Guru
Joined: 13/08/2020
Location: CanadaPosts: 323
| Posted: 01:27am 17 Oct 2020 |
I would like to introduce my new game, heli-blaster. It started out as a sort of Flying-Shark shoot'em up, which then got changed into helicopters… and well then it all got a bit crazy. Now you have a 10,000x10,000 pixel map to fly around, wreaking destruction on an enemy base.
The graphics are definitely the weakest point. I always loved the look of Uridium on the C64, so I tried to emulate that shaded sort of style to give it a 3D look. But I'm sure a graphics artists could really take it up a notch.
I wanted to make something more than just a 2 minute coin op (which are designed to quickly swallow your 10p/25c and get your next coin). So heli-blaster has you juggling ammunition and fuel. These can be replenished by hovering over a fuel or ammo dump for a few seconds (it has to be hands off the keyboard for about 3 seconds for the reload to start… which can be nerve wracking… did I mention there were heat seeking missiles homing in on your 'copter?)
If you hit a fuel or ammo dump they are both highly explosive and will destroy buildings besides them - you will get points for that destruction, but you will also quickly start to run out of dumps to resupply from as one hit will usually take a whole bunch of closely grouped ammo or fuel tanks.
On top of that you can upgrade various aspects of your helicopter. You start with $2,000 but get more cash for every yellow building you destroy (with more money for the harder to destroy buildings such as pyramids). Pressing F1 at any time allows you to upgrade your helicopter (if you have the cash).
In the video below, I have foolishly opted for the quad gun option. Everyone thinks they want quad guns, but to be honest you just chew through ammunition at a much faster rate. I should probably have gone for the increased damage and increased base speed options. You also have a slowly recharging turbo boost (the S key) which will give you a short boost of speed to get around the map. Finally, you have your armour. There is no way to repair this so when it hits zero (or you run out of fuel) it's game over.
Video of gameplay here:
https://youtu.be/0M1UCDxrIN4
The satellite scan of the world at the top right of the screen slowly updates (to prevent killing the FPS) but will show you where the remaining buildings are in the world (as red dots). I like to clear out a rectangular section of the map at a time when I'm playing. I deliberately tried to go for a "scan-line" monitor look with that.
Thanks to Mauro for pointing me in the right direction with the sound, I managed to find a public domain MOD file and use it to provide a backing track and sound effects. Everything else was created by me (which explains the shoddy graphics).
As with all of my code, consider this completely public domain. Do with it what you will, use it to make your own game if you want, or simply improve it. It's there for everyone.
Unfortunately, the code is like a dogs dinner…. But I regret nothing :-D
heliblast.zip
Edited 2020-10-17 14:00 by PeteCotton
Guru
Joined: 29/01/2013
Location: CanadaPosts: 1099
| Posted: 07:38am 17 Oct 2020 |
Nothing to be ashamed of at all. Heliblaster plays very nicely, and the program itself is not at all frightening to look at. Well done! I just got to second place, now it's time for bed.
Senior Member
Joined: 01/08/2020
Location: GermanyPosts: 138
| Posted: 01:01pm 17 Oct 2020 |
Good work... On my Sony TV the left first letters of the instructions when it's saying coffeebreak and so on and is generating the world the letter is cutted...
(No the TV is set correctly) It has black bars around the whole screen and the screen is centered in the middle... but I am wondering why the first letters are seem to bee to far to the left. any idea ?
I find it very hard to hover 3 sek over an ammo chest :-)
I have checked the mod file and was able to play around with it... maybe I will do a mod file with some music soon... but that needs a little bit learning to get back into making mod music again... puh... you are so limited in that :-/
Overall its a very cool game.
Do you know what samplefrequency your sounds originally at ?
I find the mod sounds still a little confusing... i tried to sample my own synth and the basefrequency was 44.1 khz but that is much too high... even when I used 22.500 it stll sets the note not to a C - so I was wondering what is the base frequency for a C3 Note ? Anyhow love that game... fantastic work.
how about WII Control ? ;-) Now that I bought a controller ;-)
Oh and do you use a boublesort for the hightscore ?
I need to learn how to make highscoretable...
Cheers TweakerRay
Guru
Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United KingdomPosts: 3971
| Posted: 02:09pm 17 Oct 2020 |
TR didn't you report the same problem with Pirate Adventure from the Welcome Tape? Sounds like the problem may be with your hardware. Try out TassyJim's "test-card" program, there is a copy under the "Utilities" menu of the Welcome Tape.
Tom
Senior Member
Joined: 01/08/2020
Location: GermanyPosts: 138
| Posted: 03:12pm 17 Oct 2020 |
Here is a picture how it looks at my TV
But why should my TV cut the inside of the screen ?
I have no clue what I could change on my tv since it automatically change the resolution if a mode change on the cmm2 happens...
Update... okay I am stupid... I can change the H.Postion at my screen and when I give +8 I get the full screen... Sorry I was not aware of that... :-S
Edited 2020-10-18 01:35 by TweakerRay
Senior Member
Joined: 01/08/2020
Location: GermanyPosts: 138
| Posted: 03:37pm 17 Oct 2020 |
Constructive criticism: wouldn't it be better to have the armor and ammo bars on the right side where the radar is ? because I find it sometimes hard to read in the center.
