Testing, tweaking and bughunting this is becoming impractical in the extreme now, so I'm hoping releasing a beta version of the demo will help.
Firstly a screenshot of the demo in action :
[img]http://members.aol.com/sybixsus/tennis3.jpg[/img]
Now the Demo Download! ( 8mb download. )
NOTE: Everything is copyrighted by either myself or someone else, and cannot use it. The music is by Achim Tober and is available for use in your projects from his website ( http://www.softworxs.de/ )
Instructions : It's pretty simple really. As well as your four directions, you have two buttons. Both buttons work the same way. You hold the button down to prepare for a shot and release it to swing the racket. This applies to standard shots as well as serves. Button one is the power button, and button two is the finesse button. The longer you hold down button 1, the harder you will hit the ball. Button 2 does not build up power and will always hit the ball with minimum power. This is useful for finesse shots like lobs and dropshots, as well as directing serves accurately.
The direction and depth of a shot is decided by using the direction buttons while holding down one of the buttons. It should be pretty intuitive and self-explanatory really. It doesn't play shots for you. There's none of that Virtua Tennis-style hit the firebutton and it performs an amazing topspin lob automatically. In order to play great shots, you need to work a little for them. The more you practice, the better you get at pulling those off. Hopefully.
What I want in Return
I would appreciate it if everyone who downloads this would at least give me the following information. I'm using my own bandwidth purely because I need feedback on this now. If you have more than one computer, it would be great if you could test it on both. I'm really interested in performance on a wide range of machines so old PC's with basic 3d functionality would be interesting.
1) Your system specs : CPU, Videocard, Ram, Operating System, Controllers used, etc.
2) Basic Functionality : Does it work? Is it fast and smooth enough to be playable with the lowest settings for everything? Lowest settings are : 640x480x16 bit color. Fake Shadows and 2d Crowd must be enabled for lowest settings. Shadows are set in options. 2d Crowd is in in the inital settings menu. "I can't get it to run smooth at 1024x768 with FSAA on and soft shadows on my Intel Crapola Onboard 815" is NOT a valid answer here
3) Performance : What resolutions and detail settings can you get while keeping the game playable? For example, if you can get 1024x768 but you can only use true dynamic shadows, say that. If you can also enable soft shadows if you use 800x600, say that too. I want to know what you can make it do without crippling performance on your machine.
4) Do you like the serve marker? I'm undecided as to whether or not the serve marker makes things too easy when serving. Serves were originally just like ordinary shots, purely down to judgement. I added the serve marker when debugging and left it in there because I thought people might want it. I would appreciate some feedback on this.
5) BUGS PLEASE. I really need to find and remove any remaining bugs. If you find any, please let me know and please give as much information as possible. If you can narrow it down to "when you do this during that, and then the whotsname does this, I noticed it does that when it should do this" that would be wonderful. I realise that it's likely that any remaining bugs are going to be a bit obscure, but as much info as possible would be appreciated.
6) General Feedback. Everything else. Comments, thoughts, criticisms, preferences, improvements, etc. I'm happy to hear anything, but don't necessarily expect that I will make changes for every complaint. For example, this is not a simulation. It was never intended to be, and if it was, I wouldn't like it. It's an arcade tennis game with the emphasis on slugging it out, just like the good old days of Pro Tennis Tour on the Amiga. If you hate it because it's an arcade tennis game and you want it to be a simulation, please say so. It's valid criticism, and it does tell me something. Just don't expect me to turn the game into something I never wanted it to be. Again, as much info as you can provide here is much appreciated.
I hope you like it.
Firstly a screenshot of the demo in action :
[img]http://members.aol.com/sybixsus/tennis3.jpg[/img]
Now the Demo Download! ( 8mb download. )
NOTE: Everything is copyrighted by either myself or someone else, and cannot use it. The music is by Achim Tober and is available for use in your projects from his website ( http://www.softworxs.de/ )
Instructions : It's pretty simple really. As well as your four directions, you have two buttons. Both buttons work the same way. You hold the button down to prepare for a shot and release it to swing the racket. This applies to standard shots as well as serves. Button one is the power button, and button two is the finesse button. The longer you hold down button 1, the harder you will hit the ball. Button 2 does not build up power and will always hit the ball with minimum power. This is useful for finesse shots like lobs and dropshots, as well as directing serves accurately.
The direction and depth of a shot is decided by using the direction buttons while holding down one of the buttons. It should be pretty intuitive and self-explanatory really. It doesn't play shots for you. There's none of that Virtua Tennis-style hit the firebutton and it performs an amazing topspin lob automatically. In order to play great shots, you need to work a little for them. The more you practice, the better you get at pulling those off. Hopefully.
What I want in Return
I would appreciate it if everyone who downloads this would at least give me the following information. I'm using my own bandwidth purely because I need feedback on this now. If you have more than one computer, it would be great if you could test it on both. I'm really interested in performance on a wide range of machines so old PC's with basic 3d functionality would be interesting.
1) Your system specs : CPU, Videocard, Ram, Operating System, Controllers used, etc.
2) Basic Functionality : Does it work? Is it fast and smooth enough to be playable with the lowest settings for everything? Lowest settings are : 640x480x16 bit color. Fake Shadows and 2d Crowd must be enabled for lowest settings. Shadows are set in options. 2d Crowd is in in the inital settings menu. "I can't get it to run smooth at 1024x768 with FSAA on and soft shadows on my Intel Crapola Onboard 815" is NOT a valid answer here
3) Performance : What resolutions and detail settings can you get while keeping the game playable? For example, if you can get 1024x768 but you can only use true dynamic shadows, say that. If you can also enable soft shadows if you use 800x600, say that too. I want to know what you can make it do without crippling performance on your machine.
4) Do you like the serve marker? I'm undecided as to whether or not the serve marker makes things too easy when serving. Serves were originally just like ordinary shots, purely down to judgement. I added the serve marker when debugging and left it in there because I thought people might want it. I would appreciate some feedback on this.
5) BUGS PLEASE. I really need to find and remove any remaining bugs. If you find any, please let me know and please give as much information as possible. If you can narrow it down to "when you do this during that, and then the whotsname does this, I noticed it does that when it should do this" that would be wonderful. I realise that it's likely that any remaining bugs are going to be a bit obscure, but as much info as possible would be appreciated.
6) General Feedback. Everything else. Comments, thoughts, criticisms, preferences, improvements, etc. I'm happy to hear anything, but don't necessarily expect that I will make changes for every complaint. For example, this is not a simulation. It was never intended to be, and if it was, I wouldn't like it. It's an arcade tennis game with the emphasis on slugging it out, just like the good old days of Pro Tennis Tour on the Amiga. If you hate it because it's an arcade tennis game and you want it to be a simulation, please say so. It's valid criticism, and it does tell me something. Just don't expect me to turn the game into something I never wanted it to be. Again, as much info as you can provide here is much appreciated.
I hope you like it.