Downloadable Vectorblade versions

[Jerome Vince]

All is said,

Chris, Thank you very much for this new beta release full of good things and improvements. Thank you for the VF version too!

I can’t wait to see it running on my Vectrex.

I hope you will enjoy your time at the Baltic Sea. You deserve it so much after all the efforts and the time you spent to offer us this beautiful gift before your holidays! 😉

[hcmffm]

Sometimes suggestions turn out to make things worse instead of better:

Malus symbols
My suggestion to change the “-S” and “-B” to “S-” and “B-” was no good. Now, it got more difficult to recognize the symbols. The old symbols were better.
But I have an alternative suggestion: All malus symbols are triangles and one can see by the shape that this is a malus. So I think there is no need to add a minus (‘-‘) at all. Simply “B” and “S” is sufficient. The Rate- doesn’t need the strike-though, either.

[Malban]

If you don’t mind me asking…

Did anyone play the latest VB version – did any kind of crash happen? How much (if) have you played?

[Jerome Vince]

@ Chris,

Hi Chris!,

I played a little more than 200 levels with the last VB on my VF. Not enough to conclude something, but no crash!

Nevertheless there is always this problem with the Vecvoice: without any reason (or a long pause maybe) the device stops after a moment. It is very frequent (2 ou 3 times in a game).

if not, i have a lot of suggestions playing the last version.

– Instead of the silence playing the “Diamond Storm” sequence, some sounds would be appreciated (especially reaching the biggest diamond)

– The ships: if you can display the number of ships it would be nice

– the difficulty:

i prefer the previous settings: it was more “progressive” between the easy mode and the normal mode: i think the ennemies can be very agressive now without any possibilities to avoid a collision sometimes. I would wait the hard mode to introduce their new behavior.

Another frustrating point (it is just my opinion! 😉): loosing a life the ammo level decreases. I would modify the limit; because there are situations when you became an observer of your “programmed end”. When you reach an high level it can be difficult (and long) to beat the ennemies with 1 shot. If you loose a life your rate decreases. A true nightmare. I would suggest this: if you loose 3 lives in a level you automatically get a shield. Another possibility: if you loose a ship with only 1 shot and if you reach your last life: your rate of fire does not decrease and you get a shield.

The bosses:

The idea to increase the level of difficulty (normal mode and over) is good; but they are still easy to beat in comparison with the bigger difficulty of the game.

The shop:

the prices to purchase the “Power” and the “Lock” are very high now. Too much?? Because  there is always a good reason to loose money or to use it with a better result.

A similar thing for the laser beam: The price of the laser is high. I think  “too much”. So i never purchase a laser for $5000: there is always something better to do.

Is it possible to modify the price of the items between the levels (easy; normal; hard ect…)?

“Greedy” : could you confirm we get it immediately after all the speed/bullets/ rate reach their max levels?

But I have to play more to confirm  some of my notes / observations / suggestions

Cheers

Jerome

[Malban]

Vectorblade mechanics

Aliens
——
Have hitpoints.
“simple” aliens have between (I think) 1-31 hitpoints.
BigBugs have up to 256 hitpoints.
Bosses and “super” aliens can theoretically have up to 65536 hitpoints – but I think
in reality Sinistar has the most hitpoints with about 500.

Hit points increase with difficulty level!

Aliens (defined by the level) have attack patterns.
Per level 4 different attack patterns are defined. They are ordered from 1-4, 1 being the easiest attack pattern,
and 4 being the hardest.
The number of used attack pattern is random, but the random is influenced by the difficulty.

Levels
——
Have three stages.
1) intro stage -> the aliens appear in patterns

2) Waiting stage -> aliens wait and perhaps attack

3) decreased alien stage -> if the number of aliens are reduced below a key value
additional “aliens” can appear (bugs/super aliens/saucer)

Killing aliens in the “intro” phase is the easiest way to handle them.

Player-Shots
————
Each shot (bullet) has a power. Per default the power is 1.
Thus one single shot bullet does 1 damage.

