Impossible Mission

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Alot of stuff done since my last log. I've replaced the scorepanel (same general layout) with something more visible and sorted the puzzle editor so now able to complete the game.

There are currently 50 outstanding issues raised both by myself and my playtesters. Looking now at the general remaining stuff..
1)Add title screen
2)Add autodetection of controller at start of new game
3)Add training rooms/puzzles
4)Add intro
5)Add game completion section with stats
6)Hide undiscovered rooms or fix bugs in this area
7)Sort out bugs in Simon computer
8)Add Disk/Tape save/load menu
9)Issues with first room/terminal entered on game boot

So as u can see, lots of stuff to sort out and optimising to do since now have about 7 bytes free :P
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

Great, Twilighte! Gonna be interested to hear what you get up to in the optimization department ..

BTW: I wanna test! :)
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Fixed number 6 tonight :)
6)Hide undiscovered rooms or fix bugs in this area

It would be nice if i could tick an issue off every night but lifes never that simple.
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Sorted some new corruption issues. Also debugged a droid behaviour, fixed it but it then began corrupting game. No idea why.
However fixed issue whereby exiting the Security terminal was resetting the droids. So fairly happy with progress tonight :P
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Cleared a few but testers raised a few issues too. The list of outstanding issues is now 38 :P

Currently working on Simon Computer bugs 8)
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Fixed all Simon computer bugs (i think) and now it works perfectly, even though i don't have the memory to go beyond 4 notes :P

This sub-game is progressive. Each time you correctly select the notes played the computer increases the number of steps. You start with 3 notes, get that right and now its four, just like the Simon electronic game famous in the late 70's and 80's...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)

The twist to the version in Impossible Mission is whilst the notes are played randomly they must be re-entered in pitch ascending order :twisted:
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Not done anything to game in last 3 days, had other stuff to do. However noticed something interesting in C64 version or rather an absence of something.
People had mentioned (more than once) that the robots had some sort of graphic on them to indicate what sensors they had. But i just watched part of a longplay of the C64 game and can't see this graphic difference.
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Spent last weekend trying to fix just one major bug. It has to do with the way Ethan jumps. If he jumps within the boundaries of the screen he'll rise to the next platform(if a half platform exists) but when he attempts the jump towards the walls and part of the jump is halted as he hits the wall the game was not raising him to the next half height platform. In some places he appeared to fall through and get killed, in other higher places it was just an annoying bug :evil:

Spent a weekend coding around the issue only to realise the problem actually lay in the jump collision detection. If a wall was encountered it would ignore any half platform. So fixed it so it continues to search for a platform and it works great now :P

Other fixes included fixing Simon computer so now working great. Fixing Modem so when entering menu you'll hear constant dial tone (American) and when you select an option it'll dial out FBI headquarters number :P
Some graphic changes to scorepanel that vere away from classic IM panel but i believe make the buttons more readable (Cassette pause instead of Paws, etc.).
Corrected Ethans 'black gloves' when searching. This took some time to fix :P
Some Falling to death issues, Sound effects for death and some messages when Ethan uses Simon computer.

Some optimisations also done. Instead of using two long row tables for fast screen location calcs from parsed XY i now calculate using $A000+X+(Yx40). This saved around 300 bytes.
Also reviewed code, finding some redundant routines, test routines, replacing JSR:RTS with JMP, Creating subroutines for duplicate code sections, Removing redundant graphics, tables, variables. Where subroutines only used once, re-integrate into code to save 3 bytes :P

Just a meager 30 issues remain :wink:
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Currently converting the whole game to Disk to provide a nice menu interface at start with some groovy music and an Intro similar to Chemas Space:1999 and forthcoming 1337.

Trouble is converting the game to disk does give it much more eye candy to goggle at but on the other hand is a hell of alot more work and lengthens the dev time. It also limits who can play it on the real machine (Microdisk only).
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

On the topic of disks: One thing I've not been able to work out is how to get these images onto disk .. is this a FAQ so far, or something, or is some sort of serial transfer apparatus in order?
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

I may be wrong, as I never did this myself, but there used to be a tool (writedsk? check http://oric.free.fr/TOOLS/) to accomplish this...

Obviously you need to have a disk drive of the correct kind in your PC.
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Symoon
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Post by Symoon »

There's a (old but nice and complete) tutorial here:
http://romualdl.oric.org/oric2pc/oric2pc.html
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Right, i take it all back, This game will be tape only initially :p

The big problem with tape based is the lack of a save facility so after encouragement from Symoon, Dbug and Chema i have optimised the code, added additional menus and rom tape calls and now am able to save and load the game from Tape. However lots of bugs after csave'ing and cload'ing the game :(

Small steps, small steps 8)

Also found a nice optimisation which released me over 600 bytes last night :)

I will be writing a manual for this game because a number of elements have changed. Difficulty levels for example. Talking of which the easiest is now set to 6 hours which was the original game time then difficult set to 4 hours and for those hardcore gamers there is impossible with just 2 hours.

Now i have managed it in 2 hours game time (3/4 hour real time) but then i've been hacking at it for rather a long time :lol:
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

ok, managed to get game save working. It saves small file to tape holding all current game stats and settings. I can then load from the game, though i currently have issues loading from game title options :(
Fixed many other things but am facing a few bugs i want to clear up before releasing next version to my testers.
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Twilighte
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Post by Twilighte »

Released next version to my testers. Working on a 2 bit sample to be played at start of first game. This i can store in the background buffer(6K) and the collisionmap(1K) combined. These are then wiped and used during the game.

Currently able to play samples i want on oric but i now need to convert and compact to 28K(7K x 4) of 2bit samples.
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