Upcoming H.E.R.O. game

[beamrider]

Looks fine to me, after all the Atari 2600 and Vic-20 were contemporaries whereas the C64 was "next-gen".

Really looking forward to seeing it, could you put out a you-tube demo before release?

[Mayhem]

The intro screen on the C64 version is more like a loading screen. And you only see it once anyhow. When you die, everything stays on screen until you start again, just like the 2600 version.

[bjonte]

Really looking forward to seeing it, could you put out a you-tube demo before release?

Some sort of teaser video is likely to happen at least.

[marco.bergomi]

Hi, i'm Marco from Commodore Vic20 Italia;
a hypothetical release date?
Thank you.

[mingle]

Fair enough comments, however I have the C64 version burned into my brain and played it for more hours than I care to admit - nothing else can compare!

[bjonte]

Hi, i'm Marco from Commodore Vic20 Italia;
a hypothetical release date?

Hi! Since it's a spare time project and it's not done it's hard to estimate reliably. It depends a lot of my ambitions regarding the introduction screen also. It's probably months away. What I can do is make updates here about the progress. I can't set a release date until the game is finished.

[bjonte]

Fair enough comments, however I have the C64 version burned into my brain and played it for more hours than I care to admit - nothing else can compare!

I played the C64 version first but I have come to like the clean Atari 2600 version. I think the background looks a bit messy on the C64, but the removable walls look great.

Did you finish it? This game is surprisingly hard. I doubt I will succeed even after a lot of testing.

[orion70]

We'll be waiting for Miklos' cheat mode then

[marco.bergomi]

Hi, i'm Marco from Commodore Vic20 Italia;
a hypothetical release date?

Hi! Since it's a spare time project and it's not done it's hard to estimate reliably. It depends a lot of my ambitions regarding the introduction screen also. It's probably months away. What I can do is make updates here about the progress. I can't set a release date until the game is finished.

OK thank you

[mingle]

I played the C64 version first but I have come to like the clean Atari 2600 version. I think the background looks a bit messy on the C64, but the removable walls look great.

Did you finish it? This game is surprisingly hard. I doubt I will succeed even after a lot of testing.

The C64 backgrounds could sometimes make the miners hard to see, but apart from that added a lot of atmosphere to the game - they did look like mossy/rocky walls, etc...

One of the few games on the C64 that I actually completed (this an Pitfall II). The last levels were so stressful and very easy to die (lot's of lava walls and ceilings!)

Cheers,

Mike.

[Mike]

Mike,

The C64 backgrounds could sometimes make the miners hard to see, but apart from that added a lot of atmosphere to the game - they did look like mossy/rocky walls, etc...

bjonte did already mention this, but let me elaborate further: the VIC-I chip in the VIC-20 has only half the resolution, no sprites and a more restricted choice of simultaneously displayable colours. Also, all 256 characters of the user defined character set are already in charge.

Even if it was possible to re-organize the character set to free up background characters - the rather detailed background graphics would require the use of multi-colour mode to have at least one extra colour available that sets the player character apart from the background graphics. Currently, the player character is drawn in hires mode, and the colouring is done with raster effects (changing the corresponding colour RAM values mid-character vertically!). If it was drawn in multi-colour, it would appear much more coarse.

Keeping the fine resolution (actually the same resolution as on the 2600 and C64!) of the player character thus had been bjonte's given design choice.

Since it's a spare time project and it's not done it's hard to estimate reliably. It depends a lot of my ambitions regarding the introduction screen also. It's probably months away.

I hope you can make good use of the tools made available here in Denial. MINIPAINT and its assorted tools would be my weapon of choice for the title screen and the library routines in MG BROWSE could take the part of displaying the instructions in a READ ME file.

Greetings,

Michael

[groepaz]

BTW, you can load up the game on the C64 and then save whatever it displays as a screenshot in Minipaint format - that might help with producing a first crude version

[bjonte]

Keeping the fine resolution (actually the same resolution as on the 2600 and C64!) of the player character thus had been bjonte's given design choice.

Yes exactly! The whole design is based on making the main character in colored hires mode to show off the VIC20’s capabilities.

[bjonte]

I hope you can make good use of the tools made available here in Denial.

Thanks, I’ll have a look at these!

[bjonte]

BTW, you can load up the game on the C64 and then save whatever it displays as a screenshot in Minipaint format - that might help with producing a first crude version

Interesting idea! I wasn’t aware of that direct VIC20 support. Or is Minipaint a multiplatform application?