Seawolf Public Beta Test

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Attached are both PAL & NTSC binaries of Seawolf.

 

They are release candidates. I'd like to ask everyone interested in the game to try and playtest these binaries, be it on emulators or the real thing.

 

Please give me some feedback.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

seawolf.zip

[Nukey Shay]

Das good Though you might want to speed up the horizontal movement of the refueling targets a bit...they are too easy to hit. And the white boats don't always fire for some reason - those could use a little AI to determine where to fire. Animations and sounds are rockin'

 

All in all, quite a canoe.

[bjk7382]

Deffinitely not enough enemy fire. I think if the enemies were more aggressive it would add more action to the game.

 

I like it. Plays good on the cuttle cart 2.

[Tsukasa]

It plays perfectly on my supercharger, Great job! I agree with the lack of enemy fire, Perhaps there could be ships on the top level that drop depth charges when you miss and your torpedo goes to the surface....

If this was available in cart form for a decent price I would definitely buy a copy!

[pmpddytim]

Its fun but I agree with the enemy fire comments above. Played it for about 20,min and had a blast!

 

-Tim

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

So you're all playing the (B)eginner variants

 

Destroyer difficulty is controlled via Diff switches:

- Left toggles between slow and fast depth charges

- Right toggles "allowed depth charge to torpedo rate"

between 1:3 and 2:2

 

Also I'm, not sure if all of you have even seen the real Destroyers yet. The white ones are Red Cross ships, they're just ricochetting your own torpedoes...

 

Or am I just starting the game too slow? I thought to give the player a slow start to get "into" the game introducing more and more trouble over the time like in Beamrider. It should get really tough (and fast!) by the time you reach some 8-9K score...

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[oesii]

I saw the destroyers after I played a few mintues and then ran out of torpedoes on purpose, Nukey's right those refueling pods are too easy to hit. The destroyers showed up on my 2nd and 3rd life and the ricocheting of shots was quite fun.

 

But you're very correct, didn't play with the difficulty switches. I don't do that unless the programmer specifically tells me to

[Rob Mitchell]

Enjoyed it on my CC2! Great fun! Great graphics! Does it need some more sound effects?

 

At first I thought it was too easy to destroy a ship with just one torpedo but then the destroyers showed up. Cool! Much more fun than Submarine Commander!

 

I don't understand why the player's sub sinks when it runs out of torpedoes.

 

I don't understand what the right difficulty switch does ..

 

Can you put a pause in the game using the color / B&W switch? Well that swtich hold on the 7800.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Does it need some more sound effects?

 

Dunno. Does it?

 

At first I thought it was too easy to destroy a ship with just one torpedo but then the destroyers showed up.  Cool!  Much more fun than Submarine Commander!

 

There's also the green carrier ships, taking more than one hit to sink. The first 1-2 torpedos will only slow them down.

 

I don't understand why the player's sub sinks when it runs out of torpedoes.

 

While there'd be no "technical" reason, the player is practically *dead* at this point, since he can't shoot the refueling targets anymore. At this point the crew decides to rather sink their own sub than letting it fall into enemy hands. Thus speeding up the gameplay and the player can quickly start over with the next sub

 

I don't understand what the right difficulty switch does ..

 

Aha, ok. Basically it says how many torpedos on screen are reserved for your ship, vs "enemy" torpedos. The game engine can only track & display 4 torpedos at a time, so with this switch you control wether you can fire 3 or 2 torpedos at once, i.e. the destroyers can launch 1 or 2 depth charges at a time accordingly.

 

Can you put a pause in the game using the color / B&W switch?  Well that swtich hold on the 7800.

 

*noted*

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[gambler172]

Hello Manuel

 

Nice Game,maybe a little bit easy at the beginning.

greetings Gambler

[+Nathan Strum]

Excellent! I'm sure there are other things I should be doing at work, but...

 

I really like the idea of having the carriers require multiple hits! I also like the limited number of torpedoes - you just can't fire barrage after barrage. Nice additions to the arcade game. Great graphics, too.

