Shock Trooper [V The Final Battle]

[fued]

V was a 1983 Tv series, a pretty good one, but even better was its computer game version.
What? What series and what game?

Here is the series original teaser:
youtu.be/aWa1wVSPWps

Wiki on the series:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(1983_miniseries)

The only commercial non official game I currently know is Shock Trooper(1985) for the TRS-80 colour Computer 1 or 2.

Here is a gameplay video:
youtu.be/IW42Az2gehc

Me and my brother played this game a lot around 1986. It was one of the "showcase" software on a standard 32kb COCO.
The game comprises 16 screens: 14 mazes, a title screen and a story intro screen.
Get a hold of em:



Notice every four but the last 2, there is a black door with a radiation cleaner and a technology miniaturizator. They mark 4 stages.
Last screen on last stage you assemble tech parts into a space ship, unshrink it and take away, game won!

Each maze has one entry and one exit, they don´t branch circularly but with dead ends only.
To prevent your success, there are force fields made by generators, cannons, turrets, mirrors, no shooting zones, patrol robots, surprise attack robot and bomb disposals.

There are screens with bomb marks, to complete a stage, you have to pass by it. Collecting prisoners awards points.
You can destroy or paralyze certain objects with your gun, hold fire button to extend an electric discharge, you can also use the space bar to become invisible, both costing radiation, which works like a life bar.
Every shot fired on screen also adds a bit of radiation, so it also doubles (triples) as a time limiter. Touching some type of enemies or bullets is an instant death.

Voila, those are the main inspiration!

But not only, you should see traces of:
-Another World
-Flashback!
-Black Throne
-Prince of Persia
-After the War
-Elevator Action
-etc

[fued]

I will be working with a white background, as it tags well with the series internal visuals.
Defined a layout, sketched some player animations and stages.
1. Create a screen (world).
2. Create, animate and control player on screen (walk only).
3. Create the other 3 screens.
4. Connect the screens.


Some sketch animation.
Here is the player sprite area:


Here is movement with draw gun:


Here are possible animations, walking, walking with gun, draw, turn around.

[fued]

Currently, one can navigate the first four empty basic screens.

Gotta look into those doors and cards now.

[Admin]

Wow, welcome to the ZX Dev! Surprising entry! Thanks for the technical stuff and showing progress, it is kind of intriguing! For the Spectrum there was an official game too, by Ocean, V:
spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/5532/ZX-Spectrum/V

Kepp us posted!

[fued]

Uau, I didn´t know about that, official and by Ocean... the reputation... Checked a youtube. Thanks!

The COCO version was more of a Tutankham (1982) arcade adaptation. [[BEWARE LOUD SOUNDS]]
youtu.be/7Z242gkTzmM

In fact, Shock Trooper´s authors had a static screen adaptation of that game on the COCO by the name of Tut's Tomb (1984)
youtu.be/G7JpLP2Tv_U

Shock Trooper itself being a 1985 release and feeling like an improvement on the original gameplay, makes one wonder if the authors had a sort of engine going.

[fued]

Got the doors fine.

There is a door card system where you can accumulate up to ~6 cards , similar to Alien Breed (1991) on the Amiga.

Each card is spent opening a door by walking into it. You can´t close doors.

You will be able fry doors with your gun but it will be radiation costly and it will take some time exposed without moving to accomplish, similar to mining blocks on Minecraft (2009).



And that reactor you see is what is generating the laser wall you see on next gif. You can pass through it, but it costs radiation dearly.




Gotta work on the gun now before working on exploding the reactor and laser turn off, back to the player.

[gabam]

this game looks so cool!

[jonrandy]

Great use of BRIGHT and non-BRIGHT colours

[fued]

Thanks gabam and jonrandy !

Made some animation tests for the shock gun:



During game you will gain and loose gun powerup, which can be up to 3 levels dictating its distance/reach.

Made basic gun shock behavior, just static sprite so I can test the idea:



And that is the last build. I got confidence on the concept now.
Time to rewrite the game fixing and conforming things in a better fashion code wise.

[rmartins]

Oct 4, 2021 15:56:48 GMT fued said:

...



Pretty cool animation.

[Amaweks]

Oct 9, 2021 14:54:14 GMT fued said:

Thanks gabam and jonrandy !

Made some animation tests for the shock gun:



During game you will gain and loose gun powerup, which can be up to 3 levels dictating its distance/reach.

Made basic gun shock behavior, just static sprite so I can test the idea:



And that is the last build. I got confidence on the concept now.
Time to rewrite the game fixing and conforming things in a better fashion code wise.

I loved the animation, so "Flashback" and "Another World" indeed. The clean visuals works like a charm, loved it.

[fued]

Thanks! Still working things out. Cutting excessive frames here and there, crying on the corner for that , and generally thinking out some of the game play elements.

[Admin]

Oct 23, 2021 0:17:20 GMT fued said:

Thanks! Still working things out. Cutting excessive frames here and there, crying on the corner for that , and generally thinking out some of the game play elements.

Hehe I guess you are in one of the most critical parts of the creating process, specially knowing we are dealing with 8 bit machines
Out of curiosity, are you coding it in Assembler?

Keep it up!

[fued]

SHOCKING NEWS!!!!



Admin , yep, a tough place to be, requires hard decision calls.

What I had before was quite a prototype, code bashed and lot's of experimenting. It covered some of the more important areas of what the game could be.
These past 2 weeks were half spent exactly there...what the game could be. This needs to be defined prior to coding if I want to fit all that I may want.
The other half was spent doing the code targeting only that, nothing more.

The end result right now is that I'm pretty much a bit further than what I had before but using half the resources so far.
There is still room for improvements but I won't touch it unless later needed, time do advance.

I´m creating the game using MPAGD. What a lovely tool.
The good part for me:
I'm a BASIC coder since forever, check my signature below to see (and buy please!) the stuff I do, click on the banners to check making of.
MPAGD has an in-built script language based on BASIC dialect, so my knowledge and experience flows okaysh here, should help me creating logic.

The "bad" part for me:
It is my first time working this engine, therefore one has to understand/master the engine structure and that is quite hard. You do have control over stuff but "HOW" exactly, can be quite eluding.

[mananuk]

Hit it hard, it's looking great!