Excellent can’t wait to give it a try. Just a thought if you unravel your main print routine loops, (if you have not done it already). You may get loads more frame rate left.
I think I could get about 12/14 galaforce size sprites in one screen rate.

Keep up the good work!

OK Guys - here is a ALPHA of pants invaders ... please don't expect it to be done, this is a work in progress to get your feelings on it.

My excuses for the late release are two-fold, the cold bug hitting the family and one very long 'blond' moment with a bug - HMMM, the less said about that the better ... Oh the excuses can go on and on for ever, but ... I'll stop!

The things missing -
* high score
* blocks
* bonus lifes
* General smooth flow of levels and polished intro etc.

Issues that I am aware of -
* Invaders sometimes sneak a extra down 'step'.
* collision on the player with the bullets, is a little lacking in pixel perfect, so forgive that!
* no debounce on fire, so you can flash past the game-over screen.

Where to find the image - as I don't have the skills to update the wiki - haha I did try and chickened out - so ...

http://www.neilberesford.com/BB/

and follow the below for downloads -

Neil's Community > General Category > Downloads > Pants Invaders for the BBC - SSD image

Err, this is only temp until I can upload files here! LOL
Oh, you're welcome to apply for access to my BB, as it's about time I started using it!!

Ok, I need to venture home. Tomorrow or later tonight, I'll update the post and see if there are any issues with downloads or whatever.

It's been slow-going, but I think it's getting there!

Looking forward to your feedback guys,

Neil

Here's some slightly updated pictures of the game ...

Not very much has been added visually, maybe the name change - might need to think up another name, hmm!

ERRR, they are a little in ya face, and in the wrong order, but should give ya fuel to download the disk image and have a play!

Many thanks all, Neil

Hi Neil

Things I like:

Player's ship, nice retro feel to it
Cyan colours, again, helps with the retro look
Score incrementing
UFO at the top, nice touch

Things I would like to see:

Bases
Z/X keys
Bugfix on entering level 2, I had some alien fire before I saw aliens

Looking good though, keep up the good work and have a good Christmas!

Thanks for your quick feedback Dave, hmmm haha the bugfix with the invaders firing, I forgot to mention that, it's already fixed - just wanted to get a posting on for the guys to view.

I'm creating a list of features and issues, as I type this reply, glad your first impressions are good regarding the game,

Cheers, Neil

Looking good Neil - don't forget the Big Boxers you have to destroy at the end of each level!

Wow, is this /honestly/ your first attempt at writing a game for the BBC? You referred to it as 'naff' so I was expecting something akin to those unspectacular type-ins that used to appear in books/magazines - but despite being unfinished, this is already more playable than half of all BBC Invaders games!

In terms of praise, I don't know where to start - it's got so many neat little features.

I really like how the Player's ship zips back and forth so quickly and you've clearly managed to cram plenty of frames of animation in there, as the bombs drop (and ascend) really smoothly. Speaking of the bombs, I was wondering how you'd managed to give them that unfamiliar pale green look (had to take a screengrab and zoom in with Photoshop to find out for sure!).

Oh, and I absolutely LOVE how the aliens 'shuffle' down a level (except when they move down two levels in error, LOL!) ... can't recall seeing a Beeb version of Invaders doing this?!

Nice splash of colour there when you 'splat' an Alien and the Score Counter incrementing in units is another nice touch.

In fact, Pants is the probably the last word in the dictionary I'd use to describe this!

Things I'd like to see in a future version:

- use of alternate colours for the player's laser
- animated motherships?
- Z/X/RETURN for left/right/fire

Great work Neil - can't wait to try out the next beta!

Got to agree with Dave on all counts here.... this is a beautiful piece of work - very professional, and manages to be both very 'retro' yet very slick at the same time.

Somehow it seems to have a 'personality' quite unlike a lot of Beeb games... maybe it's the rock solid movement without flicker and the nice smooth frame rate. I also love the alien shuffle - nice touch

Looking forward to seeing what comes next!

Hi Neil,

I've just tried out your game and I think that it is coming along quite nicely.

I did notice a couple of bugs however. The first occurs when you keep your finger on the space bar. This seems to cause the event loop to go a little kaka as the following problems occur:

- collision detection doesn't work

- the invaders continue to keep going in the same direction and wrap to the other side of the screen rather than getting to the end of the screen, moving down a bit and then changing direction

- there are issues regarding redrawing of the screen e.g. a bullet can go right through your ship and the ship is not redrawn and some bullets can end up "floating" in the middle of the screen.

