Hell yeah, Track and Field... or Decathalon on C64! Or anyone remember that Sgt Slaughter game on C64? That was a joystick wiggler, too! Not to mention Caveman Ughlympics (or boringly titled Caveman Games in the US for NES).
And the buttons still work after nearly 30 years? Got to give kudos to the button engineers.
We cheated and bought the NES super joystick. Its was a controller with an actual joystick and big red buttons and you could set it to "autofire". We had the T&F game and with that joystick...we could long jump for miles.
synthesis said: I spent sooo much paper route money on T&F, SM Bros. and Bubbles back in the day on Saturdays at the bowling alley.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was a fun one too...so was Commando.
It really sucks that this just doesn't happen anymore... gaming actually used to be kind of social! I loved going to the arcade... now it's nothing but crappy dancing machines...
I have fond memories of OutRun, Chase HQ, Shinobi, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Golden Axe.... even back to Moon Patrol when I was a little kid... ah, the memories...
I too LOVED OutRun...but it was always 50c (or more) and lasted 2-3 minutes...too rich for our blood. 25c on SM Bros was a good 15-30 minutes of play time. And seeing as we only made about $8-10 a week on our paper route...quarters were tough to come by.
Kids today don't have a clue.
I remember spending HOURS watching or playing the Atari PacMan demo at KMart (a small town Best Buy 30 years ago). It was a dog-!@#$% game by today's standards...but back then...it was mesmerizing. The idea of "BUYING" Pac Man and play it at home was HUGE!
@FMG... BTW... We had a Commodor Vic 20. Best cartridge game for that we had was GORF. Had a cassette tape drive for data storage...which took about 10 minutes to load a game. Had a blast though with it (until we got our first NES).
Yeah, my neighbours had a 2600 and Pac Man.. I had the Fountain Force 2 and game game called Spider's Web, which was a far superior Pac Man clone! I think the machine was called a Radofin in other countries. Had analogue joysticks!
My best memories of ancient games were on my Uncle's C64 (no, I wasn't sitting on his lap at the time). Harrier Jump Jet, a flight sim was awesome and as a little kid it was pretty cool when I managed to land the plane!
Then there was Lode-Runner, Scramble... the list goes on. Suffice to say I eventually bought my own C64... still my favourite computer to this day... AND the most successful!
Oh, RIVER RAID! Back then, indie devs were king (or queen as was the case of River Raid, lol)!
synthesis said: @FMG... BTW... We had a Commodor Vic 20. Best cartridge game for that we had was GORF. Had a cassette tape drive for data storage...which took about 10 minutes to load a game. Had a blast though with it (until we got our first NES).
Dude, a few years back I bought a bunch of BRAND NEW SEALED C64 cassettes.. I had a C64 and thought "AWESOME". I chucked in Turbo Outrun to play, an old-time fave... I thought the C64 was broken... 25 minutes to get to the title screen! TWENTY FIVE!!! Was worth it for that Maniacs of Noise soundtrack... though I could have just booted it on an emulator. LOL.
Have you guys seen the movie 'The King of Kong' ? It's a documentary about world record holding arcade game players. You can watch the whole thing on youtube. The retro arcade there is fantastic, and the movie is pretty entertaining too.
Its amazing that these games were built around a 4-5 KB RAM allowance. That's Kilobytes...not Megabytes. Talk about hard core optimization and some REALLY CLEVER coding.
@stusapps: yeah, that is a great movie! And I've been to that arcade several times. It's called Fun Spot. It's in New Hampshire. They have the video game championships there every year.
Great! ANd we thought there are loading issues on the web.
I still have Atari 800 cassettes...! somewhere? And a working 130XE (the 800 and XL broke ;-) Programming made more sense back then, in many ways? No "Distribution Certificates" or such stuff. ;-) Processor optimization was a little more of a challenge at 1 mhz though...!
I reviewed Max Vector positively on the app store, you have a very solid title there! I say, price to sell, but surely don't give it away for free.
suggestions - (The round saucers on level one? Have too regular of a spawn pattern.)
I could really go for a D-Pad onscreen - since we're dealing with "retro" play action 8 Directions of movement, no more ;-)
Strategy tip - Only blast SOME of the Asteroids to keep the screen more open
Strategy tip 2 - You can halfway defeat boss one BEFORE it starts firing! (perhaps change that? Often NES bosses only take damage after their "intro phase")
POLYGAMe said: Dude, a few years back I bought a bunch of BRAND NEW SEALED C64 cassettes.. I had a C64 and thought "AWESOME". I chucked in Turbo Outrun to play, an old-time fave... I thought the C64 was broken... 25 minutes to get to the title screen! TWENTY FIVE!!! Was worth it for that Maniacs of Noise soundtrack... though I could have just booted it on an emulator. LOL.
Yeah, a few people have mentioned a D-pad (though most prefer the current controls that are specifically for the modern console)... I HATE onscreen buttons... not the same as a physical controller... in fact, I've not played a single iPhone game with a good onscreen D-pad. A joystick might be a better option but it'd have to be analogue (or it would essentially be a D-pad) and that wouldn't suit this kind of game - analogue is way too unresponsive for a fast shooter. trust me, I tried EVERY control option on this game, even the accelerometer. The problem is with onscreen D-pads it that it's way too easy to hit two directions at once, resulting in shoddy control behaviour. I spent days adjusting the button detection areas etc but it was always terrible. Your finger only has to slip ever so slightly from down/right to hit down and send you into enemy fire. Not really an option.
