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CV Gus

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Posts posted by CV Gus

  1. Posted

    Hello!

     

    I'm trying to find instructions for programming a CV, since I'd like to try a homebrew game.

     

    I'm pretty good at programming a C-64, can do some machine language stuff directly (I don't have a compiler, or anything like that- I just type in the routines in a empty place in the memory).

     

    Any straightfoward guides, internet or such?

     

    Thanks!

  4. Posted

    That's where Coleco really screwed up- the ADAM computer. Guess they believed those idiot nerds who said videogaming was dead, and the future was in computers.

     

    Hear about the rush for Playstation 3? Yeah- real dead, in 2006.

     

    Opcode put a bunch of MSX games on the CV. I have Sky Jaguar, and I played some other MSX games, which can be put on a CV. If Coleco had just stuck with the CV, then they might have made it. Opcode's games are what the CV could have been back then, and they would have sold. There's even a battery backed up adventure game for the CV! How well do you think that would have done?

     

    You sometimes gotta spend money to make money. Arcade games got bigger and bigger, so the programmers at Coleco would need that memory. Hey- the extra money for Zaxxon didn't hurt sales for it!

     

    As far as Pacman goes- I've seen the Atari version for the CV. Its good- better then the 5200 version. Same with Joust (no sound yet, but it would have been good), Dig dug, and Galaxian was also better.

     

    Opcode isn't adding anything to any one of those Pac man games themselves- no fancy chips, nothing like that, he is just doing those versions with pure talent. It shows that the CV was able to do better then even the Atari programmers could do.

     

    I am going to get it as soon as it comes out. What CV owner isn't?

     

     

    http://www.opcodegames.com/pacman.html

     

    Says it all. :D :D :D

  5. Posted

    No, I mean EVERYTHING is random from game to game- even the mazes. It uses a sort of "put tiles together" system.

    Step 1: Implement a pseudo-random number generator.

    Step 2: Implement a maze generating algorithm.

    Step 3: Apologize for not opening a new topic rather than asking on an unrelated topic. ;)

     

     

    1) What doesn't?

     

    2) Doesn't use that sort of a system.

     

    3) I want to program a version for the CV- that's why I asked about programming instructions. C-64 know-how is useless for a CV.

  6. Posted

    Its hard to explain here, but it has random placing- so no two games are ever alike, right down to the place you are exploring. So random numbers are important.

    (Pseudo-)Random numbers are no problem. 8 or 16 bit LFSRs are often used for those.

     

     

    No, I mean EVERYTHING is random from game to game- even the mazes. It uses a sort of "put tiles together" system.

  7. Posted · Edited by CV Gus

    Is there a programmer's guide for programming a CV? I guess one for the MSX would be the same- or would it? I have an idea for a text game which I can program easily on a c-64, but I have no idea how to do that for a CV.

     

    Its hard to explain here, but it has random placing- so no two games are ever alike, right down to the place you are exploring. So random numbers are important.

  8. Posted

    Yeah, the CV had the same problem. I keep reading how it could handle 32K games, but they hardly ever did more than 16K. What's the use of having 32K, if you're never gonna use it? There's a four screen version of DKjr. out there. If the CV can do that (it can, no modules or nothing needed), why didn't they just do it in the first place?

     

    As for the 7800- whoever was running that show must have been some cheap people. Even the cartridges were UGLY.

  12. Posted

    If you could choose several games to come out for your favorite system, what would they be?

     

    Just try to keep it real. Don't ask for DOA Volleyball on an Odysey 2.

     

    7800- Gradius, Vanguard, Berzerk, Pacman, Super Pacman, Wizardry, Dreadnaught Factor, Street Fighter 2, Space Duel, Make Trax.

     

    5200- Wizardry, Pacman Plus (there is a Super pacman), Boulder dash.

     

    CV- Make Trax, Pleaides, Snap Jack, Space Spartans, Wizardry.

  13. Posted · Edited by CV Gus

    But there's something else-

     

    Even worse is if nobody buys any of the homebrew games. Its not enough to say "cool, somebody is making new games for (whatever)", if you want them to keep doing that, you have to put up the cash. They won't make new games just to see them pile up unsold.

  15. Posted

    Yes, thanks- I do see it now. The blocks are not the same size, so fewer dots.

     

    To the 7800 guys- what games, exactly, will your cartridge have? Opcode's will have Pacman, Ms. Pacman, and Pacman Plus. It will also have all of those options, like in Space Invaders Collection.

     

    Thanks to Pixelboy and Opcode, I finally understand CV graphics- each tile (character) is 8x8, like the C-64 or Vic 20. Each row of 8 dots in each tile can be two colors, on and off, but you have to tell the CV what the on AND off will be. The C-64 had up to four colors per tile: Nothing (screen behind it), two shared colors, and a color that each one could have for itself. Problem was, when you went multicolor, each dot became two dots, so the horizontal resolution was only 160- but you could mix multi and single color tiles. There was also that weird thing where a tile could have its own screen color.

