Hi SpecChums! I've just released a remake of the game Batty, originally released on the Speccy in 1987. Though I remember getting it free on a YS covertape.
I loved the game back in the day, and as I'm learning Unity I thought I'd try and remake it. My PC remake features all 15 of the original levels, the power-ups and the two player coop mode. It also has a built in level editor to modify and create new levels.
A free demo is available, and the full game is only 5 bucks:
https://daftapplegames.itch.io/retro-racket
Be interested to hear what you think!
Batty remake released!
Re: Batty remake released!
Hi all! I've made the full game free. You can download from the itch.io link in the original post. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Re: Batty remake released!
Looks goid 
You're not tempted to port it to Android and charge £ on the Play Store?
You're not tempted to port it to Android and charge £ on the Play Store?
Re: Batty remake released!
Hi. Thanks for making this free. I am a sucker for breakout clones, always enjoyed Batty on the Speccy and MegaBall on the Amiga, then DXBall on PC but i'm a cheapskate so would never buy a game off itchio unless i knew what i was getting into, knew the author or REALLY enjoyed a demo.
Well i noticed you made it free today, so had to take a look at the game. Honest feedback incoming prepare yourself.
I completed the game first try in one sitting, score was around 150,000. Its quite slick and fluid but the ball physics could do with a little work. I had fun, while it lasted, but after completing it in around 20 minutes i would be upset if i'd paid the original £5 price. I hope some people chuck a few quid in the pot though, its worth a play for sure, its rather faithful to Batty and a good blast.
My suggestion would be to allow a steeper angle off the bat towards the ends of the bat. Some levels were real tough to get the ball up and over, or into the 2 brick wide gaps due to not being able to create the right angle off the bat. Also a little jarring was the way the ball would be moving/zigzagging in one direction and hit the corner of a brick even when a brick was next to it and reverse itself. This would usually have the ball continue in the same direction when bricks are together the ball shouldn't really be detecting a corner. This is maybe resolved by having all the bricks a little closer to each other. A table of powerups in a help menu or the title screen menu could intermittently change to a chart of the powerups.
It felt odd that the "laser gun" only shot from one end of the bat. Maybe alternate a blast from each end, i think thats what Batty did. And your bricks are pretty plain and dull. Just coloured squares. Is this your own programmer art
I know what its like, can be really great at programming, not so much on graphics. For others its the opposite, not many people can do it all... An example of brick styles that show what type of brick it is (multi hit, indestructible etc.) is in MegaBall on the Amiga. I did find myself trying to destroy some of the black bricks later in the game only to realise they were fixed.
So there it is. Had a good bit of fun with it, it is very polished and slick. Good luck with it.
Well i noticed you made it free today, so had to take a look at the game. Honest feedback incoming prepare yourself.
I completed the game first try in one sitting, score was around 150,000. Its quite slick and fluid but the ball physics could do with a little work. I had fun, while it lasted, but after completing it in around 20 minutes i would be upset if i'd paid the original £5 price. I hope some people chuck a few quid in the pot though, its worth a play for sure, its rather faithful to Batty and a good blast.
My suggestion would be to allow a steeper angle off the bat towards the ends of the bat. Some levels were real tough to get the ball up and over, or into the 2 brick wide gaps due to not being able to create the right angle off the bat. Also a little jarring was the way the ball would be moving/zigzagging in one direction and hit the corner of a brick even when a brick was next to it and reverse itself. This would usually have the ball continue in the same direction when bricks are together the ball shouldn't really be detecting a corner. This is maybe resolved by having all the bricks a little closer to each other. A table of powerups in a help menu or the title screen menu could intermittently change to a chart of the powerups.
It felt odd that the "laser gun" only shot from one end of the bat. Maybe alternate a blast from each end, i think thats what Batty did. And your bricks are pretty plain and dull. Just coloured squares. Is this your own programmer art
I know what its like, can be really great at programming, not so much on graphics. For others its the opposite, not many people can do it all... An example of brick styles that show what type of brick it is (multi hit, indestructible etc.) is in MegaBall on the Amiga. I did find myself trying to destroy some of the black bricks later in the game only to realise they were fixed.So there it is. Had a good bit of fun with it, it is very polished and slick. Good luck with it.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
Re: Batty remake released!
Superb, thank you so much! Great, great feedback, thank you! I'm going to go through in detail and make some changes. And yes, artwork is not my strongest area to say the least! I actually used Dall-E for the sprites. The bricks are all my own work, unsurprisingly!
Re: Batty remake released!
Hey SpecChums!
I've released an update to my "Batty" remake, Retro Racket Revolution. Hopefully, it addresses some of the feedback I've received so far!
