176 replies to this topic

[atari2600land]

I fixed a few bugs, mainly in the 2 player version. Also, the block is now visible when you press down if you have more than 49 lines.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_112909.bas.bin   32K   186 downloads

[Nerf Herder73]

Hello. Would it be possible to add the "hard drop" that has shown up in more recent versions?

This is coming along very well. Challenging. I get myself into "trouble" much easier since it seems that some parts show up much more often than others.

[atari2600land]

Nerf Herder73, on Tue Dec 1, 2009 10:40 AM, said:

Would it be possible to add the "hard drop" that has shown up in more recent versions?

I don't know how I would go about programming it.

[atari2600land]

If you got 100 or more lines in the previous version, the scanline count jumped to 274 before the secret scene. This fixes that problem.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120209.bas.bin   32K   136 downloads

[Nathan Strum]

This is looking very good.

A few suggestions:

• A fast drop option - where the piece immediately falls straight down into place. "Up" on the joystick could be used for this. (Is this the same as "hard drop"?)
  
• Faster clearing of completed rows. Instead of having each row clear out sequentially, how about having all completed rows just flash, then disappear, and all the blocks above fall at once?
  
• Title screen: the idea of spelling out 2600tris with the blocks is cool... but how about having them all fall into place from above? Maybe rotating on the way down?

The first two would help pick up the speed of gameplay considerably in the early levels. Also, in the Mac variant Quinn, if you hold the control to move a piece left or right for a second, the piece will zip over to the left or right side immediately. This helps in later levels when things are really moving fast. (If you just tap the left/right controls, it moves normally.) Maybe this could be added as an option, since it takes a little getting used to.

[atari2600land]

Nathan Strum, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 10:18 PM, said:

This is looking very good.

A few suggestions:

• A fast drop option - where the piece immediately falls straight down into place. "Up" on the joystick could be used for this. (Is this the same as "hard drop"?)
• Faster clearing of completed rows. Instead of having each row clear out sequentially, how about having all completed rows just flash, then disappear, and all the blocks above fall at once?
• Title screen: the idea of spelling out 2600tris with the blocks is cool... but how about having them all fall into place from above? Maybe rotating on the way down?

The first two would help pick up the speed of gameplay considerably in the early levels. Also, in the Mac variant Quinn, if you hold the control to move a piece left or right for a second, the piece will zip over to the left or right side immediately. This helps in later levels when things are really moving fast. (If you just tap the left/right controls, it moves normally.) Maybe this could be added as an option, since it takes a little getting used to.

I don't know how to program the first two, but I did #3. What do you think?

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120209v2.bin   32K   139 downloads

[Nerf Herder73]

Nathan Strum, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 10:18 PM, said:

A fast drop option - where the piece immediately falls straight down into place. "Up" on the joystick could be used for this. (Is this the same as "hard drop"?)

That is what I was calling a hard drop. I took the term from a couple of game manuals.

The title screen is really good.

Edited by Nerf Herder73, Thu Dec 3, 2009 8:14 AM.

[Nathan Strum]

atari2600land, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:26 PM, said:

I don't know how to program the first two, but I did #3. What do you think?

Cool! It'd be fun if you could spin one of the last two pieces - as if the title screen wasn't sure how to place the letters.

As for the other suggestions - if they're something you're interested in adding - it might be worth asking around. I'm sure it's something that could be figured out.

[atari2600land]

I am interested in adding those other two options. Here's the code I have so far. I'd really like to find a faster way to clear lines, but I'm impressed with what I've done so far.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120209v2.bas   28.03K   131 downloads

[Devin]

Very cool! I love the animation on the title screen.

[Nathan Strum]

More suggestions:

• The speed for moving a piece left or right needs to be increased. No matter how fast I try to move left or right by rapidly tapping the joystick, there seems to be some sort of imposed limit on how soon it responds.
  
• The score just counts lines, but doesn't award extra points for clearing multiple rows at once. It would be nice if there were a way to display both a line counter and a score (is there room below the counter?), but if not - I think I'd favor a score over a counter. It makes the game more rewarding when setting up multiple rows to clear. Besides, with the color changing every 10 lines, you get a pretty good idea of where you are, level-wise.
  
• It'd be great to have music during the game. (As an option.)

