Hi there,
I decided to release this version of Pong Multiplayer, although I am not really happy with the current state.
But it is really hard to test alone, since it is a multiplayer game only.
It is basically the code from the VUEngine Showcase, I only extracted the Pong state and reworked it a bit (and deleted lots of stuff). So all credits go to the Team VUE.
I would appreciate input from other users, which can play the game with a friend. I don´t really know if the playfield is too small, the paddles too slow, the ball too fast etc… But as I said, it is very hard to test this alone, and testing a multiplayer game alone is a pain.
Know bugs:
– if you play it alone, you can´t play anything. And the preview screen is not showing the real setup, so don´t worry (see 2nd screenshot)
– pressing RT or LT breaks the game, so please don´t press those buttons, unless you are loosing and want to rage-quit 😉
– the paddles does not reach the walls, at least it looks like. But I can not find any errors in the collision code, so I assume (and Jorgeche also) that this is only a visual artifact (see screenshot 3).
I attach two ROM versions to this post, one is padded for use on Flashboy (+). Thanks to Force81 for padding this!
Again: I would appreciate any feedback on playability, tweaking possibilities etc. Thanks.
There is a tiny update to Version 1.33:
Change notes:
– ball speed reduced in 3rd multiplayer stage (hard mode)
– confirm sound added to title screen when choosing a stage
– small corrections in 1st and 2nd multiplayer stage where the invisible obstacles were already hitable before their actual appearance
– Chalvo is visiting the 3rd multiplayer stage! But he doesn´t like to be hit by balls, so he disappears when he is touched by the ball. But he then appears again with another face later on. Can you get all four Chalvo faces? (Chalvo stays the same when not being hit in the set time frame).
As always there is a bug. When playing the 3rd multiplayer stage in multiplayer mode for the 2nd player Chalvo sometimes does not disappear after being hit, instead he vanishes only when the ball touches him again (but the ball then passes through without deflection). It does not obstruct the gameplay, but I wanted to mention this.
Since my brain is too small to understand the engine it is like it is.
New version of Pong Ultimate!
V1.4
Change notes:
– 4th multiplayer stage added! “Odd mode” lets the players control 2 paddles on each side. On has to defend one half of the screen on each side. The paddles have “P1” and “P2” on them (with the writing being vertically mirrored to have a clean appearance during moving). On top of that they are -2 and +2 in z-direction of the screen to have a more visual difference between them. P2 has a slightly larger area to defend, that is why the paddle moves a bit faster than the paddles of P1. This minor offset is to prevent the pong ball from flying endlessly between the middle walls without having the possibility to let it pass outside of the screen.
Known bugs as always: the P1 paddles spawn a bit inside of the middle walls, but they can be removed by moving them up or down respectively.
And keep the automatic pause function off!
Left D-Pad controls the left paddles, right D-Pad controls the right paddles.
Have fun!
Another tiny update:
Pong Ultimate V1.41!
Change notes:
– 4th multiplayer stage modified: reduced ball speed, reduced paddle bounciness, adapted disk spawn angle, paddle start positions fixed, fixed a bug where only one invisible obstacle is spawned after the 90 seconds.
– changed the bounce sound of the invisible obstacles in multiplayer stage 1, 2 and 4.
Know bugs:
– In the 4th multiplayer stage in rare cases the disk spawns still in an angle that it bounces endlessly between the small middle walls.
I have also tested the three other multiplayer stages, I have not encountered severe bugs. It works quite well and is quite fun when playing with a friend.
Remember to keep automatic pause function off.
After a lot of struggle and testing I have a quite stable V1.44 version.
Change notes:
– music added!! To all stages, incl. P1 win stage, P2 win stage, lose stage, …
The credits for these great songs go to Tronimal.
Tracklist:
Title Song: Delight
Singleplayer Normal:
Blue Ocean Remix
Darkstone Remix
Singleplayer Hard:
Hideout
Hypergolic Blastoff
Multiplayer:
Left to right: Observing Jupiter
Top to bottomw: Decampment
Hard: Gone Missing
Odd: Terminate
– Tronimal reference in title screen added
– “VUS” changed to “VES” in title screen since I learnt that it is either VUEngine or VES, but not VUS
– Singleplayer win limits increased: Normal: 6->8 and 10->13, Hard: 7->13 and 11->17
Known bugs:
– The music in the second stage of singleplayer normal is cut-off sometimes
Credits also to KR155E and Jorgeche for their UGE-importer for VES.
Thanks to Jorgeche again for helping me with the multiplayer code.
And yes, he told me that multiplayer stages with obstacles are unstable, but I could not resist to leave them where they are. I have tested all four multiplayer stages and the only bug I found was that in the odd stage the winning screen appeared only on player 1´s screen and not on player 2´s. This happened once out of four tests. The other three times the winning screen was shown properly on both screens.
