My brain is frying but that's ok! The code is starting to take shape. Been spending most of today analysing and editing the PrePlayer branch. The rest of the code is just a copy/paste + minor editing affair I believe so as long as THIS looks like it'll fit in the scanline properly the others should as well. (And I want to make sure PrePlayer is perfect before I copy/paste otherwise it'll mean a lot more editting later!)

As a bonus to me I added a check for screen termination that will end up in all the zones and is already figured in to the timing. No more "special cases" like I hacked into the last version. This is good as otherwise the code wouldn't fit in a scanline properly in the later segments. (the extra tests would kill the timing!)

So hopefully the next entry I make will actually be Version 0.009.

*update*

Timing is too tight for this room display kernel so I'm limiting the ball. Ideally I wanted to be able to move the

ball around and have it turn on/off in such a way so that it could simulate another player. That may still be

possible but I'd have to rearrange a lot of code and it isn't strictly necessary for most of the rooms.

So for the Basic Room display the ball is regulated to being a solid bar going the full length of the screen. The room data will be able to position it horizontally at any pixel and set it's thickness. This is good for blocking off the side exits rather than using missiles like other games.

The initial code is written and while I think it's possible to pull off I have no idea how how long it's going to take me to fix the bugs I'm sure to encounter. Right now browsing the code repeatedly, fixing things as I see them. Some would get caught by a compiler but others would take a while to find if I jumped to the compiler right now.