Hi there!
> I'm going to have to try the real thing on Mame and
> compare the timings and such but the explosions seem
> closer to my recollections now as far as timing goes.
The general timing should be close. A difference I made
is that I don't have the sub and the PT boat sinking,
but exploding, as I couldn't fit more grafics into a
page. That's also what the 8-Bit version does, it has
only explosions and no sinking at all.
> I know in the original didn't it superimpose point
> values?
True. But I can't display any sprites above the ships.
And the sinking animation is the same for all of the 24
pixel wide ship types, so if I'd scroll in a score there
instead of "void", all ships would have the same score.
> Also, your mine spawning routine should probably
> prevent stacking of the mines. Right now it's pretty
> common to see two mines overlap eachother.
> You should enforce some kind of minimum distance.
Good point. I'll take care of this.
> Also, you might want to think about doing double or
> triple-copy mines ala Space Invaders to help clutter
> up the bottom. This would complicate the kernel, I
> realize. It's just that right now you can only have
> two mines per level and the coinop may have done more.
Hm... I think I do it almost exactly like the arcade
here, at least I haven't seen it doing more than two
mines per level so far. Only difference I see is that in
the arcade mines are popping in in the middle of the
screen, wheras I let them all slide in from the border.
Also I let the mines in he middle run into the other
direction.
In fact, the mines kernel is dead simple, I could easily
do tripple copies here. I opted against it, because now
I'm more flexible here. Instead of a mine, I plan to
launch supply boxes there as well, so you can
occasionally refuel and rearm your sub.
> Other than that, I guess the next step is to make the
> score dynamic, right?
Yup, that's one of the remaining tasks. I'll also soon
add the SFX engine I wrote a while ago and the final
steps then will be gameplay tweaks and introducing a
difficulty ramp.
> BTW, as you may know, the original Sea Wolf 1 used an
> analog control on the periscope. You were controlling
> a crosshair. Isn't this also the case in SW2?
It is, yes. I recently found flyers of both arcades
(There is a homepage focused on collecting Arcade flyers
somewhere) where both cabinets are pictured. It seems
like the sequel was using exactly the same kind of
periscope controlers, only two of them.
> I'm assuming paddle control is out of the question
> here, right?
This was the first thing I thought of when Thomas gained
me the big bunch of cycles with his DCP-Missile code. I
didn't think it'd work too well though.
If you carefully trace the way of a torpedo, you'll
realize a certain kind of jerkiness in it's movement,
coming from the repositioning lines, where the missile
code isn't executed. Now I feared that the very same
jerkiness would also be introduced into the paddle
movement.
Well, anyway, the cycles have now been used up for the
animation of the water... :-)
Greetings,
Manuel
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