Sasuke Vs. Commander (alpha build)

[Mik's Arcade]

Hi All - 

 

Ok, finally throwing myself out here.

 

I'm attaching a very alpha build of the game I've been working on. It's is SNK's Sasuke Vs. Commander. I've attached the ROM. That's all people need to run it, right? 

 

Here is a gameplay clip of the original arcade: The gameplay start at 1 minute Arcade Game: Sasuke vs. Commander (1980 SNK) - YouTube 

 

 I'll admit, have not been putting as much time as I would like into it, but life stuff happens.

 

Here are the obvious elephants in the room regarding the game:

 

1) No sound or music.  I have not really spent any time toying with creating my own sound effects or music yet.  I could just steal from other programs but I want to attempt trying to get the original game sound and music. It is very basic, corny, I like it and I think IntyBasic can come close to it. I've attached a few WAV sound samples from the actual arcade machine. Is there any way to analyze a WAVE file and be able to use the information to then apply it to IntyBasic? This will most likely be the last thing I do.

 

2) The enemies and shots.  Ok, anyone who has played Oscar's Pumpkin Master will see that I just used his code for the enemy patterns and the way they shoot. And if you didn't, I'm confessing.  If I can get the game up to a standard I like, I plan on re-writing this to be more like the original game. Also, obviously you can see that the shots wipes out the lovely background screen I generated. Before I rework the code the make the shot a SPRITE as opposed to using BACKTAB the way Oscar does it, is there ANY way make the shot only appear in the foreground?  I've tinkered with foregroun/background color MODE and I guess I just don't fully get how it all works. 

 

3) Graphics.  I really suck at them.  I'd really like to make the characters not all one color each.  I will accept any and all tips.

 

4) Missing BONUS boss battles. I will add them if I can polish up the main game first, especially the graphics. I have all the BITMAPS for the boss stuff done, but I want them to be better.

 

That's it. Other than that, the game is fully playable. I have it set up for only 1 life at this point. Scoring works. Dying works. Beating the stages work.  I plan on polishing up what happens when you die and when you complete a round, but for now I just wanted to have the loop working. I'm debating on whether or not I want to display the score on the main screen due to the colors I used for the background and the limited real estate. I plan on leaving the enemy counter because that is useful;

 

Really, I'm looking for tips and honest opinions.

 

Should I keep going?  I'm not picking this stuff up as quickly as I thought I would.

 

Is this trash? Is it ok? Is there any hope for me bringintg this to the finish line?  LOL.

 

sasuke_wav.zip

 

 

 

 

 

sasuke.rom

Edited December 12, 2021 by Mik's Arcade
added new ROM

[carlsson]

10 hours ago, Mik's Arcade said:

Is there any way to analyze a WAVE file and be able to use the information to then apply it to IntyBasic?

In theory, I believe there are MP3 to MIDI converters. I tested a demo version many years ago and it was more miss than hit. Possibly those have improved, but I would to a stronger degree trust my ear, chew the WAV file one note at a time in e.g. Audacity and match with a small keyboard on my lap to get the music and harmonies right. If you're doing original music, you can just get inspired by the original music without fully covering it.

 

Once you have the MIDI, there are two converters that take different approaches to converting to IntyBASIC. Unfortunately last time around, I didn't get those tools to work for me, so I used a far more manual way by importing MIDI into my music program, tidying up the notes, typing it into my tracker program, printing as text file and editing the outcome from there. YMMV and a direct converter may work better for you.

 

Edit: Haha! Obviously I didn't download the WAV samples last night before I wrote the above. The sound effects most certainly are not musical. I thought those would be jingles of some sort, but they're really just various noisy effects. I think there is a sound effect editor you can use to sculpt effects but you would have to try around until you are satisfied.

Edited October 7, 2021 by carlsson

[+cmadruga]

@Mik's Arcade 

Very impressive start, you should definitely keep going! 

 

1) don't worry about it for now. Leave that for last.

 

2) I don't know that I would switch to sprites for the shots. 
*Edit: I changed my mind. My previous suggestion would not work as well. You might as well bite the bullet and go for sprites. There’s no clean way to keep the shots “in the foreground” as you asked.

 

3) Your graphics are decent at this point, don't worry too much.

 

4) I agree, leave that for later.

Edited October 7, 2021 by cmadruga

[Mik's Arcade]

ok, I added a new ROM.

 

• The player has 3 lives instead of 1.
• The score is moved to a proper place on the bottom row, with new 'reserve lives' indicators.
• Enemy bullets are more lively

 

At this point, if I can solve the bullet wiping out the background issue, the game is actually in pretty good shape

[JumbleJag]

Plays quite good,it's awesome to see a port of this as I don't believe it was ever ported to computers or consoles.

