, some 16-bit computers, and the fact that a lot of developers may be familiar with it. Disadvantage is that it makes the system a dual boot system, thus more complicated to implement a SGM2, and the fact that (believe or not) the 68k is actually slower than the Z80 we are using, at least in theory.

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You have been missing team meetings. OMNI isn't backward compatible with ColecoVision. :P

 

EDIT: so yeah, no cartridge adaptor is possible, unless we put the whole ColecoVision inside the cartridge adaptor. Problem with being CV compatible is that we would need to go the FPGA route to get digital video, and I don't want to go FPGA.

 

Now I'm confuse. I thought OMNI can play Colecovision games.

 

So, OMNI is SGM2 only without Colecovision.

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Now I'm confuse. I thought OMNI can play Colecovision games.

 

So, OMNI is SGM2 only without Colecovision.

 

 

Technically SGM2 has no CV either, thus it must be attached to a CV. So SGM2 is OMNI+SGM1 attached to CV.

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I would love to see Gaplus also known as Galaga 3, one of my favorite versions of Galaga, being able to go up and down as well added a lot to the amped up frantic game-play.

Definitely Gaplus. It's one of the Galaxian series of games that's really crying out for a good home port, and the arrangement / remix potential (either on its own or in conjunction with other games in the series) is strong.

 

Those pics of Moon patrol looked great, I wonder if adding alien / Armageddon attack mode with lots of aliens, saucers, tanks and jumps would be fun with an added shield for both the aliens and the moon rover with some level of reflecting being interesting.. I wonder if something like this can be a Challenging stage, or modes that let you elect to use/ not use shield for those that want to go all crazy commando on that mode?

Also check out Horizon for some ideas on that front - it was the indirect sequel to Moon Patrol, and never saw release outside of Japan (or wide release within Japan, for that matter).

 

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I was just talking to the hardware team. They asked me about including the 68000. We discussed some of the pros and cons. The pros are fairly obvious, the cons are mostly related to the SGM2. As you know, SGM2 and OMNi share the same architecture. If we go 68000, things start to get complicated with the SGM2. I don't want two platforms, I want a single platform that I can feed. So my question is, and I don't think I ever asked that before, how important is the SGM2 for you? Do you favor the SGM2 more, the OMNI more, or just don't care (meaning you are fine with either)?

One idea the hardware team floated was to make the SGM2 only partially compatible with OMNi (Z80 mode), while the OMNI adds a 68000 mode. Not sure if I like that either. Or we can just keep things as they are, Z80 only. Please feel free to comment. Decisions must be made ASAP.

 

.

 

Firstly, definitely NOT fine with just the SGM2 and no Omni. An all new console rather than something that plugs into an increasingly ancient machine is the way to go if it was a case of one or the other. I see the advantage of having both though. Both likely have a market and that will increase game sales but having only the 68000 in the Omni may confuse people over compatibility. There already seems some confusion over the Omni's compatibility with Colecovision. I'm not confused. I know it's not compatible with CV games but some people do.

 

The key point here is probably the 68000, if it is worth the trouble or not. Advantage is compatibility with some more advanced arcades, some 16-bit computers, and the fact that a lot of developers may be familiar with it. Disadvantage is that it makes the system a dual boot system, thus more complicated to implement a SGM2, and the fact that (believe or not) the 68k is actually slower than the Z80 we are using, at least in theory.

 

.

 

The 68000 sounds cool and it would be a nice bonus but I'm still interested in the Omni without it. Hope this helps. All the best.

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It was already dual processor (see the description in my first post), but then we had two Z80 compatible CPU. What they are suggesting now is that we replace one Z80 with a 68000. For games that require Z80s, like DK, the machine can still work Z80 only. For games that may require a 68000, (let’s say we decide to port Gauntlet), then the system would work 68000+Z80.

I am still giving the idea some thought, to see how I feel about that in a couple of weeks, before deciding anything. So for now consider that as “tentative”

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I was just talking to the hardware team. They asked me about including the 68000. We discussed some of the pros and cons. The pros are fairly obvious, the cons are mostly related to the SGM2. As you know, SGM2 and OMNi share the same architecture. If we go 68000, things start to get complicated with the SGM2. I don't want two platforms, I want a single platform that I can feed. So my question is, and I don't think I ever asked that before, how important is the SGM2 for you? Do you favor the SGM2 more, the OMNI more, or just don't care (meaning you are fine with either)?

One idea the hardware team floated was to make the SGM2 only partially compatible with OMNi (Z80 mode), while the OMNI adds a 68000 mode. Not sure if I like that either. Or we can just keep things as they are, Z80 only. Please feel free to comment. Decisions must be made ASAP.

 

So I'll play devil's advocate here and say "both", as in both SGM2 and OMNI are important, so I would still prefer both. When you announced this as not only being an enhanced SGM but also OMNI compatible that's what sold me.

 

I liked the idea of not only getting a new SGM that was backwards compatible with the SGM1 but with a little something extra, and also the fact that I would also get to play OMNI games without an OMNI.

 

If there is any way to keep both, that's what I vote for.

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The market you are trying to build is very small from the outgo - splitting the market isn't a decision I'd recommend, not to mention the need to support two different platforms. So if you're going to do both a standalone and an add-on, it'd be silly to make them incompatible with each other.

 

If it were me, I'd also try to make them both run on the same PCB. The cost of manufacturing two separate casings alone is crazy, but to design and debug two separate PCBs in isolation is a lot of work for a small team. If you can reduce that workload, you have a better chance of reaching the goal.

 

From a developer's standpoint, you're releasing videos of software running on a machine and you're still trying to decide the CPU configuration. ;) If you want to support other developers, I'd recommend you make sure that the design of the system is solid. You are going to need to describe the machine (in detail) to other people if you want strong support for it. That starts with a strong design and follows up with strong documentation.

 

My advice would be to take a step backwards, and start with the question "what do I want to do with this hardware?" Get your design on paper and then build that design.

 

It's very easy today to add advanced features that we only dreamt of 30 years ago, which makes it too easy to get stuck in feature creep and never get done. Stay strong! ;)

 

But that's all just armchair advice, discard at will. ;)

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