C64 :: Then there were three

There are now three levels all populated and playable; the "plan" involves attempting to get a fourth installed before Fusion and sending along a "Competition Edition" version of the game, then addding a stage or two more and releasing the final version.

C64 :: Two levels up!

Once more things are happening and i've now got two completely populated levels up and running (although they'll probably need a little more tuning for difficulty) and i've made a bit of a start on the third... but after spending most of the day naffing around with just shy of 600 lines of attack wave data (the combined length of all source files has passed the 5,200 line mark) it was pretty difficult to continue working on it without feeling the need to bounce my head off the monitor, so i took a "break" and wrote the end of level bonus screen instead and that third level will be started in earnest tomorrow. Here's all of the first level and the beginning of the second as a little bit of a teaser:



Now that there's a reasonable amount of level data in the game to test things properly, i'm quite surprised that nothing has turned out to be seriously broken! In fact, the only issue found is with the scoring system because, as it stands at least, there's absolutely no way it'll ever need an eight digit score! So i'm going to trim it down to six digits (which are just about being used if i turn off the collisions and try to trash everything within the existing levels) and that'll mean redesigning the status bar a little to make the boxes a bit smaller... so whilst i'm there, i might as well add a few other little cosmetic tweaks i wanted to do in the process...

C64 :: Making new worlds

Things are moving onwards... the first level of Co-Axis 2189 is now populated; i need to draw more nasties and change which objects are doing what, but the actual movements are all in and the shield strengths at least roughly tested to make sure the player has a reasonable chance of hitting about eighty or ninety percent of what's passing through with a bit of practice. i've started working on the second level and have some of the background graphics and tiles drawn - it still needs a lot more work and a fair bit of detail adding as well but i'm hoping to have something close to ready tomorrow and possibly even get a start on the attack patterns as well.

My plan is to have three levels done by the weekend and i'll put aside a copy of that version for release in case everything goes pear shaped and i run out of time; i'd like to try for five or six in total if there's enough time but the release date is a week on Saturday which means i need to be done and dusted around a week from Wednesday i reckon... [gulp]

C64 :: Presentation... its what you need

The last couple of days have seen a lot of small details that, whilst not blog-worthy in themselves have finally become something worth talking about; i've just finished integrating the titles and end screens into the game's source code - hat means it's starting to actually feel like a game now and, fingers crossed, there aren't any bugs in there that'll crop up as I begin to build and then populate the levels.

There are quite a few cosmetic details installed such as the status box on the score bar flashing up messages and having the name entry for the top score on the title page all in and working (although i'll be honest and admit the code driving that part of things is somewhat spaghetti-like in nature) and the fantastic music that was done for the iteration before last of this project by Matt Simmonds (nearly ten years ago now, the original Co-Axis 2189 was started eleven years after the original!) has been bolted into place along with volume fades as the code transitions from titles to game to completion and back.

In fact, if the entire thing is really working as well as it currently seems to be, that's the bulk of the code written so tomorrow should see the introduction of a few new tiles and characters for the first level and a start made on the look for the second which I already have a couple of ideas for. At the time of writing, the source code (including white space and comments) is just a fraction shy of 3,800 lines...