ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

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.
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Alessandro
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Alessandro »

As it is now, I find the game could be much more playable with some polish, precisely if:
  • there were much less enemy bullets flying around; it is hard to understand what's going on, and it's not pleasant to lose all of your lives after about 10-20 seconds of play;
  • the player character sprite was moving 1 character block at a time, like the enemies, to avoid attribute misalignment;
  • backgrounds were less cluttered (notice in particular the "black aura" around the player character sprite when it reaches the upper part of the screen).
These are some quick notes after a few goes. I reckon there much care has been taken in designing the characters and levels, but gameplay wise, it could be improved a lot.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ralf »

Okay, so here go some thoughts of mine.

Technically the game is very impressive, it's true so called "bullet hell", never seen on Spectrum before. And on other 8-bit platforms like CPC or MSX2 probably too. If it was the main goal then it's achieved for sure.

But Spectrum version unfortunately suffers from some issues. My general impression is that it became worse when converted from CPC to Spectrum. It was all originally designed for CPC 4 colour mode. Here on Spectrum we don't have such mode. We have more colours but also colour clash. So prepare for barely visible bullets in the colour of background and sprites making jerky moves by 8 pixels.

And there is simply too many of these bullets. You cannot avoid them, you die very soon. Yes, there are 60 (!) continues so you can actually continue on playing quite long. But it's just not fun when you lose all your lives every 20-30 seconds and use a continue. Good, balanced game should allow an average player to surivive with his skills.

The graphics are stylishly ugly :) It reminds me of games like Go To Hell:
Image

The music is at moments all right and at moments unfortunately not, consisting of annoying buzzes and farts.

My advice to other players - just accept that you will die often. Use the continues and you'll be able to actually complete some levels and see some action.

And Keith56, don't feel upset by my words. You are a great programmer, just give some more care to game difficulty and playability. I hope to see more games of yours in the future ;)
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by hikoki »

It's nice to have a Bullet Hell on the Spectrum. One that I like with good music is the arcade Dangun Feveron.
To have so many bullets at the same time without causing slowdown I would suggest making the player's fire destroy bullets and to provide the player some kind of vectorial shield to freeze bullets for a while on certain directions, maybe a rotary shield which can be triggered with a key, so bullets on the aimed region get frozen, it could be interesting to build your own ways to avoid contacting any bullet.

Edit

Freezing bullets example:
Spoiler
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by hikoki »

I'll try my best with the .TRD version and play with different setting on the difficulty menu.
I just provided a few ideas because I liked so much that you brought a bullet hell game to the Speccy and saw this is just episode one. Hope there will be more episodes. Thanks for the game, now I'm going to play this marvel properly.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ast A. Moore »

keith56 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:06 pm I'm pretty disappointed by the response to the spectrum version game... I don't mind people not liking what I like... but butchering my own graphics for the speccys limitations, fuses awful windows debugger, and the lousy memory mapping of the speccy were not fun to work with . . . the spectrum version took 131 hours to make by the way...
I’m sorry you took it so personally, Keith. Moreover, as a fellow developer, I hear you, and understand where your frustration is coming from.

Here’s the harsh truth, though: gamers don’t give a rat’s furry behind about how many hours we put into making a game or what difficulties we had to overcome. All they care is the result. If they don’t like it, they don’t like it. Some may take time and even offer constructive criticism, but that’s all you’re going to get.

Now, allow me to give you a few pointers that are (mostly) Spectrum-specific, which, had they been addressed from the beginning, could have made the overall experience a little smoother for the average Speccy aficionados.
keith56 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:06 pm I never tested it properly . . . and it was only provided for people who couldn't use the disk version . . . I probably should have made that clear
Probably.
keith56 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:06 pmalso you'd know Z started the game if you'd actually bothered to read the readme file, but I guess that was too much work
While it might seem like Spectrum games use a gazillion variations of controls, the reality is that when people see “Press fire,” they assume the following:

1. Kempston joystick fire button
2. Sinclair/Protek/cursor joystick fire button (“0”; rarely “5”)
3. Space bar or “M”

Many games can even autodetect a joystick during gameplay. For example, if the “9” key is detected, it’s Sinclair joystick; if the “5” key is pressed, it’s cursor; etc.

That’s what people expect.
keith56 wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 12:06 pmthere's a Difficulty setting in the settings menu, you can set the difficulty to 'Gringo Pu--y' and there will be about 1/4 of the onscreen bullets... I KEEP telling people about it over and over
The old adage in the moviemaking industry goes, “Show, but don’t tell.” The menu navigation is confusing. It’s not terribly easy to discover these options. There are six (!) menu options on the first screen alone and none explicitly tells you it’s about setting the difficulty level. Moreover, before you can change it (after you’ve started playing the game), you need to reload the menu. A bit easier for the disk versions, but a nightmare for tape users.

Redefinable keys are clumsy, too. For starters, each keypress takes forever to register. Secondly, you don’t display all available controls at once; each keypress simply shows you the next control. How many are there altogether? This affects which configuration the player will choose. There’s plenty of screen estate to show them all at once; you could use it.

