Grand Theft Cygnus

[shirleyknott]

This game has grown out of my very first competition entry. The rules for that comp said standard-character-set, 10 lines of basic, 72 chars per line.

Since then I've had fun developing this concept. It's not the most complex puzzle game ever (minesweeper-like) but I think it's fun to play. It's now written in assembly, has title-screen music (The Swan by Saint Saens of course) UD character graphics, instructions and a 'you lose' animation.

This isn't the official release, but that's not far off. I'd be really pleased if you'd try it, particularly on real hardware. Should work fine on PAL and NTSC, requires at least 1 8k block filled.

(The fact that you may die on your first choice (unlike minesweeper) is deliberate. The game was too easy without that random chance, and of course as you clear the screens and see fewer swans each time, that random chance becomes higher.)

Story:
As we all know, the swans all belong to the Queen. As the hero of our game, you are intent on stealing as many of them as you can. However, Her Majesty is keeping a lookout and will blast you with her shotgun if you get too close.

Move your net with WASD keys, and when you're correctly lined up, press space to swipe the swan. As long as it's not the one HM is hiding behind, then you'll receive a hint about how far away she is. If you see 0 or 1, run away! If you hear her gunshot, it's game over. If you successfully manage to creep around the monarch and steal all but one of the swans (the one she's hiding behind) then you'll move on to another part of the river. Each level has fewer swans and therefore becomes more difficult.

Screenshots:






Download:
https://peacockmedia.software/vic/GTC-test.prg

Please let me know if you see any problems.

[Vic20-Ian]

I hope you will be entering it into the Things we want to see/ hear competition.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10130

[chysn]

I like the "number of steps to the bad guy" sort of puzzle. Sometimes it's super-obvious (like if the Queen is in a corner and the first swan you click says "0", you've pretty much won), but it doesn't take too much concentration, and that can be a pleasant experience.

I think it would be nice to support a joystick. Something like this begs for a joystick and fire button as its controls. Also, I think it would be considerate to allow the player to click anywhere on the swan. I was frustrated for a few seconds until I figured out I had to click on the head.

Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the Saint Saens piece playing throughout. I thought that was a highlight, and it's long enough that it could easily be promoted from simply the title screen to the whole game. If people don't want it, that's what volume knobs are for!

You said that this started as a 10-line game. Going from that to 10K might be going too far in the other direction! I'm pretty sure you could get this down to be an unexpanded game. On the other hand, I suspect that a good deal of that memory goes toward the "you're dead" graphic, which is pretty cool.

I played this on a hardware NTSC VIC, and the first column is outside the visible area. The game is still playable, but cut off.

It's well-done, and I'll upgrade to the final version once you're done.

[huffelduff]

Hi there Shirley,

I'm with the Queen on this one.
One swan as a pet maybe.
But having accumulated dozens of swans!
What happens to the swans Shirley??!!! What happens to the swans?
I suppose they end up being sold at the local market and then...

Anyhow your swans are pixel perfect.

Greetings

Chysn wrote:
"Saint Saens... this started as a 10-line game. Going from that to 10K..."
How much is the music eating up? I bet its a big old chunk of change.

[shirleyknott]

I think it would be nice to support a joystick.

Going from that to 10K might be going too far in the other direction!

I played this on a hardware NTSC VIC, and the first column is outside the visible area. The game is still playable, but cut off.

Thank you very much chysn for the feedback, some very good points. Joystick support is a really good idea. I'm not sure why I hadn't even thought of it. Perhaps because it wasn't possible in the 10-liner version and after that it just didn't cross my mind.

The screen alignment concerns me the most. It is detecting NTSC and *should* be putting the screen in the right place depending on whether PAL or NTSC. Maybe it varies. I've noticed a little bit of variation with the real PAL machines I have handy here. I guess I'm discovering the reason why some games used to ask you to align the screen with the cursor keys, and maybe that's what I need to do here.

