Richard's C64 game projects:
Time for the flight of your life
The Up in The Air Team
Richard Bayliss - Programming, compiling, disk/tape mastering, sound effects
Richard Bayliss / Andrew Fisher - Music
Wayne Womersley - Graphics and game project head gaffer
PAGE 1 / PAGE 2 / PAGE 3 / PAGE 4
/ PAGE 5 / Page 6
Project Cancelled
1st
April 2012 - It's no April Fool - Enter the tank (Richard)
After Friday's confusion, I realised that it was the second tank, which Wayne wanted to be used for the game. Well, I did exactly that. I added a few additional sub routines to the BOSS source code and also the animation subroutine. Then I got the boss tank to display. I repositioned the tank. After I was quite happy with the tank's position. It was then time to get that giant green hunk of junk moving left/right at a slow speed. The tank moves a charm. My next step was to get those missiles firing out of the tank diagonally. So I created some subroutines to get the tank shooting. Avoiding the missiles will be quite hard, due to the velocity I set for the missiles. However, shooting the tank at the bottom of the screen is quite easy, but the player still has to avoid collision with the tank. It's very weird to have the tank moving left/right on the water, but I have a little trick up my sleeve to turn the water into grass. :)
5th May 2012 - UITA at RetroVision 2012 (Richard)
It was the weekend, and Wayne surprised me by turning up. At first he thought that on the RetroVision 2012 day he had to go to work. Luckily he booked the day off. We were talking to Frank and Vinny about the C64 in general, and also I showed Trance Sector. Wayne then started talking about future plans for Up in the Air. He told me that he wants Up in the Air to be dedicated to someone special. His father, who loved seeing the game preview in action in front of the Commodore 64. He also said how he used to spend hours trying to get the graphics just about right. There have been some reactions about Up in the Air, which sort of got me wondering - should I continue with this or should I not? Hmm. We all made an agreement to share the latest build of Up in the Air after the event to see where to go from there.
7th May 2012 - Entry Deleted.
Basically it was about the cancelling of the project and how I felt about it (under pressure). After getting an email back from Merman and Wayne, they have motivated me to continue - but this time round, just take my time on it. Not get rushed around, due to being really busy! ... But also get Trance Sector finished first, which is my main target project. Less pressure. :)
22nd May 2012 - Going the Right Direction (Richard)
I have a 12-8 shift coming up later on, a couple of hours of spare time. Now what shall I do with it? I know, I'll get the "Get Ready" and "Well Done" sprites to how Wayne would want those. I just read the strip of paper he passed to me at RetroVision earlier on this month. It reads "When you start the 'Ready' cloud comes on and then scrolls to the left and sits there. Press fire it moves right. It needs to be moving left instead.". I altered the the Get Ready cloud to follow on until it leaves the screen, before the game comes on.
The second thing which Wayne pointed out at RetroVision was that the "Well Done" sprites were in fact the incorrect sprites. I had a plane flying across the screen with the Well Done flag attached to it. Apparrantly, this was meant to be for the end of the game itself. So I had to change the sprites to the "Well Done" cloud. It looks odd, but what says goes :). Now it's time to go to work ... Boooh!
15th May 2013 - Project is cancelled, but there is a positive note
Although I have left this project for about a year or so. I have decided to cancel the entire project. The concept was basically meant to have been another Sub Hunter, but with 1985 style graphics and based in the air. The game really had me stressed out - fitting everything, due to so much graphics and leaving me less room for code and data. I know Wayne mentioned about use of Multi Load, but I couldn't see the point with this. The plan was to make it a single load game. Sadly the game didn't turn out well as we were hoping.
Another problem which I had was that the graphics, which were produced for the game were all created using Firebird Software's "Graphics Editor" and were frozen with the Action Replay. So I had to keep manually capturing every screen with VICE monitor or Action Replay. Then of course compressing the data with Exomizer's Level Cruncher option. Although 20 screens were compressed, there was still hardly enough room for the game code. As the sprites took over MOST of the area. There was a lack in design for the game, as Wayne didn't have access to any PC based graphics/level editors, such as CharPad or Endurion's Element editor (Which would have been a huge help for me :). This was the main reason for why the Firebird Graphic editor was used - and Action Replay.
Johan Janssen was also involved with the project, and he created a nice UITA logo, which I already used for the preview.
I have been discussing to Wayne however, that maybe later on this year, as soon as the "Shoot Em Up Destruction Set #3" and "Invert" are all finished (Hopefully those will get done much quicker). We can do a brand new 'Up in the Air' game (With exactly the same name), in which may involve Smila, to help Wayne with graphics, some of Wayne's work might be left in the game. There is planned to be a complete overhaul of this game. Wayne and I have already agreed that I can build the game, the way which I hoped it should be produced (More variation in attack waves, and variety of enemies on each level). Also, Yes, I shall be featuring Johan's logo. If this does happen, keep an eye out for the TND blog - as I'm no longer doing game diaries here.
