Looks a bit amatorish but nice, although AI is rather... Is "weird' a politically correct word for Speccy scene?)
I can tell you what the AI is. Toss a coin to see whether you want to continue moving onwards or change the direction. If you decided to change the direction, toss a loaded dice, so that there is a small preference to move towards the arm at the bottom of the screen. Then toss a coin to see whether you'd like to shoot at something. If you meet with an obstacle (another tank or static) - use "loaded" coin, which increases the probability of shooting at the obstacle.
Overall, this is definitely "A", but I am not sure if it is "I".
My only excuse is: I was pretty young. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
The game was programmed in 1995, but now the author fixed bad english, made a intro, packed anything and released it. So it is in fact version 1.1.
A small correction: I did not make a new intro, I only created a new loading screen. The intro is exactly identical to what it was in the original version.
So you are the author of the subject, right? As far as I understand it was made back then in asm then refurnished and compressed. I see your point in emulating AI -- most simple machines did that trick -- but why didn't you use some checkpoints and a 'weighted' coin to move towards the player or the base?
I mean that you could easily define tanks-destoyers and tank-hunters which would make very different experience IMO. Also I would add some damage effect: a broken track (temporary immobility, but can aim and shoot), a broken engine (lower speed), a broken turret (temporary cannot shoot) and so on. It's ok, but why you made it that way, was some original example?
As far as I understand it was made back then in asm then refurnished and compressed. I see your point in emulating AI -- most simple machines did that trick -- but why didn't you use some checkpoints and a 'weighted' coin to move towards the player or the base?
I mean that you could easily define tanks-destoyers and tank-hunters which would make very different experience IMO. Also I would add some damage effect: a broken track (temporary immobility, but can aim and shoot), a broken engine (lower speed), a broken turret (temporary cannot shoot) and so on. It's ok, but why you made it that way, was some original example?
Hello NRA and thanks for the welcome. Yes, I wrote this back in 1995 and left it unreleased. Recently, I recovered some of my old floppies, including the one with this game. What you have here is, basically, pretty much unchanged version of the game from 1995, except that I added a loading screen and re-wrote all English text (which _was_ pretty atrocious). Of course, I felt that if people still load their programs using tapes, I might as well re-compress using one of the top modern compressors. We had a bit of a discussion over at zx-pk.ru, whether this constitutes a significant enough change to count as a new release, but I do not care anymore.
This was my first reasonably-sized project in assembler. I did not really know how games worked (we are really spoilt by the Internet now). I learned few tricks by disassembling some routines from Firefly and several other games, but this was about it. Basically, I just knew how good games felt playing and was trying my best to reproduce it.
The main problem with the AI in this game stems from my development environment at the time. About 80% of the same was written using 48K with a tape recorder (proper old school!). I used Zeus assembler, but the was no way to store the code, the assets and the assembler, so I had a binary "master" file, to which I would add new snippets of code. Human linker. Hence, this program never had a source code as such, in its entirety. I just wrote things as I went along. (I am sure that as Andrew Ryals was hacking into it, he might have been surprised to see a number of plugs and patches and redundant code, left by such an approach). This made it incredibly difficult to fine-tune the gameplay. The very first version was barely playable, I addressed some of the issues via my patches, but quickly lost heart - the job was a little too hard and the progress a little too slow.
So, the AI is crap because I did not have any rational ideas how to make it better and because the process of making it better intuitively was hard and unrewarding. In your couple of paragraphs you already expressed more rational ideas how to improve it than I had at the time! I probably would not finish this game on 48K computer at all, but luckily, towards the end of the project, I've got one of the good Russian clones with an FDD, which made it just about bearable.
There are similar issues with level design here: I saw in the NES original game that there were different kinds of tanks and different types of surfaces, but I did not realise that there was a progression, a learning curve, where things are gradually added to build up the difficulty and make the gameplay varied. Things were often just slapped on because I could.
