Release: Popeye

[beamrider]

Thanks for the extended testing....

Bluto has been standing still for some time already, this happens some rare times when I hit the cans that keep flying at me in a close range to Bluto.

Yes, this looks like a bug.

Popeye and Olive appear at the bottom of the screen and after some seconds I lose a life and the game continues

This isn't a bug? Is Olive's hand moving and pointing at the heart, if so she is telling Popeye off for failing to collect it within the alloted time as per the arcade game...

Then the in-game-music keeps silent until the can-throwing wizards appear at the sides. After that it resumes.

Thanks for the snapshot, I'll take a look at the issues..

[tokra]

Popeye and Olive appear at the bottom of the screen and after some seconds I lose a life and the game continues

This isn't a bug? Is Olive's hand moving and pointing at the heart, if so she is telling Popeye off for failing to collect it within the alloted time as per the arcade game...

Yes, noticed that and amended my post, but you were faster Added another small issue about the life-counter to the post, too.

The can-hitting is much easier than on the arcade. I can just stand still and hold the fire-button, while on the arcade I have to press it at the right time for each can.

[beamrider]

I have uploaded a new version (0.2) with (hopefully) fixes to all @tokras issues.

I have changed the punching to align with the arcade version so you now have to punch slightly before the bottles arrive - just keeping very rapidly punching works too. This makes it a bit more difficult but this is offset by the more accurate (forgiving) collision check on bluto reaching above/below.

I think the difficulty is about right as I played all the way through to very near the end of level 3 in one go (gaining an extra life along the way @ 20,000) but unfortunately died with just two rungs on the ladder left to aquire getting a score of 29,150.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Enjoy..

[darkatx]

This forum and its members never cease to amaze me!

[hasseapa]

It’s brilliant. It plays very well and a marvelous attention to all the finer details. E.g., I love the intro with Brutus sliding in and Popeye offering a flower.

Quite hard but I think it was right to remove the “auto-fire-punch”. I had a lot of trouble with level 2. My best so far is 24440 and I have yet to complete level 3.

I may have encountered a bug (the same as mentioned above?) Brutus seemed kind of stuck above the ladder below the barrel but the barrel had not dropped down. This has only happened once and I don’t remember if it was v0.1 or v0.2, sorry…

The background graphics are nice. It would have been great with THRU-signs instead of plain arrows and the sprites can be improved. BTW I did improve my first take on the Popeye sprite and have put the new one in my original post http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... 630#p82322

All in all, an outstanding VIC-game. I rank it VERY high. Vic has some great arcade conversions: Pac-Man/Jelly Monsters, Gorf, Donkey Kong, Frogger ‘07, and now also Popeye!

[beamrider]

It’s brilliant. It plays very well and a marvelous attention to all the finer details. E.g., I love the intro with Brutus sliding in and Popeye offering a flower.

Thanks, indeed. I thought about squeezing it into 16K like I did Pooyan, but I wanted a no compromise experience - even the Nes version doesn't include some of the arcade cut scenes.

My best so far is 24440 and I have yet to complete level 3.

Keep going - looking forward to someone posting a LongPlay youtube video..

I may have encountered a bug (the same as mentioned above?) Brutus seemed kind of stuck above the ladder below the barrel but the barrel had not dropped down. This has only happened once and I don’t remember if it was v0.1 or v0.2, sorry…

OK, if you can reproduce in v0.2, please post a VICE snapshot and I'll debug it.

The background graphics are nice. It would have been great with THRU-signs instead of plain arrows and the sprites can be improved. BTW I did improve my first take on the Popeye sprite and have put the new one in my original post http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... 630#p82322

I had to make compromises with the sprites, not sure your popeye would be too clear when animated. I also ran out of graphics character space (even for the score prefixes) so adding more detail to the signs would be a tall order.

All in all, an outstanding VIC-game. I rank it VERY high. Vic has some great arcade conversions: Pac-Man/Jelly Monsters, Gorf, Donkey Kong, Frogger ‘07, and now also Popeye!

Thanks, again!

[tokra]

Played some more with V0.2

Attached please find two snapshot-images. In the first the graphic of the musical notes playing at the end of level 2 are broken. I don't know when and where I picked up the final note, but I checked in another playthrough that this is not always the case.

In the second snapshot go and catch the E at left immediately. The level ends and the game restarts at level 1. Directly after restart the "300" point marker flashes at the exact point I picked up the E in level 3 before.

