Planet Nubium Two - The Sequel

[Andrew_Waite]

The latest version (V1.1) of Planet Nubium Two is attached to this post along with a map showing the layout of the game.

[Andrew_Waite]

I have a brand new game for the BBC Master, and a sequel to Planet Nubium. The game is called Planet Nubium Two!

The game uses a much improved Planet Nubium engine with more and larger sprites, and forty four all new rooms arranged as a large flip screen game. The game uses the awesome chip tune player written by Kieran Connell and Simon Morris with new, larger, chip tunes.

Collect 70 or more objects from around Planet Nubium and return to the spaceship in The Spaceship Hangar to complete the game, but beware - there are lots of things to kill you!

The .ssd file with Version 0.9 of the game is attached to the bottom of this post. There are still a few issues with an over zealous collision detection routine, including when Rocketman moves from one room to another. I will release a Version 1.0 of the game when this has been fixed.

The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Room data is contained, in part, in three 6K blocks. All 44 rooms can be stored in memory when the computer is not playing chip tunes. Data for each of the chip tunes takes up about 12K and this data replaces two of these three 6K blocks, so some disk access is required during the game when playing tunes.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game. Alternatively the disk inside the .ssd file is bootable.

The source code for the game is available on GitHub : https://github.com/andrewwaite1/Planet-Nubium-2-v0.9

As always, feedback is key to improving the game.


Andrew.

[billcarr2005]

Thanks for your continued development

[marcusjambler]

Very smooth... works great in BeebEm on my work PC

[KarateEd]

This is a very interesting take on the upgrade of Planet Nubium in this 2nd version.

Nicely done, I look forward to playing it more.

It might interest you to know that Planet Nubium was suggested for the HSC here on *.

It hasn't been chosen yet but it has a good chance to be.

[CMcDougall]

pure brilliant

[Andrew_Waite]

Here is a table showing the layout of the 44 rooms in Planet Nubium Two.

****NOTE : Table updated on 14th March 2020****

The number of collectible objects for each room is shown in brackets. There are 72 items in total, and 70 need to be collected to complete the game.

When chip tunes are not playing all 44 rooms are held in the Master's memory.

When the computer is playing tunes only the rooms highlighted in pink are permanently kept in memory, and three files containing data for the rooms highlighted in yellow, blue, or green are retrieved from disk as needed. This makes 12k of Sideways RAM available for the chip tunes, and why when moving from one room to another play is sometimes interrupted as the computer accesses the disk.

[Andrew_Waite]

Here are the credits for the chip tunes used in 'Planet Nubium Two', along with links to the original tunes on the 'Battle of the Bits' website. Tunes were originally written for the Sega Master System and converted to the BBC Micro by simonm and kieranhj. The Sega Master System and the BBC Micro have the same Texas Instruments SN76489 sound chip. Tunes are under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence.

MUSIC CREDITS :

TUNE 1 : THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN by STEWBOY
http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... own/16712/

TUNE 2 : ADRENALINE LIFT by INTERROBANG PIE
http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... ift/11925/\

TUNE 3 : SONIC ENTERS A DANCE CLUB by IAMGREASER
http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... .vgm/4406/

TUNE 4 : NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SAMBA by KULOR
http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... amba/5181/

LOADING TUNE : LOL I AM LATE SORRY by SLIMEBALL
http://battleofthebits.org/arena/Entry/ ... .vgm/7639/

[KarateEd]

Here's a pictorial in conjunction with that should give you a good idea when text and numbers don't make sense.

[Andrew_Waite]

What a superb way to map the game, Ed. Popcorn is already stacked next to my microwave in anticipation of seeing the original Planet Nubium on the Stardot HSC.

[KarateEd]

What a superb way to map the game, Ed. Popcorn is already stacked next to my microwave in anticipation of seeing the original Planet Nubium on the Stardot HSC.

I'm 'drool' just waiting for that day too Andrew. Glad you like my (really your) map.

[billcarr2005]

PN2.png

Is there a "full size" version of this?

[Dave Footitt]

Looks great, lovely work.

Impressive number of enemies on some screens

[KarateEd]

PN2.png

Is there a "full size" version of this?