A full single shot -> 1 damage
A full double shot -> 2 damage
A full tripple shot -> 3 damage
A full quad shot -> 4 damage
A full Blaster shot -> 5 damage
A full Laser shot -> 1 damage (each round)

“multi” shots can decrease (1-4) with the damage they do (a quad shot can become a tripple shot by delivering 1 damage).

Laser damage is HEAVILY reduced against bosses.

The most effective weapon against bosses is the blaster.
The most effective weapon against aliens is the laser or sometimes the quad shot (since it spread wider and can
deliver damage to up to four aliens).

On easy the laser goes “thru” aliens, any other difficulty the laser is “broken” by aliens it hits.

Player shots (starting with difficulty “normal”) can get additional power.
POWER (as the name suggests) is immensly powerful, since it increases the base damage of each bullet.
Collecting 1 power increases the damage done by 1 (thus for single to quad shots DOUBLES the damage done).

Up to 6 (if I remember correctly) power can be collected.
Playing higher difficulties one NEEDS power!
Power is also a random bonus drop from level normal onwards (1/512 chance).

Losing a live
————-
Decreases every decreasable stat by 1, that is:
– rate
– bullet
– speed
– timer (5s)
– power
– or instead of the above (if available) 1 lock

Vectorblade Difficulty
———————-
Difficulty within one difficulty level (100 levels) increases “slightly” with play elements.

Aliens use more agressive attack patterns, different alien types have “more” hitpoints, can spawn clones
or have more “big” bugs.

Difficulty over difficulty levels have different “increase” factors.
a) aliens get more hitpoints
b) weapons are less effective
c) the attack patterns of the aliens are “modded” to be more difficult – see above
d) aliens also attack during intro (this is new)
on easy – 0 alien is allowed to attack
on normal – 1 alien is allowed to attack
on hard – 2 alien is allowed to attack
on impossible – 3 alien is allowed to attack
on s. impossible – 4 alien is allowed to attack
e) bosses behave slightly different
f) on s.Impossible – there is no intro to levels anymore
g) the higher the difficulty the less “bonus” stuff drops

Strategy
——–
Vectorblade (in my mind) has two different “play types”

a) the casual
This player plays on easy and tries to reach 100 levels (probably 95% of the players)

b) the “crack”
This player plays to higher difficulty levels.
(I don’t think it is possible to play more than two times super impossible)

Different “srategies” apply (or are needed).

The casual:
“Easy” can be played in principle with a double shot without “difficulty”.
Nonetheless the player ought to fill up:
a) number of bullets in the air (up to 10)
b) speed of the fighter
c) speed of the bullets
(… so basically get greedy 🙂 ).

As a bonus he can collect EXTRA and get a better shot – but as said this is not really needed.

The “crack”
Has more work to do.
He knows as the game progresses over the difficulty levels “money” (and bonuses) will get rarer.
He also has to build up greedy – but he also more or less must ensure, that after reaching
level 100 his money is about 20000-30000, so that he can “cash in” with each double cash that drops.

Dying for the “crack” is a very bad thing (as Jerome mentioned).
It does not really matter whether you have 9 lives or 3 – if you die more than a couple of times you
might as will quit.

BUT

There are ways to compensate
a) with locks
You can buy “locks”. If you die no stat of yours will be reduced! (you can buy up to 15 locks)

b) with time
Raising the timer to an “ungodly” value you can shield yourself (shields can hold in access to 5 minutes in
later games)

c) shop availability
Thru achievements you can get the possibilty to access the shop at the beginning of every level (also after a death)

d) bombs
Smartbombs destroy every normal alien and every bug and EVERY SHOT on the screen.
These are live savers! And level finishers!

d) secrets
Some secrets are more “valuable” than others.
If you go for a “record” get them all!
Having the “money” secret – you WISH for the money sucker to appear – since if destroyed he
drops more money than he can every “suck”

Getting the “sucker” secret lets the scoopies stay over each warp (except bosses)
(for the complete 25 levels – if you play carefully!)

Getting the “bomb” secrets lets you buy bombs in he shop in case you do not want to “collect” the bombs
the normal way (higher difficulties).

and so on.

