Vectrex Academy 2023 - final releases available

[hcmffm]

VecDrift

Feedback below is for "VecDrift" which is under heavy programming by "stackoverflow". The alpha release of VecDrift can be played online in a web browser or downloaded and played in an emulator or real hardware, see Vectrex project gallery.

· GENERAL NOTES

VecDrift is a racing game - I'd say it's racing on a German motorway. A5, Darmstadt to Frankfurt with three lanes. Speeding at about 10 p.m. with little traffic. Cars drive on left and middle lanes although right lane is free - just like on German motorways. "Rechtsfahrgebot" is a terrible word and people don't care too much about it. VecDrift reminds me of Ronen Habot's Vectrace and sure enough Pole Position. But soon after playing you realize that steering is pretty different to known games: You switch lanes with buttons 1 and 3 - switching is smooth but there is no such thing like driving between two lanes.

I've played VecDrift on an original Vectrex console using VecMulti. I've played for about 15 minutes - my highscore was 68. It's fun to play VecDrift and I felt challenged to point higher and higher. Above 30 points the game is fast and fun to avoid cars.

· WHAT I LIKE
+ Game title "VecDrift" - reminds me of German words "Abdriften" oder "Wegdriften".

+ Start screen with possibility to switch car

+ Vector font for score and final score

+ Game starts slowly and difficulty (speed) ramps up nicely. Speed at about 50 points is pretty fast and graphics are still fluent and flicker free.

+ Player's car moves slightly left and right - really looks as if the car is driving.

+ Simple lane left / lane right control.

· BUGS

Note: This is an alpha release so it doesn't make too much sense to report bugs.

While playing, current score is displayed on the left side. On my Vectrex the current score is almost unreadable - the top part of ciphers are displayed much distorted.

· SUGGESTIONS

Below, please find various suggestions which came on my mind. Currently, it is an early alpha release of VecDrift and I assume that some issues mentioned below are on your (developer stackoverflow's) to-do list, anyway.

Opponent cars drive backwards
Currently, lane strips move slower downwards than the enemy cars. As a consequence, enemy cars seem to drive backwards.
Suggestion: If possible, stripes of the lanes should move faster than the opponent cars.

Mission impossible

Currently, difficulty ramps up nicely. But: If you reach a score above 50 points it seems to be pretty much a matter of luck if you survive much longer or not. Sooner or later enemy cars appear in a density which makes overtaking and avoiding a crash impossible.

Suggestion: In a game, futile situations should be avoided - otherwise a game is unfair. The player should always have a chance given he/she has enough skills.

Two possible ways to avoid futile situations come to my mind:

• Seeding of enemy cars could not be 100% random but that clever that never all lanes are occupied once cars reaches the road section of the player. (This might require some tricky calculation because enemy cars have different speeds)
• Stop increasing density of enemy cars at some level. Result might be that the player might play for a longer while till crashing but that's fine. It's o.k. if a game takes longer that 30 seconds.

Button 3 to start

Currently, it says "PRESS BUTTON 3 TO START" and with button 3 the game is started.

Suggestion: On the Vectrex, button 4 is (more or less) standard for starting games (and moreover shooting). "PRESS 4 TO START" is also understandable and might fit into one line and thus look better.

All buttons for controlling car

Currently, car can be controlled with button 1 (left) and 3 (right)

Suggestion: Use all buttons for controlling car, i.e. buttons 1 and 2 for left and buttons 3 and 4 for right. This way the player has more options - narrow control with buttons 2 and 3 or wide control with buttons 1 and 4.

Perspective mismatch

Currently, the perspective of the lane and the cars do not match 100%: Road is mainly viewed from above while cars are mainly viewed from behind.

Suggestion: Probably hard to switch perspective of road - so perhaps slightly change perspective of car graphics.

Different cars - different behaviour

It's pretty cool that different cars are available. It would be cool, if cars would not just look differently but also drive differently: E.g. time for switching lanes could be different. Or one car type could support the "double hop" mentioned below while another car type doesn't.

· IDEAS / EXPERIMENTAL STUFF

In the "Suggestions" section above I wrote down things that could improve VecDrift. Here come the experimental things and ideas, i.e. stuff where it's very unclear whether game is really improved or not. Ideas can also turn out to be complete nonsense or make a game worse. And some ideas might mean much effort to implement.

