Thx, Ralf, Turkwel, I just seems never get, how this forum ppl think... Really, maybe I am not very polite, or something, just I personally always like, if something is not ok, that person will go straight to the point, without blabla... My mistake, I tried to make it less straight, introducing a "what a good game! blablabla", but seems this do not get any effect.
Anyway, Mark, Sokurah, your game is great, graphics are really nice and I like them a lot, game plays fine (except that thing I already mentioned), enjoyed it a lot and hope it will be not the only game you made together.
First off, in my previous post I did acknowledge that I felt a bit of guilt and hypocrisy about what was written, and perhaps I was a bit OTT with my original mini-rant on this, and maybe a couple of things said were out of order, for which i'll freely apologise. I still think it could have been better dealt with, with a little more politeness (straight and to the point are good but that doesn't necessarily have to mean 'rude') but I don't come here to intentionally offend anybody or p*ss them off, and i'm sure nobody else does either, so hopefully now it IS done with.
I just loaded my copy (29/50) into my +3, saved to disk and redefined the keys for Sinclair port 1. Even with my abominable SJS stick the games good, well done guys!!
I just loaded my copy (29/50) into my +3, saved to disk and redefined the keys for Sinclair port 1. Even with my abominable SJS stick the games good, well done guys!!
Thanks. :)
...and to clarify - if anyone has been thinking about it - we didn't keep the small numbered cassettes for ourselves...mine is number 28/50. :D
Played this for the first time this afternoon and its yet another real good game,i know i keep saying it but if/when there is a poll for best game of 2011 its going to be really interesting indeed.
Keyboard only for me on this too, i have never played a game before that reminds me of so many other games (in a positive way),from the `Ultimate` style loading screen and logo it reminded me of Sabre Wulf,Kangeroo in the way fruit is thrown and the way you have to keep dodging and turning through the maze reminded me another old arcade game called `Targ`
Just plays the same as chuckie egg, in CE you press say left/up just before you get to a ladder to go up it. In Dingo if i want to go down at the next junction i press right/down. If the controls were bad you wouldnt get people playing it to level 20 or more.
Same controls as Chuckie Egg, cant see the problem. And plus as the games free i think you should cater for everyones different opinons on controls and give us a choice of 71 control options please ;)
If this was a game from the 80's and you'd bought it from WH Smith you'd never have the opportunity to complain about it.
You couldn't phone up Tim Stamper and say "Tim, the controls are rubbish. Five control keys on one line all next to each other, what were you thinking? Change it straight away"
If this was a game from the 80's and you'd bought it from WH Smith you'd never have the opportunity to complain about it.
You couldn't phone up Tim Stamper and say "Tim, the controls are rubbish. Five control keys on one line all next to each other, what were you thinking? Change it straight away"
So why do people think they can do the same now?
Perhaps I should update it and give it PSSST controls - the QWERT keys. Man, they were terrible. :D
That'll teach those people a lesson. :lol:
I think all of us were prepared to draw a line under this and let it lie...it's why no one has said anything for 20+ hours about this particular subject. But if you want to carry on picking away at this scab then go right ahead, don't let me stop you.
If this was a game from the 80's and you'd bought it from WH Smith you'd never have the opportunity to complain about it.
Oh if only that was true! Thanks to software houses printing their contact details on the inlays gamers would regularly phone in with questions\comments about the game. One company I worked for even had a person assigned to deal with them (take a bow Dave Cummins.) Once in a while I'd see a comment sheet - alright it was meant to be Confidential but I sneaked a peek! - which was a general roundup of what customers thought about specific games. I know this particular company used feedback like this to help decide if they wanted you to do another game for them or not. I believe this was standard practice in the major software houses for contract staff.
You couldn't phone up Tim Stamper and say "Tim, the controls are rubbish. Five control keys on one line all next to each other, what were you thinking? Change it straight away"
You couldn't call up Tim Stamper and ask him the time of day! But I could call up Dynamic Graphics and speak to David Jones and ask him about missing code on his tape - and have a nice chat to him about Spellbound as well. I could call up Gilsoft and ask them to explain to me why The Press took so long to compress a database. I could speak to Elite and ask them why Kokotoni Wilf was so difficult (and have them give me some cheats for it). And that was just me as as someone who'd bought the game and wanted to pass along my comments\questions. BTW those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head, I have no doubt readers who were also around at the time have similar stories.
