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Asteroids Deluxe


PacManPlus

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@LordHelmet - thank you! Although I don't think I will be using that label - I haven't heard from AtariBoy2600 since February, and I won't use his art without asking him (I always send him a free cart when I use his artwork). Speaking of carts, I would like to have this game also sold in the AA store; as long as Atari and Albert will allow it...

 

I wonder what happened to him. His labels were great.

 

I got a PM from him a week or so ago. He had major computer problems and has just got a working PC. I wouldn't be surprised to see him around again before too long.

 

Mitch

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Hey PMP,

Just a request:

In the High-score-cart code from Curt, there is code for a short jingle when you get a high-score. It plays one jingle for the three lower high scores and a special one if you get the highest score. Unfortunetly I don't think anybody used it. It would be cool if somebody finally did. PM me if you need more info.

 

And also I just got 45,000 on AD on intermideate. Beat that. :)

 

Allan

 

Cool almost sounds similar to xbox live achievements. Atari was way ahead of their time. :lol:

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Thanks guys :)

 

Another update:

 

1) Changed vertical and horizontal sprite definitions for the wedges to be a little sharper

2) Removed color cycling from shots and difficulty indicators.

 

Unfortunately, until I can figure out how to get a 'degree' (0-360) from a coordinate difference (wedge and player) with the wedge as the source, the killsat AI will have to remain as is. So this hack will pretty much be finished until then, unless any bugs are found.

 

Bob

ASTDLX78.ZIP

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I was thinking about ways to make the killer satellite pieces behave more similarly to the arcade version.

 

I'm no programmer, but I have done a little stuff from time to time. It should be possible to do something even without tracking by degrees.

 

Basically my idea is that a piece moves forward in the direction it's facing (such as any of the 16 directions the player's ship faces) comparing it's X and Y coordinates with the player's will cause the wedge to turn one 'tick' in the player's direction, while continuing to travel in the direction it faces. (if the player is above and to the right of the wedge, it would cause it to turn toward 45 degrees, for example, in whichever direction is shorter compared to whatever direction the wedge currently faces). How often the wedge 'ticks' to the next point determines how quickly it turns. This way, the wedges should move more in sweeping arcs, and not bunch up as easily as they do now (assuming they start in different directions when the snowflake breaks up, like they do in the arcade.

 

just a suggestion...

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Hi:

 

I finally realized that I was over-thinking this dilemma. I already know the direction the wedges take on when first 'created', and I know the direction that is desired (player x,y - wedge x,y). So I created a table of velocities that correspond to each direction and then changed the direction by 1 position each time:

WEDGEDIR:
	.byte   $FF, $00, $04, $FF, $02, $01, $03, $FF, $06, $07, $05
NEWXVELH:
	.byte   $00, $00, $00, $00, $00, $FF, $FF, $FF
NEWXVELL:
	.byte   $00, $90, $D0, $90, $00, $20, $60, $20
NEWYVELH:
	.byte   $00, $00, $00, $FF, $FF, $FF, $00, $00
NEWYVELL:
	.byte   $D0, $90, $00, $20, $60, $20, $00, $90

The 'WEDGEDIR' is a table to get the direction value (0-7) from the current direction the wedge is facing.

The velocities (low and high bytes) for X and Y correspond to each direction (starting with 0 = up, 1 = up-right, and so on).

Also, I only change direction on specific frames, otherwise the gradual turn would be so fast it would be unnoticable.

 

The good news:

It looks like I got this to work

The bad news:

The wedges are currently limited to 8 directions (up, up-right, right, down-right, down, down-left, left, up-left).

 

Please let me know your opinions.

ASTDLX78.ZIP

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Unfortunately, until I can figure out how to get a 'degree' (0-360) from a coordinate difference (wedge and player) with the wedge as the source, the killsat AI will have to remain as is. So this hack will pretty much be finished until then, unless any bugs are found.

 

You could approximate it.

 

Have values HDIFF and VDIFF as being ABS(SHIP_X-WEDGE_X) and ABS(SHIP_Y-WEDGE_Y)

 

Divide each by 16 (ie - shift right 4 times).

 

Then you're left with a manageable set of numbers, and can do a table lookup to get an approximate angle.

 

Of course, you don't care about angle as such, but might want to use the table lookup to generate desired velocity values for the wedge.

 

You would then just need some 2 dimensional array structure in ROM, which would look like:

 

HDIFF   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc.

VDIFF
0
1
2
3
etc.

 

In the arrays, you have desired velocity values for h/v movement. Then all you need to do is set the direction.

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Good work guys I was gonna suggest something along the lines of table look-up (preset rotation/movement values) but could not think of any way to phrase it. A minor weakness of mine. I understand things better than I can explain em. :)

Edited by Shannon
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Ok - Thanks for your help everyone, especially to Rybags :) I now have a Release Candidate of Asteroids Deluxe. The following has changed:

 

- The Wedges' AI has been tweaked (thanks to help from Rybags) They now chase you from all angles - pretty difficult to outmaneuver them now :twisted: Much more closer to the arcade.

- The Shields now reduce quicker when you collide into something... I didn't even realize the arcade version did that until I happened to read it while looking into something else... :ponder: The also flash when they are about up.

- EASTER EGG ALERT! :D The regular 'Asteroids' game is hidden in this bin (It's even got a separate HSC entry, and also different to the 'regular' Asteroids entry). I'm not going to say how to activate it... I want to see who can figure it out. I will say this: it will be VERY difficult to do from an emulator.

 

 

If nobody finds any bugs, I will consider this the workable binary.

Let me know!

