The end is near - Can we me make it? ...

18th + 19th December 2015

Wow. Some more free time at last. Well, more work on Vortex Crystals then. Before any more programming had taken place in the game project. I asked Alf if he'd like flashing lights animation added to the background. After he suggested that it was a great idea. I worked on mapping the values of the char colours for the flashing lights. After compiling the code, the animation turned out quite nice. I sent the new build to Alf and he liked it.

The next step was to work on the end screen (since the whole game engine is finished right now) . A couple of months back, I designed the end screen using the example background, and crunched it - but didn't actually test it until yesterday. The result turned out pretty well. So I worked on the animation scenes. It involves the player attempting to make an escape from the V-Tex complex (After completing room 16). What happens next, I will not tell you, but the ending turned out GREAT. I even had ENOUGH memory to fit the ending into the code and compile a 16KB cartridge.

After finishing the end screen, I worked on doing a phase of bug fixing. I felt the player was jumping too high in the game, so I halved the jump duration on the player. Unfortunately that didn't work out that well. The jumping height was too little. It made things more impossible for the player to be able to jump high enough on to some platforms and conveyor belts. So I increased the jump height by a quarter. It looked and felt much better.

I wanted to add some bonus scoring to the game code, so that the player gains a bonus number of points, according to the number of bullets the player carries. Of course if the player dies - default bullet amount will be 40. Only at the start of each level, the player starts with 50 bullets. I also had enough space to add a flashing text routine. After finishing with the project (for today) and email Alf the latest build. I ported the game on to my USB dongle, and play tested it on my C64, via the 1541Ultimate 2. Really happy with the result so far. ... but is the game finished yet? ...

Not quite. Although I can say it is probably  99% finished, it needs a little bit more bug fixing, a pause+quit game function, and then pass it over to one of my C64 scene buddies to NTSC fix it before the final compiling and submission. :)

After the compo - I intend to extend the code a bit more, to give out more frames for the in game animation. Add additional in game options, a better looking front end presentation, hi-score table, etc. Apart from those - the main game stays the same.