"Double hop"
Currently, if player presses button and keeps it pressed, the player's car will switch one lane, only.
Suggestion: If player keeps button pressed, player car might switch two lanes (without releasing button and pressing it again).

Joystick for controlling car
Currently, for controlling player car buttons can be used, only.
Idea: In addition support left/right joystick to control player car. Note: I'm not sure about this one because controlling the car with buttons is precise and quick and special/unusual. And good games have some uniqueness and specialty in it.

More control / drifting
Currently, player can control car left/right, only. This control is very restricted and player cannot apply much skills.
Idea: Apart from "normal" left/right there could be slow left/right. E.g. button 1/4 could be the current/fast left/right while buttons 2/3 are slow left/right. Not sure whether this extra control helps for better playing and passing cars more easily. But it might be worth a trial. Plus the slow left/right might give you the impression of drifting.

Lane strips: Dots

Currently, lane strips are lines. Lines are pretty long and compared to the cars the line strips are very long.

Idea: For lane strips, dots might be used instead of lines. This might look good and drawing dots might be faster than drawing lines.

Levels with different cars

Currently, at the beginning you choose a car type and then you drive this car until you crash.

Idea: Introduce levels. After passing e.g. 50 cars next level could start with a different car type. Each car type could behave differently which means extra difficulty.

- o -

[nexus6]

Nice game! I also have the feeling, that sometimes it’s impossible not to crash. There must be one lane free for a short moment to have the chance to survive, but i guess that this is hard to handle.
Sometimes a fast car drives over a slow car. That looks strange. The fast car has to slow down or the slow car has to accelerate. Or they crash and leave a static obstacle for the player.

[Peer]

... and yet another alpha RC

Latest modifications and change log:

• Alpha RC and screenshots and new demo video of project "Fly High" uploaded on 06/16/2023 at 20:20

Many Cheers,
Peer

[VectorX]

I like the overlay and that you can fly your ship through the sides of the screen

[Peer]

And now we also have the first Beta RC:

• Beta release candidate of project "Happy Bird" available for testing!

• Change log since last alpha version:

• Bird movement is a bit slower now.
• Any button can now be used to control the bird.
• Game speed increases over time.
• Bonus item added (slows down speed)
• Score and high score will be displayed when the game is over.

• Still on to-do list:
• Sound effects

Many Cheers,

Peer

[hcmffm]

Fly High

Next feedback is for "Fly High" which is developed by "mentalerror". The alpha release of Fly High can be played online in a web browser or downloaded and played in an emulator or real hardware, see Vectrex project gallery.

· GENERAL NOTES

Fly High isn't easy to categorize - is there such a thing like "passage" games? In Fly High you fly a space ship and you have to pass incoming walls - each wall with a single passage. Walls come in faster and faster and there are walls with a moving passage. Target is clear: Fly as high as possible and pass as many walls as possible.

To get the real feeling I keep flashing binaries on my VecMulti and then play it on the original Vectrex console with original joystick. I've played three games of Fly High; scores were 46, 102, and 128. Three games is not much - please see "Suggestions" why.

· WHAT I LIKE
+ Game title "Fly High" - reflects target of the game well

+ Animated (rotating) space-ship before game starts

+ Highscore + current score at the end of each game

+ Game has little/no flicker.

+ Pretty high speed when reaching more than 100 points

+ Variation: Moving passages

· BUGS

Note: This is an alpha release so it doesn't make too much sense to report bugs.

No bugs encountered during playing.

· SUGGESTIONS

Below, please find various suggestions which came on my mind.

High scores with little skills

My biggest concern first: Currently, it requires little skills to fly high in Fly High. As written above I gave up playing after three games, only. Getting much higher than 128 seems to be difficult to me and the way I played Fly High didn't require much skills and wasn't too motivating: Always fly upwards with joystick diagonal, i.e. right-up or left-up. This way Fly High is pretty much a no-brainer.

Suggestion: Game play will change once enemies are introduced. But I'd find it cool if flight skills (precision) were required. Possible ways to achieve this:

- Player could loose a life when touching a wall (consequence is a bit harsh because in Fly High you have one life only, atm)

- Player could be slowed down when touching a wall slightly and loose a life when fully hitting into the wall.

