tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post3911819502224953275..comments2024-03-08T17:29:26.280-08:00Comments on Retrogame Deconstruction Zone: Missile Command Review: The Aging of Shock and AweRetroAnalysthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10633021712932756737noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-41104961846516685202019-11-24T20:25:04.503-08:002019-11-24T20:25:04.503-08:00Glad to hear it! I appreciate the thoughtful comm...Glad to hear it! I appreciate the thoughtful comments, too. RetroAnalysthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10633021712932756737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-636893733648431462019-11-24T20:22:01.164-08:002019-11-24T20:22:01.164-08:00I suspect you're right about the hardware limi...I suspect you're right about the hardware limitations being the reason for the object limit -- a larger swarm of missiles would be very much within the spirit of the game and seems like the obvious direction to go. Failing that, they might consider curved paths for the missiles, smaller ABM detonations, fewer ABMs, and mixing up missile speeds in a single level. I don't know much about the history of the game's development, so maybe they tried some of those things. Backseat game design is fraught, since you can't know for sure how specific ideas will work out without play-testing them within the context of the other game elements.RetroAnalysthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10633021712932756737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-4577275567202224862019-11-24T12:01:28.596-08:002019-11-24T12:01:28.596-08:00I'm really enjoying your in-depth game analyse...I'm really enjoying your in-depth game analyses and reviews by the way. These early arcade games generally don't get this kind of attention and deconstruction aside from the Pac-Man ghost AI videos on youtube.Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02095188301810471770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-69446412276609610532019-11-24T11:53:49.788-08:002019-11-24T11:53:49.788-08:00Do you have any alternative ideas on what could ha...Do you have any alternative ideas on what could have been used in place of the smart bombs to ramp up the difficulty? Would you just make the missiles faster and/or add more missiles? I'm assuming there were probably some hardware limitations the programmer had to deal with in regards to the number of objects on the screen.Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02095188301810471770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-40587599099217229282019-11-21T11:38:06.877-08:002019-11-21T11:38:06.877-08:00Thanks, I always love to hear from the people who ...Thanks, I always love to hear from the people who are really passionate about these games. You're not the first who I've heard comment about the literal interpretation of the game and envisioning yourself as an actual "missile commander", and I bet this is something that's hard to capture in emulation. Being at an arcade cabinet does feel a lot like being at the control panel of a ship or, in this case, a weapons system.RetroAnalysthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10633021712932756737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-49720567765653455392019-11-21T07:23:37.023-08:002019-11-21T07:23:37.023-08:00This is one of my personal all-time favorite games...This is one of my personal all-time favorite games, and has been for decades. It's not a game for everyone, by any means, for reasons of both theme, difficulty, and graphical sparseness (by modern standards.) But as far as a game that will give you a stiff challenge that can be slowly overcome (well, partially anyway!) with practice and strategy, it's hard to beat! <br /><br />If the idea of "dancing" smart bombs really bothers you, try to think of the screen as less of a true depiction of what's happening and more of a graphical representation as might have been seen by a 1980's "missile commander" They're not so much really defying gravity as using countermeasures. Part of playing almost any classic game is using your imagination a bit to fill in the blanks left by the necessarily simplistic graphics.<br /><br />As for the different missile bases, sure the center base is always the best one. But it only has ten shots! Which makes using the left and right bases effectively a majorly important part of the game. A good player will use them to take out large numbers of missiles and satellites and even the occasional nearby smart bombs, carefully saving the super effective center base missiles mostly for smart bombs, and the occasional missile that's just about to destroy a city.<br /><br />If this game intrigues anyone at all, I really recommend playing A LOT of it. It is a truly satisfying feeling to see your scores rise as you start to get the feel for it and start to make progress against this challenging game.DamonicFuryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05976478908095723372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-31270450766049294062019-11-18T13:22:37.588-08:002019-11-18T13:22:37.588-08:00For the flashing end screen, I captured it in MAME...For the flashing end screen, I captured it in MAME and then used this site to convert to gif and replace the background: https://ezgif.com/. The background replacement is under "Effects". Sometimes you have to play with it a little before adding transparency; that is, doing a fuzzy replacement of the background color with itself to recast near-background pixels... I don't remember if I had to do that with that particular image. Maybe I'll do a blog entry on my process, since it has gotten quite involved in some cases. These old games are ideal for that kind of GIF processing because there are relatively few colors and the backgrounds are often a single color.<br /><br />The one that took the most work was the Donkey Kong animation. That involved a combination of Python, ImageMagick, Paint3D, ezgif, and MAME. For a single image, it definitely isn't worth it, but I'm hoping that I can generalize the script for future use. RetroAnalysthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10633021712932756737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604980045122375946.post-15017174406053534242019-11-18T13:00:10.471-08:002019-11-18T13:00:10.471-08:00Say, how do you make GIFs like that? Especially th...Say, how do you make GIFs like that? Especially the "The End" explosion with the transparent background.Ahabhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04131989140638867919noreply@blogger.com