Spectrum Computing

I built this Spectrum game just for the sake of having built at least one Spectrum game in my life. Don't judge!



It's nominally for the Spectrum 48K, but the game requires an AY chip for sound, so you may have to set the emulator to 128K in order to hear anything.

Download link: scuttlebutt.tap

Well, it's a unique - more than rare - case of crossing between surreal and scatological in a Spectrum game

Not much to hold your attention here to be honest, but I must say I like the cartoon design, and the movement of the large sprite is smooth and pleasing.

That is an epic first post.

Sorry don't like that sort of stuff. Not what I expect to see on the forum.

This looks great and smooth animation on the main character! Quite addictive but simple and it's nice to have something with a sense of humour. I think there's a bug when trying to catch at the table where the larger picture is in that the poo has continued right through me...YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

redballoon wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:04 pm This looks great and smooth animation on the main character! Quite addictive but simple and it's nice to have something with a sense of humour. I'm think there's a bug when trying to catch at the table where the larger picture is in that the poo has continued right through me...YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

Was the bucket full?

Damn nice!

Smooth, 50 fps masked sprites, plenty of animation frames. Nice artwork and coding. (Although the Sinclair joystick normally defaults to 6,7,8,9,0, rather than 1,2,3,4,5. I’d change that.)

KarlH wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:09 pm

redballoon wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:04 pm This looks great and smooth animation on the main character! Quite addictive but simple and it's nice to have something with a sense of humour. I'm think there's a bug when trying to catch at the table where the larger picture is in that the poo has continued right through me...YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

Was the bucket full?

Oh, I can't remember. I'll see if I can replicate it again.

Hah, yes it was! Apologies. In that case, it looks like the only bug is that the toilet roll orientation seems to be incorrect - it should be hanging on the outside...
Of course, you could make that an option where the default is the outside and for weirdos it hangs on the inside.

redballoon wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:11 pm Hah, yes it was! Apologies. In that case, it looks like the only bug is that the toilet roll orientation seems to be incorrect - it should be hanging on the outside...
Of course, you could make that an option where the default is the outside and for weirdos it hangs on the inside.

You are right. It's only hanging like that to make it more recognisable as a toilet paper roll, but the anal retentive (heh!) part of me wants to flip it around.

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 2:26 pm Sorry don't like that sort of stuff. Not what I expect to see on the forum.

^^^
This made my stomach get my artichokey dinner in boiling mode.
Kerl! be guttingly proud. You made my day

Moved the thread to Brand New Software as it's a finished game isn't it?

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:22 pm Damn nice!

Smooth, 50 fps masked sprites, plenty of animation frames. Nice artwork and coding.

^This^!

Superb mini game! Smooth, playable and addictive. Great animation and graphics.

Congratulations on the release of your first game.
Very nice and clear as to what to do and play. There can be a few more things added to stretch the game.
Let the poo land on the floor and the player can slip along on it - skid marks.
Overfill the bucket and then lose a life. Bonus on the waste left in the bucket at the end of each level.
Mop and bucket floor cleaning level to wipe away the mess.

Great job! Funny and entertaining.

The music full of false notes suits it very well too

Is that a giant squirrel butt ?

I'm asking because it craps in small nut size heart shaped form, or similar to rabbits

The setting is a bit startling.
A Giant Butt hanging from your ceiling.

You could probably change the butt to a leaking pipe (doesn't need to move), without changing the game play, while allowing it to be more realistically proportional

You could also have several "drops" hanging, that could "grow" at different speed, until they get big enough to fall.
The drops, could move around (slide through the pipe, like in real life), and eventually combine to become larger, which would then fall.
This would provide more variety, and some strategic thinking into the game play.

Nice job, for your first game.
Simple and direct, with good performance.

Funny one! xDDD

How about the controls to start with? Unless I could hardly notice which key was used to start the game as I pushed almost all keys altogether, I didn't get it. "1" and "2" are okay for left and right, respectively. I missed some more info about it, unless it's quite easy to understand what to do, as if on Oil Panic pocket game from Nintendo.

Neil Parsons wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:30 am Funny one! xDDD

How about the controls to start with? Unless I could hardly notice which key was used to start the game as I pushed almost all keys altogether, I didn't get it. "1" and "2" are okay for left and right, respectively. I missed some more info about it, unless it's quite easy to understand what to do, as if on Oil Panic pocket game from Nintendo.

You've got it right Neil, it's top left number row as a joystick, so 5 to start and 1 & 2 for L/R, just walk to the toilet to empty the bucket.

Neil Parsons wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:30 am I missed some more info about it, unless it's quite easy to understand what to do, as if on Oil Panic pocket game from Nintendo.

Yeah. Funny game. It's a sort of 'dirty Game & Watch' game

Karl - you will have to forgive me; but as I have no shame, I will ask what others probably though...

Would you think of releasing the source code? There is a lot of technical skill that went into getting such a program to work in the way that it does. It reminds me of looking at an iceberg.

(meaning for the window-lickers/peanut gallery... there is much hidden depth to this program.)

...Cripes, first Davey Sludge and now another one, what's this obsession over bums and bum-based products...

Regardless of the content, just to re-iterate what a few people have said - I can't recall seeing a first attempt at a game which is this (technically) slick.

...Would be interesting to know how long it took you to learn to program to this level (assuming it was from scratch, but maybe it wasn't?)...

[Edit: also I wish I had the ability of being able to do cool graphics as well as program!]

Morkin wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:11 am Regardless of the content, just to re-iterate what a few people have said - I can't recall seeing a first attempt at a game which is this (technically) slick.

...Would be interesting to know how long it took you to learn to program to this level (assuming it was from scratch, but maybe it wasn't?)...

[Edit: also I wish I had the ability of being able to do cool graphics as well as program!]

This ^^^ Karl's has to win a mars bar award for the slickest first program/post (so far..).

Ralf wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:43 pm Great job! Funny and entertaining.

The music full of false notes suits it very well too

Thanks! The music is mostly fixed now, I believe. There was an incorrect pitch value for the note B in the AY-3-8192 documentation, which messed up my frequency tables. 1892 should have been 1812.

http://www.sinclair.hu/hardver/otletek/ ... 3-8912.htm

I've also added redundant controls for a joystick in port 1.

New game file: scuttlebutt.tap

Morkin wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:11 am ...Would be interesting to know how long it took you to learn to program to this level (assuming it was from scratch, but maybe it wasn't?)...

Well, I started learning Spectrum programming five weeks ago, but I've been building computer games for other platforms as a hobby for almost 35 years. That definitely helped.

Nomad wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:47 am Karl - you will have to forgive me; but as I have no shame, I will ask what others probably though...

Would you think of releasing the source code? There is a lot of technical skill that went into getting such a program to work in the way that it does. It reminds me of looking at an iceberg.

(meaning for the window-lickers/peanut gallery... there is much hidden depth to this program.)

I'd rather not do that just yet. The code is poorly structured and a good portion of the variables and subroutines have ... unpleasant names.

It took some experimenting, but none of it is rocket science. The vertical confinement of the two large sprites is what makes it possible to render the game at 50 fps without any flickering. Here is what I do after each "halt" call:

1. Erase all the poop
2. Perform the game logic
3. Draw the poop that's in the top half of the screen
4. Erase and redraw the man sprite
5. Draw the poop that's in the bottom half of the screen
6. Erase and redraw the butt
7. If necessary, update the score and bucket fill level

This way nothing is being updated while the raster beam is working on it. The butt will be one frame out of sync with the other mobile objects, but since its exact location isn't important, it doesn't matter.