So after I don't know how long, I finally got the black patches in Greedy Zyx gone. So it now looks like this:
Which is a lot better than what it looked like before. I got it down to 15 separate colors, but the key was this:
When using GIMP, don't write the color space information. So I am really happy with the game now, as it's 1.58MB instead of what it used to be (1.66MB), so there's more space to put in the AtariAge intro in case it gets published like I would like it to
I just worked on it today, in fact. It's been a hard few months on it, replacing backgrounds and music in it. I really like the new title screen music though. I don't know when this will be released. Probably next year some time.
I will make a Zyx collection #2 under the two following conditions:
My computer doesn't die (it turned 4 last April)
I think of enough ideas (I only have 1 so far.)
I'm sorry I was the way I was in my last entry. It just kind of angered me that I didn't know the reason why ggn decided to abandon all that 6 years of hard work. I also hate surprises. I like to plan things out and have them be the way I expect them, so anything that throws a wrench in my plans is stupid
So I worked a long time last night on this game. I went to sleep at 5 a.m. and woke up at about 5 p.m. I turn the news on and they're threatening us with a freezing ice storm. The furnace gave us an error message this morning (computers!) but it gave up scaring us and started working again. If the power does go out, we have a gas fireplace to keep warm. But I hope it doesn't come to that.
I worked on Zyx 1k some more today and put everything on yesterday's list in the game. With 1 by
With all this talk about Zyx, I decided to go back to the Atari 2600 and work on my Zyx in ASM project I had started. I thought "I wonder if I could do this in just 1k." Reminiscing about the old 1k/2k/4k minigame compo, I went to work on it. I updated some code. I put in use of the reset switch. I then compiled, hoping it would all fit there.
I have 318 bytes left. That should be enough to put in at the very least sound effects.
I debated a long time over white or black ba
Last time I looked at the Zyx code, the Running Zyx game was effectively broken. After a few hours this morning, trying to take my mind off of the fact that I had to not eat for my blood test, I finally made it work again. I added a vut that comes running at you from the opposite direction. In the end, you'll have to avoid the vuts and get the bananas. If you get hit by a vut or miss a banana, you'll lose a life. The game speeds up every ten bananas you get until it is at its fastest speed at 6,
So I was working, trying to make a game for the Intv Basic competition a few months ago, when I gave up. I came back to it a few days ago and fixed my problems. I just now fixed a problem about the game over screen, after you press fire, the Zyx and the Vut (if there is one) remain on screen for less than a second. I worked on it for a little bit and apparently solved the problem by making the split second of blackness disappear and it goes straight to the title screen. I also composed a new tun
Well, since yesterday I've really been digging the The Red Krayola album I got. It's really groovy, and I can use that term since it was first released in 1968. So digging it that I've restarted my zwieback project. Zwieback is the name of my experimental noise/music thing I had done and then forgot about. I was really going to be bizarre and include a cover of John Cage's 4'33", but I decided against it. For a little taste of what I'm trying to work on, please visit http://www.atari2600land.com
You may or may not remember this blog entry about Zwieback: http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-10018-zwieback/ Well, the first album is finished. I've tried to make the finished project look OK, even going as far to include side labels for the CD. It was really hard to do, but it took about 5 tries to line everything up so it printed out OK and when I folded them it looked OK. And I've now decided that if you want a copy, you can get one from me and I'll make one and mail it to you. I
Back when the SNES was popular, I noticed reading NP and saying to myself "most of these SNES games are 8MB or under, they could be done on the NES!" Well, now I know the difference between SNES and NES, but one game that I thought would actually be doable on the NES is Zoop. Fast-forward years later after successfully programming 2600 and Virtual Boy games. I figured if I can program for the Virtual Boy, I could program for the NES. One considerable drawback is I need to learn ASM programming.