Yes...for real...in the 80's you could actually talk to the people involved in the games.
Yes...for real...in the 80's you could actually talk to the people involved in the games.
Well maybe, but most people didn't. I was there in the 80s and didn't phone anyone other than Crash magazine to see why my screen dumps of my graphics from the 1st 'On The Screen' feature still hadn't arrived 4 months after the feature appearing.
Oops.....Dynamic Graphics was the name of the program, Procomm was the company. Dynamic Graphics was released on the Mastertronic label as The Graphics Creator. The Procomm release was supposed to include code you could include in your own programs to use the sprite graphics, it didn't. Which is why I called them up and spoke to David Jones about it and he told me the whole story.
Jon Needle just wrote to me a couple of days ago to tell me that Dingo is now available as a standalone iOS application - running under Spectaculator of course.
This version is tweaked to use the Spectaculator controls as default. Here it is running on my iPad. It's a bit hard to control though - it plays a lot better on a real keyboard, but now the iOS option is there for those who wants to play it on there.
I've also been tweaking the game a bit since then and have done away with the last bits of real wasteful code in there, and have now cleared up about 700 bytes.
That means I now have a bit of room to work with so I can tweak the controls - once I have time to look into it. For now I'm working on another project (for the PC).
Finally I was able to play the cassette and give an opinion of the game :)
The game overall is fun and well programmed. The control issues are there...I mean, the game is perfectly controllable and it is not a big issue, specially after some triying practising, although It would have been maybe a bit better if the path issue were a bit more friendly :)
The game is instant fun, and its quite nice for a quick blast, although with time it gets a bit repetitive (but thats something from the original coin op too).
Nice game, and now 2 questions: Is there any new thing in the last levels? (I reached 25th)
Why in the demo the dingos touch the koala and he does not die? :D I want that playing too
The game overall is fun and well programmed. The game is instant fun, and its quite nice for a quick blast.
Nice game, and now 2 questions: Is there any new thing in the last levels? (I reached 25th)
Why in the demo the dingos touch the koala and he does not die? :D I want that playing too
Glad you like it. :)
There is a (very) slight increase in difficulty as you play, but - without checking first - I'm sure that once you've reached level 25 you won't see any further changes.
The reason the koala doesn't die in the demo when the dingos touch it, is because it's running around randomly and not trying to avoid the dingos, and I wanted the demo to run for around 10-15 seconds and chances are that it'll hit a dingo a lot sooner than that, so I disabled the collision detection in the demo and only used "koala against enemy-fruits" there.
Curious, I was reading more about the story of the coin op, and it is quite rare. There is only one collector who owns one board of the coin op...and the funny thing is that he lives in Weisbaden, just 25 minutes away from me :)
Its also not very common to see that the coin op was from Jaleco, but developped by ACG...I wonder how they got in contact or how the idea came up...
Anyways, I think its a nice idea in general to convert coin op which did not have their version in the Spectrum...
I do like this game, spent a couple of hours playing this affa, I managed level 85 but then kind of gave up. Although it becomes fairly easy to complete each level, there is the extra layer of aiming for as many fruit trios as possible.
I'll be by the radio a lot tomorrow so might try to see if there's a kill screen :-D
Comments
Thx, Ralf, Turkwel, I just seems never get, how this forum ppl think... Really, maybe I am not very polite, or something, just I personally always like, if something is not ok, that person will go straight to the point, without blabla... My mistake, I tried to make it less straight, introducing a "what a good game! blablabla", but seems this do not get any effect.
Anyway, Mark, Sokurah, your game is great, graphics are really nice and I like them a lot, game plays fine (except that thing I already mentioned), enjoyed it a lot and hope it will be not the only game you made together.
Si
Thanks. :)
...and to clarify - if anyone has been thinking about it - we didn't keep the small numbered cassettes for ourselves...mine is number 28/50. :D
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Would that be correct Sokurah?
