Add teleportation effect on being hit (seem to just teleport a distance in the direction of the bullet’s trajectory roughly speaking? Maybe with some random angle added?)
Pause the shooting tank on hitting the enemy (until it stops spinning)
Deal with teleporting into a wall?
POINTLESS Add controls to the other tank so it’s actually two player? Or is this pointless because that won’t actually happen ever in the game?
I DID AND I DID Do I really need to implement this level of detail of Combat if I’m not making Combat?
Basic sounds (movement, shooting, death)
Basic AI tank
Add some score stuff by default
Better AI tank? Maybe only as in: it tries not to just ram walls indefinitely?
Improve sounds
WHO CARES Expiry of bullet by distance/time?
Menu
Create a basic menu so you can at least load different levels for testing stuff out
IT LOOKS LIKE ATARI INSTRUCTIONS Make an actually good menu (what does a good menu look like?)
Maybe move to a menu where you select with a cursor instead of letters because they’re pretty gross-looking?
YES Could it look like an Atari instruction booklet?
Meta
NO Contemplate two-player idea for all games? Player 2 as sled? Player 2 as missing woman? Player 2 as Balthazar?
IT IS THE WAY TO GO Try out more detailed instructions (they could potentially even look like Atari style instructions?)
Escape should go back to the menu
Add all new instruction styles
Add side-by-side images as figures for the instructions to fill out the window and add some visual information (especially for people who haven’t seen the films, but also as comedy for those who have)
Muting problems (SFX carrying over (like tank sfx))
Remove final title things as incompatible with the new version of instructions etc.?
Add more explicit driving instructions somewhere (either main screen or per game)
Move images into the atlas and compress?
Do a “points pass” to see where points can be used expressively and when they should not even be indicated
GENIUS In case I don’t check below: REMOVE THE PLAYER TANK in The Conversation, it does nothing, and it breaks the sprite limit
TOKYO STORY FOR NOW Decide about removing Some Like It Hot and find a replacement (ugh)
Implement standard timer ending: flashing score (warning) followed by complete freeze (no audio) with palette swapping of everything on the screen, then return to menu on a timer
Stop all audio at end of a game
Maybe distinguish playing from gameOver to handle that interstitial moment?
Catch special cases with different named sprites etc. to add to the cycle
Check all endings make (some) sense across all games
KIND OF WENT ALL IN Decide on how nicely you’ll implement the cycle in terms of timing and which things change color when
I THINK I GOT THIS SORTED OUT General bugs associated with endings (esp. playing boolean where you end up with player able to move/not move or the enemy not spinning or sounds playing, etc. Messy.)
Fix “fire on start” issue
Add the flashing timer sign that the game is about to end
Citizen Kane doesn’t death spin, I think I have tensions around when the player is active and not, sigh
KEEP THE NO ROUND OVER BUT REMOVE THE WALLS The Conversation doesn’t seem to end? Oh right I actually did that on purpose, but does it make sense? Should there be a time out or not? Maybe in a timeout a random one dies? Or is that weird?
ACTUALLY I THINK IT’S OKAY TO WAIT A WHOLE 30 SECONDS Citizen Kane and others that just involve waiting with a reduce round time so you don’t just sit there for half a minute waiting for something to happen?
Remove maze from The Conversation
Tweak the conversation’s movement to eliminate instant conflict in the centre most of the time
Make the dead take visible while spinning to replicate the idea of the figure in seen through the frosted window - the player won’t know which person it is!
Tweak audio files to make them at least a bit easier to hear (but not too easy!)
Make a splash/title screen/preloader screen (probably Citizen Kane poster image on top of a similar? painting of a tank? Keep it simple)
Investigate a more real/effective preloading sequence…
Tokyo Story (Alone)
Player tank alone on the standard map
Timer ends it (no death)
Slow down the player tank to indicate age?
NAH, FEELS LIKE IT WOULD BE TOO IMMEDIATE AND THUS COUNT AGAINST THE IDEA OF A LONG HISTORY TOGETH Could consider a wife tank beside you initially that death spins and vanishes, leaving you alone
Create figure (ideally a picture of the guy alone?)
Instructions are all about resignation to loneliness after the death of your wife
Citizen Kane (Rosebud)
Get basic version working (tank dies on shooting, castle)
Add a timer (you failed to remember?)
1 POINT for Rosebud
Draw the castle from the movie “properly”
Endings: YOU REMEMBERED, YOU DIDN’T REMEMBER
Instruction: REMEMBER
FULL MOTION OF TOSSING AND TURNING HA HA Wiggling as Kane tank for some more agency?
IT’S FINE? Better audio?
Restore the idea that time runs out and you die, rather than hitting shoot to die
BUG: On loading a second time can’t say Rosebud
Allow multiple Rosebuds
L’Avventura (Island)
Create the island and put the tank on it
Add a timer for ending
NO Add calling out her name for shooting (could even keep the bullet?)
NO Bullet could be the word ANNA?
YEAH Or perhaps no shooting no calling? The instruction kind of does the work here? (Only do the audio if I’m wanting to reference Heavy Rain?)
Instruction: FIND ANNA
Ending: YOU DIDN’T FIND ANNA
BUT NO Add a Claudia tank??? Funny…
The Godfather (Tollbridge)
Create basic scene
Enemy tanks at the toll area that shoot you
YES THIS SEEMS MORE LEGITIMATE TO THE HARDWARE RESTRICTION? Reduce to a single tank surprise-killing you since we might like to keep to the Atari sprite limit?
Add a timer for an ending
Instruction: PASS THROUGH THE TOLL STATION
Time ending: YOU DIDN’T GO THROUGH THE TOLL STATION
BARZINI Death ending: YOU WERE MURDERED BY THE X GANG?