 

I have a major complaint about this game. ITS NOT DONE WITH A SIGNED CART SITTING IN MY MACHINE! :P Looks great Bob, you are the man. :)

:P Thanks Shawn. - We should be almost there :)

 

Bob

ASTDLX78.ZIP

Edited by PacManPlus
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Ok - Thanks for your help everyone, especially to Rybags :) I now have a Release Candidate of Asteroids Deluxe. The following has changed:

 

- The Wedges' AI has been tweaked (thanks to help from Rybags) They now chase you from all angles - pretty difficult to outmaneuver them now :twisted: Much more closer to the arcade.

- The Shields now reduce quicker when you collide into something... I didn't even realize the arcade version did that until I happened to read it while looking into something else... :ponder: The also flash when they are about up.

- EASTER EGG ALERT! :D The regular 'Asteroids' game is hidden in this bin (It's even got a separate HSC entry, and also different to the 'regular' Asteroids entry). I'm not going to say how to activate it... I want to see who can figure it out. I will say this: it will be VERY difficult to do from an emulator.

 

 

If nobody finds any bugs, I will consider this the workable binary.

Let me know!

 

I have a major complaint about this game. ITS NOT DONE WITH A SIGNED CART SITTING IN MY MACHINE! :P Looks great Bob, you are the man. :)

:P Thanks Shawn. - We should be almost there :)

 

Bob

 

This version not only crashes my 7800, it crashed my 5200 as well!!! :x :x :x

 

Allan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding, PMP! Great job. So far, so good.

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Were there any Asteroids arcade machine mods back in the day? It would be cool to add these to this game. Plus is there any way to include the original 7800 Asteroids, maybe make a menu like the 7800 Pacman Collection?

 

And not to be more of a pain but is there anyway to get rid of the rotating colors when you start up a new ship? I'm guessing it's complicated and that's why you didn't do it with the Vector Asteroids but I thought I'd ask.

 

Allan

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Were there any Asteroids arcade machine mods back in the day? It would be cool to add these to this game. Plus is there any way to include the original 7800 Asteroids, maybe make a menu like the 7800 Pacman Collection?

 

And not to be more of a pain but is there anyway to get rid of the rotating colors when you start up a new ship? I'm guessing it's complicated and that's why you didn't do it with the Vector Asteroids but I thought I'd ask.

 

Allan

 

Thanks, Allan

 

:P

 

 

There was a mod where all of the rocks were 'turtles' (as a joke on someone at Atari - as far as I know there was only one machine made this way... Curt?)

 

I had wanted to add the original graphics as well, but Asteroids uses 'Holey DMA' so I'm limited to specific banks, which I've used for the regular ship, thrust ship, shield ship, and regular asteroid ship graphics. Oh- and the Killer Satellite.

 

I have more room for code,but unfortunately not for graphics :( Unless there's something about Holey DMA that I don't understand (which is *very* possible).

 

What I originally wanted to do was to have a choice between Vector and Raster graphics, for Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe, between Hyperspace and shield for either game, and number of lives. :(

 

Thanks,

Bob

Edited by PacManPlus
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Hi Bob,

 

Problem/Missing Feature:

 

In the Arcade version, if you hold down the fire button, you keep firing rapid shots in groups of four. In your hack, not a thing happens if you hold down the fire button (Outside of your ship firing the one initial shot).

 

-Trebor

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Looking pretty good. Just a couple of things:

 

The asteroids roll too fast IMO.

 

The wedges are a bit too agressive. Maybe slow them down a bit.

And different attack policies? Maybe have a couple that rush, a few that move slower. And to make it interesting, maybe even a couple that avoid the player.

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Hi Guys! :) Thanks for the feedback:

 

@Mitch - One thing I forgot is that I'm using 320 single color mode to get a higher resolution for the graphics (especially the Killer Satellite), so unfortunately I can't even use the original graphics from the Asteroids game (which used 160 4-color mode). I didn't use the multi-color 320 mode because I wanted to avoid the 'Kangaroo mode' issues. :(

 

@Atariboy2600 - !!!!!! It's great to have you back! Excellent label (as usual) :) It would be an honor to use it and once the game is completed I will send you one for the trouble. :)

 

@Trebor - oops... Forgot all about that. I'll check it out

 

@Rybags - I will look into slowing the asteroids down a bit. As far as the wedges, maybe I could use the current setting for the later levels; they do eventually get pretty nasty. Regarding their attack policies, all I've ever seen in the Arcade Version was they basically just group up after you. One thing I did notice in the arcade version just now after double checking, is that after a while of chasing you if you don't kill them they 'give up' and leave the screen to let a new Killer Satellite out.

 

Thanks guys!

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Hi Bob,

 

I finally got to play this on my 7800. Great work!

 

I agree that I think the asteroids rotate a bit too fast. Also, could you change the font of the high score shown during game play to be vector based like the score?

 

One other thing...could you keep the "heart beat" sound while hitting asteroids? It kind of goes silent. I can't remember if it did this in 2600 Asteroids.

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You could bump it up to 48K and just add the whole original 7800 Asteroids game in there. It should be doable since the original's only 16K.

 

Mitch

Just going by memory here so I might be wrong...

 

I think the documentation says that holey dma does not work below a certain address (maybe $8000) which might cause a problem placing graphics in the lower 16K of ROM then. (you could always make your own though by zeroing out some of that extra 16K if that is the case though). The cost difference between 32K and a 64K eprom is fairly low.

 

Holey DMA also is not supposed to be in effect for indirect (character mode) so if that is being used for anything they can be placed anywhere.

 

 

edit: btw: looks and plays great with what I tried in MESS so far!

Edited by kenfused
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Hey np on the label and you already know my home address;)

 

And how about adding a third game on the Asteroids Collection like hacking Asteroids 78 into BLASTEROIDS^_^<3

 

It's funny that the original 7800 Asteroids has the look of Blasteroids.

 

Allan

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