—————-

Open to discussion, but…

From what I have played…
I do not want to reduce the intro attack.

I don’t really like the idea of a “savety” shield after XXX deaths – as mentioned there ARE a number of ways to
counter the dilemma you faced.

I will most probably not print the number of lives on screen. This is rather due to vectrex limitations than not wanting to.
But each “print” reduces the time I have left for other things and I am already at the limit.
The player does not really need to know the number of lives each second.
He can keep track in his brain – or hit pause.

Before I display the number of lives – I would rather display another “score” digit. Playing “all the way” one can probably get about 20-30 million. And at the moment 9999999 is max.

If it weren’t for all the things that needed changing
(high score, high score edit, saving, comparing, displaying) I might have done that already – but the player base that NEEDS a higher max score is probably so small – that I probably won’t do it)

—–

Have other people problems with VecVox?
I have not encountered any!

—–

I will have to look at the diamond storm and noise again.

—–

In higher levels there is no better thing than getting power up/lock up / timer up !!!

—–

Nope – I never purchase a laser either, my favourite is the quad shot – IMHO the best of both worlds :-).
But I find that Ok.

—-

Sure – one can price differently between difficulties. But you would not like me doing that –
because I would only raise prices in higher difficulties 🙂

—-

Greedy
Not immediatley – only after a shop visit!

—-

Thought:
To counter your dilemma a little bit I could:
Minimum value a fighter can decrease its efficiency to is the “start value”.

Having a couple of achievements that wouldn’t be too bad…
(tripple shot with 5 bullets I think is possible)

Malban

[Peer]

Sorry, couldn’t do any testing so far. We left for Munich last Friday night, and we will go back next weekend. I will start playing once we have returned.

Cheers,
Peer

[Jerome Vince]

@Chris:

Many thanks for your  explanations about the weighting coefficients and your best strategic approach for the highest difficulty. Very useful and instructive! 😉

 

[Malban]

If you still have your positions – feel free to argument with me. Frequently being persistent and arguing led to me change things I originally didn’t want to change :-).

 

 

[Jerome Vince]

Hi Guys,

@Chris: I hope you enjoy your holidays at the Baltic Sea!!

I played VB this week and no crash for me! (Just the sound problem with my Atarivox+, as always).

Just my opinion about the “normal level”, but i think the game is a little bit too hard. I told this in a previous message: Ok for a bigger agressiveness of the ennemies but i am not sure that  the attacks from the side are a good idea here. It would be better to activate them in the next level of difficulty (“Hard Mode”).

So i confirm my first idea: i think the difference between the “Easy Mode” and the “Normal Mode” is too big now. A more progressive difficulty would be appreciated by the casual gamer. On the other side a very good gamer will appreciate more the “Hard Mode” if you move a part of the difficulty in the next game mode.

– About the malus: i think (as Helmut said) it is better to come back to the “-S” and “-B”.

– It would be nice to hear a special sound when the last available ship appears.

– aAnother point: playing with the last ship: instead of an armor, other improvements (or nothing), a temporary increase of the bonuses to collect (life / powers etc…) would be great.

– About the “End” sequence with the candle/flame: i love it; it is beautifully made. But i think it can be “weird” in a “futurist game”.

About the save/load possibility:

Really nice improvement! We can imagine the save/load as a basis to offer features in a further game with M.Havoc too.

But just a last question: it is possible to imagine something like a “continue”? For instance if the score is over 1 000 000 (and every 1 000 000): after the last ship, instead of the “game over” sequence we could imagine to come back to the shop with $2000.  It would offer the possibility to write a new chapter of the adventure.

Why not? They are just suggestions… But i know that they decrease (a little) the whole difficulty of the game.

Cheers

Jerome

[Malban]

Back from the holiday.

I still will not be able to do Vectrex. I have quite a bit of work backlog and still have a house to “renovate”. It will probably be a few weeks till I can go back to Vectorblade in earnest :-(.

