Amcog games : Request for Beta Testing

I am developing a game inspired by Fervour.

Hopefully I’m targeting a beta version for the first week of April (subject to development testing)

Still finalising graphics (music is mostly ready) and debugging my road generation compiler. So no screen-shots yet. n.b. I’ve developed this from the ground up from first principles, so the mechanism for 3D projection/road traversal is relatively novel and based on pre-calculated lookup tables. The road compiler, runs a program that generates an intermediate form that is translated to an array of polygons that I intend to traverse via a sliding window that describes the renderable/projectable area. It is intended that the road will be optionally multi-lane and also have variable height.

If anyone would like to beta test the game, please reply to this thread.

Thanks for your help.

Tony Bartram
www.amcog-games.co.uk

If anyone would like to beta test the game, please reply to this thread.

Yup.

Yup too. You-know-the-adress :)

I would be very happy to beta-test too.

Thanks for the offers of beta testing.

Making good progress. Its running at 60 FPS on a Raspberry Pi 1 using 3D solid polygons & is written totally in BASIC (choosing different shades for different polygons). I have current a 20MB lookup table which I use for projection which takes a second or 2 to load at the start.

I decided to do everything with solid vector graphics rather than using sprites. The vector graphics are relatively simple e.g. the road is shaded into the distance so that it fades out and consists of 64 triangles and the player consist of an object built from 6 triangles at the moment, although I might increase this.

I simplified the road generation to use a ring buffer that is populated in the game from a simple variable length program (similar to Legends of Magic, but with repeat and an end instruction) rather than a sliding window populated via a compiler (as this was simpler to test and code).

The player data is stored in an array that is modified via built in whole array operations in BASIC. A loop runs over the array to render the polygon via the projection table.

n.b. This game will not be a clone of Fervour, but only inspired by it. So I’m planning to hover the power-ups over the road rather than colouring squares & the road goes up and down as well as left and right. I’m just about to add the power-ups.

Most of the design is about right now. I need to fill out the details and dev test…

Hi I would love to beta test it, as Fervour was one of my favourite games!

Thanks Michael. 4 beta testers sounds like enough testers. Thanks also to Rick, David, Stevyn for offering to test.

Only a ship a road at the moment in this image:

Also, here are a couple of candidate music tracks:
Track 1
Track 2

Quite possibly the look will evolve a bit over the next 10 days.

F-Zero? :)

Running on a Pi 1.

Hopefully in beta in a few days.

Looking (and sounding) good so far :)

yeah, agree with other comments. Looking pretty good so far. I like the old school look. Only suggestion I have is to provide an option to change the distance for rendering the track. A longer distance is always appreciated.

Thanks. I plan to do an update for the Recursion show which will include additional levels and I will consider other features such as a distance selector.

Game number 3 and I’m certainly finding it hard work, but definitely fun. I’d like to have had this out for beta yesterday, but its looking like it will be late Friday night.

Coming on well at the moment. Lots of code reuse from my library to get the finishing touches done.

Just wanted to highlight some characteristics (and differences from Fervour):

• The road has a height dimension so it can have rises and dips.
• The player’s ship (unless it goes over a stop square) continues to move – speed is adjustable so that ship can be accelerated or slowed down.
• I have added a shadow from the ship to the road to indicate the coloured square which affects the player.
• If you fall off the road and can get back on again quickly enough – then the game continues e.g.
  – There is an ‘anti-gravity’ square that gives the ship lift so that you can jump over ‘holes’ in the road.
• The game is called Xeroid.

Definitively similar to one of my favourites games (F-Zero) :)
Will it be possible to create or own tracks?

Hi David,
Not possible yet. But I can add this in the future.

Tony

Hi Michael,
Which is the best website or e-mail address to send you the link to the Beta?
Thanks,
Tony

I have e-mailed out the Beta of Xeroid and it is ready for initial testing.

I will send an update in a couple of days with more levels and a level selector : This is because I would like to allow players to choose which level they play and do not plan to mandate the game be played in order.

Please note:

• I have implemented arrow keys as well as ZX@?.
• No mouse control is currently implemented
  => Suggestions welcome e.g. Should I model a joystick as was done for Overlord? Or should I make a visible virtual joystick such as those provided on tablet games?
• The music can be turned off or quietened via ‘Q’ or an alternative track selected via ‘N’.
• The first beta only has 2 levels.
• The road has a height dimension so it can have rises and dips.
• The player’s ship (unless it goes over a stop square) continues to move – speed is adjustable so that ship can be accelerated or slowed down.
• I have added a shadow from the ship to the road to indicate the coloured square which affects the player.
• If you fall off the road and can get back on again quickly enough – then the game continues e.g.
  – There is an ‘anti-gravity’ square that gives the ship lift so that you can jump over ‘holes’ in the road.

