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Post by Malban on May 2, 2017 15:22:00 GMT -5
Yeah yea... I will test. But I tell you programmers seldom make good testers... :-)
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Post by hcmffm on May 3, 2017 2:25:23 GMT -5
Thank you very much for keeping us up-to-date regarding via your posts and the project gallery, Peer. If a developer wants feedback (design, gameplay, stability, ...) at some stage (early or late) he/she can also contact me (in German or English). EDIT: I just had a look at the project gallery 2017 and am impressed how colourful the gallery is; many games have overlays. Available hours during the course have been reduced quite a bit but obviously this doesn't keep your students from trying develop games with decent gameplay and graphics. Very good!  |
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Post by Malban on May 3, 2017 2:38:24 GMT -5
(just teasing)
... but he might have to wait some time ...
:-O
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Post by Peer on May 4, 2017 14:23:07 GMT -5
Yes, although programmers might not be the best testers, programmers sometimes just like to play a game, and thus can provide valuable feedback Thanks for volunteering as well, Helmut! I had long since planned to send you an email. And thank you once more for all the feedback you gave last year. Meanwhile, there have been more updates to the gallery page and to the project pages. The Knight Rider page features a new demo video, now showing more enemies and more details of the gameplay. Btw, the author's alias "Blondie" is a reference to the Eighties Pop Band. Retro Programming is taken seriously here  I will see the students tomorrow and then report more. Cheers, Peer |
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Post by VECTREXER on May 5, 2017 14:00:10 GMT -5
Noticed some resources are password controlled Such as those for Star Fuel. binary and overlay require password.
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Post by hcmffm on May 5, 2017 17:13:31 GMT -5
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Post by Peer on May 6, 2017 14:10:53 GMT -5
Ok, here is another "short" update. I am trying to fill in bits and pieces as they come to my mind: - I am positively surprised by how far some of the projects have come by now. Although the course hours have been reduced compared to last year, we seem to make better progress this time. The gallery page indeed looks really nice and colorful. - Yesterday, we tested the current versions of "Star Fuel", "Space Ball", "Block Bomb", "Pipe Race", "Doodle Jump" and "Knight Rider" on a real Vectrex. This was a big moment for the authors, seeing their implementations on the original console for the first time. - "Space Ball" already offers a working two player, which was a lot of fun to try out. "Star Fuel" is a sort of mix between "Star Trek"/"Star Ship" and "Star Hawk". The basic game play works, and the game features sound. "Knight Rider" has some nice "Hyper Chase" like animations (trees approaching with increasing brightness) and a nasty helicopter enemy. - The students seem to put a lot of work into their projects. One of them admitted to having continued working on the project and programming while sitting in a colleague's lecture, following the lecture with one eye and having the other eye on the code. I must officially state here that, of course, I cannot condone such behavior. Both eyes should have been on the code!!! - Helmut, thank you very much for the article you wrote! I will send the link to the students. This will definitely add to their motivation. So, please continue to ignore copyrights and keep posting updates on your site To all others, your comments are highly appreciated as well! - Now for some bad news. Right after testing on the real Vectrex, the device went silent and stopped working  My hope is that this can be fixed. The device is without power. Maybe it is just the on/off switch. Meanwhile, I will give my personal Vectrex to the course and will also start looking for a replacement on ebay. - The "Robot Programming" lecture by the way runs in parallel. I am trying to somehow manage 21 Vectrex student projects and 9 NAO Robot student projects at the same time and to keep track of them all. And, unfortunately, there are also four other lectures more I am currently giving. So please take this as an excuse for me finding so little time to post here. - And yes, Vectrexer, the current development version of "Star Fuel" (binary and overlay) for now is available internally only, as the author wants to have it easily tested by his fellow students, but not yet by the public. Sorry for that, but this will change, as soon as the first projects have reached alpha status. I have encouraged the students to have their games tested externally. - Some students gave feedback that part of the fun of this course lies in the fact that they are told to deliberately ignore some good coding styles and coding guidelines they have been taught in previous lectures. Examples: - Good style: "If some instructions are to be repeated a certain number of times, write a loop." Here: "Unroll the loop and just repeat the instructions. Do not waste cycles for counting and bound checking." - Good style: "Use function calls and parameters to pass information to subroutines". Here: "Use global variables. Do not waste cycles for passing information via the stack" or "Just do not use a function call and inline the stuff." That's it for now. Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Peer on May 14, 2017 13:32:35 GMT -5
Just to keep you posted: There was no course meeting last Friday, as last week was a week of study related field trips and factory tours.
I still had quite a bit of email exchange with the students who continued working on their projects at home. There are now demo videos online for "Knight Rider", "Spaceship Centauri", "Hover Race", "Lost Souls", and "Dragon Snake".
