|
|
Post by hcmffm on Jun 29, 2022 17:32:57 GMT -5
Thank you for your small code snippet, Peer. I'll compile and try it out occassionally.  The protagonist is a human, using a blowtube, which explains the behaviour of the shot. The behavior of the bubbles is also modeled after the original game. Cheers, Peer
Ah, a clone, I see. I didn't recognize the blow pipe and didn't know that with a blow pipe shots are that slow and look like a laser sword. In the original game bubbles have graphity and don't influence each other. But this doesn't make a big difference when playing and I even prefer the current bouncing behaviour when bubbles hit each other. |
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Jun 30, 2022 3:41:39 GMT -5
Thank you for your small code snippet, Peer. I'll compile and try it out occassionally.  I was sloppy, in order to make it compile you also need
#include <vectrex.h>
int main(void)
{
// insert the previous stuff here...
return 0;
}
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Jun 30, 2022 3:46:51 GMT -5
Ah, a clone, I see. I didn't recognize the blow pipe and didn't know that with a blow pipe shots are that slow and look like a laser sword. In the original game bubbles have graphity and don't influence each other. But this doesn't make a big difference when playing and I even prefer the current bouncing behaviour when bubbles hit each other. Artistic licence is the all-time excuse for such inconsistencies Initially, the student tried to implement a gravity effect, but that turned out to be too complicated (for a start). So the bubble behavior was switched to the billiard ball / Mine Storm model. Whether or not gravity will be / can be reintroduced, is currently open.
Cheers, Peer
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Jul 14, 2022 3:19:50 GMT -5
Greetings everyone,
here is another short update to keep you informed. Time flies. The classroom sessions of the current semester have ended, and all the exams are being held this week and the next. Because of that, the students are temporarily taking a break from working on their Vectrex games and will continue once the exams are over. The deadline for the final delivery of their projects is by midth of August.
Many Cheers, Peer
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Jul 26, 2022 12:46:05 GMT -5
The weeks in which all the other written university exams have taken place are over now. I know that four students have already started to continue working on their projects. Others will follow. I am curiously looking forward to the final submissions of the course.
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Aug 24, 2022 8:49:35 GMT -5
Greetings everyone! Vectrex Academy 2022 has officially ended. The students have sent in their final submissions, and I have uploaded the results and updated all the project web pages: eitidaten.fh-pforzheim.de/daten/mitarbeiter/johannsen/vectrex_2022/gallery/vectrex_gallery_2022.htmCompared to the previously available versions, there are lots of changes and new features in almost all of the games. You will find the latest binaries in the download sections, along with overlay files and game manuals. Standard disclaimer: Feedback is welcome!
Have fun and enjoy the games  Many Cheers, Peer |
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Aug 24, 2022 17:09:05 GMT -5
That is excellent! Congrats!
|
|
|
|
Post by hcmffm on Aug 30, 2022 8:18:03 GMT -5
Thank you for the latest (and final ?) update of the games in the Vectrex gallery, Peer. I'll check out the games soon and will provide some short, final(?) feedback. Again, thank you very much to all students that developed games for the Vectrex Academy 2022! And thank you, Peer, for offering and teaching another Vectrex Academy. EDIT: I wanted to try the games on the week-end but didn't manage to do so. Game test should happen the next 2-3 days. |
|
|
|
Post by hcmffm on Sept 17, 2022 18:00:09 GMT -5
Today I found time to play the final version of the Vectrex games developed and finalized during Vectrex Academy 2022. Sorry that it took so long. I've downloaded all binaries, copied them to the VecMulti and played them on a real Vectrex console with original Vectrex controller. Like last year, I'm writing up pretty much what came to my mind when starting and playing the games. I hope you enjoy to read my thoughts.
