Trace It!
- PROSM
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Trace It!
I decided to write a little game over my holiday after being inspired by R-Tape's comment on the crap games compo thread. It's fairly short, with only fifteen screens, but it gets devilishly difficult in the final few levels. It will run on a 16K Spectrum.
Instructions are in the game's inlay file.
Download from Dropbox
Instructions are in the game's inlay file.
Download from Dropbox
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Re: Trace It!
Fun little game! Only managed to get off the first level on my last life and promptly ran into the nearest wall as soon as the second one started. Will put this on my ZXDS flashcart, seems to be a good pick up and play game.
ZX Soft - ALIEN(BUGFIX) - GB Soft - Demoscene
- Ast A. Moore
- Rick Dangerous
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Re: Trace It!
This is absolutely brilliant! Love the addition of inertia.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
Re: Trace It!
Great fun, especially when you get used to the inertia and can whizz around. That doesn't make the ice, pacers, crawlers and floaters any easier though.
It's fiendish! I've reached 'Subway' and am a little bit scared by the thought of 15 levels.
It's fiendish! I've reached 'Subway' and am a little bit scared by the thought of 15 levels.
- PROSM
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Re: Trace It!
Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 6:19 pm This is absolutely brilliant! Love the addition of inertia.
Glad to hear you enjoy it! Trust me though, by the time you reach the final level, 'Subway' will feel like a walk in the park. After that, you'll be able to play the levels again in extreme mode...
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- PROSM
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Re: Trace It!
The ZIP file has been mirrored at ConnoSoft to allow for convenient direct downloads: https://connosoft.com/prosm/downloads/TraceIt.zip
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Re: Trace It!
It is very refreshing. I just can't stop. It's like we've stepped back in time to 1983. Simple, funny look with a great idea. For me, one of the best of recent years.
Re: Trace It!
Agreed! I love the oldschool (and then some) levels of difficulty, but these days I think it needs more than the oldschool allocation of lives. Though to be fair, we'd probably only have got 3 lives BITD.
We need a good hacker! I've had a go and haven't found the lives counter yet.
Even though it's a different genre, this game reminds me of Loony Zoo. I think it's because of the mix of difficulty, addictiveness, early 80's feel and simplicity.
Re: Trace It!
Great little game... sometimes it's the 'simple' games which provide the most fun!
Re: Trace It!
This is great @PROSM , really hard entertaining, and with an excellent 'one more go' factor. Really nice to see a game not on a black background for a change!
The wiping of the colour after completing a level is very satisfying too.
Can I ask how you did the collision detection? I'd be interested in seeing the source if you ever make it available.
The wiping of the colour after completing a level is very satisfying too.
Can I ask how you did the collision detection? I'd be interested in seeing the source if you ever make it available.
CLEAR 23855
Re: Trace It!
Just been playing this - it goes to show that you just need a simple concept executed well to make a really fun game.
Have been using snapshots but have fallen at the "Tightrope" level (4 I think?). Then again, I'm a bit crap at games... Will probably need to start resorting to some 'mid-level' snapshots soon..
Have been using snapshots but have fallen at the "Tightrope" level (4 I think?). Then again, I'm a bit crap at games... Will probably need to start resorting to some 'mid-level' snapshots soon..
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
- PROSM
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Re: Trace It!
I'll be releasing the source fairly soon, after I've cleaned it up a little with some more comments, but for now, I can briefly describe how the detection works.
The ground check (to see if the tracer has fallen from the path) is a bit of a cheat, as it relies on the BRIGHT bit of the attribute that the centre of the smile currently occupies. If the bit's set, then we're on the path. If not, then we've fallen.
The collision check for the enemies is fairly simple - the program calculates the bounding box for the player (using the smile's X and Y positions), and then iterates through the list of enemies, calculating bounding boxes for each and checking for the four conditions that make collision impossible (assume P means player and E means enemy for this):
- Is E's left edge right of P's right edge?
- Is E's right edge left of P's left edge?
- Is E's top edge below P's bottom edge?
- Is E's bottom edge above P's top edge
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Re: Trace It!
That makes perfect sense. And I certainly don't see attribute check as a cheat, that's eminently sensible.
CLEAR 23855
Re: Trace It!
In case you want to harm yourself for prolonged period, here is infy lives poke -- 26148,183
PROSM - really nice game, but for a 16K affair, it smells by some advanced code tricks. unrolled sprite routine with reading from stack ? that's not 1982 spirit
PROSM - really nice game, but for a 16K affair, it smells by some advanced code tricks. unrolled sprite routine with reading from stack ? that's not 1982 spirit
Proud owner of Didaktik M
- PROSM
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Re: Trace It!
I'm sorry, I'll roll my loops up tight next time!
On a related note, if anyone wants to fiddle around with the code, I've uploaded the source archive to Github: https://github.com/PROSMSoft/TraceIt
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Re: Trace It!
Great game!!! Congratulations.
I love this kind of games with basic ideas but with a lot of fun.
I love this kind of games with basic ideas but with a lot of fun.
Re: Trace It!
If it was done in the true spiwit of 1982 16K, you'd be using RST 16.
- PROSM
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Re: Trace It!
I imagine such a game would have an inlay boasting about how "fast" it was
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Working on something, as always.