If you are going to use a spinner, it makes perfect sense that as you spin faster, your sprite moves faster, does it not?
It does, however.... when flying a plane such as Time Pilot, being able to spin in place is ridiculous.
Again, you've taken part of what I was saying and responded to it. I suggested that after adding a spinner they would need to ramp up the difficulty. The fact that using a spinner would make the game easier suggests that the controls currently used are not optimized. Therefore, based on your own argument, you are agreeing with me and that a spinner should be used. Thanks.
How does that change the physics of flight and effect of thrusters?
I suppose you think Arkanoid should be with 2 buttons or does a spinner make sense? Afterall, Arkanoid is a spaceship and spinning it faster moves you instantly fast.
Is Arkanoid based on Reality? Its some sort of pill that moves without any thrust exaust, and carries a large ball that kills blocks. Sounds realistic to me..
heh. Lets say for sake of bridging the gap, the craft uses UFO technology + some sort of quantum string movement. Why hes locked into the block world however... Uhh, anyways, its a very poor example IMO.
Not to mention Blasteroids,
FYI, Blasteroids does not use 1 to 1 spinner control. It has a limited top-speed of rotation. Its also a sucky game, infinitely far inferior to the masterpiece that is Asteroids Deluxe. You might think a spinner was a good idea for AD, but after playing Blasteroids, you realize how good the game is AS-IS with buttons. The spinner does not really add anything to the game.
Star Trek
,
Star Trek is your best argument. The game is flawed.. in that the space ship has zero momentum. The thing is, I Love the game, as is, even with its flawed representation.
I do have a feeling it might be a much more balanced game if there were momentum effects in it. As it stands, the enemies can just as easily turn and face you.. as you can face them. With momentum, you could juke them, and counter.. where as now its merely done via making the computer AI 'stupid'.
A spinner controller in this game, and others like it, would probably be much better off as a center-sprung paddle (mini steering wheel). Turn the paddle a tiny bit left, and thrusters fire up lightly and start to rotate the player. Turn the paddle full, and thruster power maxes out to give a faster rotation. This difference is that one cant just turn in place instantly at mach 10. Its taking time for the thrusters to turn you that swiftly, even on max.. and it will take equal thrust time to stop that rotation... and then more time to ramp up to go the other direction. Again... physics based reactions.
One Could simulate a similar effect, by reading a POT, and using an intercepting program or encoder... that presses virtual keys at a variable press-rate. (needs a mild dead-zone to avoid motion in the center off position)
Fact is.. a real Asteroids style ship would probably control with dual analog style slider controls or similar analog sticks (like assault).
(a real Star Trek style ship would probably turn gun turrets, and not merely try to turn the ship in-place quickly)
Zektor, etc So... according to your logic SOME developer were doing it wrong, aren't they?
Zektor plays very much like StarTrek. Super fast acceleration. No space-momentum. I think the real factor here is that there so much going on, from all different directions.
In StarCastle, you have only a few bullets to shoot down. With pinpoint accuracy that a spinner provides it would probably be too easy. The games hardware may have been incapable of the style of speed and polygon count needed to provide additional difficulty needed to combat the extra control a spinner would have provided.
The biggest flaw with Starcastle, IMO, is the lack of space momentum drift. If you had it, you could tap your thrusters for a sec, let go, lay down fire and steer while floating by. The RC-Car-like drive is just too static and poor for the kind of challenge you are saddled with. However, again, this would make the game easier... and as said, the game was probably pushing its technological limitations to the max as it was.
Most games in the 80s were so limited in ram memory and processing speed, that extreme coding measures, optimizations, cheating, and raw genius... were needed to get things to function at all. Everything was written in Assembly ( zeros and ones ), hand typed in with punch-card ribbon tape. Many of the early games spent months creating the perfect gameplay balance and difficulty ramping. They didnt have fancy graphics to woo people. They had to rely on rock solid gameplay.
Believe me, I L O V E spinner games. I just think that games made especially back then, were well designed as they were intended. As said, it took a lot of time to balance them. And, many of these games were tested in busy arcades well before being released. They were adjusted accordingly. If games didnt do well, even after tweaks.. they scrapped them.
I believe there are few exceptions where controllers were 'limited'. Heck, Atari was going to make the trackball in Marble Madness motorized. Unfortunately, the prototype just didnt work out mechanically.
There are 360 degree steering wheel games going back past 1976, Trackball games in 1978, and in the 60s to 70s, the mechanical games were seriously complicated, sparing little expense.
Im not saying its Impossible that some creations were denied.. but that it was probably much more of a rarity back then, than in later years, such as today, where creativity is pretty much squashed out of existence by budget and profit concern. (remake everything. nothing original. no risks)
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