Extruder

People are still making stuff for the Sinclair related machines. Tell us about new games and other software that runs on the Spectrum, ZX80/ZX81, Pentagon and Next.
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Ok, here is some real footage, of me playing Magical Drop II, on my Arcade machine.

https://youtu.be/Y0-Z0EAa9VY

Not my best play, but good enough to reach the Black Pierrot character, but then lost once against Black Pierrot, before beating it.

P.S. Sorry for the misaligned screen footage.
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Since the video was not well framed, I did another one, but this time I was not so lucky when battling Black Pierrot

https://youtu.be/FWyPOHnnyH4

It took me 3 more credits than seen on video, besides the ones I lost before, to beat it.

We can't always publish "perfect play" videos right ?
Reality is not perfect :)
User avatar
Alessandro
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1908
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:10 am
Location: Messina, Italy
Contact:

Re: Extruder

Post by Alessandro »

Thanks for sharing these videos.

So you own a real arcade machine? Wow! :!:
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Alessandro wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:40 pm Thanks for sharing these videos.

So you own a real arcade machine? Wow! :!:
Yep!
I bought a used one. Fixed it to a better condition than it was, and made some improvements to it: new speakers to match the power output of the sound amplifier; new micro switches for buttons and joysticks; cleaned some rust on metal parts, and chromed some of them; and reworked some of the cables that were a real mess.
It also needs new fans, since one stopped working and the other is doing strange noises :)

Currently it's running with a Pandora Box 3 PCB, with 520 games on it.
I will be upgrading it to a Pandora Box 4, with 645 games, in the near future, to fix a few issues with some games (1943 for example, has incomplete sound implementation).

I also have some vintage arcade boards, like P.O.W., that I can swap in when needed (but then it's a single game Arcade).
NOTE: I'm planning to buy a NeoGeo system too, so that I can use cartridges on it :)

I proposed to my boss to bring it to work, and at work it is :)
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

Where is the real Speccy footage? that's what we were waiting for! :) you could still win a few votes thanks to this
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

hikoki wrote: Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:45 pm Where is the real Speccy footage? that's what we were waiting for! :) you could still win a few votes thanks to this
What do you mean ?
Footage of me playing Extruder on a real Speccy?

It's too easy as it is, for me.
I made it easier, so that "untrained" players, would not complain too much :)

I may jack up the difficulty, just to make a video with it though :lol:

NOTE:
I found a bug, where if you play single player mode for a few minutes, without loosing, and then balls stop dropping for a while.
The difficulty time trigger does fire and sound is played, but no balls are injected into the board.
After a while, balls start dropping again, but you better be prepared for it, since it kept increasing the difficulty while apparently nothing was happening :D

I have not tracked the bug down yet, but I'm pretty sure the bug is due to some byte size counters used for pattern injection (a feature from Magical Drop III), which are overflowing.
User avatar
Seven.FFF
Manic Miner
Posts: 735
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2017 10:50 pm
Location: USA

Re: Extruder

Post by Seven.FFF »

Patching/injection bugs are not the easiest to track down, good luck :)
Robin Verhagen-Guest
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
NXtel NXTP ESP Update ESP Reset CSpect Plugins
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Actualy its simple to solve.

When starting in single player, ther initial injected balls, do not fill an entire line.
When inserting more lines the amount of balls inserted per line changes, i.e. the line pattern changes regarding where balls are added and which colors they should be.

So, for each column there is a definition of how many lines need to be inserted until a ball on that column is allowed to be inserted.

For a 2 player game, the maximum quota (feature not implemented yet) is 200, depending on dificulty level. Hence a single byte counter for inserted lines is enough, since we have 256 combinations and 7 balls per line.

However, I abused the code to control the single player pattern too, which allows the player to keep on playing for a lot longer, without reviewing this known limitation.

A reasonable player can handle more than 256 lines, speciallly with all the power ups I left in, for all colors. The original is a lot harder, since it has some more features that I have not implemented yet, like "bubbles*, which are annoying to clear.
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

It's really fast to me to the point I would rather having more time to plan my moves. :)
One suggestion would be to add Pause power-ups and bullets. Bullets could be also useful for the 2-player mode if every burst bubble on your screen became blocked on the opponent screen. These blocked/hardened bubbles could only be cleared by shooting at them. So both bullets and pausing might force players to play more strategically. It could even fun to allow players freeze the opponent's level..pausing either your level or the opponent's one could be an interesting and risky decision to take.

Edit:

I've just reminded one video I watched the other day where a few spec-chums tried to play some games online using the multiplayer feature from Emuzwin. Perhaps the Pausing mechanic would help to reduce lag to play 1on1 online.
Spoiler
You can read how performance went on the video comments
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

hikoki wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:08 pm It's really fast to me to the point I would rather having more time to plan my moves. :)
...
I would suggest that you play in 2 player mode with someone, since it's easier, because you have less balls to process visually, until you get better at it.
You also get a smaller boost from a power up, since the amount of balls on screen is smaller.

I can probably reduce the initial lines being inject by one on the initial single player screen, to provide some extra time.

However, I do not plan to make changes that will make it different to play, when compared to the Arcade version.
My plan is to make it more and more like the Arcade, in the near future.
User avatar
Einar Saukas
Bugaboo
Posts: 3070
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:48 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by Einar Saukas »

What about a menu option to choose difficulty (easy, medium, hard, arcade)? This way, your game will appeal to everybody!

Put some indication of chosen difficulty in the score table (perhaps show score in a different color) so records from different difficulty levels won't be mixed up.
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Einar Saukas wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2018 3:45 pm What about a menu option to choose difficulty (easy, medium, hard, arcade)? This way, your game will appeal to everybody!

