Recently, I’ve been experimenting on Frantic Journey, and...

[Adigun A. Polack]

Dearest all of the QB45/QB71 community,

Hello and a splendid new week to you all!!!  ;*) !

Just yesterday night, as I was tweaking and experimenting on the difficulty-level creations for the game Frantic Journey (FJ), I am learning to be careful that while I am indeed planning on making the bullet intensity — or the huge if not INSANE amounts of enemy shots — to the level of the DoDonPachi series or Progear on one of the difficulty-based courses, I am to *also* balance the gameplay and control into proper order so as to aim dead-on at the player’s interest curve.  In so doing, I cause it to rise up and blow its very top into such sheer excitement and thrills!!  Not an easy task one bit, but can be mastered so acefully, you understand that?   !

Take a look at these all-new experimental shots taken from the working developments of the Master Course, one of the more challenging courses of FJ:




Pretty manic, huh?  Exactly the way it is supposed to be because the Master Course is just like it says it is, period.  :cool:

Also, I have toned the amount of bullets down a bit for the Standard Course I am also working on, making it more fair for the players, too (see screenshot below).  



I want to make the difficulties well-balanced for shmup and even non-shmup fans, and that is exactly what I am doing and aiming for on this project.

Since this FJ project originally first began in QB in DOS, and also since the new FreeBasic will likely overshadow more of QB itself to the point of ancient history, I will dare to say without fear whatsoever that this project will stay in QB to be formed as both a DOS and a DOS/Windows hybrid.  

Having said all of that, hey, if we are gonna say goodbye to QB, LET US DO IT IN GRAND STYLE WITH FJ!!!  =b !!

See you all later as I will make point-blank certain that it happens for good.  :king:



GIVING YOU THE FIRST SCOOP HERE THIS WEEK,


Adigun Azikiwe Polack
One of the Founders of “Aura Flow”
Continuing Developer of “Frantic Journey”
Current Developer of “Star Angelic Slugger”
Webmaster of the “AAP Official Projects Squad”

[relsoft]

Well, what can I say, I'm AMAZED. :*)

Tip: Finish it and work on FJ2 with FB. :*)

[Neo]

It looks wonderful! I'd be happy to test it or similar...

But... DOS/Windows hybrid? Do you use DS4QBxx ? I don't hope so... else it won't run on my comp


Oracle!!! Finish TD2 then work on TD3 in FB

[TheBigBasicQ]

Looks awesome AAP! Good work!

[Adigun A. Polack]

To TheBigBasicQ, Neo, and Richard Eric M. Lope (Relsoft):

Thank you richly much, all of you!!  :king: !

Neo and Eric, I will go one-on-one with both of you one at a time on this reply here, so let’s hop right on to it now.



Neo, I will start with you:

It looks wonderful! I'd be happy to test it or similar...

But... DOS/Windows hybrid? Do you use DS4QBxx ? I don't hope so... else it won't run on my comp

First off, Neo, before I answer that question tonight, I clearly said so far on my official Frantic Journey (FJ) pages on the web that I was gonna do two (2) different sound-based versions.    Let me explain here.

One of the two versions of FJ is gonna be an Adlib-based FM synthesis version itself with no music (just sound effects), which absolutely do not take any of the DS4QB series at all for me to even do for that.  Therefore, it will play even in pure DOS as this is gonna be a version of FJ that is never to be a DOS/Windows hybrid at all.  Period, end of the conversation.  That’ll hopefully mean then that this FM version of FJ *will* run under all Windows 9x/ME/XP-based operating systems, too, so keep your fingers crossed and watch for it!!  :cool: !

The other version of FJ, of course, is the original version with full involvement of DS4QB2 for realistic true-to-life sound, music, and even real voicings (and yes, I am gonna continue to use DS4QB2 for the second version here of the two).  This version only has full support for Windows 9x/ME operating systems.  Apparently, this version don’t support Windows XP for some sort of reason ( ).

And, both versions will hopefully feature the *very* same great gameplay and fun you come to expect from FJ plus a lot more new stuff that I will work on for the game!!

Don’t you dare even worry, my man, for I will plain be gut-determined to work on both versions of FJ as this project is truly very much alive and well.  I CAN SURELY PROMISE YOU THAT.  :wtnod:=b !



And finally here, I go over to you, Richard Eric M. Lope (Relsoft):

Tip: Finish it and work on FJ2 with FB. :*)

That would be _so_ wonderful here for me to do, but currently, Eric, I am concentrating on FJ here and getting more of the details and new fresh features and the newest, never-before-seen stuff that will even grace the QuickBASIC screen.    And, speaking of which, here is an exclusive first-look at the new “Course Select” screen for FJ:



At time of my development of this new screen from apparently within the recent weeks up to now, the colors on two of the game’s fonts — if you can look real close at them — have been recently adjusted to make them enhanced and better than ever, and the screen (other than the text) has 4-way independent parallax scrolling running at at least 60fps on the 450mhz Pentium-III computer that I use!  The thing is not done yet, but, I will be working on it continually as this game development project on FJ continues!!!   !!



TheBigBasicQ, Neo, and Eric, once again, I thank you so richly much, and catch you all later!  :bounce:




- Adigun Azikiwe Polack
One of the Founders of “Aura Flow”
Continuing Developer of “Frantic Journey”
Current Developer of “Star Angelic Slugger”
Webmaster of the “AAP Official Projects Squad”



UPDATE (from Saturday, November 20, 2004 at 5:16pm EST):  As continuing progress of FJ marches onward, in the “Course Select” screen, I have just last night implemented the timer to count down in seconds.  And, do expect even more progress to be tacked on as I work even further on the game itself!!   !