NEW GAME - Farmer Jack - Treasure Trove

bobs

Evening all,

Jack is back! Download his latest adventure, Treasure Trove, from my site at the link below.

This time it's loosely based on Pac-Man, but with the twist that the coins that Jack must collect can also be collected by the fake archaeologists who inhabit the field, and each one they collect lowers your score. Get a score of zero and you lose a life! Help is at hand though as Jack has a number of gates he can place around the field, but they don't last forever...

Hope you enjoy this finally bit of fun for Jack, as it completes the trilogy of his single-screen maze-based games. Don't worry though, Jack will hopefully return in a far bigger adventure next year...

Jumping Stack

bobs wrote: »

Evening all,

Jack is back! Download his latest adventure, Treasure Trove, from my site at the link below.

This time it's loosely based on Pac-Man, but with the twist that the coins that Jack must collect can also be collected by the fake archaeologists who inhabit the field, and each one they collect lowers your score. Get a score of zero and you lose a life! Help is at hand though as Jack has a number of gates he can place around the field, but they don't last forever...

Hope you enjoy this finally bit of fun for Jack, as it completes the trilogy of his single-screen maze-based games. Don't worry though, Jack will hopefully return in a far bigger adventure next year...

Well done Bob. Was the game inspired by you reviewing Zman for the Speccy Bible?
I thought the game was too simple at first - completed lots of levels - but then read the instructions properly and realised this is a points strategy game.
I think that this ha to be a must play game for the Myspeccy comprtition website as it is v reliant on high score addictivity - and it would generate a great deal of interest in new Speccy games, including FJHH simply by being up there.
I'd love to play this game in high score competition with other specchums.

sparkes

That is super addictive.

psj3809

Superb game ! You mentioned it to me previously but i didnt realise it was complete ! Really enjoy playing it, did you say its the last Farmer Jack game though ? Hope thats not the case !

bobs

Glad you're all enjoying it!

It is deceptively addictive - to begin with you just clear the levels with no problems, but as the archaeologists get quicker your score starts to go down instead of up, and so the use of the gates, and also getting the treasure which appears when all four archaeologists are active, becomes more important in keeping your score climbing. And, of course, as you worry more about your score, you make mistakes... There are 16 unique mazes in all, one for every 2 levels, so 32 levels before it loops. Personally I haven't got passed level 13!

I'd be perfectly happy for it to be on the MySpeccy competition site - just had a look over there - can somebody get touch with me about how to make that happen?

Jack will be back, but I think he's done the single-screen maze-games to death now, so time to move him onto different things, and this also nicely ties-up a trilogy of Jack games. I've got a few other ideas in the pipeline, including a rough idea for Jack's next outing, but nothing concrete yet.

Jumping Stack

bobs wrote: »

I'd be perfectly happy for it to be on the MySpeccy competition site - just had a look over there - can somebody get touch with me about how to make that happen?

.

Of WoS members both FrankT and JMK have put games up on Myspeccy before in the past. I think both of them have dipped in interest for MySpeccy of late but I reckon they might help out in the spririt of getting some exposure for the living Speccy.
That said, a scoring system that goes down as well as up may have score capture issues.
Apparently its simple enough to add a game (but not simple enough for me)

The how to guide is here

gasman

Jumping Stack wrote: »

That said, a scoring system that goes down as well as up may have score capture issues.

I have a feeling that having the original game author on hand (with his original source code) will make any necessary hacking work several zillion times easier than usual though :-)

bobs

That all sounds easy enough then - just need to look up the values in my symbol file.

chaosmongers

How about Farmer jack's frosticles... FJ goes into the breakfast cereal market (Pengo style) :)

chop983

I'd like to see a Spectrum version of Mean Arenas

bobs

Sorry all, but I've got enough ideas to be going on with.

Spector

What about Donkey Jack? The definitive arcade conversion?

Or Bomb Jack? Er...

psj3809

bobs wrote: »

Sorry all, but I've got enough ideas to be going on with.

Any chance of any hints about future games ? Look forward to the others !

bobs

psj3809 wrote: »

Any chance of any hints about future games ? Look forward to the others !

Okay...

I've been playing with a tech. recently to have a playing area which can scroll quickly by any number of pixels, which currently runs at about 12fps. Really had a fast racing game in mind for that, but might equally suit a space shoot-em up.

Got a flick-screen maze game up & running. Currently based underwater, would most likely require you to find & collect certain objects, possibly with keys and the like involved.