- Player could be slowed down, only. (I'd recommend this because it's a simple rule and player has still the chance to survive after touching a wall)

EDIT: In "Synopsis" of Fly High it says "But watch out, if you touch the ground or collide with an enemy, the game is over. ". Looks as if a change in game play has been projected from the very start.

Increasing distance inbetween passages

Currently, speed of incoming walls seems to be the only factor to increase difficulty.

Suggestion: Horizontal distance in-between two passages could increase slowly, too, as a second factor to increase difficulty. At first, flying is mainly straight ahead but with higher difficulty you have to fly more and more horizontally to reach the next passage.

Scenario: Space with walls?
Current scenario is a space ship which can fly left/right/top/down with immediate speed and has to get past walls. Walls in space. Physics play no role and all straight lines and 90° ship movements, only. Scenario and ship physics "feel" a bit contradictive, non-harmonic, and unrealistic to me.
Suggestion: The horizontal lines and 90° movement of player ship have some appeal. Space ship graphic could be replaced by something else to achieve an overall rectangular/minimalistic impression. E.g. player graphic could be a simple square, a circle, or another very basic shape. Alternatively, the player could be a human, car, tank, or similar, almost anything on earth which might encounter walls - except a space ship.

Apart from the above three points I have no suggestions, atm. Game concept mentions enemies (EDIT: and collision with walls) which haven't been implemented in the alpha release of Fly High, yet. I guess enemies will change the game play very much so it's a good idea to wait and see how next version with enemies looks and feels.

- o -

[hcmffm]

Jun 19, 2023 7:42:05 GMT -5 Peer said:

And now we also have the first Beta RC:

• Beta release candidate of project "Happy Bird" available for testing!

Thank you for another update, Peer. I'll try out beta 1 version of Happy Bird, tonight, and will provide some feedback.
EDIT: Today (Wednesday) I couldn't make it; playing and testing will happen tomorrow (Thursday night).


Please note that I've edited my above feedback for "Fly High" a bit. Handling collisions with walls is planned for "Fly High", therefore my idea "Bubble in Spirit Level" makes no longer sense and I've removed it.

[hcmffm]

Happy Bird - Feedback #2

My first feedback for Happy Bird is above; here comes some "short" feedback, only.

Today, I found the time to play Happy Bird beta 1 a bit. Already, Happy Bird pretty much looks and feels like a complete game. Thank you very much for taking my suggestions into account (support for all buttons and game over screen with score and highscore). I've played for about 5 minutes, only. Max. score was 14. (I know, I'm not good at this one). I've seen bonus items but managed to collect a bonus item only once. Collission detetion is not quite 100% but it's good because it's a forgiving collision detection, i.e. you can slightly touch a pillar without crashing.

I'd say that Happy Bird is very playable and flight path and control of bird seem good to me. Perhaps our Veccy Bird expert playvectrex and his crew can check Happy Bird out and its bird control and overall difficulty and ramping up of difficulty.

· SUGGESTIONS

Sudden death
Currently, when bird crashes into a pillar, score screen is shown immediately.
Suggestion: When crashing the screen could freeze for a short while so that player realizes and sees that bird did crash. In addition to a freeze, bird could blink, change intensity, or "explode" (feathers could fly around) or ...

Score screen skipped by accident
Currently, in score screen when pressing a button, title screen is shown. It happened to me quite a number of time that bird crashed into a column and I kept pressing buttons. Result was that score screen was shown and skipped immediately.
Suggestion: Score screen should have a minimal display time. Score screen can be skipped by pressing a button only after minimal display time has elapsed.

New highscore
Currently, when achieving a new highscore, current score and highscore are displayed as usual.
Suggestion: When achieving a new highscore, current score and/or highscore could indicate that a new highscore has been achieved. This indication could be via some graphics (star, cup, ...) or by changing intensity of score and/or highscore or something else.

- o -

[Peer]

Many thanks for your intensive testing and your thoughts, hcmffm, and for the time you invest to write it all up! The students asked me to let you know that they really do appreciate this. A lot! It is absolutely great to get external user/customer feedback in an internal university setting. This a a great and important experience for any future software-engineer.

Many Cheers,

Peer

[nexus6]

Honestly, I like this port better than the old Veccy Bird. The bird is visually nicely converted to the vector format. The movement looks more fluid after the update. The only criticism is that while I found Veccy Bird too difficult, this version seems too easy. I guess that the collision detection is more lenient than in the original.

