Spectrum Computing

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm It'd be a great name for a shmup actually...

Dibs! I call dibs!

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm

Sokurah wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:59 pm Speaking of that - does anyone have suggestions about anything I can change for the physical release?

The only thing I'd like from a cassette version is more replay value (as Alessandro mentioned) by not having the same placement of objects every time. Totally random might spoil it given that there are locked areas, perhaps a choice? 1 - original placement, 2 - random pick from some preset placings known to work, 3 - random placing with some rules.

Just a thought, it's nearly perfect as a remake and good enough for release as is, anything else would be icing on the cake.

Alright, good idea. For this release I stuck to the original game's way of doing it, but I'll add more item locations and do it the Ultimate way - by randomly select set of predefined locations for the items when the game starts.

I'll also fill out those holes in the map and add screens up to a total of (perhaps) 81.

... obviously this is going to delay the cassette release a bit

I played it a bit.

Now it became a smooth, fast, fun shooter. Maybe it's a long shot but it seemed similar to Atic Atac for me You know, you travel from screen to screen, some baddies are generated in random places and you shoot them like crazy.

These caverns are unfortunately a bit dull with all locations looking the same but it guess it's being faithful to the original. It also means that you probably must be mapping the game or using existing map. I tried to play it without it and ended walking i circles.

Generally a great job!

One idea would be using a gameplay inspired in Mojon Twins' Tenebra Macabre. You could illuminate caves in the dark by defecating fluorescent excrements (there would be a crap-o-meter since you cannot find food to recharge your bowels).
So all the caves would be in the dark and you turned them on to get oriented. One advantage of flying in the dark is that enemies cannot follow you unless you start firing. Also you could use your bullets like a bat-ecoradar. Procedural generated caves and explosives to get them connected could be interesting to make your own way out. Perhaps instakill for some kind of enemies would make the lighting/ecoradar/bombs mechanics more challenging.

I've found you an avatar hikoki :-p

hikoki wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 12:38 pm One idea would be using a gameplay inspired in Mojon Twins' Tenebra Macabre. You could illuminate caves in the dark by defecating fluorescent excrements (there would be a crap-o-meter since you cannot find food to recharge your bowels).
So all the caves would be in the dark and you turned them on to get oriented. One advantage of flying in the dark is that enemies cannot follow you unless you start firing. Also you could use your bullets like a bat-ecoradar. Procedural generated caves and explosives to get them connected could be interesting to make your own way out. Perhaps instakill for some kind of enemies would make the lighting/ecoradar/bombs mechanics more challenging.

Those are great ideas ... but they're big changes and would fundamentally change the game. These would be great ideas for a sequel or another game entirely, but not something I would work into this game.

lol who'll be that guy? dunno what you mean

painting the caves as you shoot leaving attributes everywhere would be useful not to get lost and would be good for replayability to paint your own noise differently on every game

Sokurah wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 1:06 pm Those are great ideas ... but they're big changes and would fundamentally change the game. These would be great ideas for a sequel or another game entirely, but not something I would work into this game.

At least someone makes sense of my surgeoneries. Hope Sokurah made sense of his own judgements.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Ucyng65R1sQ[/youtube]

hikoki wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 1:14 pm lol who'll be that guy? dunno what you mean

That's Klunk from the Whacky Racers, he's a crackpot genius.

You could illuminate caves in the dark by defecating fluorescent excrements

What are you smoking now bro?

hikoki wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 2:02 pm If you don't like my vapour surgeonstions you're free to go humpf yourshelf

^^^
Coffin to this guy

Oh dear, hope I didn't misjudge that joke. Hikoki you have a PM.

Sorry it was meant in fondness, and I didn't mean you could not be understood. I remember Klunk as the mad scientist that has a crazy plan, but was a masterful engineer.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:04 pm Not a big deal but is there a little graphical glitch on the wing when the bird is moving right?

I think I know what you were talking about, but it's fixed now.

The glitch isn't actually on the wing itself - or present in the graphical data, but sometimes below the sprites. This was caused by enemy sprites sometimes moving outside the screen area. The sprite routine picks up the line to draw on from a table of screen addresses, but as only lines 0-191 are present in the table it would in some cases read some random data outside of those and interpret them as screen address and write to them, resulting in graphics (and possibly other things) being corrupted. I hope that makes sense.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm The only thing I'd like from a cassette version is more replay value (as Alessandro mentioned) by not having the same placement of objects every time. Totally random might spoil it given that there are locked areas, perhaps a choice? 1 - original placement, 2 - random pick from some preset placings known to work, 3 - random placing with some rules.

Just a thought, it's nearly perfect as a remake and good enough for release as is, anything else would be icing on the cake.

So, the graphical glitch-thing has been fixed. Yay!
I've also added 16 screens for a total of 80 screens.
And finally I've added "the Ultimate Play The Game way" of handling items, so the game now has several sets of predefined item-locations, and a random set of those are selected at the start of every game, so that should take care of the replay value

Oh, and it'll be released on tape soon

Glad you sorted that bug, sounds like it had the potential to be more damaging than the occasional errant pixel. The strange thing is it only ever did if on my first play, I never saw it again.

Looking forward to the tape.

R-Tape wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 6:37 am Glad you sorted that bug, sounds like it had the potential to be more damaging than the occasional errant pixel. The strange thing is it only ever did if on my first play

It’s very easy to replicate though. When you start a game to go the right, then up the first time. On that screen let yourself fall back to the screen below, but move right to hug the wall so you’re positioned on pixel line 0. Then wait until until an enemy spawns at the top. The you’ll see it in a few seconds.