Thank you once again for offering to test. This is invaluable in ensuring I produce the best game I can. I will send the Beta-Testers final version which I release at Wakefield.

In order to ensure the beta has maximum effect, it is requested that Beta Testers :

• Reply which hardware is used to try the game.
  => Especially if testers have access to an ARM X6, Pandaboard, Beagleboard or a Virtual Acorn with 128MB or more RAM.

• Highlight any bugs or ‘odd’ behaviour you see.
• Feedback if the game is too hard or too easy.
• Feedback any suggestions for improvement even if these are only made in the future.

Best Wishes,

Tony Bartram
www.amcog-games.co.uk

Whoo, that’s a big file, that wouldn’t fit on a floppy. :-)

Looking forward to this – but since I’m only getting ~36K/sec, I think I’ll go put the kettle on. Nine minutes to go… <drool>

No that would be some floppy disc. My old games used be ~600k on the Amiga. The MB’s are mostly due to the MP3s rather than chip tunes. However the 2 lookup tables used for 3D are 10MB each (uncompressed). The game code is actually only ~45k.

I’ve run this on a Pi 1, 2 and RPC Emu so far.

Hope the ship isn’t too hard to control (it has inertia). But I think that makes the game more fun…

Looking forward to your feedback.

Tony

Quick updated screenshots:

First thoughts:

• The intro screen is a little hard to read, with the contrasty colours over white.
• Would it be better to swap the Mud and Skid colours, so the mud looked like mud?
• In the Intro screen, Enter or Space ought to start the game, not just a mouse click.
• The ship is really hard to control – taking around six seconds to get from one side of the road to the other (and then there’s the inertia), it isn’t as responsive as one would expect for the game. I’ve yet to finish level one…
• Q/L for changing the volume doesn’t appear to work. It actually does, but like the ship controls, it doesn’t respond very quickly – I’m timing approximately 12 seconds of holding Q to go from max volume to silent.
• I didn’t touch the keyboard for 30 seconds, and the screen went black. You’ll want to inhibit the screensaver…
• “Brake”, not “Break”. ;-)

• I like the height changes in the road. That’s pretty nifty.
• The level 1 supplied is evil…
• …but then, I suck at this. More practice needed.

System:

• Pi model B, original with 256MiB onboard; HDMI to VGA adaptor with screen at 1280×1024. Self-built low-vector ROM (from 26th March sources).

Buglist:

• I didn’t see the green flash when dying, and God knows I’ve done that enough. ;-)

Hi Rick,

I can easily make the ship and sound level controls more responsive. I think I’ll add a difficulty level selector. When developing I end up finding the game really easy – because I play it so much to test it. This is more or less the first thing I get reported via testers i.e. that its too difficult.

This is great feedback. Thanks. I will work on this today or tomorrow. Really I ought to take a break today as I’ve just done 14 hours work….

Thanks again,
Tony

“The intro screen is a little hard to read, with the contrasty colours over white.”
=> I’ll adjust that.

“Would it be better to swap the Mud and Skid colours, so the mud looked like mud?”
=> Yes. I was thinking that when playing it earlier. I seem to have got that backwards.

“In the Intro screen, Enter or Space ought to start the game, not just a mouse click.”
=> I’ll add that as an option.

“The ship is really hard to control – taking around six seconds to get from one side of the road to the other (and then there’s the inertia), it isn’t as responsive as one would expect for the game. I’ve yet to finish level one…
Q/L for changing the volume doesn’t appear to work. It actually does, but like the ship controls, it doesn’t respond very quickly – I’m timing approximately 12 seconds of holding Q to go from max volume to silent.”
=> I’ll add a difficulty option the same as I did for Overlord.

“I didn’t touch the keyboard for 30 seconds, and the screen went black. You’ll want to inhibit the screensaver…”
=> Will do. Anyone know how, before I dig into the PRMs?

““Brake”, not “Break”. ;-)”
=> Ctrl-Break… Oops/

I think I’ll add a difficulty level selector.

Good idea – something like:

Choose your level: 80s Gamer / Badass / Normal / Rick

Really I ought to take a break today as I’ve just done 14 hours work…

I’m not sure I’m even capable of concentrating that long. Are you aiming for a Wakefield release?