Finished: Olympic Dash (New Release)

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Ghislain
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Finished: Olympic Dash (New Release)

Post by Ghislain »

I made a track-and-field like game back in the 80s where you would move the joystick in a circular motion to run faster and faster in the 100 meter dash.

Sometime later in the 1990s, I made some custom character graphics that would take the same game engine but incorporate other track and field events like the long jump, javelin, hurdles, etc. I only implemented these graphics in the 100 m race engine and haven't touched it since then.

A few months ago I found my previous work and tweaked it. Instead of waiting to get off my butt and finish the full game with multiple events, I figured that I might as well put it out there as a single event game. So today, I designed a splash screen for it.

Image

I'm going to design a menu screen with instructions, along with a COMING SOON section showing mock screenshots of various events that will be released if I ever get around to making them.

The 100 m dash is fun by itself, it uses very easy to understand game mechanics and me and my friends spent countless hours playing this back in the day.
Last edited by Ghislain on Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Kweepa
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Post by Kweepa »

Sounds cool! Perhaps you could release a series of standalone events on one floppy.
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Ghislain
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Post by Ghislain »

Name: Olympic Dash
Author: Ghislain
Released: January 13, 2013 (originally programmed in 1996)
Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20 + Joystick + Disk Drive.
Description: A proof-of-concept for a track and field action game. The 100 meter dash was the only event that has been programmed so far.

As I continue to resurrect my lost VIC-20 games, I bring you "Olympic Dash". I had made an ASCII 100 meter dash and javelin throw event-based game back in 1988 and me and my friends spent many an afternoon mashing the joysticks trying to beat each other's records. In 1996, I had made several graphics for a multi-event track and field game (in the same vein as Epyx's "Summer Games" and Konami's "Track and Field"), but I had only ever programmed the 100 meter dash event and putting it aside so I could finish programming it at a future date.

So instead of pondering and mulling over for another 17 years to finish the other events, I decided to make a splash screen, instructions menu and mock screenshots of the unfinished events packaged around the 100 meter event--just to finally put it out now. Despite it being a single-event game, it is still playable. Just use your imagination as to how the other events that I wanted to program would be like.

Image

Download.

Discuss.
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darkatx
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Post by darkatx »

Looking forward to giving it a good run <-- ;)

Yes, it was a bad pun - please don't judge me! :lol:
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orion70
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Post by orion70 »

More sweaty-palm joystick bashing... just like in the 80s (pun intended :D ). Thank you very much for this!
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Post by Vic20-Ian »

orion70 wrote:More sweaty-palm joystick bashing... just like in the 80s (pun intended :D ). Thank you very much for this!
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Post by Ghislain »

Thanks, all. The game works best with a responsive joystick, since you're expected to move the joystick in a clockwise circular motion and rotate the arrow to increase the running speed.

I made a spreadsheet of all of my completed and yet-to-be-completed VIC-20 projects. I plan to have each one of my previous games to have a splash screen and user-friendly instructions.

When all is said and done, I'll probably put out a games anthology that can be run from a uIEC device, emulator, or on multiple floppy disks.
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Post by 16KVIC20 »

I'll try to give this a try over the next few weeks, it looks great. I always particularly like to see games that the VIC missed out on first time round. I don't remember any "Summer Games" type softeare for the poor old VIC.

A compilation for SD2IEC would be great.
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Post by PhilRanger »

Ghislain wrote: When all is said and done, I'll probably put out a games anthology that can be run from a uIEC device, emulator, or on multiple floppy disks.
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Post by Jeff-20 »

Ghislain wrote:When all is said and done, I'll probably put out a games anthology that can be run from a uIEC device, emulator, or on multiple floppy disks.
I just did that too, but I'm not sure anyone noticed. :lol: I'm just trying to keep up with you; you make them faster than I can play them. Anyway, I think I'm going to make a game this weekend.
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Ghislain
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Post by Ghislain »

Jeff-20 wrote:I just did that too, but I'm not sure anyone noticed. :lol: I'm just trying to keep up with you; you make them faster than I can play them. Anyway, I think I'm going to make a game this weekend.
I certainly noticed :) But I didn't ask for the floppy disk because I hardly use my 1541 disk drive anymore ever since I've gotten the SD2IEC device. I don't think I've made nearly as many games as you have--it's just that I'm adding final touches to my unfinished stuff recently.
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