 

Screens

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by JumbleJag

[Mik's Arcade]

3 hours ago, JumbleJag said:

Plays quite good,it's awesome to see a port of this as I don't believe it was ever ported to computers or consoles.

 

Screens

 

 

 

hey - thanks for posting these!

 

I figured I would work on something really obscure. I don't think anyone has done a homebrew of this either.....I've got a list of really old late 1970's and 1980's coin-op games I think are basic (and obscure) enough to make IntyBasic versions of.  

[JumbleJag]

Can't wait to see what other games you have planned,been playing your port and really enjoying it.

[Mik's Arcade]

10 minutes ago, JumbleJag said:

Can't wait to see what other games you have planned,been playing your port and really enjoying it.

thanks. it may take a bit before I cut another ROM.  I've been digging into Oscar's code on how he creates waves of enemies so that I can create my own that are closer to the original arcade. I'm starting to 'get' it now, so I am planning out the patterns I want to make. I never thought I would study sin curves again in my life. Oscar is so good at this, it's great to have him and his books for resources.  I would never have been able to do this without his help and the help of the forum.

 

I won't give all my ideas away, but for a sample, I want to also make Pooyan and Satan's Hollow from the arcades, and Pick Axe Pete from the Odyssey 2 days. I've also started an original idea based on running a marathon that I want to finish.  I have too many lofty ideas for it so I need to get good at the basics first, Plus, I don't want to let the awesome music Carlsson donated to me for the title screen.

 

if you encounter any bugs, let me know!   I coded it so that after you defeat 99 enemies, it stays on 99 until you die...

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[Mik's Arcade]

Ok, I lied!   I changed just ONE line of code and addressed the issue where the enemy bullets wipe out the background screen, so I updated the ROM.

 

In reviewing the code to move bullets, I noticed that Oscar moves bullet card in GRAM down a line by adding 20 to the value of d when he writes #backtab(d) for the bullet image.  Right before that, the code is:

 

#backtab(d) = 0

 

this clears the bullet from the previous line, and therefore wipes out the original color value I had when I first created the screen.

 

So, I changed it to:

 

#backtab(d) = gamescreen_cards(d)

 

and it wrote the original color value I had at that card...instant success!  Unfortunately the bullet itself still has a black background instead of being transparent, but for now this is good enough.

 

   

Edited October 8, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[JumbleJag]

Is it possible to write or modify characters in memory for intellision?I ask because on c64 when dealing with char bullets we can save a few characters in at the end of vic memory that we mask with the bullet char and color then use those so there is no black around the char bullet,Like this

 

https://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=base:merge_char_bullets

 

 

I've no idea how intelli hardware works so disregard this if that's not possible.

 

What you've done in this release made a big visual difference,a very good one.Super impressed with the game,I've never played the intellivision before...this game got me playing it.

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by JumbleJag

[JumbleJag]

4 hours ago, Mik's Arcade said:

I coded it so that after you defeat 99 enemies, it stays on 99 until you die...

 

I've not made it this far yet,I'm getting better at this though.

[Mik's Arcade]

"Is it possible to write or modify characters in memory for intellision?I ask because on c64 when dealing with char bullets we can save a few characters in at the end of vic memory that we mask with the bullet char and color then use those so there is no black around the char bullet,Like this

 

https://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=base:merge_char_bullets"

 

I don't think so, but the resident Intellivision experts can chime in.

 

there are ways to use the background and foreground to manipulate the colors, but I am not really getting it.  I just want the bullets to be in the foreground, but I am not even sure THAT is possible. At least what I figured out is good enough for now so I can move on to polish up the other things.

[JumbleJag]

Yes please move forward with this,If you plan on selling this can you create an option to purchase the rom to support your dev,I don't own an Intellivision so I can't purchase a boxed copy but I'd buy a digital download.

[carlsson]

It seems the example above uses multicolour characters on the C64 and generate software sprites that combine bullet in one colour with existing background in another. Software sprites are doable on the Intellivision and even mixing with background, but you can only have one fg and one bg per cell. Thus your bullet would melt into the background unless you use hardware sprites in a different way than on the C64 which uses lower resolution multicolour mode in this example.

[Mik's Arcade]

Ok, I'm getting more motivated to keep working on this as it is getting closer and closer. Updated the ROM ZIP in the original post  

 

Latest updates:

 

1) Added the 'green' ninja, worth 80 points. In the final build, I will see about making them less common and randomize the order they come out. I have no idea why, but when I added the logic to update the score based what color ninja you hit, on some rare occasions it messes up the ninja count.