I like tanks and most tank related games such as the arcade games Tank Battalion, No Mans Land and even the tank section in arcade Tron.I see nothing wrong with this game myself -graphically it does the job and it plays really well,so well in just one session i have already played this game more than anything else released yet this year so far,i like the water (lvl 3) and camo net features.Very very good Job :)
in just one session i have already played this game more than anything else released yet this year so far
I am glad that you are enjoying the game. My earlier comments may sound very negative; when analysing a game one sometimes does tend to focus on the negative aspects of the design. I do not think that this game is dreadful (I would not release it in that case) and it definitely has some redeeming qualities. It's just imperfect (and with a large scope for improvement) :)
I am glad that you are enjoying the game. My earlier comments may sound very negative; when analysing a game one sometimes does tend to focus on the negative aspects of the design. I do not think that this game is dreadful (I would not release it in that case) and it definitely has some redeeming qualities. It's just imperfect (and with a large scope for improvement) :)
Maybe, just maybe :)
I am (relatively) close to finishing a new demo, a compilation of some of the best beeper music from older games. It will be finished in May, I think. I am also prototyping something at the moment, a non-trivial clone of a trivial game (yeah, another clone it is). Thus far, I enjoyed working on it very much, but I do not want to make any commitments at this stage.
I am glad that you are enjoying the game. My earlier comments may sound very negative; when analysing a game one sometimes does tend to focus on the negative aspects of the design. I do not think that this game is dreadful (I would not release it in that case) and it definitely has some redeeming qualities. It's just imperfect (and with a large scope for improvement) :)
I understand but seriously I think the AI is not too dissimilar from some other games of that period,of course i do not play games and look for faults unless they are blindingly obvious and problematic to the game play but there is one thing that can make a game real interesting and that is the random element or `variance`,it does not matter if it is used in the placement of items or baddies or in game behavior I find it can stretch the play ability of a game fourfold.I have been playing Halls Of The Things for nearly 30 years because it uses variance so if you have used it in your tank behavior i will be coming back to Tank Battle for a while yet :)
Maybe, just maybe :)
I am (relatively) close to finishing a new demo, a compilation of some of the best beeper music from older games. It will be finished in May, I think. I am also prototyping something at the moment, a non-trivial clone of a trivial game (yeah, another clone it is). Thus far, I enjoyed working on it very much, but I do not want to make any commitments at this stage.
Ok, it would be nice to see some more of your stuff.
Hi Pavero,
Thank you for having a look at the game and reporting a problem. The original version had up and down movement swapped on Kempston joystick, but this was reported and fixed. Do you happen to know if there were several versions of Kempston joysticks? I am asking this because I know of several people who tested the game using a Kempston joystick and seemed to have no problems.
Actually I tested the game in emulators only. I tried Spectaculator and Spin (you can select one version of kempston only) - both have the same issue.
I am sorry you had to wait this long: I was working on another project with a very urgent deadline. I had a look at the joystick and still am surprised it is as wrong as it was, with no-one reporting the problem earlier. Anyway, here is a version of the game that has the correct Kempston joystick routine.
Comments
I do like it when these older games pop up out of nowhere.. :smile:
Although I see the game is from 1995, so is it a recovered game? :)
Looks a bit amatorish but nice, although AI is rather... Is "weird' a politically correct word for Speccy scene?)
Why, no rzx yet?
I can tell you what the AI is. Toss a coin to see whether you want to continue moving onwards or change the direction. If you decided to change the direction, toss a loaded dice, so that there is a small preference to move towards the arm at the bottom of the screen. Then toss a coin to see whether you'd like to shoot at something. If you meet with an obstacle (another tank or static) - use "loaded" coin, which increases the probability of shooting at the obstacle.
Overall, this is definitely "A", but I am not sure if it is "I".
My only excuse is: I was pretty young. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
A small correction: I did not make a new intro, I only created a new loading screen. The intro is exactly identical to what it was in the original version.
