| Remix History... |
| Oct 5, 2003 |
| First real DEMO available! Collision detection is slightly off on your ship.
The bounding box extends down to the player panel, so if you go 'over' something it will register a collision even though your ship is technically above/past the enemy. (I.E., the enemy or missile is under your flames.)
The demo contains waves 1 through 5 (Hamburgers, Cookies, Bugs, Tires, and Diamonds). It will continue to loop through these until you either lose all your ships, or quit the game.
Game controls are ARROW KEYS to navigate menus and move your ship, ENTER to select a menu item, Z to shoot, and ESC exits the game.
I still have a number of things to do:
Enemy animations when firing
A complete redesign of your ship (It looks a bit too cartoony)
The ability to toggle guided missiles on and off before starting the game.
Navigation stuff - When you are out of lives, the game quits instead of taking you to the option screen.
Saving high scores
Game stats
The rest of the enemy ships and programming in all of the waves!!!
A million other tweaks...
All in all, not too bad....
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| Oct 5, 2003 |
| Minor WIP update. Been getting my butt blasted off the screen by enemy missiles. Timing seems a little off. Need to double-check it with the original. It seems right, but maybe it's the sound of them shooting that is throwing me off. The original didn't make any noise when the bad guys were shooting.
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| Oct 2, 2003 |
| Quick update. Been doing tweaks and adding some bells and whistles. Have some ideas I want to try out graphically. Go figure, you get your code straight and all you have to do is sail through the rest of the game - then think,"Hmmmm, wouldn't it be cool if...." and end up adding more work on yourself. Hehehe, it WILL be cool though.
I was asked if I was going to add some new kinds of ships to this. The answer to that is no. I want to keep this as faithful to the original as possible. One thing the original didn't have that I plan on adding is some stats when you finish the game - shots fired, hit percentage, total enemies destroyed, etc.
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| Sept 27, 2003 |
| Threw together this website to document the project. Still working out getting some of these attack patterns and firing sequences straight. Hmmmm, might as well post a screen shot:
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| Sept 21, 2003 |
| Quite a bit of work done:
death animation for your ship
enhanced graphics on the player interface
collision routines for your ship vs enemy ship
collision detection for your ship vs enemy missiles
a cool electrical sound effect when you die
energy bar calculated 80 units
After destroying a wave, bonus points get calculated
After destroying a wave, your energy bar powers down
fixed a bug in the scoring display. It didn't display 100,000 and over correctly!!!!
Extra lives awarded every 10,000 points
...and a bunch of other tweaks!!!!
...not to mention a slight case of burn out and needing to step away for a few days. How Mr. Cartwright did all of this in 4k is completely beyond me...!
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| Sept 17, 2003 |
| Found some extremely helpful information at the Atari Age website. Trying to figure out the bonus points on the remaining energy was a nightmare.
Fortunately, I now have the specs which called for a number of changes - especially in my graphics on the player interface. |
| Sept 16, 2003 |
| Graphics for the tires and diamonds are complete...and a MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH! I finally got a hold of the original developer, Mr. Steven Cartwright himself, asking for permission to proceed with this remake.
Now this was one of those rare tense moments in your life where you pace around awaiting a response thinking, "Please say yes, please say yes..." I had already put a lot of work into the project, but it all hinged on this. If the answer was no, then I would have to respect his wishes and can it.
This is meant as a tribute to the sheer love of the original - nothing more, but rules are rules, ALWAYS get the original authors permission! The verdict from Mr. Cartwright? "Go for it!" |
| Sept 14, 2003 |
| Numerous tweaks completed as well as waves 1 through 3 (Hamburgers, Cookies, and Bugs). |
| Sept 7, 2003 |
| All of this programming and testing has caused me to make to play the original endlessly to make sure I'm getting it right.
Consequently, I have gotten pretty good at it and after 20 years from first having played the original, I FINALLY broke the game! At 999,999 points, the old Atari version literally stops. Game over man! |
| Sept 6, 2003 |
| Joystick support is in. |
| Sept 5, 2003 |
| After numerous attempts at making a 'cool' looking hamburger, I instead stuck to the original - which looked more a spaceship!
The hamburger is moving across the screen and shooting!! |
| Sept 2, 2003 |
| The background scrolling starfield is up and running. |
August 31, 2003 |
| Game is progressing nicely.
Have the energy bar 'energizing' (looks pretty slick!) with a nice sound effect, along with the code to keep it updated.
Same with the score board, and the player lives.
Ship is on the screen, shooting and moving, but need to tweak the movement some to make it smoother. Trying to get the timing to be the same as the original to capture the 'feel' of the original.
Next on my list is adding joystick support and a nice scrolling starfield. Then on to the baddies...
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August 28, 2003 |
| Finished working out the player interface for the game screen, as well as a rough draft of the title/option screen. |
August 26, 2003 |
| After obtaining an Atari 2600 and a MegaMania cartridge via an EBay win some months earlier, I decided to take a stab at rewriting
the game for the PC and bringing it up to date as a tribute to the original. My quest for contacting the original author (Mr. Cartwright) was also well underway... |
