Frantic (2600)

[KevinMos3]

That's great news on both counts! So, we may have SF2 available for Christmas?

[+SpiceWare]

That's great news on both counts! So, we may have SF2 available for Christmas?

 

 

Have you seen the IXION manual ? Be sure to check Nathan's reply further down in that topic.

[+SpiceWare]

I learned a number of things while working on Stay Frosty 2 and have decided to reboot Frantic in order to take advantage of that new information. Preliminary work is underway and the initial results are very promising.

 

I won't post any updates here until I have a playable version, so check my blog if you'd like to see what's going on.

[+SpiceWare]

I've progressed to the point where I have the same features in place as the final build of the prior reboot! As before, there's minimal animation, no menu, and no speech.

I actually have 1 extra feature enabled than I did last time, Stealth mode! Even with the additional feature, the new routines are so efficient I'm using nearly 2K less ROM than before

Controls

• TV Type, Stealth Technology: Color = Off, B&W = On
• Left Difficulty, style: B = Berzerk Rooms, A = Frenzy Rooms
• Right Difficulty, Test Mode: B = Off, A = On
• SELECT = return to "menu" (rainbow screen)
• RESET = start game

The state of the Difficulty Switches and TV Type are only checked when RESET is used to start the game.

Stealth Technology is the cloaking robots. All robots are visible for 1 second at the start of each round. After that any robot that shoots will briefly decloak. If any robot is destroyed then all remaining robots will briefly reappear.

You can shoot out the walls on the Frenzy variation (can be handy to make your own exit!). The Frenzy variation also has 4 special room objects, though only Big Otto does anything (and it's actions are extremely primitive in this build).

Test Mode is infinite lives and max robots, it's used to stress-test the routines. Score will be red when active.


ROM
frantic20140211.bin

[IG-88]

Just gave it a go. Great job as always. Can't wait for this to be finalized!

[+SpiceWare]

Thanks!

 

I'll be adding back the menu and writing the routines for Frenzy's special room objects in the upcoming builds.

 

After that I'll be working on rewriting the speech routines, which I suspect will be a multi-month venture as I want to figure out how ADPCM works as it'll let me almost halve the storage requirements for the samples. I also plan to support the AtariVox for better speech (and possibly saving high scores).

 

Once the speech routines are finalized I'll have to figure out how to divvy up the remaining ROM space between animation (robot walking sequences) and speech samples.

[killersquirel]

This game is amazing. Great job as always. I look forward to better speech and high score saving using the atarivox!

 

-mike

[StephenJ]

SpiceWare,

So glad you're back on the project!!

 

StephenJ

[DT Kofoed]

Excited at the possibility of getting the speech back into the frantic gameplay...

[+SpiceWare]

• Tanks now launch Homing Missiles
• changeable wall color
• menu is back
• lots of ROM savings

Menu's back in place. All options should be functional, so let me know if something doesn't work as expected.

 

 

A couple Tanks launched Homing Missiles. They're shaped differently than the normal shots. The menu option sets the number of redirects each Homing Missile can make. Values range from 0-3 (0=no redirect).

 

Note: The homing missiles occasionally have problems making it thru destructible walls. This will be addressed in a future update.

 

The wall color used to be hard coded. I've seen purple and red walls in Frenzy:

 

so I've added the ability for the C code to control the wall color. At the moment it only uses blue for Berzerk and purple for Frenzy.

 

Controls

• RESET = start game
• SELECT = return to menu
• Right Difficulty, Test Mode^*: B = Off, A = On

^* Test Mode is infinite lives and max robots. Score will be red when active.

 

ROM

frantic20140215.bin

[TrekMD]

Fantastic! Superbly done!

[+SpiceWare]

• Revised missile/wall collision logic to support the larger Homing Missiles fired by the Tanks
• Revised missile/wall collision logic to support reflective walls in Frenzy variation

ROM

frantic20140218.bin

Edited February 19, 2014 by SpiceWare

[lapetino]

Finally got a chance to play this, and it's amazing! Love the running character's animation -- so beautiful on the 2600. And really digging it. Can't wait to hear speech as well!

[+SpiceWare]

I look forward to better speech and high score saving using the atarivox!