Keyboard only for me on this too, i have never played a game before that reminds me of so many other games (in a positive way),from the `Ultimate` style loading screen and logo it reminded me of Sabre Wulf,Kangeroo in the way fruit is thrown and the way you have to keep dodging and turning through the maze reminded me another old arcade game called `Targ`
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
I'm not completely sure what you mean.
I mean, basically it does this;
If LEFT is pressed do something.
If RIGHT is pressed do something.
If UP is pressed do something.
If DOWN is pressed do something.
So, if you mean "do I check the diagonals?", then "no" - I'm not doing that since I'm already checking the directions separately.
It sounds like you mean there could be an alternative to this - or is the above what you mean?
...spill the beans. :p
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
"[Worried] What do you know about the beans?"
(c) Neil from the Young Ones, 1984.
Hmm, multiple keypresses, I think. You can move and shoot at the same time, or press left and up (eg) at the same time, and the game will do that.
I don't know how else to explain it. :???:
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Same controls as Chuckie Egg, cant see the problem. And plus as the games free i think you should cater for everyones different opinons on controls and give us a choice of 71 control options please ;)
You couldn't phone up Tim Stamper and say "Tim, the controls are rubbish. Five control keys on one line all next to each other, what were you thinking? Change it straight away"
So why do people think they can do the same now?
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Perhaps I should update it and give it PSSST controls - the QWERT keys. Man, they were terrible. :D
That'll teach those people a lesson. :lol:
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Yes...for real...in the 80's you could actually talk to the people involved in the games.
Did David Jones work for Dynamic?
Well maybe, but most people didn't. I was there in the 80s and didn't phone anyone other than Crash magazine to see why my screen dumps of my graphics from the 1st 'On The Screen' feature still hadn't arrived 4 months after the feature appearing.
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Oops.....Dynamic Graphics was the name of the program, Procomm was the company. Dynamic Graphics was released on the Mastertronic label as The Graphics Creator. The Procomm release was supposed to include code you could include in your own programs to use the sprite graphics, it didn't. Which is why I called them up and spoke to David Jones about it and he told me the whole story.
This version is tweaked to use the Spectaculator controls as default. Here it is running on my iPad. It's a bit hard to control though - it plays a lot better on a real keyboard, but now the iOS option is there for those who wants to play it on there.
I've also been tweaking the game a bit since then and have done away with the last bits of real wasteful code in there, and have now cleared up about 700 bytes.
That means I now have a bit of room to work with so I can tweak the controls - once I have time to look into it. For now I'm working on another project (for the PC).
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
The game overall is fun and well programmed. The control issues are there...I mean, the game is perfectly controllable and it is not a big issue, specially after some triying practising, although It would have been maybe a bit better if the path issue were a bit more friendly :)
The game is instant fun, and its quite nice for a quick blast, although with time it gets a bit repetitive (but thats something from the original coin op too).
Nice game, and now 2 questions: Is there any new thing in the last levels? (I reached 25th)
Why in the demo the dingos touch the koala and he does not die? :D I want that playing too
Glad you like it. :)
There is a (very) slight increase in difficulty as you play, but - without checking first - I'm sure that once you've reached level 25 you won't see any further changes.
The reason the koala doesn't die in the demo when the dingos touch it, is because it's running around randomly and not trying to avoid the dingos, and I wanted the demo to run for around 10-15 seconds and chances are that it'll hit a dingo a lot sooner than that, so I disabled the collision detection in the demo and only used "koala against enemy-fruits" there.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Its also not very common to see that the coin op was from Jaleco, but developped by ACG...I wonder how they got in contact or how the idea came up...
Anyways, I think its a nice idea in general to convert coin op which did not have their version in the Spectrum...
I do like this game, spent a couple of hours playing this affa, I managed level 85 but then kind of gave up. Although it becomes fairly easy to complete each level, there is the extra layer of aiming for as many fruit trios as possible.
I'll be by the radio a lot tomorrow so might try to see if there's a kill screen :-D
Man, level 85 and almost a million points. Amazing, I never thought anyone would play for that long. :D
...I can't remember if I did anything to handle levels above 99, but it seems like I could find out real soon. ;) 8-)
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1694367894143130/
Which other coin-ops did the Stampers/ACG work on?