Escape The Night Garden - New Atari XL/XE Homebrew

[TL]

[align=center:1z0fhn5g][font=comic sans ms:1z0fhn5g][size=480]Escape The Night Garden[/size][/font:1z0fhn5g]

[size=140]Escape The Night Garden is a new game being worked on for the Atari XL/XE by first time A8 coder Snicklin with music by well known POKEY genius Miker.

The basic idea of the game is to get out of the maze (or night garden in this case) by flicking switches in the right order and avoiding enemies. The game has a total of 24 levels and a few possible secret ones too!

You can keep up to date with development of this game HERE. For the mean time you can take a look at this work in progress video of the game in action![/size]


004: Atari 8 bit WIP: Escape The Night Garden - with added DLIs[/align:1z0fhn5g]

[TrekMD]

I really like the music on the game!

[TL]

I really like the music on the game!

Miker is such an amazing musician, he has done some superb stuff with the POKEY chip.

[guest5084]

Hello.

I'm the programmer of this game and I've just googled and found this thread.

There's slight mis-info here, I can't remember if I said a while ago that there was going to be 24 levels or whether there's a mis-communication. At the moment I'm not 100% sure how many levels there will be, it'll be down to memory space. It'll probably be around four I suspect. Each level having 4 x 6 rooms (24), maybe that's where the confusion comes from, 24 rooms per level. I hope to have some secret rooms / levels too as mentioned.

Yes, Miker is an amazing musician. I'm really glad that he allowed me to use this song, I love the song... though I've heard it a fair few times now!! I don't know Miker in real life, just through the internet.

There's still lots of work to be done, but you can see an update here:
005: Atari 8 Bit WIP: Escape the Night Garden (added animation of Horace)

"Horace Morris" is now animated and has had a change of clothing.

I'm (at this very moment) working on collision detection with the mice. Collisions will mean a loss of energy.

Steve

[TL]

Thanks for coming here and posting and clearing up that confusion! I really look forward to playing the finished version of this, I am a huge Atari 8-bit fan. 

[TL]

Also, if you haven't already seen it, THIS might interest you!

[Greyfox]

you have done wonderful work on this game. can't wait to play the finished version..thanks

[TrekMD]

Thanks for joining snicklin and updating us on the game.  Looks great so far!

[guest5084]

@The Laird, that's ok, I find it quite exciting seeing my work being mentioned on the internet. This seems like such a solitary bit of work to be doing normally. I'm sat here most of the time wrapped up in a bath robe, jumpers and sheets keeping me warm as I refuse to have the heating on (I can afford it, but refuse to pay it), in a dark room, sat here programming. It seems like I am on my own with this, but when I post to the internet, it's great seeing the opinions of people who are well informed on 8-bit architectures and their limitations. My missus asks me why the mice don't have tails, quoting the 8 byte sprite width limitation doesn't really cut it with her.

@Greyfox & @The Laird , the magazine looks fantastic, really fantastic in fact. I will buy a copy of that when it is available. Please ensure though that as many people as possible know about it on different forums. I'm unsure if you're allowed to mention other forums on here, but I'm usually on a different one until I found this little treasure trove.

@TrekMD, thank you for the warm welcome! Now my challenge is from turning it from what is almost a demo into a fully fledged game.

[TL]

@Greyfox & @The Laird , the magazine looks fantastic, really fantastic in fact. I will buy a copy of that when it is available. Please ensure though that as many people as possible know about it on different forums. I'm unsure if you're allowed to mention other forums on here, but I'm usually on a different one until I found this little treasure trove.

Thank you very much, this is the second magazine we have done Homebrew Heroes was the first one, which also had a lot of Atari 8-bit coverage in it.

Feel free to mention any site you want on here, we are pretty easy on the rules. Also feel free to share our stuff on any forums/sites you are part of, we can't be everywhere at once! 

[guest5084]

Ahh, now I now it is OK to mention other forums, I'm usually on AtariAge's 8 bit forum. I suspect that some of you are too, but under different names perhaps?

I've just ordered the Homebrew Heroes book as per recommendation. It's unclear though from the link whether it is a digital or physical copy, but you've got the order anyway!

I'll mention your upcoming book on AtariAge, hopefully nobody else has already posted about it!

[TL]

Ahh, now I now it is OK to mention other forums, I'm usually on AtariAge's 8 bit forum. I suspect that some of you are too, but under different names perhaps?

I've just ordered the Homebrew Heroes book as per recommendation. It's unclear though from the link whether it is a digital or physical copy, but you've got the order anyway!

I'll mention your upcoming book on AtariAge, hopefully nobody else has already posted about it!

I used to be on AA but was suddenly banned without any reason given, shame really as it's a great forum. I still go there as a guest though to read threads, which is how I came across your game. 

Homebrew Heroes is just digital at the moment, printing it worked out being too expensive for us to afford at the time. Please let us know what you think of it!

[guest5084]

That's odd them banning you like that. I think that they've done that to a few people in the past. I can understand that some people may say some things that shouldn't be said (not saying you did!) but that should at least give you a reason. Maybe to ban you, you wouldn't be able to log into your account to know that you're banned, catch 22 I guess?

I'm just downloading the PC version of it at the moment. The first link I got didn't work as it was saying it was for the owner and asking for an email and password, and mine didn't work. So I am downloading the main file.

Oh, and as an update to "Escape the Night Garden", I've now finished the collision detection and energy system (though the energy level needs displaying in a user-friendly manner, not just as a single ascii character in the debug panel). When touched by a mouse, the screen flashes. Running out of energy re-starts everything, but I'll put a Game Over sequence in later. I've also updated some of the map so that you have to walk around a bit more, rather than going straight to the room that you want. There's a few new tiles in there also, which are mainly reworkings of existing tiles due to the lack of spare characters at the moment.

It has just finished downloading, unfortunately as it is a .exe file, I am trying to run it through WINE on Linux Mint and it isn't working, so how else can I go about getting the copy of the mag?

[guest5084]

It actually says "This file is currently set to private."

[TL]

I will shoot you a PM.