247 replies to this topic

[NRV]

Hi all!

At last, after a year of doing nothing, I got some time at the end of this year to advance this thing (a long vacation!). After like a month and a half of "casual" work I got to the point where you can move freely through the maze(s), and also added a lot of details and tested some ideas.

There are 2 versions: PAL and NTSC, they only run in the correct machine and are almost equal. The colors are adjusted to be similar and the music plays at the same speed (NTSC drop one of every six music steps, but it sounds pretty good). The PAL version is the better one because of the PAL artifacting and the "longer" frames, but in general they are pretty similar.

Try this in Altirra 1.8 for the best results. For PAL you need to select in "System->Video": "PAL" and "PAL artifacting". Also in "Adjust colors" the preset "original". For NTSC unselect "PAL" and select the color preset "Authentic NTSC".

I had not tested this in real machines, but I cleaned up the code so not to load anything below the 10K mark, so I hope this helps those with modern load devices.

I added a little intro, mostly to showcase the great music from Miker . Many thanks as always for all those songs!

Basically, now you can move through the maze, picking up keys and some gold treasures, opening doors and founding secrets. There are no enemies or "visible" sprites yet, so I added a "graphical" way to show that you picked up something (anyway I generally put things near golden walls.. I'm not that bad a person ).
There are 3 types of doors: blue ones are free, green ones need a key to open and red ones cannot be opened.
Try to use "wisely" your keys (yes, right now is mostly trial and error..) and try to end the "game" with more than $600! (well, there is not really an "end", is just the last maze )

I implemented different methods of control, so you can choose the one that fits you better:

-> by joystick: up/down moves forward and backward, left/right rotates, button+left/right strafe to the sides, button while looking at a door (needs to be at the tile beside the door!), opens the door.

-> keyboard:
- arrows (with or without [control]) and W,A,S,D: moves and rotates.
- [shift]+left arrow/right arrow: strafe left right
- Q and E: strafe left right
- Z and X: strafe left right
- [space bar] or [return]: open doors

(In emulation, in a PC keyboard, I like to use the arrows and Z,X to strafe)

-> other keys:
[control]+M: music on/off
[control]+R: rotation speed (between 1 and 5)
[control]+P: old hud effect plus a "classic" vcount rainbow

Right now there is no restart method, sorry for those that play in real machines .

Technical post and spoilers later

Regards!

 project_M_2.zip   94.32K   847 downloads

Edited by NRV, Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:32 AM.

[José Pereira]

NRV, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:45 AM, said:

Hi all

a fast post for now (being edited!)

project_M_2.zip

Oh, what a sh... I am without any possibility to get an Emulator where I am...
Anyone could kindly post some .avi?
Anyone please just save the video when you are watching it the Emulator and send me a .zip, please, please!...


Thanks.
José Pereira.

[Stephen]

NRV, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:45 AM, said:

Hi all

a fast post for now (being edited!)

project_M_2.zip

Woo-hoo!  Christmas came early

[Allas]

Absolutely amazing!
20 fps and 80x100 res are working very good and the WOLF 3D illusion is very nice.
Congrats, you did it!

[Rybags]

Cool.  I get about 2 or 3 doors though then can't progress... suppose I'll have to employ the old keep left search pattern.

I'll have to setup another machine - VBXE means you don't get PAL colour-blending, and for some reason Altirra isn't blending the colours very nicely either.
Atari800Win+ just looks a mess, but we all know it's useless for cycle-exact Timer stuff.

My Altirra version has also lapsed - still 1.8test28, get a fair bit of noise on the left-hand side.

Real PAL 800XL - seem to get a single pixel of noise on the far right that's sometimes visible.

Great effort though - good to be able to control the action yourself, and shows some of the potential that this engine could have.

[Allan]

Looks fantastic on a 320K XL NTSC. Now I've got that music in my head.

Really nice job. Amazing.

Allan

[potatohead]

Video please!!

And I'm waiting eagerly for the write up.  !!!!

[_Fandal_]

NRV, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:45 AM, said:

Hi all

a fast post for now (being edited!)

project_M_2.zip

I stay speechless. This is AWESOME!!!

F.

[Stephen]

Allan, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:24 AM, said:

Looks fantastic on a 320K XL NTSC. Now I've got that music in my head.