 

the code literally went from:

            num_ninja = num_ninja - 1
            #score = #score + 40 
            GOSUB update score

to:

            num_ninja = num_ninja - 1
            IF ninja_color(c) = $0802 THEN
               #score = #score + 40 
            ELSE 
               #score = #score + 80
            END IF               
            GOSUB update score

 

 

2) Added logic to FLIP the ninja to make sure they face the direction they are moving...it ALMOST works all the time...lol. I will go about fixing this when I finalize the code for how the enemies move. I get how it is done now so I am going to play around with my own patterns.  Interestingly enough, the actual game appears to be close to some of these patterns to begin with.

3) Added a few sound effects just to get them up and running. I stole them from Pumpkin Master again, but am planning on changing them to get as close to the arcade game as possible once I really get into IntyBasic Music and sound.  I'm studying chapter 2 of Oscar's latest book

4) done more planning on the bonus stages.

 

OPINION:  Should I keep the tree branches or remove them?  I never liked how the trees branches came out, but also want to make the screen similar to the game.

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[+Steve Jones]

A suggestion, slightly change the colour of either the red ninjas or the red branches so the ninjas don't "disappear" when they fly in front of the branches.

 

And can you make the branches more like the branches in the original game and not just horizontal lines?

 

You really need the boss battles (bonus rounds) screen too I think,

 

this is a decent effort/port so far but it does need a bit of variety (like the other screen) to maintain a player's interest and not just become repetitive.

 

 

One simple trick that has worked in other games, even if it wasn't in the original arcade game,

 

is slight colour changes in the background as you get to higher levels, it gives the player a sense of accomplishment.

 

 

For example, remember in Space Armada, they just changed the colour of the border every couple of levels,

 

but you would say, "I made it to the second green screen level".

 

 

You could change maybe the colour of the sky as you go on, that would also give a sense of the day progressing for example, like they did in Frog Bog.

 

It's admittedly a small change but it makes it less repetitive.

 

 

Just my opinion, feel free to ignore it, I realize the game is still in its early stages but these are just suggestions from a player point-of view,

 

that you may want to consider.

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Steve Jones

[Mik's Arcade]

2 hours ago, Steve Jones said:

A suggestion, slightly change the colour of either the red ninjas or the red branches so the ninjas don't "disappear" when they fly in front of the branches.

 

And can you make the branches more like the branches in the original game and not just horizontal lines?

 

You really need the boss battles (bonus rounds) screen too I think,

 

this is a decent effort/port so far but it does need a bit of variety (like the other screen) to maintain a player's interest and not just become repetitive.

 

 

One simple trick that has worked in other games, even if it wasn't in the original arcade game,

 

is slight colour changes in the background as you get to higher levels, it gives the player a sense of accomplishment.

 

 

For example, remember in Space Armada, they just changed the colour of the border every couple of levels,

 

but you would say, "I made it to the second green screen level".

 

 

You could change maybe the colour of the sky as you go on, that would also give a sense of the day progressing for example, like they did in Frog Bog.

 

It's admittedly a small change but it makes it less repetitive.

 

 

Just my opinion, feel free to ignore it, I realize the game is still in its early stages but these are just suggestions from a player point-of view,

 

that you may want to consider.

 

 

 

hopefully when I add the boss screens that will be enough of a carrot to dangle in front of the gamers to keep them motivated.  That was why I also added the ninja counter to the main loop screen as way to keep you engaged.  I'm not using the color stack so it will be difficult to change the background, but maybe the border....hmm...I'll think about that

 

the problem with the branches on the tree is that the more crooked I made them like in the original game, the more I came up against the screen limit so I had to pare them down to what you see. I'm currently reworking the code for the enemy patterns.  I'm going to come up with some logic to make them avoid the branches altogether. I plan on making some more variations including suicide ninjas that dive at you.

 

But, I'm going to keep the branches after all. Some of the new enemy patterns will have them spawn on a branch and then start flying like in the real game.

 

thanks for the input, be it good, bad or neutral, it is ALWAYS welcome.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Mik's Arcade
bad grammar

[Mik's Arcade]

Ok, I just updated the SASUKE.ZIP with the FINAL ALPHA build I plan on releasing.

 

From here on in I am going to focus on added all the boss battles to make the game complete. Then I can fix bugs, add polish and finally tackle the music.  With any luck, I can get it to a complete stage in the event @DZ-Jay is able to organize a programming contest for 2021 since Oscar is too busy.

 

Here is what has been added:

(1) I have randomized the appearance of the 'green' ninja.  I'll probably make them even more rare in the final build. RANDOM is still not as RANDOM as I would like. the first wave are all RED though.

(2) I got the Ninja death plummet added and working. This makes the game harder because not only will they crush you if they fall on top of you, but they will still (randomly) shoot at you on the way down. This was a happy accident, I may make them stop shooting.....but for now I kind of like it.

(3) Cosmetic : I added support to make EACH ninja turn to face the direction they are moving instead just 1 direction for the whole group of ninja.  Also, I moved the ninja count down to score line to keep it off the field of play.

