It's Dark Out There... Better Bring A Torch

[BydoEmpire]

I've heard that a witch lives in those woods... Some say they've seen strange shapes moving amongst the graves at night.  Some villagers swear they've heard strange noises coming out of that old, abandoned castle at night, but they don't like to talk much about it.  Superstitious old hicks.  Who knows what's true and what's just a legend, but I'm not afraid. I inherited that old place from my great grandfather, and I'm moving in. No spooks or creeps are going to scare me away!  One thing is for sure, though... it's dark out there. I'd better find a torch if I'm going to find my way.

 

 

 

 

 

Just a tease for now. I'm sure by the time Halloween rolls around, something spooky will come this way.  It's playable, and the light effect looks good, but the game itself still in the very early stages and needs some TLC before I post a binary.

 

I always remembered a type-in game from Compute's Gazette called Castle Dungeon that had the concept of a maze where you can only see the area immediately around you, and I though it was really cool. The 7800 can do this justice, and after a nice, long break post-Wizard's Dungeon I though it was finally time to do something about it. I came up with a way to do the maze drawing and I think it turned out quite nice. I'll download OBS or something and post a video of it in action, maybe once I get rid of the recycled Wizard's Dungeon art...

 

No guarantees, though. I'm doing some early planning and designs for another game that's shaping up to be quite big and might derail this project.  We'll see what happens.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by BydoEmpire

[+saxmeister]

This looks great! I remembered that old Castle Dungeon game and was wondering if that would work ion the 7800. Looks like it will! Looking forward to playing this.

[BydoEmpire]

I'm going to start shifting focus to another project for a bit, so I'm sharing a WIP binary to play with.  Only two levels, the enemy AI is very basic, but it gets the idea across. I do hope to pick this back up again, we'll see. There are a lot of things I want to do with this game, I've got tons of ideas.

 

Basic rules

1. Collect all the gems on the level and a key will appear in the maze.  When the key appears, a "boss" enemy also appears (either a witch or mummy). They are faster and more dangerous.
2. One you get the key, the castle gates will open. Go into the castle (where the gates used to be) to get to the next level.
3. There are four torches in the corners of the maze. Each one lasts about 20 seconds.
4. Pressing the fire button expends your torch, but will show the entire maze for a few seconds.
5. Enemies wander the maze. If they touch you while you have a torch, your torch will be extinguished, but you will kill them and survive. If an enemy touches you when you don't have a torch, you lose a life and go back to the center of the maze.  You have 3 lives.

monster.bas.a78

 

Attaching the source for reference if anyone wants to see how the lighting effect was done.

monster.bas

[Silver Back]

I was really hoping to play this around Halloween!  Can't wait to give what you have done a try, thank you!

 

I just played what you have done, and in my opinion it's fantastic!  Nice spooky levels and enemies, and I liked the fact that only part of the maze is illuminated as you move about.  It feels like a spooky pac man game but that's just the simplest way I can think to describe it. It definitely feels different to pac man. 

 

I hope you come back to this sometime, I am a fan of what you've done so far!

Edited March 6, 2022 by Silver Back
Added last two paragraphs

[gambler172]

Hi Bydo

Look great and plays very well.....tomorrow, I check it on real hardware.

 

Greetings Walter

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Monster Maze on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Mar 8 @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

Games:

• 7ix (2022 Exclusive WIP Update | 7800) by Pat Brady @Pat Brady
• Word Guess (2022 Completed | 2600) by Anthony Blackman @CardboardBox
• 2600 Words (2022 WIP | 2600) by Karl Garrison @Karl G
• Wordle (2022 Completed | 7800) by Chunkypixel Games / Matt Smith @mksmith/ Mike Saarna @RevEng (Dictionary Randomiser Selection Code)
• Monster Maze (2022 WIP | 7800) by BydoEmpire @BydoEmpire

 (WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

 

[+Muddyfunster]

I just got to try the WIP demo and It's great. I love the Atari 2600 Haunted House vibe with the lighting, it's a really nice effect and adds a nice twist to the gameplay.