Very cool. Impressive that you support multiple video modes. The gameplay itself is probably a bit to frustrating for me, but I think a lot of people might like such a game.
I will try it on my 386.

And here is a very quick test:

https://youtu.be/Fynhh67vc8c

Will try it some more later, but I can confirm that it works 😀

nice one! will give it a shot later!

root42 wrote on 2020-03-15, 07:28:

And here is a very quick test:

https://youtu.be/Fynhh67vc8c

Will try it some more later, but I can confirm that it works 😀

Thanks for testing! Looking at your video, I would say that towards the end you were already getting better 😉
I just released a new version, and the vessel is now closer to the left edge of the screen. I think it's a bit easier now.

This is pretty cool! I tried it on DOSBox, but haven't had the chance to run on real hardware yet. I like how you render the music across all three devices; especially the Tandy mode sounds great. Skyroads is a huge favorite of mine from its era, so this 2D demake is an interesting idea.

My big complaint is the jump physics... The ship just doesn't follow a realistic arc & jumps are 'squidgy' for lack of a better term. I understand you're not going to be solving a 'proper' parabolic equation for gravity in realtime on an 8088, but the way it's done makes it really hard to predict landings or figure out where to take off. It'd be nice if it behaved a bit more realistically. Also, having the ship 'stick' to the top of the screen instead of either going out of view or bouncing back down is just weird. The 'ceilings' map is almost impossible for me because of this (plus it's WAY too tight in general.)

Still, nicely done aside from that... It'd be wild to see this running in full framerate on a 5150 or something like that. I sent it to a friend who has a Tandy 1000EX to try out. 😀

xjas wrote on 2020-03-17, 04:40:

My big complaint is the jump physics... The ship just doesn't follow a realistic arc & jumps are 'squidgy' for lack of a better term. I understand you're not going to be solving a 'proper' parabolic equation for gravity in realtime on an 8088, but the way it's done makes it really hard to predict landings or figure out where to take off. It'd be nice if it behaved a bit more realistically.

Thank you for your comments. I'll try messing around with the jump code later. It's difficult, I'm quite used to the way the jumps feel now...

xjas wrote on 2020-03-17, 04:40:

Also, having the ship 'stick' to the top of the screen instead of either going out of view or bouncing back down is just weird.

Haha, yeah, I know. I intend to have the ship go off-screen later, but I need to implement clipping first... However having the ship bounce-back could be an easy solution. I'll try it, thanks for the idea!

xjas wrote on 2020-03-17, 04:40:

The 'ceilings' map is almost impossible for me because of this (plus it's WAY too tight in general.)

Oh, but it is actually meant to feel tight! You keep hitting the "ceiling" if you do full jumps. You are supposed to control how high you jump by releasing the jump button early.

Hello! I just published version 0.5:
https://www.raphnet.net/programmation/stellar … /index_en.php#1

Based on comments from players, this version features reworked jumps physics. The changes can be resumed as such:

• As long as the jump button is held, an upward force is applied. This slows down the fall.
• Increased gravity, so once the jump button is released, the ship falls quickly.
• Increased initial jump velocity to compensate for the increased gravity and provide a similar jumping height.

It used to be that you could only control the magnitude of the jump during the first few frames after pressing the jump button by releasing the button very quickly for a lower/shorter jump. However past those initial few frames, it did not matter if you still held the jump button down or not. The ship would land exactly in the same place. But now, the jump button has an effect as long as it is held down. To me at least, it feels much better. The game also feels easier, not too easy I hope...

Also new in this release, again an idea that was born when discussing the game with players, I have added an endless runner mode! This is simply a new level that never ends and is generated randomly. The ship accelerates until it reaches top speed and never slows down. The distance traveled is displayed in real time, and when the player crashes, game over. Here is a video showing this new mode:
https://youtu.be/zKsjA6LdHoM

Other changes:

• The ship can now go above the top of the screen instead of just sticking there.
• Miscellaneous level tweaks to accomodate what broke due to the modified jump physics and the fact that the ship can go off-screen.
• The PC Booter version now displys Loading StellarRoads... when reading the program from the diskette instead of 1.....2

The new jump physics make a LOT more sense to me. I didn't mean to dictate how you should tune your game, but thanks for addressing that. I think what was throwing me off in 0.3 was how the ship still accelerated up after you'd let go of the spacebar - the new thrust mechanic is intuitive and it's way more controllable. I can beat 'Ceilings' now (well, once, after a lot of trying. 😀)

Skyroads is a little more forgiving if you bump into a wall at very low speeds - it'll stop you below a certain threshold, instead of just causing instant death at any speed. Maybe that would make Stellar Roads too easy though.

