30

Just want to post the latest progress of my Hypernoid project:

- demonstration mode cycles between game title, highscore list and demo gameplay
- more animations & effects added
- two new items to power-up the ball and a new extra life item added
- improved controls and paddle behavior
- all soft dips are working and can be adjusted in the MVS BIOs (difficulty, continue amount, continue time, ball start time and demo sound on/off)
- game runs now also in MVS free play mode and AES mode
- improved Alien Boss (can now be destroyed in three steps, boss life is indicated by the smoke around him, he zooms into the stage throughout a new iris door)

31

very impressive, great improvements, nice animations and gameplay!
is AES-mode 'PAL-save'?

32

Nice happy
avatar
Zeroblog

« Tout homme porte sur l'épaule gauche un singe et, sur l'épaule droite, un perroquet. » — Jean Cocteau
« Moi je cherche plus de logique non plus. C'est surement pour cela que j'apprécie les Ataris, ils sont aussi logiques que moi ! » — GT Turbo

33

Wow ! Like it smile
avatar
@originalfei
Homebrews Connexion
In pixels we trust.
ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARU !

34

Nice work. I love it.

35

THX for the comments guys smile
blastar (./31) :
very impressive, great improvements, nice animations and gameplay! is AES-mode 'PAL-save'?

What do you mean with PAL-save?
I have only a NTSC AES system and can not test the PAL mode -> what kind of problems could happen on PAL systems?

36

I know, PAL-AES (or CD) is uncommon and most emulators do not support PAL-mode but your game will run ~16% slower (NTSC = 60fps / PAL = 50fps), so your game may be easier! ;-)
in PAL-mode you see more scanlines (256 instead auf 224), fill this areas with the nonblank #$20 tile (like the left and right border).

37

Thank you for pointing me to this issue - will check it out, seems its time to invest into a PAL system.

38

it should be possible to install a switch to your AES.

Video register REG_LSPCMODE bit#3: 1:50Hz, 0:60Hz

39

@ Blastar: I have got a PAL AES system a few weeks ago and the game looks good even with the PAL borders. But you are right, because of the lower PAL frame rate the game is significantly easier than in NTSC mode.

After six weeks of planning, drawing, animating and coding the second boss is now finished and ready for action. I always wanted to make a classic worm enemy which consists of a "chain of multible sprite parts" and here is my
interpretation of it. Like the first Alien boss, the Worm boss can be destructed in three steps, has a mouth animation & moving eyes which follow the ball and the smoke sprites around him indicate how much life is left.
The Worm boss is a bit more harder to defeat than the first boss because of the long tail but it is possible if you have learned his motion path.

40

love
avatar
@originalfei
Homebrews Connexion
In pixels we trust.
ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARU !

41

very nice progress... beautyful pixelart! oui

42

Top top

43

Hello Yaronet, fellow Neo-Geo gamer here! I was recently searching for Neo-Geo dev tools when I came across Hypernoid for Neo-Geo.

What really got me excited was the developer's announcement to release the game in physical form for MVS/AES/Neo CD.

Where can I preorder a copy of this game? I want it badly! I was sold the moment I watched those development clips on Youtube. I have already been to the website - Neohomebrew.com, but I couldn't find any information about pre-ordering. Could someone chime in and assist? I'd really appreciate it!
avatar

44

Hi,
thank you a lot for your interest - I plan to release Hypernoid in autumn/winter this year (I need to add more bosses and stages).
Sorry, pre-orders are not available at the moment because I don't feel comfortable to sell a game which is not finished yet wink
Will post it here when it becomes available.

