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[rgcd.co.uk]

Game Name and Description: Robotz DX - Traditional old-school arena shooter based on an Atari ST (16-bit) game.  My first post-tutorial GM program!
Category: Arcade, single screen.
File Size: 20MB.
GM Version: GM8 Pro.
Vista Compatible: Should be. It works on Windows 7.
Changes Screen Resolution: From title screen, player has the option of going fullscreen (640x480) by pressing 'F'.
Download Link: ZIP archive / Installer
Screenshots:





Version 1.01 of the game is now complete.  Thanks to everyone here who helped over the past month.  I've credited people who've helped with the code in game and in the readme.txt.

Press 'F' on the title screen to toggle full screen, or press 'I' to toggle instruction screen. Please read the readme.txt for full instructions, back story and playing guide.

Robotz DX is an enhanced remake of this: http://www.atarilegend.com/games/games_det...php?game_id=472 - one of my favourite old Atari ST public domain games from the 90's.  It plays much faster than it's 16-bit counterpart, but (roughly) still meets the limitations of the platform (palette, colours on screen at once, etc.).  It has been a valuable learning exercise, and was written in 100% GML.

Use of SNDH soundtrack has been authorised by the original artists for this game. Please don't rip and use them yourselves without asking permission first.  Same rules apply for my custom bitmap font & sfx.

Web page: http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/robotz-dx-pc-2010.html
Atari/demoscene feedback: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=55240

It's probably worth reading the readme.txt for (at least) the game instructions, if not the playing guide as well. Despite looking simple, Robotz DX is deceptively complex for an arcade game!

[AuthenticKaizen]

a great old school schooter!
highly recommended!


hint:
download links are messed up
http://%22http//www.rgcd.co.uk/robotzdx/robotzdx.zip%22
http://%22http//www.rgcd.co.uk/robotzdx/RobotzDXSetup.exe%22


http://www.rgcd.co.uk/robotzdx/robotzdx.zip
http://www.rgcd.co.uk/robotzdx/RobotzDXSetup.exe

[rgcd.co.uk]

Links fixed, thanks for pointing that out!

[rgcd.co.uk]

Video added by Pixel Prospector

[J. R. Hill]

 
Awesome!

[xot]

This game used to piss me off so much.

This is a really nice remake, one of the nicer GM games I played. I like the stuff you've added and thank God you removed the deadly walls. It's a lot more fun now. The only thing I miss are the cheats. 

I think the original was written by Robert Presley (which is the cheat code you type on the title screen), but I've been unable to confirm that. Cheat gives infinite lives and 'L' advances the level.

[rgcd.co.uk]

Nice to see someone who remembers the original - and yeah, those walls just had to go

ST Format had the game on one of their coverdisks, and credited it to a 'P. Fox' in the mag, so I guess Robert Presley is someone else? But I remember the cheat; in fact my debug version had the L key as skip level too for nostalgia reasons

It's a shame that the original coder wasn't proud enough of his game to put his name in the docs or in game.  After disassembling the Atari version, there's no mention in the code either!

[shockedfrog]

While it's very different from the original (one of the first freeware games I remember playing), as a game in its own right this is pretty good. The one big issue I have with the gameplay is that I've been thrown into a few situations at the start of levels which are near impossible, though I've also been given some ridiculously easy levels which kinda balances things out and lives are plentiful enough to allow for some bad luck. It would be nice to have some kind of limited freeze, maybe once per level or rechargable (perhaps by collecting stuff?) - though if this was added I'd expect it to just be automatic when a robot is shot rather than spoiling the feel by adding an extra button.

There's also a graphics bug that someone on Pouet mentioned - I can trigger it by playing Uniball then playing Robotz DX without restarting, so my guess is that it's an issue with GM and Directdraw. Spelunky used to have the same bug and it's been fixed, so Derek probably knows how to sort it out.

As for finding the creator - the second score in the original's high score table is 'PBF', so I'd guess P. Fox is right and he did at least put his initials in. Doesn't help a whole lot with identifying or finding him, though.

[rgcd.co.uk]

"There's also a graphics bug that someone on Pouet mentioned - I can trigger it by playing Uniball then playing Robotz DX without restarting, so my guess is that it's an issue with GM and Directdraw. Spelunky used to have the same bug and it's been fixed, so Derek probably knows how to sort it out."

Great - that will help a lot.  Chevy knows about the bug already and he thinks it's a one-line fix, so I'll email him about that

I'm well aware that the random nature of the game can often lead to near impossible level layouts, which has been balanced by (as you say) the rather plentiful 1ups - However, if I was starting development of this game again, I'd completely redesign the way the levels are generated to fix this properly... This is my first ever game you see, so it's full of little things that I would do completely differently if I had already known what problems they would end up creating; it's all a learning experience for me

I am kind of hoping that this remake will draw P. B. Fox out into the open actually - it would be nice to see what he thinks of the fact that people still remember his game!

[deathtotheweird]

Ouch this game is brutal. Really fun though. Wish I had one of those Atari classic controllers to play this with...


& I appreciate having a zip alternative to an installer. Sometimes people choose one or the other, I like thanking people that give us both. 

[rgcd.co.uk]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, it is hard, but certainly beatable.  I'm no gaming ninja (I can only get to world 3 in Spelunky! ), but I can now beat all 30 levels in almost every play, and so can 90% of the beta testing team.  It just takes a bit of practice.

In the current build, note that you CANNOT exit the end game screen until the music stops and scroll text ends (due to some sloppy code).  This takes one minute.  When prompted to press fire, do so to move to the game over message (and score save).  If you just end the game by hitting escape, your score will not be recorded.

This will probably be improved in a future update, but I'm in no hurry at the moment.

[ortoslon]

as a quick and dirty patch for joypads, you could just put an option to disable gamepad control in .ini so that people could map the keys themselves with Joy2Key or XPadder

[rgcd.co.uk]

Yeah, I only just discovered today that I have basically stopped people from using xpadder/joy2key by automatically checking for a joypad/stick... 

This is a good thing really, as it has forced me to work on a proper fix for the pants joypad control I've forced in at the last minute.  I'll hopefully have an update after this weekend that will start with keys enabled only, and have two joystick configs (pov hat and x/y axis as movement) selectable via the J key. 

[rgcd.co.uk]

http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/robotz-dx-pc-2010.html

Version 1.02:

Improved joypad support and fixed a bug that prevented joy2key and xpadder working with the game (whoops). Improved the .ini file system so that selected control config is automatically saved, and hiscore is recorded even if you quit mid-game. Also, reworked the tutorial code so that you can only not skip the intro on your very first play of the game (again this is saved in the .ini file). Fixed the windowed mode so that the game window can be hidden (previously it always stayed on top). Tweaked level 25 so that spawners don't appear in difficult to reach locations.

Control method is selected at title screen by pressing J.  Default is keys (so xpadder users, etc. can now play the game).  JOYA uses the POV hat for movement, JOYB uses x/y axis.  Fire, strafe and pause buttons can be reassigned in the ini file after loading the game for the first time.

[ortoslon]

breezy playthrough

[rgcd.co.uk]

Wow! that was quick

Thanks for not ruining the surprise at the end!