The game is completely free and always will be. I've also made the source code public, if that's of any interest: https://github.com/mroshaw/RetroRacketRevolution.
I've released an update to my "Batty" remake, Retro Racket Revolution. Hopefully, it addresses some of the feedback I've received so far!
- New brick textures including cracks appearing in multi-hit bricks.
- Improved the "glint" feature on indestructible bricks, so you can easily tell which ones these are.
- Bricks are closer together, preventing weird ball physics when it hits a corner.
- Added a "How to Play" screen in the main menu, explaining each of the power-ups.
- Added 4 difficulty modes to choose from.
- Added option to play "Classic" or "Custom" levels.
- Added 4 new "Custom" levels to play.
- Added a "Random" powerup, that spawns a random bonus.
- Added an experimental Android build, to go with the experimental Linux build.
- Improved editor grid view with icons replacing the text-based system.
- Added an option to delete a custom level.
The game is completely free and always will be. I've also made the source code public, if that's of any interest: https://github.com/mroshaw/RetroRacketRevolution.
Re: Batty remake released!
Just grabbed the latest version, put it on my desktop. Too late in the evening to try it now but i will play it tomorrow after work and offer my thoughts again. Sounds like you addressed quite a lot of my suggestions and i'm keen to see your new bricks
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
Re: Batty remake released!
Lots of good improvements. Played through on Normal again, completed it. New menu and graphics throughout the game all good.
Not sure the bricks are displaying correctly on the help page, showing the 1, 2 and 3 strong bricks, they are just shades of grey (with same pattern). Then ingame they are all colourful so it still doesn't really help to identify the brick types. Maybe show the broken levels of bricks...
Ball physics are a lot better with blocks closer together, still feel some steeper angles would be nice off the bat ends to help getting/aiming the ball a bit more.
Spotted (and heard) a couple of bugs.
1. Grabbed a 3 ball powerup, then the hardball one (smashes through bricks) and the volume for breaking bricks was maxed out where all other sounds were quieter.
2. Picked up a "finish level" thruster powerup and my bat rose up from the opposite side of the sreen. When the next level started i was back in the left side where i should have been. I would guess this is related to how you bounce the bat back into the screen when hitting the edges (which i feel could be worked on, its a bit bouncy and kind "glitchy") Why not just a dead stop at the sides?
Thats about it. I would make 1 more suggestion for the level editor. The icons on the bricks make it hard to see what you are "drawing" on screen while designing a level. I think it owuld be more user friendly if the bricks were a comparable size and placement to the actual level placement with much smaller identifiers on the bricks. More of a "what you see is how it'll be" type view. A nice to use editor could get people designing and sending levels in to you...
Regards.
Simon.
Not sure the bricks are displaying correctly on the help page, showing the 1, 2 and 3 strong bricks, they are just shades of grey (with same pattern). Then ingame they are all colourful so it still doesn't really help to identify the brick types. Maybe show the broken levels of bricks...
Ball physics are a lot better with blocks closer together, still feel some steeper angles would be nice off the bat ends to help getting/aiming the ball a bit more.
Spotted (and heard) a couple of bugs.
1. Grabbed a 3 ball powerup, then the hardball one (smashes through bricks) and the volume for breaking bricks was maxed out where all other sounds were quieter.
2. Picked up a "finish level" thruster powerup and my bat rose up from the opposite side of the sreen. When the next level started i was back in the left side where i should have been. I would guess this is related to how you bounce the bat back into the screen when hitting the edges (which i feel could be worked on, its a bit bouncy and kind "glitchy") Why not just a dead stop at the sides?
Thats about it. I would make 1 more suggestion for the level editor. The icons on the bricks make it hard to see what you are "drawing" on screen while designing a level. I think it owuld be more user friendly if the bricks were a comparable size and placement to the actual level placement with much smaller identifiers on the bricks. More of a "what you see is how it'll be" type view. A nice to use editor could get people designing and sending levels in to you...
Regards.
Simon.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
Re: Batty remake released!
Very nice game.
I didn't own Batty in my ZX but I had Arkanoid 1&2 and played them much.
In one of my linux PCs I have 1024x768 resolution.
There the game screen is not resized:
I downloaded retro-racket-linux-release.zip at 1-Nov-2023
I didn't own Batty in my ZX but I had Arkanoid 1&2 and played them much.
In one of my linux PCs I have 1024x768 resolution.
There the game screen is not resized:
Spoiler
Re: Batty remake released!
Thank you so much for the feedback folks!
I'll take a look and work towards another patch release.