Feature request: Would be nice to have Popeye "blowing his pipe"-graphic on the final notes of the title screen

For the final version you could also crunch and one-file the game with Exomizer, making this an easier to handle release.

[beamrider]

Played some more with V0.2

Thanks for the constructive testing

In the first the graphic of the musical notes playing at the end of level 2 are broken.

Thanks, I saw this once earlier on in development, but it didn't repeat and I assumed it had been unknowingly fixed. I can take a look now with your Snapshot.

In the second snapshot go and catch the E at left immediately. The level ends and the game restarts at level 1. Directly after restart the "300" point marker flashes at the exact point I picked up the E in level 3 before.

Yes, I had noticed this before. I can hazard a guess that its down to a failure to clear down the on-screen bonus table before comencing play - will take a look, thanks.

Feature request: Would be nice to have Popeye "blowing his pipe"-graphic on the final notes of the title screen.

Yes, will take a look at this, certainly before final release.

For the final version you could also crunch and one-file the game with Exomizer, making this an easier to handle release.

I haven't used Exomizer before, can you ellobrate on the approach and how would you see this working with the 28K + 8K segments?

[pixel]

I haven't used Exomizer before, can you ellobrate on the approach and how would you see this working with the 28K + 8K segments?

If I may suggest a simple solution? First, you exomize the main program as self-extracting, like so:

Code: Select all

exomizer sfx sys -t 55 Popeye.prg -o pop-main.prg

That'll bring the main file down to ~12K. Then you could write a launcher which contains the crunched binary as well as the upper memory segment. When the launcher starts, it copies the extra segment to upper memory, relocates the compressed binary to its intended position and calls it. Then you exomize that binary again. Sorted. I could certainly help you out if you provide me with a version which doesn't try to load that extra file.

Did a quick check. You'd end up with a 17K program.

EDIT: For the sake of completeness (it did my head in and I want to spare everybody the experience of reading through the exomizer code): You can also create a compressed PRG file without a BASIC trampoline this way:

Code: Select all

exomizer sfx $1202 -t 55 -Di_load_addr=$1202 Popeye.bin -o pop-main.bin

Although specified twice exomizer wants the binary to start with the load address. Wants to be launched at $1202.

[tokra]

Regarding exomizer I do not have enough experience. But you can basically crunch segments and use a decruncher that is provided as 6502-source code with exomizer. It is also possible to create self-extracing archives, but I don't think this would work out-of-the-box for the $a000-area.

Testing the game I noticed that on the level 6 and level 9 the intro-sequence with the bird is not shown anymore, is this the same on the arcade or a bug?

[beamrider]

OK, I have now uploaded v0.3

Includes the following fixes to identified issues (thanks tokra!)

- Occasional leftover on screen Bonus briefly appearing at start of a level
- Occasional Broken note display on L2 end of level cut scene (now also resets final note to its normal position)

Additional fixes

- Punching is more responsive affording more opporuntity to escape difficult situations
- Descending the bottom central ladder on L2 now smoother/easier
- Danger sounds doesn't stay on after the sea-hags fade out

and a new (requested) feature..

- Popeye puffs his pipe on the Title Screen

Hopefully this will be a candidate for final release...

Enjoy..

[beamrider]

Regarding exomizer I do not have enough experience. But you can basically crunch segments and use a decruncher that is provided as 6502-source code with exomizer. It is also possible to create self-extracing archives, but I don't think this would work out-of-the-box for the $a000-area.

Testing the game I noticed that on the level 6 and level 9 the intro-sequence with the bird is not shown anymore, is this the same on the arcade or a bug?

I have never managed to make it to round 3 a second time on Mame. Most of my observations have been based on the youtube Longplay. I assumed that since the L1 intro is omitted, L3 would be also. If you find evidene to the contrary then please let me know. Thanks!

[beamrider]

@pixel, thanks for your heads-up.

I'll give it a shot and let you know if I run into trouble...

[edit]

Got this going, works quite nicely, thanks!

I had to write a routine to move the code that relocates the inner exonomised block into the cassette buffer to prevent it overwriting itself , but that was the only hiccup...

Cheers

[tokra]

Thanks for the fixes and the nice animation at the beginning

I have found this YouTube longplay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_K4YVcd6k

You are right. The intro does not play on level 3 the second time through. However interestingly level 6 is not the ship-level but the first level again. So the second round is 4 levels. After that the original 3 levels play in original order again for the rest of the game.

Also, rounds after round 9 are named A to Z (and then going into special characters)

[beamrider]

Just up'ed to v0.31 being a single file release (no functional changes)...