Kylearan Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 (edited) I have released a new demo at the Revision 2017 demoparty, this time in 4k because people kept telling me you have to do a 4k to become a "real" VCS developer. Here's the Pouet link: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69681 I've also attached the binary to this post. The dasm source can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/kylearan/catharsis_theory/overview But caution, due to a lot of heavy optimization, it might not be very readable. The readme contains a technical write-up though, in case you are interested. Now I can go back to developing Air Taxi. catharsis_theory.bin Edited April 17, 2017 by Kylearan 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinroh Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Great demo. Awesome progression, music, and effects. Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Cudos for 4k, of course. Very good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHairy Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 (edited) Very nice work, and an additional motivation to resume work on improving starfield emulation soon On thing that has been bugging me for some time (but I haven't tried out yet): I would assume that something like LDA #$70 STA HMM0 STA HMM1 STA HMBL STA HMP0 STA HMP1 STA WSYNC STA HMOVE ; Waste 10 or so CPU cycles STA HMCLR should be a simple and robust way to put all five sprites into "starfield mode" without tight timing requirements, but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet. I guess I should just try it out one of these days, but: has anyone already tried this? Edited April 17, 2017 by DirtyHairy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 (edited) Superb Demo KYLEARAN!!! Edited April 17, 2017 by AW127 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Great demo Kylearan, but why such a negative theme? I had to shut it off after hate and racor, but the design reminds me of polybius a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 (edited) And absolutely excellent demo. I was pretty disappointed when I first saw it at Revision, but there it was butchered by the organizers(?). The complete version is sooo much better. On thing that has been bugging me for some time (but I haven't tried out yet): I would assume that something like LDA #$70 STA HMM0 STA HMM1 STA HMBL STA HMP0 STA HMP1 STA WSYNC STA HMOVE ; Waste 10 or so CPU cycles STA HMCLR should be a simple and robust way to put all five sprites into "starfield mode" without tight timing requirements, but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet. I guess I should just try it out one of these days, but: has anyone already tried this? Yup. Look here. Edited April 18, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Great demo Kylearan, but why such a negative theme? Because the real world isn't only rainbows and roses as well. I know the concept won't appeal to everyone, but I hope at least the technical side can still be interesting. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Awesome demo, not only technically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 I have released a new demo at the Revision 2017 demopartyNicely done! this time in 4k because people kept telling me you have to do a 4k to become a "real" VCS developer. I thought it was 2k, like the initial batch of games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Ah, well. The CPU can handle 4k, so be it I like the result and even more the fact that you probably felt all the despair, hope and enthusiasm working in the 4k limit While I lost some hair over it, this gave me quite some 'understanding' of the old times when I worked on Assembloids2600 in 4k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHoboInYourRoom Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 I love the lightning bolt effect here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHairy Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Yup. Look here. Thanks, Thomas, that's indeed the exact code I had in mind I had found star field discussions on the Stella mailinglist before, but somehow, this thread eluded me. I guess there's nothing new under the sun... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 I love the lightning bolt effect here! I was going to say the same thing,,, The lightning is my favorite part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 19, 2017 Author Share Posted April 19, 2017 I thought it was 2k, like the initial batch of games Nice bait! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 19, 2017 Author Share Posted April 19, 2017 [...] you probably felt all the despair, hope and enthusiasm working in the 4k limit Actually the order was different: First enthusiasm, then hope, then despair. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 So the proper order is enthusiasm, hope, despair, 4K. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 Thanks, Thomas, that's indeed the exact code I had in mind I had found star field discussions on the Stella mailinglist before, but somehow, this thread eluded me. I guess there's nothing new under the sun... A funny coincidence is, that this code related to another demo (Svolli's Bang!). And the discussion with Svolli resulted into my own Coke Zero demo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 (edited) I finally found the time to carefully read the readme. That one is very valuable and contains a lot of info I would have missed without it (e.g. the Cosmic Ark stars). And the Optimization for Size part pretty much describes my own optimizing techniques. But fortunately I usually feel much less pain. And now I will have a look at your code and find a few extra bytes... BTW: I love the Lightning! (I would like to see that on its own to study the variation) Edited April 19, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHoboInYourRoom Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 (I would like to see that on its own to study the variation) I was thinking the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 BTW: I love the Lightning! (I would like to see that on its own to study the variation) No problem! I've attached a source file where I stripped out everything else except the lightning. I don't know how readable it is though, as it's from after size-optimization. There's a table called "LightningSeeds" which contains 8 seeds for the pRNG that I think look good and which I've found by trial and error. It loops through these seeds. I'm sure there are more good-looking seeds, but also a lot that don't work well - just experiment. lightning.asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 Thanks! Works, except that the ball is moving around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 Works, except that the ball is moving around. It does? Looks good to me here. What exactly does the ball do which it shouldn't? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 (edited) The central flash is steady, but the ball and P1 are moving horizontally between frames. Here is the ROM and a screenshot, maybe you can spot what's going wrong. broken lightning.bin Edited April 20, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylearan Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 Haha, that's funny - or sad, I'm not sure. It looks like we are using different versions of dasm. In line 72 in the subroutine "FinePosObject", my source says sta.w RESP0,x which according to Stella my dasm compiles to STA.wx RESP0,x and yours to STA.w RESP0 which of course is not what I want, as it's missing the x indexed mode. (I repeat myself, but dasm is REALLY annoying and outdated. No modern tool should silently discard the ",x" without saying anything to the user.) I'm using DASM 2.20.11 20140304 by the way. So for your version of dasm, I guess changing the line in the source to "sta.wx RESP0,x" should probably fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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