[stella] Re: Finally found some time to work on my game

[apeboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Glenn Saunders writes: 

> The new laser fade out effect and the shaking effect when you hit the 
> other player is very nice. 
>
> However, it looks a little strange to allow the base to move while the 
> laser is effectively shooting by itself and fading out.  You should either 
> freeze the player until the laser is completely faded out, or visually 
> imply that it's a missile trail (which I don't think you want to do).

It's a belief thing. The laser has been fired, and the display fade is just 
the optical effect of the laser, any firing or effect caused by the firing 
has already happened immediately. 

> Also, the 2-frame animations are still much too reminiscent of Oystron. 
>
> I would at least play around with different animation speeds if you stick 
> with 2 frames of animation.  Don't have a single speed for all the 
> animated sprites.  Maybe have some that flip graphics faster than others.  

There are actually 4 different animation types/speeds in the current 
objects.
single frame
2 frame 60 Hz
2 frame 30 Hz
4 frame 60 Hz 

No attempt has been made to vary the speeds and frames of the animation. 
Each object has the frame count, and animation speed which seemed to work 
best for it (within the memory constraints of the space allocated for all of 
the frames of these objects (256 bytes)). 

> It's just that the middle sprite movement, as a whole, with the gradients, 
> the double-scanline res, the sprite cloning, the horizontal movement, and 
> the chosen height of the objects is still too close to comfort to Oystron. 
>  You've got to make it your own.

I don't see the similarities with Oystron being quite so obvious.
I have only played Oystron a couple of times and maybe it becomes more 
similar later, but given the nature of the hardware, and the nature of the 
game I am implementing the similarities are inevitable.
I suspect we both have made similar decisions for technical, gameplay and 
aesthetic reasons. 

the double-scanline res : not enough cycles to not double them (I spent 
quite a while trying to avoid the doubling)
the sprite cloning : the only (easy) way to get more then 2 objects per line
the horizontal movement : that's the nature of the game
the gradients : it's a cheap (virtually no memory) way to get a pretty 
effect on the 2600
the chosen height of the objects : carefully chosen to allow a squarish 
object (8 wide, 7 high) and to allow enough rows of objects. 

The actual gameplay mechanics of the 2 games are quite different. 

> Maybe if you had the objects do something besides just provide targets, 
> like shoot-back, morph into other objects, change speed and direction 
> intelligently, etc... their animations could be given somewhat more of a 
> motivation.

The specific behaviour of the objects is still to be implemented. 

Regards,
Andrew Wallace 
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