New STE Game - Invasion of the Emerald Saucers

[LaceySnr]

So I've been playing around with AGT for years now, and realised I needed a finite goal in order to actually get something full built, so I asked a mate who wrote a game on the Spectrum ZX Next in BASIC if I could have a go at porting it, and that port is finally finished and available on itch.io: https://robc.itch.io/invasion-of-the-em ... -atari-ste

It's a simple little game that doens't really show off AGT in that there's no scrolling, but it's fast and smooth and quite an addictive score chaser. Picking up pods increases your bonus multiplier, but every shot costs you a point. Feels like it could be a good candidate for STOT.

[Mug UK]

I'll add it to AL in a mo. Need to pay for it first

[LaceySnr]

I do recommend surpporting Rob, but you can just download it for free. When you hit "Download Now" there's a link on the next page that says "No thanks, just take me to the downloads"

[AtariCrypt]

Congrats and a new STe game! I'll buy and try it on my Mega STe later

[LaceySnr]

Congrats and a new STe game! I'll buy and try it on my Mega STe later

Thanks! It's not been tested on a Mega, so if there's any issues do let me know. Hopefully it'll be smooth sailing.

[Cyprian]

So I've been playing around with AGT for years now, and realised I needed a finite goal in order to actually get something full built, so I asked a mate who wrote a game on the Spectrum ZX Next in BASIC if I could have a go at porting it, and that port is finally finished and available on itch.io: https://robc.itch.io/invasion-of-the-em ... -atari-ste

It's a simple little game that doens't really show off AGT in that there's no scrolling, but it's fast and smooth and quite an addictive score chaser. Picking up pods increases your bonus multiplier, but every shot costs you a point. Feels like it could be a good candidate for STOT.

just for the record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS2f-1flbBU

btw. nice article about using DML's AGT:
https://mattlacey.com/posts/2023-09-06_building-dave/
https://mattlacey.com/posts/2023-09-07_ ... e-part-ii/

[LaceySnr]

Yeah that video is the original - even Rob said the STE version is kinda the "Turbo" option in comparison. Moves faster and a whole lot smoother. Looks great on a CRT too

[dma]

Pretty cool game, with sweet visuals.
Some screenshots and a short video on the itch.io page would be cool.
I quite get some Typhoon Thompson vibes on the SFX also (which is very pleasing).

[LaceySnr]

Pretty cool game, with sweet visuals.
Some screenshots and a short video on the itch.io page would be cool.
I quite get some Typhoon Thompson vibes on the SFX also (which is very pleasing).

Yeah I'll suggest a page update to Rob.

I've got some code to clean up around the SFX stuff actually, Rob used this tool to generate the SFX for the Spectrum version: https://zx.remysharp.com/audio/#src=MjA4LDMy - at first I was lazy and just used that to download samples, but then realised writing a 'driver' of sorts would be better. Works quite well I think!

[dma]

Aaah, so that's sampled SFX, not YM SFX, OK. Hence the bit of hiss when those are played.
It could be cool with more "realistic" SFX, if those are samples.
But it's indeed a port, so maybe the SFX code you're talking about will replicate the SpecNext SFX on ST YM.

[LaceySnr]

No sorry, it was sampled and then I changed to YM SFX, because it was samples of the YM anyway There's a good chance there's a bug or two in my YM code that processes the format produced by the tool I posted.

[viking272]

Congrats Matt, great initiative!

Will you/have you published the game code too?

A general question to all, is there a YouTube clip of the STE version? Hopefully I can try it in a week.

[DarkLord]

I grabbed it - will play around with it later.

Thanks for a new STe game!

[LaceySnr]

Congrats Matt, great initiative!

Thanks!

Will you/have you published the game code too?

I'll have to talk to Rob about that I guess, I don't have any qualms about sharing it (other than the fact that some bits are shocking). I am planning to continue working on some AGT tutorials now I've got this done though.

[Atari030]

Nice work, Matt. I'll give it the Mega treatment tonight.

[Ragstaff]

Congrats on the release Matt! I look forward to firing it up on the weekend. Also look forward to seeing you continue with AGT! I still remember your other project!

[LaceySnr]

Thanks fellas, been a while! Dave still exists, was working on updates to it when I decided I needed to learn more about AGT entities etc. and figured a small complete game would expose me to a lot more. Hoping to pick that one up again now.

[DarkLord]

Just ran this on my Mega STe and it seemed to work fine. Good job.

I couldn't find a way to exit back to the desktop but I guess that's
not really necessary.

Thanks for doing this.

[LaceySnr]

I have to confess, there was an issue launching the game a second time and with screen resolutions, and I got lazy and removed the quit binding I'll dig into it sometime and see if I can fix it properly though. Thanks confirming it works on the Mega STe, that's great to know!