Maze Death Rally-X (Maze Death Race 1983 Remake)

[PoYo]

Galaga looks better for the next project.

[tomdd]

Think I've got the enemy AI working now with a simple head towards the player algorithm. Animated gif to show it in action with the full 7 red cars which are very hard to evade :-) You may notice the red cars won't overlap each other and are currently running the same speed as the player as per the arcade first level (Rally-X anyway, New Rally-X they are a tiny bit faster from the start). Variable speed is something I've got on the to-do list. You may also notice you can skip round the corners to gain a little distance on the red cars which was always something I wanted to have in.



Now just need to add some final features such as the smoke effecting the enemies plus tidy up the level code and I will be ready to release a version for play testing.

TomDD

[tomdd]

Ok I've got far enough with the coding that I'm ready to release a demo version for general playtesting (earlier alpha version was sent to gabrieleamore & druellan). Still plenty to do so the demo only consists of the first four levels of the game including a challenge stage on level 3.

What is in:

• Multiple control schemes (keys, Sinclair, Kempston, Cursor)
  
• First maze and four levels plus challenge stage
• Player car constant movement with human control including 180s & flip round corners
  
• All the graphics including rotating car
  
• Random flag placement, including algorithm to prevent unobtainable flags i.e. blocked by rocks
• All the flag types - Special, Lucky and Normal
• Pick up flags, get points with correct multipliers etc...
• Random rock placement to crash into
• Number of rocks and enemy cars change on each level
  
• Enemy cars chase you (apart from challenge stage)
• Can pause enemy cars with smoke
• AY in game music (changes for challenge level)
• Beeper tune on start and end of rounds, specifically wanted this as 48k is the target machine not 128k
  
• Scoring & Hi-score
• Radar with special flag shown differently
• Fuel gauge and slow down on low fuel
  
• Simplistic engine and flag pick up sounds

To-Do:

• The rest of the game :-)
• 3 more mazes with different colours
• Re-define keys
• Increase speed of enemy cars, currently only one speed same as player
• Bug fixes
  
• Fine tuning of the game based on feedback

Demo Version Download Here

Constructive feedback greatly appreciated.

TomDD

[cgonzalez]

Good work, I like it very much!! loyal to the arcade...

[javierq]

Wow, very good Tom! It's like playing the arcade game; I like how fun and playable it is, the music is great! Very good work and continue please!

[greenwebsevilla]

I tested it and works very nice! Congrats!

[radastan]

I love it!!!! Very similar to original arcade.

[Blerkotron]

This is absolutely superb! Incredible work, Mr Dalby - I can't wait to see the final release!

[PoYo]

Fantastic!!!!! I have made the test here in Brazil and looks great. Waiting for the final version.

PS: Galaga and Bosconian (Both ported from MSX) for the next projects.

Thanks for now

[gabrieleamore]

beautiful beautiful game!
thanks!

[tomdd]

Ok I'm done so time for a beta release of the full game. The game is 99.9% complete so please test to find bugs, recommend improvements etc... before I release a final version for the competition. You can download v1.0 beta here

The biggest change since the demo, other than adding the 3 extra mazes, is that I added a higher speed for the enemy cars. I also decided to deviate a little from the arcade with this, mainly as it wasn't possible to implement the smaller speed steps that you see in the arcade plus I felt the arcade difficulty ramped up too fast so wanted to even it out a bit. So the first 16 levels are now run at the normal speed (same as player) with difficulty increased by the number of cars chasing you, rocks to get in the way and the mazes get more difficult. I am using Rally-X mazes not New Rally-X so lots of places to get trapped! At level 17 the cars get a lot faster (1.5x) and you repeat the first 16 levels with the upgraded enemies. I've called this hardcore mode as I find it very challenging especially when you get more than a couple of enemy cars (think my AI is a bit more aggressive than the arcade). At level 32 it loops again with maximum (7) faster cars and rocks (12) for every round... Good Luck!

Other changes I've made since the last version:

• Added the other 3 mazes, colours, graphics etc...
  
• Fine tuned fuel consumption, little bit slower now
• Fine tuned time enemies take to start moving and how long they are stuck in smoke, bit longer for both
• Fixed some bugs in the enemy AI which meant they sometimes did u-turns which are not allowed and sometimes went the wrong way
• Instead of exploding when out of fuel the car just slows down and the enemies hunt you down, as per the arcade. This also effects the challenge level as the cars now start at top speed when out of fuel.
• Better intro screen for the challenge stages
• Increase volume of the AY music so more in line with the beeper tunes
  

Anyway as before constructive feedback greatly appreciated.