With regards resolution, definitely something for me to look at. The game is designed with 1920x1080 in mind, though I imagine there are still plenty of laptop displays out there using lower resolutions.
I'll take a look and work towards another patch release.
With regards resolution, definitely something for me to look at. The game is designed with 1920x1080 in mind, though I imagine there are still plenty of laptop displays out there using lower resolutions.
Re: Batty remake released!
I've pushed a new patch for the Windows and Linux builds of Retro Racket Revolution. I'm so grateful to you guys for taking an interest! I've had little in the way of downloads or feedback, and though I'm only doing this for fun, it's kind of nice to have feedback and at least someone playing the game!
This patch has some fixes and tweaks:
Bug Fixes
Things I'm mulling over:
This patch has some fixes and tweaks:
Bug Fixes
- Fixed "janky" behaviour when the player hits the sides of the play area when using mouse control.
- Multiple resolutions should now work without losing visibility of menus or the play area.
- Fixed a bug where the background music would not loop.
- Fixed a bug where enemy ships and enemy bombs don't have any sound effects.
- Fixed a bug where enemies could spawn in the game over / high score screens.
- Enemy bombs fall a little quicker.
- Added keyboard and gamepad sensitivity sliders in the game options that allow you to fine-tune movement with those control schemes.
- Selected control schemes are now saved for the next time the game is launched.
- "How to Play" now has "Bonuses" and "Objects" screens, with better info on bricks and other game object types.
Things I'm mulling over:
- Ball deflection angle - I've tried tweaking this, making the rebound angle steeper towards the ends of the bat, but the results are a little odd. The angle from close to the center is enough to get into nooks and crannies, and with the latest changes you can get a little closer to the sides of the screen, so I'm going to leave it for now. Will tweak some more in testing.
- The laser - the intention of having the laser on the sides is to allow two to be attached at once if the player collects two power-ups. It does look and play a little 'odd', so I'll look into this. Maybe have the first one connect in the center, then move both to the sides if a second is collected.
- Level editor - I'm torn between making this 'shiny' and leaving it functional! I'm looking at ways to improve the 'WYSIWYG-ness' of it, but not prioritising this for now
Re: Batty remake released!
Hi. Not tried new version as yet, just wanted ot post this...
"The laser - the intention of having the laser on the sides is to allow two to be attached at once if the player collects two power-ups. It does look and play a little 'odd', so I'll look into this. Maybe have the first one connect in the center, then move both to the sides if a second is collected."
When i first made the suggestion about the laser only being on one end, i had only ever collected one at once. On my second go round i did manage to get 2 and of course they were on either end of the bat and it all made more sense. My thoughts then went to "randomise which end the first one goes on, then put the second one on the other". This would have mixed it up a bit, so when player only has 1 gun, it could be either end...
Anyway, i like your idea above better. Slap that first one in the middle, then split them apart. But i wonder, will you still be able to hit bricks at both sides?
Something to think about.
Cheers.
"The laser - the intention of having the laser on the sides is to allow two to be attached at once if the player collects two power-ups. It does look and play a little 'odd', so I'll look into this. Maybe have the first one connect in the center, then move both to the sides if a second is collected."
When i first made the suggestion about the laser only being on one end, i had only ever collected one at once. On my second go round i did manage to get 2 and of course they were on either end of the bat and it all made more sense. My thoughts then went to "randomise which end the first one goes on, then put the second one on the other". This would have mixed it up a bit, so when player only has 1 gun, it could be either end...
Anyway, i like your idea above better. Slap that first one in the middle, then split them apart. But i wonder, will you still be able to hit bricks at both sides?
Something to think about.
Cheers.
I don't have anything cool to put here, so i'll just be off now to see a priest with yeast stuck between his teeth and his friend called Keith who's a hairpiece thief...
Re: Batty remake released!
I've released a new patch, with some visual tweaks and some bug fixes.
Also new in this release is a "Share" function in the Level Editor: design your level, test it out, and then generate a unique share code in the editor. Paste it to a forum, Discord, email, anywhere, to share with others.
Crafty, unique, funny levels posted to the itch.io comments page will be considered for inclusion in the published game, with full attribution to the creators.
https://daftapplegames.itch.io/retro-racket
A short demo of the editor and the sharing feature can be found here:
Also new in this release is a "Share" function in the Level Editor: design your level, test it out, and then generate a unique share code in the editor. Paste it to a forum, Discord, email, anywhere, to share with others.
Crafty, unique, funny levels posted to the itch.io comments page will be considered for inclusion in the published game, with full attribution to the creators.
https://daftapplegames.itch.io/retro-racket
A short demo of the editor and the sharing feature can be found here: