jbs30000 Posted April 9, 2007 Share Posted April 9, 2007 I finished the second version of the Tron arcade game, but there's still some major bugs, so I need to make a 3rd release, using 32K, because I discovered that 16K isn't enough. And it's funny, but during this game, things stopped working the bigger the program got. I had to start switching to actual numbers instead of relying on constants for instance. Anyway, some major bugs. 1) When you win the tank game, the game goes blank and hangs. 2) The grid spider game doesn't count down the clock, because, while it worked at first, when I added the spiders, going to the clock countdown routine then caused the program to go back to the main menu . 3) Also, I didn't have enough memory left to cause the player to loose the game should they hit a spider. 4) The light cycle controlled by the player has its sprite change while driving (you're moving up and it switches between up and left, for example, but it still drives up.) And this isn't a bug, but I need to improve control for driving the light cycle. 5) Since the game hangs if you win the tank game, you can't advance all 3 levels. So I compiled a game for each level. 6) There's problably one or two more that I'm blanking on. Now, despite all those problems, I think what I've accomplished so far is pretty cool. All I need to do, is rewrite it using 32K, and it should be all set. Please, let me know what you think so far. Thank you. Tron2L1.bas.bin Tron2L2.bas.bin Tron2L3.bas.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted April 9, 2007 Share Posted April 9, 2007 Just oughta let you know, 32K would be the biggest Batari Basic game to date (i think.) I don't think it's possible to make a 64K bB game, so hopefully this project won't be *too* massive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 9, 2007 Author Share Posted April 9, 2007 Just oughta let you know, 32K would be the biggest Batari Basic game to date (i think.) I don't think it's possible to make a 64K bB game, so hopefully this project won't be *too* massive! Well, 32K is kind of bigger than I need actually, but there isn't an option for 20K, 24K, or 28K, so since I ran out of memory at 16K, 32K is my only other option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 9, 2007 Author Share Posted April 9, 2007 Say, do any of you who've downloaded the files have any comments? Any bugs or errors I missed? Anything that's not an error but could use improving? I'd love to hear your opinions so that the third and final release of the game will be a good one. Also, if anybody could write some code for any of these sound effects or music clips, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm not very good at sound, and the sound effects I put in the game are basic, one note sounds that took a lot of trial and error to come up with. Anything complicated, forget about it. Jerry's Sound Page Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Just oughta let you know, 32K would be the biggest Batari Basic game to date (i think.) I don't think it's possible to make a 64K bB game, so hopefully this project won't be *too* massive! If you use 4A50 bankswitching, you can make a 128K bB game-- but first you'll have to modify bB to work with 4A50 bankswitching (which I expect to do one of these days). Or it might be easier to modify bB to work with one of the other bankswitching methods, such as E0 (or is it called EF?), which lets you create 64K games. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisP Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Say, do any of you who've downloaded the files have any comments? Any bugs or errors I missed? Anything that's not an error but could use improving? I'd love to hear your opinions so that the third and final release of the game will be a good one. The games seem to run a bit fast. I don't remember the arcade Tron moving that fast. Or maybe I'm just slow and old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 Say, do any of you who've downloaded the files have any comments? Any bugs or errors I missed? Anything that's not an error but could use improving? I'd love to hear your opinions so that the third and final release of the game will be a good one. The games seem to run a bit fast. I don't remember the arcade Tron moving that fast. Or maybe I'm just slow and old. Yeah, some of them do run kind of fast. I'll see what I can do about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_mike Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Also, if anybody could write some code for any of these sound effects or music clips, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm not very good at sound, and the sound effects I put in the game are basic, one note sounds that took a lot of trial and error to come up with. Anything complicated, forget about it. Jerry's Sound Page Here's code for the intro theme. I'll work on the other music, too. I've kept is as short and simple as possible, 'cos memory is still somewhat limited. the high pitch is necessary to keep it in tune using the same distortion register. Let me know what you think. tron_music_intro.bas tron_music_intro.bas.bin Thanks, Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Also, make there be sort of a "freeze time" at the title screen which pressing the joystick in a certain direction does nothing (so when you die from a game, it doesn't affect which game you pick at the title screen). Just make it like be a second or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 (edited) Really good job so far JBS!!! Thats really impressive. NOw why could they not make it like this back in the day? Edited April 10, 2007 by Gorf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 This is quite impressive work so far, especially for a bB version. Looks like more work than anyone else has done on a 2600 Tron Arcade port. Keep it coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 I need to try this out... it's been forever and a day since I've dabbled in Batari BASIC, and I'd like to see how far it's advanced since I last used it. Maybe when you're done with this, you could give us a port of Journey! Data Age's Journey Escape left much to be desired... JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 Also, if anybody could write some code for any of these sound effects or music clips, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm not very good at sound, and the sound effects I put in the game are basic, one note