Conversion of New Rally-X

[Wayne / Art Ravers]

Played it - LOVE IT ! I did notice occasional glitching when moving downward in the middle of the playfield ( this is only sometimes ), I also noticed glitching when you use smoke too, the first 3 or 4 smoke patches are fine and the next one flickers ? Oh, I need to mention I am using a C64C with a KUNG FU CARTRIDGE and not Emulators ok ? The Music is nice and the Title Screen is lovely. One slight request - regards colours - could you alter text colours my TV did'nt like the text colours for "Game Over" and the other Screen Text ( sorry been playing that SNK Fighting Game for the C64 too, wanted to leave Feedback for you both - perhaps next time I will use a notepad and leave myself better notes ). ANYWAY... Nit picking aside... This is a lovely Game, Plays well, sounds nice, respect, respect, respect due - Thank You for making this Conversion - I'm still shocked it's taken so long to be done but - WORTH the Wait - Great Stuff ! Two Thumbs Up

Thanks, good to hear feedback from a real C64, I assume you run in PAL mode.

The sprite multiplexer implementation is very simple, when it runs out of sprites there will be flickering as the same sprite is reused for multiple objects in different frames. Keep in mind the player car, red cars, flags, rocks and smoke are all sprites. The smoke is the lowest priority sprite.

I assume you mean it's the high score screen with the blue background that's hard to read? I'll try update the background color, maybe a light blue is better.

Taking so long to finish was mostly due to lack of time and motivation because of work, moving house, family, life etc. It takes some time to get back into working on the project once I haven't touched it for a month or more, but I do think it's important to finish the project.

Cheers,
Jake

PAL Mode - Yes !

YES - It's the High Score Screen with the Blue Background that's hard to read. Did'nt realise the Technical Specs regarding the Sprite Multiplexor, Did'nt want to sound an ungrateful Douche - this is Quality, and I had a LOT of fun Playing it, I shall be returning to it - Lovely Stuff !
I would LOVE a DRAGONBUSTER Conversion if anyone is listening ( One of my fave Old School Games from back in the day... ).

[jake79]

if only we had conversions like these back in the day..

Thanks !

Very much enjoying your latest release, jake79 Thumbs Up

Don't recall playing the original arcade game - only via Playstation emulation on NAMCO Museum Vol.1

That one's a heck of a lot faster and while I dunno how accurate an emulation it is, I mean no criticism of your conversion as the more leisurely pace makes it more enjoyable.

Currently getting about 130,000 on your conversion, while I'm hard-pressed to get more than 60,000 on the Playstation version Very Happy

Thanks, the original arcade Rally-X is so fast it's nearly unplayable. About a year later Namco released New Rally-X, it's the same game with a few changes like lowered difficulty and a few graphics and map changes.

It's closer to the arcade speed if you run on NTSC hardware, on PAL the speed is slightly more casual.

Let me know if you think the difficulty ramp up needs to be adjusted. The difficulty should increase gradually, but I don't want it to be like hitting a wall at a certain level. I can adjust things like speed of the enemy cars, fuel consumption etc.

[hammerhead]

Agreed, the original arcade Rally-X was stupidly hard.

New Rally-X is much more playable, giving you just enough time to glance at the map now and again.

I am playing on PAL but will try NTSC too.

The difficulty ramp-up seems more appropriate for a home version.

The 'Challenging Stage' is not challenging at all. That is also true of the arcade version. It's like taking a break from the difficult levels, which is lovely!

There is the occasional flickering sprite, but it doesn't detract from the gameplay in any way.

Dunno if it's a bug but on a challenging stage there was a flag on top of one of the stationary enemy cars. It didn't show on the map so I had to cruise around to find it. Ramming the car didn't cost me a life though!

I love this game. Thank you so much

[jake79]

...
Dunno if it's a bug but on a challenging stage there was a flag on top of one of the stationary enemy cars. It didn't show on the map so I had to cruise around to find it. Ramming the car didn't cost me a life though!
...

That's clearly a bug, I'll have a look at it.

Cheers,
Jake

[jake79]

In that case flags, rocks and smoke could also be made out of chars to free up sprites/reduce flickering. But are you supposed to have unlimited smoke throughout the game?

It's something I was looking at some time ago, but unfortunately it's a bit complex because of the way I scroll the screen. I can't use the VIC smooth scrolling because of the panel on the right. Instead I need to have 7 versions of the tile set that I switch between to do the smooth scrolling. Adding smoke, rocks and flags as tiles would take up ~1.5k of memory, which is ok, I could make space for that, but I'd also need to copy an additional 216 bytes each frame outside the active screen, that would not be possible, I already had to unroll the copy loop for the existing tiles.