Have been given an idea for a golf game - side-on instead of top-down - but haven't managed to work out a good set of graphics to make that look good yet.

Still want to write a 3D isometric game, but haven't come up with a good/different enough idea to escape comparisons with Ritman or Ultimate titles.

There's also the idea of a new Tetris game mentioned somewhere else on these forums, which I could turn my hand to.


So... any thoughts?

Spector

I'd love to see someone try to carry on where Lightforce and The Muncher left off and do a scrolling hi-res game with no colour clash. I know that you did Splattr, but colour with normal sized sprites is the most amazing thing on the Speccy for me.

bobs

Spector wrote: »

I'd love to see someone try to carry on where Lightforce and The Muncher left off and do a scrolling hi-res game with no colour clash. I know that you did Splattr, but colour with normal sized sprites is the most amazing thing on the Speccy for me.

I know what you mean, but I think it's very easy with full-colour hi-res games which work on character-blocks to spend too much time on the spectacle, and not enough on the actual game - resulting in that myriad of forgettable games which looked great in a screen-shot, but were slow & clunky in reality. The golf game would actually fit this idea though - kind of a smooth Bugaboo - so maybe if I write that I might have more ideas in the same vein...

bobs

Just to note that this game is now in the archive, so if you want to play it but haven't yet, then you can download it from the link below, as well from my site.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0021583

Don't forget to vote for the game as well, and any other of my games which you've enjoyed! :smile:

ewgf

Do Tetris! Surely it wouldn't take long to do, then you could have a well earned rest and then if you liked you could move onto a new project.

And Tetris is a timeless classic, after all. And the Speccy deserves the ultimate version!

chop983

bobs wrote: »

Still want to write a 3D isometric game, but haven't come up with a good/different enough idea to escape comparisons with Ritman or Ultimate titles

So... any thoughts?

An open play area, like the great escape, but a murder mystery that can have a different killer each time, like cluedo.

jonathan

bobs wrote: »

Have been given an idea for a golf game - side-on instead of top-down - but haven't managed to work out a good set of graphics to make that look good yet.

I'll look forward to seeing that, as it sounds similar to an idea I've been playing around with. :)

psj3809

I would love a Speccy version of Ultima ! I mean the graphics on Ultima were so simple, you would move across the land and then when you reached a village graphic it then cuts to obviously the village but with a few shop, enemys to battle, clues to find etc

Granted i know nothing about Speccy programming BUT surely the graphics wouldnt be a huge filesize as Ultima games were always very basic, creating a big world with locations would obviously be tricky but i would love to see something like that.

bobs

jonathan wrote: »

I'll look forward to seeing that, as it sounds similar to an idea I've been playing around with. :)

Somehow I got the idea that Jon & I would never have the same idea - I'll PM you about mine Jon, as I don't see the point of both of us doing the same thing when there as so many other ideas around to be had.

bobs

psj3809 wrote: »

I would love a Speccy version of Ultima ! I mean the graphics on Ultima were so simple, you would move across the land and then when you reached a village graphic it then cuts to obviously the village but with a few shop, enemys to battle, clues to find etc

Granted i know nothing about Speccy programming BUT surely the graphics wouldnt be a huge filesize as Ultima games were always very basic, creating a big world with locations would obviously be tricky but i would love to see something like that.

I don't mind doing that in theory, much like doing a Zelda game or similar, but I've never played either game, and so wouldn't really know where to start. It sounds like the graphics & playing areas would be easy enough to sort out - but it's the shops, battles, and clues etc that I would need help with - I can code & do graphics, but somebody would need to help with the actual design of the game.

psj3809

bobs wrote: »

I don't mind doing that in theory, much like doing a Zelda game or similar, but I've never played either game, and so wouldn't really know where to start. It sounds like the graphics & playing areas would be easy enough to sort out - but it's the shops, battles, and clues etc that I would need help with - I can code & do graphics, but somebody would need to help with the actual design of the game.

Thats just great to hear ;) Would love to work with someone to create the actual story/game. Like i say the graphics were very very basic but the whole gameplay was superb. I'll have to bear that in mind and try to talk to someone about it, could be great !

ewgf

psj3809 wrote: »

I would love a Speccy version of Ultima ! I mean the graphics on Ultima were so simple, you would move across the land and then when you reached a village graphic it then cuts to obviously the village but with a few shop, enemys to battle, clues to find etc

Granted i know nothing about Speccy programming BUT surely the graphics wouldnt be a huge filesize as Ultima games were always very basic, creating a big world with locations would obviously be tricky but i would love to see something like that.