Here's a question: Is Zoop possible with Batari BASIC? I wrote this tiny demo demonstrating how the color of the ship can change, but I need to know more about how to erase a block that's been shot at, and adding more blocks in order to continue this. Here's the program and the code. If you look at the code, you'll notice that I used pfcolors and set a permanent pattern that doesn't go away. I don't know the first thing about erasing and adding blocks, so it's just natural that I did it this way
As you know, doing and making crosswords is a big thing for me. Well, I've decided to have a goal in life: Create (at least) 1 crossword puzzle a day. So far I've done 5 in 2 days. So, you can do the crossword puzzles I make here: http://www.atari2600land.com/crosswords/ Today's puzzle is about the letter Z. There are 6 z's in it. That doesn't sound like too many, but the letter Z isn't used much in crosswords, just like Q. Since I've decided to post these one a day, I know what the next few day
I suppose the reason aardvarks eat ants is because that's the only thing that's around to eat, outside of plants. Anyway, I put some ants and an anthill in the game. Aaron can now eat the ants, but the ants don't do anything yet. The tongue was successfully put in, although I had a hard time getting collision detection for it because to easier make it go in the game, I copied the aardvark sprite, put the tongue in and then erased the aardvark in Photoshop. This was around midnight. I woke up at
So a lot has changed since yesterday morning as a result of me working on this all day yesterday. I made the mouth smaller in-game. And I also made the first food: an ice cream cone, which whizzes by. If you eat it, you'll get two points. I wanted it to be one, but the stupid computer wouldn't let it be one. It was either two or three. Anyway, the code itself says to just add one but it adds two instead. But still, it's not a very exciting game. I need to learn how to get random numbers on this
It took a while, but I solved that problem I was having with the mouth...for now. I want to make a smaller mouth for the in-game part. Instead of a 4x4 tile mouth, I'd like to make a 2x2 one. That's next in my game. Erasing the Yum! and the big mouth on the screen and replacing it with a smaller mouth that moves around when the control pad is pressed, even up and down. Ever since I got the Master System, I've spent more time programming it than I have playing it. Oh, and I got the mouth to face
Different than the Game Boy version I made a few years ago. This version of Yum! is based on the Atari 2600 version. I wondered whether or not I could make the beginnings of a new NES game or not. So I worked and worked and went through every error message it spat out at me. Until finally, success! I have a title screen.
I always wondered why most video games don't have a white background. So I made the background color white. I also don't know how to make the mouth open and close. Th
So I got a Master System. It felt natural since I was working on trying to create a Game Gear game that I would switch over to the Master System. So the game I'm making is now a Master System game. I haven't got very far yet, though. All I have is a title screen. That red blob is supposed to be a pair of teeth, but I am having trouble displaying sprites with this thing. It seems more complicated than it should be. I mean, it's only an 8-bit system, right? And yet I'm still having trouble. The n
Struggled for like 4 hours trying various ways to make voices audible in Traffic. Three hours in, I got it to say "Squash" when I got hit by a car. But the lines disappeared. Fiddling with the code for a few more hours yielded it saying "squash" and the lines not disappearing. So then, it was easy to add it to make it say "Turkey" when the round was completed. Of course, I may be completely wrong about how I went about doing this, but it does work on O2EM. Funny thing about it, if there is no Vo
I decided to continue work on the Game Gear version of Yum. As I left it, it was still the face mouth opening and closing version. So a lot of work had to be done to make it more like the Game Boy version. I played with color palettes, programming various things, sometimes angrily. And I finally got the mouth moving around where I want it, a purple pickle to avoid, and a cookie and pizza with random y positions. Since the Game Gear has color, I decided to make the background black because it
I was testing version 39. The last version I saved was version 38. I don't remember why there was a version 39 if I didn't care enough to save it. Anyway, I noticed that sometimes all the food comes out at exactly the same time and goes exactly the same speed. And it looks quite bizarre. So I put in code. Food #4 comes out immediately, Food #1 comes out after a random amount of time between 1 and 64 ticks of the timer, then Food #2 comes out at double that, and Food #3 comes out after that. 60 t
I decided to rename "Fast Food" for the Game Boy to "Yum". A couple of things led to this decision. #1. I wanted to differentiate myself from Fast Food 64 and Wave 1 Games. To make it clear that it's a different person making this game for the Game Boy. #2. The big ugly mouth monster on the title screen. He had to go. But what to replace him with? Why not the title of the game? But what to call it? I was working on a Master System game before the computer I had it on died so I went to Game Gear
I was bored, so I began making Yum, my boring Channel F game, for Game Gear, in the hopes that it will fare better on it than the Channel F. Since the Game Gear has two buttons, I've decided to make pressing button 1 close the mouth and button 2 opening it. The guy is also a lot more colorful and I (finally) made the score 6 digits. So later what I plan to do is in addition to opening and closing the mouth, get breath mints for temporary invincibility. You must open your mouth for it to work. Al
I worked a whole lot on this last night. I went to sleep at midnight. Couldn't get to sleep until 1am. Then I slept for about 14 hours. It's kind of sad when you wake up and realize the day is almost over. Anyway, I have changed the name of the game from "Eating" to "Yum". I enjoy looking at my old Nintendo Power issues (circa 1993 or so). Finding games in the Pak Watch section that never got released ("Mario Vs. Wario", anyone?) The object of the game is simple: To open the guy's mouth to eat
Here is a picture of my latest Channel F project after I decided that Quest of the Cranberry was too ambitious for the Channel F. I decided to do something simpler, so I'm going for simpler things, like this. It's kind of like Fast Food, but the giant face's mouth closes if fire is pressed, otherwise it's open. The idea being to eat the candy and avoid the rhubarb. I'll have two items on screen at once. The hardest part will be randomly choosing either a rhubarb or candy piece. In other news,
Every Monday night that Jay Leno is new, I tape the Headlines segment. It's really funny. People send in the craziest stuff that gets into newspapers, magazines, etc. Here's just a sampling:
Yum.
Yum.
Yum.
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