Homebrew NewoAsteroids quick bugfixes 2019

[newo]

Since I have some free time I figured I should see what I can fix in one of my old homebrew games;
https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Newo_Asteroids

One person mentioned that NewoDefence is my worse game but updating that game is going to take too much work so right now I am going focus on NA because its a more complete experience.

Current todo list;

1. - Add rumble option to menu - DONE
2. - some times the leaderboard does not update or is blank - DONE??
3. - render bullets as lines instead of cubes (should be faster?) - DONE
4. - add option to change the colour of the enemy and player bullets - DONE
5. - add more debug options
6. Add loose, wobbly camera option

Ideas that i have but probably cant do right now;
- make a separate 12 8 player version (4 gc, 4 wii, 4 classic) asteriods battle royal deathmatch game using the same NA game engine.


work in progress beta can always be downloaded and tested from here. (I just overwrite the same file each time)

 

[billapong]

I wouldn't listen to most people on this board regarding the quality of your homebrew because most of them have no interest in actual homebrew past stuff used to install pirated games with. I think your Wii homebrew are some of the best on the console and whatever you update I'm sure they'll still be good. I'm glad you're still taking the time to work on your brew, especially considering the Wii is an older console.

 

[banjo2]

I wouldn't listen to most people on this board regarding the quality of your homebrew because most of them have no interest in actual homebrew past stuff used to install pirated games with. I think your Wii homebrew are some of the best on the console and whatever you update I'm sure they'll still be good. I'm glad you're still taking the time to work on your brew, especially considering the Wii is an older console.

I agree, Newo games are of very high quality. I've put many hours into Escape, Defense, and Asteroids.

 

[newo]

Truth be told NewoDefence was a bit ambitious and rushed. I am not sure of most people get the whole mechanic of transferring people from planet and having a base planet that you have to use to shoot the asteroid. It will require a fair bit of work to get the mechanics to a point where they are seamless.
Any how screenshots

 

[newo]

Spent last night working on asteroid flickering bugs. Sometimes collision detection would fail making some asteriods disappear. Maybe I have too much stuff on the screen but I cant reduce the number right now because that would make the high scores impossible to beat. And beating high scores is a small part of games like NA.


I wonder how many players know that a leaderboard exists?
I was toying with idea of showing the leaderboard every time you die but I think it feels too much like a smartphone game. Plus its laggy to load. 44 people play on average per month which is mostly new people tinkering with their wii. Everynow and then there is someone who gets obsessed with getting a high score - I would like to make sure these people dont feel cheated by dieing as a result of crashing into an invisible asteroid.

 

[newo]

Adding a wave gun/bullet (to previous 5 which are Machine Gun, Lazer, Spread, Burst). Not sure what advantage I am going to give the Wave gun as yet.

Also adding 2 weapons slots similar to Contra3 so that you can still collect all the powerups but withough losing favourite gun (just make sure you switch off it before you collect a new power). Gonna put the switch feature on "-"/"select" on the wii mote.

here is a old video by cid2mizard (I am changing the explosions, and bullet graphics)

 

[Maeson]

NewoAsteroids is my favorite one of yours, so any addition or improvement is always welcomed!

 

[newo]

working on 2 new weapons this weekend. Wavy bullets are hard to code for some reason.




LAZERS!!!

 

[newo]

spent all last night tweeking and like 5 secs after I got my wave beam animation looking decent it turns out that I need to use fixed step physics so that the animation can be consistent at different bullet speeds.

The wave beam will have a wider burst area and travel twice as far as the regular beam with the disadvantage being that its harder to aim. Once I get it working. The second weapon will be beam that fires in a circle around the player - more powerful with all around protection with disadvantage of having a short range of fire. I can't really think of any other cool weapons right now, maybe a homing beam like in Contra3 ?

 

[newo]

Sometimes the random colour picker chooses so nice combinations;

 

[newo]

Apparently I broke the overheating mechanic in in the 2.98 May2018 update. lol. Gonna fix it back into the game but make it slight so that people who never realized it was a thing do not find the "cool down" time annoying.

The game mechanic works by checking if you are firing constantly making the ship gun get gradually hot (indicated by a growing red cycle) then after it reaches a point 100% it disables the fire button and you have to wait a little bit before you can shoot again. The word "over heat" flashes on the screen while its cooling down.

Firing constantly does not really break the game framerate but it gives the game more depth - its one more thing to think about other than just shooting constantly like a maniac! though shooting is the fun part.

Other fixes; changing the explosion animation so that I can have more explosions on screen without slow down. bullets are now lines instead of quads. Lazers have a unique look. The bomb or area blast now has a time so that you can spray and pray in a more controlled manner without wasting your entire stock pile bullets in 1 second. Custom colour for the power ups.

