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done:
Scroll text: LESS BULLET
-> I only have that many letters I can display per line, changed to “MINUS BULLET”Hmm, “MINUS BULLETS” are 12 characters. “LESS BULLETS” are also 12 characters. (?)
I think a good pair would be “LESS BULLETS” and “MORE BULLETS”. Or even clearer and shorter: “LESS SHOTS” and “MORE SHOTS”. EDIT: The term “BULLETS” is used in the shop so that’s not an option.
Malban i suppose you could think about reconsidering a fixed shipping cost for everyone and instead charge each buyer individually based on their country. in your initial announcement post you could just add something like, eg: ‘note: currently due to the coronavirus situation shipping charges for (country a, country b, etc) are (much?) higher than usual …
That is very kind of you and highly appreciated. But please note that I consider being among the beta testers, and thus having had the opportunity to closely follow the complete development of the game, as enough privilege already. I really feel a bit bad that I did not manage to play as much as all the other testers did. And trying to help in the big Voldemort bug hunt in that sense was rather a nice intellectual challenge and thus a whole lot of “fun” for me, so that doesn’t count. Especially because I was chasing in all the wrong directions…
I only have a layman’s knowledge of the sales things, but I agree with Helmut, the regulations regarding “kleinunternehmerische Tätigkeiten” seem to be applicable here.
As far as I understand that means that you have to pay taxes for the “financial profits” you made. The profits are what is left from the money you charge for the games, after deducting all the production costs. If you still have the bills, then prodcution costs could include all hardware parts for the cartridges themselves, the eprom burners and the eprom chips used for development and testing, the soldering iron, the overlay and box production costs, including those costs for the “bad prototypes” you did not use. Maybe also the price you paid for yet another used Vectrex console? And probably more.
If you do not explicitly charge postage on top, then you can also deduct the shipping costs. If you let the buyers explicitly pay for postage on top of the price for the game, then you cannot deduct postage as your own costs. And now the maths kick in…
If you want to minimize the taxes you have to pay, then (on paper) you should reduce the profit margin. But when it comes to determining the price of the game and whether or not to charge postage, that might be in conflict with trying to maximize the amount of “pocket money” you have left over for yourself in the end.
For me, the very fact that “tax counselling” exists as a profession indicates that there might me some flaws and overcomplication in the tax systems itself…
Cheers,
PeerMinestorm – Malus
Actually the Minestorm should never be considered a Malus (IMHO).
You can not lose anything, no life if you don’t get thru…Sometimes the Minestorm is a shortcut over a difficult level (I have even passed “bosses” using a timingly taken mine storm – but that is seldom).
By now you can earn quite a few point (score) and money. It also the best place to collect diamonds, because the diamonds collected in the storm a worth 5 times as much as the diamonds from e.g. a diamond bomb.
Collecting 50 diamonds grants you the special “super” diamond “level” worth 100000 and 5000 money.
—-
I also use mine storms (so they come) to break a bad challenging stage. Of course I try to get the 256000 bonus “chains”, but sometimes one screws up, if you take a mine storm “pill” before the bonus scoring occurs, the challenge does not count as “missed” :-).
—
Today I played quite a lot (testing, and also finding a couple of hidden bugs).
I played thru:
– easy
– normal
– hardAnd I really (by now) like the progression of difficulty. The difficulty levels actually FEEL different – thats great!
– the aliens have more HP
– they shoot more
– have different attack patterns (not intro patterns)
– the laser behaves different from normal onward (doesn’t go THRU all aliens, but stops at the one that is hit)
– the “scoopies” have collision detections with aliens from “normal” onward…
– from normal onward you have an additional “bonus drop” POWER, which is really nice
– in the shop you can buy locks
– you start getting immunity to “lower level” shots
– the bosses behave differently
– starting with hard (now), the aliens “launch” themselves at you while “introing”
– at manic there is no intro anymoreETC.
It really adds to the game IMHO.—
When I get the new “candle” music piece from VTK (and insert it into Vectorblade), I will upload an new RC.
Anyway…
Cheers
Chris
@Chris @Vtk
Many Thanks to add a short music to the “Candle sequence”!
FYI
Updated the
http://vide.malban.de/vectorblade/vectorblade-beta-testpage with latest “internals” (spoiler information). I have to keep this stuff somewhere lest I myself forget it!
(Password is still the same: “Malban123”)Vectorblade_RC4.bin – 21th July 2020
and VecFever version:
Vectorblade_RC4.V4E – 21th July 2020Latest changes.
done: music/spherical sounds
Now i know that time is counted (and the bytes too!), but about “the candle” after the last life:
can we envisage a short music during this sequence (or/and few words with the VecVox)?done: add a little “jingle”, when EXTRA is collected in the correct order
done: Warning LAST ship, when in warp failure
done: Hardcore > wheel -> bombs secret > black screen!
double definition of a replace statement, JMP #0done: Hardcore > wheel -> score > black screen!
wrong bank off add score referencedone: boss death
->shots spawn wildly=”again” (only: non autofire)done: Blade achievment is rewarded after a saved game!
done: added/ changed some “titles” (Peer)
done: diamond super, no music??? flash
-> music was accidently removed with while adding VecFever compataibiltydone: danger last live – NOT in hardmode
not done: (no time left – big images – actually only boss 4, all others could have move “ongoing”!)
Boss anncouncements: Some stars?
Currently, the images announcing the bosses look a bit clean.
