I probably should do a blog entry at least every month.
Thing is – nothing really exciting or new happened the last weeks – at least not Vectrex related.
Nonetheless:
PiTrex
I kept “playing” with PiTrex – but had to force myself away from it – in order not to lose sight on Vectorblade. So a couple of weeks ago I paused on PiTrex. I’m waiting eagerly to continue – but I wanted to finish VB (at least all coding) before continuing. So – unless someone tells me it is utterly urgent (Graham?) I still wait.
Minecraft
I still play Minecraft a lot (with my nephew) – there will be a time when he will not be interested in playing with his old uncle, so I rather enjoy the time now. This defenitly is a cut back on my Vectrex time (but the summer holidays are over now, so he probably is not allowed to play too much anymore).
![](http://vide.malban.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SpinThatWheel.gif)
Vectorblade
Vectorblade is still coming along nicely (but slowly). There have been quite a lot memory optimizations.
I also added a “wheel of fortune” thing. Under the right circumstances you do not get a “fixed” special bonus, but rather one of 8 very good bonus (the beta testers thought the original bonus was too good).
I also implemented:
– VecVox support
– hardcore mode (only 1 life, no additional lifes possible, extra high score)
– level select up to the last played level
(but all of these things might not make it into the final game – these are more in the spirit of little “experiments”)
Overall Vectorblade lost a couple of hundred cycles speed wise. I hate that. The reason behind that is “generalization”.
Before, I did all testings on the cranky Vectrex that Thomas lent me. A couple of days ago I bought a new Vectrex (from Jürgen, the Vectrex that produced problems with “Release”) Gee I have 7 Vectrex by now – I am mad.
If Thomas’ Vectrex was cranky, the new one is “super cranky”. I will fix Vectorblade to run on that super cranky Vectrex – but after that I am done with crankies. If I ever discover a “mega super cranky” Vectrex – than that is just bad luck. I hate slowing things down for a very, very small percentage of all Vectrex.
Report on beta testing Vectorblade:
There are 8 people who “officially” are beta testers (some other 3 people also received “high” beta versions which could be used to test). Of these, 3 are very active, 3 give some feedback and from the last two I never heard a word – one didn’t even bother to register on the forum.
I made a special web page for the beta testing, on which I documented some more stuff (secrets and inner workings). In addition, I set up a forum on which we can communicate our findings (and my solutions). Also all beta testers got special cartridges with socketed flash chips – so they could update the rom easily (provided they have an eprom burner).
More than 500 messages have passed between us – and we are not finished yet.
I recently switched off public access to the beta test page/forum. Since at some stage an actual release will be done, I am hiding “secret” information about the game from now on.
Overall beta testing is doing very well. In the beginning a couple of “real” bugs were found (and corrected) which is great! Then the reports that came in were mostly beautifying, “ease of life”, or better handling aspects. Some of which I still have to implement.
The one thing I keep postponing is the extra stage with the Major Havoc like levels. Actually this is mostly finished – and probably only needs 2-3 days to complete – but for one reason or another I hold myself back (on that note, how cool is THAT: http://mhedit.askey.org/).
Last thing I did was to implement all “needed” animations sequences, as of now:
- run left/right
- walk left/right
- fall
- land
- land hard an die
- bump against wall (and fall) left/right
- suffocate + death
- idle animation
- lean against wall
- jmp up
![](http://vide.malban.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mh1-1024x47.png)
The overlay “thing” is still problematic. The overlay design was finished quite some time ago and sent to the printing (mid June 2019) – I haven’t really heard back from them yet. I was expecting “slow going” but this seems rather “glacial slow” – I might hear from them next week.
In case you haven’t seen the overlay that Jacek did:
Box design and instruction booklet are also still pending.
If I ever do another game after Vectorblade I think I will not do a box or overlay. I probably have said that before – but I am rather in for the programming than for the “design” and “publishing” stuff.
“So – unless someone tells me it is utterly urgent (Graham?) I still wait.”
No, you’re good. Urgency is proportional to 1/e^(november-date) 🙂 (ie quite low for now but approaching infinity as we approach november, if we hope to ship in time for a Christmas delivery!)
Sorry Chris I’ve dropped off the radar due to real life issues, not had chance to do much of anything regarding vector blade or anything else remotely interesting.