Popular Post globe Posted November 1, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted November 1, 2021 After more than 2 decades of inactivity we're back and we proudly present our new game: Final Assault It's a FPS for 8bit Atari computers with 64KB Ram, works on PAL and NTSC systems Story: You are enhanced human super-soldier, serving under Central Command of United Humanity Armed Forces, fighting against the A.I. onslaught. Your job is to infiltrate an old research facility and search for the KEY, a chip serving as a safeguard against A.I. running amok that could help win the war. Features: -raycaster engine running at 25 - 30 FPS -animated textures -simple lighting system -some walls can be destroyed -automap Screens: Controls: Some more screenshots, (very)short vids and Download: https://atari8.dev/final_assault/ Have fun, Globe/GMG 53 21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Was this originally named Robot Assault ? I remember the cool demo and how sad it was, that the game never appeared. The screenshots look very good and I am surprised that you come up with this finished game from out of nowhere. Finally a fully playable game for the A8 that makes use of raycasting, not just a demo (or an unfinished game, like Project M or Vector). Congrats! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 That's something unexpected . Well done. Big applause. Not just that this is a real playable game. The real phenomenal part is the working "strafe" and "rotate" at once. So you could run around an enemy. I speechless about this special part. But please, check the music. It starts epic and ends "not so epic" . Intro screen is also worth to applaud. Very futuristic and properly mix of hires and color. .... the most impressive part.... it's a running game.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Simply fabulous... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
globe Posted November 1, 2021 Author Share Posted November 1, 2021 36 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said: Was this originally named Robot Assault ? I remember the cool demo and how sad it was, that the game never appeared. I'm surprised someone still remembers, RA was supposed to be a different game though, platformer/shooter with 256 color graphics. 37 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said: The screenshots look very good and I am surprised that you come up with this finished game from out of nowhere. Thanks. This was kind of maybe-it-will-work-maybe-it-won't project and even when I was halfway through I still wasn't 100% sure it will be finished. So I choose not to make any announcements, to avoid pressure and disappointment if things don't work out in the end. @emkay Thank you. As for the music, I like it so I don't really share your opinion but there's a bit of guilt on my side as far as both tunes (main menu music and You Won music) are concerned. The game engine basically 'ate' almost all the RAM so I pestered Goldy to make the tunes as small as possible. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Awesome, thank you very much! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youxia Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Love when this kind of hi-quality stuff pops out of nowhere. Great game, thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matosimi Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Welcome back! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldy/gmg aka lopez453 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 (edited) @emkay I'm curious what's your opinion on "You won" - Let's wait till You finish the game. After 20 year music-making-break for me, I'm happy that I was able to do more than ordinary sounding Chaos Music Composer song. Some music technical curiosities: - "Ducking" is used on other instruments when the beat kicks (the concept used in "radio" music production) so the beat sounds more punchy. Noticable on HI-FI speakers or quality headphones. - There was a plan for dynamic in-game music, but 64k memory constraints were a no-go. - Globe was able to convert "YOU WIN" RMT music to a 384byte long executable (music including player) by doing his own player routine from scratch and using hand-written raw pokey values instead of notes/patterns and it should sound like low quality sampled music. Edited November 1, 2021 by goldy/gmg aka lopez453 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Spreaded the news on many FB groups. This game is a stunning demonstration on how to exploit the capabilities of our computers (for example, palette for lighting effects). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinjinhawke Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Damn, now this is a surprise. Great job. Can't wait to put some real time into it. I think I saw a typo in the intro unless it's a local spelling but the word 'balance'. Fate of humanity hangs in the ballance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Whoa...what a nice surprise! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 (edited) A very nice surprise and something I've been hoping for one day, ever since I saw the first 3D raycaster demos put out by many different hacker groups. Of course I hope this is only the first of many, from you @globe and others who see/play your game and are inspired to start or finish their own 3D raycaster FPS/RPG games similar and maybe also larger in scope and memory than just 64K, though I do think a 64K FPS game is a good place to start so most Atarian's get the experience. Thank you very much. Edited November 1, 2021 by Gunstar 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pajero_pn Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Altirra: you have to disable = OFF "stop on BRK instruction" Of course - congratulations for a great job. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 ? Wow, amazing... Will defo be downloading this.. Amazing job. ? Not been this excited since the previously mentioned excellent but I'll fated Project M. Specs on the linked website sound amazing (lighting effects and breakable walls.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 11 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said: ...excellent but I'll fated Project M. There's nothing ill-fated about Project-M. The author simply either hasn't had time, or has time and hasn't shown anything new since 2020. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 7 hours ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said: @emkay I'm curious what's your opinion on "You won" - Let's wait till You finish the game. After 20 year music-making-break for me, I'm happy that I was able to do more than ordinary sounding Chaos Music Composer song. Not sure, if I will find the time to play through till the end. 7 hours ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said: Some music technical curiosities: - "Ducking" is used on other instruments when the beat kicks (the concept used in "radio" music production) so the beat sounds more punchy. Noticable on HI-FI speakers or quality headphones. I hear the 15kHz filter usage in the titel music. The resulting tune on low sounds is the epic part. 7 hours ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said: - There was a plan for dynamic in-game music, but 64k memory constraints were a no-go. - Globe was able to convert "YOU WIN" RMT music to a 384byte long executable (music including player) by doing his own player routine from scratch and using hand-written raw pokey values instead of notes/patterns and it should sound like low quality sampled music. I guess, you should read through some threads of "evolution of POKEY'S hardware". "RMT hacking" . To make a dynamic tune, you don't need to handle the full soundtrack. With "tickling the pulse width" you could do a tune that sounds different for hours, adding just some bytes to the music code. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
globe Posted November 2, 2021 Author Share Posted November 2, 2021 8 hours ago, Sinjinhawke said: I think I saw a typo in the intro unless it's a local spelling but the word 'balance'. Fate of humanity hangs in the ballance. Thanks, noted for 1.1 version if (when:) couple of more issues pop up. 1 hour ago, emkay said: To make a dynamic tune, you don't need to handle the full soundtrack. With "tickling the pulse width" you could do a tune that sounds different for hours, adding just some bytes to the music code. Going to barge in for a moment. The idea was to make something similar to LucasArt's iMuse system where several melodies could seamlessly transition between each other depending on what's going on. Like slower, softer 'exploration' tune changing into 'fight' tune after the player gets spotted by the enemy. In the end it didn't happen because of memory limits but I hope we'll get it working in some of the future projects. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 6 hours ago, MrFish said: There's nothing ill-fated about Project-M. The author simply either hasn't had time, or has time and hasn't shown anything new since 2020. Sure, my bad for choice of words. ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 29 minutes ago, globe said: Going to barge in for a moment. The idea was to make something similar to LucasArt's iMuse system where several melodies could seamlessly transition between each other depending on what's going on. Like slower, softer 'exploration' tune changing into 'fight' tune after the player gets spotted by the enemy. In the end it didn't happen because of memory limits but I hope we'll get it working in some of the future projects. So, how many bytes could be added for a tune? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matosimi Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 7 hours ago, pajero_pn said: Altirra: you have to disable = OFF "stop on BRK instruction" Of course - congratulations for a great job. something strange is happening there, because there is JSR $8A58 instruction jumping to BRK op code (3 in a row)... I suppose it is due to some misalignment of compressed data. Maybe the $8A58 was hardtyped in the source instead of calculated based on length of inserted data and after some updates the address was no longer valid... luckily it does not crash fatally. There are several aspects of this game that are quite unique. The enemy/object clipping and overall incorporation of PM objects to the world is really something that is definitively not a straightforward task. Sound effects depending on the distance from the enemies... nice, quite atmospheric. Also fact that some enemies are running in loops around area and others just going back and forth on a line-based trajectory. Big thumbs up for the actual gameplay logic, the game engine on the top of raycaster.?? 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
globe Posted November 2, 2021 Author Share Posted November 2, 2021 55 minutes ago, emkay said: So, how many bytes could be added for a tune? Sorry, we're full:) Since I picked 64KB as one of the hard limits for this game there's only a couple of free bytes here and there, nothing really useful for anything but very small changes. Definitely going to aim for 128KB in the future. 46 minutes ago, matosimi said: something strange is happening there, because there is JSR $8A58 instruction jumping to BRK op code (3 in a row)... I suppose it is due to some misalignment of compressed data. Maybe the $8A58 was hardtyped in the source instead of calculated based on length of inserted data and after some updates the address was no longer valid... luckily it does not crash fatally. Well that's exactly what happened. Before last round of bugfixes $8A58 was a start of PMG memory cleanup routine. After fixing some boss fight bugs Marco found I repacked everything from scratch but missed this hardcoded label that moved to $8A5B. Another one for 1.1 bug fix list, thanks. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 46 minutes ago, globe said: Since I picked 64KB as one of the hard limits for this game there's only a couple of free bytes here and there, nothing really useful for anything but very small changes. And queue pages and pages of bickering. But seriously, well done on this great release! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 (edited) 14 hours ago, globe said: Controls: Some bytes free/interest to adapt the keyboard input to a SNES controller? https://atariage.com/forums/topic/323171-snack-snes-atari-controler-kit/ Edited November 2, 2021 by Irgendwer 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 (edited) What a nice wake-up present.. Thank you Globe and Goldy. Excuse Emkay, he's the group grump / troll Edit: One for the 1.1 version... Nothing severe, just a miss spelling of the word balance on title screen... So easy for these to creep in.. Game looks amazing... Edited November 2, 2021 by Mclaneinc 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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