Suggestion: Some stars might be introduced.not done:
Intro: Scrolling text with small dot
In the intro with the scrolling text, there is a small dot on the left side of the
“screen” that goes up and down. Looks like a small bug.
-> at one stage I had that with one of my vectrex too, and corrected it (a long time ago)
I can’t remember what I did, and I have no Vectrex to test it on – so I just don’t
know how to handle that :-(.done:
Minestorm: No merchant
Title of level 5 is “Merchant follows”. I played level 5 and caught a minestorm bonus.
After the minestorm, there was no merchant.
It was not a feature – but it happens :-), anyway I changed the text because of hardcore mode –
there ARE not merchants in hardcore.not done:
Game over screen: Vertical alignment of numbers
In the game over screen, the vertical alignment of the number doesn’t look
right to me. E.g. “Rank Multiplier: x 3” the 3 is a bit too much at the top.
Perhaps it’s just the font that is used and thus normal.
-> it very slightly looks so, yes
but both texts (header line and number) are positioned exactly on the same
y position code wise.
Therefor I hesitate to change it, since on other vectrex it might look different
and changes might look worse than…done:
Merchant/Shop: Intensity
Intensity is the color of the Vectrex. Currently, within the shop it
seems that intensity isn’t used at all.
Suggestion: Use varying itensity (e.g. selected item, merchant, …).
-> first: the items shown are different intensities (you scroll)
second: change the intensity of the merchant imagedone: please test if you “like” it – for I am dubious
Before your next RC3 i have just a little question/suggestion; i remember it
was technically complicated to display the number of ships playing the
game without side effects.
But what do you think about the possibility to give the information
of the last ship (for instance a message saying “Last Ship!”)
under the specific message you display before each level?
-> there is now a warning: “DANGER! LAST LIVE ACTIVE!”done: Game over: Slower Score calculation
At the end of the game the score is calculated. The speed of the calculation has
been reduced, already, but it’s still very difficult to see what is calculated.
Suggestion: I think after half an hour of playing it’s o.k. to see one’s score
calculated for some seconds.
It’s like the farmer who brings in the harvest that he has sown in spring.
Make score calculation even slower.
Perhaps wait a short time inbetween various calculation factors (rate, secrets, …).
-> the “count down” is half the speed nowdone: Bigest loss got with 3
-> two shot? – was a debug value thing of “inGameSecrets”done: Screen wobbles in intro with $85 size
-> performance enhanced, up to $85 it is ok nowdone?: Status in shop: Adding more money: when the level is high enough it
goes down to the bottom (and then goes up again).
-> to be watcheddone: Hmm, from what I can see this bug isn’t fixed, yet.
After calibration the main menu is shown –
the Vectorblade logo with the fighter is still missing.
Could you please check, Chris!
-> shozld REALLY be fixed now 🙂done: spelling mistakes in title texts and 3-4 new references (Peer)
done: From my point of view this looks better. Spaceship and the animated “flame”
of the spaceship could also vary in intensity,
a bright “flame” would look cool.
(We testers never run out of new ideas and requests… 😉 )
-> from 5f to 7f, acceleration particles onlydone: shop man, bottom part
done: achievements that award “speed” are doubled in value (that is not shown in the achievement list)
At the moment, I am finished with all I wanted to do, and all things I remember you guys mentioned
(@Jerome, I don’t think I will add the last emailed things – sorry…).Happy testing – and there REALLY is not much space left by now!
Bugs can of course still be fixed.
Cheers
Chris
heheheh so the bytes are now all used up, ok here goes with (perhaps?) the very final testing of vectorblade before release
(happy adventuring in space everyone) 🙂
ahaha ok maybe i should experiment with other sounds (although i tried it on vectrex just now and i quite like it myself) 🙂
on a different note, if its important or ‘no big deal’, i wanted to report anyway, that when i play vectorblade on my vectrex everything is ok but i notice the ship at the top is not centered very well in the triangle (i think i reported this to u before and maybe u said it doesnt matter, but anyway just incase i didnt mention it.. here it is) :
I may try to shift the fight a little bit.
But generally speaking – it IS centered. On other vectrex it displays ok.
Vectrex are weird!
I think I discovered another CRASH bug.
Following circumstances – everyone try to reproduce it (“Muahh hahaha”).a) try to collect EXTRA in the correct order.
b) collect the last “A” after the level finished
c) collect the “A” while the WARP is ongoing (the stars go up and degenerate to lines)
d) do the spinning wheel
f) when you “go back” from the spinning wheel, a crash MAY occur
(The “return” from the spinning wheel is done to the normal game loop not anywhere else. While the WARP is onging,
memory layout is different from “in game” – so where usually aliens are handled, now some weird stars reside and
may lead to a crash)Tststs (*shaking head and throwing arms in the air*), you all – why didn’t you find that???
Cheers
Chris
Tststs (*shaking head and throwing arms in the air*), you all – why didn’t you find that???
Who on Earth decides to hide a crash in such a cornercase? Haven’t they taught you some decent and easy bugs back in programming school?
You Voldemort!
Tststs (*shaking head and throwing arms in the air*), you all – why didn’t you find that???
I couldn’t find that one because I’m on holidays in Netherlands and didn’t take my Vectrex console with me. 😉
Something interesting for you, Chris: I’ve just posted two parcels to the U.S. – each was 23 EUR without Track & Trace. With Track & Trace it would have been 29 EUR per parcel. Quite a lot but still better than the 53 EUR in Germany.
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