261 replies to this topic

[Heaven/TQA]

holy shit its this impressive for good old 2600... unfortunatly with 4pixel grafix you can not catch too much of the original gfx... and look... but it's quite cool. but i think everybody recognises the butterflies...

[Andrew Davie]

This is a two-hour upload for me, and it's late... so I'm typing this before waiting for the upload to finish.  If the link doesn't work, please try again soon.  The MPG shows roughly a minute of game action.  Note the change of sprite to Rockford as requested .  I am noticing a bit of slowdown with all this action on the screen.  Time to optimise things   Again!
Cheers
A

[Mayhem]

Two hours up for you, 40 seconds down for me  

Nice stuff!

Even though what I grabbed was only a few seconds long so I guess the upload isn't finished yet.

Next step: make Rockford animate left/right...

Edited by MayhemUK, Sun May 8, 2005 7:37 AM.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Too late, the link is gone.

[Mayhem]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Sun May 8, 2005 4:18 PM, said:

Too late, the link is gone.

Oh poo... came back to redownload again.

Still as I said, what I did grab was quite nice

[Andrew Davie]

My host appears to be back online, so the MPG should work.  Give it a whizz.
Cheers
A

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Andrew Davie, on Mon May 9, 2005 2:29 AM, said:

Give it a whizz.

[Heaven/TQA]

very impressive... no flickering, scrolling and kind of "font" system... i am impressed (ok. not knowing too much about the 2600 but TIA suxx imho compared to every other video chip based system... )

i can remember one of the 1st levels where a lot of diamonds are falling down from the top... will there be enough power to display many movements or will the engine going down?

what about many butterflies??? how many can be handled?

is it just your TV set or does it looks like a b/w game?

[Andrew Davie]

Heaven/TQA, on Mon May 9, 2005 8:23 PM, said:

very impressive... no flickering, scrolling and kind of "font" system... i am impressed (ok. not knowing too much about the 2600 but TIA suxx imho compared to every other video chip based system... )

i can remember one of the 1st levels where a lot of diamonds are falling down from the top... will there be enough power to display many movements or will the engine going down?

what about many butterflies??? how many can be handled?

is it just your TV set or does it looks like a b/w game?

The system can handle lots of objects (certainly capable of the falling diamonds) but some slowdown could be anticipated if too many moving objects are onscreen at the same time.  It's doing a lot for a '2600.  I continue to improve the speed, but there's only so far one can go.

I can handle hundreds of butterflies.  There should be no problem handling many of the levels of 'real' Boulder Dash.

It's not my TV set, it must be your MPG playback software.  The MPGs are in colour, and they show images similar to the attached JPG both in terms of quality and colour.

Cheers
A

Attached Thumbnails

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[vdub_bobby]

Andrew Davie, on Sun May 8, 2005 4:29 PM, said:

My host appears to be back online, so the MPG should work.  Give it a whizz.
Cheers
A

Very very nice   I'm impressed at how good the "tiles" look, considering they are only 4 (PF) pixels wide.  Excellent work!

[gambler172]

Hi Andrew
really great.   
Cannot ait to see more.
greetings Gambler172

[miker]

  cool, but can "Rockford" be less "muscular"?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

miker, on Mon May 9, 2005 11:03 PM, said:

  cool, but can "Rockford" be less "muscular"?

Check the latest download!

[miker]

Yeah, just checked. It's OK now!

[moderntimes99]

Andrew Davie, on Sun May 8, 2005 9:42 AM, said:

Please remember, there are no current plans to release this game!  It is a proof of concept, showing my engine in action, running BoulderDash® -- a copyrighted property of First Star Software.  I am not at liberty to either release it, nor make promises about its availability.

Just continue posting these mpeg files to keep us warm at heart :-) The latest one (with the "real" Rockford) looks spot on! If the levels of "Boulder Dash I" are possible to implement then I would personally vote for using just those levels - I guess that there are a lot of people like me out there remembering them...

Regards,
Moderntimes99

[Thomas Jentzsch]

moderntimes99, on Tue May 10, 2005 8:53 AM, said:

f the levels of "Boulder Dash I" are possible to implement then I would personally vote for using just those levels - I guess that there are a lot of people like me out there remembering them...

And then you still could make BoulderDash II, III, IV... (if any carts should ever be made)

[Andrew Davie]

moderntimes99, on Tue May 10, 2005 4:53 PM, said:

Just continue posting these mpeg files to keep us warm at heart :-)

I've been working on Rockford's animations.  This short MPG shows blinking, foot tapping, and left and right movement.  I am still to animate the legs when running, but that should be pretty easy to add.

The sprite animations run at a maximum rate of one/frame, versus the game cycle time (boulders falling, player movement) which will slowdown as the whole system gets pushed to the limits.  It's still looking very capable, though, and I'm sure I could get most if not all the original levels implemented.

Still a lot to do, but I'm sure the version I'll show at the show... will be fun.

Cheers
A

[Mayhem]

Very nice... looking much better now

Is it just me though, or did Rockford's eye look a little different when he was moving left to when moving right?

[Andrew Davie]

MayhemUK, on Tue May 10, 2005 8:21 PM, said:

Very nice... looking much better now

Is it just me though, or did Rockford's eye look a little different when he was moving left to when moving right?

You have a sharp eye.  I'm working on improving that, minor as it is   It's to do with the complex timing of the display kernel, but not totally unfixable.
Cheers
A

[Andrew Davie]

Thomas Jentzsch has been kind enough to suggest some changes to my display kernel, and the resulting magic has removed the shearing effects that I had previously.  This short MPG shows the player animations more clearly, with fixed eyeball in place .
Cheers
A


PS: No promises, but I do hope to have at least level 1 of BoulderDash 1 complete and playable for the show version.  So, who is coming along to playtest?

[pmpddytim]

Andrew Davie, on Tue May 10, 2005 7:42 AM, said:

PS: No promises, but I do hope to have at least level 1 of BoulderDash 1 complete and playable for the show version.  So, who is coming along to playtest?

ME!

I'm going to go play some MAME BD now so I can compare the two better when I play yours at the show.

-Tim

[kisrael]

Which show is that again?

[Andrew Davie]

kisrael, on Wed May 11, 2005 12:38 AM, said:

Which show is that again?

OVGE 2005 - June 18, 2005!
Marriott Southern Hills Hotel
Tulsa, Oklahoma



Progress update:  I'm working on optimisation once again.  I have a brainwave to dramatically improve the speed of some subsystems, but the coding is complex.  Or, more to the point, the re-organisation of the ROM is complex.  I am having difficulty arranging things within available bank space limits to get this new speedy system functional. Maybe tomorrow.

For those interested, the source code is now 4,500 lines long, and 121KB.  The ROM is still 8K.

Cheers
A

[Andrew Davie]

Heaven/TQA, on Mon May 9, 2005 8:23 PM, said:

i can remember one of the 1st levels where a lot of diamonds are falling down from the top... will there be enough power to display many movements or will the engine going down?

Here is a small (1.5MB) MP showing some
extremely quick action during complex boulder/diamond movement, with scrolling.  I've been working on the system speed for a few days now, and I have really sped it up -- probably by 50%.  Those following closely may notice in this MPG that the scroll just appears to *happen* -- the update of the whole screen is just that quick.

During actual gameplay, things will be slower than this MPG shows (they'd have to be to make it playable!).  But you can see that lots of diamonds and rocks falling are well within the system's limitations.

Cheers
A

[SpiceWare]

I see that the PF graphics have a different color for each line(I think I see 4 repeating colors).  How are the diamonds white, or are they not drawn using the PF graphics?