Cheers,
Peer
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Post by VECTREXER on May 14, 2017 14:07:16 GMT -5
Just to keep you posted: There was no course meeting last Friday, as last week was a week of study related field trips and factory tours. I still had quite a bit of email exchange with the students who continued working on their projects at home. There are now demo videos online for "Knight Rider", "Spaceship Centauri", "Hover Race", "Lost Souls", and "Dragon Snake". Cheers, Peer "Lost Souls" and "Spaceship Centauri" look fun. But from the start I like the idea of what "Hover Race" and "The Count" could become. "Pipe Race" sort of reminds of a few other old school games. It's another I am looking forward to playing. "Star Fuel" has the most intriguing UI to me. I appreciate the way it uses an overlay to go along with the game play. The same can be said in my appreciation for "Alienvirus Infection". For both of those I will be interested to see how they translate from simulator play to real world play. The topic of game play to overlay alignment comes up in those situations where the overlay is a required part of the game. A question. Will you (the University) offer students the option to produce a physical overlay for real world play for course "extra credit"? If so, do they have lab resources available to do so? |
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Post by Peer on May 14, 2017 23:34:14 GMT -5
Thanks a lot for your post, Vectrexer, especially for your comments on the projects and the game ideas. This is exactly the kind of feedback that will keep the students motivated. I will relay your thoughts to the course coming Friday.
As far as overlays are concerned, designing a game overlay will be positively rewarded when it comes to grading the projects. Creating a physical overlay, though not required, will score extra points.
Last year, I only had one student who tried this, Miss Lissi for her unfinished game "Rob Hop". She has left our university by now, but we are still in contact and she wants to continue working on her game at some point in the future.
I am aware of the alignment issue, but personally I do not have any experience in creating real world overlays. I know that there are some tutorials on the web, but I have never tried. I would be happy to provide the students with technical means or lab equipment needed to produce overlays. Any assistance and guidance here is highly appreciated. Please feel free to pm me or contact me any time (not only you, but everybody out there).
Also, I would be interested to know if there is someone out there who has experience with producing overlays (and maybe also cardboard game boxes) and offers such service for a reasonable price. I saw some great pictures on the web of overlays and boxes of homebrew games that really look like the eighties originals. If so, please contact me.
Cheers,
Peer
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Post by VECTREXER on May 15, 2017 17:41:50 GMT -5
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Post by gauze on May 15, 2017 22:06:28 GMT -5
there are much cheaper ebay sellers of the videogame plastic clam shell box btw because they illegally ship them as media mail saving like $10+ on postage costs. (inside the US only)
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Post by Peer on May 18, 2017 23:13:46 GMT -5
Thanks a lot for the links. I will check them out. Meanwhile, there have been more updates and some new videos are online (Knight Rider, Lost Souls, Block Bomb, check update list on the bottom of the gallery page). Also, a first prototype of the game manual of Knight Rider is available. I will see the students later today and then report more.
Cheers,
Peer
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Post by Peer on May 30, 2017 1:58:03 GMT -5
As always, I am sorry for the delay, but here is another update: - Overall, I am really satisfied with the progress the students make. Most of the project are nearing alpha status. By today, this course has definitely come farther than last year's course. Considering that classroom time was reduced and that I can only expect the students to work 90 hours on their projects, I am sometimes wondering how this was possible. - By now, there are approx. 8 projects that have added demo videos to their web pages. - Most of the projects feature overlays. - Some first draft manuals are also available. - It seems that 3 students have dropped out, as I haven't seen them and haven't received any updates from them for several weeks. - Some of the topics we have recently covered in the course are: - State machines: switch-case vs. if - else if - else cascades, how the ordering of the cases affects performance, using binary search to speed up case detection, using jump tables instead of state machines, … - Data types: using C unions inside C structs to easily access low bytes and high bytes of word size integers - Pointers: directly using pointers and pointer arithmetic, e.g. instead of C arrays with standard indexing to avoid the costly index computation generated by the C compiler - Function pointers: yes, those look really ugly in C, but can be used so efficiently in many places… - Many more… - I bought a replacement Vectrex on ebay. It was pricy, but it was a first-hand sale. The previous owner got this as a birthday present back in 1982 and, as he said, did not play a lot with it. For the past 30 years it basically just stood inside a closet, dust sealed. This sounded promising, and indeed, from the outside the device looks very well maintained, without any scratches. The joystick is in really good shape, and so far the electronics work fine. There seems to be a minor defective contact inside the cartridge slot. If the cartridge is rattled, then the device resets or hangs up. I have not yet tried the "test cartridge", but will do so soon. - As we now have two working Vectrex devices again, some heavy testing on the real machines is scheduled for next Friday. Looking forward to it Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Malban on May 30, 2017 5:12:37 GMT -5
Good to hear from you.
Just yesterday I visted the project page and "snooped" around :-).
You are under surveillance!
Malban
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My hope is that this can be fixed. The device is without power. Maybe it is just the on/off switch. Meanwhile, I will give my personal Vectrex to the course and will also start looking for a replacement on ebay.
