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Weird decisions you have taken during game programming

Started by Dream of Omnimaga, March 15, 2016, 11:21:51 PM

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Dudeman313

  • Calculators owned: TI-84 PCE
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Android O Phone
Does this qualify as a signature? 
The answer is "Sure."


Dream of Omnimaga

Bump: This time we will examine the weird ideas I got for Omnimaga Pack 25 Games in 1 and Omnimaga Pack SE 5 games in 1, especifically the game names that I have chosen. If you ever played those Chinese bootleg SNES/NES pirate games or those 160 in 1 NES carts, then it's basically the same thing:

I'll skip the games that had no issue or flickered every frame as mentioned in the OP, but here are the wacky decisions I took for each game in the packages:

Omnimaga Pack 25 in 1:

Game 2: Basically, a Breakout game made in Québec is flipped sideways and depends on your luck rather than skills (the ball bounces in random directions)

3: This is a movie-based game (the problem is that it's based on the movie Chicken Run).

4: Mad Max style game, but for some reasons it's called Excite Bike Rage Attack and your motorcycle looks like a snowmobile.

7: Nothing wrong there, but  with all those stories about steroids in pro sports the name sounds a little misleading nowadays. :P

9: Based on Galaxian, but for some reasons it was called Space Invaders. (hence why it was renamed to GalagACE on color calcs)

10: Trading card game that managed to be even worse than Crazybus and Big Rigs, and by far. You have 5 cards with HP and attack stats that you can re-use over and over, while the enemy can choose between 10. The problem, however, is that all you have to do in order to win a round is choosing the card with the highest amount of HP and atk combined. There is no special attribute, weaknesses nor support cards. Basically, use Tarneda and you are 100% guaranteed to win every round. The only reason why this game was included is for posterity (the worst part is that it's an updated version. The first one ERR:MEM'ed after a few rounds). By the way Cartemon name was inspired from Pokémon and Digimon and stands for card and monsters.

13: Who needs to drop a cable inside a manhole with no one at the bottom to plug it somewhere?

17: There is no way a Pong game can be worse than this. It's still better than Cartemon, though.

19: Atari Racing has absolutely nothing to do with Atari, yet still has Atari in the name. I chose that name because of the graphics, I guess, but even then they look nowhere close to Atari material.

24: You know Starcraft and Star Fox? Well... I figured that if they had a game called Warcraft, then why shouldn't we have one called War Fox? Also despite the original War Fox having never been close to finished, I decided that the 2nd game would still be called War Fox 2 anyway.


Omnimaga Pack SE:

1: Name was inspired from some of the strange names found in Dragon Lance and Forgotten Realms novels, but the game is definitively not the hardest TI-83+SE game ever, despite what it claims. :P

3: Not sure why I called it Nibbles 2, considering how many Snake clones are called Nibbles without a number at the end. I know it had multiplayer on the same calc, but still...

5: Chose the most irrelevant city name possible but I guess it was in response to some school friend talking all the time about how nice Pintendre is. :P


http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/453/45373.html
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

123outerme

Various things, such as:

*For some reason, the "Box and Switch" puzzles I made for Source Seekers would have you picking up an L from a "^" (Which was supposed to represent the Box and the Box Dispenser) and drop it off at the V.
*Also in Source Seekers, To have the final boss be an easy "press the button to win" type of boss (where the "mini-boss" before this final boss was the real challenge)
*In Sorcery of Uvutu, I decided that each world should contain exactly 3 unique tiles (ground, unwalkable, ground with loot laying on it) and 3 enemies ("grunt" 1, "grunt" 2, and then the boss), and there should be an upgrade of each move in the game except for Block (which technically displays with the same code as a move), a currently unused (and I don't have any plans for it) spell, and the two "mega" attacks.
*I dunno, to recreate one of those fighting games I did into one of those "all-compatible" games, changing mostly nothing.

I don't really have anything off the top of my head other than those.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+CSE, TI-nspire Clickpad, TI-84+SE

Dream of Omnimaga

Oh wow, the final boss being easier than others thing, I had this happen quite a lot in my games, although often it was on purpose. For example, in The Reign of Legends 2, after the long mini final boss, there is a plot twist that results into a real final battle, except that to beat him you need special powers. Once you get the powers, it basically becomes impossible to lose since all you have to do is spam the special attack.

In Illusiat 11, the final boss has to be beaten twice, except that the second fight is much shorter than the first.


Nowadays what I prefer doing sometimes is add an optional secret boss that is much harder than the final boss, but with another optional event that increases the final boss strength to be much higher than said secret boss. The first ROL game had this happening and I had plans to add that to Illusiat 13 if it would have been finished.


Which reminds me something: Sometimes I added hard difficulty modes to my games, but often I wouldn't test them completely, so I am unsure if they are too hard lol. I also had the issue where I added an easy mode, but due to the game being easier it resulted into glitches or exploits letting you skip half of the game. Metroid II: The Last Chozo had this problem.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Yuki

  • Calculators owned: TI-83+ (dead?), Casio Prizm (also dead???)
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: A lot
Read Zarmina!
YUKI-CHAAAANNNN
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Dream of Omnimaga

It's impossible to win in almost any of the games included in the package. The only goal is to get the highest possible score. :P
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Travis

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on July 23, 2016, 04:12:49 AM
Which reminds me something: Sometimes I added hard difficulty modes to my games, but often I wouldn't test them completely, so I am unsure if they are too hard lol. I also had the issue where I added an easy mode, but due to the game being easier it resulted into glitches or exploits letting you skip half of the game. Metroid II: The Last Chozo had this problem.

