Tap-A-Mole (BETA) - IS IT DONE?

[+sramirez2008]

Yes!!! They have arrived. Guess what I’ll be playing soon.?

[+sramirez2008]

Well, I clearly need more practice. Right now I could only compete for the “You Suck” patch. This game is lots of fun. I like all of the sounds you have chosen.?

 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

9 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

Well, I clearly need more practice. Right now I could only compete for the “You Suck” patch. This game is lots of fun. I like all of the sounds you have chosen.?

I highly recommend taping the controllers together on the back as I did on the show as they can slip a bit once it gets hectic. From there it's all about finding a home base for your left and right hand, I believe I went with both thumbs across the 789 on either side. It allowed me to quickly move up 2 rows or down one and then reset back to 789 each time.

 

All that being said, it's a challenging but fun game! Keep trying!

 

- James

 

 

[TrekMD]

This looks cool!  Thanks for sharing!

[quohog]

On 8/17/2020 at 3:38 PM, sramirez2008 said:

Well, I clearly need more practice. Right now I could only compete for the “You Suck” patch. This game is lots of fun. I like all of the sounds you have chosen.?

 

That's an awesome score! And I'm super happy you got the real hardware. I really like how these controllers feel in your hand and I want to make more games for them. I just hope people can play them.

 

PS I also tape the back.

[Omegamatrix]

I dug out my Atari and Keyboard paddles, a feat of epic proportions considering how many boxes were on them! I played a few games and this was my best score. I'm no great gamer that's for sure. ?

 

 

 

I started to get the hang of it after a while. I kept my thumbs on button 8 as a home position. I have a couple of suggestions for the game:

 

1) A pause feature using the black & white switch would be nice. If you do that try and code it so whatever the position the switch is at power up becomes the "non-paused" position to avoid the game starting up and appearing frozen.

2) It would be nice to start a new game after X amount of seconds by simply pressing any button on the controller.

3) The exclamation mark does not really jump out to me. Consider another color, perhaps white.

4) If your kernel can support this, consider having a different color bonus mole appear from time to time. The bonus mole would quickly move to other holes before disappearing. If it doesn't get wacked, no punishment. If it does get wacked then it is a big bonus point. The player will have to risk going for it as they could lose a life if other moles get away.

 

 

Great first game!

 

Jeff

[quohog]

Wow, thanks for digging out the optimal mole whacking hardware, @Omegamatrix! I appreciate the effort. Did you apply the special mole-grabber tape to the back so they don't slip?

 

1) Yes! I have been appreciating the pause feature a lot lately when playing Ladybug and Klax. But I think it might not be necessary now because I've added a starting bell. Continuing my pattern of stealing from Kaboom, now you press the lower, right button to start a game, and to start each round. So, if you're like me and your head gets itchy when under pressure, you can pause between every round and take care of your nervous scratches.

2) Start bell to the rescue!

3) Yeah, I've been messing with flashing colors and nothing really grabs me. But actually as I'm typing this I just got a great idea, so thanks I owe it all to you! Ha ha ha!

4) That's a great idea. I wonder if I could or should combine that with another idea I had of twin moles--moles that pop up and match and you have to press two buttons at once to whack them. But maybe these are two separate ideas. hm... hmmm.....? I'll put these on the task list along with the "do not whack" mole/bomb.

 

I'll attach a screenshot of the current game. I'll put up a new rom after I fix some nasty bugs. You can see the starting bell in the lower right corner. You hit it with the hammer to start the game and each round. I like it, but I'm not happy with my "ding" sound. Anyone have any idea how to make a good "ding" sound? I've tried using tones 4 and 12 and wiggling the volume up and down and it sounds okay as far as the ringing goes... but it doesn't have that really sharp attack like a hammer hitting a bell. The D in "ding" is missing.

 

Also, I'm still on the fence (literally) about some of the visual touches I've added. The game had a really simple graphical look before. But I felt like breaking up the horizon with some grass. And the flowers just kind of happened. And it seemed rude to make a game with so many homages to Activision and not add a sunrise. But now is it too much? Need to sit with it for a while. 

