After finishing the port of Prince of Persia I decided to make a simpler platform game, using what I learned with the other project. So, in one week, working a few hours at night and two Saturdays I could finish the basic funcionality of Lode Runner, another classic from the 80’s.
There are four selectable options of sprites, the original Apple II, the Commodore 64, IBM-DOS CGA and Atari 8 bits. I also added three different level sets: the Classic (150 levels), Championship (50 levels) and Professional (150 levels).
The guards AI is not the original, I implemented a simple one, just to validate the animations. Will work next on it, the code and upcoming improments are available at:
As soon as I have the final version of the guards behaviour will create a private channel, for now checkout the preview video:
[youtube:3t9c89j6]jSCojR435eQ[/youtube:3t9c89j6]
“Komag” wrote:
Great work! Have you played Candy Bear? It’s a Lode Runner inspired Roku game with a few different mechanics.
I didn’t know about Candy Bear, just checked, but I’m an 80’s guy, I do prefer to chase gold while running from bad robots, than be a bear collecting candies and afraid of …well… bunnies
YouTube seems broken today, videos take forever to start and then stutter and stop. At first thought it was me but see bitching on reddit.
.cabral - oh man! You are doing such exceptional work reviving PoP and LR, is there any chance you can get them “published” for the Roku masses? I don’t know what the legal status is, can these be considered abandonware or “licensed” from some dead-souls pool?
“EnTerr” wrote: @marcelo.cabral - oh man! You are doing such exceptional work reviving PoP and LR, is there any chance you can get them “published” for the Roku masses? I don’t know what the legal status is, can these be considered abandonware or “licensed” from some dead-souls pool?
Both games are “live”, they have current licensed owners, but there are several remakes on the wild and at open source repositories, and these seems to be not a problem for them, unless you start to get money for it.
I’m not sure what would happen if I publish them as a free channel in Roku, because of the use of licensed material, but I don’t want to be involved in any litigation for something I do for fun, in the other hand I would love to have more people enjoying and playing with my work.
I could “re-skin, re-name” and release it but the magic of nostalgia would be gone
Maybe I would come up with some other idea for something nostalgic but original at the same time.
I’m getting some slowdown at times (on a Roku 3), especially after final ladder appears
Sometimes it seems to hard to attach to a ladder to go up or down, maybe just me though
Would be nice if menus worked with horizontal remote as soon as that option is chosen
Also, why not have * cheat to give an extra life, and << and >> permanently skip levels?
Would be really nice to see Graphics preview instead of testing each version in-game
My answers:
I’m testing in a Roku 3 as well, couldn’t notice that, will double check. (are you using the pvt channel or the original code? I published a second release)
-That’s true also in the original game but Roku remote precision does not help either.
-Will try that.
-I’m planning to reorganize the keys and use << >> to dig in vertical mode, and have A and B as the cheat (just adding life/level no back)
-I’m planning to use DrawLevel() to create thumbnails for the “Select Level” feature I’m implementing (use it also when selecting the level set)
Looking good, I like the improvements so far! Love the ability to continue the game after switching Graphics or even exiting the channel altogether, brilliant! (maybe this was in last version but I didn’t notice).
High scores, cool! Except I think maybe it should be a separate high score list per game speed and per version of the game, making 15 different high score lists! Otherwise one might perversely be incentivized to play on slowest speed.
“Komag” wrote:
Looking good, I like the improvements so far! Love the ability to continue the game after switching Graphics or even exiting the channel altogether, brilliant! (maybe this was in last version but I didn’t notice).
High scores, cool! Except I think maybe it should be a separate high score list per game speed and per version of the game, making 15 different high score lists! Otherwise one might perversely be incentivized to play on slowest speed.
The save option is new and the high score, these are the main features of this v0.9 release
The High Scores are already separated by “version”, it changes the title of the screen and the list of records. I don’t think I will implement by speed, the velocity of the guards are relative to the runner’s speed.
Yesterday I found a crash issue that happens in levels that the guards can reach the highest block level, I have a fix, will update later tonight when I’m back at home.
PS. I found also the reason Komag reported that the game slows down after the last gold is collected, will have a fix for that too
“Komag” wrote:
I understand that guard speed adjust with player speed, but I mean that playing on slowest speed will be like “slow motion”, making the game easier.
I understand, but it will be too complex to save highscore for each speed, the user needs to manage that at home
BTW I just updated the private channel with the bug fixes (performance and crash) and a small change, the version images on menu is now dynamic, based on the graphics selection.
Updated the private channel with some of the suggestions made by Komag.
v0.12 - 03-Oct-2016 - Test Custom Level inside Editor
* Add: Allow test level inside the editor #34
* Change: Game remote key does not repeat on level editor #35
* Fix: Level editor has poor performance on low end devices #33
* Fix: The image thumbnails are painting the hidden ladders #36
Huzzah, nice improvements! Level editor is now much more user friend, especially the fast repeating from holding a direction to quickly lay rows of brick or tall ladders. Quick test of level is very good.
On my Streaming Stick, when player falls and grabs a gold that was floating in mid air, I don’t hear anything for the gold, but the fall sound is cut off and then restarts. Are you programming it to use two audio channels? All Rokus now support two audio channels, so it would probably be good to swap the audio channel after each sound effect so we can have overlapping sounds. Maybe you already tried and it caused a problem for some reason?
* Add: NES Sprite Mode #39
* Fix: Runner and guards run animations have a missing frame #40
* Fix: Hole and shake timing are not matching original game #20
* Fix: Rebirth animation not implemented #41
