Play shoddy incomplete game
Atomic Laser Space Octopus's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall Rating | #27 | 1.800 | 1.800 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
There seems some inconsistencies in collision detection, (and which colours do what). And the fact it doesn't loop back when you die is a bit irritating. The lack of responsiveness does suggest underwater though, so that works! The amount of baddies, bullets and size of player sprite is an impressively brave amount to handle in a real time BASIC game though.
Thanks for the comments - glad at least some people can get it running!
Regarding the colours, the idea is that shooting Blue squares is immediate game over, but all other colours need to be shot for energy. The plan was that this combines with the fact that you always fire 4 shots at a time (assuming they are ready to re-fire) , meaning you have to be careful when you fire. Also, the energy cost of shooting means that you really need to hit 2 baddies out out of each set of 4 shots to get ahead.
So, just shooting lots won't get you far.
Blue squares shouldn't really kill you (they are meant to be 'friendly'), but they do. This, and the game exit upon losing were both due to me being desperately short on time to finish.
The amount of stuff moving was largely due to me forgetting how underpowered Spectrum BASIC is. If I'd realised sooner, then I'd have gone for something with less movement. There were meant to be 8 lasers at a time (1 per tentacle), and the Octopus was going to be bigger, but I had to scale that all back to make it in any way playable.
However, I'm dabbling with machine code at the moment, and I may well re-write this as my first proper project, since I do think that the core idea has potential (the multi-way firing combined with having to both hit enemies whilst NOT hitting friends).
Using e.g. the Fuse emulator, load the 'also54.tap' file, then on the Spectrum press R (To get 'RUN') then press Enter.
I don't know much about emulators and getting these kinds of files to work, but I couldnt make it run. :(
Hmm, it should work with a 48k machine. Fuse runs it fine as a 48k Spectrum. It doesn't auto-run - I couldn't figure out how to get BASinC to export a self-running TAP, and I ran out of time...
Note to players: if your emulator seems to act weirdly after loading the .tap file, that's because you're dealing with a 128K game. Select 128 BASIC mode and run it from there.