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.

Sheepoid - Finished - Or is it?

Thursday 30th March 2011

Ok, so you have not really heard much about Sheepoid since the last part of the blog? Well, don't panic. I've not given up with it, in fact I have finished the game itself already. "When and where will it be released?" you may ask. Well, after having a discussion with a few of my regular contacts, I have decided to release this game to Psytronik Software on disk or tape, and of course, you'll be able to download the game FREE from The New Dimension and/or the Psytronik Software web site, as soon as it is released. Although the whole game's finished, I have a secret program to program into the game's warning notice, and of course the most important part of the release. The disk/tape mastering :) This project has been great fun to create and develop :)

More enhancements and memory preservation

27th February 2011

Today I was sort of brainstorming on how to preserve some more memory for additional/final touches with the code. Well, I found a solution. Redesign the front end screen using the Multi Screen Construction Kit, and make a new library with the existing graphics. I redesigned the front end (using another VICE window to help) and then saved the new library. Then I reinstalled it into the game project source. I also moved some routines around and removed one of the screen files, as this was no longer required. I assembled the source and run Sheepoid. BRILLIANT! MORE MEMORY SPACE for the final touches. Excellent :)

Now before I can add the new exploding sheep death to the game's source code. I've got to redesign some of the sprites again. So I loaded up the Sprite Editor V1.3 by Faces and redesigned some of the sprites. As well as created some new sprites. I changed all Space Invader sprites into assorted animals, and my version of the Ancipital creature (Half man, half goat?). Then I renamed the level "They have escaped from their pens". I also recreated the Llamas, my own version of the Zzapstars, dogs, and I got rid of the beer to make it the "Horus and the Sands of time" level instead.

The next job I did was to implement the baby sheep explosion routine, in which will displays the sprite "NO, NOT ME!" and make the sheep squeal if it was shot (and lose 1000 points). Well, thankfully I fixed this routine. I come a cross a small bug in which was aliens dying using the Sheep's death. After a moment or two with the fixing phase, the problem was solved. Now I added the infinite lives cheat routine for testing the whole game. I then assembled, and ran the game in WinVice V2.3 (XS64 mode). I played through the whole game, and was pretty much happy with what has been done through this game. I think the game's pretty much finished now. All I have to do now is the disk / tape mastering system and maybe a possible tweak with the game's colours or something like that. Here's a BETA video of what could be the final version of the game in action!

Flash Bang, What a picture

26th February 2011

Earlier on last week I have been working on new sound effects to suit the game. I'm much happier with the sounds, but there are some effects missing. Many of the great Yak's psychedelic games used options to use strobe effects. So I decided to implement and program some strobe effects for when either the player dies or when an alien gets hit. Before I done this, the Game Over and level complete was lacking some colour over the text. I also wanted to change the Level Complete sequence a bit as well. So to make Level Complete much better. During the bonus countdown, the void scrolls downwards faster. Then I added a routine to remove the whole game playing background by filling the screen with the level's void. Then I added a colour wash routine on the WELL DONE text, followed by the GAME OVER text.

Once I was happy with the Well Done and Game Over text, I had a task which was to make the player lose 1000 points if a baby sheep was shot. So I programmed a little routine, which would deduct points off the player. If the very first digit was detected as a / when decrementing the value, I added a routine which makes all characters 000000 otherwise this would have been a bug in the game. Once that was done, I tried it out. Now the players will be LESS inclined to shoot the baby sheep, and will have to save them. Therefore the game is more challenging now.

One final routine to add was the in game strobe effects. I decided to only use $D021, because if I used $D020 as well, you could see the flicking spots at the bottom of the screen where the raster split lies. Plus using $D020 as well as $D021 could be too much for the gamer as well. I used two colour schemes for the player. I used the blue effect per baddie shot, and I used the orange/red effect for the player death. Something disappointed me though. I should really do an effect, which says NO for when a baby sheep dies, but I have unfortunately run out of memory for my code. There's just too much there for this little tweak. There might be a solution to the problem, perhaps I should reproduce the title screen using the Multi Screen Construction Kit. That will preserve $0400 spare bytes to expand my code a little for the sheep death effect. Which I shall do tomorrow. Then it is on to the improvements/tweaking of the game sprites and then the final phase bug fixing. Once all final phase fixing's finished. I'm ready to release this game to Psytronik Software. :)

A fleecy high score and ending

20th February 2011

Well it's another fleecy furball adventure. Sheepoid seems to be progressing more nicer and today I've been doing yet more music composing and additional programming. This time round, I decided to write a dance style ending tune. So I loaded up Goat Tracker and loaded up the "Sheepoid" theme tune and started a new track number. I added some more instruments and after an hour or so the music was made and I was pretty much happy with it. Great!

