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Escalator Action


LS_Dracon

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I never cared to play Elevator Action (proto) on 2600.
Too much unfinished (and ugly) to be minimally fun.
For years I had an idea how to implement this game on 2600, but I never had intention to port it by myself.
I actually did the concept proof kernel for another project and it worked, so finally now I decide to give a shoot at Elevator Action.

Well, the game is too much complex, and now I'm very surprised how far the prototype is. They managed to make a moving elevator with both players in "high res". Definitely a good programming work there.
My kernel looks better, but I'm cheating, not drawing the sprites saves a lot of processing time for the color changes. The doors are multi colored just to proof I can set blue and red doors at will. On proto there's a sprite making the red door, which flickers, my kernel shoud be flicker free.

Problem, even using 2 scanlines, I think I can't draw the sprites and missiles. I would need a 3 scanlines kernel for that (even more cheating).
I did 2 spites in high res on my previous attempt, but I was changing the background color, not the playfield color like here.
I need the playfield color change to be able to shoot at the lamp and makes it fall using ball, but then, I can't draw this object either.

Everything can be done with DPC+ but it is out of my scope.

As you can see, I didn't find a good solution for the escalator, I can paint it as grey or other color, but all the few cycles saved for the sprites will be gone.
And the doors can't be red at escalator floors.

Multiple elevators are possible, the problem is to code all this stuff.

I don't have plans to code the game, I don't know if I ever will add the sprites, anyway, here's the rom for you test.
Move the elevator pressing up or down.

blogentry-10940-0-16190500-1515347955.png

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I love the prototype of Elevator Action, even though it's not complete. It is one of my regular "go to" games on my AFP. I like the changes you made and hope you don't give up on this!

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Thanks, at first I didn't liked the proto, but after my try, I learn how complex this game is and how far they went.

 

EDIT : Added new rom with some color changes.

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Excellent work! Elevator Action was always one of my favorite arcade games, and I was also very intrigued by the EA prototype (I even bought the boxed version at CGE back in 2001), though I believe the 95% done claim was a little generous; I would call it about 50% done.

Since then, I have had several attempts at bringing a playable EA to the 2600:

- in 2005 or so, I worked with Dennis Debro on labeling the source code to try to finish the prototype. We were able to label a good portion of the code but I didn't make much progress on any fixes.
- in 2015, I started a version from scratch using DPC+. It features 2 single-line resolution players, single-line resolution asymmetrical playfield with one PF color change. Dev stalled when I started Scramble and progress was about 20%
- in 2016 I restarted a version from scratch using the experimental BUS driver (at the time, I was not aware of compatibility issues with certain models. This version features two-single resolution players, two missiles, the ball, asymmetrical PF and up to 7 background color changes. I estimate this version is about 50% done; I hope to finish it someday if the BUS issues can be resolved (they are making progress!).

 

Here are some pics:

 

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That's great!

The lamp made by 2x sprites, wide spacing, was very clever! I wish I thought that :)

The car sprite is missing, I had some ideas for it, perhaps you could implement on your work.

I'm afraid BUS stuffing will not work, because several TIA revisions, anyway you don't need to set any doors as red, you could select 1 for left and 1 for the right, that's fine.

I mean, you don't need to change the PF color for all doors, only 1 for each side of the elevator. That's perhaps is enough to make the game run on DPC+?

Can I be one of the beta testers? I would like to see the progress of your game.

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