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Hi there!

 

The more graphics I created, the more Bob kept asking for, until there were some 53 sprites in the game (some using two sprites for a single object), 16 of them were animated

 

Just thought to tell you that my favourites are the snowflake and the rotating snowstorm cloud. Those are truly outstanding, some of the coolest 2600 animations I've ever seen!

 

Greetings,

Manuel

Just thought to tell you that my favourites are the snowflake and the rotating snowstorm cloud. Those are truly outstanding, some of the coolest 2600 animations I've ever seen!

Yup, those two are IMO also the best ones. I like especially the "rotating snowstorm cloud".

Just thought to tell you that my favourites are the snowflake and the rotating snowstorm cloud. Those are truly outstanding, some of the coolest 2600 animations I've ever seen!

Yup, those two are IMO also the best ones. I like especially the "rotating snowstorm cloud".

 

I almost cut the snowflake because it wasn't quite what I had in mind, and I didn't think Nathan liked it either, but he made a last-minute appeal for it so it stayed in. Glad you guys liked it. The snowstorm is pretty sweet as well, I agree. Nathan just thought that up on his own and tossed it in with a bunch of other stuff to see if I'd like it.

 

I'm going to update my blog sometime soon with a little recap of the development of RR, but I'll just mention here that you really did a ton of work on the game beyond "just" designing the art. You also had a big hand in a lot of the design of the game. And the playfield "terrain" you designed were fantastic; I think that may be the most important artwork that you did, besides Santa himself, in terms of making the game look good.

 

So thanks!

 

I think my personal favorite is the lightning, though. I was initially blown away by how completely cool that looked when I first saw it in the game.

Thanks for the compliments, guys! The snow flurry (storm cloud) was fun to make, although it took awhile to get it to loop properly. Lot's of little bits to keep track of. I wanted to try out a few things I hadn't seen in a 2600 game before, and I couldn't recall anything quite like that. (Although I'm still disappointed that Chucky the Christmas Weasel didn't make it into the game. Maybe next year... )

 

I liked the large snowflake all along, but I think I complained about it initially because 1) it was really hard to make something six-sided with only eight pixels and 2) it was impossible to make it rotate, and I had to resort to flipping it instead. But with the motion Bob added to it, it really worked out well. Very "fluttery".

 

You also had a big hand in a lot of the design of the game.  And the playfield "terrain" you designed were fantastic; I think that may be the most important artwork that you did, besides Santa himself, in terms of making the game look good.

 

So thanks!

 

You're welcome! The playfield stuff was really challenging, but I think it turned out really well. Of course - you had to actually put the stuff together and make it work. I think you did a great job of building very playable (and challenging) levels out of all those pieces.

 

My favorite playfield object has got to be the train though. That whole sequence in the city is pretty cool.

 

I think my personal favorite is the lightning, though.  I was initially blown away by how completely cool that looked when I first saw it in the game. 

 

That's one of my favorites, too. Thanks for writing the extra code to make that work!

Finally, today at work, two of my good friends and fellow tech geeks gave me a Flashback 2 for Christmas! Of course, I immediately plugged it in (handy having video monitors in the office), so we could check it out. It's a pretty cool bit of geek-gear. I've only checked out a few of the new games on it, but I'll try and post a more in-depth review in a future blog.

 

Maybe you can get it hacked with a cart slot and I wonder... if Reindeer Rescue would run on the Flashback2.

 

I'm wondering if Reindeer Rescue is the most collaborative homebrew ever? It certainly seems like it might be.

 

Way to go!

Just got Reindeer Rescue in the mail yesterday. Great job on the sprites Nathan! (Did I see an <spoiler deleted>? )

Just got Reindeer Rescue in the mail yesterday. Great job on the sprites Nathan! (Did I see an AT-AT? )

 

Thanks! And yes, you did.

 

There are a couple of other "guest-sprites" in there, too.

Having just seen Reindeer Rescue, I also think that you have done a great job on the sprites! It would be great if you could do a sprite drawing tutorial at some point in the same way that you did for the game labels?

 

Chris

It would be great if you could do a sprite drawing tutorial at some point in the same way that you did for the game labels?

That would be cool!

What kind of stuff would you want to see included?

Hi there!

 

What kind of stuff would you want to see included?

 

My main problem when trying sprite conversions myself seems to be getting animation frames "look right". Don't know if there's any providable knowledge/tricks/secrets regarding that though or if you just have to have it in the blood

 

Greetings,

Manuel

What kind of stuff would you want to see included?

IMO you don't have to be a great artist to draw 2600 sprites - when you have a bitmap that's 8x20 (or 8x8 or 8x16 or whatever), it isn't real hard to come up with something that looks halfway decent. At least, I've been pretty satisfied with the stuff I've created, like the fish in Go Fish! and the tanks in M-4, though they aren't jawdropping by any means.

 

My problem is this: I can draw one frame of a running man (for example). It will look pretty good. It's drawing the other 4+ frames in the animation sequence I can't do! Any tips?

 

And any tips about drawing static sprites are appreciated as well.

My problem is this: I can draw one frame of a running man (for example).  It will look pretty good.  It's drawing the other 4+ frames in the animation sequence I can't do!  Any tips?

 

Yes, sprite animation is where I fall down also. Any tips on how to create a half-decent animation sequence would be very welcome

 

Chris

So more of an animation tutorial then? Well, I'll see what I can come up with. It'd be nice to do something with all of that art college education that I'm still paying off.

Yes, sprite animation is where I fall down also.  Any tips on how to create a half-decent animation sequence would be very welcome 

 

I'm hardly an expert, but I think one of the keys is to figure out where all of the parts of the sprite are going in every frame, even though there may be some frames where they aren't visible.

 

For an example of how not to do things, look at the Odyssey2 "left standing man" and "left walking man" graphics (reproduced roughly below). How do the different parts of the man's leg move in going from one frame to the other? Where does the man's "foot", present in the "standing" graphic only, "go" in the walking man?

...##...  ...##...
...##...  ...##...
....#...  ....#...
..###...  ..###...
....#...  ....#...
....#...  ...#.#..
...##...  ..#...#.

Where does the man's "foot", present in the "standing" graphic only, "go" in the walking man?

IMO the right leg of the walking man should be at the right or left part of the standing man's foot. So his body moves 2 or 3 pixels. Else you get those "Moonwalk" effects.

Hey Nathan, I finally finished Reindeer Rescue tonight. Nice job on the victory screen too. (And I caught a glimpse of another one of your guest sprites in the city level) I'm going to leave the Atari on that screen for a while, since it was so tough to reach.

Glad you liked it! I was pleased with the way that screen turned out. I haven't heard of anyone else reaching the end of the game yet. I can get all the way through the game pretty consistently now, although I beta-tested the daylights out of it, so I'd better be able to. (Plus having a "cheat" version of the game where I could start at level four helped.)

Glad you liked it! I was pleased with the way that screen turned out. I haven't heard of anyone else reaching the end of the game yet.

I have.

 

 

Once.