Release Spheres of Chaos


ZxDunny,


Your biggest fan here.


Another BIG THANK YOU. This has warped my mind.


WARNING: Recommended in small doses


Really looking forward to controls being fine tuned.
 
Noticed while wearing headphones that very little sound is coming from the left channel. Anyone else hearing this?
 
Yeah, the sound is very rough and ready - I'm working on it. It's mono 8-bit from the original game. Under windows/RiscOS that's not a problem as mono sound comes out both speakers but under SDL on the pandora that's not the case. I'll sort it for the update.


D.
 
Hi ZXDunny,


Great start, man! I love this game, but i feel it could do with a "pandora-fication" release. Get rid of the mouse to select (d pad and x button will do) and sort the default controls out too - make it more like Asteroids? Also, as you've already pointed out, the sound is atrocious - why does it sound so bad, eight bit samples should still be listenable?


Still, glad to see it, one of favourite indie PC games of yesteryear.
 
Great start, man! I love this game, but i feel it could do with a "pandora-fication" release. Get rid of the mouse to select (d pad and x button will do) and sort the default controls out too - make it more like Asteroids? Also, as you've already pointed out, the sound is atrocious - why does it sound so bad, eight bit samples should still be listenable?

It's quite an embarrassing release to be honest :)


However, with my new addition to the family I have very little time left to me to sit coding for hours on end!


Anyhow: For those of you that have played it, the main thing I've noticed is that mouse control is the way to go - unfortunately, the Pandora doesn't have a mouse! We're stuck with simulating one with the nubs (which IMO is only slightly better than using the DPad to spin the ship around). Even with nub control, it's less than ideal.


So I've been thinking - a joystick mode that uses the nubs to point in a particular direction, and the face buttons to thrust/fire - or even use the nub to thrust in a direction (but the problem there is you won't be able to spin on the spot and fire). I'm open to suggestions here folks!


My configuration sets the nubs as rotate in mouse mode, A to fire, Y to thrust and X to brake - it's playable but not as twitchy as I'd like.


For the menus, I'm thinking that it would be OK to retain mouse control, but when UP/DOWN is pressed, the pointer jumps to the nearest item up or down from the current position. Adding FIRE to select an item instead of left mouse button (the shoulder buttons currently) would give the user a menu more consistent with the game controls.


Again, open to suggestion.


Finally, there's the sound. It's awful, I admit that - and I have no idea why. It only works in 8bit/22050Hz, because the game speed depends on it in that configuration. If I increase the frequency then the game runs faster, if I increase the bit depth I get sound corruption. I may need to modify the sample creation to interpolate the sound data up to 44100/16bit - we'll see what happens.


D.
 
So I've been thinking - a joystick mode that uses the nubs to point in a particular direction, and the face buttons to thrust/fire - or even use the nub to thrust in a direction (but the problem there is you won't be able to spin on the spot and fire). I'm open to suggestions here folks!

Have you thought about using the analogue nature of the nubs when turning the ship? i.e. Linking the turning speed of the ship to the magnitude of the input from the nub? This might help with precision issues when aiming.


From a personal preference I'd like to see fire mapped to left shoulder with thrust, brake & hyperspace mapped to the face buttons. This lets you fire & thrust at the same time.


Thanks again for another great game for Pandora. :)
 
I was thinking up on the DPad to thrust, left/right on the DPad to rotate, Down for the brakes.


Then X to fire on the Gaming buttons, and don't see why L/R can't stay the same if people prefer that over X.


I'm enjoying the current setup, and just use the space button and ESC button for my navigation & restarts.
 
So I've been thinking - a joystick mode that uses the nubs to point in a particular direction, and the face buttons to thrust/fire - or even use the nub to thrust in a direction (but the problem there is you won't be able to spin on the spot and fire). I'm open to suggestions here folks!

Have you thought about using the analogue nature of the nubs when turning the ship? i.e. Linking the turning speed of the ship to the magnitude of the input from the nub? This might help with precision issues when aiming.

We already are using the nubs in their analog state - the mouse moves slowly when you nudge the nub, and faster the further you push it :)


This simulates the nub behaviour quite well IMO - the problem is that the conversion seems to lose very fine control, so you only get about 16 positions in the entire 360 degrees.

From a personal preference I'd like to see fire mapped to left shoulder with thrust, brake & hyperspace mapped to the face buttons. This lets you fire & thrust at the same time.

You can already do that - use the controls menu. Hover the pointer over the thing you want to change and press the button you want (or in the case of a cyclical option like movement or rotation speed, press a shoulder button to change it). Set movement to mouse mode which allows either left or right nub as rotate, then set fire (the "!" option) to RSH (the left shoulder), Hyperspace, brakes and thrust as you want on the face buttons. Be aware that Y and X and mapped to UP and DOWN, but that shouldn't bother you.


D.
 
We already are using the nubs in their analog state - the mouse moves slowly when you nudge the nub, and faster the further you push it :)

Note to self, always carefully check if a feature is already there before requesting it. :rolleyes:
 
Screenshot gallery. :) http://imgur.com/a/xmowh#11


WjY9C.png



Stills don't really do this game justice, but there are a few decent ones in there.
 
Cheers Gruso -


I'm on holiday atm, but will be getting back to this shortly for some updated controls. I've been messing with using the nubs in stick mode, and it seems to work quite well.


D.
 
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