[Peer]

Jun 23, 2023 5:47:33 GMT -5 nexus6 said:

Honestly, I like this port better than the old Veccy Bird. The bird is visually nicely converted to the vector format. The movement looks more fluid after the update. The only criticism is that while I found Veccy Bird too difficult, this version seems too easy. I guess that the collision detection is more lenient than in the original.

Thanks to you as well, nexus6! I will pass on your feedback to the programmer. Maybe adding a difficulty-selection would be an option for this game.

Many Cheers,

Peer

[Peer]

There is a new alpha release candidate of project "Vecdrift" available.

Change log since last alpha version:

• Two new car designs
• Each car has now individual advantages and disadvantages
• Improvement of the difficulty steps
• Visual changes (street, start screen)

Still on to-do list:

• Sound effects
• Different enemy types with different impacts
• Overlay redesign

Many Cheers,
Peer

[hcmffm]

Jun 23, 2023 4:36:07 GMT -5 Peer said:

Many thanks for your intensive testing and your thoughts, hcmffm , and for the time you invest to write it all up! The students asked me to let you know that they really do appreciate this. A lot! It is absolutely great to get external user/customer feedback in an internal university setting. This a a great and important experience for any future software-engineer.

Good to read that students appreciate feedback of an external user/customer - a Vectrex fan who is interested in playing good Vectrex games, who likes play-testing and usability and tries to find games for his yearly tournament "Vector War". This encourages me to continue. It's good that not all binaries are available at once - this way I can keep up with the developers to some extent.

Jun 23, 2023 5:47:33 GMT -5 nexus6 said:

Honestly, I like this port better than the old Veccy Bird. The bird is visually nicely converted to the vector format. The movement looks more fluid after the update. The only criticism is that while I found Veccy Bird too difficult, this version seems too easy. I guess that the collision detection is more lenient than in the original.

Great that you also had a look at Happy Bird and posted feedback, Roland. What was your best score? Does difficulty increase or not? (Personally, I think the game is too hard, my max. score was 14. But I guess that's just me.)

[hcmffm]

VecDrift - Feedback #2

My first feedback for VecDrift can be found above; here (some) additional feedback for alpha 2 version. Latest versions can be found in the Vectrex project gallery.

Alpha 2 version of VecDrift has quite a number of improvements and changes. Current score is displayed properly, now. Thank you for your effort that you put into your game, stackoverflow. And thank you for implementing some of my suggestions. Actually, you've combined two suggestions and made something great out of it: The double hop with buttons 1 and 4 is a really great idea and makes control of VecDrift special and fun. Now, you can really drift left/right and thus avoid collisions. Cool.

· SUGGESTIONS

Double hop for all car types

Currently, the double hop (switching two lanes at onces) is supported by some car types, only.

Suggestion: Personally, I think the double hop is really a clou and makes VecDrift special. Therefore, I'd suggest that double hop is supported by all car types.

Score counter and difficulty

On "Normal" my maximum score was 009. Actually, it was 265 but score counter had an overflow.

Suggestion: Playing at 200 points was still fun and asked for more. I had the impression that difficulty did no longer increase so I worry a bit that good players could marathon the game (i.e. play endlessly). Would be good if difficulty (speed?) would still increase. Plus, score counter should count till 999 - if possible.

"Game over" screen: Car type

Currently, in the "game over" screen you see score but you don't know which car type was chosen. For comparing scores (e.g. in a tournament) this is an important information.

Suggestion: Display car type as text (normal, fast) or display graphics of car (just like iin the title screen).

Sound when loosing a life
Currently, when crashing and loosing a life you don't get any indication apart from the decrease of hearts (one heart less).
Suggestion: In addition to decreasing number of hearts there should be some indication, e.g. some sound (crash sound).

· COSMETICS

Here come minor issues like graphics that might improve the game.

Road: Dots

In alpha 2, dots have been introduced to separate lanes. The dots are good but are a bit bright and thus slightly distracting.

Suggestion: Reduce intensity (brightness) of dots a bit.

"Game over" screen: Fonts

Currently, at the end of the game some text "YOU CRASHED" and "YOUR SCORE" is displayed. Text is a standard font (bitmap) while score is a vector font.