 

Some suggestions:

 

The difficulty could be ramped up a bit quicker. Maybe have the destroyers come out earlier, and take two shots to kill.

 

Have the carriers take three to four shots to kill, and the first one slows them down only a little bit.

 

How about having the hospital ship destructable - but you lose big points when you hit one?

 

Then, you could make some of the mines ricochet your shots back at you instead. Nasty!

 

Instead of a floating target, how about an oil tanker for refueling?

 

One thing I really liked in the arcade version, was if you hit four ships in a row without missing (or hitting a mine) you got bonus points.

 

The "ping... ping... ping..." of sonar would be nice.

 

How about having the sun set, and the game go into the night (like Enduro and Robot Tank)? Then everything would be dark and really hard to see for awhile. Maybe explosions could light things up briefly.

 

Finally, again in the arcade game, the game would pause every four shots while your torpedo tubes reloaded (a light in the periscope showed "reloading" while this happened). That way, you had to keep track of how many you just fired, so you would have to plan your firing patterns more carefully. Even though you're limited to two or three shots on screen, the "reload pause" isn't there.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Some suggestions:

 

Excellent stuff, thanks for that!

 

Without getting too technical, there's things I simply can't do because of certain restrictions and other stuff has to be carefully tested regarding its influence on the game balance, but I'll take all of this into consideration, granted!

 

The general message of all feedback so far seems to be that the game is considered too easy and that its difficulty ramps too slow, so this is definetely an issue I'll take care of before going into production.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[lost child]

This is great! :-)

 

I really like the suggestions that people have mentioned before. I have a couple suggestions/ideas as well:

 

Between fire, the game does seem a little quiet. Maybe you could add an overall ambient sound the the background representing ships on the water. Then maybe speedboats and other ships that pass by less frequently could have their own effects which would override the default and break it up a bit.

 

Maybe you could change the color of the score display based on which difficulty mode the player is playing in. Then if someone gets braggish about a highscore, then the colors will tell on them. HAH!

 

If it is impossible to have the sun set during gameplay, perhaps the game could pause occasionally (after so many points are scored, or so many ships are sunk). During this time, the score and any bonuses could be tallied, extra lives could be rewarded, etc. Then when the game begins again, the background would also change to represent a different time of day (morning, noon, evening, midnight). Different weather might vary things up as well; I'd love to see fog as in Enduro. Pausing in between gameplay might give it a nice Atlantis feel. :-)

 

The game already plays great. Whatever ideas you implement, I'm positive the end result will be nothing short of fantastic! Nice job!

[+DamonicFury]

What a great game! It's one of the nicest looking games I've seen on the 2600... up there with the best of Activision's work! It looks more like an Atari computer (8-bit) game than a 2600 game. Great job!

 

Some ideas:

 

How about giving certain important ships their own distinctive sound effects? Like the small fast-moving ship in Atlantis, for example.

 

It would be kind of cool to see a ships's point value in the "wreckage" graphics like in the arcade game (not sure if that's feasible.)

 

I, for one, like the way the refueling target works now. Because it moves so slowly, you can try to use up all of your remaining torpedoes before nailing it at the last moment before it disappears. I like the way it appears every 1000 points, so you can plan for it's appeareance.

 

I really like the way the game ramps up difficulty every 1000 points. I agree it would be nice to at least have the choice to skip some of the earlier waves to get to the more challenging later waves sooner. (Perhaps the current setup could be retained as the "easy" version.) :-)

 

This is really a great game... far stronger than the other 2600 "sub shooters" (Air-Sea Battle, Submarine Commander, Sub Scan, Marine Wars.) I'm looking forward to it's release... any chance of another patch contest? :-)

[ATARI TROLL]

wont play on stella 1.1 or 1.2 ....just get a single color bar going accross the top of a black screen.

[NovaXpress]

I like the refueling method as is. If you make it harder to hit then you should make it appear more frequently.

 

Wonderful game. Fun to play and look at. It just needs a higher degree of diffculty.

 

You really should add a sonar sound, a small touch like that makes the difference between a good and great experience.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

wont play on stella 1.1 or 1.2 ....just get a single color bar going accross the top of a black screen.  