sounds that took a lot of trial and error to come up with. Anything complicated, forget about it. Jerry's Sound Page Here's code for the intro theme. I'll work on the other music, too. I've kept is as short and simple as possible, 'cos memory is still somewhat limited. the high pitch is necessary to keep it in tune using the same distortion register. Let me know what you think. tron_music_intro.bas tron_music_intro.bas.bin Thanks, Mike Wow, awesome! And making it so high pitch makes it sounds so, Atari like . And now, you name is added to the list of credits. For a total of....two people who have contributed code to this game, you, and me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s0c7 Posted April 10, 2007 Share Posted April 10, 2007 Nice start. Keep it up. One thing you may not have thought about - you appear to be using too many cycles in certain situations. Fire it up in z26 with the -n option. You want to try to maintain a constant scanline count (should be 262 for NTSC). During some of the transitions and the MCP cone screen it jumps all over the place. I've seen it go as high as 680. This will cause the screen to roll on the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 (edited) Rather than litter this thread with individual replies, I'll just give my replies to the other posts in this one. CurtisP, right now I'm working on the Tank game, which is the only game I think was running too fast, so I did slow it down some. atari2600land, there's now a delay of roughtly 2 seconds or so whenever the main menu is brought up. Gorf and Lord Helmet, thank you for the compliments Jess Ragan, I don't know. I might take a break after this game. It turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated. And, wow, I haven't thought about the Journey arcade game in ages. s0c7, I'm making a quick edit to this post. I origionally asked a few questions about what you meant, but a moment ago I downloaded Z26 and ran the program on it, and pretty much everything you're saying became crystal clear. I'm surprised that Stella is letting me get away with things that won't work right on a real Atari. Anyway, thank you for your post, this helps out a lot. Edited April 10, 2007 by jbs30000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisP Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 I downloaded Z26 and ran the program on it, and pretty much everything you're saying became crystal clear. I'm surprised that Stella is letting me get away with things that won't work right on a real Atari. Ooh, thanks for the info. I will have to install Z26 and test my programs in both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 s0c7, I'm making a quick edit to this post. I origionally asked a few questions about what you meant, but a moment ago I downloaded Z26 and ran the program on it, and pretty much everything you're saying became crystal clear. I'm surprised that Stella is letting me get away with things that won't work right on a real Atari. Anyway, thank you for your post, this helps out a lot. Stella has some glitches in the TIA emulation that are being corrected. But you need to be cautious about z26 as well, and about emulators in general. Despite the fact that z26 is perhaps the best of the Atari 2600 emulators as far as emulation accuracy is concerned, there may be certain things that z26 will let you get away with that won't work on a real Atari 2600. No emulator is perfect, and (as I found out the hard way with "E.T. Book Cart") testing your programs on the various emulators is not a good substitute for testing them on a real Atari. In fact, it's a very good idea to test your programs on as many different kinds of Ataris as possible-- heavy sixers, light sixers, four-switchers, juniors, or even 7800s, etc. And since Stella is sort of taking it on the chin in this thread, I'd like to add a comment in favor of Stella-- namely, that it has a wonderful debugger, which you should learn how to use, because it can help you track down funky errors in your programs. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 s0c7, I'm making a quick edit to this post. I origionally asked a few questions about what you meant, but a moment ago I downloaded Z26 and ran the program on it, and pretty much everything you're saying became crystal clear. I'm surprised that Stella is letting me get away with things that won't work right on a real Atari. Anyway, thank you for your post, this helps out a lot. Stella has some glitches in the TIA emulation that are being corrected. But you need to be cautious about z26 as well, and about emulators in general. Despite the fact that z26 is perhaps the best of the Atari 2600 emulators as far as emulation accuracy is concerned, there may be certain things that z26 will let you get away with that won't work on a real Atari 2600. No emulator is perfect, and (as I found out the hard way with "E.T. Book Cart") testing your programs on the various emulators is not a good substitute for testing them on a real Atari. In fact, it's a very good idea to test your programs on as many different kinds of Ataris as possible-- heavy sixers, light sixers, four-switchers, juniors, or even 7800s, etc. And since Stella is sort of taking it on the chin in this thread, I'd like to add a comment in favor of Stella-- namely, that it has a wonderful debugger, which you should learn how to use, because it can help you track down funky errors in your programs. Michael Sorry, didn't mean to knock Stella. And I don't have a real Atari, and even if I did, I don't have an EProm burner or any of those programmable cartridges like Krokodile, so I can't test anything on a real atari. I'm thinking about buying these things sometime down the road, but until then, all I have are emulators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 (edited) Sorry, didn't mean to knock Stella. And I don't have a real Atari, and even if I did, I don't have an EProm burner or any of those programmable cartridges like Krokodile, so I can't test anything on a real atari. I'm thinking about buying these things sometime down the road, but until then, all I have are emulators. I didn't mean that you were knocking Stella, but rather that we (you and I) were kind of pointing out that it has some glitches in the TIA emulation-- well, you were discovering that, and I was pointing it out. So I wanted to put in a good word for Stella, too. As far as testing on real consoles, you don't have to do it yourself if you don't have the