 

Anyway, I'll fix some bugs and put it up, then I want to do a big refactor to crunch down its rom footprint so I can try to add two-player competitive version. I also got a save key slot from Albert. Lots to do! 

 

Thanks again for playing!

[Omegamatrix]

I was holding the controller basically as shown in the photo. I think the bell is a neat idea for starting, and solves the pause problem. I like the background though I'm colorblind and it blurs out the bottom of the fence for me. It could just be Stella's overbright colors though.

 

A two player version would be lots of fun. Is you goal to keep the game at 4K?

 

In terms of a ding you might find looking a waveform in Audacity is a good start. Audacity has tools for doing spectrum analysis as well. I picture the waveform as having a fundamental frequency with a decaying sinusodial envelope. There are also a few great programs for creating sound around the forums, like TIATracker or Atari-Riff-Machine. Those might work really well.

 

Here is a rom I made a years ago. It's limited, as it just decays both AUDV0 and AUDV1 to zero. Might be okay for a stab in the dark at ding sound.

Audio.zip

 

 

There's also a rom by DINTAR816 that has a lot more functionality. Finally you can try Crazy Tunes game #4 (Gonzo, Beethoven's Nightmare). Crazy tunes is good for live mixing, and Gonzo lists the tone and frequencies. I also find Gonzo a heck of a lot of fun for jamming. It's like being a kid all over again in the departmart store playing on a keyboard.

 

 

 

 

[+D Train]

On 8/31/2020 at 12:50 AM, quohog said:

But now is it too much?

looks great!

[TrekMD]

I got myself a pair of keyboard controllers so I can play this game! 

[flickertail]

Yes, looks very good!

[quohog]

Hello, mole whackers!

 

New version of Tap-A-Mole! Lucky version 13!

 

Now featuring: 

• 2 player competitive mode!
• a/b difficulty!
• Honey Moles!
• starting bell !
• sunrise!
• mole laughter!
• gratuitous flowers!

 

Two player competitive mode
Press SELECT to switch between regular game 1, and 2 player game 2.
Give each player one keyboard and play at the same time. First player to 99 points wins!

 

A/B difficulty
Difficulty A: If you swing and miss, your hammer gets stuck 
Difficulty B: No penalty for missed swings
For single player game, use left difficulty

 

Honey Moles
Watch out! The moles have filled a sack with honey as a decoy! Hit this Honey Mole and your hammer will get stuck! You can spot the Honey Mole by it's bright yellow eyes. Honey Mole dgaf!

 

Starting Bell
Either player strikes the bell in the lower left hole to start a new game or round. 

Whew! I feel like I'm just about done with this game! It was hard to know when to quit, but I only have 11 bytes of ROM left so it seems like I'm close.  

 

I'd love to get your feedback. Especially on:

• Right now, the 2 player game uses only the left side field. It bugs me sometimes that it's not centered, but to do that I'd have to write a new kernel and I'm not sure if it's worth finding the ROM.
• What do you think of Honey Moles? Do they add anything? I'm not sure! They don't look as good as I'd like, but I'm very tight on time in my mole kernel. But are they fun? Maybe? Do they ever fool you? Or do can you easily avoid them every time?
• Right now the 2p game follows the same round structure as the single player game, even though it's not really needed. But I'm also not sure if it's worth the ROM to take it out.

I've become very ROM conscious now that I only have 11 bytes left! 

 

Help needed: Anyone know an efficient way to auto-detect keyboard controllers? If you don't have any in right now the game thinks someone is mashing on the 0 button. I could test for that but I might get false positives if someone does mash the 0 button. There must be a better way, right?

 

Anyway, have fun whacking moles, and please let me know what you think!

 

I'll also put this version in the original post.

TapAMole.13.bin

[quohog]

PS My current high scores on this version are 

difficulty B: 3069

difficulty A: 1643

[KevKelley]

I love it! I had been wondering about this game for a while, as I have been looking forward to playing it with my sons.

 

There was also that image of the custom cart with the mole poking through. I was wondering if you had any success making it? I am a fan of custom carts and thought it really cool and had a thought of if it seemed to difficult, what if the end label area as customized instead with?

[TIX]

Cute and fun game !! I love your moles ?

keyboard controllers ordered,  great job !

 

As for the 2 player game, why not each player have his own field  ? with the same moles appearing in both to be fair !

Edited December 13, 2020 by TIX

[vitoco]

13 hours ago, TIX said:

As for the 2 player game, why not each player have his own field  ? with the same moles appearing in both to be fair !

I guess he cannot do that without flickering, as both players are being used for a single mole, and they cannot appear in the same row at the same time.

 

Alternatively, they could appear in the opposite row (1 and 6, 2 and 5, ... , 6 and 1), but 11 bytes is not enough for that.

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by vitoco

[quohog]

I’m only using one player for the mole and the ball for its face, so the second mole would have to be faceless. Or have flicker face?

 

It’s a cool idea, but I think having the players race for the same mole is more competitive feeling than every player getting their own mole. Could be wrong though!

[vitoco]

29 minutes ago, quohog said:

I’m only using one player for the mole and the ball for its face, so the second mole would have to be faceless. Or have flicker face?

The restriction is the same... and the result is great! Flicker free, please....  If the moles were wider, using the playfield instead of the ball could get the same effect, but is harder to map.

 

32 minutes ago, quohog said:

It’s a cool idea, but I think having the players race for the same mole is more competitive feeling than every player getting their own mole. Could be wrong though!

For me it's ok, except that I don't have keyboards (just one touch pad from Star Raiders), and I couldn't figure out which are all the keys in Stella emulator.

 

[quohog]

13 minutes ago, vitoco said:

For me it's ok, except that I don't have keyboards (just one touch pad from Star Raiders), and I couldn't figure out which are all the keys in Stella emulator.

Quote

Or you can play it on Stella and use your computer's keyboard instead. Just remember to open up Options->Game Properties->Controller and set both controllers to "Keyboard" and then exit Stella and reload the rom. Then you should be able to use the 1-2-3 and the keys below for the left keyboard controller, 8-9-0 and below for the right. You can also start Stella with the command line arguments "-bc Keyboard" to set that up.

 

[+Muddyfunster]

On 8/17/2020 at 10:18 PM, sramirez2008 said:

Yes!!! They have arrived. Guess what I’ll be playing soon.?

Glad you picked some of these up @sramirez2008

 

[vitoco]

45 minutes ago, quohog said:

Or you can play it on Stella and use your computer's keyboard instead. Just remember to open up Options->Game Properties->Controller and set both controllers to "Keyboard" and then exit Stella and reload the rom. Then you should be able to use the 1-2-3 and the keys below for the left keyboard controller, 8-9-0 and below for the right. You can also start Stella with the command line arguments "-bc Keyboard" to set that up.

I could figure out the keys for the right pad, but the only keys I found for the left one is the 4, which hits in the middle at the bottom, and the space bar for the bottom right. I'll have to check the config... I don't know if it is related to the Spanish keyboard I'm using.

 

[+sramirez2008]

57 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Glad you picked some of these up @sramirez2008

 

Oh, Do tell.

[BladeJunker]

Thanks so much making some new peripheral support, often wish somebody, anybody would make something for all the ones often ignored. Don't have keyboard controllers but when I do this will be something fun to use them with.

[chewy]

can you make a hack for sega controller/joystick? looks great

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Welcome to 2021 and Happy New Year! ZeroPage Homebrew will be playing the updated Tap-A-Mole on Friday's (Jan 8, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch!

 

Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• EggVenture (2021 Exclusive WIP Update) by Jurell Silks @ScumSoft
• Q*Bert (2021 Exclusive WIP Premiere) by Silvio Mogno @Silvio Mogno
• Tap-A-Mole (2020 WIP Update) by @quohog

 

 (SET VIDEO TO 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by ZeroPage Homebrew