---

@Helmut:
I’ll change the negative bonus to the “original” state. The new style doesn’t look too great. And also – I received the third edition of the instruction manual – the bonus symbols are printed in it. So I think (since they are not totally awfull) I’ll just stick with it :-).

---

@Jerome:
I will again test the VecVox… but as of yet I have had no diffictulty at all. Any other testers care to comment on VecVox issues?

Attack “from side”.
Ok. If you really think “normal” is to difficult – I’ll change it to what you suggested – start the additional attacking one “level” later. Not many people will ever notice :-).

I am not sure what you mean with:

– another point: playing with the last ship: instead of an armor, other improvements (or nothing), a temporary increase of the bonuses to collect (life / powers etc…) would be great.

As of now the “last ship” does not offer any additional “things” – also no armor!

Continue:
I don’t think I would like to offer that.

As of now there are already a couple of ways to play:

• easy mode
  the “normal” game
• hard mode (not difficulty)
  only one life, no shop
• enter level/difficulty you want to play
  If you reached level X you can start playing from there
  (which is really hard, since you start with your normal “starter” gear”
• play from a saved game
  With this you can “explore” the whole game to the highest difficulty – if you want, but you cannot save high scores

I am not sure what a “continue” as you described would really “add” to the game.

One Vectorblades feature is to get better/more convenient stuff thru achievments.
There IS already an achievement that allows you to enter a shop with each level start. So if you have money, you can equip yourself “fresh” after each death.

A continue such as you suggestest would really only be:

• a couple of more lives
• another “saved” game (depending on high score handling)

And the question remains… if you managed to die – why wouldn’t you die again shortly after?

I guess the “method” to prevent deaths from being fatal in the later game is:

• don’t die
• buy locks
• have much money and the ability to enter the shop

---

Now that I think of it…
A rather “cool” reward for an acceptional achievment would be:
(Boss fight)
– either: enable – teleport back to the last shop
– or: enable – do not teleport at all, but allow a shop enter

OR

Another (or instead) – reward could be:
– enable: enter shop after a death

Now – any ideas for what kind of achievement (a new one please) – that could be a reward for?

---

 

Chris

PS

Received you parcel. Do you want me to send it right back to you with the current version (beta 56) – or wait a little longer for some “more” stuff?

[Jerome Vince]

Hi Chris,

Happy to hear from you!

I played VB this week and NO CRASH for me!😉.

About the last ship: my suggestion is to offer “something” for the last ship: it can be more bonuses falling from the sky; instead of the classic random bonuses we can imagine bonuses improving the fire power (at least a “two shots” and “more bullets” for instance). The aim is not to make an easier game but to offer the possibility to reverse a problematic situation especially when we loose 2 -or more- lives in the same level.

About my VecVox: i do not know what to think. A .bin test file would be great.

About the “reward”: (just my opinion but) i think it would be nice to open the shop after a death when you are fast enough 3 times in the Minestorm sequence (3 “Falcon Storms” in the same game).  It not impossible to do.

And for my cartridge: Yes, I will wait a longer time a new version with more stuff! Thank You!!

[Malban]

No time for programming…
(at least not for thinking)

Starting soldering…

[Jerome Vince]

Hi guys!

Did you test the Atarivox+ with the last beta versions (especially the B56)?

Sorry to insist with that, but after a few levels (25-30) my Atarivox+ seems to switch off. If i unplug it i can play more levels and the problem comes back (and so on) until the end of the game.

So this morning i played an old beta version of Vectorblade (beta 40): No problem at all after  more than 250 levels and 3 hours with this version.

Any idea?

[Malban]

As said before – I played a lot and didn’t have any problems.

It sure is strange, that it happens with a new version and not with an old version though.
I will compare the sources for VecVox between now and beta40 (when I find the time).

I “might” have to ask you

a) to do lots of tests 🙁

b) or to lend me your vecvox, I have 3 different ones here, but they all seem ok

 

I’ll provide more info ones I find the time to compare the sources.

Cheers

Chris

 

[Jerome Vince]

(Just a precision: i purchased my Atarivox+ in january: new bacth)

[Author]

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