Clumsy sheepoid.

17th September 2011

No screen shots or videos to show you this time, but I have still been working on Woolly Jumper. It is still sort of shaping up quite nicely, apart from that I came across some design faults in the game. (Go on, blame the coder). It turned out that the sinus mode which I originally used for the game wasn't all that good. The sinus was all over the place. That's not what we really want for a game don't you agree?. Well the good news is that I have renewed the sinus movement for the aliens, and after they get shot - they will disappear as they should (and not reappear on screen).

The second issue was the background. When the player jumps out of the screen, it seems to mysteriously die outside the border. This was quite a weird thing that was going on. I do have to admit. Anyway to resolve this problem I lowered the border jump height. So that no collision's made up there.

The next issue was that I programmed the lives and sprite/sprite collision. The sheep has too much on it's plate (Thanks for pointing this out Shaun) where the enemies appear on screen frequently. Oh dear :( We don't really want that to happen do we?. So I have come to a decision to add a delay/timer before letting loose the next batch of aliens. This will give the player chance to jump over platforms on to the next one. To make the player die. I added a little routine which made the sheep jump to the top of the screen, then fall into the water. The basic idea is to have an amusing frame, for where the sheep goes up, then add a splash sprite to make it look as if it had jumped into the water. I also did some jingles where one made the sheep scream if hit, then a splash sound for when it ends up in the water.

One final issue which I spotted, but pointed it out to Shaun, was a mapping fault. Basically the platforms were too far from each other in parts of the map, making it virtually impossible for the poor sheep to jump over. I also noticed a silly bug today in which killed the sheep when on top of the shaded area of the platform where the meat hooks hang. That will be simple enough to fix. Simply locate the charset number

I also had two .D64's from Shaun, featuring his new sprites for the game. So I loaded up the Sideways SEUCK (As Shaun used this to make them) and attached the .D64 with (what was meant to have been) the source files. Sadly I could not get those to load. It turned out that the disk image was corrupt as the file name ended with a *PRG inside the disk directory. This is known as a splat file. Perhaps the .D64 wasn't detached from VICE before I received it. Anyway I received the latest disk with the sprites. Those were Power Ups, alien species and of course the player animations. Looks absolutely great :) I will be looking forward to the final sprites :)

2000 Kung Fu Maniacs - Final Touches

3rd + 4th September 2011

Flippin' heck. I have been too active haven't I - an I'm still enjoying it. Anyway during this weekend, I have been concentrating on doing some more stuff for 2000 Kung Fu Maniacs. Actually I think it is all done now.

The first thing I thought about was the player's status bar. Now being that 2000 KFM will be for one player only. I decided to do a little something useful to the status bar which is inside the border. So then what did I do? I moved it to the centre of the screen, simply by adjusting the X/Y attributes of the sprites that formed the status panel. Great!

The next thing I did was programming the new front end for the game. Due to restricted memory I had come up with a simple idea, which would display a bitmap logo, and some animated game sprites. I decided to have the whole screen in red, apart from the raster which holds the logo in place. I painted it in black. I also added the colour washing routine, using brown, red, orange, light red yellow and white. It looked pretty nice on the front end. I also added page flipping and timers. So that the title screen will flip from the credits to the high score table. This worked quite nicely. I also wrote a scroll text and programmed a smooth scroll which would display that text. Then I added the animated ninja sprites and the player's sprite.

As soon as I was happy with the front end I decided to work on the Get Ready and Game Over sequences. For this, I made a grey screen, and did the player chasing after the ninja, for the get ready sequence. Then I did an animation, similar to the Get Ready sequence, but instead of the ninja running off the screen. I got the ninja to punch the player into the air, and go splat on the ground. I thought that for this kind of scene it was quite funny to watch. :)

The next task was to program in the usual high score / name entry routines, as before. Like with 1000 Kung Fu Maniacs, I was hoping to add the rankings to the name entry message. Sadly I was unable to do that this time due to being completely out of memory for any more code. So I had to cut the high score routine smaller by missing that out. Otherwise some of the crucial data would have been overwritten by the high score routine.