Bubble Splitter
It starts with Bubble Splitter. First game in alphabet on my VecMulti. Intro music, cool. Is this Yankee doodle or Frogger? Uhh, is this graphics or writing at the top? My Vectrex seems to have trouble displaying this. Let's start. "Press button 4 to start" - I'll do that. Button 4 shoots arrows. Yes! And here I split the bubbles. Hit, again. That was easy. Game over. Again, not optimized for Vectrex but at least an end screen. Oh, Vectrex has frozen - looks like I have to reset the Vectrex. Switch off - switch on. Bubble Splitter, take two. Level 2, already, very good. Oh, you have to be fast. Done. Oh, am I invulnerable? Collision detection seems to be gracious. Z on the right side what does it mean? Five bubbles at a time - that's a lot. Level 7 - hurray! Two huge bubbles. Almost finished. Game really plays well. Level 8. And another two huge bubbles. Bubbles vanish from time to time but that's fine - same in reality, bubbles just burst. Oh, the Z was not a Z but a 2 and meant two lives. Only 1 live left. And now it's game over. End screen says level 8 but I was in level 9, hmm. O.k., game plays well, crash at end of game is a bit strange but this might be due to my non-buzz Vectrex console. I better don't spend too much time on one game. Next game.
Evasive
Now comes the game "Evasive". Aha, intro from Armor Attack. Oh, lots of attempts. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 zeros. And three zeros for the level - that is promising. Button 4 to start. No. Button 1. Not either. Button 2, 3. Nothing. Oh, that was quick! 69 Points and game over. Just Joystick down. Wow, nice! I'm surprised - this double line looks nice. 1671 points. Very interesting - game is started using joystick, that's unusual. You need joystick only. That's something different. :-) A jump and run game - one would expect to control using a button but here joystick is used, only. I fail at this gap every time at the moment - I jump too late. Now I did it. Oh, a double gap, what is this?! I guess I have to accelerate, so far I jumped, only. Exactly! You can move forward and backward, too. Very good. Cool. Even when jumping you can move forward and extend the jump. 2400 points - getting better! That's a bit of a surprise. It scrolls nicely. Nice graphics. It's well done. Again this wide gap! 2391 points. I want to pass this gap and then I'll finish this. 00006th attempt. Interesting the counter for the number of attempts. Now, I know why this number has five digits. Perhaps there should be a warning every 1000th attempt that you should have a break. Yeah - got past the wide gap! This was my goal and perhaps I manage to complete the level?! Game finished! "Level finished" might be better. I did it - I'm through. 4341 points. Level 1. Uh, things are getting hectic. Level 2 is much faster. Level counting is a bit strange. Level 1 is level 2. You start in level 0. Last try. This is pretty fast. Difficulty increases quite a lot. Jump, jump. Jump. Wide gap. 2345 points and I finish, now. Evasive is a nice surprise. Difficulty ramps up a bit too fast. "Game finished" is a bit irritating me. What's funny is that the control is entirely via the joystick. Makes it interesting - good idea. Next game.
Grain sling
I've played this before and gave various feedback. Nosey whether some of my feedback has been implemented or whether things are still the same. Let's see. Here we start. Game number three. "Press 4 to start". I'll do that for sure. Level 1. Let's go. Oh, don't shoot the doves! Don't shoot the doves! Level complete. Done! Not sure how I die, here. Against time, I assume. 19, 18, countdown is on. Chicken still appear all of a sudden but it doesn't matter. Cursor is pretty slow. This makes it difficult. Level complete. Cursor moves slowly, this means that you struggle to move to the bottom and to the top. One better doesn't do that because till you reach chicken are gone. Chicken. Chicken. Another chicken. Level complete. Level 4, now. Chop and chop and chop. Game and cursor is getting faster. Level complete. It's like baking pretzels. Time is at the top center but a bit hard to keep an eye on it. How more chickens do I need. Level 5, now. Cursor should be a bit faster. Left is score and right is number of chickens to shoot. "Try again!" What has happened? "Congratulations, new highscore!" Now, Im surprised. Highscore 265. "Reset game 123" Why should I reset the game? O.k., I'll do that. Hmm, dark, again. I guess it's really my non-buzz Vectrex console. Grain Sling, no surprises, perhaps random appearance. Plays well but it's not my game because controlling is a bit tedious, could be faster but when faster precision is lacking. O.k., next game.
