Sent a demo build out today, think I’ve settled on the levels for each mode now. Just left with the issue of fixing the Ending Screen up. But, it’s nearly midnight now, so I’m gonna getsome sleep so I’ll be able to focus on this tomorrow evening after work.
It’ll be interesting to see if I get some feedback regarding difficulty settings also. I’ve likely made the game way too hard as I normally do, can’t help it!
Let’s finish this
2020 was virtually a dead end for me with regards to this passion project. I was struggling with doubt in my own abilities as a programmer and other areas of my life through chunks of last year.
Life and crazy lockdowns simply must not get me down anymore, to which end I’ve chosen to live this year as if it were my last, which means accomplishing as many of my personal goals that I can. Where they’ll lead me to, I have no clue. Not planning on dying mind you! More planning on self-improvement, including a certain NES game that I’d neglected until the turn of the year.
I’m getting into the habit of writing little goal lists the night before I accomplish them, so I have a little list of things to attack on my code. Two nights in and it seems to be working pretty well, loads of little bugs fixes made and just two things left to do.
Number 1:
Decide The Level lists for tougher game modes.
Number 2:
Fix the issues with the ending sequence, which are numerous.
It seems that my sprite Zero hit routine is lagging the music and everything up, making it all rather out of pace, if I remove it then, it’s a lot more consistent. But I really want that routine working, it’d be my little piece of icing on the Flap Happy cake.
After that, the game is essentially, complete. Yeah. Not adding any more to it, not compensating between NTSC and PAL Hz, sorry, it’s taken a long time to get done and it runs really nicely for NTSC but should still be okay for PAL regions. I’m still hoping it will entertain some people, even if it’s just my kids.
I may retry cartridge production myself later in the year but will probably try to find some people for support when it comes to publishing, we’ll see about that though.
Flap Happy Cartridge Art Ready!
So, following the getting things done theme, I found some label paper at work which felt pretty close to the real stuff (ICE Brand 130gsm glossy label paper if you’re interested) and figured I’d see what it looks like on cartridge. After a quick bit of re-jigging in photoshop, the printer spewed out these lovelies!
Which is pretty damned cool! Yes, lighting helps 😉
After a bit of cutting and a retry, it ended up looking like this!
As you can see from the photo, it’s looking really damn close to how I hoped it would. As I’m making it to fit on a NROM cartridge, it should look the part I think!
Hoping to get the manual sorted out during this week on some suitable paper once again 🙂 Just need my cutting tools and long stapler arriving from the internet, then it’ll be another step closer to production 🙂