 

[Maeson]

I've always been fine with "overheat" mechanics as long as you have a reasonable amount of shooting time. As you say, it gives the gameplay a bit more oomph because you have to consider giving your weapon a breather, which if done well creates a different rhythm trying to balance things out.

A similar mechanic in certain games is also used for flamethrower type weapons, in which your shot gets weaker and shorter the longer you hold the button, and that one also I find somewhat satisfying.

All those sound like great improvements!

 

[newo]

yes I do not want to bog down the shooting. especially for people who want to chase high scores.

@MaeseJesus I was watching this gameplay video from a fellow developer and I noticed something that could easily implement. See if you can tell what is different in that game vs NA.

 

[Maeson]

Woah, that one looks really nice too! It's fun to see games of this type still being made.

Let's see... NA has asteroids (duh), enemies, shooting... Maybe you're saying gradient backgrounds? They're certainly eye-catching and NA would also benefit from it combined with the usual chaos.

The music of the trailer is also pretty moody, goes along well.

 

[newo]

gradient backgrounds are doable but are going to be hard to generate in real time on the wii's processor. the music in NA can be changed by swapping out the mp3 in the app folder but thats not it.

The answer is that the camera is following the ship slower than the ship is moving. which causes that jelly motion which the ship swings around. In NA the camera is fixed in the center of the screen.

 

[Maeson]

Oh, I didn't even think about that!

It would be worth a try no doubt if it's something that wouldn't cause a headache to include, as it would add a more dynamic feeling, even better if it was possible to toggle between both modes in the options.

 

[newo]

I didnt even think of it either until I noticed it about a hour ago while I was watching that video for the 100th time. I have done the swinging camera in previous homebrews such as NF but NA was so old that I had not learnt how to do it as yet. I will add it to my todo list and work on it tonight. Toggle menus are certainly easy to add - I have that down to a science!

 

[newo]

Beta has been updated and downloadable. Things to look out for;

1. I added the "loose" camera. Still needs a bunch of work because it wobbles a bit too much like you are under the sea. Sometimes you can escape it if you fly off the edge of the world space. DO NOT FLY OFF THE EDGE. will fix later.
2. player and fast enemies now have "afterburners".
3. new explosion effect. happens every other hit.
4. new power up model. you can no longer tell which gun you are going to get by looking at the icon. - will fix later or not because I dont want to worry about making models for every gun.
5. over heating is back in. it will display "!!!!" when you are at 80% heat. if it goes over 100% you have to wait until the heat goes back down to zero.
6. New "Custom" menu in graphics menu. You can now set a custom colour for; afterburner, planet, friendly bullets, enemy bullets, and power ups.
7. The difficulty menu has a "random colour" checkbox which allows you to start the game in a different colour everytime.
8. Wave beam is in place and working. Travels further than the other beams.
9. New look lazer beam.
10. Alternate burst is now more gradual than it was before. So it lasts longer
11. Changed the colour of the game menu to black/gray.
12. Game should run better overall than the 2.98 version and certainly better than the 2.6 version that is stuck in HBB purgatory. Making it run at 60fps is pretty much top priority.

Anyhow let me know how it runs. Only tested on real hardware.

 

[Alexander1970]

Beta has been updated and downloadable. Things to look out for;

1. I added the "loose" camera. Still needs a bunch of work because it wobbles a bit too much like you are under the sea. Sometimes you can escape it if you fly off the edge of the world space. DO NOT FLY OFF THE EDGE. will fix later.
2. player and fast enemies now have "afterburners".
3. new explosion effect. happens every other hit.
4. new power up model. you can no longer tell which gun you are going by looking at the icon. - will fix later or not because I dont want to worry about making models for every gun.
5. over heating is back in. it will display "!!!!" when you are at 80% heat. if it goes over 100% you have to wait until the heat goes back down to zero.
6. New "Custom" menu in graphics menu. You can now set a custom colour for; afterburner, planet, friendly bullets, enemy bullets, and power ups.
7. The difficulty menu has a "random colour" checkbox which allows you to start the game in a different colour everytime.
8. Wave beam is in place and working. Travels further than the other beams.
9. New look lazer beam.
10. Alternate burst is now more gradual than it was before. So it lasts longer
11. Changed the colour of the game menu to black/gray.
12. Game should run better overall than the 2.98 version and certainly better than the 2.6 version that is stuck in HBB purgatory. Making it run at 60fps is pretty much top priority.

Anyhow let me know how it runs. Only tested on real hardware.

Hello.

A great Game,very good Work !!
(A little too difficult for me....I have not mastered the Original Game already....)

Played on a real Wii.

Thank you for your (working) Time and for sharing your great Game.

 

[newo]

haha, There is a easy difficulty but the trick is to avoid the flying saucers until you learn how to destroy them quickly. eitherway thanx for playing!