If you click on it, you'll get the largest size that it is Bill......and if you save the png you should be able to view it larger using the magnifying glass.

[KarateEd]

So, do I get a prize? Finished!!!

Good game sir.

[KarateEd]

Hey Andrew,

When I go to play again, the amount of articles shows 68. I can just collect the ones on screen and touch the red thingy and poof.....I win again....over and over and over again.

Just thought you might like to know.

[Andrew_Waite]

So, do I get a prize? Finished!!!

Good game sir.

Holy Cow Ed, I thought the game would take you longer than that to complete!

The 68 was there to test game completed routine. I will fix the 'feature' for the Version 1.0 release, or you can change 'ob%=68' in line 390 to 'ob%=0'.

[KarateEd]

So, do I get a prize? Finished!!!

Good game sir.

Holy Cow Ed, I thought the game would take you longer than that to complete!

The 68 was there to test game completed routine. I will fix the 'feature' for the Version 1.0 release, or you can change 'ob%=68' in line 390 to 'ob%=0'.

I know of at least 3 people that will finish this faster than me Andrew......however, that's not to say it isn't difficult.....it is and I wouldn't change very much in it. It's great fun.

[KarateEd]

And just for good measure I finished it on real hardware, not just the emulator.

This game has a 'go back and play it again' feel to it. I doubt I will ever tire of it, it's so smooth.

[KarateEd]

Hey Andrew,

I think your map may have a couple errors on them.

I think Departures, Delays and Cancellations only has 2 artifacts in it and..... Seen any interesting Hills and Valleys doesn't have any in it bringing your total to 70.

I did a double check and realized somehow though I'd been to all the screens, I could only come up with 70 artifacts no matter how I tried.

[Andrew_Waite]

Hey Andrew,

I think your map may have a couple errors on them.

I think Departures, Delays and Cancellations only has 2 artifacts in it and..... Seen any interesting Hills and Valleys doesn't have any in it bringing your total to 70.

I did a double check and realized somehow though I'd been to all the screens, I could only come up with 70 artifacts no matter how I tried.

Hi Ed,

Thank you for the heads up. You are right, the script to generate the room layout files for 'Departures, Delays and Cancellations' and 'Seen any interesting Hills and Valleys' show they should both have an extra artifact. The artifacts are there, but drawn by the computer into a part of memory outside the video framebuffers. I will fix this for the full release of Version 1.0.

Also, it is possible to get trapped in the foliage at two locations at the top of 'Aerophonic Nutrient Hydro-Atomizer' and at the top of a chain in 'Share and Enjoy' and the only escape is by losing a life.

I am thinking that the game should report the amount of time taken to collect all the objects, as making the best 'speed run' would keep the game challenging once it has been completed. Do you think that this would work?

Andrew.

[KarateEd]

Hey Andrew,

I think your map may have a couple errors on them.

I think Departures, Delays and Cancellations only has 2 artifacts in it and..... Seen any interesting Hills and Valleys doesn't have any in it bringing your total to 70.

I did a double check and realized somehow though I'd been to all the screens, I could only come up with 70 artifacts no matter how I tried.

Hi Ed,

Thank you for the heads up. You are right, the script to generate the room layout files for 'Departures, Delays and Cancellations' and 'Seen any interesting Hills and Valleys' show they should both have an extra artifact. The artifacts are there, but drawn by the computer into a part of memory outside the video framebuffers. I will fix this for the full release of Version 1.0.

Also, it is possible to get trapped in the foliage at two locations at the top of 'Aerophonic Nutrient Hydro-Atomizer' and at the top of a chain in 'Share and Enjoy' and the only escape is by losing a life.

I am thinking that the game should report the amount of time taken to collect all the objects, as making the best 'speed run' would keep the game challenging once it has been completed. Do you think that this would work?

Andrew.

Yes, I've actually been trapped in both those locations at least once.

I've been able to get through the game with only losing one life (when I was really trying). Mostly now I'm just careless a bit and lose lives at will and still end up with 3 or 4 lives at the end of the game.