Cheers TweakerRay
Guru
Joined: 13/08/2020
Location: CanadaPosts: 323
| Posted: 04:56pm 17 Oct 2020 |
Thank you!
I don't know what would cause this. The actual resolution 640x480 (I'm using 640x400 and I believe the CMM2 adds an extra 40 lines top and bottom to make it the standard VGA resolution).
Yes, if I made it too easy, where would be the fun in that
Of course, you can always spend some of your hard earned cash on reducing the hover time (from the menu)......That would be awesome.
I do not, however the original file is form here:
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=177387
I do have some lying around somewhere, but to be honest I've already moved on to my next game
If somebody else wants to add it, feel free! There is a single routine for handling the keyboard entry, so it should just slot in there.Sort of (pun intended). It stores 100 high scores. The player starts with a cursor at #100. Every scan, the program compares the players current score with the high score under the cursor i.e. HighScore(100). If the player score is greater than the highscore at the cursor, then the cursor is decremented by 1. So next scan it compares the player score to HighScore(99) and so forth. This is the fundamentals for a bubble sort, but everything in the high score array is already sorted, I'm just finding the insert point for the players score. When the game finishes, the program moves everything after the highscore cursor down one (so score HighScore(99) is put in to HighScore(100)) and then inserts the player score at the cursor position in the array (and then saves the array to disk).
The trap to watch out for here is that when you are moving the scores "down one" in the array you have to start at element 100 and work back up to the cursor (rather than working from the cursor down to 100).
If we had a table
#98 = 3000
#99 = 2000
#100 = 1000
and you were inserting at 98. If you go from 98 to 100 you get the following logic
HighScore(99)=HighScore(98) (#99 is now 3000)
HighScore(100)=HighScore(99) (#100 is now also 3000)
and you end up with
#98=3000
#99=3000
#100=3000
If you do the logic from #100 counting down to #98 you don't get this problem.
Feel free to take my highscore code and use it if you want.
Thanks. I always welcome constructive criticism. Funnily enough, that's where they were originally (where the little keyboard reminders are just now at the bottom right of the screen). But it became very difficult to keep your eyes on the action and check how much fuel/armour/ammo and boost you had. I agree that having beside the chopper also isn't a great solution. It definitely could do with some tweaking (another pun intended) if you are up for it!
Edited 2020-10-18 02:58 by PeteCotton
Guru
Joined: 13/08/2020
Location: CanadaPosts: 323
| Posted: 05:18pm 17 Oct 2020 |
As some additional notes. You refuel and rearm from everything within a one block radius. So if you find a lot of ammo dumps together you will rearm much faster than if you are just hovering over one or two. Of course, you still have to wait the 3 seconds.
In this way if you find the right spot with fuel and ammo side by side, you can also refuel and rearm at the same time.
It also becomes very difficult to resupply if you wait until you are out of ammo. If this is the case, I have to do a few short re-arms so that I can get enough ammo to blast the missiles and give myself a few seconds reprieve to fully re-arm.
There are a maximum of ten missiles and when they are destroyed they are re-spawned at random locations on the map. So my tactic is to find a great re-arming spot with lots of ammo dumps. Fly away from it a bit (because if you hit it with a stray bullet, the whole lots going up, and then you have to find another dump). Fly backwards to lure all ten missiles into my gunsights. Blast the ten and then rush back to the dump and re-supply befire they all catch up to you.
Also, do not under estimate the value of paying for the reduced hover time in the menu. By repeatedly purchasing this (the price goes up each time), you can reduce the time down to about half a second, which makes it very easy to resupply.
Senior Member
Joined: 30/07/2020
Location: BelgiumPosts: 255
| Posted: 09:16pm 20 Feb 2021 |
Hi Pete,
I'm a bit late but I just want to give you a big thumbs up on Heli Blaster.
I missed it when you first announced the game here on TBS, but I just came across it today thanks to Jiri's new CMM2.fun site.
I'm impressed by the way you're rotating the entire scene. That's a very cool effect!
The wireframe parallax in Guardian is supercool too btw.
I hope to create games like this some day.
Senior Member
Joined: 06/08/2020
Location: CanadaPosts: 290
| Posted: 09:41pm 20 Feb 2021 |
Seems like CMM2.fun is working exactly as intended - well done, Jiri :)
Guru
Joined: 31/01/2019
Location: GermanyPosts: 519
| Posted: 03:53pm 22 Feb 2021 |
ool , a rotating screen without a gpu . Even homing Missiles inside . Great
And thanks for the code
Edited 2021-02-23 01:55 by Plasmamac
Guru
Joined: 13/08/2020
Location: CanadaPosts: 323
| Posted: 07:39pm 09 Mar 2021 |
Thank you very much, it means a lot to me. It was a lot of fun to write.
I was hoping to have time to do some more games, but work is really taking up all of my time right now.
But I'm desperate to get started on my platformer/beat-em-up and a new version of Star Trek.Maybe I'll be able to squeeze in a quick wee program for the programming challenge.
Edited 2021-03-10 05:40 by PeteCotton