Now it was time to add a high score name entry routine. I decided to make this part of the game very basic, because I would have had to muck about with interrupts. After I finished the high score entry routine. I added some improvements to the ending, which uses a psychedelic ending and a special scrolling message. I also tweaked the fire button routine so that the player can't shoot if he/she holds down the fire button. Therefore constant pushes of the fire button would be needed. I also made a routine in which checks if both lasers are off screen. If so, then they can be fired otherwise the process is ignored. One final improvement I have made was that the coloured raster bars can scroll upwards. The result's great so far. All I have to do now is some final tweaking/enhancements and bug fixing, for the game. Then hopefully it is ready.

Let's go Psychedelic ... Baaaaaah!

15th February 2011

The past 2 afternoons, I have been working on Sheepoid - again :). I think so far the game's coming out quite nicely. Yesterday afternoon, I was working on the end part for the game. To build the end, I captured the field at the bottom of the screen and turned it into a straight field, without the upwards field from level 1. Then I saved the colour and screen data of the modified field.

After that was done my next task was to program some imaginative ending in a style of Yak the Hairy. Well, I could not really think of much of an ending and opened my imagination. Caught in the world of psychedelia. I decided that I had no option but to do an ending where there's a washing machine, someone throws a brick into it while the wheels are spinning and then self-destruct. Nope. I could have done that I suppose. Nah! What I really done was based it where a space ship lands back on to the field. The sheep jumps out. The space ship takes off and then the rest of the ending - a big surprise. I shall not tell you, but it does involve some hairy beasties :)

Today I decided to redesign my front end and implement it into the code. The first thing I did was remove those horrible looking thick raster beams. Recreated the title screen logo. It looked too much like 1985 or something like that. There was also too much flashing, so I decided to do away with some of it. I added an extra raster split and programmed a routine for the top scroll text. I put the flashing text on to the PRESS FIRE TO PLAY message. The top scroll was made for a purpose. After playing Revenge of the Mutant Camels and Sheep In Space, I decided to base the high score table on typing silly phrases of 40 characters. Just the way how the great Yak did for those two games. I also added a scroll text which scrolled the high scores across the front end slowly.

The worst part had come for the front end. I wanted to get rid of those horrible colour bars and replace them with something that would look much nicer. Any guesses? Yes, that's absolutely correct, demo-style raster colour bars. Glerk! They're easy to program into the raster split, but the worst part of it for me was timing the darn things so that they are straight. So I spent about an hour or so fiddling around with the timing tables and come up with a nice looking front end.

The last part I did today was updated the music using Goat Tracker. I wanted to make a modern version of the title screen tune for Sheepoid, as just using one sawtooth instrument was so 1984. So I added a few leads and also some drums (Oh no, Master Bayliss is going to put some techno/trance style beats to the production - gibber!). Then I altered the notes to play a rock-style tune for the title screen. No techno/trance for a change. Then I imported the remixed version of the sawtooth tune into the title screen code. It turned out very well :)

Bahtastic new look to Sheepoid

12th February 2011

Well Sheepoid seems to be turning out quite nicely, although I cannot say that this game's finished. There's still some more things to update to code. Today I have been programming my own in game sound effects, and tried to make it as sort of Minter style as possible. I created various sound effects for the Get Ready screen, player shoot, enemy hit, baby sheep pick up, player hit and game over tune. After assembling the code from Turbo Assembler. I saved the sound effects player and data, but I forgot to save the actual TASS code. Doh! Trusty me to do that.

After finishing the sound effects and importing it into the game source. I imported all of the level data into the game code and also altered a few routines, where I could animate all 8 different voids. I also set up the game to display the screen from the MSCK library, according to the level in which the player was currently on. Something promising here :). The game is 76% finished now, I think!

Gardens, sea, pyramids. Everything, Baaaaah!