 

So, if more people want to test this out and provide feedback or notice any bugs, I would appreciate it and will take notice

 

For the main loop, this is what I plan to polish up:

(1) Now that I get how to make enemies move, I will most like redo all the waves for the final build, or just add more. I may try to randomize the waves, speed them up them or build a set of rule and just make them all random as heck. Right now, they move from 1 to 10 and then start over

(2) The level complete Sasuke dance and Sasuke death and final death animations are just placeholders. They will should be done a bit better in final build.

(3) I still want to try to make the bullets not wipe out the card color it is moving on

(4) I may add collision logic and have bullets destroy one another. Of course, Sasuke's bonus weapon (if you can figure out how to unlock it) shoots through everything, including multiple ninja.

 

 

[JumbleJag]

Nes,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oc0jvJ5hJA

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by JumbleJag

[Mik's Arcade]

12 hours ago, JumbleJag said:

Nes,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oc0jvJ5hJA

 

this is cool, bit weird. Is that like a hack of some other game.

 

EDIT: I did some digging and found that this is a hidden mini game in the Japanese version of SNK's Famicom (NES) game Guerrilla War, which is Guevara...lol.  It was not apparent by that video...haha.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[+Steve Jones]

Any progress on this game?

[Mik's Arcade]

19 hours ago, Steve Jones said:

Any progress on this game?

 

Nothing major, but still working on it, thanks for the interest.  I will definitely finish this.

 

Right now, I am re-writing the enemy behavior to be closer to the arcade version so it is not just a rip off of Oscar's Pumpkin Master. Making good progress on this because I finally get how to do it and enhanced his process to make it easier for me to do it in this game. So now there will be more variety in the enemy patterns. I've also created the bonus screen for the boss battles, just need to code the battles which should be easier than the main screen battles since I need to manage less sprites and variables. I ran into space issues but worked that out. Brian's Man Cave topic on the issue was perfect timing.

 

Unfortunately, I can only tinker with this an hour here and an hour there. I'd love to have an 8 hour coding marathon like in the old days but just don't have the time for that. Also, I'm just not very good at this so it takes me a bit longer. Getting the sound and music will be the biggest challenge since I have not worked with it at all.  I'm sure I will get it quickly since I do understand basic music theory.

 

With any luck they will hold an Intybasic contest for 2021 or Q1 2022 and that will really put the flame under my butt to get it done so I can submit it.

 

EDIT : I will add, I will have some more time over the next couple of weeks to work on this so maybe I can get it almost if not completely done.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[Mik's Arcade]

yeah, now I have the "I need to finish this bug".

 

I have completely overhauled the enemy pattern code. The game is no longer Sasuke Vs. Pumpkin Master and is Sasuke vs Commander. I watched a lot of video and played the game for a while the other night to get it right. I'm not making it an exact copy as that would be boring. But, the FIRST enemy pattern is indeed a copy. I will say right off the bat the game is a LOT harder now, which is good. I also wrote the code so I can use the logic it for the boss fights, too. So, they should not take very long to complete. Cut and paste for the win!

 

I also fixed an exploit...you can no longer shoot dead enemies to keep racking up points....lol

[Mik's Arcade]

ok, I've update the ROM with the latest and greatest.

 

I've tested the crap out of the main game loop and it seems to work just fine. it cycles through 15 different patterns of waves and then goes back to square 1. Of course, if you defeat the required number of enemies first then it moves on to the boss.

 

I've already set up variables and tested some tweaks that will go in the final build for future waves after you face the boss to continue to mix this up.

 

The game is a LOT harder now, but like all games you can eventually figure out the patterns and find the sweet spots. There are two types enemy AI - enemies will go out slower and zig zag off walls until they can exit on the bottom. This forces you to play just as much defense as offense. The second type has the enemies move a bit faster and just wrap around the screen a for a set of iterations. This is more of a shooting gallery mode and is consistent with how the original game plays. 

 

You can even get a preview of the 'boss' screen, and I am working those out their behaviors now.

 

If anyone gets a chance to try it out, let me know if you run into any bugs.

 

Also, I tried thinning out the branches in the background screen and for some reason it generates an extra card that messes everything up. I have no idea why this happens because everything is counted out correctly and should generate the number as before. It is weird.  I plan on working that out for the final build. It's so weird, it was the equivalent of going from a BITMAP that had the bottom two rows of 'XXXXXXXX' to just the bottom one.

 

 

 

thanks

Edited November 5, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[+Steve Jones]

I think you might have made it too hard, earlier versions I got through several levels without much problem, but now I am lucky to kill 3 or 4 enemies before I die.

Is there a happy medium somewhere between the two? To be honest after dying so fast in several games in a row there is no incentive to keep trying.