Really nice job. Amazing.

Allan

I'll second that.  Looks incredible on my 320K 130XE.  I am going through a scan doubler to an LCD screen.  I will try it on my 1084S and see how it looks on a proper screen.

[Stephen]

potatohead, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:30 AM, said:

Video please!!

And I'm waiting eagerly for the write up.  !!!!

Give me a few minutes - I will try to get a video on YouTube showing it on the real hardware.

[Rybags]

OK, found what must be a secret area and got the second key, more progress.

That's about all I can do tonight, will have to give it another go tomorrow.

[NRV]

Thank you all
Just updated my post!

Rybags, on Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:20 AM, said:

I'll have to setup another machine - VBXE means you don't get PAL colour-blending, and for some reason Altirra isn't blending the colours very nicely either.
Atari800Win+ just looks a mess, but we all know it's useless for cycle-exact Timer stuff.

My Altirra version has also lapsed - still 1.8test28, get a fair bit of noise on the left-hand side.

Real PAL 800XL - seem to get a single pixel of noise on the far right that's sometimes visible.

Yeah, you need to use the last Altirra 1.8.. there the IRQ sync is fixed by Phaeron.

I could make a version for Atari800Win, but it will only run there.

The single pixel noise.. Phaeron warned me about this , it seems that there are two different types of atari computers, and there is a one cycle difference between the IRQ start between them.
I can make a version that run well in your machine, but I was waiting to have a better knowledge to do a version that do the correct initialization, auto detecting the kind of machine where it's running.

Regards!

[Stephen]

Sorry for the quality - I grabbed it quickly using my Droid phone.  This is running on my NTSC 320K 130XE.  It was hard to move around the maze and hold the phone steady.

[José Pereira]

Thanks.
Looks great, amazing, wonderfull... and that Presentation Screen with the Guys...
Can't wait to see this played at Home...
Thanks NRV and please continue,m please!...
José Pereira.

[Tezz]

wow! awesome work, well worth the wait  

[Jacques]

This is truly incredible!   The speed, intro, Miker's music, everything. But mostly it's your engine that makes it unique among all the 8-bit computers! It was worth every day of waiting, please continue this project, the finished game would be incredible and surely would make you the legend in 8-bit world!

[w1k]

woooooooooooooowww fantaastic! share

on real HW (800xe, 320kb) works fine..

dont worry about make a 320kb version

Edited by w1k, Thu Dec 23, 2010 1:47 PM.

[analmux]

Looking at the real hardware version, it's really AMAZING!!!

@ miker: Also good job with the music. And, about the in-game tune: Nice to hear a 15kHz mode tune which sounds good.

[potatohead]

@Stephen, and w1k, thanks for the videos!

HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!

Very cool.  Legendary already.  I'm very impressed.  Can you guys imagine this in the late 80's??  PAL has nice artifacting done this way.  Very, very cool.

I asked this once, but I'll ask again because I want to try the same artifacting on the Propeller...

How are the colors drawn?  Is it just color on one line, intensity on the other static, or do they need to alternate somehow?

Awesome.  Just awesome!  And the music is great too.  I only have 800XL...  stuff like this makes me want a full real machine setup.  One day soon, I guess!

Edited by potatohead, Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:20 PM.

[MaPa]

Really wonderful... but maybe I'm color blind but the blue doors are not free? I need a key to them and I don't see any green doors. Ah.. I see now. .there are "dark" blue ones and light blue ones

[flashjazzcat]

Nearly missed this... it's just astonishing. I remember being amazed by the original version.

I just goes to show what I always believed: there is no end to the amazing feats this little machine can achieve with skilled programming.

[Heaven/TQA]

kicks kicks kicks kicks ass... sorry... holy crap! I am not worthy...

[potatohead]

Seriously!!!

This is just out of this world great!  On a 6502!!!  I'm kind of showing this off to a few folks.  Jaws dropping is about right!

Will it be possible to incorporate baddies??

[Jacques]

It has to be, even with the frames dropdown... We want Wolfenstein 3D on A8! Even if it takes years

[miker]

Superb work!

Thanks NRV for continuing the project.

@analmux: thanks, I tried my best.

Edited by miker, Thu Dec 23, 2010 3:03 PM.