     

    The reason it is so hard to do a multicolor maze in Ms. Pacman is because you want the screen everywhere to be black. That would be the "off" thing. That would leave just one other color. You COULD do multicolor mazes, but to "fit everything" you would have to change the shape of the maze- the way Opcode has it now, you can't make it multicolor.

     

    So you have two choices- multicolor maze, or "right" maze. Guess the 5200 has the same problem.

     

    It will be cool to see the 7800 homebrew and Opcode's CV version. It will be almost impossible to beat Pacman and Pacman Plus, but maybe the mazes in Ms. Pacman will look a little better- or will they be more blocky?

     

    I AM going to buy Pacman Collection! And those other arcade games he's going to do, too!

  20. Posted

    Sorry, I lost count- the letters are of different sizes. What I meant was that the first two tiles were just red and yellow, and that third one- the one all the way to the right- was only black and red, because (if I got it right) you MUST define both colors, you can't just leave it out and get nothing (black, in this case).

     

    What I tried to do was a multicolor barrier, with a red cap at the end there.

     

    During the weekend, I looked at the 5200 version of Ms. Pac Man. The mazes are multicolor, but I also had a picture of the arcade version- the 5200 is wrong. If you count the dots in the maze, you see that it is not the same as the arcade version. The 7800 version is right, but not the 5200.

     

    I checked out Opcode's current version here

     

    http://www.opcodegames.com/pacman.html

     

    The mazes are not multicolor, but they are right- count the dots, and its the same as the arcade version.

     

    So I'm thinking that Opcode chose not to make multicolor mazes so he could keep the dots and shape right- maybe in the CV and 5200 you can have multicolor mazes, OR they can be shaped like the arcade, but you can't have both. Opcode went with the right shape. But you could do multicolor mazes, if like the 5200 you don't care if the shape is different.

     

    Or is that wrong?

     

    You'd sure know! Thanks in advance!

  21. Posted

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

     

    You're making the basic mistake that most beginners make when they start working with CV graphics: You're using more colors than you are allowed! In your example above, you're actually using three colors, namely "R", "Y" and the "invisible" color which you are not representing in your tile diagram. Again, there is no such thing as a "screen color" on the CV. You only have two colors (per scanline, per tile) to work with, and that's it.

    ************************

     

    Oh, yeah, I see it- the third tile. I'm using 3: black (nothing), yellow, and red- I see now.

     

    So each line in your example actually acts as a single color on a mini-screen of its own! I think the C-64 has something like that.

     

    So my example would work if it was like this:

     

     

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

     

    The red at the end of the barrier here is like a red cap. That tile only has two colors.

     

    Or would it work?

  22. Posted

    I'm not sure I'm following your example, but allow me to try to explain it my way: In graphic mode #2, you could define an 8x8 tile like this:

     

    00011000 --- 1=white, 0=transparent (black)

    01100110 --- 1=medium blue, 0=black (non-transparent)

    11110011 --- 1=dark red, 0=white

    00110001 --- 1=light yellow, 0=dark red

    00000000 --- 1=grey, 0=light green (this entire line is light green)

    11111111 --- 1=grey, 0=light green (this entire line is grey)

    10000001 --- 1=magenta, 0=black

    00111100 --- 1=white, 0=black (non-transparent)

     

    So for each line inside an 8x8 tile, you can assign a color to the 1s and another color to the 0s. You've got 16 colors to choose from (color #0 is transparent, but if you use it in a tile, it comes out black, like color #1, because transparency can only be applied to sprites, AFAIK).

    **********************************

     

    Boy, am I learning alot about CV graphics here.

     

    From what you said before, I thought that each tile could show one color in each line of 8 dots. You could use a different color for each line, so a tile with several color stripes- like the stripes on the American flag- could be done.

     

    Please remember that I don't think of screen color as a color- it just means nothing is there. So the enemy bugs in CV Ladybug are just one color things to me.

     

    But your example here tells me that I was wrong- that each line in a tile can have 2 colors, independent of the other lines (in your example, the third line has red and white, and the fifth could be grey and green). You don't even have that 2 dots=1 dot multicolor thing the Commodor computers have. So the CV can do a lot more than I thought. So the right edge of a barrier in Ms. Pac-Man could look like this (3 tiles across):

     

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

     

    So now I really don't get why the mazes in Ms. Pac-Man can't be multicolor, the CV seems to be better than the 5200, or even the 7800!

  24. Posted

    When you say "two colors," do you mean "screen color" (nothing) and a color?

     

    So what you mean is that, in a line in a tile, only two choices are there: A color or nothing. Does this mean all 8 dots in a line in a tile (on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on), or can it be any of the 8, like on-on-off-on-off-off-off-on.

    So something like this, in a 8X8 tile set-up, would look like this:

     

    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

    BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRR

    BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRR

    BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRR

     

    These are four lines in three tiles. The third one just has those dots on.

    R=red, B=blue.

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