I've been thinking about this and am not sure that saving High Scores will work out. Each variation should have its own list, but there's 480 versions.

 

Bezerk

• 4 robot shot options
• 2 stealth options
• 3 lives options
• 4 bonus life options
• 4*2*3*4 = 96 variations

Frenzy

• 4 homing options
• 4 robot shot options
• 2 stealth options
• 3 lives options
• 4 bonus life options
• 4*4*2*3*4 = 384 variations

96 + 384 = 480 total variations

 

Frenzy's 4 flicker options don't affect game play, so they're not considered for this.

[raindog]

Having bought two AtariVoxes, I'd really rather hear what you can do in software, even if that means no speech during the actual gameplay. I bought them but I'm unable to use them -- long story.

 

But I suppose speech during gameplay was one of Berzerk/Frenzy's selling points back in the day, at least in the arcade.

[IG-88]

If it were me I would keep at least 2 high score lists. One for Berzerk and one for Frenzy. Use the variants that are closest to the original arcade software. And if you got room for more lists later then go from there. In my arcade having your initials on a high score list is ALL its about.

[+SpiceWare]

Having bought two AtariVoxes, I'd really rather hear what you can do in software, even if that means no speech during the actual gameplay.

 

The plan is for both software speech and AtariVox speech. I had software speech working (that build requires the Harmony cart to hear the speech) in the past, but took it out due to the performance penalty caused by having to turn off the ARM's CACHE as a work-around for the bug in the ARM chip that would randomly crash the game. The crashes were so bad I was ready to abandon using the ARM for game logic.

 

 

If it were me I would keep at least 2 high score lists. One for Berzerk and one for Frenzy. Use the variants that are closest to the original arcade software.

 

Not an option, I don't wish to deal with people complaining "it's not saving my scores!" because they happen to prefer a different variant.

[PacManPlus]

Darrell, this is Freakin' awesome! You are amazing with what you can pull off on this system. [waves hands horizontally in front of SpiceWare's eyes] "You want to program for the 7800... You want to program for the 7800..."

 

BTW, I have the color tables for the robots/mazes in Frenzy if you want them.

[+save2600]

Hey, the 7800 already has a maverick homebrewer (looking at you Bob!), quit trying to recruit ours!

 

Really wish you had more of an interest in the 2600.

[+SpiceWare]

Darrell, this is Freakin' awesome! You are amazing with what you can pull off on this system. [waves hands horizontally in front of SpiceWare's eyes] "You want to program for the 7800... You want to program for the 7800..."

 

Thanks!

 

I suspect I'll be taking a break from the 2600 to do some work on other systems after I wrap up whatever Timmy! becomes as I'm quite intrigued at the idea of doing something that utilizes bus-stuffing. I already have an Ultimate SD Multicart for my ColecoVision, so I'd probably pick up where I left off a couple years ago. I also have a VecMulti for my Vectrex and think that would be interesting to code for. Don't have one for the 7800, though I suspect the H2 will be available by the time I'm ready to try my hand at the 7800.

 

 

BTW, I have the color tables for the robots/mazes in Frenzy if you want them.

That's be great! I've been thinking to revisit the color sequence of the robots and take more inspiration from the original games. Wiki lists the Berzerk color sequence (there's only 13 so I'll add 3 more at the end since 16's easier to work with). They don't list them for Frenzy, though they do mentioned what the special room objects do. I'm not currently set up for it, but if Frenzy has a different sequence I could set it up where each game type uses its own sequence.

Edited February 24, 2014 by SpiceWare

[PacManPlus]

Cool.

 

From the Frenzy arcade source:

;THIS SHOULD BE IN PLAY
; Robot Initializer Table
;		xx99xx,#	,0 or 1,bolt holdoff,color
.define RE[Room,Bolts,Wait,RCol,Dcol,Walls,Wp]=[
	.byte	Room,Bolts,Wait
	.byte	RCol,Dcol,Walls,Wp
]
;
BR=Bright
R.table: RE	01,0,90,Yellow,		Blue,	Purple,1
RE.len	== .-R.table
	RE	03,1,90,BR+Red,		Blue,	Purple, 1
	RE	05,2,75,Cyan,		Blue,	Purple, 1
	RE	07,3,60,BR+Green,	Yellow, BR+Red, 2
	RE	09,4,45,BR+Blue,	Yellow, BR+Red, 2
	RE	15,5,40,Purple,		Yellow, BR+Red, 2
	RE	16,3,25,BR+Green,	Purple, Blue,	3
	RE	17,4,20,Blue,		Yellow, Green,	4
	RE	21,5,15,Purple,		Yellow, Green,	4
	RE	23,5,45,BR+PURPLE,	Blue,	White,	4
	RE	24,2,15,Cyan,		Blue,	Green,	4
	RE	25,3,10,BR+Green,	Yellow, Blue,	3
	RE	27,4,05,Blue,		Purple, BR+Red, 2
	RE	30,5,05,Purple,		Cyan,	BR+Red, 2
	RE	00,5,05,Yellow,		Blue,	Cyan,	5

	.end
;            Room,Bolts,Wait,RobotColor,DotColor,WallColor,WallPoints

Hope this helps!

 

Bob

[+SpiceWare]

Hope this helps!

Thanks, it does! Looks like the robot movement delay varies. Never realized the wall points increased.

[+SpiceWare]

Changes

• Robot and Tank animation sequences are in place
• Robot and Tank "cool down" logic implemented, should prevent "rapid fire"
• Moved routines from Vertical Blank to Overscan to fix screen roll problem
• Special object animation in place
• Big Otto's face will update, launches extra Evil Ottos with very primitive movement logic
• Hit the Power Plant and robots can't move, but can still shoot
• Hit the Central Computer and robots can't shoot and will randomly move (even into walls)
• Factory doesn't do anything yet, but if you hit it the animation stops

Big Otto

 

Power Plant

 

Central Computer

 

Factory

 

Controls

• RESET = start game
• SELECT = return to menu
• Left Difficulty, Frenzy Special Room Test¹: B = Off, A = On
• Right Difficulty, Stress Test Mode²: B = Off, A = On

¹Frenzy Special Room Test will always put a special object in the room.

²Stress Test Mode is infinite lives and max robots. Score will be red when active.

 

ROM

frantic20140224.bin

[+SpiceWare]

Noticed a bug last night where the humanoid was briefly drawn at 2x size during a humanoid death sequence. Nathan Strum saw a similar occurrence, but not during the death sequence.

 

If anyone else notices this bug, it would be very helpful if you could post what else has happening when you saw it. Things like:

• Berzerk or Frenzy version of the game
• Was Otto onscreen?
• Were Robots onscreen?
• Were you in the very first room (ie: no robot shots flying around)
• If Frenzy version, were Tanks onscreen? Tanks have treads instead of feet.
• If Frenzy version, was a special room object onscreen? If so, which one?
• had you exited the room and it was mid-shift?
• Did Otto, Robot or Tank change size? (explosions and special room objects are always 2x in size)
• etc.

Thanks!

Edited February 25, 2014 by SpiceWare

[+Tarzilla]

Changes

• Robot and Tank animation sequences are in place
• Robot and Tank "cool down" logic implemented, should prevent "rapid fire"
• Moved routines from Vertical Blank to Overscan to fix screen roll problem
• Special object animation in place
• Big Otto's face will update, launches extra Evil Ottos with very primitive movement logic
• Hit the Power Plant and robots can't move, but can still shoot
• Hit the Central Computer and robots can't shoot and will randomly move (even into walls)
• Factory doesn't do anything yet, but if you hit it the animation stops

Big Otto

frantic_19.png

 

Power Plant

frantic_21.png

 

Central Computer

frantic_22.png

 

Factory

frantic_23.png

 

Controls

• RESET = start game
• SELECT = return to menu
• Left Difficulty, Frenzy Special Room Test¹: B = Off, A = On
• Right Difficulty, Stress Test Mode²: B = Off, A = On

¹Frenzy Special Room Test will always put a special object in the room.

²Stress Test Mode is infinite lives and max robots. Score will be red when active.

 

ROM

frantic20140224.bin

 

 

One thing about the Special Objects in the Arcade version of Frenzy...they are always in the same quadrant, 4th over and 2nd down. I like the idea of being able to play either variation...Fixed locations as in Arcade or random slots (including the four corners)