Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

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team_disposable
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Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

I've begun my entry for the contest - it's going to be a horizontally scrolling space shooter, along the lines of gradius or salamander.
space.gif
space.gif (1.85 MiB) Viewed 18022 times
I've got scrolling, collision detection and ship swapping working so far.

I can't decide on a name - pretty much anything "space", "star" or "void" seems to be taken. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
M_Tee
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by M_Tee »

It's not uncommon for space shooters to have seemingly nonsensical names like Salamander.
But, focusing the setting from "space" to some specific field or portion of space could help with inspiration for a title.
You could also present some genre twist or key gameplay feature to help with a title too.

Ship tilting animation looks good, btw.
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Fisher
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by Fisher »

M_Tee wrote:You could also present some genre twist or key gameplay feature to help with a title too.
Totally agree with that.
Would make a lot easier to suggest a name.

Or, maybe you can try some very generic name (like Space Soldier, Ship Shooter, ...), a mix of space related words (Nebulous Star, Dust Supernova, ...), the name of a star or a space object you find interesting (like Antares, Eridanus, Chalawan, Rigel, Blackhole, Pulsar etc...), a combination of a star name and some other thing (like The Antares' Warrior, Fight for Rigel, Eridanus' Journey,...), something that don't makes much sense but uses space stuff name (Iron Pulsar, Flashing Blackhole, The Pillars of Creation, Orion's StarDust) or even some acronym like YANS (Yet Another Nes Shooter). :D

By the animation, I think this looks pretty promissing!!
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dougeff
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by dougeff »

I see tiles changing on the left side. Consider flipping the 'render BG left 8 pixel' 'render SPR left 8 pixel' off on the PPU PPUMASK $2001.

Otherwise, looks nice.
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team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Great ideas, thanks. I've got thoughts on possible directions, but I'm not sure which path I'm going to take with this game yet - once I have decided, I'll let you all know. Let me know if anything occurs to you in the meantime.

Here were some of the original names when I was going to make more of a defender style game:
logo2.bmp
logo2.bmp (17.05 KiB) Viewed 17971 times
I'm probably not going with either of these - Rapier as it is only one letter away from a horrible internet fail, and harbinger as it's a little generic.

Dougeff - yes, it's disabled for testing. Thanks for pointing it out though!
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Enemy loading and patterns are working
space2 - 1.gif
space2 - 1.gif (319.17 KiB) Viewed 17948 times
space2 - 2.gif
space2 - 2.gif (841.16 KiB) Viewed 17948 times
space2 - 3.gif
space2 - 3.gif (2.94 MiB) Viewed 17948 times
This is from a tiled file with a layer for NPCs. NPCS are currently stored very ineffiecently with a limit of 48 per level, but I reckon I could get this pretty easily up to 200 if necessary.
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

This shows the pattern editor off a little better.

Ignore the sprite overlap withh ships 4 onwards - that's just my poor timing!
space3 - 1.gif
space3 - 1.gif (483.91 KiB) Viewed 17944 times
space3 - 2.gif
space3 - 2.gif (2.26 MiB) Viewed 17944 times
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Also, I forgot to comment earlier, but Fight for Rigel is an awesome name (although like I think I'm going to follow M_Tees suggestion of waiting for the mechanics to shake out before choosing something)
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Title screen:
title_screen.png
title_screen.png (6.99 KiB) Viewed 17768 times

Any comments? And Tepples, before you break out your ruler, I know ;)
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dougeff
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by dougeff »

'a we are' reads very awkwardly.

Slightly monotone colors.
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team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Yeah, its only using one palette currently. Good point about the grammer, i didnt think about that. Thanks!
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

I've re-ordered the bottom part and made a much better font for it. I've also slimmed down the "O" a bit.

Again, any comments appreciated:
title_screen_2.png
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tepples
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by tepples »

By sight, that color is $06 or close to it. Text in $01-$0C on a background $00 is very hard to read, especially with vertical strokes one pixel wide, as the stroke will coincide with the low phase of the color subcarrier on one of every three scanlines.
team_disposable
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by team_disposable »

Hi Tepples - Yes, it's 05. Thanks, I'll experiment and try and get something more readable on there.
tepples
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Re: Progress Thread - scrolling shoot'em up

Post by tepples »

I'd say start with $15 for the logo and $25 for the text.
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