It's a real treat to play this game even though I've completed it a few times. There are better routes to take that will propel you through the game faster than a slower route so perhaps a timer would work. I'm not sure really as it might be discouraging at first for a new player.

I've played this so much that it's becoming like an old friend and of course doing the map helped me learn the locations a bit though only where they were, not how to get through them.

I believe this game is really good and has an excellent 'replay' feature. All that happens when you play it often is you get to know where everything is and that is useful.

Now.....if only you had a rocket taking off or something like that in an end screen. I don't know how much more memory you would have for that but I'm hoping for something more than text at the end of finishing the game. It's just a quibble, has no effect on the game whatsoever......but if you have enough memory, you could let your imagination run wild like you have in the game itself.

I like your style of platforms Andrew, they are very entertaining.

[Andrew_Waite]

Version 1.0 of Planet Nubium Two is now finished!

The new Version 1.0 brings a new loading screen and several bug and 'feature' fixes. The .ssd file for the new version is attached to the bottom of this post.

I have tweaked the layout of many rooms. These changes are minor, so KarateEd's map still gives an excellent overview of the layout of the game.

Rocketman can no longer get trapped and have to lose a life at two locations in the foliage at the top of the 'Aerophonic Nutrient Hydro-Atomizer', or at the top of one of the chains in 'Share and Enjoy'. The 'Alien Spider Farm' now features spider webbing, and Rocketman can no longer die unfairly passing from the 'Pod Bay Doors' to 'Nubium City East'. I changed some of the tiles of the pod bay doors themselves to make more substantial doors.

The two phantom items spotted by Ed have been removed, so there are now a total of 70 items that have to be collected from around Planet Nubium before returning to the spaceship in The Spaceship Hangar to complete the game.

I have removed the feature where the item count starts at 68, rather than zero, once the game has been completed and it cycles round back to the beginning.

For further versions, my plans are to add a feature to display the amount of time taken to complete the game, modify the collision detection when passing from one room to another to prevent Rocketman from repeatedly dying when entering a room, to add VideoNULA support, a new chiptune player, and to have an animated sequence of the spaceship taking off as a reward for completing the game.

The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Room data is contained, in part, in three 6K blocks. All 44 rooms can be stored in memory when the computer is not playing chip tunes. Data for each of the chip tunes takes up about 12K and this data replaces two of these three 6K blocks, so some disk access is required during the game when playing tunes.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game. Alternatively the disk inside the .ssd file is bootable.

The source code for this version of the game is available on GitHub : https://github.com/andrewwaite1/Planet-Nubium-2-v1.0

As always, feedback is key to improving the game.


Andrew.

[KarateEd]

I like the little additions to the game Andrew.

The spidy webs are cool.....the game is mostly the same though. Got through it first go with 7 lives left over. I think timing the game will have a good effect on scoring, if you had a score table in it.

I still like playing this as it just has the right replay factor in it.

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium Two gains a page at BBCMICRO.CO.UK

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=3381

And at ITCH.IO

https://andrewwaite1.itch.io/planet-nubium-two

[AJW]

pure brilliant

How did you design your loader? Nice.

[Andrew_Waite]

pure brilliant

How did you design your loader? Nice.

Thank you, AJW.

The loading picture is based on clip-art from the Internet, modified, colourised and resized with Microsoft Paint. I imported the image into the BBC Micro using the 'BBC Micro Image Converter'. The loading tune runs off an interrupt so it will play when loading from disk. The loading program itself is a BBC BASIC program that loads files into sideways RAM or video RAM, updating the loading bar as it does so, before CHAINing the program containing the game loop.

[0xC0DE]

I have never played Planet Nubium (spending too much time in my Acorn Electron bubble ) but I just gave PN2 a go in jsbeeb. Very cool game, well done!!

[Andrew_Waite]

I have never played Planet Nubium (spending too much time in my Acorn Electron bubble ) but I just gave PN2 a go in jsbeeb. Very cool game, well done!!

Thank you. My childhood machine was an Electron, so it is great to see your demos pushing the Elk to its limits.

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium makes it to Japan!

Link to a YouTube review in Japanese.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RpRjso ... oDD-T4M0PE