As for the asteroids... that's up to the player. blast too many and it gets VERY difficult (and you get more points). I did originally have it so that the grey asteroids were invincible but thanks to GS's terrible collision, they kept moving when the others exploded close to them, even though restitution was set to zero and density sent to millions! It was useless as often you'd find the path blocked by immovable, invincible objects... so I took the cheat's way out and just made them slightly more difficult to destroy than the brown ones
The first boss was designed like that. You'd be surprised how many people don't know you can take out the guns first! I also wanted the first level to be pretty easy to beat... think of it as an initiation
Seriously though, spent way too much time on this title as it is. It has its flaws but I'm not going to dedicate my life to what is, in essence, an average shooter. It was my first game and I have to get onto other projects otherwise I'll get nothing done! I'm not going to spend the rest of my life fulfilling people's requests on a game that makes me $20 a day. LOL. In other words... I don't think I'll bother with another update unless I find myself with a LOT of spare time. I have sent the GS file to another GS member who's tinkering away with it, though, so you never know!
Thanks for the info though and glad you like it Definitely great to have proper feedback rather than the usual "this game is great". lol. I'll certainly keep what everyone says in mind for future projects! Apart from the D-pad. I HATE THEM. Hahaha.
Comments
Intellivision Baseball was a nail buster too.
We had to hold them sideways or else your hand would cramp up!
I actually own an original Track and Field arcade machine. Still painful!
And the buttons still work after nearly 30 years? Got to give kudos to the button engineers.
We cheated and bought the NES super joystick. Its was a controller with an actual joystick and big red buttons and you could set it to "autofire". We had the T&F game and with that joystick...we could long jump for miles.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was a fun one too...so was Commando.
Now, between my friend and I, we have 40+ arcade and pinball machines.
I have fond memories of OutRun, Chase HQ, Shinobi, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Golden Axe.... even back to Moon Patrol when I was a little kid... ah, the memories...
A retro arcade would ROCK!
Kids today don't have a clue.
I remember spending HOURS watching or playing the Atari PacMan demo at KMart (a small town Best Buy 30 years ago). It was a dog-!@#$% game by today's standards...but back then...it was mesmerizing. The idea of "BUYING" Pac Man and play it at home was HUGE!
{EDIT]
OHHHH...AND PITFALL was the bomb TOO!
BTW...
We had a Commodor Vic 20. Best cartridge game for that we had was GORF. Had a cassette tape drive for data storage...which took about 10 minutes to load a game. Had a blast though with it (until we got our first NES).
IF ANYONE NEEDS SOME RETRO GAME INSPIRATION...CHECK OUT THIS WIKI PAGE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Commodore_VIC-20_games
My best memories of ancient games were on my Uncle's C64 (no, I wasn't sitting on his lap at the time). Harrier Jump Jet, a flight sim was awesome and as a little kid it was pretty cool when I managed to land the plane!
Then there was Lode-Runner, Scramble... the list goes on. Suffice to say I eventually bought my own C64... still my favourite computer to this day... AND the most successful!
Oh, RIVER RAID! Back then, indie devs were king (or queen as was the case of River Raid, lol)!
I still have Atari 800 cassettes...! somewhere? And a working 130XE
(the 800 and XL broke ;-)
Programming made more sense back then, in many ways?
No "Distribution Certificates" or such stuff. ;-)
Processor optimization was a little more of a challenge at 1 mhz though...!
I reviewed Max Vector positively on the app store,
you have a very solid title there!
I say, price to sell, but surely don't give it away for free.
suggestions -
(The round saucers on level one? Have too regular of a spawn pattern.)
I could really go for a D-Pad onscreen - since we're dealing with "retro" play action
8 Directions of movement, no more ;-)
Strategy tip - Only blast SOME of the Asteroids to keep the screen more open
Strategy tip 2 - You can halfway defeat boss one BEFORE it starts firing!
(perhaps change that? Often NES bosses only take damage after their "intro phase")
As for the asteroids... that's up to the player. blast too many and it gets VERY difficult (and you get more points). I did originally have it so that the grey asteroids were invincible but thanks to GS's terrible collision, they kept moving when the others exploded close to them, even though restitution was set to zero and density sent to millions! It was useless as often you'd find the path blocked by immovable, invincible objects... so I took the cheat's way out and just made them slightly more difficult to destroy than the brown ones
The first boss was designed like that. You'd be surprised how many people don't know you can take out the guns first! I also wanted the first level to be pretty easy to beat... think of it as an initiation
Seriously though, spent way too much time on this title as it is. It has its flaws but I'm not going to dedicate my life to what is, in essence, an average shooter. It was my first game and I have to get onto other projects otherwise I'll get nothing done! I'm not going to spend the rest of my life fulfilling people's requests on a game that makes me $20 a day. LOL. In other words... I don't think I'll bother with another update unless I find myself with a LOT of spare time. I have sent the GS file to another GS member who's tinkering away with it, though, so you never know!
Thanks for the info though and glad you like it