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Beyond Castlevania...


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I have the first level already laid out. It was inspired by the first level of gauntlet II.

 

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And there are 2 exits but as it stands, I can't label them so that is a small fault but I can deal with it if everyone else could.

Edited by grafixbmp
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  • 2 weeks later...
And now for the final draft. This finished level does not have the fourth color. But I am rather pleased with it.

 

This is a very nice design. I assume you would get three colours per line by flickering on alternate frames? I wonder how it would look if you alternated colours on each line instead (without flickering) - there would be a gap between each colour, but it might still look OK?

 

Chris

 

Your comment has always stuck with me and as time has gone by, I have become more aware that what you said is quite doable and easier on the eyes. So I took both of the last levels I did and applied your suggestion.

 

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Any news on the Castlevania port?

I've had a lot on my plate lately and haven't had much time to do any programming. I've got tiny snipets of code but nothing fully working. I'm trying to set up an order of operations that compiles itself every 2 frames and tells the kernel which objects to check for first, second, third etc. This way I can have different kernel segments I can jump to depending on the checking order. The whole thing all being based on the scanline counter value. And because player 1 will be used multiple times at varying locations across the screen, the order of operations can cycle back on itself a few times. So there will be many different variations of the kernel in order to squeeze in all the checks, objects and register settings. I'm more worried about the kernel than anything else at this point. This is one complexed beast. :)

 

The other diversions have helped me to see castlevania more clearly. Speaking of which, I never got to finish marble madness practice round until recently so I will post it here.

 

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I'm loving the new Marble Madness graphics! And the fact that they can be done without flickering is great!

I actualy noticed an epic error I made in the blue level (1). The double path before the last pipes goes longer than it is suppost to. I need to fix that before the practice and first level are finnished.

 

If I decide to do the next few levels that follow, I will always keep the gray tone but alternate the other color's scanlines between 2 colors when more detail may be needed. I may also change color tables part way through a level but I wish not to if at all possible.

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First level of Marble Madness has been corrected to the best of my ability.

 

It look very good. How about coding up the playfield to see what it looks like on a real 2600?

 

Chris

 

There is one thing I am not sure about when I code this to display. I know with a level this tall and this detailed, there would definitely be a page boundary crossing and I'm not sure what I shoulod do to compensate for it. What have others done when dealing with page crossings and the extra cycles? especialy when refreshing every scanline. This kernel will probably be similar to the castlevania one except the castlevania one will display a scanline and clear the next while thisone doesn't clear any.

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There is one thing I am not sure about when I code this to display. I know with a level this tall and this detailed, there would definitely be a page boundary crossing and I'm not sure what I shoulod do to compensate for it. What have others done when dealing with page crossings and the extra cycles?

I was just thinking, maybe use 2 kernals directly after each other? 1 kernal displays page A, 1 kernal displays page B

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There is one thing I am not sure about when I code this to display. I know with a level this tall and this detailed, there would definitely be a page boundary crossing and I'm not sure what I shoulod do to compensate for it. What have others done when dealing with page crossings and the extra cycles?

I was just thinking, maybe use 2 kernals directly after each other? 1 kernal displays page A, 1 kernal displays page B

I guess I could do a single index value per 2 scanlines. the first scanline could load the 4 bytes from pages F8 F9 FA and FB. The second scanline would keep the index intact and load from pages FC FD FE and FF in another color. 256 + 256 = a maximum of 512 but the only way I could possibly continue it further is to do a bankswitch with enough time to spare at the end of the last 256 of the last scanline to a new bank and start the process over with continuing new data for a maximum of 1024 scanlines. I doubt a level would go over this. Any thoughts?

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The second scanline would keep the index intact and load from pages FC FD FE and FF in another color.

 

You'll have to stop 6 bytes short in all banks if you use page $FF because of the reset, NMI and IRQ vectors. Maybe even earlier of you have a bank switched cart due to the hotspots.

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The second scanline would keep the index intact and load from pages FC FD FE and FF in another color.

 

You'll have to stop 6 bytes short in all banks if you use page $FF because of the reset, NMI and IRQ vectors. Maybe even earlier of you have a bank switched cart due to the hotspots.

easiest way would probably be to shift everything up by 1 page so that level data would only go as far as FE. That would prob solve most problems. The first 7 pages would then contain the kernel code and sprite data along with page FF.

Edited by grafixbmp
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I guess the question here is what sort of hardware you want to limit yourself to.

If you were drawing the playfield all from RAM, well... then page boundaries aren't an issue.

You just need to have an offscreen task re-fill the RAM values when the screen scrolls down.

 

However, if you're going for "classic", then yes, page-boundary madness could step in.

 

-John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Things have been looking up lately. I now have a new set of wheels (well, new to me anyway). I have been getting more fit (slowly, but progress is being made on this). And I feel like coding some stuff! I have been figuring out a simple layout for displaying the MM levels.

 

I wondered if anyone would have any pointers on this approach.

 

I figured I would set a value the size of the screen by the scanlines X 2 (I will explain this as I go) and decrement it each time the frame is drawn when the joystick is pushed down. This routine when run through, fills the screen with black scanlines. There will be a fixed value which represents the full screen. More on this later as well.

 

When the first value is less than the fixed value, then the rest is filled in with a new routine to which displays the level data until the scanline count reaches the fixed value, then the frame ends. This continues until the the screen gets filled with the level starting from the top of the screen down. At this point the fixed value matches the level data scanline count to which each consecutive frame the level data is added 1.

 

This continues until the end of the level is reached or a new bank is jumped to to continue out the level. At the point that the level ends, a new routine falls into place which continues out the screen with a pattern as far as the pattern needs to go.

 

The entire display section which does the actual level data, does it's task by decreasing the counting index every 2 scanlines where the first scanline draws in one color and the second another. The data for the gray sections is loaded from 4 consecutive pages where the next color (say orange) is set and the data for it is loaded from 4 other consecutive pages. When this routine reaches the end of the data or the end of the page file, the bank switches or the final routine begins that displays the ending pattern until the player0 object reaches the goal trigger/flag.

 

This then shifts to the next bank(s) that hold the next level. What I am wondering is if anyone has any better approaches to this or nifty ways to transition between routines so that everything looks smooth from one scanline to the next.

 

This should also work backwards as well for when the stick is pushed up.

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  • 3 months later...

Been thinking about what a particular game for XBOX 360 would look like on atari 2600 and I did a simple but rather fun pic that the pros could look at if they were intrested and possibly pull it off if they do so with no restrictions on ROM and or possibly extra RAM.

 

Start drooling... I know I did. Can anyone name the version of the game?

 

This is just a test and alignment image so no actual screen (if it ever gets born) should be this busy.

 

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Got one more. Tweaked it a bit to test maze designs. I also had an idea that when a new wave fills the left or right half of the screen, the ball could go from top to bottom and sweep across to show the new pellets and new maze layouts. Also had wondered about a good way to do power pellets but to now avail except for flashing the power pellets like the arcade remake in 4k one guy made a while back. If you know the pacman version I am talking about, you probably also know I got the idea of alternating the maze and pellets colors from him.

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  • 5 months later...

Man been forever since i've posted. had an extremely crappy year. I got alot of stuff that will keep me away from any of my ongoing work. And yes castlevania is still at the forefront of my game work but it is still far off for a while atm. I had some strange drive to create an image even though I haven't had the time or the drive to do any artwork prior to the drive. lol so I just wanted to share the image for inspiration to others. here ya go.

 

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