I thought I'd try throwing together a quick simulation of Shark Attack :) You can play it here. I've reused most of the code from Sky Attack, so it has the exact same difficultly progression. This includes the increase in speed with each level of the sharks that rise up to attack the player, which correspond to the enemy missiles in Sky Attack. The instructions are still not great, but it's probably going to have to do for a public release until I can find better scans. I was also inspired by your Sky Attack gameplay video to add the level number to the RetroFab version of the artwork. Let me know what you think.
This is really good mate! However lol, the sharks that go down the sides always come up if they don't move to the middle in the original, another thing is the font is really good and what im about to suggest isn't really important but the 9's are straight and the 6's are bent over in the original :) To make it slightly different from the sky attack i would suggest increasing the speed of the sharks but also increase the players rate of fire a little just so it feels a little different :) Also would it be possible to have the view a bit more centered? as it seems im looking through the left eye peice and feels a bit wierd lol. Glad my video helped in some way, i will also do a video on the shark attack most likely same target score :D
Thanks for the great feedback. I've updated the dev build with the following changes for you to try out. Sharks in the left and right channels now always attack upwards. Overall game speed is increased by 10%. Any more and I think us mere mortals wouldn't be able to get past level 5 ;-) The speed of the sharks as they attack upward will still continue to increase (like Sky Attack) beyond level 7 so pros like yourself should still find it challenging in later levels. Thanks for highlighting the non-standard 9 in the score. I've fixed it now. As for the artwork not centered, this was a challenge since the image is always taken through one of the eyepieces so it's hard to find one that is centered. But I've made my best attempt to manipulate it manually so it's more centered now. It's still not 100% but any more and it would start to look too distorted.
Hi, thanks for responding.
Are you really sure you don't want all the boxes and all the instructions 100% remastered like new?
I mean, it's an incredible job that would greatly highlight your spectacular work with the Game & Watch.
It's a great pity, but I suppose you have a reason for not accepting such a great gift and sticking with such old images.
We send you a big greeting and remain at your disposal.
Let us know if there's anything else you need help with!
Thankyou :) I also forgot to mention that it would be better if the retrofab background was a darker blue as it would better contrast the sharks and the score. Just tried it out and its centered enough and loads better, the sharks going down the sides that don't jump to the middle still dont always come up, to compensate the difficulty for normal players between levels 1 to 6 would it be possible to reduce the chance of 1 shark coming up as a 2 then from level 7 its as they are now. Would you be willing to increase the speed of the sharks upto level 12? This would benefit more skilled players but won't hinder the less skilled as I feel they are still a little on the slow side at level 7 :) Cheers
Thanks again for the feedback. I'll see what I can do regarding the speed, but as I mentioned earlier if I'm having trouble at level 5 and 6 then I think more casual players will too. I'll look into why the sharks going down the sides don't always come up, but I suspect it's because of the constraint that doesn't allow all channels to be attacking the player at once (otherwise they'd have no chance to escape). Thanks again for taking the time to review the build. I'll work on the updates and let you know when it's released.
Here's a suggestion, maybe revert the speed back as it was from level 1 > 7 and then maybe one more speed increase maybe like 20% at level 15, this also gives less skilled players a chance to get past 2k and slow the players fire rate down a bit as its a bit fast :) End of the day it is entirely your choice what you do and do what you think is best, I feel a bit bossy but totally not as these are only suggestions :D
Cheers
Your input is greatly appreciated mate. Especially given how familiar (and insanely skilled) you are with the game. I especially like your suggestion of having one rate at which the speed increases from level 1 to 7, and then have a different (faster) rate after level 7 which will ramp up the speed much quicker.
I've updated the dev build so you can try it out. I've increased the speed between level 1 and 7 so that by the time you get to level 7 it's a little faster than it was in the previous build. I've also made the rate of the player's shots faster to balance out the increase in the speed for novice players. After level 7, you should notice the enemy attack speed increase a lot quicker with each level since I can now set a different rate from that of level 1 to 7. Just let me if you think the speed in the levels after level 7 ramps up enough, or if I should increase the rate some more. Should be lot easier to increase the rate now if needed since it won't affect the speed for levels 1 to 7.
I didn't change anything specific to fix the issue where sharks in the left and right channel sometimes don't attack upwards, but I didn't get it while testing the latest changes. Perhaps I changed something inadvertently with the latest updates, or maybe it still happens but I just didn't notice. Let me know if you still find some sharks don't attack upward when they should.
If all goes well I'm hoping to release Shark Attack on Monday.
Hiya, had 4 to 5 goes at it, i really like this change but lol:
1. Because of the increased fire rate I can literally stay on one side and stop 90% of the sharks coming up so I think the speed of the sharks need increasing by about 20% at level 12 then staying at that speed.
2. I've really noticed the speed increase of the sharks coming at the player and I feel the speed they come up at level 11 is perfect, anything past that and even I can't react in time lol
3. The font on the original game with the number 7's they are like hooked over the top (See image) Also the score usually starts with one "0" and yours starts at "00"
Conclusion, what I think may be best
Levels 1 > 7 are fine the way they are. From 8 > 11 the sharks swimming towards the diver is increased upto level 11 as this is plenty fast enough. At level 12 the sharks at the bottom speed up by 20% ish but stay at that speed throughout if this can be done :)
Cheers
7 font in the original game
Thanks for testing. Sounds like we're much closer now. Yeah, it should be possible to increase the speed of the sharks at the bottom by 20% at level 12 and then remain constant. And thanks for the note on the number 7. As for the score having a minimum of 2 digits displayed, this is only on the RetroFab enhanced artwork mode so it's more visually balanced with the added level display. If you switch to the original artwork mode it always starts with 1 digit as per the original game.