A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps SHMUP

[cmonkey]

Easy mode has certainly made the game a bit more playable. I can now manage to survive past the first missile base without rage quitting and deleting the game! It's still a very hard game, even on easy, but I guess that's just because these days games are dumbed down so much that it's unusual to find a game that offers the player any kind of a steep learning curve. If you'd released this in '85 then nobody would have batted an eyelid as it would have fit in nicely with the rest of the brutally hard games released then!

Did you do all the play testing yourself during dev or did you have beta testers?

I'm curious as to why you decided that you should only be able to destroy the ground bases with a bomb and the fighters with your bullets? Seems weird when you drop a bomb and it goes straight through a fighter and then destroys the missile base. Surely a bomb would be able to destroy a fighter? Likewise why can't you destroy a missile base with your bullets? Instead they just pass straight through the missile bases without causing any damage at all. Seems a little counter intuitive?

I'm not trying to take away from your accomplishment here, you've done a great job and it is a great game, albeit very difficult, just trying to understand your thought process during design.

[Spud]

Easy is too easy to the point of being dull.

Hard is still too hard. I think I need a medium level difficultly.

My top score on hard is 1040.

Frustrating things I find:

1. planes appearing immediately from behind in line with your copter on start, no chance to avoid it. That's unfair. Give me some invulnerability for a couple of seconds to give me a chance to get out of the way? Or be a bit more selective about where they spawn the start.
2. I want my bombs I drop to detonate the missiles from the ground things. That would give me a fair chance of getting away with it occasionally if I dropped one in time to.
3. I'd kind of like my bombs to be able to hit the fighters on the way down (and exploding if they hit). I think that'd be quite cool.

I appreciate it is your game though, so do as you please. I want to enjoy playing it but I find it too frustrating still. It's smooth as butter though and you've obviously put a tonne of effort into producing a polished package which I admire tremendously.

[Spud]

My top score on hard is 1040.

1070 actually!

[Ast A. Moore]

I want to thank you all for the comments; I enjoy reading them all, including—and, perhaps, especially—the criticisms. I only wish I had more of that back when I released the very first version of Yankee.

Now, I’ll attempt to address some of your points.

Errrm, I've played the 'easy version' and I saw nothing changed, as difficult as usual!

The new easy difficulty is just right for me! Hopefully I'll be good enough some day to play it the original way - I'm not holding my breath though!

Easy mode has certainly made the game a bit more playable. I can now manage to survive past the first missile base without rage quitting and deleting the game!

Easy is too easy to the point of being dull.

Hard is still too hard.

I hope you can see my predicament, gentlemen. It’s probably impossible to make a game balanced enough to suit every player. The new, easy, mode has made . . . a change, definitely; whether it’s a welcome change is highly debatable.

Did you do all the play testing yourself during dev or did you have beta testers?

Back in 2017, before I released v1.0.0, I posted several early betas on WoS. People did say it was a tough game but not to the point of being unplayable. They also made a few interesting suggestions, some of which have actually made it into the game.

I, of course, do a lot of play-testing myself, but that’s ultimately what’s made the game so hard play (or me so good at it).

Seems weird when you drop a bomb and it goes straight through a fighter and then destroys the missile base. Surely a bomb would be able to destroy a fighter? Likewise why can't you destroy a missile base with your bullets? Instead they just pass straight through the missile bases without causing any damage at all.

Umm. Hadn’t thought of it in this way. I seriously doubt it is possible to drop a bomb from a helicopter and destroy a fighter plane (in reality, I mean). Not that I ever intended for Yankee to be a flight sim—of course it’s a pure arcade-like shoot-’em-up—but it just hadn’t occurred to me.

As for destroying missile launchers with bullets. Before version 1.3.0 it was impossible to descend below a certain fixed level. You couldn’t crash into the ground—which was a boon—nor could you shoot at missile bases. While I was working on v1.3.0, I briefly considered including the ability to destroy them with the gun, but, again, thought it would be too unrealistic. I’m nor sure a 20mm Gatling gun can do a whole lot of damage to a SAM (surface-to-air missile) unit. Most are pretty heavily armored. I could probably make it so that it takes quite a few hits to destroy it.

1. planes appearing immediately from behind in line with your copter on start, no chance to avoid it. That's unfair. Give me some invulnerability for a couple of seconds to give me a chance to get out of the way? Or be a bit more selective about where they spawn the start.

Ha! Believe it or not, I myself have fallen for that many times. You kind of tend to think the planes are chasing you and intentionally spawn at the same vertical coordinate as the copter. This isn’t the case. The planes’ Y-coordinates are generated randomly each time they respawn. You only notice it when they hit you, so you tend to think it’s intentional. I recorded many RZXs while testing and debugging, and upon playback it always became clear that there was no funny business going on.

The easy mode does delay the respawn of the plane (the only one) for a considerable amount of time before a level begins (or after you lose a life). Maybe that should be something to consider for a medium difficulty setting. Better yet, an ever decreasing delay throughout the game as part of the difficulty ramp-up scenario.

Still, it’s pretty easy to avoid the planes coming in from the left; just start moving right (and, preferably, up) as soon as the game begins.

By the way, in case you haven’t spotted it yet, the planes are always on a slight descend. It’s technically easier to avoid them by going over them, and you’ll have a better chance of hitting with with the cannon if you aim at shoot slightly below them. Works best if you’re shooting at a plane some distance away.

