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Adventure II for Atari 8-Bit Computers?


Arjak

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There is an all-new package for Adventure II XE! The artwork and label/manual are new. The original 5200-version maps needed to be adjusted since there is a slight - but pretty important to gameplay - change in the XE version.

 

Status update: Well, I didn't meet my goal of finishing coding / debugging by March 31, but regardless much progress was made in March. Over the past week, I played a bunch of the game, testing and tweaking little things as I find them. All the tweaks needed were caused by the changes to code from the 5200 version - mostly tweaking the new hiding spots. When I defined them, I estimated where the X,Y coordinates of each hiding spot should be , and via testing I've realized a few items end up in a wall or shrubbery, so I had to adjust the exact spot of a few.

 

Right now, I'm working w/Tep392 to get the 'dual bank-switching' thing done. Once that gets done, I'm going to post a demo that I hope many will play and report back feedback.

Great news ! Now I just need to add (another) system to my collection just for this game ... thanks alot cafeman :grin: Im thinking of the xegs ... I like the looks of it . Any thoughts ?
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I believe it was over 10 years ago that I started making the art for this game, so I don't have much of the original pixel art left, but I recall there were a few minor art issues in the game that I don't think ever got fixed.

 

The issues had to do with sprites that were designed to use their accompanying missile: the sword (side view), and the bridge (side view).

Here's an example of the sword.post-218-0-28343900-1364924998.png

 

I can't find the bridge graphics or an example screen-shot, but I remember from the last version of the game that I played (final version?), that it didn't use the missile, and was thus non-symmetrical.

 

I'm posting in hopes that these art issues will get fixed, or at least have the sprites redrawn so they look correct. (the sword as-is is passable, but I think I remember the bridge issue was quite noticeable)

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The Raccoon Speaketh. :)

 

There were technical reasons why the missile-portion of certain sprites was removed.

 

1. The Bridge - we had it wider originally using the missile as the right-most post of the ladder. But drawing the missile - which is at least 20 pixels in height - was screwing up the Vertical Blank Interrupt timing quite horribly. Even now, there are times that if the Bridge is on-screen with other big items, that things can get weird for a few frames on some screens. That is why I cancelled the whole idea. Nothing looks bad about the bridge - you drew it both ways and I just reverted to the original 1-player-only image. anyway, I can't change it for these reasons.

 

2. the Sword - I used missile0 to draw the Sword Handle, thus (since the Sword , being an item, can be either Player 1/2/3 depending on what else is on-screen) it is a different color than the gray/white sword. The reasons this was originally done: collision of the sword handle (the missile) will block a dragon. Collision with the sword itself will hurt the dragon. I didn't want you to be able to hurt the dragon unless the sword's point was stabbing the dragon - otherwise, why bother drawing it left-facing or right-facing at all. I can understand the artist wanting it the original way, but I didn't make this decision in error but for these reasons.

 

Another factoid (that I just now remembered, thinking about this) - I was originally planning for this sword handle to have to ability to break certain rocks/boulders, leading to secret passages. But I axed that idea eventually. This was another reason I wanted to distinguish the collision between the sword and its handle, although that reason is moot now.

 

If you go to the following link, and scroll down to the entry 2/16/2006 - you'll see I actually documented some of this on my original AdvII page.

 

http://cafeman.www9....v2Archives.html

Edited by Cafeman
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I probably have OCD or something, but I just like things to be perfect.

 

Would it be possible to edit the bridge sprite like so:

post-218-0-25767400-1364931942_thumb.png

 

Also, I don't know if it would be a bother or not, but I'd really like to see the sword handle 2 pixels wide like in the example picture, even if it is yellow in color.

 

I think the game looks great as-is, but I'm just a perfectionist. :)

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Also, I don't know if it would be a bother or not, but I'd really like to see the sword handle 2 pixels wide like in the example picture, even if it is yellow in color.

