WELL, WE'LL see if I'm really done.
But last night I finished the Four-Play song: FourPlaySong20060828.bin
Did:
-tweaked some of the slide-y runs (made them louder and shortened one of them)
-added some crescendos/decrescendos to the melody. Nothing real obvious, maybe too subtle, but I think it gives it a bit of shape.
-drums tweaked. Didn't mess with the 2nd drum beat (I think), but very slightly changed some of the drum breaks and added just the hi-hat back in to the part near
YOU, TOO, CAN MAKE your Atari talk!
Nathan wanted a ROM that he could modify/play around with that would make the AtariVox speak, so I jumped at the chance to get coding again. Here it is:
SpeechTester20070802.bin
SpeechTesterSource.zip
The ROM currently supports up to 4 different speech strings, though only one has anything in it right now: the "go fish" from the game of the same name.
Switch between speech strings with SELECT, start/restart a speech string with the trigger, a
NOW YOU CAN blow up the walls! Plus I fixed the maze generator so that it (should?) cycle through the 255 possible different mazes.
I forgot to mention this last time (until a late edit), but press RESET to cycle through the mazes.
TankMaze20120211.bin
NOW I'M GETTING SOMEWHERE! Last night, after a relatively early soccer game, put in some more time on the Four-Play tune - and finished the evening fairly satisfied with what I'd done, unlike last time.
Latest: FourPlaySong20060824.bin
Did:
Reworked the main drum beat slightly; I think I'm pretty satisfied with it now.
Added/refined some of the drum breaks; satisfied with all of them except for the last one.
Also adjusted the volume of the 2nd bass-line, pretty happy with that no
WHILE I'M HOME SICK FROM WORK I might as well take the chance and try to make some progress on RPS:
Not a lot of changes, but since the previous version was so rough, I thought I'd put this out there.
Cleaned up all scanline counts - now at 270 on all screens and transitions appear to be rock solid. Also got new credits in:
rps.bin
rps_source.zip
FOLLOWING ON THE DISCUSSION in Manuel's blog, I thought I'd try to present and, possibly, collect some ideas for a possible re-written Combat game. Like Zach said, doing for Combat what Gunfight did for Outlaw.So, my initial list of desireable/possible features for a rewritten tank game:1- or 2-playersAsymmetrical terrain/mazeScrolling terrainMultiple projectilesMultiple vehicle types (beyond tanks & airplanes)PowerupsMultiple terrain types (walls, water, etc.)Any other thoughts or comments
...AND IN THIS CORNERSo...what to do, what to do? What should be my next project for the 2600?So far, I've completed Go Fish! and Go Fish! 1K. M-4 is essentially completed; mostly I am waiting for an inspired idea to fill up the almost-1K of ROM I have left.I've begun too many projects. They are, in sort of chronological order:Running Man: a horizontally-scrolling platformer. This was my first (probably too-ambitious) 2600 project - I stopped work on it for two reasons: I didn't know how to
I ACTUALLY FINISHED THE first round of categorization a week or so ago but, well, I was kinda distracted by other things. :ponder:So here is an overview:Categorized 458 2600 games:341 Action games (74%)21 Adventure games (5%)13 Driving/Racing games (3%)9 Educational games (2%)1 RPG (0%)15 Simulation games (3%)35 Sports games (8%)3 Strategy games (1%)18 Tablegame games (4%)2 ?? games (0%)The ?? games are Basic Programming and Minesweeper. Actually, I'm assuming Minesweeper is a clone of the PC g
OK, ENOUGH tomfoolery with Gilgamesh.
I did a little more work on the "tune" last night. Well, to be more precise, since I last posted about the tune, I did some more work on paper laying out how the structure of the song and, last night, I started to impose that structure on the tune.
Here are the froots of my labors: tune20060710.bin
I didn't change the melody at all, I just added some drum breaks and some drums underneath the harmony part near the (current) end.
Basically,
SO...
I was thinking the other day: Say you want two completely independent, non-flickering sprites on the screen. What's the widest they can be (in pixels)?
Using a variant of Zach's fancy 52-pixel technique, I figure you can get as wide as 10 pixels for each.
Anyone think of a way to get wider?
SO AFTER A LONGISH hiatus from 2600 coding I've begun to dive back in. This coincides with finishing the first new (to me) Zelda game I've played in about 4 years. Complete coincidence.
So, a few days ago I got some of the rust off by writing a buzzer program. I'll probably get back to that and add some sounds a tweak up the controls a little for Murph74, but last night I returned to Go Fish!
And boy has it been a while.
I spent about two hours last night trying to, essentially
SO IT'S been a while since I've posted anything...or coded anything.