I think Andrew Owen said that Ultima was now open source, so theoretically at least, a Spectrum port isn't impossible.

<subliminal message> Bobs, do Tetris. Do Tetris. </subliminal message>


I've never played the Ultima games, so I can't comment on them.


<subliminal message> Bobs, stop reading, and start programming Tetris. </subliminal message>

I think it's a fair bet that the Zelda source codes will never be released though. The words "Nintendo" and "open source" don't easily come together, do they?


<subliminal message> Mile, stop posting on these forums. And Bobs, write that Tetris game. </subliminal message>

psj3809

Hey dont be greedy theres already a good Tetris game ! ;)

Seriously what do you want extra which isnt in the Mirrorsoft one ?

bobs

Been chatting to Jon, and seems like our side-on golf games are worlds apart, so no worries there - maybe 2009 will be the year of the ball?

Likely to finish my underwater flick-screen maze game first as I'm rather enjoying myself doing the graphics for that.

ewgf

psj3809 wrote: »

Hey dont be greedy theres already a good Tetris game ! ;)

Seriously what do you want extra which isnt in the Mirrorsoft one ?

[Copied and pasted from another post I made (wish all writing was that quick!)]


How about the definitive version of Tetris for the Speccy? I know it's not what you wanted, given that it's not a board game, but Tetris is great and the Spectrum deserves a first class version.

See, by far the best version of Tetris I've ever seen is The New Tetris, on the N64. It's Tetris (obviously!), with the following five additions/changes:

1. You can store a piece, to use at will. Aside from the usual controls of


Move the piece left,
Move the piece right,
Rotate the piece left,
Rotate the piece left, and
Drop the piece,

there is also a button for Swap the current piece for the one already stored. You can only use this once per falling piece (though of course you rarely use it) to stop the user stalling from time by repeatedly swapping the falling piece with the stored piece.


2. You see the next three pieces, shown on the screen.

3. You score according to how many lines you have made (and therefore deleted), instead of some pointless scoring method usually used in Tetris games.

4. When you press DOWN, the piece falls fast, but when you stop pressing DOWN, the piece (if it has not already landed and the next piece started to fall) reverts back to it's normal falling speed, allowing you to speed the fall until the piece nearly lands then you can move the piece left or right to manipulate it's ending position.

5. This is by far the best addition - if you use four pieces to make a 4x4 square, then that square turns either gold or silver. If the four pieces used are all the same, then the square turns gold, and if they're not all the same, then the square turns silver.

Now, normally you get one point for every line you complete (the line of course gets deleted), but if you complete four lines at once, then you get five points instead of four. And for every line you delete that has part of a silver square in it you get two points instead of one, and if you delete an entire silver square in one go (all four lines) then you get ten points. And if you delete a line with a golden piece in it then you get four points, and if you delete an entire golden square then you get twenty points.

To see how the New Tetris plays, look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENObKRhRzM8

(please note, in the above video the 2x2 square pieces, which are part of the normal Tetris set, look silver, but they are really grey, whilst the 4x4 silver block, made up when four non-identical pieces make a 4x4 square, looks grey in the video, but is really silver!

Anyway, please consider this, as Tetris is a truly timeless game, and the Spectrum deserves the best version possible. And these additions really do make the game so much better.


I should also add, that video is in the game mode Sprint, as opposed to classic; Sprint gives you just three minutes to see how high you can score, whereas classic is the normal Tetris game mode where you go on until you fill the screen vertically. Aside from the time limit in Sprint mode, both Sprint mode and Classic mode are identical.

szeliga

bobs wrote: »

Jack is back! Download his latest adventure, Treasure Trove, from my site at the link below.

Hi Bob

Thought I'd let you know that FJTT appeals to the next generation too!

My 5 year old is loving playing on a real Spectrum with joystick, but here's the spooky one: after installing Patrik's excellent ZXDS on my 12 year old's Nintendo DS, he independently went off, found it online at WoS & said how cool it was :wink:

bobs

szeliga wrote: »

Hi Bob

Thought I'd let you know that FJTT appeals to the next generation too!

My 5 year old is loving playing on a real Spectrum with joystick, but here's the spooky one: after installing Patrik's excellent ZXDS on my 12 year old's Nintendo DS, he independently went off, found it online at WoS & said how cool it was :wink:

That is just so fantastic! 8)