PacManPlus Posted March 30, 2021 Author Share Posted March 30, 2021 Hey guys... RC1 attached. - Changed the display of the reserved lives to when the player appears on the screen, as mentioned above. - fixed Rapid Fire - Changed the Shot sound slightly - Slightly adjusted the difficulty (made 'normal' a tad easier). - Changed the alien diving sound to continue after the alien wraps the screen. Enjoy! Galaxian.A78 Galaxian.BIN 13 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, PacManPlus said: Hey guys... RC1 attached. - Changed the display of the reserved lives to when the player appears on the screen, as mentioned above. - fixed Rapid Fire - Changed the Shot sound slightly - Slightly adjusted the difficulty (made 'normal' a tad easier). - Changed the alien diving sound to continue after the alien wraps the screen. Just got through playing all three difficulty levels in both 1 and 2 player modes. The game is playing very nicely, and I don't have anything to add except for a couple of comments. Thank you for changing the reserved lives counter The fix for rapid fire is much appreciated. Normal's difficulty ramp-up is significantly improved. Level 2 felt like someone had thrown the difficulty switch to 'hard' between waves without my noticing. This is a much more sane-yet-challenging setting. The change to the alien diving sound is a definite improvement. Other than that, I'm noticing that I'm now starting to be about equally-good (read: mostly terrible ) at Normal and Hard difficulty. This is a good thing, because it means that i'm getting over the initial learning curve and beginning to get into the swing of how both of those levels play. It's a good mix of challenge, frustration, and wanting to progress, and I don't find playing them to be something I'm obligated to do to report back here. I'm actually seeking them out when I just play the game for the hell of it. Edited March 31, 2021 by x=usr(1536) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 RC1 plays really well. I didn't think I would care for the rapid fire, but I like it too.? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 I gave RC1 a quick play last night - I only played a couple runs on Normal. I think it’s a really nice ramp up in difficulty between waves; less frustrating than earlier builds and more fun. I will explore the other difficulties and the Rapid Fire mode later today. Overall, this is shaping up to be another excellent addition to the 7800 library. Thanks, Bob! ? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted March 31, 2021 Author Share Posted March 31, 2021 (edited) Just a curiosity thing here: I enabled Kangaroo mode this morning before work, as it would be great to be able to use that third color. However I wanted to get an opinion on this as doing so has the following effects: - You don't see the stars during the attract mode (except at the VERY bottom of the screen) - You don't see the stars behind the swarm when playing - You see the 'black boxes' behind the diving enemies when they are on top of the rest of the swarm - anything else I may have forgotten. Doing this will allow me to fully use the 'blue' for the flagship and the player, and possibly a third color for the other aliens, if I can re-work it. I forgot to post it this morning, so I'm doing it quickly now while I'm waiting for something to run here at work... What do you think? (Personally, the black boxes bother me too much). Galaxian.A78 Galaxian.BIN Edited March 31, 2021 by PacManPlus 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 28 minutes ago, PacManPlus said: What do you think? (Personally, the black boxes bother me too much). Just gave this a quick playthrough, and I'm in agreement with you. I don't feel that anything was lost with the previous graphics mode, but this one does make the limitations of Kangaroo mode fairly obvious. My vote's to keep it the way it was. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 I think the missing stars and especially the black boxes are not worth the little bit of extra blue that we get. I much prefer the previous version. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted March 31, 2021 Author Share Posted March 31, 2021 Ok, so we are in agreement. Good... 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 The scrolling, twinkling stars are kind of "the Galaxian look" for me. I haven't had a chance to try the latest test build yet, but that effect was perfect in previous versions and really help the game feel right to me. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 2 hours ago, DrVenkman said: The scrolling, twinkling stars are kind of "the Galaxian look" for me. Couldn’t agree more! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 7 hours ago, DrVenkman said: The scrolling, twinkling stars are kind of "the Galaxian look" for me. I haven't had a chance to try the latest test build yet, but that effect was perfect in previous versions and really help the game feel right to me. Agreed, also it looks like the aliens are each like in a box when they attack and this is especially noticeable when a flagship is accompanied by escorts, also the stars are a bit dim for me, the only reason I can even see stars at all in this build is because of the high contract (70/100) and brightness (75/100) settings I have my RF-to-HDMI demodulator set at (color intensity is set at neutral at 50 and tint is set at neutral at 0). The rapid fire mode makes it easier to knock off multiple ships at once when they're attacking, especially escorted flagships, potential for possible 800 point completions are dramatically increased, and the fact that it is now optional when holding down the fire button and being able to lay off of it when the button is not pressed is key. Now that we have that option this is even greater. Found the easy mode is fine for me, especially at my stage of trying to get back my old game legs from the 80s/90s when I could run up a pretty high score, normal is too difficult (but challenging) for me currently. Same thing also holds true for some other games too. Some I can handle normal level others not so much, but great build Bob. One thing I think we could all use is a little faster maneuverability of our ship at the bottom, the 5200 has that with its analog stick (two speeds), perhaps a little more speed in our movement of our ship might be useful in order to make it easier to escape from potential collisions and multiple bomb drops easier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted April 2, 2021 Share Posted April 2, 2021 ok. I gave the most recent version a go and I have to say it is REAL good. I'm still not a fan of the "shot" sound. But I played it back to back with the arcade version and it really "feels" like the arcade. I have to say this is definitely the "definitive" port of Galaxian. And believe me I've played the console version of Galaxian on many systems! On a side note I didn't care much for the kangaroo move version. Those boxes drive me crazy! LOL 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted April 2, 2021 Share Posted April 2, 2021 On 4/1/2021 at 1:39 AM, BIGHMW said: One thing I think we could all use is a little faster maneuverability of our ship at the