Tweaking Hawkquest's game balance

[Bobo Cujo]

@kiwilove and I (and others) were discussing Hawkquest's game balance in the Joy2B thread, and we generally agree that even with separate fire/bomb buttons, the game might be in need of some game balance tweaks to make the game a little easier.

Quote from the aforementioned thread: "Overall the game is probably too tough and needs some hacking to make it more playable/fun for the general player.  I do have some ideas but may not be so easy to implement?"

 

I personally feel that the right gameplay foundations are in place (it's still the most ambitious Xevious-inspired shooter I've ever seen on the Atari 8-bit, including the actual Atari Xevious prototype); it just needs some tweaks to prevent cheap player deaths.  (I say this as someone who actually prefers harder games, but we ideally want the "you-were-fairly-warned" kind of Hard...)

 

@kiwilove What ideas did you have for tweaking the game?

Here are some ideas I have (not an exhaustive list) based on (repeatedly getting blown up in) my Joy2B-testing playthroughs:

 

Flying sections:

• Make it easier to actually hit targets:
  • Widen the shot sprite to make it easier to hit air targets.
  • Allow at least 2 simultaneous bombs onscreen, or if that's not possible, increase the speed of the bombs, a la "Flak".  There's a ton of onscreen bomb targets, and it'd be mighty satisfying to be able to destroy more of them...
  • Have the simultaneous shot maximum be independent from the simultaneous bomb maximum (right now it's 2 shots, 1 of which can be a bomb)
  • Increase the width of the bomb's hitbox to allow easier destruction of ground targets.
• Prevent cases where the player can get trapped/insta-killed a bit too easily:
  • Decrease the width of the player's hitbox - the chopper's rotors make it a bit of a wide target. This alone might prevent a fair amount of the deaths.
    • (I assume it's using standard P/M collisions for this; we may have to switch to software collisions that kick in if a P/M collision is detected).
  • Reduce the speed of the really fast flying enemies - they're overly hard to dodge without trial and error, and the Atari's landscape screen orientation inherently means less lead time for the player to react to them.
  • Similarly, ensure that the flying enemies don't ever move at the same speed as the player (in the x or y direction) to enable easier dodging.
  • Change the splitting formation patterns to prevent funneling the player into hard-to-dodge traps.
  • Don't allow flying enemy explosions to also be fatal to the player - that just makes the flying enemies even more unnecessarily hard to dodge.
    • (I assume the collision logic is parsing the explosion as still technically being an enemy, and counting it as a fatal collision)
  • If a player respawns near where a swarm of fast-flying enemies would normally appear, don't respawn those enemies too (this one in particular caused a bunch of instant deaths for me on new lives).
  • Give some visual cue (in the status bar?) before a flying enemy suddenly comes up from below.  Or perhaps prevent them from spawning from the bottom if the player is at the bottom of the screen.
  • The "shotgun blast" flying enemies should be destructable, and perhaps only come in one at a time - their bullets shouldn't be that fast either.
  • For the Bacura-alikes, change the randomization a bit/de-densify them to prevent cases where moving between them is nearly impossible.  (I've been funneled into what are effectively dead ends before.)
  • Make more of the ground targets unable to fire at you if the player has flown past them or is flying very close to them (since the player can't fire backwards); either that, or suppress such firing if there's a bunch of air targets onscreen.
• Maybe make the earlier planets easier so that there's a noticeable step up in difficulty in each new planet.
• Side question: is there an actual tactical advantage to making a second attack run upon destroying the forcefield?

 

On-foot sections:

• Give the player more of a visual clue on the traps so that the player isn't just instantly frozen in some places (thus turning the player into an instant punching bag) - either that, or just equip players with the trap finder from the start.
• Make enemy spawners stay dead even if they're scrolled off-screen.
• Allow the user to retry the on-foot section by pressing the fire button on game over (just like the flying sections)
• Given the emphasis on exploration, perhaps start the player with the maximum amount of marines, especially given how easily players can get killed off in the flying section.  

 

To compensate for the increased player fairness but decreased difficulty, perhaps it'd be good to put in a score/performance-based ranking/bonus system so that players can get rewarded for playing the game optimally and destroying a bunch of enemies (a la Star Raiders's end game ranking) - max scores/ranking per level could potentially be stored in the save file.

 

Regarding implementation difficulty: 

We have a fair amount of memory to play with (basically what's under what would be the OS rom that hasn't been taken up by existing new routines); it's more a matter of trying to figure out how the rest of the code works and what variables do what.  Neither @playsoft or I have dug too deeply into this; it's probably a fairly large undertaking.

With that said, if someone does do that, the actual changes might not be too hard.  Some of them will be harder than others to implement, of course...

[kiwilove]

I do appreciate someone wanting to implement some changes (hacks) to Hawkquest - to make it more enjoyable for the average gamer.  Andrew Bradfield did the all of the playtesting for the main game - whereas I'm responsible for the Secondary Game which is more reliant upon how the playfield is set up - that is where important items are hidden and how you must navigate the maze in order to complete the tasks required.

I'll mention that the source code files are available - but I don't know what versions of it, I do have.  So it is available somewhere on a CD I need to locate.  A technical document is on that Hawkquest help website I referred to elsewhere that might be helpful?

 

I did have a think about what possible (easy?) changes that could be made?

 

If you can make the game avoid the nasty death from a nearby gun source - that would make the game less frustrating, I'd guess.

Which I can guess is not an easy change to make.

 

Anyway some easy changes - I have in mind - might be:

 

You could make the missiles fire speed slow or slower.  There are either 2 or 4 missiles on screen - when there are ships present or not present on screen.  So you typically move around not going back on your path to avoid the missiles.

 

I think the hidden targets being a single character is hard to bomb amidst playing the game - so what you could do is to group hidden characters (the same) say in a group of 4 or 6 characters - therefore being an easy target.  Once you know where they are (they can be in obvious places) you can then easily up your lives or get the invincibility.  You could maybe award say 5 extra lives instead of the one?  And make the invincibility say 5 times longer? or less?

 

The source files should have the landscape files - from which you can make the changes to the landscapes.

 

It would be helpful to have an idea of where exactly the hidden targets are.

At the moment only the vertical position is noted - and a light lights up on the panel when a target is at the top of the screen.  It's horizontal position is not revealed.

So a nice change may be - to have the crosshair being target sensitive - and a light light up when the crosshair is over a hidden target?

 

 

With the Secondary Game - I think it would be very helpful to indicate your last few lives - say the 5 remaining.  A warming you are LOW on lives.  So a suggestion is - that at 5 lives remaining - colour change be to the top or bottom of the screen.  This colour changes to indicate 5, 4, 3, 2 then 1 life left.  5 could be blue, 4 be purple, 3 be yellow, 2 be orange and 1 be red.

 

The hidden extra life in the game (is there one?  I'm not sure - as been a long time since I last worked proper on this game) could be a 5 lives pickup?  Or else put one in for this purpose.

 

There should be a way so that you can boot/load straight into a Secondary Game - via the game saves.  This was an option with the boot disks as such - so to have this present in the cart version - would be nice to have?  You boot from one of the other disk sides - I forget which side?  Maybe Side 2 disk 1?  Or perhaps it was Side 1 Disk 2?

 

I'll repeat that in Level 2 - the Secondary Game does use completely new graphics and layouts - and the game play does vary.

 

I do presume that Hawkquest does stand out - as being a rather unique game - and it would be nice to see it become more playable and more fun to play - instead of it being the rock hard game it currently is.

 

I would take a guess that few people have sampled the various secondary games - surely it's not as hard as Shamus?

 

Harvey

 

 

[kiwilove]

A side note - It should be possible for someone keen enough to?

To design their own graphics and levels for Hawkquest?

 

I used very simple tools.

To edit/assemble a character set, I used the Antic Character Editor from Byte magazine - a BASIC program.

The maps were done using Fontbyter from Compute! magazine - a BASIC program.

 

I would draw designs with Fun With Art because I like the copy mode/brush in that.

It has a zoom function.

 

I would copy the designs onto a special graph paper - ruled to those Antic 4 fat pixels.  Using coloured felt pens.

So that I can copy them into the Antic Character Editor.

 

See the technical document at 

http://hawkquest.tripod.com/hagraph.txt

http://hawkquest.tripod.com/hatech.txt

 

No doubt it is a lot of work to do - but it's almost like a Shoot 'em Up Construction Set but better?

 

Harvey

[+CharlieChaplin]

I recently bought an original disk of Hawkquest and would love to see it patched in several ways, so that gameplay is more enjoyable (and easier for a lamer like me)...

