On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Greg Troutman wrote:
> - program numerous less-than-perfect control schemes and let the player
> select which one he prefers
I think you should be able to pick between fire for retro and up for
shooting and fire for fire and up for retro.
Those are the two workable schemes.
> - simplify the flying, back to the original style where the ship moves
> upward automatically after you've picked up a man
This forced movement can make the game more challenging--or frustrating.
Forced movement is like driving a car without brakes. It can be exciting,
but scary. But it can be a good game design as long as the game is tuned
not to lead you into "cheap shot" collisions.
So we'd have to check it out first.
> - build a custom cable to connect a Genesis controller to both joystick
> ports and use two buttons (just kidding ;)
Why not use 7800 style controllers? It would be good as an option.
We're hardcore gamers. We aren't afraid of using alterate controllers.
> 2. I've optimized a bit and found room to add some things. One thing
> I've tinkered with is further animation of the little guys on the
> platforms. I've got a much more efficient kernel routine for drawing
I like the way they twitch when you knock them over. It would be nice if
they didn't just spaz out forever but actually slow down and then croak.
> room in the current one-screen setup to do very much with that. I was
> wondering what anyone thought about dividing the flying and landing
> portions into two separate screens. I might be able to build fairly
> significant platform structures with more men on them if I do this.
> Maybe even making the ship descend into cave-like settings to rescue the
> men. Would anyone object to going in that direction before completing a
> more accurate port of the original game???
Forget the accurate port. Write the best game possible!
The platforms WILL get boring fast without variety. Variety in the
enemies alone will not make the game have significant replay value.
Having a separate screen would be, I think, another first on StellaList.
All of the projects here have been single kernel affairs.
If you do this, just realize that although we don't have Lunar Lander, we
already have Gravitar for the 2600, so try to make it as unique as
possible.
Actually, if it were up to me, I'd love to see a SCROLLING display.
> emulators to fix and isn't a big problem??? Anyway it looks fine on
> real NTSC TV and I think I'd like to go this way unless anyone has a
> huge objection for some reason that hasn't occurred to me... That one
Stick to 200. Don't kow-tow to emulators. Most all TVs should accomodate
200 scanlines. Most modern systems use 200 scanlines (PSX, etc...) so it
is currently the standard. Atari were conservative with the active
scanline recommendations.
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