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Mord's Blog

A blog by Mord

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About this blog

I'm really not sure what I'll use this blog for so I should probably leave this blank, but that would require backspacing. Much easier to just hit a period and stop typing.

Entries in this blog

 

(Action RPG) Version 0.010

Ok optimization done for now. I think I could probably save a few more bytes in there yet but it's ok for now. Plenty of CPU cycles saved overall.   One additional concern to look out for reared its ugly head with this version. The Status Bar routine is extremely tight for timing. To the point where if it's positioned so that one of it's branch operations crosses a page boundary....   To fix that, I've got it ORGed. I'll have to remember to ORG the display code as well so those things
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(Action RPG) Version 0.10 Beta

The screen no longer rolls on hardware when using my Gemini. If anyone runs it on other 2600/7800 models and finds it still rolls the screen, leave a note? (If for no other reason than I know I'll have to come back to it.)   Attached is a rom. While the code has been optimized somewhat it is functionally identical to the version 0.009 release except it works on hardware.   The problem looks to have come from how I terminated the visible portion of the screen right before entering Oversca
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Rolling along...

I cracked out the Krocodile cart and made a multicart of various games, including what I've done so far for Action RPG. I don't know what's up with it but for some reason the "Adventure" types that I had on the cart (Action RPG included) all rolled.   The TV is fairly new, which could potentially be the cause. I was using a Coleco Gemini (Since it's the only atari 2600 type that I have that actually works well. ) and the three games that showed rolling were Advent, Avalon, and my own.
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(Action RPG) Version 0.009 Beta

Still ironing out bugs but it's starting to take shape somewhat. Sorta.     This is what happens when you forget to actually copy your new display code into the source.   So I copy it over again and fix the remaining label bugs and the like and I get:     I didn't alter my Playfield data for the double-scanline kernel. As a result, stretched vertically.   When in and changed all "F" sized zones to "8" sized zones. to fix the stretch. Edited colors and made sure the BGCOLOR
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visible-screen sprite updating.

Looking at what I want the screen to be able to do, there is a problem with trying to update sprites. There's just no time left in the hblank. A sane person would just say "Ok, let's just pull out the playfield color update. All you need is that one extra command in there."   But I don't wanna.   So if you can't do the update in hblank. You'd have to do it during the visible screen. The obvious problems with this would be what if you try updating it when it's being displayed? Are yo
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Display Code Continues

It's proceeding although I find the thing I'm having the most trouble with right now is fitting the code that would organize when to start displaying the ball or player and keeping track of how many lines of playfield remaining into the kernel. I'm going to have to step back and try to organize my thoughts on paper and see where I can reclaim some cycles or find a more efficient way to do some things. I'll probably think of something.
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Maria/Sally split rom?

Just a random thought I had while procrastinating on the display half-asleep. (I will work on the kernel again this weekend darnit!!)   The halt line controlled by Maria on the 7800 extends out to the cartridge. So what if that line was tied to the highest address line on a 17-address-line rom? Since the HALT line effectively identifies which CPU is in control, it would automate the task of changing between a rom that Sally saw (filled with data tables, sound info, and algorithms/routines) an
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Procrastination means I'm on the right path!

Or so I'm letting myself believe. I'll find out later if that's true though.   I've been thinking over the code needed for what I described in the last entry and I think I have a good idea what's needed. It just feels real ugly.   I hate ugly code. This is why I'm thinking about it more than coding it. I want to make the code as simple as possible, yet as understandable as possible. (For me if nobody else. )   As a result serious attempts at the code are being put off little by
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(Action RPG) Getting there.

Now at Version 0.009 Beta 2. Beta 1 I'll release a bit later when I have more time (Going to bed!) this is just a screen shot of what the new display kernal is capable of. I'm surprised I got it working to this point from the initial stab at it this morning, there wasn't recognizable object displayed at first besides the status bar!   There's still a problem with the bottom of the screen's boundary clipping. I can have the player touch and press against it, and it won't cause a problem, but
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Action RPG

Adding the playfield was a nightmare.   I had thought up ways of trying to impliment it but not only could I not get them to work at first - I also saw the glaring problem of excessive ram usage that really wasn't necessary. As a result, versions 0.002 and 0.003 are dead. I could have just named this as version 0.002 but given this version does reuse some of the code I wrote in both versions 0.002 and 0.003...   The playfield has a similar, but greater, resolution as Atari's Adventu
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(Action RPG) Bug Fixing Trials

On an earlier version I was describing some of the bugs that I ran up against but ended up forgetting what I did to fix some of them. This time I wrote them down!   After I put in the initial code for the new Display kernel, and fixed the common typo-syntax errors (you'd be surprised how important "#" can be.) the displayed screen was... unrecognizable. The player was back as a pillar (wasn't turning itself off) and I had a display consisting of the status bar (lookin' normal) with just mult
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Graze (2015-05-25)

Let's see if we can do a weekly release on here until I get it to the point of it being fully playable, at which point I'll officially switch over to the 7800 forum.     This doesn't look too different from last week, but it's now able to load waves from a sdata structure. Easy to add new waves by setting things like time to the wave, maximum enemies at one time, what types of enemies, what AI the enemies can have, the colors of the enemies (And status bar as a result) etc. Not everythi
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Maze Realms v0.020...5!