45

Quick update of the latest progress: I have got a new drawing tablet (Wacom Cintiq) a few weeks ago and I was quite addicted to that thing because
it is really incredible what you can do with it. After getting used to the pen pressure and the program settings I have drawn a cover design for the
MVS shockbox inserts of Hypernoid. Here is a preview of the (provisional) draft version:

hypernoid-cover-preview.jpg

46

NeoHomeBrew (./45) :
Quick update of the latest progress: I have got a new drawing tablet (Wacom Cintiq) a few weeks ago and I was quite addicted to that thing because
it is really incredible what you can do with it. After getting used to the pen pressure and the program settings I have drawn a cover design for the
MVS shockbox inserts of Hypernoid. Here is a preview of the (provisional) draft version:

hypernoid-cover-preview.jpg
NeoHomeBrew (./45) :
Quick update of the latest progress: I have got a new drawing tablet (Wacom Cintiq) a few weeks ago and I was quite addicted to that thing because
it is really incredible what you can do with it. After getting used to the pen pressure and the program settings I have drawn a cover design for the
MVS shockbox inserts of Hypernoid. Here is a preview of the (provisional) draft version:

hypernoid-cover-preview.jpg

The insert looks beautiful! Keep up the excellent work. smile I can't wait to preorder my copy! I've been telling my fellow NeoGeo gamers about your game, and they can't wait to preorder as well!
avatar

47

Yes, the artworks are as awesome as those in the game smile
Great work !
avatar
@originalfei
Homebrews Connexion
In pixels we trust.
ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARU !

48

THX for your compliments guys - it motivates me a lot to make more progress with the game. It is nice to read that there are
people out there who are following the development wink Currently, I am working on the 3rd boss - the pixel art is almost complete
but I think it will take about 3 - 4 more weeks of programming before I can show him.

49

not forget the cd insert ;D
avatar
La Neo Geo CD à son site (en tout cas elle essaye...): http://neogeocdworld.info/
Le forum de la Neo Geo sur Yaronet: forums/264

Un petit site sur l'Atari Falcon avec plein de trucs bon pour votre poussin: http://falcon.ti-fr.com/

50

Finally, the third boss is finished now - a new evil alien brain has been born to be merciless and cruel alien
This one have a lot of parts (12 in total, 9 of them moving individually) and therefore the brain boss was more complicated to animate and to move on the screen.

From urgly sketch to final version, after six busy but also exciting weeks:

brainboss-sketch.png



51

Great smile

I think it would look even better if areas that have been hit progressively faded from red to "normal", instead of just having two states (red / "normal"). Maybe this is doable with palette animation?

There's also a tiny bug at 1:02 : the left arm stays red for too long. It looks like the countdown timer stops when an animation is in progress smile
avatar
Zeroblog

« Tout homme porte sur l'épaule gauche un singe et, sur l'épaule droite, un perroquet. » — Jean Cocteau
« Moi je cherche plus de logique non plus. C'est surement pour cela que j'apprécie les Ataris, ils sont aussi logiques que moi ! » — GT Turbo

52

nice boss-design & -animation, looks great! top

53

Yeah ! superbe !
avatar
La Neo Geo CD à son site (en tout cas elle essaye...): http://neogeocdworld.info/
Le forum de la Neo Geo sur Yaronet: forums/264

Un petit site sur l'Atari Falcon avec plein de trucs bon pour votre poussin: http://falcon.ti-fr.com/

54

Zerosquare (./51) :
I think it would look even better if areas that have been hit progressively faded from red to "normal", instead of just having two states (red / "normal"). Maybe this is doable with palette animation?
There's also a tiny bug at 1:02 : the left arm stays red for too long. It looks like the countdown timer stops when an animation is in progress smile

Thank you for your advice - I have found the hit palette bug and fixed it (the reason was a incorrect if-else construction).
Yes, fading in/out of the hit palette would look great but it would collide with the "attacking side" palette (from black to yellow).
Originally, I had added a fade in/out of the "attacking side" palette but scrapped it to keep the code simple and fast.

55

I love it ^_^

56

As it stands now what you have done is great. Are you open to some suggestions that could also be seen as constructive critique about hypernoid? This is not about the gameplay itself but more about a few areas you could address which would make everything pop more.
www.universebios.com

57

Razoola (./56) :
As it stands now what you have done is great. Are you open to some suggestions that could also be seen as constructive critique about hypernoid? This is not about the gameplay itself but more about a few areas you could address which would make everything pop more.

Yes of course, please post what you would improve - I can handle some critique wink

58

Thats good to hear because I would hate for you to take what I say in the wrong way.

