New Atari 2600 Homebrew - Ninja Wall Jump

[TrekMD]

Atari Age user walaber has posted a new game he is creating for the Atari 2600 - Ninja Wall Jump!  Walaber is a game designer/programmer for mobile games but he has taken an interest on the 2600 and is porting one of his games to the system. 

The game is a simple one-button game: a ninja is sliding down a wall, tap the button to jump away and slide down the other wall.  There is an opening on the right, make it through and you are in the next room (the opening closes behind you).  It has roughly analog input, e.g. the longer you hold the button, the higher you will jump.  As you progress the position of the door changes, and the size of the door opening gradually decreases.  Spikes also appear that you have to avoid as well.

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Video Here:  https://vine.co/v/OnvMxjErgXr[/align:22khfr0j]

[align=center:22khfr0j][size=180]Development Thread[/size][/align:22khfr0j]

[align=center:22khfr0j][size=80]Posted with permission from walaber.[/size][/align:22khfr0j]

[zapiy]

I like these games, got one on the xbox that was pretty addictive so i would expect this to be similar.

[TrekMD]

I'm quite impressed with how fluid the animation is of the ninja as he jumps.  Looks very nice.

[zapiy]

It does, just shows he has put some dev time in.

[TrekMD]

An update has been posted by walaber...

Progress!  I found cycles in the kernel to support "double spikes" as the game gets more difficult.  I also created moving spikes that oscillate up and down in the middle of a room, forcing you to time your jumps carefully in order to get past.  Title screen got an additional credit line as well
 
I also added support for one of the difficulty switches, the different settings control how quickly the difficulty ramps up.  I have an idea for the other difficulty switch too that should be fun.
 
I'm getting close to completion on this.  On my list right now is:
- additional difficulty switch mode change
- finalize title screen
- add a few more frames of player animation
- fix a few bugs

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[TrekMD]

For those who may be interested in this game, a binary is now posted.  You should give it a try!  This is simple but it plays well! 

[Greyfox]

Looks like a lovely little game

Thanks for posting.

[TrekMD]

The following update has been posted by walaber:

Quick update- I've got the positive pickup implemented.  Now every so often you see a floating letter N I N J A.  Pick up all 5 and you get a brief "dash" that skips you forward several rooms.  I just need to add sounds for it and I think I'll be calling this game done (after a little playtesting hopefully).
 
I'm bumping up against the 4K limit, but I'm pretty sure I've got room for a few more sound effects (collecting a letter + the dash itself).
 
I flicker the player between 1, 2, and 3 copies in order to make a crude "motion blur" effect on the ninja during the dash.  perhaps I should use both P0 and P1 in order to make the spacing a bit tighter...

https://vine.co/v/OXHF6rubTjF

[TrekMD]

Another update has been reported, along with new binaries.  You can get the binaries here:  Ninja Wall Jump.

[font=georgia:3tkvj7j8]Tonight I took on the challenge of making the code support compiling to NTSC, PAL60, and regular PAL.  This involved mostly providing alternate color data, and also allowing for different scanline counts.  rather than stretch the game to fill the PAL screen I opted to center the content in the middle by adding blank scanlines above and below the game content.  this required more code of course, which pushed me over 4K, so I had to look around in the code for ways to optimize.  I found several :)[/font:3tkvj7j8]

[Atarius Maximus]

I played it for a while tonight, it's quite good.  The game doesn't record your high score (what room you got to) when you die so I'm not entirely sure how far I got, but I think I was able to make it to room 20 or so.  Fun game.

[TrekMD]

I haven't had a chance to play this latest version but the binaries I have tried are quite good.  It is an addicting game!

[Atarius Maximus]

Looks like you just have to be careful to not hit the fire button when you die, once you do you go back to the title screen and can't see your high score.  So far I've managed to get to room 30.

[TrekMD]

Looks like you just have to be careful to not hit the fire button when you die, once you do you go back to the title screen and can't see your high score.  So far I've managed to get to room 30.

[Atarius Maximus]

Yeah, I just posted a suggestion to the author to add the high score to the title screen, that'd be a big improvement.  I played a few more times and haven't gotten past 31 yet, the most recent high score I saw posted was 57.  That would take some practice, the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, especially when you have to avoid the ninja stars moving up and down the screen.

[Atarius Maximus]

The game has variable jumping, the longer you hold the button down the higher you jump. It's an important strategy to use to do well in this game.