Rip Off - 2600

[supercat]

The in-game action would be similar to Galaxian; the additions would be using the missile/ball to draw the tractor beam and using P0/P1 when the ship was doubled. Challenge stages would convert pretty nicely (with minimal flicker). Would most likely require 16KSC to be pulled off though. Hmmmm.. maybe this one wouldn't be so bad.

 

Using P0/P1 for the doubled ship doesn't seem like a good idea to me since you couldn't have anything else share the line without flicker. Better might be to use P0 and M0 for the two ships, alternating each frame. The pointy thingies on the wings of the ship would only be drawn every other frame (they'd be drawn on P0, but not M0) but the rest of each ship would be flicker-free.

 

Scratch that notion, since player shots would still be a problem. There really isn't much alternative to having the ships be 16 pixels apart. The one thing I can think of to help the situation slightly would be to use P0 and M0 together to draw the ships; that way they could be a little wider than would otherwise be possible, so the 16 pixel width wouldn't be a huge handicap. Except, of course, that the two shots would be annoyingly far apart.

 

Ah. Use the first idea, but use a player instead of a missile for the human's shots. A double-wide player could show the shots with any desired spacing.

Edited March 15, 2007 by supercat

[Cybergoth]

When visiting my parents today, I spent some time reading my old computer mags (as usual ). One game review to my surprise claimed that Sensible Softwares Oh No! was essentially a Rip Off clone

[+johnnywc]

When visiting my parents today, I spent some time reading my old computer mags (as usual ). One game review to my surprise claimed that Sensible Softwares Oh No! was essentially a Rip Off clone

 

That's neat... unfortunately it looks like it was only 1 player, so what's the point?

 

I'll take this opportunity to give an update on Rip Off:

 

- Nathan has finished all of the graphics - they look fantastic!

- Bob D. (aka PacManPlus) has signed on to do the sounds, so those will be top-notch as well

- gameplay is developing nicely - right now I'm working on the enemy movement and AI

- we're working on adding in a few game options, including a vs. mode (where player 2 can control the enemy ships) and a mode that would allow the player tanks to latch onto the fuel pods and drag them back into the middle..

 

I've taken a break from development to work on a few other games that are also coming along nicely... one is a port of a shooter and the other is a re-write of an existing 2600 port (another one of those pesky sentimental favorites). Both show pretty good promise. With that said, I hope to get back to Rip Off in the next few weeks after I've thought about the enemy AI for a bit and figure out a clean way to do it.

[Cybergoth]

Sounds all pretty cool. I better start saving my money

 

I think I already figured out which shooter it is elsewhere, and am I correct to assume that the rewrite will salvage another flicker-fest?

[mos6507]

A game I used to like as a kid that also has 2-player coop was Two Tigers. I think that would work on the 2600.

Kind of like this?

 

Kinda. Obviously there is more work to do with the above to make it into Two Tigers, but it should be doable.

[+johnnywc]

I think I already figured out which shooter it is elsewhere ...

 

I think you may be right...

 

... and am I correct to assume that the rewrite will salvage another flicker-fest?

 

WoW! Good guess!

[Cybergoth]

[mos6507]

If you do Wizard of War, you have to make it support AtariVox. I know it will interfere with the 2nd controller port, but still...

[+Nathan Strum]

It wouldn't interfere if you used a Y-cable with it.

[+johnnywc]

If you do Wizard of War, you have to make it support AtariVox. I know it will interfere with the 2nd controller port, but still...

 

Agreed. A rewrite of WoW would almost require Atarivox support, both for voice and hiscores.

 

It wouldn't interfere if you used a Y-cable with it.

 

Is that true with a splitter as well? My guess is no - that it wouldn't either work or be safe. I'm pretty rusty on my EE so I'm not sure what would happen.

[+johnnywc]

Update:

 

I've started Rip Off development again. My brother (with whom I used to play this game with way back when) is visiting in 4 weeks so I need to get something playable for 2-player game testing!

 

Will post updates as they become available...

Edited April 24, 2007 by johnnywc

[mos6507]

It wouldn't interfere if you used a Y-cable with it.

 

It would have to be an active device like the MULTIJOY interface for the A8.

[+Nathan Strum]

I'll have to check again, but I could've sworn the Y-cable worked fine with Fall Down and the AtariVox.

[Nognir]

Just out of curiousity:

Is this project on hold now or will the Wizard Of Wor Remake come first?

Thanks

[+johnnywc]

Well, it's been almost 2 years since I worked on this, but I dusted off the ol' code and decided to post the current binary. The version is basically unplayable but gives an idea of how the game is coming along.

 

- both ships can be moved

- both ships can fire up to 2 shots

- 2 enemy ships fly around shooting lasers

 

You can press SELECT to cycle through the different enemies (thx Nathan!). Color/BW will toggle between color and BW mode. No sounds yet, but Bob D has already converted them all for me - I just need to put them in.

 

ripoff.bin

[+Nathan Strum]

It's great to see this being dusted off! I got to see this in development some time ago, and was really impressed with how far John had gotten with it. Here's hoping to see it continued.

[TrekMD]

This looks interesting. I hope you keep working on it now that it is "dusted off."

[mos6507]

It already has an athentic Cinematronics feel. Any chance of reducing the flicker at all?

[+johnnywc]

It's great to see this being dusted off! I got to see this in development some time ago, and was really impressed with how far John had gotten with it. Here's hoping to see it continued.

 

Thanks Nathan - and thanks again for the gfx. I'm looking through the code right now trying to figure out what frame of mind I was in 2 years ago... I'm going to start at least doing some of the mundane stuff like 1/2 player selection, level/point display, etc to get me back into 2600 programming mode.

 

It already has an athentic Cinematronics feel. Any chance of reducing the flicker at all?

 

Thanks! Yes - I do like the movements of the ships/enemies etc. Definitely 'feels' like Rip Off so far. Flicker won't be reduced unfortunately - to get everything on the screen needs a constant 30hz flicker. The good news is that it will never be worse than that. Also - are you enabling the phosphor effect? Makes a huge difference. It looks really nice on a TV.

[Impaler_26]

It's nice to see you continue working on this game! It resembles the look of vector-graphics pretty well, i'm looking forward to see how this develops!

 

Keep up the good work!

[PacManPlus]

Very cool John - glad to see you getting back to this.

[gambler172]

Hi John

Looks really nice.Cannot wait to see a playable version.

greetings Walter

[Albert]

That looks fantastic. I really love the vector-like title screen.

 

..Al

[Godzilla]

Just checked it out, great speed, can't wait to play this one. Still one of my favorite vectrex games If u can get the gameplay close to the vec version, then you've got it. imho.

[TROGDOR]

I played this game several times at a local Pizza Hut back in 1980. I remember the game being very difficult. Of course, I was 9 at the time, so most early video games were tough. I'll have to hunt this down on Mame.

 

The demo is great. The title screen does an excellet job capturing the nostalgia of the original game. The game play and maneuverability are spot on, and the graphics look fine. I've never been a fan of flicker, but between the phosphor option on Stella and the appearance on an actual TV, I don't think it will detract from the game. Good luck with your development.