LS_Dracon

For start, search information about Atari 2600 hardware, there alot of info in this forum. You need to know what is possible to do using atari 2600 graphics. Your grid uses about 126 RAM bytes to draw one "snake" using playfield pixels, it need 4 snakes, 504 bytes to track the information. The limit of Atari 2600 is 128 bytes, even with bankswitch to get 128 more bytes, it's still 256 bytes.

Ok let me try to help you. 1 - Wich platform have you in mind to convert this game? Atari 2600? PC? 2 - Do you know something about programming? If you want to code this game to Atari 2600, all snakes should use 1 shared color, with tricks you can draw 2 colors, alternating lines. The enemies can be made by quad size players. Usually, people that start with Batari basic have quick results to show.

Until someone post it: to-all-non-programmer-idea-peddlers Good luck with your project anyway

Just for report, this project is not dead. I was working in a new kernel and it's almost done. Now the game support enemies with size and copy number variation. My problem now is the RAM, even removing one floor, now with 8 enemies on the screen, still heavy to handle all of these sprites. I'm using 76 of the 128 bytes avaliable. Don't want to jump to 256 bytes of RAM, not yet. Since there's not much changes from the previous beta, follow an image only :

Yes, pacman for Channel F is a great port. I've edited the blog entry with a DK mockup for the channel F. I haven't plans to code it soon, or even if I will code it.

I give a quick look on assembly code for this machine and looks very hard for learn. If at least I have possibility to code the game in color and with hardware mods convert a Studio II to color graphics, but not will happen. So I will not port this game to Studio II. In these obscure system, I have plans one day to code for Channel F, that give-me better graphics and I can draw good sprites on it. Push these old machines graphics to limit is my passion

Killer app! I read some info about Studio II hardware yesterday.The games is not codded to display colors.What the clone systems did, was send one color for the background and another for the pixels.So instead B/W it display blue and yellow...Some games uses more than 2 colors, but was exclusive for Studio II clones that display color.And it changes the color by every byte (8 pixels) so is not possible to paint a sprite with a single color as it is fixed on screen/pixel position.Also, stuio II handle up to 8 sprite shapes, each limited to 8x7 pixels. Don't know if I can re-use these shapes or it is the entire amount for the screen.It's similar to Odissey^2 but the magnavox console handle up to 64 shapes per screen IIRC.RCA Studio II is really a fail attempt to the video game market.Here's a link with pictures of colored games :http://www.old-computers.com/magazine/view.asp?r=2&a=5

Why not? The system display B/W colors, but some games has coded for display colors. There is a Studio II clone made in UK that display colors. I don't know exactly the screen resolution (64x32, pixel aspect ratio 3x4?) and how the color works. Anyway 64x32 I can display a good maze and I have lot of space for score and others stuff on right. The dots looks better flickering, I think. The image display both B/W and Color versions. Freak! Edit : Added DK mockup for channel F

Nesticle, in 1998. Genecist, Kgen, Snes9x and A26 are the others from that time (1998/1999) I remember to play. I was amazed to able to extract the original sprites and tried to create my own. Sites like Zophar, Emux, Mame.dk

I'm doing alot of tests about flicker and screen resolution, with my Harmony, I found some interesting things : The flicker is less perceptive if you're using a luminance value #x4 to #x8 (in a black background). Less than 4 looks bad (too dark) and more to 8 the flicker looks perceptible, due high contrast between the color luminance and black background. Probably the flames are using a color value between 4 and 8, right? It was intentional? Did you made test to verify the best color for the flames flicker?

hehe The 5200 is so depreciated that even had a name in the Artie stripes.

I see. You need rotate the car, not perspective distorsion. How about create a sprite table for rotating sprites, like combat? And keep the effect for more angle possibilities?