The 8 level preview may be coming its way soon. So stay tuned.
After Friday's confusion, I realised that it was the second tank, which Wayne wanted to be used for the game. Well, I did exactly that. I added a few additional sub routines to the BOSS source code and also the animation subroutine. Then I got the boss tank to display. I repositioned the tank. After I was quite happy with the tank's position. It was then time to get that giant green hunk of junk moving left/right at a slow speed. The tank moves a charm. My next step was to get those missiles firing out of the tank diagonally. So I created some subroutines to get the tank shooting. Avoiding the missiles will be quite hard, due to the velocity I set for the missiles. However, shooting the tank at the bottom of the screen is quite easy, but the player still has to avoid collision with the tank. It's very weird to have the tank moving left/right on the water, but I have a little trick up my sleeve to turn the water into grass. :)
5th May 2012 - UITA at RetroVision 2012 (Richard)
It was the weekend, and Wayne surprised me by turning up. At first he thought that on the RetroVision 2012 day he had to go to work. Luckily he booked the day off. We were talking to Frank and Vinny about the C64 in general, and also I showed Trance Sector. Wayne then started talking about future plans for Up in the Air. He told me that he wants Up in the Air to be dedicated to someone special. His father, who loved seeing the game preview in action in front of the Commodore 64. He also said how he used to spend hours trying to get the graphics just about right. There have been some reactions about Up in the Air, which sort of got me wondering - should I continue with this or should I not? Hmm. We all made an agreement to share the latest build of Up in the Air after the event to see where to go from there.
7th May 2012 - Entry Deleted.
Basically it was about the cancelling of the project and how I felt about it (under pressure). After getting an email back from Merman and Wayne, they have motivated me to continue - but this time round, just take my time on it. Not get rushed around, due to being really busy! ... But also get Trance Sector finished first, which is my main target project. Less pressure. :)
22nd May 2012 - Going the Right Direction (Richard)
I have a 12-8 shift coming up later on, a couple of hours of spare time. Now what shall I do with it? I know, I'll get the "Get Ready" and "Well Done" sprites to how Wayne would want those. I just read the strip of paper he passed to me at RetroVision earlier on this month. It reads "When you start the 'Ready' cloud comes on and then scrolls to the left and sits there. Press fire it moves right. It needs to be moving left instead.". I altered the the Get Ready cloud to follow on until it leaves the screen, before the game comes on.
The second thing which Wayne pointed out at RetroVision was that the "Well Done" sprites were in fact the incorrect sprites. I had a plane flying across the screen with the Well Done flag attached to it. Apparrantly, this was meant to be for the end of the game itself. So I had to change the sprites to the "Well Done" cloud. It looks odd, but what says goes :). Now it's time to go to work ... Boooh!
15th May 2013 - Project is cancelled, but there is a positive note
Although I have left this project for about a year or so. I have decided to cancel the entire project. The concept was basically meant to have been another Sub Hunter, but with 1985 style graphics and based in the air. The game really had me stressed out - fitting everything, due to so much graphics and leaving me less room for code and data. I know Wayne mentioned about use of Multi Load, but I couldn't see the point with this. The plan was to make it a single load game. Sadly the game didn't turn out well as we were hoping.
Another problem which I had was that the graphics, which were produced for the game were all created using Firebird Software's "Graphics Editor" and were frozen with the Action Replay. So I had to keep manually capturing every screen with VICE monitor or Action Replay. Then of course compressing the data with Exomizer's Level Cruncher option. Although 20 screens were compressed, there was still hardly enough room for the game code. As the sprites took over MOST of the area. There was a lack in design for the game, as Wayne didn't have access to any PC based graphics/level editors, such as CharPad or Endurion's Element editor (Which would have been a huge help for me :). This was the main reason for why the Firebird Graphic editor was used - and Action Replay.
Johan Janssen was also involved with the project, and he created a nice UITA logo, which I already used for the preview.
I have been discussing to Wayne however, that maybe later on this year, as soon as the "Shoot Em Up Destruction Set #3" and "Invert" are all finished (Hopefully those will get done much quicker). We can do a brand new 'Up in the Air' game (With exactly the same name), in which may involve Smila, to help Wayne with graphics, some of Wayne's work might be left in the game. There is planned to be a complete overhaul of this game. Wayne and I have already agreed that I can build the game, the way which I hoped it should be produced (More variation in attack waves, and variety of enemies on each level). Also, Yes, I shall be featuring Johan's logo. If this does happen, keep an eye out for the TND blog - as I'm no longer doing game diaries here.
The 8 level preview may be coming its way soon. So stay tuned.