Rescue Mission
Fourth game on my VecMulti. "_1Rescue_Miss". Level 1, game 1, o.k. Oh, freeze. This was nothing, reset. I better get my other Vectrex to avoid these problems. What is this? A melody. A space ship. Oh, I've destroyed the station. Guess I approached too fast. What can I do here? Joystick up is thrust. Left, right rotates and joystick down does nothing. All I have to know how I should dock. Backward? Forward? This music is exhausting. "Stations was destroyed" Again! Thrust, thrust. Ah, you have to move the joystick up and back to the middle over and over again to go fast - that's something new. No lead foot. Not Moon lander but ship lander. Game over! What is this? Guess I've crashed station thrice and therefore it's game over. Game is played with joystick, only. Buttons do nothing. During game. One more time. Docking with head or nose? Crashed station again. That's a bit tiring. "Lost in space". Hahaha. Better don't fly out of screen. Where can I see the number of ships? University seems to have controllers without buttons, only. Ah, now it should work. No! Why am I bouncing?! This cannot be real. I approached really slowly. I guess I'm on the wrong side. Don't want to read the manual. A bit difficult because there's no indication how to dock. Game over, again. Even my buzz Vectrex crashes. Reset. Last try. I'll try to dock backwards at front of other ship. "Station was destroyed". O.k., I'll read the manual and continue, then. Next game.
Road runner
I'll start with difficulty 1. Collision! Right, I see that. Ran right into the obstacle. Should have jumped but this didn't work. Collision, again. Funny, that everything blinks once you had a collision. Duck, hurray! Button 3 is "Duck", got it. Passing obstacles right and left is easy-peasy. Duck, middle, trench. Order is random. "Level 1 done to continue press 4". Highscore 160 - Game over. 240. Done. You have one life, only. Plays well. One can learn it nicely. Left/right is easy because you can go as far as you can - you cannot fall down. Trench is a bit difficult because it approaches very fast and you have to press quickly. Good that the sling jump has been removed. Level 2 - uh, that's very fast. Increases pretty much. New highscore 340, very good. Last try. Trench, Jump, Middle, Left, wall middle, wall right, jump, ahh! Trench in level 2 is pretty difficult because it's so fast and I jump too early. Trench races up but then it slows down. Level 2 done. Now level 3. Phew, this is fast! At least 630 points. Highscore! That's enough for me. Next game.
Save the planet
Yeah! Wow! What a surprise! Planet and an image! This is cool, a really nice graphics! This gives bonus points. I'm enthusiastic! This is fun. And the alien who watches over all. Nice! Let's start. Day 1. Jump into your plane. Nice. Duck46, I'll fly that one. Don't believe it. What an animation! Insane. Hah, alien loughs, earth is broken and we have lost. Great! Enemies defeated 0. Have to play again. I can do better than that. Oh, if you leave the screen you're dead. Star Wars melody. Ahhh! This control is really the bomb! This is killing me. This mean laughing alien. He's killing me, too. This animation is really great and music from the movie. I feel like Maverick. I shot the UFO but it didn't explode. You can't do that. Ouch. You mustn't leave screen at top or bottom screen. Would have been nice if screen was unlimited but o.k., you can get used to it. I wished I had guided missiles. Yes, a power-up! I can shoot! Hurray! Where are you? Hello? Now I understand the counter, it's with lines - that's a nice detail. Oh no, don't fly out at top. I'll learn it. Double-decker becomes single decker. Jump into your plane. Yes, I did it. And Boing is coming towards us. Day 2! This is fun. Control is excellent. Really want to continue playing. Score counter is cool. Many cool details with animations and start screen is done very well. Next game.
More to come...
