ViColum released onto the Cosine site

TMR · Post by **TMR** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 8:37 am

Yup, the topic says it all; my first VIC game ViColumm is now available for download from http://www.cosine.org.uk - ViColumn is a variant of the Sega classic Columns that runs on an unexpanded PAL VIC and the archive contains two flavours; PRG and TAP image. 'Appy Chrimble, you good little girls and boys!

This doesn't affect the distribution over at Cronosoft so if anyone wants to shell out a couple of notes to get a nice tape and inlay they still can. =-)

TMR · Post by **TMR** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:23 am

Hmm... expected a bit more response than that...

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:12 am

Yeah, is't that a great feeling!? You put a great deal of hard work into your program, writing documents for it etc etc etc and then you get absolutely no feedback at all... That is the vic-20 programmer's reward in a nutshell.

I have downloaded your program but not tested it yet...

/Anders

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:51 am

Sorry, I haven't had time or motivation to download it. A quick review:

Anders Carlsson Monthly Gaming (ACMG), issue 12/2005 wrote:ViColumn (TMR & 4Mat, Cosine Systems)

After a few months of wait, this Cronosoft exclusive title has been released as a free download. The game is an implementation of Sega's famous Columns game, once a follow-up to Tetris.

The display consists of eight columns and a number of rows, exactly the amount required to display the playfield and scoring below. The background is black and the area is surrounded by a blue border, which takes enormous proportions due to the narrow playfield. Upon starting the game, the screen scrolls down and then up again, a nice touch.

Blocks of three coloured squares fall down one by one. By using joystick, you can move these to the sides or speed up the fall by moving down. The fire button is used to rotate the three squares, from bottom to top, unlike many other Columns implementations which do it from top to bottom. If you have played this kind of game before, you easily get a bit confused by the reverse action. A total of four colours are used for the squares, although technically there had been room for seven colours.

You have to line up three squares of the same colour horizontally or vertically. Again, unlike other implementations, diagonals are not recognized which is quite frustrating if you are used to it. It makes the game a bit harder than expected, and the limited number of colours used may be a counter measure not to make the game too difficult. The number of possible chain reactions also is lower due to the non-diagonals. Sometimes it appears that when one square could be used both to remove horizontally and vertically at the same time, only one direction is cleared, although it could be me not looking properly.

The game goes on at a reasonable speed all the way up to about 35,000 pts, then increases significantly but stays at the new level for a while. I reached 65,740 points on my first proper attempt, so hard to say if there are more speed increases along the way.

The music is spiffy and at times reminds about Last V8 by Rob Hubbard, but also the music from the Columns game Stack'Em on Intellivision. After a while, the music may get a bit annoying, and since there is no key to turn the music on/off, your only option is to turn down the volume.

Overall a nice game, but with some design choices that prevents me from enjoying it to the fullest. Score: 7 out of 10.

Regarding diagonals, I got a similar comment in the MiniGame compo on Jewels-20 why diagonals are not recognized in that game, so it is a matter of implementation. However, I feel that diagonals in Columns is more common than diagonals in Jewels.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:33 pm

It's Xmas time... been busy doing other stuff. Will have a look next time I have some time free!

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 9:54 am

I've tried it a little now, but not long enough to make it difficult. I think it's a very nice game! And the music is cool. Very Hubbard-ish. Everything looks nice too. But I excpect NTSC users will have troubles reading the score...

Thanks!
/Anders

Tonks · Post by **Tonks** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:36 pm

Down loaded the game today. It is very impressive. I just cannot believe how good the music is. To me it is the best music I have ever heard on the Vic. Has anyone else heard better music? Gameplay is very good, but I do find the lack of diagonals disapointing. However, since my programming skills can barely go beyond 10 PRINT"Tonks is cool" 20 GOTO 10, then I had better just keep my mouth shut.

Schlowski · Post by **Schlowski** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 2:47 am

Hey Tonks, you got the transition from simple 1 line to the complex multi line programs, the rest is only training

No really, we all started like that, it's not so bad at all...

For me playing a game is fun, but writing your own, even if it's crap, is far more rewarding, but that's only my opinion...

Björg

PS: Seems like I tend to 'kidnap' topics in the last time and change their intends... Sorry for that, will try to keep this at a bare minimum...

Shaun.Bebbington · Post by **Shaun.Bebbington** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:56 am

Hi TMR,

Didn't that game get reviewed in Micro Mart

Will have to see if it's mentioned anywhere else in the near future, eh?

Regards,

Shaun.

hawk · Post by **hawk** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 5:38 am

Hi TMR,

When I saw the entry in your BLOG, I thought I better give this game a try. It was great. At first I thought it was a bit too easy...then it REALLY got going.

58520 on my first game.

Cheers,
Mike

CurtisP · Post by **CurtisP** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:23 am

Very well done. This is enough to make me break out an actual Vic.

Ghislain · Post by **Ghislain** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:08 am

CurtisP wrote:Very well done. This is enough to make me break out an actual Vic.

You mean, you actually have a VIC-20 and you don't have it set up in your home?????

Excellent game, TMR!

GreyGhost · Post by **GreyGhost** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:50 pm

I just got 59460 on VicColumns.

Nice Game.

hawk · Post by **hawk** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 7:33 pm

GreyGhost wrote:I just got 59460 on VicColumns.

Nice Game.

I can see a challenge coming up here. I'll have to get ViColumns running on my real VIC to ensure that I'm playing at the correct speed, and try again.

Schlowski · Post by **Schlowski** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:11 pm

60920 - next one, please

Björg

PS: Nice game!

Edit: 66220