Under development: Nuts and Milk

[Nonsense in BASIC]

I’ve put together the makings of a Spectrum version of the 1980’s Famicom game ‘Nuts and Milk’
Being my first foray into AGD I thought this would be a good exercise.

I’ve got the main elements working and compiled a 3 level ‘alpha’ (consisting of all the level types in the game).

I’ve tried to copy the game as close as I can but if anyone wants to remind themselves of just what it is I’m copying (or if you’ve never heard of it in the first place!) please have a butchers at this before having a look at my version:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVfFnFCFtjM

OK, here is a list of things I think I need to do to finish the game. Some I can do and some I’m having trouble with. Some may not be possible with ADG.

Animation of ‘Nuts’ (the baddy) - easy
Death animation – Having trouble with ‘KILL’ command
Water (death) animation – see above
Home graphic of ‘Milk’ and his Missus + ‘Heart’ - easy
Respawn of ‘Nuts’ after death – easy
Bonus ticks down during play but doesn’t add to score. This is due to me not knowing how to handle
8 bit values.
No high score. See above re 8 bit values

If I can sort out the above, the game is technically done (apart from me adding the levels – the easy bit)

That said, there would still be elements missing which I would like to add:

If Milk falls from a great height, he falls on his side and you have to press the jump button a few times to get him to stand up. I’ve got no idea how to do this.

I’m using Jonathan’s – make the baddy chase you – script, which is great but if you stand still (in certain areas) so does Nuts. Apart from that the A.I. is pretty similar to the Famicom version (i.e. follow you at all costs)

I would like to be able to Jump onto ladders and ‘stick’ to them. Or at least jump then press up and stick to them (not a massive problem but would improve gameplay in my opinion)

There are probably some things I’ve forgot!

Thanks for reading this and any comments or help would be greatly appreciated

Attachments:

[Jonathan Cauldwell]

If you want a death animation, don't use KILL immediately but change the sprite image to your death animation, and the sprite type to one you haven't used. Then you can set up that sprite event to perform the death animation and THEN use KILL when the animation is complete.

Watching the video, the bonus ticks down from 4000 in steps of 100. I'd use a global variable for this, for example B for bonus, and count down from 40. Display a couple of trailing zeroes using a message at the start of the level. When the bonus counts down from 10 to 9 you'll need to nudge it one position to the right and obliterate the the leading 1. Messages don't print trailing spaces, so blank out an unused character in the font editor or something.

To add the bonus to the player's score at the end, you could reserve a variable to indicate when the level is complete. Let's say you use LET C = 1 when the level is complete, instead of the usual NEXTLEVEL instruction. You could then test for this condition in a main loop event like this:

IF C = 1
 SUBTRACT 1 FROM B
 ADD 100 TO SCORE
 IF B = 0
   NEXTLEVEL
 ENDIF
ENDIF

This will count the bonus into the score at the end of the level. Obviously, you'll need to display the bonus and score too. You might also want to slow it down, and maybe add a BEEP sound effect if you like.

There's no easy way to do high scores unless you return to BASIC at the end of the game. USR 32000 should return the start address of the six-digit score string - if you want to do something with that, that's up to you.

Falling too far can be done by testing a sprite's X coordinate against the previous x coordinate and adding to a tally. As soon as the player stops falling, check the tally and if it's over a certain amount you can put the player on his side. Assuming we're using P for previous x position and D for distance travelled, we can put some code like this in the player sprite event:

IF X > P
 ADD X TO D
 SUBTRACT P FROM D
ELSE
 IF D > 64
   ( put player on his side )
 ENDIF
 LET D = 0
ENDIF
LET P = X

You'll also need to set P to the player's X coordinate at the start of each screen, or the player will always start on his side.

Putting the player on his side should be easy, just set up a new sprite type and image. In the new sprite type event code you just need to detect the fire button, and reset the player sprite type back to zero when he gets up. Oh, and LET P = X again.

[Nonsense in BASIC]

Thanks Jonathan!. I'll look to implement those changes in the next few days.

[gabriele1969]

Hi there!
I am also trying to have a death animation, but I am not at all clear on what should I write and where (in the main charater code (code 0), in the enemy code, or in the kill code)

I tried
if collision (0 if in the enemy code; otherwise the number of the enemy code, if in the main chracter code)
Other (if in the enemy code)
type 3 (a static animated sprite)
let image= 4 (the image corresponding to my dead character)
animate
Original (if in the enemy code)
kill
..
but it doesnt work...

[gabriele1969]

WOW the game looks fantastic!

how do you make sure that if no jey is pressed your main character sprite stays in frame 0 ? i tried to insert this condition inside the movement code but then the whole animation got screwed up...
G

[Jonathan Cauldwell]

Regarding the death animation, you don't need to do anything else once you've changed the image and type. You need to write the code for the static animation in the new sprite type, which is sprite type 3 in your example. It might look something like this:

ANIMATE
IF FRAME = 0
KILL
ENDIF

This will animate a static sprite, and kill the player as soon as the animation is finished.

If no key is pressed you might want code along these lines:

IF FRAME <> 0
ANIMATE
ENDIF

which will play the animation up to frame 0 and then stop.