As soon as the high score routine was finished. I tested everything to see if it all worked okay. It seems to be working fine. Now the final touches. The Galway Ninja loading music and the tape mastering. - Complete! Hopefully this is another SEUDS 2 game finished and ready.

Kung Fu, POW!

27th August 2011

I was going to do a little more on Woolly Jumper today, but decided to leave that until Wednesday afternoon :). Instead I received some text and graphics for the ending of 2000 Kung Fu Maniacs. The hardest part was actually getting the actual .C64 file to save in CCS64. The best option I had was to store the all data (For the ending) and put that on to a .tap image. Load in the Sideways Scrolling SEUCK in WinVice, and then load the .tap image into it. That method worked quite nicely. I watched the example of the end. It looked interesting, and I thought to myself that it was most definitely worth a try.

Before I got into the programming side of things, I had to try import the charset from the SEUCK ending into Cuneiform. Then import the font that Alf made for 1000 Kung Fu Maniacs. We imported the files okay into the PC C64 char editor, and I copied the background chars (which formed the Master of Exposition's HQ) and put it into place with the 1x1 charset, which I used for 1000 Kung Fu Maniacs. I save the charset data, and raw data as well. Now was time for the next phase.

Because I can't really use more SEUCK background for the ending, I decided to import the character sets into the Graphic Editor by Firebird Software. It is quite an interesting piece of kit for the Commodore 64. So I loaded it up from the original .tap file that was created using the DC2N. Set Vice to warp speed so that the program loaded quicker. Then loaded the charset in. I also opened another window with VICE, and the Sideways SEUCK with the work file which Alf originally made. I then designed the background (Made it similar to the SEUCK background) although found a slight glitch in the FB Graphic Editor. The white pillars should have been hires, but they seemed to have ended up in multicolour instead. I then captured the image with the Retro Replay and used the MC monitor to transfer the screen to $2000 and colour to $2400. I then saved both files and then imported those into the ACME SEUCK Enhancements project file for 2000 Kung Fu Maniacs.

Next I copied Alf's text and I input it into the ACME cross assembler source. I saved and imported the sprite data into Spritepad 1.8, and I selected the sprites that were used for the ending. I also used the sprites of one of the enemy ninjas as well as the player - for the Get Ready and Game Over sequences. That will do for today, as I'm off out in a few minutes time :)

28th August 2011

Today was probably the most important of the day with 2000 Kung Fu Maniacs, where it comes to the end part. I have decided to program it in today. Mainly because the end part will probably be one of the longest parts to make in assembly before the Front End, Get Ready, Game Over and High Score entry parts :). So I programmed each frame, checked the ending out. Had a few problems at first, but they were resolved. The ending features the Master of Awesome and the Master of Exposition. But I will not tell you what it's all about though. It's a big secret and pretty much a funny ending :) There's still something that needs sorting out with this ending. Getting the background's pillars the correct colour. That should hopefully be no problem. :). On to Woolly Jumper on Wednesday. :)

15th Anniversary for Nyaaaah!

5th September 2010

I've been a bit burned out with game programming, since Bionik Granny Returns got released a few weeks back. So I fancied a little change this weekend, so I started on working on a new game. Because near to the end of September (or beginning of October 2010) is the 15th Anniversary of Nyaaaah! (A well know PD SEUCK game, which was released back in those days). I decided to make a final Nyaaaah! game, to mark the celebration of the 15 years of (putting up with) Snodge the Biblet, and his crazy antics.

This time round, I gone for Sideways Scrolling SEUCK, as I thought this could be an ideal engine for a new Nyaaaah! game. Hence that using the editor for Nyaaaah! 11 and also some of the game's existing graphics for the first level. Well, it wouldn't be Nyaaaah! without those. However, I created some new blocks to make a sort of village huts for level 1 of the game. Yes, you have guess it. It's called Biblet Village. I was bored with using plain background with trees all of the time, so it was time for something sort of different.

When it come to adding enemies into the game, I used the angry and bad biblets for the first level. There are no other enemies for this level. Just two types of bad biblets.