I was starting to procrastinate again due to the anticipated complexity of swapping out the old Action RPG object slot variables with the new more generalized object slot variables. Finally forced myself to sit down today, despite how that's been hurting my lower back mysteriously this last week, and ironed it out.   Funny enough, it went by a lot faster than I had feared it would. In the system now there's only 7 active objects possible instead of the previous 8. Before I consider this versi
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More games

And so I now own Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and Yggdra Union. Hopefully I'll be able to contain myself and avoid further purchases until December when Ar Tonelico 2 is suppose to come out.
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wha.

Ahahaha. I suck goat eggs.     I had a little bit of time to work on the rom today so I decided to try to fix the bgcolor so that it wouldn't start a scanline late at the very top of the game screen. (you'd notice the playfield drawn 1 line over what looked to be the menu still, but it was really the menu dipping into the game screen.)   I've already fixed what's going on in the rom and moved on but thought I'd share the odd reaction to my code.   And as I was unhappy with how the bgc
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(Action RPG) Ice Kingdom (or: BLARG!)

Procrastinating on the rom again. Punishment for this is near but for now I show one of the potential incarnations of the Ice Kingdom that I had mentioned I drew up a couple years ago. When I get around to actually designing the area it'll probably look quite different. (After all, the capabilities of the engine are far more than what the concept assumed when it was created!)   As you can see from the map, there appear to be 2 different entrances. One on the far side of the maze, and one ne
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Random Updates

Admittedly, I tend to post random updates on my Livejournal account far more often than on here. Which is questionable in preferences given probably more people browse this blog, even accidentally!   Anyway, it seems I've been swallowed up by 7800Basic. Started looking through it's sample programs and reading over RandomTerrain's online guide for it. Naturally my first instinct is to enable scrolling to it even though it doesn't support it natively.   Horizontal scrolling took a couple tries
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Graze (2015-05-28)

I had the goal for the revive mode being done for this Sunday, but since I added Revive, added GameOver, added 2nd player and implemented the console switches... I might as well do an update now     Left Difficulty will eventually turn on/off the background music if I get around to adding any. It sets it's flag properly but there's obviously no sound in the game yet. Sound effects will be unaffected by this setting.   Right Difficulty only matters in a 2-player game. It allows a player
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Wow. SAP and Winamp is funky.

I downloaded the new updated SAP archive the other day and had the tunes playing on random/looping.   Then I went to work and forgot it was still playing. I use Winamp for these as I tend to prefer having a one stop shop for my audio - as a result I download winamp plugins whenever I find I need one.   Anyway. When I got home the computer was sluggish. I opened up task manager and found Winamp was using 99% of the system resources.
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YARG.

I won't be making version 0.011 before christmas. Had to reload from version 0.010 because at some point really messed up things happened and I didn't have the slightest idea where to start debugging the cause. Basically it went something like this. The collisions only test the outer missile. Something funky was going on that caused hte outer missile to somehow turn off randomly. And at the same time the inner missile was striped (horizontally).   Additionally, the playfield's color se
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I'm a slow programmer.

That subject works on so many levels.   Anyway, I sat down and patched the relative exits for the proper detection of the Zero Nybble case. No bugs or troubles in adding it. I altered room 6 so that it used relative exits for the dead exits instead of normal exits in the main rom. Since there's literally no visible change to the player (... again. ) I'm not going to bother posting the rom this time.   The rest of this week is going to be split up between thinking about items/mobs an
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Procrastination Punishment!

Here's a zip with code etc for Action RPG as of version 0.016.   Be careful with trusting comments, as they could be outdated. I'm horrible for that at times, especially if I'm copy/pasting sections of code.
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Back to the Code.

I've also been playing Aardwolf more actively lately, but the main thing to report is that I've added the new code to the main sources yesterday. I had added most of it and things worked for the most part, properly. I noticed one of the hearts that would jump to a new position/room whenever I entered a new room and it kind of puzzled me for a bit.   Then I remembered this was expected. Local_03 slot is cleared when leaving a room - all local/room slots will be like that eventually, so obv
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Is it safe to say I'm on the road to recovery?!

Caffeine free for almost 3 weeks baby!   I'm sure the stores have noticed a change in my purchases by now. Especially the clown. I was getting fed up with the employees trying to predict my (fairly predictable) order anyway - especially since they would routinely screw it up.   I'm hoping Al can get the attachments working so I can apply "punishment" for falling behind in my action rpg coding. (And the upcoming move isn't going to free up a lot of time for it either. )   -- Mord (I u
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(Action RPG) Version 0.011

As "punishment" for falling behind on my code, here is a zip containing binaries, screenshots, and source code for Version 0.011 of Action RPG as it stood prior to me adding in bankswitching. I'm aware of inefficient code and excessive - and not always correct - comments. So anyone using the code for their own nefarious purposes keep in mind there are likely more efficient methods and don't always listen to the comments. Except with respect to the nop. It does in fact look darn purdy.  
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