Thirdly, the same key can be assigned to numerous controls. I’m not sure it’s essential for the game, but I doubt there’s any benefit in having the same key assigned to, say, both left and right. There’s no feedback for which keys have been selected, so this can quickly become even more confusing. The “Press Key for:” legend appearing below the control name is not helping things, either (to say nothing of the arbitrarily placed dashes instead of spaces used for control names).

Finally, it’s a no-no to use the newly redefined controls for navigating the menu itself. If the player accidentally sets the wrong controls (and with your system it’s almost a given), he’s effectively locked himself out of the game and will need to reload it. Yes, you can get a little inventive with menu-specific controls, but under no circumstance should they lock the player out.

Note, I haven’t said a word about the gameplay itself, only about the UI, because there is plenty wrong with the UI alone. I realize it’s not easy to design a good one. But sometimes simple conventions can help you make good decisions more than adhering to strict logic can. And the Spectrum (as any other platform) has its own long history of conventional controls and menu systems. A good, intuitive UI relies heavily on conventions and expectations, rather on players reading instructions.

A good understanding of, and intimate familiarity with, each platform is as much of a challenge as overcoming the technical difficulties for multiplatform development. And I don’t mean just for retrogaming. Plenty of modern multiplatform projects failed miserably solely because when porting them from one platform to the next, developers didn’t bother learning each platform’s long-standing traditional approaches to doing things, and altered their software accordingly.

I hope my little writeup clears a few things for you. Cheers!
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by dfzx »

Ast A. Moore wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:05 pm Here’s the harsh truth, though: gamers don’t give a rat’s furry behind about how many hours we put into making a game or what difficulties we had to overcome.
While I'd agree with that assertion in respect of commercial games on modern consoles and PCs, I don't think it applies to newly developed Spectrum games. Most of us, surely pretty much all of us, understand that the retro scene is kept alive by developers putting in huge amounts of work for no real reward other than the love of it, and maybe the idea that a handful of people might appreciate the effort and outcome.
Derek Fountain, author of the ZX Spectrum C Programmer's Getting Started Guide and various open source games, hardware and other projects, including an IF1 and ZX Microdrive emulator.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ast A. Moore »

dfzx wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:49 pm
Ast A. Moore wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:05 pm Here’s the harsh truth, though: gamers don’t give a rat’s furry behind about how many hours we put into making a game or what difficulties we had to overcome.
While I'd agree with that assertion in respect of commercial games on modern consoles and PCs, I don't think it applies to newly developed Spectrum games. Most of us, surely pretty much all of us, understand that the retro scene is kept alive by developers putting in huge amounts of work for no real reward other than the love of it, and maybe the idea that a handful of people might appreciate the effort and outcome.
Well, what you say doesn’t really contradict what I said. One can simultaneously appreciate the effort and speak his mind about the fruits of that effort. Countering critique with “but I put so much time and effort into it” is, in my book, counterproductive, because that is either implicitly understood (as you mention), or is not even taken into consideration to begin with (people simply judge the game on its own merit).
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.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ralf »

I'm sorry Keith that our opinions hurt you.
I really took it into account and tried to choose my words carefully but it happened anyway...

It's almost philosophical and moral issue. Let's suppose I didn't enjoy someone's game. Or had mixed feelings like in your case. What should I do:
- say the truth
- say a lie
- say nothing ?
Personally I believe any feedback is better then lack of feedback. It shows that at least some people care about your work.

As for this game - leaving the gameplay aside, I agree with Ast about the menu. It's confusing. You bang some random keys hoping that they will
work as up, down or fire. Difficulty selection is very well hidden ;) I missed it totally during my first gameplays, will have to check it now.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by R-Tape »

Awww c'mon Keith, this looking a bit foot stompy to me. There's been a lot of encouragement here during the dev stages. It's only been a waste of time if your main goal was to have lots of people say "Thanks! Downloading now. Will play later".

I was one of the two that paid for it when it was first released. I played the TAP. I'm afraid I fell into the same traps that everyone else did. I'm used to things being clearer than that, and I was busy, so I moved on to the next thing. Apologies for that, I should have given it more time to suss out.

I had more of a go on it last night, using DSK, QAOP keys and Gringo mode. The levels are okay, but the bosses are fantastic - both the graphics and attack modes.

So, thanks for the game, and I'll be playing it more.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by hikoki »

What about other debuggers? Spin, Specemu, Zesarux, Emuzwin..
Which is the best one that you can recommend to Keith?
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by PeterJ »

At Keith's request we have deleted his account and all posts.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by hikoki »

:| did I say something wrong? i just mentioned other emulators with good debuggers
I was about to play the game on Gringo mode and comment my impressions later
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ast A. Moore »

hikoki wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:31 pm :| did I say something wrong? i just mentioned other emulators with good debuggers
I was about to play the game on Gringo mode and comment my impressions later
Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything either of us did.
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and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ralf »

:(

Shame that it turned out this way. Good luck Keith with your future projects.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Rorthron »

PeterJ wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:00 pm At Keith's request we have deleted his account and all posts.
I am sorry to hear that.

