Progress Thread - Project Blue

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tokumaru
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by tokumaru »

Oh yeah, there's definitely a blue/cyan tint there, I see it now. I'm always a fan of using grays as "wildcards" that can fill in different types of gaps.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Dougeff:
I'm taking notes...

to respond to your situation as for now (even though you know how to beat it at this point):

There's a few indicators in place: When you hit the metal it makes the same "clink" sound as when a projectile hits a wall, while if you hit the glass cupola it makes a "hurt" sound like when you hit an enemy.

The cupola is flashing bright red when hit, but it is kind of hard to see. The brain would too but it is already using that subpalette. We've discussed adding a shaded subpalette to one half of the brain using an unused slot (mainly because it looks better). Then if that brain half would flash as well i think it'd be a bit more evident.


btw a boss fighting tip (spoiler alert issued):

...
...
There's more than enough time to run under the bullets in the opposite direction the boss is moving. begin running some time around when the bullets are spawned and it won't be able hit you. It takes a few tries to get the pacing right, i think.
Denine
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by Denine »

Right, I forgot to give my overall impression of the game.
I just re-played it and some of my thoughts:
-The controls an physics are not what I like. It doesn't mean its "bad", I just prefer more direct control over player. I get used to it after a while...but I still had problems with landing on smaller platforms.
-The overall difficulty is just to much for me. I get it, there are checkpoints and infinite continues, but it feels like I lose health too fast.
-The theme of both visual and musical aspects are very cohesive, I liked that a lot.
-The green slime enemy is just adorable, especially that it leaves some goo on floor that goes away after a while.
-During boss battle, sprites disappear for a moment for some reason...looks weird, as if you were above sprite limit, but there isn't enough sprites for that. Is the Boss double layered sprite?
-Would you consider clipping player to the center of ladder when player tries to climb? (this would allow to widen ladders collision a bit-I had bit of trouble to climb ladder now and then.)

I was also about to point out that boss is blinking and there is metalic sound played if you hit boss, but in wrong place...
Still, the flash is not very well visible. Like you said, making brain flash would make getting good hit more evident.
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dougeff
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by dougeff »

@frankengraphics, I will have to play it again, I can't recall any red or sound difference.
nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by FrankenGraphics »

@dougeff
Either way, the fact that someone missed both signals is an indication that it is worth looking into. Thanks for mentioning it!

@denine
I think the control/physics have been one of the most common reservations (people found it too inert for their taste), so Donny actually tuned it to be more direct/less inert. We've refrained from posting a newer version because of the voting, but it'll definitely be adjusted for cart inclusion, along with some minor tuneups/bugs noone found out about.

The "disappearing" sprites is likely sprite displacement due to running out of cpu budget at certain frames (i think this is happens regularily when the second wave bullet entities are spawned)

Yeah the boss is made out of 18 sprites iirc, but "only" 8 are layered (brain (4) and cupola(also 4)). There's the risk of overflow on a few lines if blue, brain/cupola, and a couple of blues' bullets are aligned to the same scanlines.
The green slime enemy is just adorable, especially that it leaves some goo on floor that goes away after a while.
It actually wants your help and means no harm, but sadly it is very unhealthy to touch.

I'll leave Donny to comment on ladder snapping as i don't know what that'd entail.
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toggle switch
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by toggle switch »

could use a bit of help troubleshooting.

code appears to be working fine on emulators and on AVS but apparently is getting some serious bugs on an actual PAL machine/powerpak combo:

the sound is working properly (which means that bankswitches are occurring and working during every NMI), and controls work too, which means the main code is also running during that time period, but the graphics are all black and the game 'resets' after the opening sequence plays.

just looking for some known areas where BNROM emulation doesn't meet the reality.
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toggle switch
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Re: Progress Thread - Project Blue

Post by toggle switch »

Here's a final version with a few tweaks and a few minor bug fixes.
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Project Blue Compo Final.nes
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