Raftronaut
Member
(Edited)
As of 11-19 Space Raft 3.0 was thrown together for PRGE, I have been meaning to release another update for quite some time, I have been adding several advanced features to the Space Raft Game per assistance from Dale Coop (our 8 bit hero). As it stands I am very excited to show off these MAJOR improvements as a work in progress. AS always, any feedback is appreciated, this is my first DEV and I am still learning
View attachment SPACE RAFT 3.0.zip
New features include:
-8 directional movement added
-New tile type "Rails" added, reduces drag upon collisions around gameplay area and plays a special "grind" sfx
-Ramps! tile system has been added (not yet refined), Use is self explanatory, hit the ramp, catch some AIR!!
-Oil slick! Ice puddle, hit the Oil Slick and watch the van lose control!
-Villain has been introduced, Per his request, the band's previous bass player has come on as the Villain of the game
-Boss chambers designed! road now flashes stripes without scrolling allowing graphics bank switching in boss rooms. (further boss developments coming)
-Dialogue scenes! yes I have begun adding the beginnings of the game's story utilizing character portraits
-NEW MAZE GAME added! YES, take control of every member of Space Raft in order to defeat the jealous ex-bass player....
-NEW player sprites added to the later with unique attacks. (press B button to switch characters in single screen mode)
-NPCS added to offer further dialogue to the game
-New levels showcasing well known locations to the Milwaukee music scene.
-New End screen
-I am sure other improvements have been made and not listed and some I wish I could have made but ran out of time..
**the next update v3.xxx should include further improvements to the engine, boss fights, further story lines and the ability to skip cutscenes (sorry not coded yet in this version)
***********Original Post****************
Hello!
Rather than trying to salvage my messy previous post for space raft version 1, I decided to make a fresh post here.
Since my Byte Off submission I've been making steady improvements on the Space Raft demo.
I hope this version 2.0 proves to be a much more playable version for people who may be interested in some side scrolling van driving action.
Download Space Raft version 2.0 here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1fqozhbm68ltun/Space Raft 2.0.zip?dl=0
*EDIT* realized I did not correct the color palettes for the dumpsters in 2.0. already corrected in this version V2.1:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5mztjkvjsveqib/Space Raft V2.1.zip?dl=0
*edit* Direct download Here :
View attachment Space Raft V2.1.zip
List of improvements are Significant:
*Graphical Updates (added second monster color palette, Organized monsters accordingly.)
*Complete Soundtrack overhaul, including further sound design and SFX's (I'd love to go into the design challenges of distilling a 10 song, 4 piece rock and roll band LP into a workable famitracker file. The biggest design challenge has been finding ways to incorporate SFX's into the dense music arrangements, perhaps that is best left for another post)
*Attempted to decrease overall difficulty (is it still too hard? previous version seemed to get players hung up right away, so I relaxed the frequency of obstacles and enemies)
*Changed traffic cones from background (instant kill) tiles to Sprites so they can be destroyed. (also does not share back ground color palette)
*Opening cinematic scene (narrative omitted from demo version)
*Hud color palette improvements
*New Sprite animations (player and monsters)
*Pause button added including charming Honk sound effect (horn sfx=my proudest moment) and screen darkening (start button)
*Monster Traffic (cars and trucks) have been scaled down to narrower sprites to prevent sprite loss/flicker
*Sprite flicker added
*Screen Transitions smoothed
*Left screen edge destroys player ......(this is used as a fix for the game breaking bug on the left screen edge present in the initial Space Raft demo, I have not been able to solve the problem, but this fix at least prevents the player from getting stuck and crashing a game session)
*self-destruct button (select button) added to combat the player screen wrap glitch mentioned above, another cheap fix for a serious problem, I decided to leave the function in for this version as I can use it for other testing purposes. (also it's kind of fun to watch the van explode on command)
Short list of improvements I would like to make to the next version:
*Solve boundshandler bug so player can touch left screen edge
*Study and implement Z-Axis so I can add ramps allowing the player to vault over obstacles.
*Add boss fights other than the stand-ins currently present. Requiring me to understand how player objects work, Hoping to organize boss monsters into a single type that trigger a "boss death" upon defeat, warping the player to a new splash screen with next level title and play a little jingle. Not quite there yet...
*Implement animated background tiles during boss fights to give the illusion of a moving road against a black background. (this is the key reason I have not done any significant boss designs yet, as I am not sure what kind of limitations animating background tiles will require and I don't want to get ahead of myself) I have already designed a tile that will appear to be moving through utilizing a simple palette swap technique, similar to what people have been doing with waterfalls etc.. I just am just not sure how to write the code to do that color swap yet.