I had some clever ideas for the end of level 1's boss stage. I created frames of the same background graphics for the boss stage and set up the level settings to wait a second before some magical effect occurs. This starts with a blue mad biblet (tapping his foot) saying "Hello there little one. So you wish to enter the hole? You got to get past me first!". The blue biblet disappears then a barrier appears to block the hole, and further to the right of the screen, the ground begins to crumble. Then the blue biblet comes back - as a big boss.

The plan

I don't want to make this a standard SEUCK creation, but add additional programming/hacks to the game production. One plan is to use the potion bottles in the game as power ups. Where some are strong power ups. Meanwhile the red bottles will lose Snodge's primary weapon and he has no other choice but to lick the baddies to their doom. Snodge will collect a Snorkel at the end of level 1 for the underwater stage (level 2) - after the level 1 boss stage of course.

Other plans I have for the game is to use different background colour schemes, depending on which level Snodge is likely to be on. For example, level 1 uses the standard colours that I set up for the first stage (The biblet village). The second level uses a blue background and some nicer colours for the underwater stage. And I might use some nicer colours for level 3's platform/ladders stage.

I also have plans to add a new front end to this game, add a high score table, options screen and some music. Hopefully around about October 2010, this game should be finished and available on my web site!

Anyway, here's a Youtube video of the very first level of the game - in action!

Let the Invasion Commence

Saturday 30th January 2010

I felt like playing around with the Sideways Shoot Em Up Construction Kit as I had this rather funny idea for a a new C64 for diskmag Digital Talk. Well, after 4 days or so, this 'ickle project is finally finished, but will not be released on my web site until a week after Digital Talk #90 has been released with the game and could this game be going to the 2010 Retro Computing event in Oxford? Well, just have to wait and see, despite that I will not be down there.

27th January 2010

Okay, so what was the idea behind this game? Imagine this, you are an alien that wants to take over another planet so that you can make it your own home. Well, Mutilator was born. But why is the name Mutilator used? Well, just to make things pretty funny in the game, you are able to mutilate cows during your travelling across planet Earth, as well as fighting the army forces. What a cruel thing 1 alien vs loads of armed forces :)

I did an earlier unfinished SEUCK game called Kick Ass. Unfortunately Kick Ass did not turn out very well, so I decided to use the background from Kick Ass and import it into Mutilator, as the background looked better compared to an earlier version I did. All I had to do was create some additional designs.

After getting the background finished, I worked on the main sprites for the game. Quite unusual ideas came to my head. I wanted to create a suitable looking alien ship. Well, I drew one. It sort was based on the player in Mastertronic's Erebus, but the sprite in my game was my own work. I also created a few frames to make the player's smooth animation. Looked much cooler. Now it was time for me to draw various enemies and other objects and insert those into the game's map. Then redesign the front end and charset. :)

28th January 2010

Phase 1 complete. Phase 2 was to write the music for the game. Done :) Phase 3 was to import everything into the SEUCK Redux source. No problem, but there was still a lot of work to be done as I did not want this creation to be a typical SEUCK game. I wanted to add some to the game. One of which was extras. One of which was that if you mutilate a cow, you will be given a smart bomb. Also if you do not lose a life and you mutilate more cows (before activating a smart bomb) it gets more powerful. Quite an interesting idea.

29th January 2010

It wasn't until today where I had some more interesting ideas. For a start off the front end. It still looked very SEUCK ish like as all text was using a silver colour bar scroll effect. So I decided to add some more flashing colours to the front end. It looked much better. Now the next bit, was background animation. I programmed some character scrolling routine for the flowing water background. It looked much nicer. I came across another idea. The LEVEL stages. Would be nice to add some effect to the intermission to each level. So I went back to the Sideways SEUCK and created a brand new block and made 7 frames in the character set. Saved everything again, and imported the new work into the redux source. I added a subroutine to animate the laser beam character sets. Looks great. Now the game is finished .... I thought!

Whoops there was still something wrong. The smart bomb effect never worked very well as the wrong sprite was detected to activate it. So I corrected this problem. I thought the game score looked pretty naff, I had to do something with it, so I centred the score panel and expanded both x and y values of it and repositioned all those sprites that formed it. The score panel looked much better. There was still something I wanted to do to it. So I linked the flashing colour routine from the title screen, to the score sprites. It looked much nicer. Now I'm ready to send to Digital Talk!

