Add Difficulty?

[Bryan Thomas]

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Well Ive decided to abolish the idea of zelda like files where the person can create a new file and it will show the persons percentage. I finished it the other day but I felt it took away the arcade feel of the game. But now that its mid july Imma have to work my but off to program an effiecient final boss. But I should be able to get it done easily

Add Difficulty?

Ok, I could EASILY EASILY OMFG EASILY!!! add difficulty to contra. Meaning the person could select easy-hard. Now what this would do is change the intelligence of the enemies, however at the same time, decrease the speed of the game a hair. So If the person wants more of a challenge (which is unlikely since its hard as a right now) then they can select hard. Im not sure though, because me and andrew can stand using input( . So It would require its own menu. What ya think?

Estimated mem addition=110

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[leofox]

I think it's a good idea

and the 110, is that in bits/bytes/kilobytes?

[Madskillz]

It would be a nice little feature...Not a big addition to the memory your using up... just 110 bytes.

[Jeremiah Walgren]

I'd say add it. If I beat a game on one difficulty level and I liked it, I'd want to go through and see if I could beat it on a harder level. But that's just me...

[Bryan Thomas]

OK then, Awesome !!

Thanks for your input. It will actually take up less then 110 bytes now because I did something really cool. I realized that I had 3 menus that all had 4 options. (well I would have 3 if I made a slot menu and a difficutly menu). So I modified one menu to work for all 3. It just depends on the value of one variable to decide where to take you and which options to display. Its mad awesome because the saving/loading slot menu is exactly the same loop and it even stays the same when you are saving and loading from the ingame menu. So basically I made a whole nother menu and added like 50 bytes. So I could do the same for the difficulty. Just add some options and use the same menu code YAYAYAYA

Your right, it would add alot to the game and not harm the mem hardly at all. Thanks guys ill probably post an animated screenshot and some still shots sometime soon so keep an eye out :D

EDIT: hmmmmmmm yup I alrdy finished adding difficulty to Contra. But Im still unsure to make hard really hard or just a bit harder Oh well Ill figure it out. But I added like virtually nothing to the game so evberythings cool.

[Madskillz]

Sweet man! You said it didn't even take up alot either. Yes!

[Arcane Wizard]

What about the speed? How was this influenced?

[Bryan Thomas]

The speed did not change at all for medium and easy. But hard is a little noticeable. What happens is that since its on hard, it has to check the NME subroutine more often. Meaning that when you move it will have more little pauses in between your movements. It is not much of a change but since I play it alot, I can easily notice it. Makes moving anf jumping a little bit more difficult, but hey its hard Overall I think it is worth it. medium and easy run great and match the difficulty. Hard runs great to, but not as well, but it really is harder. 1 rocket launcher dude shot me 3 times, and Im the master at that game lol.

Here is some screenshots of the menu navigation that I posted on greenfire. (sorry if they are crappy)







I recently annialted almost 100 bytes from my program by using ans techniques. I optimized the crap outta it :)

The slot menus and difficulty added around 75 bytes. But after that the contra program was 5060 bytes. But then I did some optimization and reduced it to 4981 bytes. The total program mem consuption incluing all game programs is 8018 bytes. But that will probably go down 2 !!

[Arcane Wizard]

[randomadvice/note/stuff/idea]
When it's completely done, print out the entire source code, sit down and take notes on what could be done in a different, faster/more efficient way. Don't be afraid that this might mean rewriting your entire engine, you don't have to, but it's nice to double check how optimized everything is and it's good training for the mind.

So don't just focus on the removing of " and using ans and optimisations like that, they can only get you so far.
[/randomadvice/note/stuff/idea]

[Bryan Thomas]

Yeah I know arcane. My optimization usually goes past just altering ans and " placements. I do in-fact look at the code to see if its the best way to do it and I try my best to think outside the box. But thanks for the advice. It always helps