Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7



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Author	Angry Robots - new logic-puzzle game coming for 68k System 7 (Read 122078 times)
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	on: September 20, 2023, 10:02 Quote Coming soon to a 68k Macintosh near you, Angry Robots! is a tile-based puzzle game for almost all 68k and PPC macs, from Macintosh Plus onward! Help Matilda the robot battle her way through the lab of the Angry Robots and rescue her beloved Max who has been sent for retirement. The target system for the game is a stock Macintosh Plus, but the game will run on any newer 68k or PPC Mac. The game will run in black and white or colour, depending on your system’s capabilities. There is a playable demo that can be downloaded here. (modern browser only) The playable demo of Angry Robots! contains 12 levels, and showcases the gameplay elements you can expect to see in the final release. The download contains a disk image, which is bootable in your favourite 68k Macintosh emulator, as well as a StuffIt archive for use on real hardware. And I've uploaded a screenshot of the colour version on revontulet.org, so you can view it on System 7 as well. Looking nice!
Last Edit: September 20, 2023, 10:06 by Bolkonskij
Knezzen Administrator 512 MB Posts: 608 Village idiot	Reply #1 on: September 20, 2023, 13:02 Wow! Cool! What's it made in? Would be fun to do something like this with another theme.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #2 on: September 22, 2023, 09:35 I think it was coded in plain C which means it should work fine even on seriously underpowered Macs. As an old Atari guy you may remember "Chip's Challenge", which this game is much alike though with its own twist.

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #3 on: September 22, 2023, 16:39 Please update us when its for sale. Btw. I found a CDEV that allows my vintage setup to get "cloud ready" - sort of. It lets me mount disk images over HTTP. Real cool.
Last Edit: September 22, 2023, 16:42 by 68040
cballero 1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever	Reply #4 on: September 24, 2023, 23:16 Do tell about this CDEV!! So you can browse a mounted image on your Mac and see a list of files from a web browser, something like that? But I thought web browsers could all do this already? So I know I'm missing a piece of this puzzle! Perhaps it's more of an image mounted on another Mac?

68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #5 on: September 25, 2023, 10:31 @cballero - Its called "Cloud7", but as it seems it can only make you happy if you are on MacTCP. For some reason it always returns "Error resolving domain name" when run under OpenTCP. Since I won't downgrade my network stack for 1 Control Panel I had to retire the darn thing again.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #6 on: September 30, 2023, 10:59 Getting back to topic, a retro-compatible (!) website has been created for Angry Robots. Find more info & screenshots here: http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com/

Nightingale 16 MB Posts: 17 Stuck in the '90s	Reply #7 on: October 23, 2023, 12:45 Hey everyone! I’m the developer behind this game and love to see all the corners of the internet that have been reached with the announcement of this game! If you’re interested in getting a copy of the game when it is released in May, there is a kickstarter running. You can buy a physical boxed copy of the game, complete with a box, manual, and 800k disk. The kickstarter is fully funded, which means I can confirm the physical release will be happening, but there are still 22 days to go if you want to get in on it. The old-computer friendly site is tested and working well in iCab, but I tried it yesterday in Netscape and it’s a little janky, so I’ll have to do some adjustments. I had forgotten the joys of writing custom css to work with every different browser on every different platform! Maybe some things have improved since the old times… I’m also going to go get rid of the animated GIFs on the homepage and replace them with static images, as they are very slow to load on a 68k Mac. So if you are on a new computer, I’d love it if you’d check out the kickstarter. (modern browser needed) If you’re on an old computer, head over to the legacy site today and download the demo! I’d love to hear any feedback on the game so far. http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com
Last Edit: November 11, 2023, 17:37 by Bolkonskij
68040 512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !	Reply #8 on: October 23, 2023, 13:34 @Nightingale - First of all, thx for developing for 68k! (most important part) On a more personal note: Can you please ensure this game runs under MacOS 8.1 / on Basilisk II? Specifically, try not to use direct hardware scancodes for keyboard interaction, because these routinely do not work under B-II (no HW keyboard to scan). Also, it'll be nice if the game could be run in a window and could work with color modes above 256. That doesn't mean it needs to have more colors than that, only that it won't require you to switch back to that mode anytime you try to run it. Last not least: Don't skimp on the sound effects, now that I've got my external speakers working.

Nightingale 16 MB Posts: 17 Stuck in the '90s	Reply #9 on: October 24, 2023, 00:05 I hate it when games make you change the colour depth or screen resolution before they will launch! Angry Robots runs in a window, and it checks the screen depth at startup. If the screen has at least 4-bit color depth (16 colours) then it will start in colour mode. Otherwise, it will launch in black and white. So no interaction is needed from the user. If you want to run it in black and white on a colour screen for that nice nostalgic 1-bit colour feeling, you can turn colour OFF manually. I have done lots of testing in Basilisk II, albeit on System 7, and it runs fine. I see no reason it shouldn't work in Mac OS 8, but hoping to get lots of people to try it on lots of different hardware before it's finalized in case I need to fix anything. One thing I haven't tested (because I don't have the hardware to do so) is whether it will work in colour on Macintosh II systems running System 6. As I understand it, these systems did not have Color QuickDraw in ROM, which I rely on for colour mode, since Basic QuickDraw was only capable of 8 colours. But it should run no problem is System 7 on these systems.

Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #10 on: October 24, 2023, 07:44 Quote from: Nightingale You can buy a physical boxed copy of the game, complete with a box, manual, and 800k disk. Wow, very cool! Where are you located? Many of us come from Europe, so crossing fingers it'll be at least "UK"? :-) Quote from: Nightingale I had forgotten the joys of writing custom css to work with every different browser on every different platform! Maybe some things have improved since the old times… I guess table layouts rendering just fine on about everything? No CSS needed. Compare their footprint to the 10 MB monster websites we have today, where developers just add layer on top of layer on top of layer. Nobody really understands anymore what's going on under the hood. Modern web dev is so fubar, I rejoice every time I can start writing a "retro" website from scratch in my editor. Now, if only someone would pay me for that :-D Quote from: Nightingale whether it will work in colour on Macintosh II systems running System 6. That sounds like something we can help you with. :-) despite being System 7 Today, a lot of us have a System 6 partition on their Macintosh too. For old time's sake. :-) I'll report back! Will there be any cheats to Angry Robots? I just wonder, if I would get endlessly stuck on a level, will there be a way for me to jump to the next one to see all of the game?
Last Edit: October 24, 2023, 07:46 by Bolkonskij
cballero 1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever	Reply #11 on: October 24, 2023, 16:40 I suppose a cheat of sorts? The YouTube review of Angry Robots did say (and possibly the website too?) that there's a practice mode that turns off the timer but doesn't give you a high score so you are free to try out the game without getting timed-out. I figure the lack of high score is a good trade-off for being able to roam within the game with no pressure to finish a level within the level's given time-frame

Nightingale 16 MB Posts: 17 Stuck in the '90s	Reply #12 on: October 25, 2023, 00:44 There actually is a "cheats" menu, which currently is enabled by changing a setting in ResEdit: http://legacy.criminalcaterpillar.com/images/cheats.gif I actually forgot to delete the TMPLs in ResEdit from the latest version of the demo I posted, so an industrious person could probably figure out how to enable it... I have used the cheats largely for level testing, if I don't want to have to work through an entire level to get to a certain part I'm testing. I was planning to leave it in as an undocumented feature, but I think in the final release, I will implement a key combo or something to enable the cheats menu. And then there is the "Practice Mode" which disables the clock. Also, if you fail at a level 3 times in a row, it will ask you if you want to skip the level and you can come back to it later. For shipping, I am in Canada, but have a good shipping company that has reasonable rates worldwide. It's about $20 shipping to anywhere outside Canada and the US. Since my prices are all in Canadian dollars, everyone is delighted to learn that the game is cheaper than they thought it was once converted to their local currency! Thanks to everyone doing some testing for me! I'll continue to refine the website to make it work on more browsers, but I suspect anyone who is actually trying to browse the web on 68k Macs is probably using iCab at this point.
Last Edit: November 11, 2023, 17:39 by Bolkonskij
Bolkonskij Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023	Reply #13 on: November 11, 2023, 17:36 Sounds great, I guess I'll sign up for a physical copy. Any way to do this without having to register for Kickstarter? My main concern with the cheats is basically to have a level skip in case I can't finish a particular level. Oh and one that resets the clock or adds 60 seconds as in your screenshot is nice ... :-) Also, Nightingale - I had the chance to test the demo in colour on System 6.0.8 on the IIci. No issues, played for about 5 mins, all running fine! Good job! P.S. added a (modern browser needed) to one link in your previous post just to warn those of us being on here with 80's and 90's Mac not to click
Last Edit: November 11, 2023, 17:40 by Bolkonskij
Nightingale 16 MB Posts: 17 Stuck in the '90s	Reply #14 on: November 12, 2023, 15:08 Thanks for testing on the IIci! I was able to test using the following ROMs in an emulator: Mac II FDHD & IIx & IIcx And it crashed. So I'll have to do further research, but I'm assuming that any mac with a 512k ROM has Color QuickDraw in ROM, and should work fine. The IIci has a 512k ROM, so that makes sense. I've fixed a bug in the game where it was incorrectly checking for Color QuickDraw, so now if you launch on a system that doesn't have Color QD available it will launch in B&W mode instead of crashing. However, if you boot System 7, you will always have color QuickDraw. In emulation, I've now discovered that the game is very laggy in colour mode on anything less than a 68030 CPU. So I may addd a check to see what your CPU is and disable colour if running on an older CPU. But I'm not sure I'm ready to do that based on emulation alone. Does anyone have a colour capable 68000 or 68020 that can boot System 7 that would test this for me? As for getting a boxed copy of the game without going through kickstarter, I will produce extra copies and have them on my website, target launch date is May! Thanks again!

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