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)
very impressive, great improvements, nice animations and gameplay!
is AES-mode 'PAL-save'?
NeoHomeBrew Le 02/04/2016 à 00:50Edité par NeoHomeBrew le 02/04/2016 à 02:56 Thank you for pointing me to this issue - will check it out, seems its time to invest into a PAL system.
@ 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.
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!
kuk Le 16/09/2016 à 11:07 not forget the cd insert ;D
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.
Razoola Le 18/10/2016 à 14:07Edité par Razoola le 18/10/2016 à 14:43 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.
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.