New release: NitroWheels for the unexpanded Vic 20

[ldxstx]

Name: NitroWheels

Author: Enrico Bruttomesso (ldxstx)

Released: September 19, 2017

Genre: Racing

Requirements: unexpanded VIC-20 (PAL)

Description: a racing game where you drive one of those race cars sketched by you on the exercise book when you were a kid
"Can you race at nitrospeed?"



Screenshots:





Download (UPDATED version with smoother gameplay + difficulty levels):

NitroWheels zip archive (all formats): http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/upload/nitrowheels-r3.zip
NitroWheels tap format: http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/upload/nitrowheels-r3.tap
NitroWheels d64 format: http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/upload/nitrowheels-r3.d64
NitroWheels prg format: http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/upload/nitrowheels-r3.prg

[orion70]

Grande Enrico! Here's your scrolling game at last. Very nice, fast-paced, old school game. Impressive fluid sprites. A bit too sensitive in steering with keys, at least in VICE emulation .
You should also put the game in the Software Releases thread.

GRAZIE!

[ldxstx]

Grazie Alessandro!
Glad you like it

I played it on a real Vic and with Vice: the best gaming experience in my case is with a joystick called "Albatros" (...yes with one "s") made in the 80s in Italy: at "nitrospeed" you hear Fred Astaire's tap dance thanks to its microswitches

In NitroWheels unfortunately I didn't use the pixel scrolling I was talking about in my messages, but will do next time: it's some months that those routines are completed.

Thanks for playing, I hope you'll enjoy it on your fabolous retro setup

[ldxstx]

A little update: the download page, after the screenshots, now has a short ingame video (Vice+keys).

EDIT: here's the url http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/2017/09/19/ni ... ded-vic-20

EDIT2: Alessandro, forgot to say that you're probably right about the sensitivity. I'll try to improve in the next one!

[ldxstx]

And now comes the dilemma: in these period I'm experiencing some problems with the 1702, but now I think it's Vice to show the color combos I used a lot cleaner than on real hardware. So I'm thinking to use fewer color combos and to spend those bytes elsewhere, maybe giving the opportunity to speedup and have a higher score. What's your opinion? Someone played it on their monitors?

[akator]

Just played this in VICE. Great work! The graphics are perfect for the VIC and I love the audio.

I agree with orion70 that the controls are a bit twitchy, but I'll have to try it on real hardware to know for sure.

[ldxstx]

Just played this in VICE. Great work! The graphics are perfect for the VIC and I love the audio.

I agree with orion70 that the controls are a bit twitchy, but I'll have to try it on real hardware to know for sure.

thanks a lot for your feedback akator and for playing, glad you like it

about the steering: I'm thinking about saving some bytes and bring to the game a smoother kind of scrolling, so the controls should become easier;
at this point maybe could be nice also to alter a little bit the video mode to incorporate more colors while keeping the resolution: I've begun to take a look at some posts by Mike and Tokra ...I hope to come up with some better understanding of what can be done these days on the friendly machine.

Just to know how it feels, in case you like to share: my races using the keys in Vice last 5-6 minutes, what about yours? This way I'll have a better idea about how awkward the steering is

Thanks again!

[ldxstx]

Ok after some work (corrections, etc.) now there are 307 bytes available to improve the steering.

[ajordison]

How about adding an option to steer with paddles, or would that make it too easy? Great work, btw!

[orion70]

my races using the keys in Vice last 5-6 minutes, what about yours?

5-6 seconds
I really s*ck at this kind of games..

[ldxstx]

Dear Vic friends, some good news: the car movement now is smoother and the difficulty has been balanced more.
I'm rewriting other code so the other cars can move in a finer way too, for example.
When all the work will be done, the new version will be available online; I'll try to do that asap.

About the paddles: I'll see how to test them in Vice, if there are some bytes left for that. Thanks for your feedback

Orion70: I'm happy then to bring the update, since I hope that you'll play it a little bit more!

[ldxstx]

Ok here's the smoother version: http://www.nonsolo8bit.it/upload/nitrowheels_r2.prg
I tried it with Vice and with the real Vic.
Please let me know what you think. Enjoy.

[akator]

Wow, thank you Enrico! I think that made a big difference. The steering is much more refined.

However, it is going to take me some practice to play for 5-6 minutes straight like you do

[ldxstx]

Wow, thank you Enrico! I think that made a big difference. The steering is much more refined.

However, it is going to take me some practice to play for 5-6 minutes straight like you do

Thank you, nice to hear that you find it refined

To optimize the duration of the race a solution is to let the player choose the difficulty I'll see what I can do with the remaining bytes. I should have thought about that earlier

[ldxstx]

ok now you find the updated version: before every race you can select also the difficulty
Hope you'll have a better gaming experience now