bottom, the 5200 has that with its analog stick (two speeds), perhaps a little more speed in our movement of our ship might be useful in order to make it easier to escape from potential collisions and multiple bomb drops easier. This made me curious about the speed of the ship movement in both the 7800 and arcade versions, so I decided to do a side-by-side test. To compare with Bob's version, I had my laptop sitting next to the TV; the 7800 was connected to the TV. The laptop was running MAME and using the 'galaxian' and 'galaxianm' sets as my arcade references. Joystick on the 7800 was a CX78 with the mushroom stick screwed into the D-pad; this made it possible to operate the game one-handed, freeing up the other hand for operating MAME. Only Normal difficulty was used. Testing was as follows: Simultaneously start a new game on both MAME and the 7800. Wait for both player ships to appear. Jam the joystick hard right in both MAME and on the 7800, watch for the amount of time it took for the ships to reach the extreme edge of the screen, note any lag (i.e., one ship arriving at the edge before / after the other). Repeat for the opposite direction. Do this until you're fed up with it Taking into account the possibility of lag between when one hand moves the MAME ship and the other moves the 7800 ship, Bob's version was generally pretty much spot-on with the arcade versions. Both ships would reach the edge at near enough the same time as didn't matter. As an aside, running the arcade versions side-by-side with the 7800 version showed just how excellent Bob's translation of the original Z80 code for enemy movement to 6502 really is. Seeing the player make the same moves at the same time on both versions and watching the aliens leave the swarm and attack virtually identically on both is seriously awesome. Anyway, if the player's ship were to have a speed-up option of some sort, I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. While I generally have no issues with gameplay enhancements as long as they are selectable, the game is impressively arcade-accurate as it stands. And with rapid-fire already being a feature, adding in a faster ship just seems like it would take too much challenge out of the game. If there was an ending or different stages to get to I could see more of a case for things like that, but as each wave just repeats all it would really do is let the level counter increment with less effort than it takes now. Just my $0.02. It's no skin off my nose if it becomes a feature or not, but that's ultimately up to whether or not Bob wants to implement it. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted April 2, 2021 Author Share Posted April 2, 2021 Thank you so much! Being that I already messed up by posting the RC before next week (it was supposed to be during the developer spotlight), I did another update (I added the 'Game Over' text to the attract mode demo) If nobody finds any bugs, this will be the final one. Thanks again! Galaxian.A78 Galaxian.BIN 8 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted April 2, 2021 Share Posted April 2, 2021 Can I make one tiny suggestion? You can completely take it or leave it, and this is admittedly rather picayune and anal retentive - but it would drive me nuts if I didn't mention it: On the Title Screen, (which looks beautiful, by the way) - at the Bottom where it says Bandai-Namco - this drives me nuts because if the goal is to make it fairly arcade accurate - "Bandai" didn't exist yet in 1979, and their name didn't appear on the Arcade Title Card screens. Again - totally up to you, and you can laugh at me for it, but to me - this makes it feel more like a port from a Gameboy version, than the Arcade. Yes - I am crazy. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmervine Posted April 3, 2021 Share Posted April 3, 2021 Bob-played the RC for quite a while last night. Really nice work!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted April 3, 2021 Author Share Posted April 3, 2021 13 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said: Can I make one tiny suggestion? You can completely take it or leave it, and this is admittedly rather picayune and anal retentive - but it would drive me nuts if I didn't mention it: On the Title Screen, (which looks beautiful, by the way) - at the Bottom where it says Bandai-Namco - this drives me nuts because if the goal is to make it fairly arcade accurate - "Bandai" didn't exist yet in 1979, and their name didn't appear on the Arcade Title Card screens. Again - totally up to you, and you can laugh at me for it, but to me - this makes it feel more like a port from a Gameboy version, than the Arcade. Yes - I am crazy. You are absolutely right. (and thank you for the compliments). I moved the Namco copyright to the bottom. OK - THIS is the final one. Galaxian.A78 Galaxian.BIN 13 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 3, 2021 Share Posted April 3, 2021 Really great job ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted April 3, 2021 Share Posted April 3, 2021 Quote 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted April 3, 2021 Share Posted April 3, 2021 (edited) Awesome! Totally Awesome. Alright Bob! Edited April 3, 2021 by Zonie 3 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 On 4/2/2021 at 5:09 PM, PacManPlus said: ...it was supposed to be during the developer spotlight... Looking forward to next weeks (ZPH April 9th) Developer Spotlight? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 Nicely done Bob, and no boxes either , this was the first game I tried my newly-acquired CX78 Europads (they came in today from Ohio, I got them on eBay) on (with the screw-on/screw-off thumbstick on it) and I am quite impressed with your work, and all of that hard work paid off!!! This is by far THE BEST version of Galaxian I have ever played on an Atari system, and I do have the 2600, 5200, and 8-Bit versions as well as this one, but this one is truly arcade-quality through-and-through, indeed having the MARIA custom graphics chip in Lil' Sexy as opposed to the ANTIC and CTIA and/or GTIA chips used in both the 5200 and 8-bit computers makes a huge difference, it makes for tons of possibilities when it comes to porting direct translations of certain arcade classics, and this is one of them. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 With Bob's signature amazing ability to bring home the Arcade titles that are missing, in addition to his awesome unique ones, he knocks another one clearly out of the park. Graphics, sound, but most importantly gameplay is spot on. Another must have game for the collection. Looking forward to seeing this in the AA store. 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+darryl1970 Posted April 7, 2021 Share Posted April 7, 2021 Saw the update on @ZeroPage Homebrew . Checked it out on my DF. Looks and plays great! Thanks Bob! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted April 16, 2021 Share Posted April 16, 2021 Great game Bob! Hey, one silly request here. Can you hack your starfield into Galaga? Never did like the pale blue ones in it! Thanks again! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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