*Adding at least one type of powerup, although unsure of what direction I would take this yet, maybe a simple spread shot.
*Add additional cutscenes between levels once bosses are finished and begin to form a narrative. Adding more cutscenes will help me utilize more of the Space Raft songs I have to insert.
*Toying with the idea of developing an acceleration mechanic. This would help slow down gameplay for inexperienced players, also would utilize the empty B button. I would either link it to the b button or write a screen flag to have some screens scrolling at 1/2 speed (maybe this could be utilized to highlight certain enemies such mini-bosses in 1/2 scroll speed) I have not decided of this is a good idea yet, or how difficult it would be to implement.
*edit Introduce 8 direction movement per CutterCross' suggestion below
-Note, most if not all of the code for these fixes came directly from forum members (thx!), I have been trying to stay diligent in studying 6502 asm, but programming logic does not come natural to me and even the basic concepts take me a lot of focus and energy to grasp (i'm learning, just at a snail's pace). On the other hand, famitracker only took me a couple of days to learn, as well as Shiru's Nes screen Tool, so my strengths are clearly on the Audio visual side of things...
I cannot thank the community here enough for helping me learn what I am doing here, in no particular order Dale Coop, Mugi, Frankengraphics have given so much to chew on and digest, even reading though other's production notes give a lot of insight into game design. AS well as the byte-off youtube reviewers and the valuable insight that provided me. Much gratitude to every one here in the community!
Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to release this so I can get some constructive feedback as I set out to finish the remainder of the game. This is my first GameDev on any platform, I only got interested in the past year after getting involved with Chiptunes (space raft songs as chiptunes to share with my band as a joke, everyone found it charming so I continued) and realized how fulfilling 8 bit designs are to me. The Poetry of limitation, the heart warming visual approximations, that amazing gritty sound (!!) etc...
Hope you enjoy! Thanks for looking!
long live nes!
View: https://youtu.be/BewtVtGn0ps
******12-18-20**UPDATE *****Full version***********************************
CIB now available here: https://dustymedical.com/product/space-raft-nes/
ROM downloads available here: https://raftronaut.itch.io/space-raft-nes
********************************************************************************
Also for posterity, Here is the download to the largely broken version 1.0:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e53vahly6pqqrik/DemoSpaceRaft.zip?dl=0
*edited for errors and missing content, still not great at using message boards
As of 11-19 Space Raft 3.0 was thrown together for PRGE, I have been meaning to release another update for quite some time, I have been adding several advanced features to the Space Raft Game per assistance from Dale Coop (our 8 bit hero). As it stands I am very excited to show off these MAJOR improvements as a work in progress. AS always, any feedback is appreciated, this is my first DEV and I am still learning
View attachment SPACE RAFT 3.0.zip
New features include:
-8 directional movement added
-New tile type "Rails" added, reduces drag upon collisions around gameplay area and plays a special "grind" sfx
-Ramps! tile system has been added (not yet refined), Use is self explanatory, hit the ramp, catch some AIR!!
-Oil slick! Ice puddle, hit the Oil Slick and watch the van lose control!
-Villain has been introduced, Per his request, the band's previous bass player has come on as the Villain of the game
-Boss chambers designed! road now flashes stripes without scrolling allowing graphics bank switching in boss rooms. (further boss developments coming)
-Dialogue scenes! yes I have begun adding the beginnings of the game's story utilizing character portraits
-NEW MAZE GAME added! YES, take control of every member of Space Raft in order to defeat the jealous ex-bass player....
-NEW player sprites added to the later with unique attacks. (press B button to switch characters in single screen mode)
-NPCS added to offer further dialogue to the game
-New levels showcasing well known locations to the Milwaukee music scene.
-New End screen
-I am sure other improvements have been made and not listed and some I wish I could have made but ran out of time..
**the next update v3.xxx should include further improvements to the engine, boss fights, further story lines and the ability to skip cutscenes (sorry not coded yet in this version)
***********Original Post****************
Hello!
Rather than trying to salvage my messy previous post for space raft version 1, I decided to make a fresh post here.
Since my Byte Off submission I've been making steady improvements on the Space Raft demo.
I hope this version 2.0 proves to be a much more playable version for people who may be interested in some side scrolling van driving action.
Download Space Raft version 2.0 here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1fqozhbm68ltun/Space Raft 2.0.zip?dl=0
*EDIT* realized I did not correct the color palettes for the dumpsters in 2.0. already corrected in this version V2.1:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5mztjkvjsveqib/Space Raft V2.1.zip?dl=0
*edit* Direct download Here :
View attachment Space Raft V2.1.zip
List of improvements are Significant:
*Graphical Updates (added second monster color palette, Organized monsters accordingly.)
