Re: [stella] Please consider this for Oystron

Subject: Re: [stella] Please consider this for Oystron
From: Piero Cavina <p.cavina@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 19:04:28 +0100
At 23:51 -0700 15-09-1997, Glenn Saunders wrote:

>Piero, I think I've got some issues here that are serious enough to be
>addressed whenever you find the time and initiative to work on Oystron.  I
>hope some of this inspires you...

Currently I'm working like a mad on Oystron... whole parts rewritten to
make some space. All this happens because Jay made those optimizations,
otherwise I would be on vacation! :-)

>I think the idea of the swiss cheese guys is okay, except for the fact
>that if you allow them to block every row the game comes to a crashing
>halt!

nono, they can be pushed away... see the other replies.
BTW, wait for the new version to see what those guys can do... he he he ;)

>I think that if they all line up that regardless of the progress towards
>the boss, that the swiss cheese guys should "summon" the boss for a
>penalty round.  The swiss chess guys will disappear when the boss (or you)
>are dead.  Either that or give the cheese guys very high hit points, like
>128.

nice idea, but that would require too much memory to be done.
Sadly, only the programmer knows which things can be added with minimum
changes, and it often happens that apparentely simple things are instead
big troubles... (and vice-versa)

>You could have electric eel type characters that slithers from right to
>left until killed, charge up (via brightness) and zap a row based on a
>predictable time loop (like one per second).  This time loop could get
>shorter (or more unpredictable) with difficulty or wave number.

I like this too... I will put it in the "things to consider for the SC
version" file... :)

>The other pet peeve I have about the game is similar in relation to the
>boss.  If you use up all your bombs and the boss is still alive, he never
>goes away and you can't shoot the incoming enemies, so the only
>alternative is, again, SUICIDE.
>
>I think the boss wave needs to be seriously tweaked.

You're right here. In fact, I've used most of the damned new free space for
this (more or less like in the way you're saying).

1. there's a new phase after the boss and before the first wave of the next
level: the WARP!
During the warp everything goes at double speed (and there's also a neat
graphic effect done with those little dots).
2. if you run out of bombs during the Boss phase (or you reach it with no
bombs at all), you can wait until it mutates into an Oysteroid (much easier
for me that making it go away), then the Warp will begin.
3. big bonus if you kill the Oystron, no bonus otherwise.
4. Happy? :)

>If you really wanted, you could remove the link between pearl and bomb
>entirely and treat pearls you have on board after the boss wave as bonuses
>(ala Defender) and have all bombs be generated via holding down the fire
>button and waiting.

this is a thing to consider... but I'm not sure that it would be a very
good choice.
The player could not concentrate on pearls anymore...

P.





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