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[NimsayRamsey]

I'm back. This time with my third WIP machine (My second will skip the WIP forum and go straight to releases, as it's almost finished)

This one is based off Star Fox for the SNES, with loose inspiration and SFX from 2 and 64, and the most...interesting project I've had so far

Goals

• Play through the entire Star Fox campaign; 6 stages and 7 bosses (7 stages 8 bosses if on route 3)
• Stages and Bosses will be based off their original counterparts, with creative liberties taken where needed
• Game Overs will allow you to continue from the stage you last played, but clears your score
• Beating a route takes you to a "final stage," where there's no boss. You play till you die
• Highscores are score ranked, with a star fox 2 portrait and 3 letter tag accompanying the score. Scores that beat the game will have 1-3 badges depending on the route
• Animated, colored DMD to show various info and animations

Problems

• Each stage, once they've all been programmed, are varying lengths. Currently, Space Armada takes 8-10 minutes to complete. I'll need to see if a SAVE or RETURN feature could be added to continue play between startups, as an average run could be upwards of 70 minutes.
• Currently, the table is jank, and prone to softlocking. I have added 2 actions to fix this for now:
  • The left control will lower the asteroid gates in front of each of the 5 tunnels for a few seconds. This will release any ball that was trapped
  • The right control resets the boss arena to a post, although blocking the middle weak point so you can't cheese the boss. This resets once entering/exiting the arena
• The far left and right tunnels are difficult to enter. The right one has an assist wall that pops up when the path is used for a mission
• The watch tower has 2-3 assist features set up due to inconsistency/awkwardness trying to get the ball into its base. The black hole being one of them (explained below)
• The right target in the upper right area is way too difficult to hit reliably
• Lit paths/targets currently do not award double points (or triple if flashing)
• "Backup" Multiball currently does not have a trigger, so it sits on and open for the whole game
• The multiball shoots out of the Black Hole kicker, hidden in the right tunnel. This is mistaken for entering the rightmost tunnel, awarding points and progress (if lit)
• The middle tunnel, if it's the last objective, will instantly send the ball into the boss arena instead of into the outer lanes.
• The Black Hole kicker also does not have a trigger, but has 2 features:
  • Tosses the ball back into the the plunger lane, dumping it into the watchtower - Only when the upper right area has lit targets
  • Warps the player to Black Hole - Not implemented yet. Not sure how to tackle it yet
• With only a handful of gimmicks and boss set pieces, creating unique stages and bosses could be tough. I need to use everything I have available to make each stage feel different and fresh

Set Pieces:

• 5 tunnel paths on the main level. Inner ones loop into each other. Same with outer. The middle shoots directly into the outer loop. A slow shot in any of the inner or outer tunnels will drop the ball out the middle (or inner loop if done right). Points only given for initial entry
• 3 drop targets on the base level, opening a path into the upper left "Power Station." The station features the following:
  • 1 Right Flipper
  • 1 exit tunnel with accompanying path light/sign
  • 3 targets with accompanying health bar displayed in front of the drop targets. The health bar will deplete when any of the 3 targets are hit, awarding a target bonus each time
  • 1 "Chute" gate, forcing the ball to drain out the leftmost path. Comes with a path light/sign
• A watch tower sits within the rightmost curve, with a one-way gate connecting it to the right wall. In the back is a kicker leading to the upper right "Hanger." Contains the following:
  • 1 Left Flipper​
  • 3 hit targets with accompanying lights
  • 2 exits with accompanying gates and lights/signs. Only one is open at a time, and switches back and forth each time the upper targets are hit. The bottom one takes a rail through the watchtower
• A single hit target located against the Hanger base on the main level will also toggle the exit gates
• The middle tunnel shoots the ball into the upper middle Boss Arena when ready. The arena has been programmed to allow easy, hardcode-free behavior and uses the following assets:
  • 1 Hit Target
  • 2 Drop Targets
  • 3 Drop Walls (to block shots)
  • 1 trigger behind the middle post
  • 1 exit trigger
  • 2 condition functions with accompanying variables, one for paths and the other for targets
  • 3 timers for various uses
  • Initialization and soft reset functions for entering/exiting the arena
• 1 "Backup" multiball kicker against the wall of the leftmost tunnel. Awards 1 extra ball in play. Does not stack. - Points not implemented. Hitting during multiball should award double points
• 8 Asteroid drop targets and 5 Meteor walls. The asteroids are scattered about the middle playfield and can be hit to drop. The meteors sit in front of each tunnel and will either stay closed or open upon hit, depending on the circumstance. Exiting a blocked tunnel will lower the wall before closing it behind (when applicable). Meteors and Asteroids are usually reserved for asteroid and sector stages, and up to 3-4 meteor walls will be used at a time
• A black hole kicker used to transport the player to the Black Hole stage, as well as various misc uses.

Now, all of this is cool, but my main concern is still time. 10-15 minutes is quite a while to spend on one machine, let alone an hour, so each stage must feel fresh and different than the others. If the progression system ends up flopping, I may convert it to a standard mission mode where various objectives can send you to different places, out of order, until you get a game over. The final objective would be removed, but it would have the feel of a standard pinball table rather than an arcade machine

 

Video of Space Armada:
https://youtu.be/Eq3FHTrH0qo

 

Screenshot of current design as of writing:

 

  

 

I might make a GitHub for this so people can play it without me having to package files over and over, tossing them in a dropbox each time. I've spend a little over a week on this now, but I worry it's all for nothing

Edited by NimsayRamsey, 30 April 2023 - 03:59 AM.