 

To tell the truth, I really like the Xevious-like part of the game, but I am not a fan of the secondary part of the game (jump and run a la Boulder Dash or Saracen) and would not mind if the game gets splitted into two parts (Hawkquest 1 with the Xevious-like game and Hawkquest 2 with the jump and run like game) - BUT I guess I am the only one who feels that way...

 

Anyways, if I could get at least an easier and therefore more enjoyable version of Hawkquest, I would be very happy. 

 

[kiwilove]

10 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

I recently bought an original disk of Hawkquest and would love to see it patched in several ways, so that gameplay is more enjoyable (and easier for a lamer like me)...

 

To tell the truth, I really like the Xevious-like part of the game, but I am not a fan of the secondary part of the game (jump and run a la Boulder Dash or Saracen) and would not mind if the game gets splitted into two parts (Hawkquest 1 with the Xevious-like game and Hawkquest 2 with the jump and run like game) - BUT I guess I am the only one who feels that way...

 

Anyways, if I could get at least an easier and therefore more enjoyable version of Hawkquest, I would be very happy. 

 

I don't really understand (in your comments) what you don't like about the Secondary Game of Hawkquest?  It's nothing like Boulderdash - are you saying you think a boulderdash like game would be better in it?

I'll take a guess that most people did not like it - because they don't understand how it is played?  Not having instructions because of this?  I hoped that it would satisfy those who wanted more from Shamus and Gauntlet?  You go on a kind of scavenger hunt - where you need to find 3 essential items - usually blaster upgrade first, then Trapfinder (activate this when you have it, by pressing T) then explosive (Press E at the crystal door to bomb it) - for when you find where the missing crystal piece is located.  To bomb the door to gain access to it.  Then find the Teleporter exit. (akin to Boulderdash's exit point).  If it's too easy, you would complete it on your first try.  You probably need about 50? lives to start off with - in order to be able to do a reasonable mapping on your first try?  The game saves are there - so that you can have several retries to eventually map out the level.

Though I worked on this game - I still can't remember how it all happened as to it's game design.  How much did Andrew put in - and what parts did I suggest?  Or was it all Andrew's game design right from the start?  There were at least 2 other programmers I tried working with - but nothing happened from those contacts - maybe because they were in other parts of NZ, whereas with Andrew being in the same city makes a big difference?

 

For a simple trained hack of the main game - I could suggest that it be that you'll have unlimited lives - but a counter is kept of the lives you used up - for when you reach and bomb the entrance to the Secondary Game.  That a lower number of lives - rewards you with many surplus men (100?) at the start of the Secondary Game.  And a high count will give you only around 20? men.  That this is some kind of incentive to play seriously to get through it.

 

Harvey

[Bobo Cujo]

18 hours ago, kiwilove said:

See the technical document at 

http://hawkquest.tripod.com/hagraph.txt

http://hawkquest.tripod.com/hatech.txt

That...is one very comprehensive memory map. ?

 

Now that we know where all the variables are, it should be easier to play around with things.

Thank you for providing this @kiwilove!

[kiwilove]

2 hours ago, Bobo Cujo said:

That...is one very comprehensive memory map. ?

 

Now that we know where all the variables are, it should be easier to play around with things.

Thank you for providing this @kiwilove!

Andrew did leave behind that document with me.

It would be nice to see something done with HQ.  It's around 30 years now since it was finished - and in a year's time it will be some 20 years since his passing - which he did when only 35.

 

One major upgrade - that I could think of - if it's at all possible?  Is maybe to add animation to the enemy ships?

And/or add some new air attacks into the game.

 

If someone does show interest in designing some new landscapes - the advantage of doing so - is that they can be used in any other similar game - and an easy one they can get started on doing - is one based on Espial's graphics.  I probably had the intention of doing this (because I did it for a mock-up that preceded work started on HQ) - and have now forgotten why it got left out altogether.

 

Seems like I can't find the source files CD right away - it may take me some time to find them.

I still have the original disks with the source files on them - so if I can't find the CD - I can then send the floppies again - off to anyone who want/can to do the transfers.

 

Harvey

[Gunstar]

21 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

I recently bought an original disk of Hawkquest and would love to see it patched in several ways, so that gameplay is more enjoyable (and easier for a lamer like me)...