30th January 2010 (Today)

Ah, no. I should not have sent that version. There was still some tweaking to be done and additional ideas came in place to improve the game. So I updated the in game music, added a game over jingle. I also thought that the game would look cool if when the player is temporarily invulnerable, it will flash one of the colours from the front end. Well, that looked much better. I had to make a tweak in Sideways SEUCK to alter the front end raster bar colour. I also had to tidy up the level settings and delete a few enemies. As I wanted to use the last of the unused enemy sprites. A giant gun boat. I imported all of the SEUCK data into the redux source and finally, a Sideways scrolling SEUCK game that looks commercial :)

Lumme, this is cool. I wanna play this game. Can I get it yet?

The game was produced for Digital Talk #90 disk mag, and will not be released on the TND web site until a week after release of the diskmag. Hopefully some time in February. You should be in for a treat. However, I have donated an earlier (un redux'd) version of this game and the unfinished (and scrapped) Kick Ass game to The SEUCK Vault and should be released hopefully soon. :)

Trashing time.

Sunday 3rd May 2009

I have been a bit busy today preparing some stuff for Trash Course, now that Thorsten (Sledgie) has showed me the final BETA of the game. It was time for me to do some sideways SEUCK enhancements. Well, not quite. I booted up DMC V5.0+ to make the in-game and title screen music a bit longer first, and sound better. Seems to have worked fine. Now that I was happy with the music, I decided to use the DMC V5.0 packer and relocate the music to $9000. How lucky I was that although 4 or 5 tunes were in the same music file that the compressed music file did not go over $2000. Brilliant.

The next thing I done was loaded in Thorsten's snap shot of the SEUCK game, and then I saved the SEUCK game as a finished game from the SEUCK menu. Then I loaded the finished game from BASIC and did the usual SEUCK cleaning and hacking technique (So that the menu was completely wiped away and that there was more room for spare memory. Especially when I get round to working on the new front end for the game.)

As soon as memory was filled with zeroes, I took a look at the Gold Quest 4 waterfall animation hack that I did, and used the same technique to get the game's waterfall animated. Then I saved bits of the 2 SEUCK data (Memory $0900-$6600 and also memory $b6c0 - $ffff as those were compulsory for the game, especially that at $6580 I added the background animation routine).

Now that was done, I needed to sort out a new char set and also D-Flame/Blazon/Crypt's logo. So first of all, I took my font from my old Square Pit 64 game, which I wrote in 2007 for the Forever party. Then I used GangED to convert D-Flame's picture into 3 files (Bitmap, colour RAM and Video RAM). Then I painted sprites for the game options section for my new front end.

After the graphics were sorted out. I created a folder on the PC and converted the C64 files (SEUCK, music, graphics data, etc) into the new folder. After that was done, I copied the cross-assembly and compression .exe files into the project file and got started with programming.

The first thing I had done was a simple test file. Basically, test SEUCK to see if it will decompress and run with a hacked routine that adds the in music to the game. First, this did not work because the first half of the SEUCK game data file was at $0800 instead of $0900. Doh, very silly of me! After correcting this, and crunching again the game started fine with music in the background and also animated background. Brilliant. I am glad that worked.

Now it was time for me to program the main front end. First of all I did the text data (Presentation lines, scroll text and high scores) and then worked on with the main code for the new front end. I imported all C64 files into the source files, then I programmed routines to display the colours of the logo. I also programmed 3 different splits. The first split was for the bitmap logo, which is about 6 or 7 chars high. Then another split for the still text and the last split for the scroll text. Once that was done, I worked on routines that will do the usual Richard Bayliss colour washing technique and also I programmed a routine that will change page after a certain amount of time. One page for the main credits and the other page for the high score table. Colour washing routines change per page as well. I was very happy with this result although still unfinished, because I have a Get Ready, Game Over, High Score entry and also end screen to do.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday, but I wont be doing any programming tomorrow. I'm thinking about digging out some old C64 tapes and playing those. Like, Armalyte, Blazing Thunder, etc.