I'm jumping in with just my modicum of knowledge, but
who knows?
--- Glenn Saunders <cybpunks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I've come up with the beginning of an original game
> idea that I hope to one day develop into a 2600
> game, if I can get beyond the How to Draw a
> Playfield...
Yeah, lots of us got that problem. ;-)
> Anyway, it's loosely based on the Playstation 2 game
> where you try to catch fireworks that are randomly
> shot up, mixed with Warlords. I have been thinking
> about what could be done with 4-player paddle games
> for years. The idea is that the screen has four
> paddle guys who can move up and down to catch the
> balls that shoot up from random places. On
> collision you automatically hold the ball and can
> continue to move up and down. When you press the
> fire button it locks you in place and you can rotate
> your stick around to aim your shot. When you
> release the fire button, you "pass" the ball onward.
Okay, let me get this idea straight.
1) Will all four players be against the same wall,
will each have his own wall, will it be two to a wall,
and assuming one or more paddles share a wall, do they
have complete independent movement the entire length,
or do they only cover so much area?
2) Does it have to be four player? From the sound of
the control scheme, it sounds like two players with
driving controllers would offer more control. Either
that, or have, say, one twist of the controller spin
the paddle around three times so that, once you catch
the ball at the bottom of the play area, you don't
have to rotate the paddle all the way around to aim it
up.
> So the idea was to use at least two missiles as
> players and use HMOVE, the width register, and the
> sprite flip register to get a full 16 or 32 degree
> line rotation out of these one bit objects. That
> leaves the ball sprite and the playfield.
Well, I would imagine that, if you have the paddles
lined up on the left and right sides of the screen,
you could simply draw those paddles with playfield
graphics. You would still get collision detection if
the ball hits them, and with 192 (I don't remember off
the top of my head and the docs aren't in easy reach)
lines to draw with, the animation would be relatively
smooth.
> I think this could lead to some interesting game
> variations from this rough starting point, like how
> one could integrate playfield bumpers or brick
> targets (ala Warlords) and goals, or maybe the
> paddles could point to a trajectory (when not
> holding a ball, hold down button, rotate, let go of
> button, rotate to move in that direction, press
> again to lock down) thus repositioning themselves
> horizontally to break the 1-dimensionality of
> paddles. Or maybe you could have zones in the
> playfield that if you hit it with your paddle, it
> changes your default paddle movement from vertical
to
> horizontal.
Uh...need a slightly clearer idea of how the game
would look to comment on this.
> On the other hand...
You have five more fingers, right? ;-)
> If all the paddles were going horizontally instead
> of vertically, you would only need to use one player
> for them and that would reserve player 2, the
> missiles, and the ball for other objects that are
> flying around. Or two could go horizontally and two
> veritcally so that they criss-cross eachother
> in the middle.
Possible, although it sounds like you would need some
tricky cycle counting if you want independent colors.
>From what I gather, though, it doesn't sound too bad.
Dobre utka,
Pete Holland Jr.
still working on his conversion of "Postal" for the
2600 =:-0
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