[atari2600land]

#1 - That I can do.
#2 - I've had some suggestions about lines vs. points. If I were to display points, it'd have to be a three digit score, I don't know if bB will allow three 6-digit scores or not.
#3 - I will consider composing some music, then if you selected the music then there would be no SFX.

[atari2600land]

I've tried to add music. You can switch it on and off with the left difficulty switch. There is a little problem, though. When a block hits bottom, the note changes from what it's supposed to be to a random note. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120309.bas.bin   32K   133 downloads
•  2600tris_120309.bas   29.3K   96 downloads

[atari2600land]

I've decided that although I fixed what the problem was, I've decided that music is next to impossible in this game because of the excessive amounts of drawscreen (used to reduce the cycle count). I have left the notes and stuff in the code just in case someone wants to use asm to try and do this, but unless someone wants to spend some time trying to get music in my game, it looks like it's not going to happen. Sorry. I did, however, made the shapes drop faster and move left and right faster.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120409.bas.bin   32K   128 downloads
•  2600tris_120409.bas   29.52K   96 downloads

[RevEng]

If you throw your music routine in the vblank area, it will be called every time you do a drawscreen, no matter where the drawscreen is.

Its a handy trick for stuff you might want to happen no matter what, like music routines, sprite animations that happen even when the game is over or paused, etc.

[atari2600land]

RevEng, on Fri Dec 4, 2009 9:35 PM, said:

If you throw your music routine in the vblank area, it will be called every time you do a drawscreen, no matter where the drawscreen is.

OK, I tried putting it in the vblank area and there's still some problems with it, like music stopping when it's going through its line detection process.

Edited by atari2600land, Fri Dec 4, 2009 9:43 PM.

[RevEng]

Is your code calling the vblank code or flowing into it? It shouldn't be.

[atari2600land]

OK, I got the music working good now. left difficulty A turns it on while left difficulty B turns it off. In two-player mode, music is automatically off since I need AUD1 for player 2's sfx.
Thanks, RevEng!

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120409v2.bas.bin   32K   132 downloads
•  2600tris_120409v2.bas   29.01K   146 downloads

[RevEng]

atari2600land, on Fri Dec 4, 2009 10:05 PM, said:

Thanks, RevEng!

Glad to help!

[atari2600land]

This version contains lots of bug fixes, as well as the complete Tetris for Game Boy Music A song.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120509.bas.bin   32K   136 downloads

[KevinMos3]

Is it my imagination or do the lines disappear much faster now?  

This is looking good so far, but I have 1 1/2 complaints (or suggestions for improvement).  I can't seem to rotate a piece while moving it, (this is the 1/2 complaint).  The lock-in time when a piece touches another piece is too short.  The 1st 1/2 complaint would be bearable if we had a little more time to slide a piece around before it locked in.  The result of these two limitations combined is that the game seems unfairly difficult.  I hesitated to mention it, but I'm finding myself getting frustrated and I'm not a bad Tetris player.

That being said, the game is still good so far.

[atari2600land]

Thanks for the suggestions. I fixed the code a little pertaining to movement. The block can now flip while moving left and right, but still can't flip when moving left+down or right+down. I don't know why this is. As for the locking too fast, I don't know if I'm able to do something about this. The way the code is now, it moves down, and if there is playfield below it, it waits for the speed movement variable to pass the timer variable and then goes to the line detecting sequence. Hope this helps, and if not, tell me so I can fiddle around with the code some more.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120609.bas.bin   32K   135 downloads
•  2600tris_120609.bas   30.38K   116 downloads

[KevinMos3]

Thank you for the changes.  The controls are much better now.  The responsiveness is still lagging a bit too much to have good control when the blocks start coming down with a bit of speed, but this is definitely going in the right direction.
As for the locking time, if you can't change it, at least it's more playable now.

[atari2600land]

@ KevinMos3:
I've figured out a way to make it so it locks slower. Try it out and see if you guys like this change or not.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_120609v2.bas.bin   32K   148 downloads
•  2600tris_120609v2.bas   31.14K   101 downloads

[KevinMos3]

It was looking really good... then I ran into this wierd bug.  It happened so fast that I wasn't sure exactly what happened, but I think the "T" piece must have touched the top while I was still moving it to the left and it locked while in mid-air.



After this happened, I tried to replicate it and ended up getting the same result by deliberately touching a piece to the stack and then sliding it.  I ended up with quite an odd looking stack!