When the title music is playing, press "space" while holding "C" for cheat mode ;)
So you are the author of the subject, right? As far as I understand it was made back then in asm then refurnished and compressed. I see your point in emulating AI -- most simple machines did that trick -- but why didn't you use some checkpoints and a 'weighted' coin to move towards the player or the base?
I mean that you could easily define tanks-destoyers and tank-hunters which would make very different experience IMO. Also I would add some damage effect: a broken track (temporary immobility, but can aim and shoot), a broken engine (lower speed), a broken turret (temporary cannot shoot) and so on. It's ok, but why you made it that way, was some original example?
Thanks for sharing)
Hello NRA and thanks for the welcome. Yes, I wrote this back in 1995 and left it unreleased. Recently, I recovered some of my old floppies, including the one with this game. What you have here is, basically, pretty much unchanged version of the game from 1995, except that I added a loading screen and re-wrote all English text (which _was_ pretty atrocious). Of course, I felt that if people still load their programs using tapes, I might as well re-compress using one of the top modern compressors. We had a bit of a discussion over at zx-pk.ru, whether this constitutes a significant enough change to count as a new release, but I do not care anymore.
This was my first reasonably-sized project in assembler. I did not really know how games worked (we are really spoilt by the Internet now). I learned few tricks by disassembling some routines from Firefly and several other games, but this was about it. Basically, I just knew how good games felt playing and was trying my best to reproduce it.
The main problem with the AI in this game stems from my development environment at the time. About 80% of the same was written using 48K with a tape recorder (proper old school!). I used Zeus assembler, but the was no way to store the code, the assets and the assembler, so I had a binary "master" file, to which I would add new snippets of code. Human linker. Hence, this program never had a source code as such, in its entirety. I just wrote things as I went along. (I am sure that as Andrew Ryals was hacking into it, he might have been surprised to see a number of plugs and patches and redundant code, left by such an approach). This made it incredibly difficult to fine-tune the gameplay. The very first version was barely playable, I addressed some of the issues via my patches, but quickly lost heart - the job was a little too hard and the progress a little too slow.
So, the AI is crap because I did not have any rational ideas how to make it better and because the process of making it better intuitively was hard and unrewarding. In your couple of paragraphs you already expressed more rational ideas how to improve it than I had at the time! I probably would not finish this game on 48K computer at all, but luckily, towards the end of the project, I've got one of the good Russian clones with an FDD, which made it just about bearable.
There are similar issues with level design here: I saw in the NES original game that there were different kinds of tanks and different types of surfaces, but I did not realise that there was a progression, a learning curve, where things are gradually added to build up the difficulty and make the gameplay varied. Things were often just slapped on because I could.
So when are we seeing your next game 8-)
I am (relatively) close to finishing a new demo, a compilation of some of the best beeper music from older games. It will be finished in May, I think. I am also prototyping something at the moment, a non-trivial clone of a trivial game (yeah, another clone it is). Thus far, I enjoyed working on it very much, but I do not want to make any commitments at this stage.
I understand but seriously I think the AI is not too dissimilar from some other games of that period,of course i do not play games and look for faults unless they are blindingly obvious and problematic to the game play but there is one thing that can make a game real interesting and that is the random element or `variance`,it does not matter if it is used in the placement of items or baddies or in game behavior I find it can stretch the play ability of a game fourfold.I have been playing Halls Of The Things for nearly 30 years because it uses variance so if you have used it in your tank behavior i will be coming back to Tank Battle for a while yet :)
Ok, it would be nice to see some more of your stuff.
Can you please fix it, Velesoft? ;-)
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0028161
http://www.zx-spectrum.cz
Thank you for having a look at the game and reporting a problem. The original version had up and down movement swapped on Kempston joystick, but this was reported and fixed. Do you happen to know if there were several versions of Kempston joysticks? I am asking this because I know of several people who tested the game using a Kempston joystick and seemed to have no problems.
http://www.zx-spectrum.cz
I doubt there are many people here who would be interested in a beta disk version, but just in case there is someone interested, there also is a beta disc version of the game that was recently made by Tiboh.
http://www.zx-spectrum.cz