 

I looked at the logic. It wouldn't be hard to modify the sword handle to be 2 pixels. I'd also have to adjust the HPOSM0 register - the "X axis" of the handle - a further pixel away from the sword body, again not a big deal, I don't think. Maybe tonight I can play with it , see how it looks.

 

DrawSwordHandle2
lda (Ptr1),y
ora #%00000001	 ; <== row1 "draw pixel" of sword handle
sta (Ptr1),y
iny
lda (Ptr1),y
ora #$01 ;			 <== change to ora #$00000011 (i.e., "ora #$03") for the middle row of sw handle
sta (Ptr1),y
iny
lda (Ptr1),y
ora #$01			 ; <== row3 "draw pixel" of sword handle
sta (Ptr1),y
iny
jmp AfterEraseSwordHandle

 

Concerning the vertically oriented bridge, I'm not seeing the problem. I don't have a clean pic of the bridge but even so (with the background graphics bleeding thru the bridge's "rungs" ) ... I don't see it. Why do you think there is a double-rung, like your sample pic.

 

** also, if you miss the excitement, perhaps you'd like to do some art for another 5200/A8 game. One with a DETECTIVE theme? :)

post-37-0-89514300-1364992877_thumb.png

Edited by Cafeman
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There is an all-new package for Adventure II XE! The artwork and label/manual are new. The original 5200-version maps needed to be adjusted since there is a slight - but pretty important to gameplay - change in the XE version.

 

Status update: Well, I didn't meet my goal of finishing coding / debugging by March 31, but regardless much progress was made in March. Over the past week, I played a bunch of the game, testing and tweaking little things as I find them. All the tweaks needed were caused by the changes to code from the 5200 version - mostly tweaking the new hiding spots. When I defined them, I estimated where the X,Y coordinates of each hiding spot should be , and via testing I've realized a few items end up in a wall or shrubbery, so I had to adjust the exact spot of a few.

 

Right now, I'm working w/Tep392 to get the 'dual bank-switching' thing done. Once that gets done, I'm going to post a demo that I hope many will play and report back feedback.

I've been keeping up with this thread but haven't posted until now. I'm very excited to see your demo. I just recently fixed my old 5200, the pokey was bad which made joystick port 1 non-functional. It's been fun playing Space Dungeon again. :) Anyway, I know the 5200 version of Adventure II has been out for a long time and I've been hesitant to purchase it because I'm always afraid my old unmodified CX52's could stop working at any time, I still have two that work out of about 8 in my collection. I'd purchase an A8 version in a heartbeat. I have an SIO2SD for my 800XL, will your demo work with that once you release it? I'd love to try it on real hardware. :)
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@Atarius Maximus - because we use bank switching, I've been lead to believe it might not work using SIO2SD - I think you need "XEX" files that aren't banked right? Others could comment on this with more authority. After all this time, I am STILL learning about the A8's. I was always more a 5200 man.

@RaccoonusLaddus - it seems some of the stock photos are of early renditions of the game. I'd bet nobody else would have noticed it though. :) I'll post back here over the weekend concerning the changed sword sprite.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Update. Where'd the month of April go?

 

1. As I feared, Raccoon Lad's requested sword-handle sprite change caused problems. For one thing, I needed extra logic (thus extra program cycles being used in the timing-critical VBI sprite routines) to handle the left vs right facing sword - I didn't have to worry about that when the handle was just a square. But also - and I couldn't figure out why - as you move around, the sword (built from a missile, remember) would at times leave a stray pixel. Thus, I'm not pursuing this any further. I spent 2 evenings messing around, but that's it, I'm done trying.