11th February 2011

My main code for Sheepoid's finished (I think), apart from the ending (Which will be changed) as I felt that the ending for Sheepoid would not really be what people would have wanted. A better idea is planned for that, and I have plenty of time to get this project finished beforehand. Anyway, I decided to take a little break from programming today, and work on the main level schemes and graphics. So off the PC cross assembler, and straight on to my real Commodore 64 I go. ;o)

I loaded up the Multi Screen Construction Kit by Jon Wells and I loaded up my character set from the game project (Which I converted from my PC on to a C64 floppy disk). I created a few other character sets. The game uses a mix of hires and multicoloured graphics, so I created a few chars (from char $60+) to make those the scrolling voids. I also made some additional characters for the bottom and side panel, for where the player will be based. I didn't want to use the same panel as I did for the WIP version of the game. So I decided to draw some additional features, which were 1x1 chars to build flowers, trees, Egyptian, pyramids, water and hot desert (although it looks like custard :o).

After finishing the character sets, it was then time for me to create the objects, for putting on to 24 of the level screens. So I built the different scrolling voids (Alth

ough MSCK does not scroll those), and also different versions of the bottom and right panel which the player's always on. After this I found something to be not right. The panel on the right looks ugly without a curved character between the last 2 rows and columns. So I built a curved panel to put on to the background. It looked much nicer. After designing the 24 levels (Which in all, took me a couple of hours to do, as I was remixing some of the existing pane

ls and voids as well). Finally all 24 screens were built. I saved all the data on to the Sheepoid disk, built a final library (On the same disk). Then I ported everything back on to my PC (in the Sheepoid ACME project folder) using my XM1541 and CBMXfer application.

My next job will be to get all the level screens into the game source code. Then program some arcade/Jeff Minter style sound effects as the sounds I made using the Cult SFX editor wasn't really suitable for this type of g

ame, due to it's restrictions ;o).

Sheepoid - Progress so far

Saturday 27th January 2011

Bleatings everyone :)

This shall not be a big blog, as I have a little update for you - or probably a huge update of my progress with Sheepoid and some other news about this game. Just for now as there's not really any new designs, etc to show you but here's some stuff I have to mention about this game so far.

Well today I've mainly been drawing the sprites, and manually typing in the sprite frame tables inside the ACME cross assembler. But I could get more done later on today :) So far I managed to get 4 levels active - as I have been struggling with the Laser Zone char-style explosion routines, which thankfully were working correctly after a week or so. With special thanks to C64 programmer and TND's contributor, Achim Volkers. The explosions of the enemy are starting to look a bit like laser zone, but I added some additional enemy disappearance sprite, which was an animated diamond/star that shrinks (while the chars fly through the screen diagonally).

As well as the explosion effects, I started implementing random X-Y directional speed, delay and colour of the enemies (according to the levels which they are on) and silly 1-liners. This made the game feel very Jeff Minter like and ideal for a Llamasoft tribute game. The other things I added were the enemy types as well per level. I only have 4 levels working right at the moment, but there's plenty of time for me to implement all 24 levels of game play. :)

Today I have just finished drawing all of the sprites (From $80-$FF) using Cellux/Face's Sprite Editor V1.2. All of the captions have been typed down in the source code. I also extracted the Sprite Data and imported it into the source code, ready for compiling.

There's some other things I have in store for this project but I shall not tell you. You'll just have to wait. ;)

The Cyber Sheep are coming

Friday 7th January 2011

Laser Zone. What a classic game that was for the Commodore 64. It's quite a memorable little Arcade classic, which was on a compilation of crazy and really fun games, called "Yak's Progress" by Llamasoft. After playing Laser Zone, I came up with a nice idea for a tribute game. The game's name is Sheepoid, and last night I was just playing around with some raster splits and experimenting. Okay, so no game yet, but I ended up building a front end for the production instead. Probably a wrong move.

Anyway about the game. Laser Zone had two satellites in which had to blast aliens that appeared on screen before they reached to right or bottom surface and captured one of the satellites. The plan for "Sheepoid" is pretty much similar, except for that the game will have some differences. The starting levels may be quite similar, but the actual game itself will have some differences in attack waves - causing this game to be more zany and psychedelic than before. Instead of satellites, the player will be controlling laser powered sheep. Also instead of a small screen area being used. The sprites will use expanded positions. Therefore the game area's going to be pretty much big.

The official release date of this game is not really known as there's quite a bit of work to do, but I doubt that it'll take longer than 2 months or so. I will not be rushing on this game for a sake of a quick release, as there is seriously no point in rushing it for a sake of a quick release. Hmm. :)

When the game is finished, it will feature a variety of different aliens/psychedelic objects to battle against, wacky sound effects, bizarre get ready , level complete, life lost, game over messages, a possibility of an end sequence. Plus a nice looking psychedelic IRQ tape loader system as well. The final production will be uploaded on to my web site at: http://tnd64.unikat.sk.