Put some indication of chosen difficulty in the score table (perhaps show score in a different color) so records from different difficulty levels won't be mixed up.
In a near future, I plan to have a difficulty setting, since that was also possible in the Neo Geo BIOS settings, and it also helps new players.

I have my own settings for now (mainly line drop speed, and percentage of Power Ups).
But I intend to reverse engineer the Arcade difficulty settings, which is another can of worms :roll:
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Since there was a request, here is a video of me playing Extruder single player mode, without any changes (easy mode for me :) )

https://youtu.be/WwGpBG8jHOg

NOTE: The original RZX file has the entire play until I reached the bug I mentioned before (stops dropping balls for a while).
However, after converting the RZX to an FMF and then to AVI, it breaks into several files since AVI does not support files larger than 1.07GB, hence the youtube video is shorter, since it's just the first part of five parts.
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

Now that the context voting is over, it would be nice to get some unbiased feedback about the game.

As a developer I welcome that kind of constructive feedback.

Don't be shy :lol:
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

One interesting mode could be two players competing on the same screen who are given one colour each. The winner would be the first one to clear all the bubbles with assigned colour. I think this mode would make players plan their moves.
User avatar
RMartins
Manic Miner
Posts: 776
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:26 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by RMartins »

hikoki wrote: Sat Mar 17, 2018 12:05 pm One interesting mode could be two players competing on the same screen who are given one colour each. The winner would be the first one to clear all the bubbles with assigned colour. I think this mode would make players plan their moves.
That would be quite odd, since sharing a screen (i.e. same play area) almost always implies colaborative play, but then only one would win.

However, as a game mode it wouldn't make much sense if power ups are included, since a power up does exactly that, burst every ball with the same color as the power up.
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

That would be quite odd, since sharing a screen (i.e. same play area) almost always implies colaborative play, but then only one would win.
It'd be odd for sure :) imagine a Pang game where players had two type of weapons, for bursting and pushing bubbles.
However, as a game mode it wouldn't make much sense if power ups are included, since a power up does exactly that, burst every ball with the same color as the power up.
Of course, there should be a few rules and restrictions for this mode to work. I haven't give it much thought. Probably another rule should have to be that players couldn't take balls with the opponent's colour.
User avatar
druellan
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1466
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:19 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by druellan »

hikoki wrote: Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:08 pm I've just reminded one video I watched the other day where a few spec-chums tried to play some games online using the multiplayer feature from Emuzwin. Perhaps the Pausing mechanic would help to reduce lag to play 1on1 online.
Spoiler
Hi! That was me! :D

That was pretty much improvised. I was blind-testing Spectrum games and the discussion on the chat shifted to online multiplayer, so, I fired-up EmuZWin, and sent it to the viewers.

About the lag, take in account that I was acting as a host in Argentina for two users on Spain, and also streaming, so, latency was high, around half a second or so. Latency between close peers is minimal, but still noticeable if you seek for it.

Back to the stream, latency or not, the experience for both the Spanish users was very good. They completed a full Match Day 2 including the extra time.

Thanks for posting that, you made my day :D
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

druellan wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 2:02 am Thanks for posting that, you made my day :D
You are welcome.
Broadband is more usual nowadays. I hope you can organise online matches on this forum :)
User avatar
druellan
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1466
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:19 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by druellan »

hikoki wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 8:31 pm Broadband is more usual nowadays. I hope you can organise online matches on this forum :)
Thanks!, and yes, I'm looking for a Match Day event, sadly, I can't host it myself because of the latency, but I'm encouraging the Spanish community to see if anyone can host a tournament.

Meantime I'll keep exploring EmuZWin, that seems to be regaining some attention with a couple of hacks that improve stability, and problematic games are now more or less playable o netplay:

Image Image


There are also more emulators out there. Speccy Emulator is another one, but works only on the local network (BUT perhaps using a VPN?), and now I'm testing Plus-F (http://plus-f.socialthingy.com/) with mixed results, but the new version seems to improve things.

Also, other people on the community are experimenting using Parsec and Spectaculator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0r1mpygUTY
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

[mention]druellan[/mention] Another option could be Retroarch's Netplay.
Simply Austin made a nice Retropie image for Spectrum games.
According to this video review, netplay performs much better on the PC than the Pi
https://youtu.be/jbmyO-iFJ0g
User avatar
druellan
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1466
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:19 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by druellan »

Oh, thanks for that!

A couple of member use Retroarch for streaming, I'm going to ask about it, but if I remember correctly, the FUSE core for Retroarch is not Netplay capable. I might be wrong, though.
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

druellan wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:17 pm ..the FUSE core for Retroarch is not Netplay capable. I might be wrong, though.
There could be some way to install other emulators? something to ask the Retroarch developers.
The Pi version seems to support FBZX and two Fuse core versions : https://github.com/retropie/retropie-se ... X-Spectrum
hikoki
Manic Miner
Posts: 576
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:54 am

Re: Extruder

Post by hikoki »

From the netplay-faq on Libretro's site
Which cores work for netplay?
* On a technical level, every core that supports save states should work but the performance requirements may be too high for it to work in any practical level.
Save states.. Is not RZX and rollback what this is about? Maybe [mention]serbalgi[/mention] , [mention]Fred[/mention] et al. have overlooked the possibility to support Netplay on Retroarch :)
I guess Libretro only supports open source emulators. Apart from Fuse, another one that supports RZX is Unreal Speccy Portable. By the way, [mention]PeterJ[/mention] USP has an addon for Chrome browser that may be useful to support playing online.
User avatar
druellan
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1466
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:19 pm

Re: Extruder

Post by druellan »

Interesting! Save states is the way EmuZWin does it AFAIK, and Plus-F is doing something similar but fragmenting the packets to improve latency.
Post Reply