2001: A Space Odyssey (Monolith)
Basic scene with a monolith available
NO Add a whole bunch of tanks that randomly move?
Player and other tank in empty screen
Monolith appears after a delay
Player touches monolith then it disappears and player can shoot
Player can’t get stuck behind the monolith
Player shoots opponent and that’s all she wrote
Instruction: EVOLVE
YOU EVOLVED Winning: something…?
YOU DIDN’T EVOLVE Timeout: should that happen? YOU DIDN’T TOUCH THE MONOLITH? YOU DIDN’T WIN AT EVOLUTION???
INVISIBLE IN THE END, METAPHOR METAPHOR Visible dividing line as the river? (Collides for enemy tank?)
Make AI tank stay on its side (see previous)
Sound for non-firing (maybe just a click?)
Music pre-monolith to announce its arrival?
Make the monolith a standard sprite, jesus christ.
Work on opening instruction as it’s too confusing
Au Hasard Balthazar (Donkey)
Draw the rotations frame by frame
Fix the broken walls
Make Balthazar wander around
Timer
BALTHAZAR IS JUST A DONKEY Instruction: Ummmm
Kill Balthazar ending: YOU KILLED BALTHAZAR
LIFE GOES ON Timer ending: ?
NOT REALLY VERY MEANINGFUL? Alter movement code to use pure random movement?
PART OF A LARGER ISSUE I NEED TO LOOK AT Improve instructions and timer endings?
Change Balthazar to not go upside down?
Balthazar started upside down!
Balthazar doesn’t spin on death (because of the special orientation thing)
Make Balthazar die on a timer (per the movie)
Rashomon
Create basic idea of four cameras looking at the same scene
Point cameras at different locations
Give cameras different ignores
Do we need dividers between the cameras so it’s more obvious?
Add an enemy tank (does it need an AI? Yes.)
NO THIS IS OVERKILL Give cameras different background colors? Tints? Other perceptual differences?
IT’S FUNNIER IF IT’S THE ICONIC COMBAT LEVEL Consider what the tiles need to look like to recreate the basic murder scene (or rather at least one of them)
Add shooting for AI Tank
Instruction: FIGHT?
Lose ending: …
Win ending: …
NO Time ending: …
EXACTLY Endings could all be ambiguous? WAIT THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED?
Taxi Driver (Mirror)
Implement “you talkin to me” on shoot at mirror tank (invisible bullet?)
Point per you talkin to me
Timer for ending?
Instruction: PREPARE YOURSELF
Ending: YOU’RE READY (or maybe not if you have 0 points?)
Mirror tank facing a funny direction?
Point awarded without pressing space? (when screenshotting)
DONE Should I restrict when you can say the words? Could it literally be as “simple” as making it a bullet-based thing? Or should I restrict to being in the mirror zone? Or that plus facing the mirror?
Some Like It Hot (Pink Tanks)
Pink tanks
Enemy AI? Or not?
Shooting and winning etc. Just standard combat actually
HIJINKS ENSUE__ Instruction: BE A WOMAN
Some bugs in there with the game not always ending on death (of player?)
__I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS… Endings: ??? This is a challenge
Beau Travail
THAT SEEMS DISTRACTING Particle effects from the tank’s gun as a cigarette? or not that important and potentially distracting
Basic scene
Mirror tank behind the mirror (same as for Taxi Driver - and interesting that there’s that correspondence between the movies and then the games)
Create second layer that can alternate for a disco feel?
Let the tank reverse for this one instance?
Add a music loop (MIDI? Sample?)
DANCE / THE CREDITS ROLL
TOO DISTRACTING I THINK Maybe speed up/slow down the rate of movement as with his dancing?
Look into music maintenance (it might keep playing?)
Mirror tank starts in off direction?
Should start facing away (as per movie)
FOR NOW WILL “SOLVE” WITH STANDARD COMBAT ENDING Need some signification of the ending
Work with text to avoid certainty he’s dead?
The Conversation
I suppose at least set up a level with two AI tanks to create the audio and see what it sounds like completely without graphics.
THIS IS WORKING I THINK WITH A TANK OUTSIDE THE GAME AREA BOUNDS Think about whether there’s a way to make a Gene Hackman tank and what that would look like - don’t seem to have a reference for what him listening in the hotel room looks like
NO, IT’S TOO SPECIFIC AND DOESN’T GEL, BETTER IF IT’S MORE CONCEPTUALLY ABOUT LISTENING TO A COMBAT MATCH Starting approximation might just be the hotel room and the sound from the next room playing?
SOLVED BY HAVING IT BE A STANDARD COMBAT ARENA A problem: in the film he doesn’t hear the murder, he sees it through the frosted/obscure window
YES! AND THIS WORKS WELL WITH THE INVISIBLE TANK VARIANTS Tank could be at the top of the screen outside the play area which is occluded???
PRETTY MUCH In the movie it’s a murder in the hotel room, so you could have audio of movement for a while and eventually a shot and a death sound
LISTEN THROUGH THE WALL
MURDER! WHO KILLED WHO?
SO NO Should the play area be filled in so you can’t see an implied space? (But that’s not how Combat works with invisible mode…)
YUP, AND FIXED Tank audio carries on (probably across all games)
La Jetée
Basic scenario of the pier, the player, an enemy tank shooting another tank with the player looking on, and maybe a reprise except this time you are the tank being shot?
Or a version where you control both the on-looker tank and the tank being pursued and shot? (Maybe a baby-size tank?)
YES Is this one too complicated to live?
Maybe it’s simpler to have a first scene where you’re observing a tank shoot another tank, and then a second scene where you’re the tank being shot? (They wouldn’t be identical scenes of course, which is bad for time travel.)