BTW I know this is far from your target platform, but it runs butter smooth on my 800MHz Transmeta Crusoe / SiS 315 video. Scrolling is perfect; no glitches. I'll try it on some other machines later...

Tested the game on my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus with 512kB L2 cache, Evergreen 586 (AMD Am5x86WB-P75 w/ 16KB L1 WB cache), 32MB RAM, 2MB video RAM, and it's real smooth. I used the keyboard controls since my joystick is off center (needs adjusting and lots of cleaning) and the keyboard layout is pretty good. The music especially is really neat and no issues so far. I'll test the game on my Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz system and see how it performs and other systems (old Pentium laptops, desktops, etc).

Also, is there a way to change the sound card selection? I have a PC Speaker, Tandy 3-Voice compatible sound card (Lo-Tech) from 2017, and an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16 card (SB Pro/Adlib compatible along with other things).

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-03-21, 22:56:

Tested the game on my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus with 512kB L2 cache, Evergreen 586 (AMD Am5x86WB-P75 w/ 16KB L1 WB cache), 32MB RAM, 2MB video RAM, and it's real smooth. I used the keyboard controls since my joystick is off center (needs adjusting and lots of cleaning) and the keyboard layout is pretty good. The music especially is really neat and no issues so far. I'll test the game on my Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz system and see how it performs and other systems (old Pentium laptops, desktops, etc).

Thanks!

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-03-21, 22:56:

Also, is there a way to change the sound card selection? I have a PC Speaker, Tandy 3-Voice compatible sound card (Lo-Tech) from 2017, and an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16 card (SB Pro/Adlib compatible along with other things).

Yes, there is! The game accepts command-line arguments:

• /PCSPKR for PC Speaker sound
• /TANDY for Tandy sound
• /ADLIB for Adlib sound
• /NOSOUND to disables sound

Let me know if it works with the Lo-Tech card. By the way, which IO port do you use? The address is hardcoded to 0xC0 in the game at the moment, but I can add support for other ports.

I have mine set at 0xC0, and thanks. Didn't realize there's command line arguments. Gotta get used to sierra's command line sierra -t for Tandy sound. I'll test it out and see how it performs.

I have matze79's TNDY sound card on port 0c0h, but the program simply prints two paths, instead of launching, when given /tandy as a parameter. See here:

https://youtu.be/HoDOkRNd1UQ

It throws a 63-Bown argument: /tandy message

Got it figured out. Forgot it needs to be in caps and it's not detecting the card with the VGA graphics (plays through the PC speaker), but CGA works with it.

Ok, now it worked for me as well:

https://youtu.be/gjtGYtSQD2Q

Might be an idea to convert the command line arguments to lower case. 😀

Here's my take: https://youtu.be/Dv3iou4dwC0

The Tandy card doesn't work with the VGA version and I hate to burst your bubble or rain on your parade. Might be a bug somewhere or doesn't like me for some reason, but the CGA one detects the Tandy card easily and works.

Weird that it doesn't work for you. On my machine both VGA and Tandy work together. Must be a weird bug!

I think I am going to swap out my Tseng for another Tseng or maybe even Trident VGA card though. I have lots of snow when games change the palette registers. I think this is a fault of the card. Also the video out is a bit noisy on this card. It shows on the OSSC for resolutions 640x480 and up.

The game is neat, but I think toooo frustrating for me. I do remember the original game and I think it wasn't that hard. 😀 Nowadays I mostly want simple games. Like a 2D shoot em up where I can hardly die and have tons of weapons... Maybe we can have a baby mode in Stellar Roads? 😀

Thanks again for testing, I appreciate it! I just released version 0.6, and this time Tandy sound should also work with the VGA version. And the command-line args are no longer case-sensitive..
https://www.raphnet.net/programmation/stellar … ds/index_en.php

Otherwise, the biggest change is that the game now keeps track of how many times each level was beaten as well as how far one has traveled in the endless level.

Detailed changes:

• Scores now saved to disk (STELLAR.SCO)
• Normal levels: Display the number of times each level was beaten in the level list.
• Endless level: Display the best distance in the level list.
• The Tandy sound option (/TANDY) should now work in the VGA version too.
• Improved PCjr support: Checks if there is enough memory, check if the program is loaded in fast memory (above 128k) and relocate if necessary.
• Fix snow when updating the palette on PCjr.
• PCjr Cartridge version of the game (Binary ROM file and .JRC file)
• Command-line arguments are now case-insensitive.
• Add a command-line option to set the language to French (/FR)