For the smoke, each level the player starts with 255 fuel, the car will consume fuel over time, and the smoke costs 4 fuel each time it's used. Once you run out of fuel you'll no longer be able to produce smoke and the car slows down to a crawl. I've limited it to max 6 active clouds of smoke at any time.

In this game most of the time you'll not see many sprites on screen at the same time, but occasionally there will be more than 8 sprites needed.

[hammerhead]

Found another bug.

Sorry, if I were play-testing this it would be recorded, but I'm just playing for fun.

I accidentally hit the fire button to release smoke when colliding with an oncoming enemy car, and sailed straight though it.

Quite surprised as i assumed you're using hardware sprite collision detection, but haven't looked at the code.

Will try to recreate.

[hammerhead]

Got the 'flag over stationary enemy' again.

[OneCheekyDevil]

Got the 'flag over stationary enemy' again.

Use the bug you found in the previous post to get past this

[jake79]

Got the 'flag over stationary enemy' again.

Thanks, I have a new version ready, I believe the flag bug is fixed, plus a couple of other minor bugs and I've changes the colors a bit.

Let me know what you think.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z3j8bfjqtenz4 ... 2.prg?dl=0

[encore]

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=217365

(I was surprised it took this long)

[jake79]

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=217365

(I was surprised it took this long)

lol.. i guess I should be flattered someone bothered to take the time, they could just have asked me how to train the game, I literally have variables for playtesting that does the same.

Anyway, since I did the same to many releases back in the 80s/90s, so I can't really complain without being a hypocrite.

Cheers,
Jake

[jake79]

Found another bug.

Sorry, if I were play-testing this it would be recorded, but I'm just playing for fun.

I accidentally hit the fire button to release smoke when colliding with an oncoming enemy car, and sailed straight though it.

Quite surprised as i assumed you're using hardware sprite collision detection, but haven't looked at the code.

Will try to recreate.

This is a good one, thanks.

I had to think this one over a bit.

The way I do collision detection is first by map location, this works 95% of the time with the enemy cars and 100% of the time with flags and rocks. However in a head on collision with an enemy car the player will not occupy the same tile at the same time in some occasions.

So to fix that I added use of the hardware sprite collision detection, however since the player car consists of 2 sprites there will always be a sprite collision so I need to filter the hardware sprite collision result to make sure it's only the player sprite plus 1 red car colliding. otherwise it could be the red car colliding with a flag or a rock and you'd not want that to cause a player crash.

I'll have to rethink this one a bit.

Cheers,
Jake

[milasoft]

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=217365

(I was surprised it took this long)

lol.. i guess I should be flattered someone bothered to take the time, they could just have asked me how to train the game, I literally have variables for playtesting that does the same.

Anyway, since I did the same to many releases back in the 80s/90s, so I can't really complain without being a hypocrite.

Cheers,
Jake

I'm curious from a programmers point of view how the radar works. Do you use mathematics to divide the position and plot it onto a smaller grid? I looked at the PET version of Rally X but seem to be stumped on how this is done, much like how Defender would work.

P.S. Fantastic game!

[NM156]

It's something I was looking at some time ago, but unfortunately it's a bit complex because of the way I scroll the screen. I can't use the VIC smooth scrolling because of the panel on the right. Instead I need to have 7 versions of the tile set that I switch between to do the smooth scrolling. Adding smoke, rocks and flags as tiles would take up ~1.5k of memory, which is ok, I could make space for that, but I'd also need to copy an additional 216 bytes each frame outside the active screen, that would not be possible, I already had to unroll the copy loop for the existing tiles.

I didn't think of that. Anyway, the flickering doesn't really affect gameplay like Hammerhead said.

lol.. i guess I should be flattered someone bothered to take the time, they could just have asked me how to train the game, I literally have variables for playtesting that does the same.

If you don't want them to "crack" it, for the final include the same trainers as they do, and add high score save, too. We have done it for Puzzle Bobble and will do it for any future releases as well.

[hammerhead]

The way I do collision detection is first by map location, this works 95% of the time with the enemy cars and 100% of the time with flags and rocks. However in a head on collision with an enemy car the player will not occupy the same tile at the same time in some occasions.

So to fix that I added use of the hardware sprite collision detection, however since the player car consists of 2 sprites there will always be a sprite collision so I need to filter the hardware sprite collision result to make sure it's only the player sprite plus 1 red car colliding. otherwise it could be the red car colliding with a flag or a rock and you'd not want that to cause a player crash.

I'll have to rethink this one a bit.

Cheers,
Jake

Had to read that through a couple of times to understand

Plus side - love the colours and the 'flag on enemy car' does seem to be fixed.

Neg side - your collision detection is complex and I also found that, rarely, if you hit a check-point at the same time as a head-on collision with an enemy car, you can also go straight through. No smoke required.

I get why it happens but seems like a bugger to fix.