We've pushed SEUCK to it's limits! - Nyaaaah!

2nd November 2010

I have left this blog alone for a while, but production is going quite well with Nyaaaah! - 15th Anniversary Edition. After successfully importing the game project's work file into the SEUCK Redux source code, I managed to fit in some power ups, to enhance game play, additional in game enhancements and even a brand new front end. Things for me to do before the game is finished, is add a high score detection, a GET READY and GAME OVER sequence and END SEQUENCE. And of course adding the new score/status into the bottom border inside the game.

Implementing the new front end into the game's source was a bit of a bugger, due to the original title screen IRQ used in it. Thankfully I had a solution to this problem, which was to program my own IRQ inside the title screen code. Well, I wanted the Nyaaaah! logo to swing left and right, and I also wanted a scroll text with music. All seems to look good so far. There's still some work to put into the game, itself but hopefully in a couple of weeks time or so, I should be ready to release this game into the Public Domain.

Below is a mock up of the status bar, I plan for inside the game - to make it look less SEUCK. :)

Nyaaaah! 15th Anniversary is coming SOON!

Friday 15th October 2010

Things have gone pretty quiet with my blog, but I have been busy with this project and another Psytronik project. After sucessfully finishing off the main game, attack waves, etc. I imported the work file into the SEUCK Redux source, added a bit of programming, played around with the player's parameters and wrote some tunes to insert into the source. The colour schemes worked a treat. Especially after I set up the level parameters to change the colour scheme and behavior of the game, itself.

All I will need to do now is put in the power ups, and then a new front end + high score table. Then the job is done!

November should hopefully be the release date of this.

Taking a short cut

3rd October 2010
I have been working on level 3 and also the final stage of Nyaaaah! 15th anniversary. This time, level 3's the castle underground. After Snodge successfully escaped the water stage. He finds himself in a deadly underground of the evil biblet ruler's castle. Poor Snodge has to fight his way through the hardest part of the castle. Where wall climbing biblets and lava biblets roam and make things hard for poor snodge. Then he has to face the death saw challenge.



When I was designing the level's graphics scheme, it was very tricky to work on at first. It actually took me over an hour to have the correct pixels for each block for this level. Plus level 3 is sort of inspired from Imaginator. The idea of this stage was that Snodge has to persue up and down ladders and platforms to fight the evil biblets, etc before meeting his next challenge - The death saw challenge. Well, this was probably one of the most easiest boss stages I came up with for such a hard stage. Snodge has to face a giant circular saw, in which he's to avoid contact with. After this stage has finished, Snodge goes to the final stage, where he has to meet the evil biblet ruler. Sadly I have only 2 valid objects left for this stage, so I decided to reuse level 1's boss and add a crown and different behaviour to it. That solved my problem.

Now that I have (I think) finished the main game, itself. I can import the work into the SEUCK redux source engine and test the game in action with infinite lives ... Stay tuned!!!

I'm forever blowing bubbles!

2nd October 2010

Yet another productive day with Sideways SEUCK. This time it's level 2 of Nyaaaah! 15th Anniversary edition. I know that Saturday last week I worked on the background graphics for level 2, but I wasn't really all that happy with those. So today I decided to spend some time making some much nicer graphics for level 2. Since I didn't want to use the same colours scheme as the first level - as the second level would look ugly with this scheme. I altered the multicolour colours to make the underwater graphics look nice. I used black, blue, light blue and purple - to make it look as if every thing's under water. I wanted to add some pipework to the levels, but I didn't want the game to look like Mario, so I pixelled my pipes, made some spikes then put things in place.
Well, it seems that all this hard work with level 2's graphics paid off and the level looks quite nice.

Now that the stage was designed. It was time for me to set up the attack waves. Before I did, I wanted to make some new enemies for this stage. I don't want to have biblets all of the time in this stage. So I created some fish, water snails and even a mean green boss fish, which the player has to defeat. Then I inserted the wodge load of enemies for this stage I also altered player 2's settings for testing the level. It seems to me that level 2 was just too chaotic. I had to alter the enemy firing rate, as it looked too silly and was way too difficult to play for this level. Much easier, although this stage is still quite hard to play. Maybe I shall work on level 3's graphics (the cave) tomorrow after work. CIAO for now!