Caves & Cargo - Inspired by Gravity Force

[TheoTheoderich]

Hello all,

I would like to present you my first self-made (and almost finished) BlitzBasic2 game.

Caves & Cargo


You have to collect cargo crates in a cave system with a jet glider and bring them back to the base.
You are constantly fighting against gravity and sometimes against enemies.

....that sounds familiar to you?
Caves & Cargo is heavily inspired by Gravity Force.
This was my favorite game in my younger years and I always wanted to program something like this myself.
Now I started to learn BlitzBasic2 about a year ago (btw. this forum here was very, very helpful!) and you can test the result now.

The game is not quite finished yet. Technically it is (except for a LOT of bugs and some smaller things...), but it stops after some missions/levels.
It's a lot of work to create a mission for the game, so I want to collect some feedback from you first


Caves&Cargo - Download current version as LHA file
https://www.theotheoderich.de/cavesa...esAndCargo.lha

Caves&Cargo - Older versions as LHA files:
https://www.theotheoderich.de/cavesa...dCargo_old.lha


An older Youtube video about the game can be found here:
[ Show youtube player ]


Please test the game and give me some feedback, where it still stuck, what doesn't work, where bugs are, etc..
Only with your help I will hopefully finish the game.

Basically the game runs on every upgraded Amiga, which has at least 1 MB chip-, 1 MB FAST-Mem and a harddisk/CF.
But on an unaccelerated Amiga 500 the game is almost unplayable.
Believe me, I spent a lot of time trying to get the game to run on an almost naked Amiga 500 with 1 MB chip mem.
I couldn't get it to work, but I didn't want to throw the whole game away because of that.

On an A1200 with additional FAST-RAM the game is quite playable in 2-player mode.
If your A1200 does not have FAST-RAM, I recommend to start the game without startup sequence with "execute Caves&Cargo".
Please do read through the ReadMe file before starting the game.

Installation:
Just unpack the LHA archive into a folder of your choice and start the game via the Caves&Cargo icon.

Hint:
Compared to Gravity-Force the controls are slightly different.
If you pull the joystick down and press the fire button at the same time, the afterburner is activated and gives a lot of thrust.
This can save the player's life in difficult situations, but it consumes an extremely large amount of fuel.

Furthermore there are magnets in the game (just like in the original game). Orange magnets attract your ship, blue magnets repel you.


Change Log:
v0.7.8.5 - 23.12.2021
Added:
- Added title/main menu music - thanks to wiseman for this
- Added missing sound effect when hitting the big blue blocker.
- Added level/mission 5 (quite hard, but manageable).
- added new dogfight level. Small, but due to the big blockers flying around only recommended for accelerated amigas.
- Press D to display additional info in the main menu, like available memory, etc.
- M key can be used to turn music on and off in the main menu.
Changed:
- Missions are now selectable in the main menu. This allows you to practice each mission without any problems.
Full highscore points can only be reached if you start in mission 0.
- Memory detection revised. The game now starts even with less available memory, but then it can happen that the game hangs while loading.
Here I need some feedback from you
Bugfix:
- Small blue planes reworked - should now always be able to be shot down and no longer fly through walls.


Known bugs are:
- Sound problems, sound does not stop in time, thrust sounds do not stop.
- At the level start the ship sometimes explodes. Unfortunately this bug is not reproducible for me.
- Shots sometimes stop in the level graphic and remain a source of danger
- Enemies / towers sometimes can not be shot down

[Predseda]

Wooow, those speech samples are cool!

[Mixel]

Yeees! Thanks for making something in this genre, there really aren’t enough of them and they’re so damn fun!

I’ll try and play and give feedback asap. Have you played Zarathrusta? I think that’s a really overlooked game, yeah it’s a Thrust clone but it’s a damn good one.

[Alpha One]

Wow this looks nice, always loved Gravity Force.

[saimon69]

I started to work on a title tune for you, i could produce some two channel ones for in-game if you still have RAM

[TheoTheoderich]

Thank you very much for your comments

@saimon69
That would be great. Thank you very much.
Originally I started with the idea that an Amiga with 1 MB chipmem is sufficient to play Caves&Cargo.
But then only about 25-30 kb chipmem remain ingame.
However, since I have a memory query in there at startup, I could of course activate the ingame music on better equipped Amigas.

Music for the main menu would also be great, if you like.

All music should be in ProTracker format (mod) I guess.

[zzbylu]

Nice game!
[ Show youtube player ]

[Superman]

Wow this really is a very nice game. I really must congratulate you on this especially as you say you only started learning Blitz Basic 2 1 year ago. Such an amazing achievement.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by TheoTheoderich

Thank you very much for your comments

@saimon69
That would be great. Thank you very much.
Originally I started with the idea that an Amiga with 1 MB chipmem is sufficient to play Caves&Cargo.
But then only about 25-30 kb chipmem remain ingame.

Let me see what can be done

[grond]

Pretty cool game. I didn't know Gravity Control but it reminds me a lot of Thrust which is a classic I always loved.

[logo]

I had a lot of fun playing it.
Congratulations !

[Havie]

Good stuff and nice to see another BB2 programmer!

[TheoTheoderich]

There is now a slightly updated version of Caves&Cargo, with title music by wiseman (if the Amiga has enough memory...).
ChangeLog and Download are available in the first posting.

[nikosidis]

Thanks Theo

I tried this game with a friend in 2-player mode and it is one of the best 2-player Amiga games I ever played.

[AmigaCD32]

Wow, and this is your first game?

It's wonderful and takes me back to when I used to play Thrust for hours on end on my ZX Spectrum.

Thank you so much for using your time in making such a great game.

[TheoTheoderich]

Hello all,

just for your information.

Caves & Cargo is still in development....but unfortunately very slowly.

I started a new "real life job" in December and now I only have 1-2 evenings per week to work on Caves & Cargo.


At the moment I'm working on the editor, so that everyone can create and play their own levels with it.

Now the button "Custom" in the main menu makes sense, because you can start your own levels with it.

Custom levels can be created for all four game modes.
Mission, Race, 2ply Race, 2ply Dogfight

In the editor and in the game main menu there will be a level preview and the name of the level and the name of the creator will be shown.

Here are some screenshots, how it looks like at the moment.

[nikosidis]

That is just great!
Looking forward to make new levels with it when ready.
Thanks.