Subject: RE: [stella] ET improvements From: Pete Holland <petehollandjr@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 13:31:32 -0700 (PDT) |
I have some questions about these suggestions from programming and design perspectives. I am curious since this seemed to be (AFAIK) the first cart it was considered sport to dump on. > - re-map the screen linkings so that you can use a > cube as a map. This > would have been cool, because Atari could have > included an origami-like map > in the packaging that you could put together > yourself Don't quote me on this, but I seem to recall an actual hint book for the game, complete with a cardboard cube you could punch out and use for reference. You'll have to verify that, though. I don't have the bin for this on my computer, but the first question is how big was the game? It seems to me, if it was 4K as I'm suspecting (but don't quote me), maybe they could have gone 8K and added more screens involving elements from the movie. Increasing the scope would have been nice. But just how much was required to make the game? Aside from coming up with the pattern for the trees, it doesn't look like it would take much. There's only, what, seven screen total in the game? > - don't put pits at the edges of the screen. > Falling into a pit immediately > upon entering the next screen was very annoying This was also something that had me using those naughty words I heard my dad say. Was there any reason they were put where they were? Was it to artificially increase the difficulty? > - the humans should have to walk AROUND the pits, > just like you do That was unfair, but a little more unfair was how humans just seemed to pop up without rhyme or reason, making me leery of changing screens or walking by the edges. I'm assuming (and would be willing to bet money) that the humans were made with player graphics. Could this have been fixed simply with collision detection, or was there just not enough room on the cart to include a redumentary AI to move them around the pits? > - zones that opened and closed certain pits. And if > you opened up a pit > underneath a human, he would fall inside! And put > the "call elliot" zone > close to the "open a pit" zone, so you can call > Elliot, and when he > approaches, you open a pit underneath > him...Aaahhhhh! :) What? The Yar wasn't enough for you? Actually, the zones seemed more a design problem. There were a lot of features ET was supposed to do (eat the candy, call the ship, etc.), and I think a better control scheme (like using the game select during the game to control the actions) or changing how the quest was approached (instead of finding a call ship zone, you hear different levels of static until you get a clear channel, then the ship is called) would have helped. > - different difficulty levels should have different > pit placements Either that, or maybe incorporate one more character, like a bully, who would just knock you in the pit. > - remove the "arrow" zones. 99% of the time, they > merely transported you into an open pit anyway Is this another problem collision detection could have fixed? It seemed that, once I got the lay of the different maps, I could avoid that by memory, but that still doesn't make it fair. Especially considering it only moved you one screen. Since the humans vanished each time you moved, it was easy enough to get to the edges. The arrows just didn't seem to justify the action. > - fix the bug which causes the humans to get "stuck" > at the bottom of the screen That never happened to me, I don't think. > - be able to go inside Elliot's house Another thing that bothered me was the limited scope. A little more advance warning would have helped with strategy, or at least there being some rhyme or reason to their movements. It seemed arbitrary to me. Once again, though, would there have been enough room on the cart to do this? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
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