Count Vecula (formerly known as The Count)

[hcmffm]

Thank you for your update about and of "The Count", Peer. A lot of final tweaking and polishing going on. I much look forward to playing the updated version of "The Count" in this year's Vector War.

[Peer]

Some more progress:

• Did more level tweaking
• Fixed one serious bug
• Fixed a minor highscore issue
• Slightly modified the look of some objects
• Decided to leave another minor bug as it is, because this can also be interpreted as a (strategic) feature...
• Beautified the cut-scenes/transitions and the pause-screen (ok, this was not necessary, but fun)
• Added some more sounds
• Made the behavior of the count (i.e. the in-game enemy) slightly nastier
• Improved a minor issue related to reloading the bow

Many Cheers,

Peer

[Peer]

Sorry for the long silence. A LOT has happened regarding this project during the past weeks. I do not have the time right now, but I will soon post a major update on this.

[Peer]

Greetings everyone,

three months ago I resumed working on my oldest and until then still unfinished project The Count, of which I had grown tired over the years and which I had put to hibernation a long time ago.

I set out to "just" complete the final definition of the levels and their sequence, and to leave everything else as it was. But while at it, I accidently started to also polish and change some minor stuff. And suddenly the fun and joy of programming and working on a Vectrex project was there again. I changed some major stuff as well, threw out some ballast, and added several new features which had meanwhile come to my mind.

By now, a lot has changed. And to quickly summarize, I think I have now made "The Count" the game as I had always envisioned it to be. The result turned out to be quite different to the original version. I believe the new version is much more advanced and has improved in many ways, so I also started thinking about a new title, and eventually my kids came up with a proposal I liked a lot. Beware the rise of

    Count Vecula

Count Vecula will be released as a physical cartridge, including box & overlay, by Sean Kelly. I myself have neither the means and skills, nor the time to do a physical release, so I am very glad that Sean is doing this. All potential sales profits go exclusively to him, so if you like the game and are interested in it, then please support his great work.

I will post pictures of the cartridge and the box and the overlay as soon as available.

Many Cheers,
Peer

[TrekMD]

I saw the game at PRGE! I'm getting this once available!

[VECTREXER]

Oct 23, 2023 18:59:16 GMT -5 TrekMD said:

I saw the game at PRGE! I'm getting this once available!

Did you take pics, or a vid at the event?

[TrekMD]

Plenty of pics of the event: PRGE 2023

[TrekMD]

I also have this picture...

[TrekMD]

Nothing yet on the site.

[VectorX]

^Maybe once he gets closer to production/a release date there will be.

[TrekMD]

I would assume so.

[Peer]

The picture above shows some early art work of the box design and the overlay, and gives a hint at what the final version will look like. The game is currently in the final debugging and field-test phase, and the release is scheduled for November 2023.

I have also updated the "Count Vecula" project web page.

Many Cheers,

Peer

[hcmffm]

As desired some feedback from my side for Count Vecula, Peer. I've played Count Vecula during Vector War quite a bit. It's great that in Vector War we can play a special version of your "Count Vecula" - thank you for that. First of: Your Gyrostronomy/Gyrostrology were brialliant games. And your Count Vecula is another masterpiece. The numbers and its overall style makes it look like a an easy and simple game for children but it's definetely not. Count Vecula is a tough game and challenging and fun to play. It offers a lot of variety in it and there are lot of details which show that you've put much effort, time, thoughts, and love into the development of Count Vecula.

Almost impossible rooms
This game gets really tough and rooms get really hard. Last night I've played Count Vecula and made it till room 14. There, I've lost 4 lifes - always running out of time (even though I negotiated with the count). I still had two more lifes but I gave up because I had the impression that this room is impossible to play. It was room 14 with three rows of horizontal parachutes and when shooting on a number that you had already hit it turns back to non-hit.Perhaps a way to change the room would be good - this would prevent being stuck in one room and loosing all your lifes.

Connections inbetween rooms
Not sure about other people, but I haven't understood the way the rooms are connected. Perhaps some hint for cartographers so that they can distinguish rooms and to find about the connections more easily would be help. (I admit that I have read the manual only briefly.).

Just my 2 cents.

[playvectrex]

Ooh, forgot to add my comments about the really hard rooms as well.

The ones I had the most trouble with were:

The diamond shape balloons holding spiders that went left and right, and progressed to the left. Super hard to accurately try to hit these. The way I found to beat them was through firing a ton of shots and getting lucky.

I think there's a similar room with round balloons?

The room Helmut mentions gave me trouble as well, or at least that concept of accidentally hitting a previous number and changing it back, forcing you to hit it again... that's super tough, especially when the Count is also replacing them just as fast as you can shoot them.

I would gladly trade a LIFE for the ability to teleport to a new room, or to pick a different room. That seems like a good feature, but shouldn't be for free.

Another level that was completely unnerving was the numbered balls that roll left and right, progressing left, and also have a swirling shield. Some of them (around 7, 8, 9) have the shield in an awkward location so you have to try to hit them when they are moving the fastest... which is really hard. Also the Count is trying to replace them so fast you have to be very VERY accurate. Not always possible to STUN the Count either as things can get in the way.

I would like the idea of being able to select the various levels to practice them... because by the time you even get to these hard levels, you are exhausted after 3 hours of playing... and the idea of playing again for 3 hours just to try a new tactic is not very thrilling

Competition (Hardcore) mode is one thing, but Journey Mode might be nice for a game like this that takes so long to beat (if there is even an end?). If it saved your progress, and gave you 3 more lives to continue each game play... I could see trying to play it many more times to try to beat the really hard levels. Of course it wouldn't be as prestigious as beating it with a starting one life (hardcore), but that's ok as well because every game developer wants players to find reasons to keep playing their games. A mode that allows more people the chance to do that makes it all the better (Save and Continue... and/or Level Select Practice modes).

I do also wish I understood the layout of how rooms are connected... that would help map them out. Is it a TREE structure? Dungeon crawlers are easier because it's a grid typically and tiles are connected in a sensible way. Here you have 3 options always, but no down option. Perhaps I just haven't thought of the obvious way this could be connected, but a tree with some kind of wrapping on left and right seems logical.

Obviously I enjoyed playing the game if I played for 7 hours (1+3+3), but I have not played since Vector War XIII. Partially because I feel I've tapped out the highest I can get in this game, getting to Room 32. I did this going Left continuously... and met some very hard challenges along the way

[D-Type]

Some interesting comments from playvectrex .

I like short, sharp arcade games that don't take long to play and don't have so much depth, but back in the day I also liked Scott Adams adventure games on my Vic-20, where you'd take a while to get through the game. That would mean mapping out where you've been.

Over decades, gaming has changed, "3 lives and you're done" is somewhat out of date these days, video games have gone from getting you off the game pretty quick to earn money to trying to keep you on as long as possible making it an experience of discovery.

Playing the same levels all over again to get to where you were last time and maybe get to a new level is challenging, but if it takes longer than an hour then it's probably also audience limiting, they've plenty of other things to do these days! 

I think having the ability to return to your previous position (e.g. with a code) and make it a journey (nice description, Bruce) has great merit for a game that can last for maybe over 30 mins, or perhaps less, and would make people far more willing to return to it.

Of course, this is the last thing you want to hear just before shipping the final binary...sorry!