Sorry no, but I wrote a new one. It's not good as my previous, just work for the left side, anyway you have a good idea. Push the arrow to the left and return to the middle of the screen. The sprite get the perspective from top of the screen. I have plans to create a racing game using this technique, but since I haven't done nothing yet, maybe others programmers could use this for his personal projects. My racing game is not like your, my idea was created an enduro like but with good looking road, fixed tracks and car numbers. Well, Top Gear like. Probably you are using the same code, I'll explain for the others peoples. This code is present in many games that uses vetorial line, such Spiderman, CrossForce and Fishing Derby. It's almost the same code with small variations. Here is the relevant code, for display the effect : ldy #0 clc lda Var1 adc Var2 sta Var1 bcs SkipMove ldy Var3 SkipMove sty HMP0 If the sum of var1 and var2 are bigger than 255, branch and shift 1 pixel. Var 1 is a temp var. Must set as 0 at every frame. Var 2 is the "magical number", in this demo I just inc or dec according the direction you move. Var 3 hangs the HMPX value, #%00010000 or #%11110000. Inc or dec var 2 o the fly, you create an arch, but it cost 5 cycles. Playing with these vars you create a huge numbers of effects. That is. vetorsprite.bin

Very cool I did this parallax sprite effect in a demo years ago and think this effect would be cool for a game like Beamrider. Good luck

Original for sure, don't like/buy pirate carts. It's revision B with a number 720101-1. I thought this bug was a bit rot.

I have a demon attack that crash. Picture label. Not take so long, about half an hour playing. Agreed.

You are right, there are many new AA members because the boxed Air Raid thread. First the box, now the plastic mold, in next week the Air Raid programmer appear and the things go on. BTW you know that Artie had more than two readers

Hey, Air Raid cart looks cool on Artie

Nice artwork

Hi Nathan, I know it's old, but just find it.I enjoyed to read your tutorial, specially the highlight part.I like to draw shadows and highlights, it gives a new level for an artwork. The tricks you posted are very usefull, I always draw in wrong way, put both (shadows and highlights) in the same layer, every time I need to redraw the highlight, I need to retouch the shadow, in a very very slow process (like I did in my Lead entry). Living and learning.Thanks for sharing your knowledgement. :)Ivan.

Probably Leandro post in your forum. He had much interest on this cart, I was forced to say that was a fake. I don't like to lie.

Well, tnx I had the idea around January but sadly I didn't find free time to elaborate the prank better. My idea was "discover" the cart months ago and slowly post more information. Some considerations : 1 - The fake cart was made in photoshop, with curupira image I found in google image (see the image below). The television picture also was done in photoshop, my harmony cart arrive in the day I did the video (one of the first usage of my harmony cart) 2 - I told to RomHunter it's was a fake days ago, to avoid an embarassing AtariMania entry. 3 - My camera really sucks, it record 3 seconds of video and stop. It's not a fake. Bulls**t. 4 - A great brazilian collector send me a PM trying to buy this cart. I told to him about the prank and I earn a new friend, he help me with more information about cce carts, such the number C-347 witch is an unknow CCE number by now. 5 - Sadly, the AirRaid box drain all attentions, ruining audience for this prank. 6 - Didn't find time to finish the game code, it's why the colisions not work and miss the cce logo. It was not the best april fools in Atariage but I tried to keep the tradition with a creative one.

It's dumped! Here's the rom for download. It's a bad dump, because some errors in colision and display weird things after 10 points. Anyway it's work in 2600 emulator. Check it out. curupira.bin

Looks like the first generation of games. Maybe it's a hack of Combat in same level as Space jokey / Air raid, new game that uses an existing game as base. CCE produced computers, apple 2 clones in 1981, they also created new software for their clones, this means they know how to code for the 6502. Maybe this game is a small run of CCE original, just for test the market. With poor sales, they abandoned the project. Even Bobby is going home is better. Too bad because Curupira is a interesting character.

Here's a short video. My camera record few seconds and stop, don't know what happens. The game is really bad. I have plans to dump it soon as possible. curupiravideo.zip