The first thing that comes to mind when I watch the video is that when looking at the screen as a whole everything looks flat, by that I mean non 3rd dimentinial. I think this is because of a couple of reasons, firstly because there are shadows in areas they should not be which tricks the eyes. The 2nd reason I would say is maybe most things are drawn in the Red/Green end of the spectrum and there is not enough blue in the picture overall. Maybe that is your intension however so this is just more an observation. Overall everything reminds me of how a game would look on the Atari ST.

So lets look at the shadows a little more closely. Now if we take the spheres in the borders as an example (top left corner), we can say the light source is top right of picture meaning all shadows should be on bottom and right edges in areas that are elevated. The borders are excellently drawn btw. When we look at the actual game play area (inside the borders) we can see the shadow is correct for the left border and the top border. However, you have a shadow in the play area inside the right border, In the real world this shadow would not be there and I think if you were to remove it it would improove the overall look. the same goes for the BG circle, there are shadows in some areas they should not be. In short, once you start using shadows the rules must be applied correctly and for all graphics drawn on screen. Taking this into account you could then use it also in areas behind the scores for example to give some depth. In short I think even if you just removed that one shadow on the inside edge of the play area as a test to see how it changes the overall picture you can then decide if you have to look at other areas also in relation to shadows.

Coming onto colors is a little more harder for me to comment on because this comes down alot to the overall feel your trying to create, because your currently in a limited area it makes some things not standout as much as they chould (the score). I think this could be addressed by altering the color used or adding a shadow into the font used (following the rules as mentioned above). Personally I thnk the ball you knock around may befifit from being pink. this is ala pink bullets in shooters.

As for effects, from what I can see in the boss videos it might be an idea to add a shake effect to the background everytime the boss gets hit. Not the borders or score areas though, only the bg in the play area (where large circle thing is). You could also play with pallettes to increase the effect when the boss is struck.

Given there is no trackball/spinner on neogeo I really like how you have used a force field as a helper because of the joystick. My only issue here is it appears to act in an identical way to the ball hitting the bat. I feel the ball should bounce off the shield at a random trejectory and again maybe play with a background shake or play area type flash to hilight the fact the forcefield hit. Maybe thinking about affects around the ball after hitting the forcefield might be an idea. I guess what I'm really getting at here is there needs to be a more noticeable difference between hitting the bat or the forcefield.

I hope this may have given you some ideas I would really love to see how it would look even if you have a look at how your using shadows. I might quickly knock up a picture of what I mean about shadows.
www.universebios.com

59

Here is a quick example of what I mean about the shadows. I did a quick photoshop removing the shadow on the right of the play area and also correcting/reducing outer shadow of the bg circle (should be less depth than shadow cast by border) on the boss level to give a better idea what Im talking about there. this means the shadow from the bat should be greater than the circle but less than or equal to the border (I did not do that in the picture). In fact, if it were me I would personally use a alternating pixel checkerboard to fake a transparent shadow effect on the bat. You can get that with no cpu overhead if you use the neogeo sprite rotation feature.

Bear in mind that I have worked in a games programming environment so what I’m saying in previous post and here I would also be put to any of my own projects also.

Image3.png
www.universebios.com

60

Thank you a lot for all of your thoughts and suggestions - these are all things I haven't seen anymore - I think it is because of "routine-blindness".

- I will experiment with the shadows of paddle, blocks, font and background to obtain a better 3D effect.
- The greenish-brownish color scheme was intention (in regards to Irem's color palettes) but I have planned to change the design and color palettes every 10 stages (maybe matching to the boss colors of these stages).
- The regular ball color is yellow but it changes to pink if a "Power Ball" item is collected (ball can destroy a block instantly and changes direction) and to green if a "Hyper Ball" item is collected (ball can destroy a block instantly and does not change direction).
- Shaking the enviroment if a boss gets hit is a nice idea - I will experiment with that also.
- I will add a some kind of effect if the guardline is hit (currently it only changes the color palette according to the guardline hit points), maybe an "electric" sound + flashing effect. Not sure about the random ball direction change but I will try it out. Speed up the ball as a "penalty" could be an option too.
- I need also to add a "splash" animation if a laser shot bullet has hit a block / the end of the playfield frame.
- Yes, I want to add optional spinner controls (HPMAN has suggested it also) and currently I am researching on how this could be done.