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Juno First is intended to be an Atari 2600 port of the arcade game of the same name. Naturally the Atari 2600 version requires some significant simplifications, but the main elements are there. The visual style of the game is similar to Beamrider, but it plays quite differently.

The awesome sprite graphics were created by Nathan Strum, and the the excellent title music was created by Erik Ehrling (moderntimes99).

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125269

The main goal is to get to the mine car. Find the steam valves to turn off the steam flowing out of pipes. Press the button on the steam valves to enable/disable steam from a particular pipe somewhere in the maze (but you’ll need to find out what pipes are being impacted). Avoid the construction worker. If he sees you, you’ll lose a life. Touch steam and you’ll lose a life. If you run out of time, you’ll lose a life, and the value of steam valves will reset.

Release notes:

I’ve modified the Construction worker screens so that it decrements your timer rapidly if you’re on their screen instead of killing you.
Honestly, I think I like that better.

In addition, on level 3, there’s a new power-up. 🙂 It was fun to write in. I bet y’all will like it.

-John

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125621

The main goal is to get to the mine car. Find the steam valves to turn off the steam flowing out of pipes. Press the button on the steam valves to enable/disable steam from a particular pipe somewhere in the maze (but you’ll need to find out what pipes are being impacted). Avoid the construction worker. If he sees you, you’ll lose a life. Touch steam and you’ll lose a life. If you run out of time, you’ll lose a life, and the value of steam valves will reset.

Release notes:

Here’s a prototype build where the valve changes. It’s just a placeholder now, and no animation.

I’ll try to add some animation, and of course, make the valve have better graphics in “on” mode than just a red circle. 🙂

-John

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125621

The main goal is to get to the mine car. Find the steam valves to turn off the steam flowing out of pipes. Press the button on the steam valves to enable/disable steam from a particular pipe somewhere in the maze (but you’ll need to find out what pipes are being impacted). Avoid the construction worker. If he sees you, you’ll lose a life. Touch steam and you’ll lose a life. If you run out of time, you’ll lose a life, and the value of steam valves will reset.

Release notes:

I’m going to take the feedback about steam valve animation, and then work on it.
I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s some difficulty to it.
In level 1, some people may not have noticed that the steam is off in 2 rooms and on in 2 rooms to start.
So, it may “look” like some valves are not working, when in reality, they’re making things worse. A sound indicates a successful toggle.
However, with some valves off by default, I thought that would be an interesting twist to add in. Of course, that’s too much for level 1.

This brings up a problem with steam valves being in a “moved” state.
Say I just changed the color. It would be a dead giveaway if on level 1, 2 valves were blue, and 2 red. No one would touch the 2 blue valves, as they are already off.
So, I need to make some changes so the valve color would indicate a “changed” state, meaning that the user toggled it. All would default to red, and change to blue if toggled.
On earlier levels, all steam would be on, so the mission would be to find every valve and toggle it.
On later levels, some steam would be on/some off, so the mission would be to find the correct valves to toggle, instead of all of them.

I’ve been thinking about the construction guy too. He’s way too unfair in level 2.
Level 2 was a proof-of-concept sort of level. In my later ponderings, I’m thinking of making the construction guy take time away rapidly from the user, instead of starting over. That may be too heavy of a penalty. I think losing time/points would be enough of a scare factor to get out of that room immediately, with a little cost.
I’ll keep thinking about it. I don’t think I’ll make things as tough as level 2 was, at least for initial levels.

For those interested, I made a new version that now has 4 levels.
Level 1 became level 2.
Level 2 became level 3.
And, I added levels 1 and 4.
1 is simple, to show how things work; it’s a tutorial sort of level.
Level 4 only has 1 construction guy (yay!), and is a pretty big map, showing what can be done with good boulder/ladder placement.

Feel free to try it out.
In the meantime, I’ll start figuring out how to show that a valve is in a “changed” state.

Thanks all for the feedback!

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125621

Maciej has picked up one of his old projects and it turned out as second part of Attack Of The Mighty Aliens From Outer Space”. Read more at it’s release thread.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51303

The main goal is to get to the mine car. Find the steam valves to turn off the steam flowing out of pipes. Press the button on the steam valves to enable/disable steam from a particular pipe somewhere in the maze (but you’ll need to find out what pipes are being impacted). Avoid the construction worker. If he sees you, you’ll lose a life. Touch steam and you’ll lose a life. If you run out of time, you’ll lose a life, and the value of steam valves will reset.

Release notes:

Here’s the next revision.
I’m kind of proud of it, actually. 🙂

2 major changes:
1) Diagonal support for the joystick (so, now you can push right and down, and you’ll end up on the ladder, instead of the scheme I had before)
2) The main player graphics now color correctly on the ladder. And, he goes “through” the hole. That was a pain to implement, but I’m glad I got it working. The only thing I don’t like so far, but I’m not sure I want to change is that when you go through a series of ladders, the animation graphic changes to you standing there for a split second when you get to a new platform. This makes sense if a user is just going to stop on a floor–technically, you’ve gotten off the ladder at that point. I’m not sure if I want to have the graphic change so that you stay on the ladder until left/right is pushed, and then you’re standing there, or if it makes sense to have that split second graphic of him standing there, indicating that you’re on the next level.

Let me know if there are any joystick control issues, or if the split second standing there graphic is an issue.

Thanks!

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125621

Juno First is intended to be an Atari 2600 port of the arcade game of the same name. The visual style of the game is similar to Beamrider, but it plays quite differently. The awesome sprite graphics were created by Nathan Strum, and the the excellent title music was created by Erik Ehrling (moderntimes99).

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=125269

The main goal is to get to the mine car. Find the steam valves to turn off the steam flowing out of pipes. Press the button on the steam valves to enable/disable steam from a particular pipe somewhere in the maze (but you’ll need to find out what pipes are being impacted). Avoid the construction worker. If he sees you, you’ll lose a life. Touch steam and you’ll lose a life. If you run out of time, you’ll lose a life, and the value of steam valves will reset.