But I was inspired by...well, by something I can't talk about. Um. Anyway, I revived an idea that I kicked around almost two years ago and banged something out:
2kAVoxEditor20081209.bin
I haven't tested it with an AtariVox myself - but Nathan did and it seems to work fine.
What does it do? It's a way to quickly play with your AtariVox using your 2600. Add/edit/adjust sounds and control codes and then play 'em!
YOU WANT IT? YOU GOT IT.
Several people have expressed a desire for a true arcade pong on the 2600, most recently here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=76696
Well...I decided to code it. Sort of. The kernel, anyway.Check it out.
apong.bin
APONG_source.zip
Use paddle 0 and paddle 1 to move the, uh, paddles. I probably won't take this project much further but maybe someone else will.
Anyway, that's why I attached the source.
THE C64 VS A8 thread got me thinking...
It would have been really nice if ANTIC could have read color data line-by-line as well as graphics data. Even just for the PMs would have been very neat.
Of course, that would use a ton of RAM and probably have made the ANTIC chip more expensive, but...it would have been really cool!
As it is, too many A8 games resort to stacking PMs to get multicolored sprites which makes them look like glorified 2600 games.
SO I ADDED YET ANOTHER console to my (unwieldy) collection: a 7800!
And the totally sweet game Pole Position II.
I've been resisting acquiring this for a few years now, but my resistance finally melted when, out of the blue, someone offered to sell me their CC2. After hemming and hawing for a week or so I decided, in the end, that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get one. And so, of course, I needed a 7800.
And so here I am today, burdened with another 1980s machine to play w
ON A COMPLETELY different note, I felt like compiling a list of which computers and consoles use what processors. Classic machines, specifically.
Please correct where I am in error and fill in the blanks in my knowledge.
6502
2600
5200
7800
Atari 400, 800, 800XL, etc.
XEGS
NES
C64, C128, etc.
Apple II, IIe, IIc
Z80
SMS
Colecovision
ZX Spectrum
MSX
Aquarius
CP1610
Intellivision
8048
Odyssey2
68A09
Vectrex
68000
Genesis
Atari ST
Amiga
Neo-Geo
Maci
SO I THINK I've finally found my project: A port of Elevator Repairman.
I loved that game 20 years ago and I decided that I wanted to write a version for the 2600. My goal is to write a rock-solid 4K version of this and have it done by the end of the year. We'll see if that happens...
I also think a stripped down version is a good candidate for a 1K game; my plan is to work on that after the 4K version is done.
Here's what I've got so far:
ElevRep20061009.bin
Nothing too spec
SO...I have a Wii.
First time I've had a "modern" console since the N64 in 2001. Kind of weird, really - my brother-in-law gave it to me (!) plus ~5 games. Wasn't really sure what to do at first; I'd already decided that I wasn't buying any more hardware for the foreseeable future - I had/have too many systems and not enough games and not enough time for the ones I have.
But anyway, eventually hooked the thing up and I've been having fun with Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy. Also real
A NEW YEAR! TIME TO MAKE plans! What...February already? Oh well, better late than never.
Anyway, my plans for the year have come into focus only recently, so I thought I'd share.
Major Projects:
1. Finish the Maids+Elevators game.
2. Port Squish 'Em to the 2600.
Minor Projects:
1. Modify Go Fish! to allow higher scores (or allow the score to "roll") for a few folks that can actually max it out.
2. Mystery project that I'm working on with Nathan Strum.
Details:
Squis
A FEW WEEKS AGO I finally got off my rear and worked up a rough draft of some music I promised I'd write. I got the go-ahead for the concept and I thought I'd post it here - I don't think anyone has ever blogged or posted (in the forum) the development of music for the 2600, and I thought it'd be fun.
Here's the rough draft: tune20060624.bin
The concept I had was something "plinky," with two different voices: one high, one low.
The drums are almost pure filler, and will probably be
BASED ON SOME COMMENTS I have received, especially in response to Reindeer Rescue, I thought I'd attach some of the stuff I use to help with 2600 tunes.
First off, gotta give big props to my brother. He created these worksheets and has helped with almost all of the 2600 music I've done. Except for Reindeer Rescue, curiously.
Tommy made this worksheet for me; based on P Slocum's music guide and E Stolberg's music chart. I find this much easier to use, plus it really shows what you ha
WHAT COULD A 2600 FOOD FIGHT LOOK LIKE?I started thinking about this after reading a little in the 7800 forum.Here's what I came up with:Player1: CharleyPlayer0: Chefs (each freely roaming but not overlapping vertically)Thrown food: MissilesFood on floor, manholes, and ice cream cone: Ball.In a 2-line kernel, I think it would be possible to:-Draw Charley and the chefs with single-line resolution, changing color every line on Charley; chefs would be single-color.-Draw the thrown food (missiles) e
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