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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

 

Back to code.

Maybe it's the sudden intense 15 degrees celcius outside yesterday, but I picked up the codebook again tonight along with putting more effort into the last couple map redos I'm doing for Scrapyard Dog. (only 3-3 left! yay! ... I thought I had more than just 2 to do for some reason, probably what helped procrastinate on it. )   Codewise, I just started hacking into a flicker routine for Action RPG. There's a limited number of objects to check for with the item/monster setup I have in mind a
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(Action RPG) Version 0.009 Beta 2

Thanks to vdub_bobby I fixed the ball routine so that it no longer pokes over the top - and it doesn't wait until when a sprite is suppose to start drawing before working. To keep timing in the HBLANK however I had to modify the way the player appears. Instead of being a pure strip we now have a dual-colored box! The colors naturally changing based on the colors of the sprites currently on the screen.   Doing this caused an unnoticed semantic bug to stare me in the face.     Notice t
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(Action RPG) Return to Playfield

I'm going to have to admit defeat on attempting to unlink the SP bar from the HP bar for now. There's a lot more to consider than I originally realized about needing the cycle73 routine. Especially when I use a regular hmove routine at the same time at other parts of the screen. (For the player which can be positioned during vertical blank.)   Essentially, since the movement registers don't change unless we reset them to the value 0000 with the hmclr register, or unless we alter them indivi
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Back to Coding

I've given up on the last attempt to add animation to the rom. The errors were weird to the point of me not knowing where to start looking. It might have just been a simple thing here or there, but finding that simple thing was more of a headache than a fresh start.   And so I reverted the source code (but not the variable/constants files) to version 0.018. I checked and it still compiles fine (which means I didn't remove anything from either file) although I'll double check it to see what,
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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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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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Still workin' on it.

Bankswitching can be a pain. Or more accurately, my failure to preplan it better. Haven't gotten it compiled yet as I've had to overcome various compiler errors caused by label-dependant code being in the wrong bank. So been moving those things around etc. I think the last thing I'll have to change before it'll compile will be a way to jump into the roomloader bank when it detects a new room to be loaded. Already got a good idea of how I'll do that.   I think I have Dynasty Warriors 5 Emp
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Fix one, get another.

Modified the heart placer to spam more hearts out, but more problems surfaced. The display itself is fine. These are with the AI routines. The flickerishness works, although it helped to unmask the AI glitches. The black key can still be lost when moving from screen to screen - if you're leaving a screen currently experiencing flicker. And the heart AI isn't correctly testing for itself. I'm guessing it just accidentally successfully found itself since the value being loaded just happened
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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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Apartment Hunts

It's possible that I've got a new apartment to move into for the end of the month now. Damage deposit etc all paid, so unless they have issues with the application it's a done deal. They seemed to be ok with it and aren't expecting any problems at least, so I'm going to pray everything works out as planned. I'd rather worry about how I'm going to move and when, rather than the Where. (And seriously, if they take longer than friday to get back to me about it, it's really going to screw over my
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new mp3 player

I broke down and bought a new (cheapish) mp3 player to listen to at work. I've been using my failing cd/mp3 player (uses cd-r's) for a while since the last mp3 player started to break down in the earphone connector. overall it was just 10 dollars more expensive than the last one but I don't really expect it to be much better than the old one. Still, this one wasn't on as big of a sale as the last one when I bought it so... Listening to the sound on it, it seemed to be about the same as the o
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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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Back to the grind.

Seems every time I finish a tiny milestone, as each version tends to be, I get a kind of rush. Of course this means much procrastination for a job well done.   At least I spend that time -thinking- about the upcoming goals for the next version.   So while it's already been a week I'm getting back to the editor. Work is a little heavier right now up until christmas but I'm sure I'll get a few things done before Christmas Eve.   Goals for Version 0.011:   1. Patch in Eric's f
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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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Christmas bonus

The company I work for gave out cheques for 1 week's pay to employees since it was another record breaking year for the company (compared to it's performance in previous years and whatnot) So it looks like I may be able to place an order in the AA store after all. Still can't get much, and certainly can't spend over 100 for the free christmas cart, but I'm definitely going to look into an Atarivox if nothing else.   With regards to the rom, more work is necessary than I originally expected f
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OH EM GEE.

It's the 16th and I haven't made a post yet this month?   Well, I guess that's bound to happen when I'm not doing serious coding. I have, however, been somewhat productive overall. Only 3 levels left to map out for Scrapyard Dog (4-3, 5-3, 6-2) - I've actually gotten a bit faster with doing them compared to way back when I was doing level 1-1. I'm not anticipating problems with 6-2, although the x-3's are going to be a pain I'm sure. Hopefully I'll be able to finish all 3 tomorrow.
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Bankswitching

Started work on converting the rom to an 8k as per my initial plans. Just pondering exactly how to set things up and I've changed my mind on the setup/naming strategy a few times already.   That, and Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires, are what's taking me so long to update.   Either way work is continuing now but updates of any sort might not show until the weekend. One thing I HAVE done is remove the variable and constant declarations I'm using and moved them to their own .h files so I
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Saving cycles.

Of course, this means saving compared to how I use to do it. To maintain player movement while they're trying to push along a wall as they move in the collision tests I have to take into account wasted frames and on successive direction tests jump further to make up for lost time.   Since horizontal tests are done first, to test movement in the horizontal direction I double the speed prior to moving. Originally I just went through the full 16-bit addition sequence twice. On average that woul
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(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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8k->16k

I had this idea that it would be easy to change the 8k rom into a 16k rom.   Yeah, I'm still laughing myself.   I'm still planning on it, since I'll need it for extra room for objects, but I have a few things to separate first.   Collision Routines: For some unknown reason, I decided to put collision labels in the object data itself instead of into a table. (Like what I did for AI routines) This had to be removed and put into a table so that I can push all of those into their own bank.  
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