The game uses "illegal opcodes" not supported until Stella 1.3.

 

Update Stella or try a different emulator like z26 or PCAE (>=v2.6).

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

I'm looking forward to it's release... any chance of another patch contest? :-)

 

Hm... I bugged Al so much to have all Seawolf copies released exclusivly on non-cannibalized crystal blue cartridges, that I've no clue what the budget now says about a patch contest. Basically I made it his descission

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Thomas Jentzsch]

IMO it would be nice if refueling works a bit different.

 

Instead of compleatly refueling, it should add to the current amount. That way you could collect some extra torpedoes or fuel in the lower levels. This also offers the chance for more frequent, but smaller refueling targets (e.g. 20 fuel/10 topedo units) and maybe even different targets for fuel and torpedoes.

 

And maybe instead of basing the refueling targets on the score, you have to sink a special ship or a number of those. This could also e.g. happen in a bonus round between waves.

[NovaXpress]

Nice idea from Thomas about the smaller-value targets. That's they dynamic that worked for Carnival.

 

Thinking about it and playing more, now I feel that a steady sonar beep would grow intolerable after a few minutes. It would be fun if we heard a sonar beep whenever a ship entered the screen though, that also gives a nice little audio clue to the action.

[Bivotar]

I' date=' for one, like the way the refueling target works now. Because it moves so slowly, you can try to use up all of your remaining torpedoes before nailing it at the last moment before it disappears. I like the way it appears every 1000 points, so you can plan for it's appeareance.

[/quote']

AHHH!!! So that's how it works! I was trying to figure out if it appeared randomly or not. Knowing that it comes out every 1000 points adds to strategy. COOL!

 

I really like the way the game ramps up difficulty every 1000 points. I agree it would be nice to at least have the choice to skip some of the earlier waves to get to the more challenging later waves sooner.

 

This really does give it a Beamrider kind of feel' date=' which I enjoyed thouroughly. Makes you kind of anticipate what nastiness is going to be thrown at you next!

 

I really enjoyed playing this game last night! I thought overall it did have quite a bit of sound, but the sonar idea thrown out does sound cool.

 

It did seem a bit touchy on firing torpedos. It seemed like it was too easy to launch a barrage of 2 or 3 torpedos when I didn't really mean to. Holding down the fire button will launch all torpedos, but maybe there should be a longer time delay between launches. Or perhaps no "auto-fire" and just hit the button for each launch?

 

Overall, this game is awesome! [/quote']

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

While I'm not going to comment on all suggestions, there's two interesting bits for discussion:

 

1.

This also offers the chance for more frequent, but smaller refueling targets (e.g. 20 fuel/10 topedo units) and maybe even different targets for fuel and torpedoes.

 

While that admittedly adds to the complexity of the game, I have serious doubts wether this also adds to the fun of the game.

 

2.

Adding a regular "ping" SFX or "ambient underwater soundscapes".

I'll give this a serious try (because I'm always interested in the challange of programming weird stuff like that ) but I also have concerns wether this can get terribly annoying when playing the game for 1/2 an hour or longer.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Thomas Jentzsch]

While that admittedly adds to the complexity of the game, I have serious doubts wether this also adds to the fun of the game.

Maybe you are right, but how about adding instead of replacing torpedoes and fuel?

 

I'll give this a serious try (because I'm always interested in the challange of programming weird stuff like that   ) but I also have concerns wether this can get terribly annoying when playing the game for 1/2 an hour or longer.

Maybe you enable that only when destroyers start hunting for you.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Adding a regular "ping" SFX or "ambient underwater soundscapes".

 

BTW: Does anyone know the frequency of a "classic" sonar ping? And/Or the ADSR curve of it?

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

While that admittedly adds to the complexity of the game, I have serious doubts wether this also adds to the fun of the game.

Maybe you are right, but how about adding instead of replacing torpedoes and fuel?

 

That's the part of the idea I liked, so I left it out in the quote

 

Greetings,

Manuel