However, can I request that his posts all be restored? The deletion of his posts changes the context of all the posts in this and other threads. In the case of this thread it renders other users' comments nonsensical. I think it is unreasonable effectively to change the meaning of other users' posts without their consent, or, it seems, without good reason.

For exactly these reasons the forum's policy has been not to allow edits after two hours unless a good reason has been provided to a moderator. As far as I can see, no good reason has been supplied. The deletion of the posts appears to be contrary to forum rules (guideline L) and undermines the forum's integrity.

As I understand the law and regulations, the user has no legal right to require deletion of posts.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by PeterJ »

Hi [mention]Rorthron[/mention]

This is the first such request we have had, and Keith specifically asked for all his content to be deleted. I double checked this is what he wanted.

I'm not an expert on the law around GDPR, but I take on board your comments. I will read up and maybe update the forum rules as appropriate.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Rorthron »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it is not an easy job.

I should be clear that I am not a GDPR expert, either.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Ralf »

These are complicated matters.

So I posted on some forum. Does my post and its content belong to me or to the forum? May it be quoted by other people? May it be edited by me? May it be edited by admins (for example for removing obscenities or personal information)? May it be deleted by any side?

Similar stuff is with emails and traditional letters. Someone sent me a letter. May I make the content public or not? One interpration is that he "gave" me the letter content so I'm the owner now and may do with my property what I want. Another interpretation however says the he still may not wish to make his letter public and has legal right to claim so.

This is all very vague and courts often interepret it in different way. I would even dare to say it's all made this way so lawyers could earn their cash ;)

But anyway... Maybe some explicit rule on the forums that admins may edit and delete inappropriate comments and refuse to delete your stored comments could be good?
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by PeterJ »

GDPR has something called 'right to be forgotten' or 'right to erasure'

It is a very complicated law (and the fines can be huge), and I made the decision to comply with the request.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Rorthron »

As I understand it, the right to be forgotten only applies to personal data, which does not include forum posts:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gu ... onal-data/

You also have one month to comply with requests and the right to be forgotten does not apply in all circumstances:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gu ... o-erasure/
Last edited by Rorthron on Tue Oct 30, 2018 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by PeterJ »

There appear to be many contradictory articles, and I need to do some research for future requests. Thanks for the links [mention]Rorthron[/mention].
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Alessandro »

I am sorry Keith took those issues so personally that he wanted to be deleted from the forum. I - and surely I am not the only one - don't really think the 131 hours he spent in making the Spectrum version of his game were "a waste of time". I really appreciated the way the designed the game characters and setting, and his attempt to build a different kind of shoot-em-up, developing it simultaneously on different platforms to boot. But anyway - I too wish him good luck with his future projects :)
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by Andre Leao »

We have mixed feelings at Planeta Sinclair at well. Pedro Pimenta's review will be released in a couple of hours. He is very young and never have been playing games like Aftwerburner or Karnov, in the eightes (or nowadays) He was not born yet :). So his sensations about the game are different from mine. His feelings about the game are just average and he reflects that on his review.

I also have done a review, but it will only be available in a few months, at two magazines. I also thinks the game lacks on playbility, but thecnically is impressive, and I evaluated the game according to that (I gave it 4 out of 5).

Also, Afterburner costed, by the time, almost 10 pounds (or 1 pound in Portugal, pirate copies, of course), and this game is free... Don´t forget about that...

I hope Keith just takes all these opinions as something positive, so he can improves on part 2 of the game. I guess people was just expecting too much from this game at the beginning...
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by R-Tape »

Andre Leao wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 4:50 pm I hope Keith just takes all these opinions as something positive
Doubtful.
I guess people was just expecting too much from this game at the beginning...
I think the problem here was not our expectations, but his.

Once it became clear the game wasn't going to sell out, it was made freely available. When there was restrained criticism rather than an avalanche of praise, he spotted his botty, and started slagging off people's inability to follow instructions, the Spectrum's graphical capabilities, the "lousy" memory map and the FUSE debugger. Then asked for his account and all posts to be deleted.

If this can be described as anything other than a big flounce, I'd like to know what it is.

That said, it's a decent game, really, the bosses are fantastic.
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Re: ChibiAkumas for Spectrum 128K

Post by AndyC »

I can understand some of the frustration of putting a lot of effort into something and then being disappointed by what might seem an underwhelming response. At the same time though, I don't really think that people should fawn all over every game simply because it's a new and given away for free (and even the paid versions aren't really a for-profit effort). It's a good game, a little ambitious perhaps and probably suffers somewhat from being ported to a large number of platforms - there's a reason such "lazy" ports were always criticised back in the day, whether Speccy => CPC/MSX or ST => Amiga, a shared code base has a tendency to highlight deficiencies of the secondary platforms and miss out on some of their advantages.

I think everyone should give it a go - personally I'd go for the original CPC version, the joy of modern retro-computing is we can all fire up emulation of pretty much any platform and give things a go on the machines they were designed for.
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