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Vectorblade_Beta21.bin – 9th June 2019
done: vtk: fade out title
done: Jacek : boss 4, animation still missing – but the intro boss (non wobbling) is there
done: vtk: for the big passing fly-by ship of the intro animation, can his overall brightness be increased?
done: helmut: Order of achievements – highest first to lowest
done: (perhaps) helmut: Movie: More vertical spacing
Currently, the Vector Blade “movie” looks a bit cramped.
Suggestion: There should be more empty lines /vertical spacing, e.g. after “Vector Blade” there could be 2-3 empty lines. Also
the credits (all the names of the people) are a bit cramped; increasing the vertical spacing a bit would make it look better.done: if you die during a boss fight – the boss pushes you an random (1-5) levels back in your progress?
done: helmut: Currently, when shooting a letter to enter the initials, the initial is added and nothing else happens.
Suggestion: The shot letter might explode. Or the shot letter might move to the appropriate position. Or…done: Helmut: What the original Warblade does… it prints little bars as to where between minimum and maximum speed you are. It does not tell you any value – but there you know at least approximately where you stand.
(in Vectorblade the speed values range from 500 (minimum) to 1025 (maximum) in 25 unit steps…done: (is it with above?) helmut:
[Idea]: Shop: Player’s current level
Currently, the player has little idea how many speed levels, bullet levels, rate levels, and so on are. The player might find out by having a look in the status but when the shop is displayed he/she cannot open the status. So buying items is more or less a matter of feeling.
Suggestion: In the shop the current level of the player for the appropriate item could be shown (e.g. Speed+ 5 100). This way the player could decide better which items to buy and he/she would get a better feeling for the levels.Vectorblade_Beta22.bin – 9th June 2019
I got a Headache – not going to do any more on VB today – so I might as well post the current status…
done: helmut: I’ve just realized that you can scroll the “Achievement” screen, too. Up/down arrows would be a really good idea,
here.
done: secret three scoopies -> wrong message “P…”?
done: vtk:i noticed after i finished playing and went into game settings, now i can see in settings it is set to difficulty NORMAL.
however i noticed now i cant change it back to EASY if i wanted to play in EASY mode again?— FOR TESTING following is implemented in the current version:
reason: vtk: some thoughts about the final level 100 boss: i had autofire+laser combined, and he is way too easy. he can be killed way too quickly (in a couple of seconds. it’s no challenge so unfortunately it feels like an anti-climax).
laser on boss fight easy does 1/4 quarter of damage
laser anywhere else does 1/2 damagearmor: renders invulnerable for 1 second upon trigger
Thank you for beta 21 and 22, Malban! I’ve played a bit this afternoon and all looking very good. I hope your headache is over, soon so that you feel better, again. Ich wünsche dir ein schönes Pfingsten!
Vectorblade_Beta23.bin – 10th June 2019
Headache is a bit better…. did some minor changes:
done: buy a lesser weapon than equipped, buying “lesser weapons” reduced money in shop, but did not buy weapon
done: pause – still breaks the intro sequence of a wave
done: Option: Reset
done: Shop – buy SECRET MESSAGES
done: Option: display secret messages
done: added option to “unconfigure” the Major Havoc part, and non debug versions it is now “out of the game!”I also did a little survey – bank 0 which I had reserved for the major havoc part – has only about 4000 bytes of space left.
(all other banks about only a few hundreds).
I estimated, that for the Major Havoc part I’d need 10kB, so I am a “little” short by now, and I don’t know what you guys still will come up with.
(the whole Help “System” ate nearly 8KB, Texts use so much memory…)
So the question is:
a) do I still try a (pretty diminished) MH part?
or
b) save the memory – for may be the one or other stuff that might come up with, and instead of a completly new game system, add eventually more “direct” Vectorblade stuff.Opinions?
PS
If Major Havoc is “out”, than right now except stuff that might come up – I nearly implemented all I wanted…Third option?
c) Significantly shorten and reduce the help text.
I know you put much work and effort into this, and it is nice the way it currently is, but I guess a (much) shorter version would also work. Back in the eighties we kids figured out every game quickly and easily just by trial an error (and without the original manuals for reasons I won’t go into). VectorBlade will come with a manual. The help text could be rephrased to a shorter version, and/or the ascii data could be stored using a simple data compression.
The order of my personal preference is c) then b) then a). Last one is a) because of the “pretty dimished”. I definitely would love to have the MH part.
c) Significantly shorten and reduce the help text.
+1 (I think a help system is good for Windows and its Desktop, but not for a computer game.) “Just figure it or RTFM!” 😉
c) Sure…
if there is no help text – you ask questions.
If there is a help text – you ask questions.
… I see why I should shorten it :-)….
Don’t worry, if you do not implement neither no help text nor not no help text, that will never not stop us from not complaining about no things 🙂
help text is nice, cause it’s someting new in the vectrex world. Does not matter if short or long. Just cool that it’s there.
I’d definetely like to see Minor havoc levels in the game.for the help text i am neutral opinion
and for the major havoc part:
i think i am neutral here also, it will be nice if it is in but i dont think it would cause a big problem if it is not in
(the important thing is that it is fun and feels like it belongs, rather than just put in for the sake of it to fill space)For the MH part, I’d say I am not so much in favor.
I’d rather to see some more graphic -wise, tiny bits and pieces, featured in a few worthmentioned arcade shmups. Just a pinch of “flower” essense inside the shmup core that certainly will spice up the overall look and game “feel”…
Something I was thinking lately is about some eye catching background graphics (or simple animation) when in shop. Something like an alien clerk perhaps, standing behind the counter looking at you with a suspicious and sly face expression while all goods you wanna purchase are scrolling (as text titles -the way it is now) on a location of the screen looking more like an alien terminal and such. I can recall some shooters like “Xenon Megablast” (already mentioned here) or others like Amiga’s “Disposable Hero” featured with such “in shop” action whilst the player upgrades his ship…on the other hand…if Malban thinks that such animation screens (and flowers 😉 ) are overkill (time+coding consuming or voracious for rom space) I can perfectly live with MH stage (or without it) 🙂
Vectorblade RoX the way it is designed so far! It is a great shooter and I love it. I am only a common user who has zero programming skills, certainly not dealt with it at all so (as expected) I can only criticize or share my previously (hardly aquired 🙂 ) arcade experience.
Have you tried using a dictionary to hold the words and then use a lookup for each word. You obviously need to store each word once in the dictionary. you could use a simple 16 bit address to reference each word from the dictionary (in a simple system).
If you need to you could look at hamming codes to enable some form of bit packing on variable length dictionary keys.
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