*Complete Soundtrack overhaul, including further sound design and SFX's (I'd love to go into the design challenges of distilling a 10 song, 4 piece rock and roll band LP into a workable famitracker file. The biggest design challenge has been finding ways to incorporate SFX's into the dense music arrangements, perhaps that is best left for another post)
*Attempted to decrease overall difficulty (is it still too hard? previous version seemed to get players hung up right away, so I relaxed the frequency of obstacles and enemies)
*Changed traffic cones from background (instant kill) tiles to Sprites so they can be destroyed. (also does not share back ground color palette)
*Opening cinematic scene (narrative omitted from demo version)
*Hud color palette improvements
*New Sprite animations (player and monsters)
*Pause button added including charming Honk sound effect (horn sfx=my proudest moment) and screen darkening (start button)
*Monster Traffic (cars and trucks) have been scaled down to narrower sprites to prevent sprite loss/flicker
*Sprite flicker added
*Screen Transitions smoothed
*Left screen edge destroys player ......(this is used as a fix for the game breaking bug on the left screen edge present in the initial Space Raft demo, I have not been able to solve the problem, but this fix at least prevents the player from getting stuck and crashing a game session)
*self-destruct button (select button) added to combat the player screen wrap glitch mentioned above, another cheap fix for a serious problem, I decided to leave the function in for this version as I can use it for other testing purposes. (also it's kind of fun to watch the van explode on command)
Short list of improvements I would like to make to the next version:
*Solve boundshandler bug so player can touch left screen edge
*Study and implement Z-Axis so I can add ramps allowing the player to vault over obstacles.
*Add boss fights other than the stand-ins currently present. Requiring me to understand how player objects work, Hoping to organize boss monsters into a single type that trigger a "boss death" upon defeat, warping the player to a new splash screen with next level title and play a little jingle. Not quite there yet...
*Implement animated background tiles during boss fights to give the illusion of a moving road against a black background. (this is the key reason I have not done any significant boss designs yet, as I am not sure what kind of limitations animating background tiles will require and I don't want to get ahead of myself) I have already designed a tile that will appear to be moving through utilizing a simple palette swap technique, similar to what people have been doing with waterfalls etc.. I just am just not sure how to write the code to do that color swap yet.
*Adding at least one type of powerup, although unsure of what direction I would take this yet, maybe a simple spread shot.
*Add additional cutscenes between levels once bosses are finished and begin to form a narrative. Adding more cutscenes will help me utilize more of the Space Raft songs I have to insert.
*Toying with the idea of developing an acceleration mechanic. This would help slow down gameplay for inexperienced players, also would utilize the empty B button. I would either link it to the b button or write a screen flag to have some screens scrolling at 1/2 speed (maybe this could be utilized to highlight certain enemies such mini-bosses in 1/2 scroll speed) I have not decided of this is a good idea yet, or how difficult it would be to implement.
*edit Introduce 8 direction movement per CutterCross' suggestion below
-Note, most if not all of the code for these fixes came directly from forum members (thx!), I have been trying to stay diligent in studying 6502 asm, but programming logic does not come natural to me and even the basic concepts take me a lot of focus and energy to grasp (i'm learning, just at a snail's pace). On the other hand, famitracker only took me a couple of days to learn, as well as Shiru's Nes screen Tool, so my strengths are clearly on the Audio visual side of things...
I cannot thank the community here enough for helping me learn what I am doing here, in no particular order Dale Coop, Mugi, Frankengraphics have given so much to chew on and digest, even reading though other's production notes give a lot of insight into game design. AS well as the byte-off youtube reviewers and the valuable insight that provided me. Much gratitude to every one here in the community!
Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Hoping to release this so I can get some constructive feedback as I set out to finish the remainder of the game. This is my first GameDev on any platform, I only got interested in the past year after getting involved with Chiptunes (space raft songs as chiptunes to share with my band as a joke, everyone found it charming so I continued) and realized how fulfilling 8 bit designs are to me. The Poetry of limitation, the heart warming visual approximations, that amazing gritty sound (!!) etc...
Hope you enjoy! Thanks for looking!
long live nes!
******12-18-20**UPDATE *****Full version***********************************
CIB now available here: https://dustymedical.com/product/space-raft-nes/
ROM downloads available here: https://raftronaut.itch.io/space-raft-nes
********************************************************************************
Also for posterity, Here is the download to the largely broken version 1.0:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e53vahly6pqqrik/DemoSpaceRaft.zip?dl=0
*edited for errors and missing content, still not great at using message boards
Last edited: