I spent some time in January reviewing the sprite drawing & erasing routines, and the collision routines. I discovered a couple areas I could optimize the code. Maybe this is prep for working on a 2600 game next, counting cycles so much. With 5200 programming, although I did optimize, I didn't really analyze the cycles as much (I didn't need to!) as I did this month. I've heard it said among more experienced [Atari 2600] homebrewers than myself, that there's always another byte you can
in 2007's 5200 homebrew Adventure II, you could get Alternate Icons to play with, other than Sir Square, if you entered a secret code on the title screen. In the 5200 version, they played exactly like using the Square. The problem with this was that some of these Alt Icons (namely the big animated Knight) were a bit too big for some of the paths. You could get around this by using the Magnet more. But it made the game a bit more frustrating. Of course these icons are still in the XE vers
I've spent some hours recently going through all the game variations and double-checking that the more complex hiding spot rules work, and that the game's hiding routines don't create an unwinnable game. I did run into one scenario in the beginner difficulty where the bridge was hidden in a locked castle , the magnet was blocked off by logs so you couldn't reach it, and the key to enter that castle was unreachable without either magnet or bridge. So I will tweak the logic to not hide the br
It always irks me when I see the out-of-place tile on the original 5200 Adventure II - on the first castle at the top. I finally fixed it, for the XE version. As you can see, Sir Square is almost dead in this picture. He's got a big bite taken out of him and the dragon is about to complete his meal. This was the first time I have recompiled and recompressed an Adventure II screen since I got a Windows 64-bit laptop, running win8.1 It's a lot more hassle now. I have to use DosBox to run
Background info: If I ever suspected I'd need to come back to Adventure II's code the way I have, I'd have never compressed and re-coded so many memory-saving schemes into the original 32K 5200 version! One of the things I was proudest of in 5200 Adventure II was that I fit so much into 32K. As has been stated in the forums many times, the game had to use bank switching for the Atari XE version because the Atari 8bits can't address 32K memory, they instead address in 16K . And you can b
Still running down my laundry list of more minor tweaks. The past few things I've done are:
- WSYNC screen color changes tweaking. I can't believe it, but on several screens I had the WSYNC on the DLI *after* the actual color register change, not *before*. Thus in the 5200 version there are a few screens where you can see a color change mid-scanline. I tested 5200 AdvII on a 27" CRT so it probably didn't concern me , or I didn't notice it back in 2007. So, I fixed a handful of
I've been going through and making tweaks to a laundry list of subtle and minor things. I'm using the CONSOLE keys more than before so that you can play the game on an XEGS without needing the optional keyboard. START resets you back to Game Over / Rankings screen, SELECT Revives you to a Checkpoint, and OPTION is Pause. If you play on a computer like the 800XL etc, you can also rely on the SpaceBar for Pause, "R" for Revive. You can also Revive after getting eaten by just pres
I am rewriting parts of the sprite collision routines . I thought I could get them to work , but the timing is too different from the original 5200 version, and the Collision routines make certain assumptions that are not true 100% of the time in-game. Here is a quickie video I made to share what the problem is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHe-yjXFceY&t=2s
I got the new Rankings logic typed in and I hope debugged. Because I doubled the number of rankings from 5200's 7 , to XE version's 14 Rankings, and I doubled the lines of code for the actual 'rules' , I blew out the main ROM memory bank $4000-$6FFF. So I moved some of the new rankings logic down to $7000-$7FFF and the code now fits.
I posted this in the AA store, too. Dungeon Stalker snuck up on me. I wasn't prepared for its amalgamation of excellent gaming ideas! At first glance, it looked like a simple 7800 port of INTV Night Stalker. But I feel that DS is more interesting and more fun than the original Night Stalker. DS is a static maze shooter with gameplay tweaks that evoke fond memories of Berzerk, Wizard of Wor, and even INTV AD&D. You can get the usual AtariAge high-quality box , manual and artwork wi
I'm over 50, thus I have 1 deceased parent (from year 2000), 1 elderly mom and her elderly husband (of 21 years) , my stepfather. This year I spent a lot of days in support of my 2 elderly parents. My stepfather's health deteriorated a lot in particular, and thus there were many trips to hospitals, caregiving, then in-home hospice, then his death in December at age 84. Now my mom is a widow again. The first time she was widowed in 2000, she was only a few years older than I am now.
2022 was a busy year for me. I didn't have free time or mental energy to do much homebrewing on Atari XE or 5200, which I had wanted to. On the personal real-life front, 2022 took everything I had. Full-time job. Family obligations, of course. After a year of searching and looking at houses, I successfully found and bought what we wanted (many other properties I was outbid on, or the property sold before I had a chance to make an offer. The real estate market was crazy in 2021-2022
I just got back from 10 Cloverfield Lane , and it didn't disappoint. The first section is a spoiler-free review, followed by a spoiler-hidden additional thoughts. Spoiler-free Review: "After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack." - IMDB's description. I didn't really expect the film to be a direct sequel to the original Cloverfield, with that monster stomping around - but I wasn
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