Damon: The Rocket Jockey

[natebarney]

Damon: The Rocket Jockey is a clone of Nomad: The Space Pirate, a C64 game I remember fondly from my youth. It's written in 65C02 assembly. The code is available at https://github.com/natebarney/damon-the-rocket-jockey

screenshot.png (1.66 KiB) Viewed 3890 times

The goal of the game is to pick up all of the pellets on each level while shooting or avoiding the enemy ship(s). Once all pellets have been collected on a level, shoot any remaining enemies to advance to the next level. A bonus ship is awarded every 10,000 points.

The game accepts input from any of the controllers attached to the system, including the keyboard joystick. The D-pad or arrow keys steer your ship, and any other controller button fires your gun.

It's been tested on ROM version 47 in the emulator and ROM version 46 on real hardware.

Try It Now!

#R47

UPDATE 2024-05-26: Version 1.1.0

• Q key now quits from anywhere, not just title screen
• M key toggles background music on/off
• Tested with ROM version 47 on real hardware, with both 65C02 and 65C816 processors

[mortarm]

I played it on the Web emulator. Couple items:

• "Q" does not quit the game, except from the title screen.
• An option to turn the uh...music off would be nice.

Otherwise, a fun little game.

[natebarney]

Thanks for the feedback!

My primary goal when writing this game was to match the original as closely as possible. Both points you mentioned were done intentionally to that end. However, they're good suggestions, and I'll look into incorporating them. Thanks for that.

Regarding the "Q" issue, would you find it more natural for it to return to the title screen or quit the game outright when pressed during gameplay? I'm leaning toward the former, but I'm curious what others think.

Regarding the background music, it is fairly close to the music in the original, and admittedly it's no Mozart lol. It seems to me to be a variation on the bass line from the Peter Gunn Theme. But it is repetitive, so I can see why some might want to turn it off. Interestingly, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, the "level complete" jingle seems to be a minor version of the opening to Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade by Mussorgsky.

I'll try to get a new version up with these changes in the next few days.

[Edmond D]

regarding the "Q" issue, would you find it more natural for it to return to the title screen or quit the game outright when pressed during gameplay? I'm leaning toward the former, but I'm curious what others think.

I enjoyed the game a couple of times via the online emulator. I'm sure if I had a controller on real HW I would have played it more.

Anyway I'd vote for "Q" exiting the game completely, no matter if in play or at the title screen. Having to exit game play then hit another key to exit the program would tempt people just to cycle the power, since that's a one step solution. If one is playing, why would one abandon their current game only to restart again back at level 1?

I'd even suggest changing "Q" to "X" and the description being "Exit the Program."

If there were options to change the level of difficulty, colour of the borders (some VIC 20 games had that silly option) or other configuration items then Q to exit the game play allows a player to change them then go play with modified settings.

[natebarney]

Anyway I'd vote for "Q" exiting the game completely, no matter if in play or at the title screen. Having to exit game play then hit another key to exit the program would tempt people just to cycle the power, since that's a one step solution. If one is playing, why would one abandon their current game only to restart again back at level 1?

That makes sense to me, thanks.

I'd even suggest changing "Q" to "X" and the description being "Exit the Program."

I see this point, but "X" is already used as part of the keyboard joystick, so I think it's probably better to keep it as "Q".

If there were options to change the level of difficulty, colour of the borders (some VIC 20 games had that silly option) or other configuration items then Q to exit the game play allows a player to change them then go play with modified settings.

Yeah, this makes sense too, but I don't plan to add any options like that, so exiting the program entirely seems like the thing to do. Happy to consider pull requests though!

[Edmond D]

I'd even suggest changing "Q" to "X" and the description being "Exit the Program."

I see this point, but "X" is already used as part of the keyboard joystick, so I think it's probably better to keep it as "Q".

Thanks - I was using the cursor keys and return to fire, forgot about the other keys that are used by the keyboard joystick. Pardon me, when I grew up computer joysticks only had one button, and when it got worn out it was time to ask the parents to buy a new one

[natebarney]

I've updated the game to incorporate the suggestions from this thread. The first post has been updated to reflect this.