Fascinating! What was the nature of the glitches exactly? As someone who's always been fascinated by glitches and exploits in classic games, I've always wanted to make a game complex enough that interesting/funny quirks could be found in my own game. There's a game in particular that I've wanted to make for most of my life and had planned out extensively but as of today have yet to get around to. I intended to design the code specifically so that if someone somehow went out of bounds, it would get garbage data yet have enough validity-checking not to actually crash, just so the glitchy screens would be easier to explore. :P

Unfortunately, it seems that for some reason so far, most of the programming projects I've done over the years has ended up being stuff other than games....
  • Calculators owned: TI-81, TI-82, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, 2 × HP 50g

Dream of Omnimaga

There is an Omnimaga thread about it, but it's invisible to guests since I posted it in the walkthroughs section. I might eventually make it public to guests here since it's not like many people are still playing those games anyway.

But basically, in Metroid II: The Last Chozo, if you're good enough (which is hard considering the unresponsive key detection) then it's possible to skip the entire 2nd boss area near the beginning off the game map in Easy mode if you have the special armor. I believe it's possible in normal mode with the armor or in easy mode without the armor, but I never tried it. Basically, in Inferna section of the map, there is a deep lava tunnel that is too long to survive through without the varia suit that is given by boss 2. However, in the aforementioned modes/circumstances you can survive long enough to survive through the entire tunnel and make it to the other side, where you can eventually fight boss 3. Due to how events are coded in the game, beating boss 3 acts as if you had beaten boss 2 and gotten the varia suit as well, so the item appears instantly in your HUD after boss 3 dies.

There's also another exploit that works similarly, during the final escape sequence. Unlike other Metroid games where there's a timer counting down and most rooms locked down, this calc game simply has acid lava rising through the entire map faster and faster and the entire map remains open for exploration during the process. But in easy mode with the armor you can survive long enough in the acid to reach the other game room that triggers acid rising. Reaching that room causes the acid level to reset, but it doesn't reset the speed at which it rises, so it doesn't take long before it fills the screen again. But the turning point of that exploit is when you exit that room on the other side, which disables the acid rising flag. This results into the entire game map being explorable again, but save points will not work (the ship one ends the game).


As for Illusiat 6, it was originally too difficult so I added a normal mode, but the normal mode still turned out to be very hard due to how long it takes to level up. This brings up another weird decision I took: Illusiat 7 is even harder than the normal Illusiat 6 mode, yet I somehow decided not to add an easy/normal mode to the game.

I wish you could finish a project @Travis , I would definitively love to see something from you :3=
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Travis

Cool, so it's just like the kinds of exploits seen in speedruns of commercial games.

QuoteI wish you could finish a project @Travis , I would definitively love to see something from you :3=

Me too. ;) I'm hoping that the next few years will see a turnaround. I had been buried for a long time, but starting this year I seem to be getting to a point where I'm slowly beginning to actually finish things faster than I start new ones. If I can somehow manage to get my open projects down from about 20+ to just 3 or 4 in the next few years, I'll be in great shape. ;)
  • Calculators owned: TI-81, TI-82, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, 2 × HP 50g

Dream of Omnimaga

Lol I was gonna say, if you keep all 20 projects alive but finish them in starting order, then that would mean a lot of TI-81 games O.O
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Travis

Haha. My problem is that it's the opposite: The list is like a stack, and I tend to only work on the latest things I started (because they're the most exciting at the time), so if I keep starting things, nothing ever finishes. :P So I'm trying to take a handful of the most important things (rather than necessarily the newest) and cycle through them at regular intervals until something gets done, then stick the next-higher priority project in the open slot, and so on.
  • Calculators owned: TI-81, TI-82, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, 2 × HP 50g

Dream of Omnimaga

Generally, I used to finish my projects in order, but I rarely had more than two at a time back then. But the problem is that when I got new ideas I rushed the previous project. Although Illusiat endings had lower quality due to running out of RAM near the end of project development, part of it was due to me being too impatient to wait before starting the next game.

Nowadays I usually start a bunch of projects but only finish 10% of them. Some gets finished years later, though, such as Supersonic Ball 83+. I guess this is what happens once you move out of hi school.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Dream of Omnimaga

This isn't programming-related, but still RPg-related: In one of my custom-made choose-your-own-adventure comic gamebooks, there is a status aliment called Flower of Defecation and a magic spell called Defecation O.O

  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

princetonlion.tibd

*bump*

Dodge V1 is so strangely written I can't even optimize it without breaking it :P
The weird decision: the high score system apparently assumes that you got a high score, randomly inserts it into the high score list, and sorts the list. I'm also pretty sure I wrote that part, so it isn't T.Wang's code.
  • Calculators owned: TI-83+, TI-84 + CSE, Voyager 200, TI-Nspire
Anyway war sucks. Just bring us your food instead of missiles  :P ~ DJ Omnimaga (11.10.2016 20:21:48)

p2

reading other people's code is sometimes hard as they do strange things.
But reading your own code like a year later is even worse xD
  • Calculators owned: ti-83+, ti-84+, ti-84+, ti-84+se, ti-84+se(te), ti-nsphire, ti-nsphire CAS, ti-nsphire CX-CAS, ti-voyage, ti-voyage, Who reads this list anyways...?
Anyway war sucks. Just bring us your food instead of missiles  :P ~ DJ Omnimaga (11.10.2016 20:21:48)
if you cant get a jframe set up, draw stuff to it, and receive input, i can only imagine how horrible your game code is _._   ~ c4ooo (14.11.2016 22:44:07)
If they pull a Harambe on me tell my family I love them ~ u/Pwntear37d (AssangeWatch /r/)
make Walrii great again ~ DJ Omnimaga (28.11.2016 23:01:31)
God invented the pc, satan the smartphone I guess ~ p4nix (16.02.2017 22:51:49)

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