It might be a fun challenge to try and fit it in unexpanded memory. I really admire hewco for writing some great games for unexpanded machines. But after working so hard on the optimisation for the basic comp, it was nice to be able to relax a bit, stick in the music, graphics and more functionality without those constraints.

To answer huffelduff's question, the music data is taking about 2k, the music driver takes a bit more, that is my standard driver that probably includes things that aren't being used here. The 'you lose' graphic is taking about a k. None of that is compressed or optimised at all.

If someone's putting in an 8k expansion, then there's certainly nothing to gain by using less of that. It would be an enjoyable challenge to try and make it an unexpanded game, but that wasn't really my goal here and would mean lots of work optimising what I have, and/or cutting stuff out.

[Mike]

It is detecting NTSC and *should* be putting the screen in the right place depending on whether PAL or NTSC.

There is a table in the KERNAL at $EDE4 which contains the default register values for the VIC chip, and from which values for non-standard display sizes can be derived by applying offsets (subtract offsets by using 2s-complement). That's how, for example, MINIGRAFIK resizes and recenters its graphics mode (160x192 pixels, 20x12 double-height chars).

You have to keep in mind though, that NTSC offers much less overscan area to begin with. 24 columns and 27 rows are already at the edge for most displays, whereas in PAL 26 columns and 32 rows work out without much issue.

[shirleyknott]

Thanks Mike, appreciate the information.

The Vic was my computer as a teen and I spent a lot of time on it but this is the first time I've tried playing with screen dimensions / position, and I never would have even been aware that there was an NTSC model with different characteristics.

With this game I've tried to use the whole width (for a river-like effect, and for as many characters across as possible) and I have discovered when adding the ntsc detection and adjustments, that fewer characters will fit! And so for both versions there are fewer swans horizontally than I originally planned. Swans are now within (as you say) a 24 chr width.

It's interesting that you say "for most displays" because I'd started to feel that different displays may have their own idea of centring and cropping the picture.

[Mike]

It's interesting that you say "for most displays" because I'd started to feel that different displays may have their own idea of centring and cropping the picture.

For sure. It's the base values in the ROM people first and foremost have to work with though, with the standard 22x23 display window. If their TV/monitor allows to center that display window, fine. Then my method guarantees, that the window remains centred if it's resized. If the standard text window is slightly off-center on a TV/monitor, bad luck - but then my approach won't make it any worse for resized windows (they will simply keep the same degree of 'off-centred-ness', so to speak).

Finally, this offset method adjusts automatically for the different base values in the PAL or NTSC KERNAL. That means a program does not need to store two sets of register values and use the right one depending on some TV system detection routine, but rather just have a single table of offsets and have a loop work out the needed register values from the ROM defaults and those offsets.

[shirleyknott]

it would be considerate to allow the player to click anywhere on the swan. I was frustrated for a few seconds until I figured out I had to click on the head.

I played this on a hardware NTSC VIC, and the first column is outside the visible area. The game is still playable, but cut off.

Hi chysn, I've uploaded a fresh version which hopefully corrects these two things. You can click the swan's body or head. It also allows you to use csr keys to move, and return to fire, in case anyone tries / prefers those.

More importantly, I've shifted the screen (for NTSC) a character to the right, which I think should correct it for you. But I don't have a real NTSC Vic here (mine are all PAL) If you're able to try again and let me know whether it's now correct, I'd really appreciate that. Either way, you can now press F1 & F3 in game to correct the horizontal position if necessary (csr keys are now an option in-game for moving the cursor.)

https://peacockmedia.software/vic/GTC-test.prg

[shirleyknott]

I'm very happy to be able to add that Rod at Future Was 8-bit released this on cassette last year. I've also added the final version to itch.io for free download (the original basic 10-liner is there too).

Because the game uses the full width of the screen, it was tricky to support both PAL and NTSC but the final release should be fine. It allows centring if that's necessary.

https://shieladixon.itch.io/grand-theft ... ed-version

https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/cas026.html