Powernoid V3b

[Art]

Powernoid V3b

Hi Guys,
This is version 3b of Powernoid, the Breakout clone with powerups inspired by Megaball for the Amiga!
V3b is an "emergency fix" to ball direction control with the bat which I broke somewhere along the line.

Bullets Screenshot

Powernoid V3b (04/12/08):
Fixed control of ball direction with the bat which was broken in a previous release.

Powernoid V3 (03/12/08):
Improved collision detection by checking the edge of the ball in the direction it is travelling.
Bat movement made slightly faster, and ball turns red when fireball powerup is active.
Added powerups to two more stages so every odd stage now has a powerup available.
Change made to second ball behaviour in multiball mode.
Change to high score encryption so the save file is incompatible with previous version.

Cheers, Art.

[infinity888]

Nice, thanks for the update d/l now

[Art]

In this version there are two buttons that can be held down at once to cheat,
and activate all powerups until a life is lost. You can't get a high score this way though!

[JaX3RiR]

Awesome, this game is a really cool homebrew

Thanks Art.

[Vonsta]

thanks for the update Art.. its kinda strange as i havent even played any actual PSP/PSX games in about two weeks.. i seem to be playing around with your stuff instead.. well along with using iRShell and some of its features etc, and plugins like EffectsMB and TweakDisplay.. but apart from that its just been reading ebooks, ir remote use, RemoteJoy use, playing with my new Go!Cam of course, and Powernoid/AudioMechanica/Blabberbot... then theres Laser Invaders, but my laser pointer's button cells died, so i gotta get some more.

hey my girl likes this powernoid game too.. i got her hooked on DX-Ball years ago, and she uses one of my PSPs for music on the way to work etc.. but now shes playing this thing instead.. AND beating my scores..

Art.. she also spoke of several crashes (freezes for 10sec or so, then exits to the XMB) while playing V2, and at random meaning no particular point of the game.. but she hasnt been able to "recreate" it at home so i can see it (not that id be able to explain it any better if i did).. plus it hasnt happened on my other PSPs.. theres no plugins or anything else running on it, the PSP is a white Phat TA-082 and it has 3.71 M33-4 with the 1.50 Add-On, everything is at default values in recovery, except using the "Hide Corrupt Icons" is enabled and the "skip SCE intro" is enabled..

being that she plays like a machine on Powernoid, maybe she overloaded it joking of course. anyway i havent had any problems myself so i think it might be the firmware or something on that particular PSP, as it was upgraded so long ago, and had RCO themes in the past along with tons of other foolish stuff etc etc..

il shut up now and leave it with a thanks

[Slasher]

Originally Posted by Vonsta

hey my girl likes this powernoid game too.. i got her hooked on DX-Ball years ago, and she uses one of my PSPs for music on the way to work etc.. but now shes playing this thing instead.. AND beating my scores..

That's pretty awesome, because I introduced this Powernoid game to my girl as well and whenever she comes over and gets into the PSP she enjoys playing it

It's pretty much this game, mario for the nes, and loco roco as being the only games that can entertain her lol.

As for some suggestions, I think that the powerups should be temporary as opposed to permanent up until your lose a life. After having the right combination of powerups it becomes pretty easy to not lose. Also, the shooting powerup I think should only allow you to shoot relative to a certain amount of time rather than until once the bullet hits an objects. The way it is right now, you can plow through the blocks that are close to you because it's like rapid fire. You could fix this by either creating a class for the bullet, or a structure method, but I'm sure you can figure it out no problem

Great release Art, I enjoy this game

[Art]

As for some suggestions, I think that the powerups should be temporary as opposed to permanent up until your lose a life

I was under the impression it was still too hard, and this would make it harder.
I still haven't finished the game (15 stages) without cheating.

Re the bullets I think you mean you get to fire once every X amount of time?
Sounds nasty....

So to suggest things that increase difficulty would mean you can actually finish the game?

I think somewhere I've broken control of ball direction with the bat..... got to fix that.

[Slasher]

Originally Posted by Art

I was under the impression it was still too hard, and this would make it harder.
I still haven't finished the game (15 stages) without cheating.

Re the bullets I think you mean you get to fire once every X amount of time?
Sounds nasty....

So to suggest things that increase difficulty would mean you can actually finish the game?

I think somewhere I've broken control of ball direction with the bat..... got to fix that.

I find it pretty easy, but maybe that's just me.

What I mean by as in firing every X amount of time, I mean that to a very minimum - like once every second or half a second just to keep things consistent. Do you know what I mean though? Like if you fire and it goes up and hits nothing, you are unable to shoot again until the bullet goes off of the screen; But if you hit something, then you can fire immediately after that causing it to be like a machine gun to blocks that are close to you. Make sense? I personally find that inconsistent, but hey once again, maybe that's just me... In addition to that, it would probably allow you to make the bullet's separate from eachother instead of one bullet hitting a block and making the other bullet disappear as well. I'm just giving a suggestion, you don't have to follow up on it

"So to suggest things that increase difficulty would mean you can actually finish the game?"
Well I found myself getting to level 9 I think it was and shutting it down because I was owning too hard shooting blocks and having a ball that could plow through them without stopping

[ifiwere1337]

i still have to send you my memcard art, i will asap

[Vonsta]

