V The Final Battle

[FUED]

Was a 1983 Tv series, a pretty good one, but even better was its computer game version. 
What? What series and what game?

Here is a teaser:
youtu.be/aWa1wVSPWps

Wiki on the series:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(1983_miniseries)

The only commercial non official game I currently know is Shock Trooper(1985) for the TRS-80 colour Computer 1 or 2.
Here is a gameplay video:
youtu.be/IW42Az2gehc

Me and my brother played this game a lot around 1986. It was one of the "showcase" software on a standard 32kb COCO.
The game comprises 16 screens: 14 mazes, a title screen and a story intro screen.
Get a hold of em:

Notice every four but the last 2, there is a black door with a radiation cleaner and a technology miniaturizator. They mark 4 stages.
Last screen on last stage you assemble tech parts into a space ship, unshrink it and take away, game won!

Each maze has one entry and one exit, they don´t branch circularly but with dead ends only. 
To prevent your success, there are force fields made by generators, cannons, turrets, mirrors, no shooting zones, patrol robots, surprise attack robot and bomb disposals.
There are screens with bomb marks, to complete a stage, you have to pass by it. Collecting prisoners awards points.

You can destroy or paralyze certain objects with your gun, hold fire button to extend an electric discharge, you can also use the space bar to become invisible, both costing radiation, which works like a life bar.
Every shot fired on screen also adds a bit of radiation, so it also doubles (triples) as a time limiter. Touching some type of enemies or bullets is an instant death.

Voila, that is the main inspiration!

But not the only, you will see hard copy traces of:
-Another World
-Flashback!
-Black Throne
-Prince of Persia
-After the War

 I will start by trying to cook a ZX Spectrum game 48kb.

[FUED]

I will be working with a white background, as it tags well with the series internal visuals.
Defined a layout, sketched some player animations and stages.
1. Create a screen (world).
2. Create, animate and control player on screen (walk only).
3. Create the other 3 screens.
4. Connect the screens.

Some sketch animation.

Here is the player sprite area:


Here is movement with draw gun:


Here are possible animations, walking, walking with gun, draw, turn around.

[FUED]

Currently, you can navigate the first four empty basic screens.
Gotta look into those doors and cards now.

[FUED]

Got the doors fine.
There is a door card system where you can accumulate up to ~6 cards , similar to Alien Breed (1991) on the Amiga.
Each card is spent opening a door by walking into it. You can´t close doors.
You will be able fry doors with your gun but it will be radiation costly and it will take some time exposed without moving to accomplish, similar to mining blocks on Minecraft (2009).



And that reactor you see is what is generating the laser wall you see on next gif. You can pass through it, but it costs radiation dearly.



Gotta work on the gun now before working on exploding the reactor and laser turn off, back to the player.

[FUED]

Here is testing for the graphics on the shock gun:



And here is the basics of the gun working inside the game.
The bullets next to your radiation bar dictates how far the ray travels, it is a power up you will gain and loose during game.



This marks the last round of concept check, I'm now confident on the game.
Time to rewrite the code on its final form. Gotta keep a sharp eye on memory usage.

[hektormaru]

Amazing

[FUED]

Thanks, I should be back into it this year!