means-- and even if you *do* have a programmable cart, you might not have every variety of Atari 2600 console or compatible console. So by posting the ROM image for your game(s) in the AtariAge forums, you make it possible for others to load the ROM into a programmable cart (if they have one) and play it on a real console-- which is a way for you to get your game(s) tested on real equipment, and on a *variety* of real equipment. Of course, most people will be playing the ROM images on computers with emulators, and they can give you feedback about any glitches they find, or make suggestions for changes they'd like to see made-- although you, as the game programmer, can choose whether to implement or ignore those suggestions. It's all part of the play-testing phase. That's the beauty of sharing your workd-in-progress on AtariAge-- you have a large audience of Atari lovers who will be more than happy to play-test your games for you! Michael PS -- Another way that AtariAgers can help is if you're developing a version of your game for a console and TV system that you don't actually have access to. For example, if you're developing an NTSC version, but you want to make a PAL version too-- or maybe even a SECAM version-- then you can of course play the PAL or SECAM version on an emulator, but you might also want to make a special request for anyone with the means to do so to please test the game on an actual PAL or SECAM 2600 and TV. Then they can give you feedback about the colors, or about any differences in the sound. Edited April 11, 2007 by SeaGtGruff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbs30000 Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 Sorry, didn't mean to knock Stella. And I don't have a real Atari, and even if I did, I don't have an EProm burner or any of those programmable cartridges like Krokodile, so I can't test anything on a real atari. I'm thinking about buying these things sometime down the road, but until then, all I have are emulators. I didn't mean that you were knocking Stella, but rather that we (you and I) were kind of pointing out that it has some glitches in the TIA emulation-- well, you were discovering that, and I was pointing it out. So I wanted to put in a good word for Stella, too. As far as testing on real consoles, you don't have to do it yourself if you don't have the means-- and even if you *do* have a programmable cart, you might not have every variety of Atari 2600 console or compatible console. So by posting the ROM image for your game(s) in the AtariAge forums, you make it possible for others to load the ROM into a programmable cart (if they have one) and play it on a real console-- which is a way for you to get your game(s) tested on real equipment, and on a *variety* of real equipment. Of course, most people will be playing the ROM images on computers with emulators, and they can give you feedback about any glitches they find, or make suggestions for changes they'd like to see made-- although you, as the game programmer, can choose whether to implement or ignore those suggestions. It's all part of the play-testing phase. That's the beauty of sharing your workd-in-progress on AtariAge-- you have a large audience of Atari lovers who will be more than happy to play-test your games for you! Michael PS -- Another way that AtariAgers can help is if you're developing a version of your game for a console and TV system that you don't actually have access to. For example, if you're developing an NTSC version, but you want to make a PAL version too-- or maybe even a SECAM version-- then you can of course play the PAL or SECAM version on an emulator, but you might also want to make a special request for anyone with the means to do so to please test the game on an actual PAL or SECAM 2600 and TV. Then they can give you feedback about the colors, or about any differences in the sound. Thanks for all of the advice. The biggest thing I'm learning about this is that I shouldn't have started off with such a big project. Oh well, at least it's almost done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_mike Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 (edited) Thanks for all of the advice. The biggest thing I'm learning about this is that I shouldn't have started off with such a big project. Oh well, at least it's almost done. Don't finish it up, just yet. I've got more music stuff for you coming soon! Thanks, Mike Edited April 12, 2007 by lord_mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Wow, with all this possible incompatibility I'll need to burn and try? OR is there a dev upload cart available. Sorry for my ignorance but the 2600 coding is a recent thing and I do not really know what is available for developers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Iacovelli Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Wow, with all this possible incompatibility I'll need to burn and try? OR is there a dev upload cart available. Sorry for my ignorance but the 2600 coding is a recent thing and I do not really know what is available for developers. steve, to my knowledge there are 3 diffent 2600 tools you can use to test games on the real thing: 1.Cuttle cart 1 2. Cuttle cart 2*only works with 7800* 3 Starpath supercharger Cuttle cart 1 and the supercharger both work the same way by makinga wav file of your rom and then you can load your game through the audio jack of the computer or cd player. Cuttle cart 2 as noted only works with the 7800, plus the games can loaded to a MMC card which can be plugged into the CC2. however chad schell has sold out of both versions,so your best bet is to go with a suprcharger,if you going to do bankswitching games or ones with more memory you will need to modifiy it. I did hear about onther tool, but cabn't recall how far along it is or what the name of it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakasama Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 I did hear about onther tool, but cabn't recall how far along it is or what the name of it is. I think you're talking about the "crococart" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Iacovelli Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 I did hear about onther tool, but cabn't recall how far along it is or what the name of it is. I think you're talking about the "crococart" I forgot about that one, there was another one also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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