Klankster

Yeah, PD 2012 has a high score leaderboard implemented on the Android "Colleen" emulator -- it routes through a "B:" device ("Browser") on that emulator that sends scores to a leaderboard database at http://analog.klanky.com -- I'd be happy to set up additional leaderboard functionality.

I'm working on porting my 400/800 game "Planetary Defense 2012" -- a version of the ANALOG Computing game with enhanced bonus features) to run on the 5200 for an Android emulator. I've never done a port to the 5200 before, and am unclear on what operating system vectors apply (if any) and how other registers etc. are mapped. Is there a good guide available for the 5200 (sort of like the old De Re Atari)? Any help would be appreciated.

I have to also mention, after the live band was done on Saturday afternoon, they had a DJ start playing stuff -- I was playing a hot game of Tempest when the "End Of Line" theme from TRON: Legacy started up. Man was that perfect music to play to! What a great expo.

Well, on behalf of everyone who played it (especially the kid in the photo, below, who was on it just about every time I looked), let me say THANK YOU for allowing it to be used at the expo. I used to play Battlezone at the Southwest Missouri State University campus union basement bowling alley back in 1980-1981. My best score back then was 997,000 points -- Got taken out by a missile right after I looked up and realized I was about to hit a million points! ARRGGGH!

Sure was a great show! The Mega-cade was fantastic -- got to play Battlezone and Star Castle for the first time in about 25 years. Nice job by everyone involved, and I hope I can make it to next year's show as well.

It's a simple custom PHP script I wrote. When a game completes, the code builds a URL query string, like this: analog.klanky.com/leaderboards/SaveScore.php?game=PD2012&name=HUD-----&level=23&score=030400&key=... The PHP script parses it all out and makes sure the key is valid for the given score and level (prevents people from posting bogus scores), and if it's valid it looks up the player name in a SQL database and updates their high score for this game. It's all set up to handle any number of games in the future. A lot of fun to set up -- and I thought it was kind of neat to have an old Atari 8-bit program saving scores on the Internet!

Should be doable; I thought they both used the same setup. Let me check -- I think I may have a Touch Tablet here to test that with. If you run this build with the Touch Tablet, are both axes reversed? Or just X or Y?

Go to http://analog.klanky.com/8bit.htm -- about halfway down the page is a download link. I just decided to keep it simple and retain the clean look of the original. We have an "ultimate" version we're working on for the iPhone that looks a lot alike as far as the playfield and bombs go, but has MASSIVE graphics upgrades in explosions and gameplay. We really took advantage of the faster processor and graphics capability on that.

Well, I was pretty amazed last night when I got the score over 100K -- you probably couldn't get near that score with the original, but with the new terraforming bonus, you can get your planet built back up periodically and extend your score substantially. The biggest trick is to shoot the saucers as fast as you can! Those suckers can drill down into your planet incredibly quickly, and if another one comes in from the same direction and shoots into the cavity left by a prior saucer, youir planet is probably doomed. Good luck!

OK, I have the new Planetary Defense 2012 executable (playable on original hardware and emulators) up on my website at THIS LINK Enjoy!

Actually, a single finger would work there as well as it does in PD2012 -- tap where you want to fire and it aims and fires in the same action. That would rock. (Anybody have that source code? I could add the leaderboard mechanism to it as well! )

I'll post the executable on my website ASAP. The same code runs on a stock 800, just no touch interface (duh!) or Internet leaderboard. If someone will send me specs on how they get the system to communicate via telnet, I can add that to the code as well so that someone with real hardware and SIO2PC can use the leaderboard.

Thanks, Bill -- always nice to hear that people liked our work. It's funny -- I saw that Buried Buck$ was used in a high score competition here some time back, and there was a comment that someone got "stuck" when the $ became unreachable under one of the pools of water and they had to quit the game. Actually, IIRC you could hit the ESC key in that situation and it would abort the level and you'd be penalized a certain amount of cash for it -- but you could play on, having to replay that level. I'll have to run it on my office machine and see if my recollection is correct. You know, if someone comes up with a way to connect a standard Atari 8-direction joystick to an iPhone, I'd finish up the iOS port of BB and release it! Lee Pappas found the old source code and I went through and converted the assembly to C++ and initially used the accelerometer interface to control it, but it was pretty much impossible to fly the chopper underground that way -- the project's just sitting there waiting to be finished. I have the USB Legacy Joystick, which is awesome -- and I picked up the iPhone's USB adapter to see if it might be possible to get them to work together, but unfortunately there don't seem to be any guidelines from Apple for writing USB drivers.

Planetary Defense 2012 is now IN THE HOUSE! Well, IN THE EMULATOR, anyway... The new version of the "Colleen" Atari 800 emulator is up in the Android Market and Planetary Defense 2012 is bundled in the package and launchable directly from the "Preferences" menu: Colleen Emulator Link After completing a game in the emulator, you'll get a screen which will allow you to submit your score to the leaderboard with your name (up to 8 characters). Just bring up the Atari keyboard with the Preferences menu, enter your name and press ENTER -- your score will be submitted and you'll be taken to the leaderboard to see where you rank. Top my high score on the leaderboard, if you dare! I had Kyle Peacock try it out last night on his Asus tablet, and he said it plays great on the larger screen -- Please give it a shot and let me know what you think! This has been an extremely fun project -- revisiting the old Atari 800 assembly-language code was a blast, and going beyond the magazine's old 16K limit was very liberating! I'm thinking about some additional projects using the touchscreen capability...

Cool! I'm really looking forward to the Expo and talking to people about all this fun stuff! By the way, the new version of the "Colleen" emulator is now available and includes the Planetary Defense 2012 game, bundled and launchable via the "Preferences" menu. Colleen Link More about PD2012 in this topic