PoNG4 A500 New Game

[Cobe]

PoNG4

http://aminet.net/game/2play/PoNG4.adf

Code/Music/Generic gfx/Sfx - Cobe
Pixelart - jojo073

Min Sys Req PAL* A500 OCS KS1.2 512KB RAM

Controls
Left/right/up/down
Fire-jump
Esc - on title screen exit to wb
Esc/Fire 2 - ingame back to title screen

Use
4 players parallel port joystick adapter
Or
2 joysticks + wsad+LAlt + arrows+RAlt

On Title Screen you can select two types of game by moving the joystick in port 2 up or down and pressing fire.

2x2 - two players are positioned at the top and two at the bottom of the screen. They play in co-op mode and their points are added up. The first team; top or bottom, who reach 21 points wins.
At the start only two players are initialised. The other two players will appear if they press fire to join. If all 4 players join, a second ball will be added.

4x4 - each player is positioned at his own side of the screen. 1 point goes to the player that was last to hit the ball before it went out of the screen. -1 point goes to the player in front of the side of the screen where the ball went out. Points don't go below zero. The winner is the first one who reaches 10 points.

Both types of the game start with a 3 second countdown. Unless a player hits fire, the player is controlled by CPU. You can either press fire during the countdown or join the game later. There's gravity towards the centre of the screen which is unnoticeable at the start but slowly increases.

The Eye is revolving in random directions around the center of the screen and can also bounce the ball. It slowly aproaches the center of the screen and gravity gets stronger until it's caught at the center. It's satellite, if picked up by the ball it acts like power-up / down.

Black satellite - turns off the screen for a second.
Red satellite - slows down all players for 5 seconds except the one who last to hit the ball before it collided with the Eye's satellite.
Blue Satellite - freezes all players for 3 seconds except the one who last to hit the ball before it collided with the Eye's satellite.

Tip
If you are moving or jumping, part of your acceleration will be passed to the ball thus the angle of the bounced ball will be changed.

*Game works on NTSC but screen is simply too small thus score panel won't be visiable.

[fryguy]

Nice to see 4player adapter support! gotta try this out in the future.

[honx]

is there no singleplayer option in this game to play it alone?

[Gorf]

Single-player seems to be build in, since each "player is controlled by CPU" unless this player hits fire. So if you are the only one starting the game, you are playing against your amiga.

[honx]

thx, then i'll download an try it!

[Lemming880]

Thanks for this Pong with a twist.

Tip for playing single player. Press fire when you hit the ball and it will go faster. Then try to hit the ball in a sharp angle and the AI will be too slow to catch it. Well that's the theory. The AI is quite challenging.

[zzbylu]

Gameplay:
[ Show youtube player ]

[Lord Aga]

Woohoo, cool stuff

[honx]

difficulty is intense!!!

[Cobe]

Thanks guys for the feedback.
Thanks zzbylu for the video.
Work on this game isn't over.

As Gorf summarized single player is "build-in".
At the start I wasn't thinking about adding cpu controlled players but its impossible to test 4 player game with two hands so I had to.
Lemming880 did the testing during the development, and thanks for that, so his tip is right on the spot.

This all started one afternoon when LordAGA dropped by and while we played Amiga and C64 he mentioned how he and his friends back in the 90s were thinking how cool would it be if there was 4pl Arkanoid. Indeed. So this is a start. I don't know if I'll continue that path, take a break with something else but improved version will be for sure.

Btw, about video.. those copper bars look a lot nicer on real crt
And one question.
Has anyone tried it on real Amiga?
Cause in the video and generally in winuae the ball isn't centered at the start but on my real Amiga I'm pretty sure it is.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Cobe

This all started one afternoon when LordAGA dropped by and while we played Amiga and C64 he mentioned how he and his friends back in the 90s were thinking how cool would it be if there was 4pl Arkanoid.

Hah. How drunk was that guy!

[Clydos]

@Cobe: AmigaBill played it yesterday at his Twitch stream on a real Amiga 1200: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/306353372?t=02h04m15s

Some there said that this is your first game; is that right?

I already played it on AmigaLive (alone), but this will be great online Multiplayer fun! Thanks for this!

Maybe this could also put on the cover disc of the next CD32 scene mag by AmigaJay! Would love to play it on my CD32 with my kids.

[Cobe]

Hey, nice! Thanks AmigaBill!

@Clydos: Actually Lumberjack was my first game and this would be the second.

I already have cd32 version with pad sharing and cdda and... So if Jay wants to put it he'll got it.

[Puggsy]

great little game!

[Clydos]

@Cobe: Ah, _very_ nice! I knew I know your name from somewhere! My kids love playing the Lumberjack version which was on the first issue of the CD32 scene mag and interestingly, my ordered version of Lumberjack Reloaded arrived last week and the kids played it yesterday. :-) They told me, that my highscore from Lumberjack Revisted(?) was shown in Reloaded, so that is nice.

So, would you contact AmigaJay or should I (not sure whether he reads here)?

EDIT: What language did you use for Lumberjack and Pong4?

[Cobe]

Thanks Puggsy!

@Clydos
I'm glad that your kids like Lumberjack and thanks for the support for ordering Lumberjack Reloaded.

You can contact AmigaJay though I'm pretty sure that we'll be in contact till the next issue of cd32scene mag.

I'm using Blitz Basic.

[Clydos]

@Cobe: You are welcome. And to make sure you didn't misunderstand me: I also like the game! :-) Has nice additions to that endless game genre.
Looking forward to more by you. :-)

[Cobe]

@Clydos Understood

@AmigaBill I just watched your stream. It was great. Looks like you had fun. Glad you cracked the balls though your first idea wasn't bad at all.. I'll keep it in mind and maybe use it
Btw I was browsing add-ons on RPi looking for something and then I accidentally saw Twitch. So watching it over RPi gave me that little extra nerdier feel

[AmigaBill]

Originally Posted by Cobe

@Clydos Understood

@AmigaBill I just watched your stream. It was great. Looks like you had fun. Glad you cracked the balls though your first idea wasn't bad at all.. I'll keep it in mind and maybe use it
Btw I was browsing add-ons on RPi looking for something and then I accidentally saw Twitch. So watching it over RPi gave me that little extra nerdier feel

Cobe the game is awesome!!! I brought it to our Westchester Amiga User Group meeting last night and everyone had a blast with it. It is super fun playing it multi-player in person with other people. Top notch work man! And that is awesome that you watched on a RPi

[Gaelion]

Just downloaded it. Thanks for sharing!!!