Suggestion: To me, this font combination doesn't look harmonic. I score in standard font (bitmap).

Car graphics

It's really cool that you've added additional car types and graphics. If you want, I can try and fiddle around with your graphics and try to improve them a bit. Sure enough I'll try to keep numbers of vectors about the same.

Title screen: Cars from front or side.

Currently, on title screen cars are chosen and viewed from behind.

Suggestion: Often, back of cars do not look to appealing. Perhaps it's a good idea to display front or side view of cars. Or several views at once. But this would mean quite a lot of drawing and designing - probably too much effort compared to the improvement/result.

Title/Initial screen: Layout
Currently, the layout of the title/initial screen looks a bit scrambled to me.
Suggestion: I've made a draft with following changes: Position of texts, order of "SPEED:" and "LIVES". Decreased size of hearts. <see draft below>

Title screen: Original (left) and draft (right)

· ARGUABLE STUFF / IDEAS

Below please find arguable stuff, i.e. things that one person might prefer while another person might not. It might improve VecDrift - and maybe not.

Oppenent cars: Racing cars or normal cars

Currently, the opponent/enemies cars look like racing cars to me.

Suggestion: As written in my intial feedback, VecDrift reminds me of speeding on a German motorway. Three (six) lanes, straight road, and passing lots of cars. Sure enough in reality you would overtake left only (right is forbidden) but for the game play and fun it's fine. To emphasize this scenario, opponent cars could look more like normal cars. And there could be slow trucks / lorries, too.

Difficulty level instead of car characteristics
You (stackoverflow) have added more car types with various c(h)aracteristics - advantages and disadvantages. Car types differ in left/right speed, support for double hop, and have different numbers of lives.

Suggestion: Personally, I'd prefer if different car types meant different overall difficulty when playing. I.e. car type "Slow" is supposed to be easiest to play and car type "Fast" is hardest to play.

Lives: Only 1 or more?

In alpha 2, you have up to three lives - depending on the chosen car type.

Suggestion: Personally, I think VecDrift would be simpler and better without a varying number of lifes. For novice players (children), several lives might be interesting but for all other players a crash at high speed should be deadly and "GAME OVER".

Opponent cars with different impacts or different characteristics

On your "To-Do" list it says "Different enemy types with different impacts". I'm not sure what this means but personally I wouldn't introduce various damage levels or enemy types. It makes things more complex and you'll need to display the current damage of player's car.

Different "Enemy"/opponent car types are a good idea to increase difficulty of VecDrift, though: There could be opponent cars which have special characteristics. Two ideas:

- Cars that switch lanes (sort of overtaking)

- Cars that drive diagonally.

As written in my first feedback for VecDrift, the game should remain fair - even after introducing new car types. I guess you'll have to put quite some thought how to seed the cars so that player always has a chance to pass cars.

Idea: Construction site - two lanes, only.
Currently, there are three lanes all the time. On German motorways, often there are construction sites with two or even one lane, only.
Suggstions: From every now and then the number of lanes might switch from three to two lanes, only. The closed lane might be marked specially or temporarily there could be two lanes, only.

· SUMMARY

Already, VecDrift is very playable and mature. You (stackoverflow) might wonder where and how to continue. It might be a good idea to focus on your stuff on your "To-Do" list and issues listed in section "SUGGESTIONS". Result will be a possible release candidate of VecDrift. Then, if you still have time, you might tackle "COSMETICS". And lastly you may have a look at "ARGUABLE STUFF/IDEAS".

- o -

[nexus6]

Jun 23, 2023 15:01:06 GMT -5 hcmffm said:

Jun 23, 2023 4:36:07 GMT -5 Peer said:

Great that you also had a look at Happy Bird and posted feedback, Roland. What was your best score? Does difficulty increase or not? (Personally, I think the game is too hard, my max. score was 14. But I guess that's just me.)

My Score is 169. However, I only played it in the browser. I don't know if it behaves differently on original hardware. I would suggest that the scrolling speed increases gradually as the game progresses. Then the arrow boxes would also be more urgently needed. Likewise, the spacing between the tubes could be gradually narrowed. But I don't know if that would be a bit too nasty Alternative suggestions, if there is still time, would be gravity zones where gravity is stronger. I know these are all options that didn't exist in Flappy Bird, but they would add some variety in my opinion.