 

2. I found an interesting bug, one that exists in the 5200 version too, and fixed it. I was playing Game 1 - Beginner rules, where the Troll will not steal items left laying around. So I kept dragging items to the same screen. I noticed that when only 1 creature appeared - say the Troll - that 1 of the items would disappear - and it was always the Sword if the Sword was on-screen. Once Troll leaves, the sword re-appears and the flickering isn't as extreme. Here is the interesting part - if TWO creatures were on-screen, NO ITEM would disappear! Here it turns out, I had a routine called "AssignItemsOneCreatureRoutine" - this code goes back to 2003 or 2004 - and it was trying to be fancy and flicker the troll with the sword every-other frame, just like if 2 dragons are on-screen, these will be flickered every-other-frame. But my logic was in effect turning 'off' the sword instead of flickering it. So I commented this code out and retested it - now I can have 5,6, even 7 items on-screen, and a creature (or two!) and they all appear complete with Authentic Atari Flickering. TM Mind you, this is hard to do unless you are playing on Beginner rules, because in harder difficulties, Troll shows up and steals the items before you can accumulate them.

 

3. Other than that, I have been trying to finalize the sounds & music for this version, and I gameplay-tested all the levels from 1 through about 12 or so. Here are some sample game times of my play sessions. I wasn't cheating during these. And even though I am the programmer, I still get lost in the mazes sometimes as I go through different variations. And there is so much more randomness in this XE version, I feel I don't have much advantage over other players anymore.

 

Game 1 - Small Beginner - 3:42

Game 2 - Medium Beginner - 7:57

Game 3 - Vast Beginner - 6:38 (it was here that I noticed the disappearing-Sword sprite bug, mentioned above - fixed!)

 

Game 4 Small Intermediate - 3:03

Game 5 Small Intermediate - 3:45

Game 6 Medium Intermediate - 14:23 (this pariticular game instance was a TOUGH one to complete, I found).

Game 7 Medium Intermediate - 10:42

Game 8 Vast Intermediate - 9:50 (found Red Key hidden inside castle wall here -fixed that (X,Y) location to prevent that)

Game 8 again - 11:23

Game 9 Vast Intermediate 12:32 (darn Troll drove me crazy this particular game)

 

Game 10 Small Advanced - 6:31

Game 11 Small Advanced - 10:14. Got a good Ranking here because I found & got 2 Dots. Fun game, I noted. Killed all 3 dragons.

Game 12 Medium Advanced - 10:33

 

Game 10 Small Advanced VR-mode 1:47 - almost everything was in Kingdom 1, making the game pretty quick to solve. Fun though!

Game 10 Small Advanced VR-mode 6:35. "Good Game", I wrote in my notes.

 

-----------

Edited by Cafeman
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Update: Game is done, except for any tweaks that real-console testing reveals.

 

I guess the next step is to officially finalize the code, and to ask for some testers. Using emulator is okay but I need others who can play on real hardware too. This subject came up like a year ago in this thread. I'll post something when I am asking for testers, I need to create a test plan.

 

Most recently, we've been having discussions concerning the new manual and the manufacturing timeline. Once these things are worked out, I'll create a new thread over in the A8 forum and we'll probably reveal the full artwork then, too.

Edited by Cafeman
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Update: Game is done, except for any tweaks that real-console testing reveals.

 

I guess the next step is to officially finalize the code, and to ask for some testers. Using emulator is okay but I need others who can play on real hardware too. This subject came up like a year ago in this thread.

That is way cool! I would of course love to help playtest it. The only way I could do it on real hardware would be to use my Atari Peripheral Emulator setup which would require an ATR image.

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Update: Game is done, except for any tweaks that real-console testing reveals.

 

I guess the next step is to officially finalize the code, and to ask for some testers. Using emulator is okay but I need others who can play on real hardware too. This subject came up like a year ago in this thread.

 

Most recently, we've been having discussions concerning the new manual and the manufacturing timeline. Once these things are worked out, I'll create a new thread over in the A8 forum and we'll probably reveal the full artwork then, too.

 

what do you need/require to play on real hardware? You distributing chips, code, carts, etc?

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My Humble Opinion is to take good time, to make sure this release is perfect. Testors, etc. I really want and love this, but it would make little sense to rush the final. I'd be happy to help in testing, although I have no experience in such.

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