Originally Posted by Slasher

whenever she comes over and gets into the PSP she enjoys playing it

you've kinda got the easy side of it mate, you have the "she comes over" which is usually accompanied by a "then she leaves".... my girl and i have been living together for over ten years, theres no "she comes over" and so theres no "then she leaves"...

anyway find myself playing against her in multiplayer alot, which is rare for a couple i think... but as is the same with you, she kinda gets into the "girly" games, and takes some convincing to get her to play "blokey" games... mind you she loves the burnout games and the midnight club games..

dang.. back on topic.. i think if there is to be any additions or alterations, they should be based on DX-Ball... even though im biased due to having loved it on PC, AND the fact that ive never played it on Amiga cos i was too busy playing Dune way back then. Slasher may have some good points regarding the "splitting" of the bullets so that they can hit seperate bricks at different distances. and the difficulty issue, if the extra life is at stage 15 and then subsequently every 15 stages.. i think the difficulty should be a little more gradual... or perhaps add in some variations in later levels, like random screen flip/rotation, unbreakable blocks/walls, colour cycling/matching (certain colour bricks require the same colour ball to break them along with some sort of colour change method)

heck ive got a sh.. shipload of ideas.. and Art, ive got a few more ideas for LaserInvaders too if ur up to reading one of my looooonnnnng and booorrriinngg rants

EDIT: aaah thats right.. mr ifiwere1337 im supposed to be sending some too.. thanks for the reminder..

[Art]

Well I found myself getting to level 9 I think it was and shutting it down because I was owning too hard shooting blocks and having a ball that could plow through them without stopping

Bah come back when you finish
The bullets become ineffective in some later stages if you still have them because
more solid bars block sections of the screen.

In addition to that, it would probably allow you to make the bullet's separate from eachother instead of one bullet hitting a block and making the other bullet disappear as well.

You got me there, that one is just laziness. I'm only really keeping track of one bullet,
but the timing issue is congruent with DX-Ball, etc. and Space Invaders!

I fixed the ball control issue, So I'll put up a fix soon.

@ Vonsta,
Sorry I missed that post.. you must've beaten me.
Some of that I can implement.
I gather that the DX_Ball bricks that require double hits are just two ordinary bricks in the same place.

[Vonsta]

ahh yes. those bricks change colour every time they are hit.. i assume they are just bricks placed over the top of eachother as you said

il just throw some words in here regarding my ideas for variations on the Go!Cam with Laser Invaders hopefully you will know what im thinking about, regarding the use of the whole LaserPointer/Go!Cam interface thingy (good technical description eh)..

Missile Command.. Labyrinth Maze.. Asteroids.. PacMan.. Fireworks.. SkillTester.. Whac-A-Mole.. OnScreen Keyboard.. Drawing Utility.. Signatures/Handwriting (password protection/handwriting-to-text/InstantMessaging etc).. Face Recognition (like the NanoDesktop Blind Utility) and i think im going a little past the "do-able" phase here..

what do you think.. is that just wishful thinking? or are they logical? i have many more silly ideas and stuff rattling around up there, so i guess we'll see what happens

[Art]

I think all of those games are possible.
Face recognition is probably outside of anything I would hope to achieve currently.
I think the ND version was a port rather than completely written.

The one thing I wish I'd tried on Laser Invaders is having the bullet fire only when you release the laser.
So you aim with the laser, and then let the button go to fire. This may or may not have been practical, but I wish I'd tried.

New Powernoid ver is up now with the fix I was talking about.
Don't know how it went unnoticed if ppl are playing it.
Was annoying to have a single brick left when you can't change the ball angle.

[b2p1mp]

I am going to try this. There is an official game on UMD called Beta Bloc that is similar concept but super new age. You should check that game out.

[Vonsta]

nah, that defeats the purpose of being here on this forum.. its homebrew im into at the moment, not official games... dont get me wrong, BetaBloc is ok, but it was likely made by a collection of hundreds of people, whereas this is made by just Art.. along with an idea... and thats the beauty of it.. its HOMEMADE

i dont know about you guys, but i kinda sense the satisfaction these people would get when something is finished and they bang that "upload" button.. surely you must respect that. i know i appreciate that its even available to us

EDIT: b2p1mp.. not that it matters what i think, its not my place to dismiss your suggestion. so i apologise

[b2p1mp]

I agree, I like to enjoy the social aspects of homebrew and I always try out Art's apps because he rocks!!!

[Mr305]

Seriously needs a PAUSE menu

[Vonsta]

uhh, i thought it would be obvious, to someone with your knowledge, to press the HOME button dude.

or do you mean a "Pause Menu" as in with options etc...

[Art]

I think he means an option to quit, like selecting "Yes"
lol, there is no option to restart though, but you can just die quick enough.

[tinmanx]

Great update. Since it seems your open to ideas, I have some:

1. Game is too easy, make it harder . (Eg: bad power ups, like a blinking ball, Ulta fast ball with no speed increase for the paddle, 5 balls all the same, but only one is "real", and so on)
2. L+R paddle controls would be very nice.
3. Blocks that take more then one hit to 'kill'.
4. Speed the paddle up just a bit, no more then 5%.
5. Make cheats only available after XYZ, has been completed.

I listed what I could think of for you to choose, or not. 1, and 2 I would love to see. #1 can be just harder, the bad power ups was just a after thought.

Anyway, nice job.