2. I want my bombs I drop to detonate the missiles from the ground things. That would give me a fair chance of getting away with it occasionally if I dropped one in time to.

Whoa, that’s a most unusual request! Again, a super unrealistic scenario in reality, but seems like a look arcady feature. Next thing you’ll want is getting point for shooting missiles in flight, eh? An interesting idea, though.

3. I'd kind of like my bombs to be able to hit the fighters on the way down (and exploding if they hit). I think that'd be quite cool.

So, another request for destroying the fighter planes with bombs, huh? Well, I ain’t turning that into a poll! Nah-uh, not a chance.

My top score on hard is 1040.

1070 actually!

I figure that’s about a third down Stage 1. I usually get to Stage 2 with around 3200 points. Keep on trying!

1070, gentlemen. Any takers?

[Ast A. Moore]

Right. Another small update (v1.3.2), which should—hopefully—satisfy the majority of players (yeah, I know—wishful thinking).

Still, in this release:

New:

• A third, Normal, difficulty setting
• A new scoring system that greatly increases your score depending on the selected difficulty level

Visuals:

• The difficulty setting menu item is now properly animated
• The copyright message has been moved back down one line (to correct an oversight introduced in v1.3.1)

Misc.:

• A few minor code optimizations

Download link and instructions: A Yankee in Iraq.

[Magnus]

Love the updated version and the "easy" mode, which is challenging enough for me. A very enjoyable game!

[Spud]

That's more like it, 2160 scored on normal, made it to level 2.

Noticed the yankee in iraq logo corrupted at some point.

[Ast A. Moore]

Noticed the yankee in iraq logo corrupted at some point.

Curious. Do you remember how that happened exactly and how was it corrupted? (Wish you had an RZX recording of that.) Which machine (emulated or real) were you playing on? Any extra peripherals attached to it (i.e. Interface 1, Kempston Joystick, DivIDE/DivMMC)?

[Spud]

Noticed the yankee in iraq logo corrupted at some point.

Curious. Do you remember how that happened exactly? (Wish you had an RZX recording of that.) Which machine (emulated or real) were you playing on?

Unfortunately not. I did nothing unusual to be honest. Switched difficulty from hard to normal is the last thing I remember but who knows. Haven't seen it since. The corruption was that the graphic was offset half way down, so was still recognisable. I was emulated on Fuse for the acursed Macintosh.

New high score for me; stage 3 and 3370 on the board.

[Ast A. Moore]

The corruption was that the graphic was offset half way down, so was still recognisable. I was emulated on Fuse for the acursed Macintosh.

Hmm. I’ve also been testing it on Fuse on the Mac. Which Spectrum model were you emulating?

New high score for me; stage 3 and 3370 on the board.

That still on Normal or have you finally switched to Hard?

[Spud]

It was emulating a standard 48.

Normal mode still.

[Ast A. Moore]

It was emulating a standard 48.

Try the 128K or the +2—there are neat AY sound FX. Makes all the difference (for me, anyway).

[djnzx48]

Definitely an improvement. The normal difficulty makes the gameplay much more accessible without being boring. That said, I can now finally manage the first stage on hard difficulty.

[Ast A. Moore]

That said, I can now finally manage the first stage on hard difficulty.

Now that is an improvement. What’s your top score on hard?

[djnzx48]

Not an amazing score by any means, but from memory it was 1430.

[Ast A. Moore]

Not an amazing score by any means, but from memory it was 1430.

I find that, while being somewhat counterintuitive, actively chasing after the planes not only gives you a much better chance at getting a high score, but also reduces the amount of time you need to master the flying. So “the best defense is a good offense” adage is fully applicable in this case.

[Ast A. Moore]

Ahem, not to brag, but . . .



(That’s on hard, obviously.)

[Juan F. Ramirez]

(That’s on hard, obviously.)

[catmeows]

Nice parallax scrolling, I have to give it a try. Can we have Shadow of thé Beast 2&3 ?

[Ast A. Moore]

Nice parallax scrolling, I have to give it a try. Can we have Shadow of thé Beast 2&3 ?

Heh. I don’t do remakes.

[RMartins]

Nice parallax.
Nice Inertia in the movements physics.
Very smooth game [mention]Ast A. Moore[/mention] .

[Ast A. Moore]

Thanks, Rui!

[presh]

FINALLY!!!



(ok, so yeah it's on easy... and I I may have saved it just before the boss... but I did try it a bunch of times all the way through first, and it still took about 10 goes with the save!)

[Ast A. Moore]

Ah, it’s always so satisfying to see the winning screen of Yankee posted by someone. Congratulations on making it to the end!

Now that you’ve become familiar with the controls and inertia, you can afford to be more aggressive and try to get a higher score (on Normal or even Hard) by hunting the planes instead of dodging them. This tactic gives me the most points.

[Ast A. Moore]

Well, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Spectrum, I’m releasing a small update:

Version 1.3.3, 4/23/2022

Improvements and optimizations:

• The standard loader size has been reduced by 8 bytes
  The turbo loader has been slimmed down by another 6 bytes

Visuals:

• The length of the top-right horizontal line in the HUD has been adjusted
  The transition to the Redefine Keys screen now uses a fade to avoid unsightly picture tearing

Misc.:

• The random routine has been reworked to generate slightly more random values
  Several instances of code optimization

Download link and instructions: A Yankee in Iraq.