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Sept 18, 2022 1:46:39 GMT -5
hcmffm: Dear Helmut, thanks a lot (again!!!) for your feedback and for writing up your thoughts. It is always great to read that someone is playing our games 😊 Yes, there are still some issues with some of the games. I found that teaching the course got harder over the years, as the average complexity of the student projects has increased compared to the past. The teaching period is almost always over when things start to get really interesting. There is never enough time to give the project a proper final polishing. I still try to collect and fix severe bugs whenever those are reported. There is one thing I noticed. Some games do not properly work on certain multi-cards (or certain multi-cards do not properly handle some games). In the classroom, we use Vec-Flash cards in dev-mode, i.e. there is only one game on the cartridge and no menu, just like the original cartridges. The menus and bank-switching methods of certain multi-cards seem to interfere in some way with some binaries. I have not yet taken the time to investigate the details any closer, but I know that the warm-reset is rerouted by some multi-cards, taking you back to the menu, and not doing a proper warm reset of the game taking you back to the title screen (which actually can be exploited to advantage in programming, and also, if a game relies on the ram being initially zeroed, this does not seem to work properly with some multi-cards, as if the menu was storing things in ram which afterwards is not zeroed again. But as I said, I have not yet found the time to look into that. The best thing is to play the games in a native "just-one-binary-and-no-menu-on-the-flash-card" way. Regarding the use of controllers and buttons: I know that games should be intuitive and that nobody ever reads manuals 😉 One help is to have a quick look at the game overlay, as shown on the gallery page or the project pages. In good old Vectrex tradition, there is usually an indication of the control and button functionality at the bottom of the overlay. In "Rescue Mission", for example, button 4 is needed for successful docking, similar to the drill in "Cosmic Chasm". Many thanks again for your dedication to our classroom activities, and many Cheers, Peer
|
|
|
|
Post by hcmffm on Sept 18, 2022 14:59:45 GMT -5
Thank you, Peer, for your feedback. To be honest, I'm not 100% happy with my above "feedback". First, I'm not sure whether this is really worth while reading. Second, unlike last year there isn't that much enthusiasm and humour from my side in it. No pregnant woman or similar. And my pointing to possible bugs and improvements aren't that nice at this point either because games are final - especially given that it's just a problem on my Vectrex console and/or when using a VecMulti. I really much appreciate the work of the students and am thankful for the results. It's amazing what has been developed and achieved during the short time of one term. And all games are complete and play well and have sound effects, scoring, and even music - this doesn't go without saying at all. So please take my above "thoughts" as a mixture of fun, craziness, but also appreciation for the authors of the Vectrex. You all did very well! Thank you very much for your effort, dedication, and last not least for providing your results to everyone for free! Below please find some short feedback for the remaining games. Feedback is for Space Shooter and VectrExit games which I played today. And I've read the manual of Rescue Mission and played it, again.
___ Space shooter Game plays well and not 100% sure but to me it looks as if the asteroids even rotate a bit. Mix between asteroid levels and bosses is good. Difficulty could be higher - I managed to finish the game. Game offers quite some varity with power-ups, various bosses. Well done!
VectrEXIT I've played VectrEXIT for the first time. A cool concept - you have to get to the exit of a labyrinth while the labyrinth keeps changing. Difficulty ramps up nicely and the enemy makes the game challenging. I've made it to level 5 and I guess there will be many more levels. Good sound and music while playing. Good! Rescue Mission After reading the manual docking was still a bit of a challenge. Even though I had read the manual I still had on my mind that the whole space ship must be rescued and towed to the rescue zone. But then I realized that the scientist change space ship and you bring them back in to rescue zone one by one.
This worked fine - some feedback indicating that the next scientist could be rescued would have been helpful. But enough of complaining: Rescue Mission plays well - with the joystick you can control the space ship precisely. Rotation is also very accurate. And during the game a melody is played which gives you a bit of the Elite feeling. Thank you for taking various suggestions into account and changing gameplay and removed shooting. Well done! - o -
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Oct 26, 2022 4:56:58 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by hcmffm on Nov 1, 2022 12:05:59 GMT -5
Two Vectrex Academies in 2022. That's great news, Peer! Once early versions are available I'll try to to provide feedback. I wish all "fall" students fun and good success when programming their first (Vectrex) game! |
|
|
|
Post by nexus6 on Jan 21, 2023 10:05:20 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Peer on Jan 24, 2023 3:22:14 GMT -5
A beta RC binary of project "Monster Shooter" is now available for testing:
Have fun, and many Cheers, Peer
|
|
It can be found here: www.spieleklassiker.com/spiel/Bubble+Splitter