The second bug appears to happen intermittently where the whole screen momentarily "jumps" horizontally.

Kind regards,

Francis

Firstly - thanks Dave and Rich for your praise - I like reading your comments and to be honest I have spent a lot of time on understanding the limitations and getting the game to run well within a frame, I'm glad you noticed!!

Now thanks to Francis for your bug report, well bugs report , I have worked out a few of them, changed the keys to the more game related Z/X return etc, so there is progress. However I've been battling with this blasted cold, so XMAS was spent in bed reading books and banging on the floor for that mug of tea that never arrived quick enough! What I will say, again is, thanks for your feedback and it's good to note that you have picked out the main issues that I have noticed.

Update

The collision of the bullets with the player, hmmm that's interesting code that need rewriting - something so simple, it just annoys me. My problem as I said, is working for short periods at work, means I just don't really have the time to get fully in the 'zone' and get the ball rolling more. Also I was getting confused with sprite drawing coords and actual pixel coords, using mode 2, the sprite drawing x is half the actual pixel position. I blame my age here!

I'm currently working on the bases, I think my cheap and easy idea of 4x8 sized blocks seems to be working, I'm currenty working on the redraw of changed block section - it's about 80 percent completed.

I'm not going to hurry the progress here, as it will be a shame to lower the standards.

I'll keep you all update later in the week, once again - thanks for the feedback so far, hopefully another BETA in a week or so,

Neil

Looking forward to a new beta version!

Kind regards,

Francis

Another Alpha of the Invaders!

Firstly - where to find the SSD image -

http://www.neilberesford.com/BB/

and follow the below for downloads -

Neil's Community > General Category > Downloads > Pants Invaders for the BBC - SSD image

OK, the changes etc ...
KEYS have changed -

FIRE - Return/Enter
LEFT - Z
RIGHT - X

This version has the bases working, some issues sorted as follows;

* double downward steps for the invaders.
* collision of player with invader bullet.
* Added delay so screens can be read.

TO DO -

* Mother ship anim.
* coloured player bullet.
* Better debounce for the menu, on fire.
* hi-score.

I've tried to tidy the flow of the game up a little, would be good to get your feedback on the speed-up in later levels etc.

I'm sort of pleased with the bases, I wasn't sure how they would turn out as I am using a three-state block system to get 18 (4x8 size) segments for each base. So, each base uses 3 by 3 character (8x8 size) blocks - making it easy to draw and collision checking.

OK, hopefully if you download the game, you will see an improvement.

I'll keep you all updated on my progress and look forward to your feedback,

thanks all,
Neil

Neil,

If you'd like some help getting a page on the Retro Software wiki setup, feel free to PM me and I'll talk you through how to upload files, pics and embed youtube videos etc.

Sam.

I've just had another play and it's a lot of fun - I got over 1500 and I can't wait to see how the game turns out.

Pants Invaders is now available from this site, too:

http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/pantsinvaders/

Sam.

Wahey, Pants has its own Wiki and Forum - the very least it deserves!

Thanks for getting another build out so soon after the last one, Neil - have downloaded it and will give it a bash later today.

Cheers
Dave.

Well, thanks go to Sam for his hard work in actually creating the site amd moving the topic to it's own forum! I didn't even realize about the forum until you mentioned it -

I'm very impressed so many thanks Sam & Dave!

Hopefully, once the source is there and free to use ( and improve ) then fingers crossed there might be more projects on here!!

Right, better get back to work, I'll continue development at lunch time, lets hope more download the zip and give it a good testing!

Thanks - Neil

Aye! I'll try and give it a plug on the STH mainpage over the next day or two ...

Good work Neil, nice to see bases on there now!


Yes it's turning into rather a nice little resource this site. Full marks all round.

See you at Byte-Back?

Yes Dave, I will try and get to Byte-Back!!

Oh, have just found a horrid blanking issue relating to the invaders.

I have this function that checks the Y position of the invaders and then blanks the whole line of the three bases once they reach. Oh, it's not ideal and needs flagging so it only does it once per line etc, BUT I must, MUST NOT go to the drawing section of the function WHEN the Y position is out of range of the bases. This meant that random parts of zero page were being used as a mask for drawing at the current block height of the bottom invader, every time they moved! I didn't check the timings or notice the blanking ( and also tearing ) of the invaders as they were redrawn.

Sigh - I feel embarrassed, and have uploaded another file into the WIKI page. Please download this one if you noticed the nasty redraws of the invaders. Should be all sorted now.

Right, back to work for me, .. and thanks on the feedback so far ... I'll try and get some updated pictures up later.

Neil