Power Me Up

Saturday 16th April 2011

Okay, something completely different and I think the game's author will feel relieved after he reads this blog. I have been taking a look at one of Alf Yngve's new games, which he has specially written for Psytronik Software, and he has waited ages for a new version of his great sideways SEUCK game. Finally the wait can be shorter, specially for him. I also said that I'm aiming to get this game done in time for Retro-Vision 2011 as well. But can I get it done on time? At the moment there is a great percentage that I can get it done. Enhancing SEUCK games don't really take all that long for me - as long as what I programmed, already had things working properly.

I took a look at some of the production notes on what power ups I should add to the game. I captured the work file, disabled the SEUCK editor and then split the memory into segments. Then I exported the 2 files into the project cross-assembly folder. Once I done this I wrote some new music for the title screen, and took the title screen from TAU ZETA and extracted that into the cross-assembly source code.

As soon as the file preparation was finished, I was able to do a bit of ACME cross-assembly programming. At $0801 (Which will be the run address after Exomizer decrunches the game), I added some routines which will cleverly hack into the SEUCK code to make way for the enhancements (and also fix additional in game bugged routines, such as the scoring, etc). Then I added the power ups code and linked it all into the source file. So now after the player collects a flashing green thing (whatever it is) the player will gain a specific power up. Which could be: A temporary shield, directional fire, fast laser (and longer distance shooting), mega bomb and also a score converter (which converts the alien score into digits). I also made it that a power up is lost after the player has lost a life. The player will then have to battle really hard on quite a longer flight before he or she can pick up the next power up. - and probably lose it again :)

Sunday 17th April 2011

Today I designed the front end logo, simply by using Alf's original front end logo (I liked it a lot), resizing it and then anti-aliasing the image. Then I worked on the new front end character set, in which the main chars are 1x1 and the name in the credits are 1x2. Sorry, but I have no screen shots of the project to show you at the moment, because I have nothing (the new front end) to show. :)

I still have a new front end to program, and also some Get Ready, Game Over jingles, Mission Complete jingles to work on, but that can wait until next time I get round to it.