 

To tell the truth, I really like the Xevious-like part of the game, but I am not a fan of the secondary part of the game (jump and run a la Boulder Dash or Saracen) and would not mind if the game gets splitted into two parts (Hawkquest 1 with the Xevious-like game and Hawkquest 2 with the jump and run like game) - BUT I guess I am the only one who feels that way...

 

Anyways, if I could get at least an easier and therefore more enjoyable version of Hawkquest, I would be very happy. 

 

I've only known of Hawkquest's existence the last few years, and wished I had the game years ago when I had more time and better reflex's. I've had the opportunity to try the game a few times, it's overwhelmingly difficult. I tried several different starting planets, etc., to see if there was a change in difficulty. If I had time, I could eventually master it, especially if memorization is possible, and it's not randomized.

 

The point in quoting being that I was unaware that there was a secondary run & jump part of the game at all! Is it as difficult as the Xevious-style parts? The game definitely needs some work to make it playable, but I don't know if I'd want it split up or not yet, as I've never been able to see and enjoy it all the way it is now. 

 

 

[kiwilove]

11 hours ago, Gunstar said:

I've only known of Hawkquest's existence the last few years, and wished I had the game years ago when I had more time and better reflex's. I've had the opportunity to try the game a few times, it's overwhelmingly difficult. I tried several different starting planets, etc., to see if there was a change in difficulty. If I had time, I could eventually master it, especially if memorization is possible, and it's not randomized.

 

The point in quoting being that I was unaware that there was a secondary run & jump part of the game at all! Is it as difficult as the Xevious-style parts? The game definitely needs some work to make it playable, but I don't know if I'd want it split up or not yet, as I've never been able to see and enjoy it all the way it is now. 

 

 

The Secondary Game is not a run and jump game, nor like Boulderdash - but more along the likes of Shamus/Gauntlet with a Scavenger Hunt thrown in.  It was possible to boot straight into a Secondary Game save from Side 1 Disk 2?  And there was I think saves there right away for the 5 different planets in Level 1?

The difficulty level was perhaps about the same as Flak?  Andrew could play right through Shamus - and showed me how.  I did get him started off by mapping Level 1 and part of Level 2 in Shamus and drew the maps for the rest of Shamus.  Andrew did the playtesting and setting of difficulty for HQ.

I took advantage of knowing where I placed the various hidden targets in the main game - so it was easier for me to play it rhrough, though it was still a very hard game.

Here is a map for Mycea showing these targets.  Tidied this up a bit from it's original posting at http://hawkquest.tripod.com/

Hawkquest was a PAL only game until Paul fixed it for NTSC in it's 8mbit Flashcart version.

 

Harvey

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by kiwilove

[HolmesA8]

Hi Harvey , think I have a copy of the Source files so have flick you a PM with them.

[kiwilove]

OK for anyone who's interested in the source files for Hawkquest.  Here's something to get you going.

Please check out these two diskettes.  They appear to be the same?  What is exactly on these disks?

 

I think there's a lot more source files diskettes - which I should eventually find.

I would have expected all the graphic files to be included on the disks somewhere?

Or did Andrew keep all those on separate disks?HK_SRC2.ATR HK_SRC1.ATR

Many thanks to HolmesA8 - who did transfer these files some 20 odd years ago. Or was it less than 20?

 

Harvey

[kiwilove]

OK - here are all the source files I have regarding Hawkquest.  Problem is - I don't know which one is the 'final' version of it.  But also the original graphic source files are here too - which makes it easy for someone to try experimenting with them, so as to create their own personal landscapes and targets within them.

MGPB1A.ATRMGPB1B.ATRMGPB2A.ATRMGPB2B.ATRMGPB3A.ATRMGPB3B.ATR

SGPB1A.ATRSGPB1B.ATRSGPB2A.ATRSGPB2B.ATRSGPB3A.ATRSGPB3B.ATR

GAM1GRA1.ATRGAM1GRA2.ATRSECGAME.SRC.atr

HK_GAM1.ATRHK_GAM2.ATR

And as a bonus - I've included as a bonus - Andrew's previous work before Hot Copter / Laser Hawk - which I think are Assembler/Editor cart files - these last 2 files are probably the just same one, repeated?  It's been a while since I last run them - they are Space Patrol Missions 1 to 3?  These are not that playable as such - but it'll give hope to those who are learning 6502 assembler - that you do start with a simple game that makes use of the hardware - and you eventually get bigger and bigger and more adventuresome in what you are working on.  Videos of these I have put on youtube.

 

Harvey

Edited September 30, 2020 by kiwilove

[TIX]

Hey @Bobo Cujo, @kiwilove,

I don't know if you are still willing to update the game,

but a couple of months ago I came up with an alternate chopper sprite and forgot about it..

I kept the same dimensions and frames (except I made it 1 pixel thinner).

 

so I leave it here in case it's of any use  ?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by TIX

[kiwilove]

9 hours ago, TIX said:

Hey @Bobo Cujo, @kiwilove,

I don't know if you are still willing to update the game,

but a couple of months ago I came up with an alternate chopper sprite and forgot about it..

I kept the same dimensions and frames (except I made it 1 pixel thinner).

 

so I leave it here in case it's of any use  ?

 

 

 

 

 

Note - I've never done any updates on the original games myself, so I don't know how to do that.

Also I'm busy with a new project.

 

Harvey

 

[Bobo Cujo]

I haven't had a chance to dive as deeply into this as I originally wanted (and I too got distracted with a new project), but a few thoughts:

 

It may be a bit harder to tweak the underlying game logic than I originally thought...

Some months ago (after my last post) I did try to double the speed of the bombs to increase the player's ability to quickly take out multiple ground targets.

While I was able to do that, it turns out that the animation for blowing up buildings is dependent on being able to finish before the next bomb lands - otherwise, the second (quickly fired) bomb interrupts the previous animation and apparently corrupts the state of the logic for actually destroying the buildings, resulting in half-blown up buildings and subsequent bombs not actually destroying buildings ?

 

It may be possible to more safely double the speed of the player shots, but that also entails doubling the height of the shots themselves to ensure that collisions aren't missed - I haven't tried this yet.

 

It's getting a bit difficult to keep track of further hacks, even with @playsoft's project files above, since it still requires doing manual patches in the original disk images.

I was hoping to try to assemble @kiwilove's aforementioned source code disk images into something that could build in MADS (with @playsoft's changes integrated, of course) so that it'd be easier to modify and more maintainable.

To that end, does anyone know of a utility that can batch-extract files from an ATR and auto-convert them from ATASCII to ASCII?  (ATR Tools can convert and extract files, but it has to be done manually on a file by file basis ? )

 

@TIX I could try to put in those sprites, but I kind of want to see how far the balance tweaks can go first - one particular thing I noticed is that as nice as the chopper looks, its wide sprite causes it to be a wide target for getting hit, since that's dependent on P/M collisions.  Ideally, we'd add some additional software collision checks to see if the object in question collided with just the frame of the chopper, but that might be a little more difficult to integrate - another reason it'd be nice to have a full source-level project to work with ?

[Wrathchild]

1 hour ago, Bobo Cujo said:

a utility that can batch-extract files from an ATR and auto-convert them from ATASCII to ASCII

Use Altirra to map an H: drive and then copy the files to, for example, H6: as the conversion is done for you

[kiwilove]

There was always various fixes or hacks that could be considered if they were feasible or easy to do.  However they may end up in the too hard department.

I think a major complaint about the game would be the unfair firing of a gun, when you are so close to it.  Seeing this is just a game and not real life - but then there's the programming required to correct this for gamers.  If you can work on the source files and able to incorporate this fix - it should be a more enjoyable and fairer game to play?

The other matter - that should have been done as part of it's original design - I don't know why it didn't come up?  Is for the targeting cursor to confirm the presence of a 'hidden target'.  That this should light up one of the panel lights - with a sound cue to confirm this. (Maybe the cursor should light up too - if it's possible to do?)

Currently, I think a panel light does light up, when a hidden target at the top row of the screen - but no clue as to it's horizontal position.  If my memory is correct on this?

I never thought about having faster bombing - but then that issue about overlapping two explosions comes up.

 

A simple hack would be to increase more extra helicopters and longer invincibility for hitting hidden targets.

 

The Secondary Game could do with a few improvements.  Such as a reminder when you're down to your last 5? men - Maybe have the bottom part of the screen change colour - like a dark Green, Blue, Orange Yellow, Red.  You can't lose a life after being shot - to avoid multiple kills within 2? seconds. Don't know the easiest way to set this up - and for it to not look so odd?

 

Thanks for all your work Bobo.

 

Harvey

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by kiwilove