TomDD

[druellan]

Downloading. BTW, check the private message if you didn't

[tomdd]

Nov 8, 2018 20:10:44 GMT druellan said:

Downloading. BTW, check the private message if you didn't

Thanks druellan, just sent you a reply. I've also found a crash bug since releasing the beta and will post a fixed version with some of the other improvements I mentioned soon. Very close to full release now :-)

Cheers

TomDD

[tomdd]

Ok new version with some bugs fixed (thanks to Mat Gubbins on WoS for his rigorous play testing) and other small improvements all listed below. Hopefully I didn't break anything in the process. New version (v1.1) can be downloaded here

• fixed crash due to a stray pop bc
  
• fixed issue were the player can get trapped in corners when pressing the opposite direction just after turning or multiple keys at once, car will now pull out of the corner first before allowing a turn
  
• fixed bug were you could go through walls when fuel is low and the car slows down
• no slide round corners when going slow (low fuel)
  
• improved smoke check for enemies so cars on the edge of the screen will crash into the smoke were before they went through it as if immune
  
• fixed issue were in some cases the red cars can get trapped mostly if they have to do a u-turn, now they will try and get out of the block

Cheers

TomDD

[reg]

Nov 9, 2018 19:09:53 GMT tomdd said:

Ok new version with some bugs fixed (thanks to Mat Gubbins on WoS for his rigorous play testing) and other small improvements all listed below. Hopefully I didn't break anything in the process. New version (v1.1) can be downloaded here

• fixed crash due to a stray pop bc
  
• fixed issue were the player can get trapped in corners when pressing the opposite direction just after turning or multiple keys at once, car will now pull out of the corner first before allowing a turn
  
• fixed bug were you could go through walls when fuel is low and the car slows down
• no slide round corners when going slow (low fuel)
  
• improved smoke check for enemies so cars on the edge of the screen will crash into the smoke were before they went through it as if immune
  
• fixed issue were in some cases the red cars can get trapped mostly if they have to do a u-turn, now they will try and get out of the block

Cheers

TomDD

Sweet mother of God, you have nailed this my friend.

Only the other day I did a video on Rally X and Friends ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf38BL21-rw ) and I wish that I had seen this to also do it.

This is a great game you have made and really captures the gameplay of the arcade when I played it - yes the graphics are obviously Spectrum based but 10 / 10 for feeling - look - speed and just how it feels.

I honestly felt like I was playing the arcade game with my level of skills on that level - it felt perfect.

Awesome - just awesome work.

[bubu]

Amazing, one of the best conversios I've ever seen in the whole of my life. Nearly perfect!!
I've just played and got 54.940 points, as in the arcade. Congrats, tomdd. You have all the respect for this game.
I only noticed that was playing with a Spectrum instead of the arcade cause these 2 subjects:

(1) the sound. But I know how Spectrum works, and that's ok
(2) the enemy cars go always together, and in the arcade they do a deployment in the map


But anyway, this is one of my favs

[tomdd]

Thanks for the great feedback, very close to the final release now after a few more bugs were found over the weekend and I've made a couple of minor tweaks to help gameplay. Current list of changes from the 1.1 beta release are:

- added check so if out of fuel and you get last flag or the L flag it doesn't crash while trying to drain the tank
- adapted the beeper soundfx so if you are going slow the engine sound also slows, plus some sounds now have priority over others i.e. flag over smoke
- changed the radar so it doesn't flash
- before starting a round the cars and radar are now shown during the small pause not just the maze
- extra life at 20000pts now resets on each new game, before you could only get this on the first game!
- added a sound on extra life awarded
- altered how the car moves when slowing down on low fuel so it should now not be possible to go off the map etc...
- you can now crash into the red cars on the challenge stage (after the initial immunity which allows you to go down immediately)
- changed how the turns are shown on screen so the diagonals are now more visible
- you can now skip the starting music by pressing any key (cannot skip round end music as it is a lot shorter)
- pressing H in-game will pause the game and while paused you can press S to toggle the AY tune on/off. Just in case it is getting on your nerves :-)
- on 48k models the keys show as QAOPM while on 128k or later models it shows QAOPSPACE. This is purely cosmetic as any key on bottom right (B,N,M,SS or SPACE) will work as fire
- fixed mazes 3 & 4 which were missing wall joins, didn't effect gameplay just didn't look as nice

TomDD

[tomdd]

Ok after a lot of testing (thanks again to Mat) I am happy to move the game out of beta and you can download the release version in either cassette tape, 3" disk or microdrive format on my website.

Final changes were as follows (in addition to the previous list):

• fixed bug were a slow car suddenly speeds up
• fixed bug were with zero fuel getting the L flag causes screen corruption as it tries to refill the tank
  
• fixed bug were if you get extra life at the same time as collecting a flag sometimes they are not erased from the radar

Enjoy

TomDD

[denisgrachev]

asom one!

[tomdd]

I've just uploaded a very small update, basically adding a version number and fixing an issue were hi-scores >100000 are partially hidden due to attributes. Thanks again to Mat for finding most of the bugs.

TomD

[Admin]

So far everybody is liking the game a lot, and you only get good reviews, Tom, which means that you did an awesome job in many ways: first, I am amazed how far you coded the game, being so close to the original arcade (this is something that normally takes more time). The second thing, thanks for explaining and doing some sort of "log" of what you were programming and a bit how you did it, I think it was useful. I still have to play it deeply, but looks like you will be one of the contenders for the prizes

[tomdd]

Stuart Campbell has kindly produced a tape inlay for the game

[Admin]

Are you planning a cassette release, Tom?

[tomdd]

Jan 12, 2019 12:12:29 GMT Admin said:

Are you planning a cassette release, Tom?

Good idea, anybody fancy a copy :-)

[Admin]

Me 🙂
Are you planning to release it via cronosoft, monument microgames or another?