Progress on Ultra Air Hockey (PC)

        Progress for the main/PC version of Ultra Air Hockey currently has been very rapid and exciting! Development of the main/PC version of the game started on January 08, 2014, and is still ongoing (as of the time of this writing, 02/26/14). Up to today, the title screen, main menu, options screen, main gameplay, and sfx/bgm have been coded in. Also, physics, powerups, and controls for player one have been created. Currently, the game is ~75% complete.

   What is left to do for the game is to create a credits screen; fix physics, graphical, and other bugs; create controls for a human player #2, and create AI for the CPU player #2. If everything goes according to plans, the PC version of the game should be complete by early April 2014... however, there are no guarantees on this date, as my University work is getting difficult and time consuming.

   Below is a YouTube video showing a PoC of the current development of the PC version of the Ultra Air Hockey video game. Enjoy! Please post your comments and suggestions for the game here. I am tired of having no audience/followers for my homebrew/indie software, and would like some intelligent human interaction!

   Stay tuned for more developments on Ultra Air Hockey!

-Tamkis

About Ultra Air Hockey

    Currently, I am creating new video game, called Ultra Air Hockey. Ultra Air Hockey is the new and exciting, multi-platform, Air Hockey homebrew/indie video game, coming to your PC, Sega Genesis/Sega CD retro video game consoles, and Android (in the future)! The main copy of the game will be written in QB64GL for Windows PCs, and will utilize QB64's new commands, especially the multimedia commands. After game development is finished for the PC version, the game will be indirectly ported to the Sega Genesis/CD as homebrew software using BasiEgaXors.

Unlike the other boring Air Hockey video games out there, Ultra Air Hockey has various features that make it unique and fun, including:

• Features
• 1 and 2 Player modes
• Difficulty settings
• Each difficulty has a different length for goal
• x3 difficulty settings per mode
• Easy (small goal)
• Medium (larger goal)
• Hard (largest goal)
• Powerups
• Powerups are collectible by hitting powerup icons with hockey puck
• Powerup is then kept in reserve until player uses it
• x 9 powerups
• Multi puck
• Big stick
• Makes your stick x3 bigger
• Blockade
• Puts a giant wall in the middle of the table!
• Slowmo
• Kill opponent
• Opponent is taken out of the game until next goal
• Swap places
• Fastmo
• Invisibility mode
• Makes players invisible for a brief amount of time
• Bumpers
• Randomly places x7 bumpers on the table
• Puck and sticks interact with them!
• Graphics
• 100% Original graphics
• Pre-rendered snapshots from original Google Sketchup models
• Original 2D sprites

• Music
• Public domain, classic .mod chiptunes
• x16 Chiptunes
• x3 for the difficulty modes
• x7 for the powerups
• x3 other
• Sound effects
• Realistic, original, exciting sound effects!
• Creative Common sounds from Freesound.org
• Announcer proclaimes
• What the current score is
• Who is winner
• Other things
• High quality, fun game, for family and friends!

Stay tuned on my blog for more updates on development for Ultra Air Hockey!

Plans for 2014

Goodbye 2013, hello new year, 2014!

  

   Christmas break 2013 was not very eventful for me, other than visiting family and relaxing from a long, stressful, but successful university semester. I did get a Ti-89 graphing calculator and an RCA cable for my Atari 130XE from "Santa"! The Ti-89 I will be using for higher-level math classes, as well as for software engineering development, as this calculator has most of the functionality and programming ease which is lacking on the z80-based TI calculators. I have no current plans of software to write for the Ti-89 yet, especially since I am still learning how to use it; however, I may be dealing more with programs written in assembly language. Why? Because the Ti-89 calculator is Motorola 68k-based, which is a processor and an assembly language I am very familiar with, what with a few years of tinkering with the Sega Genesis and a PC breakout engine called Break GOLD, which utilizes Motorola 68k assembly for scripting.

Ti-89 Calculator!

   Currently, the Spring 2014 semester is in session. Although university life and responbilities take up most of my leisure time, I am hoping to have some time to create more software and homebrew/amateur video games. Several projects are underway, including:

• Ultra Air Hockey (PC, Sega, and someday Android)
• Tower Tic Tac Toe (Atari 8-bit computer port)
• Completion on Sonic CD Breakout

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Ultra Air Hockey:

Ultra Air Hockey is a multi-platform Air Hockey video game, which is being developed for PC, the Sega Genesis/Sega CD as homebrew, and in the future, Android. You can read more about on my website, and under the "Ultra Air Hockey" topic of my blog.
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Tower Tic Tac Toe:

   Tower Tic Tac Toe is an original 3D Tic Tac Toe game, which has a 3x3x3 playing field and powerups. You can learn more about it here and here. I will soon be porting the game from the PC version to the Atari 8-bit computers, in vanilla Atari-BASIC. The sounds and music will be generated from the beeps and boops of the POKEY chip, from Atari-BASIC. This port will be hardest, as it may require an epic rewrite of the code, since Atari-BASIC is DOS-like, and includes line numbers. Also, I am very new at the specifics of Atari-BASIC. The cool part is that I will be able to test this game on my physical Atari 130XE once finished :).
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More projects and news will be posted here at Eaglesoft Labs, and, as usual, releases of games and software posted at my EagleSoft Ltd.

--Tamkis