[Sword Of Solaria - Final Fantasy style JRPG 7800 graphics/music mockup]

Begone to the A8 forum with you! :-)

Haha, come on, we are all a big family x)

[Sword Of Solaria - Final Fantasy style JRPG 7800 graphics/music mockup]

Thanks guys! Would you guys like if I uploaded all the assets I used to make this? I don't personally have any programming skills, but if somebody wanted to use the graphics/music to make a demo playable on real hardware, they're more than welcome to!

Sure!.. there is always the possibility that is done with the assets available x)

 

Anyway, in my case it will end in the A8 instead of the 7800, but if you don't mind..

[Plaform game engine]

Hi,

 

I am just getting back into 6502 programming after about 35 years so any help would be appreciated. Here is what I am doing with the open plat engine. I have create a sprite using player 1,2,3 for color. It's dimensions are 8 x 21. I updated the draw player routine to support drawing the sprite. For all the area's of the code I could recognize I updated any values to match the sprite and made some of them constants. I am using the same screen dimensions as the sample but have provided my own character set.

 

The first thing I see is when the character walks off the right side of a platform he goes out a full character width before he begins his fall. Also when I move him all the way to the right he goes past the window right limits after the tiles have scrolled. Can someone shed some light on if I have missed a setting or something.

The PM's are only the graphical representation of your player, internally the code assumes (is hard coded right now, if I remember correctly) that you are moving an object of 4x8 pixels (1 char).

So you would need to update the size of the internal "collision" object through the code..

 

I would need to take a look for possible unknown problems, but at least change this code, in pro_P1.asm:

 

; set size in pixels

ldx #4

stx m_playerSizeX

dex

stx m_playerSizeXMinusOne

ldx #8

stx m_playerSizeY

dex

stx m_playerSizeYMinusOne

 

jsr InitPlayerInfo

...

 

Is not that simple anyway, because with a sprite so big you need to add more collision checks, to avoid going through small objects (the collision checks right now are done only in the corners of the player).

You would understand if you try it

The other solution is that your level doesn't use walls or platforms that are smaller than the player.

 

Regards.

[Top Games You'd Like to Have for Atari 8-Bits]

Meat Boy 2600 style x)

 

 

Hey, I think Bagman should have 2 votes

[Top Games You'd Like to Have for Atari 8-Bits]

Looking at more modern stuff I've been wondering about the possibility of something like Super Meat Boy.

 

Ignoring the 2-button input for a minute (Mario style - one held to run, another to jump) I think it ought to be about possible, even if it is more like the warpzone levels rather than the main ones

The bit trip version looks perfect for the 2600 x)

At least there is a lot of info out there, if someone wanted to replicate the movement "physics".

 

http://meyermike.com/wp/?p=160

 

 

Aren't Super Bread Box on the C64 and both Super 48K Box and Dead Flesh Boy on the ZX Spectrum demakes of Super Meat Boy?

Demakes of http://supercratebox.com/

[Top Games You'd Like to Have for Atari 8-Bits]

(Raimais)

This looks like a pretty cool game too. It gets a little

hard after a few stages, but gameplay can always be

adjusted. Also, I think there could be some other cool

powerups to add (maybe there are more in later

stages?).

A nice thing about this one is that the levels fit nicely in 40x25 char mode:

 

 

Also with Turtles, this one is 28x28 (but you could live with 28x26 and a couple of scanlines to show the top and bottom limits)

 

 

These mock ups are done with Envision PC, so they are already in antic 5 char mode, but maybe the colors are a little off.

Another good thing of this type of games (and others, like Rally X for example), is that you could reuse code for movement, collision checking and font based rendering, because the enemies and the player live inside a char based grid (and you get the extra color).

 

(Bubble Bobble)

I think a lot of people are interested in seeing this one

for the system. In fact I believe Tezz has it on his list and

you also had a tech demo of a game based on it (I think I

still have a copy of it), correct?

Yep, I implemented the movement of the player (walking, jumping, falling) and shooting bubbles. Probably my first experiment with software sprites.

With the amount of moving elements this one have, I would say is a better fit for bitmap software sprites, but I have never done char based software sprites so..

 

I agree with you about Rygar, it would look more like a "demake", but I think that the gameplay could be similar and still fun.

 

Try Jumpbug if you can.. is kind of crazy for how old it is

The control is weird at first, but it makes sense at some point x)

[An Atari like joystick to use with Altirra?]

Several years back, Legacy Engineering did a re-release of the original CX-40, but with USB guts so it worked on any PC without drivers. If you have original Atari controllers, I highly recommend the Stella-Daptor (http://www.2600-daptor.com/2600-daptor.htm).

 

I was looking at the D9 version:

http://www.2600-daptor.com/2600-daptor%20D9.htm

 

Is that new? .. it looks like the final solution.

[Top Games You'd Like to Have for Atari 8-Bits]

Hmm - I think someone started that, it was Project M

Ha.. I was talking about something better than that (at least about the engine, that's no game yet).

 

I found and old list of possible ports that I liked, all arcade games:

 

Exerion

Front Line

Jumpbug

Empire City

Crazy Climber

Bagman

Sidepocket

Turtles

Road Fighter

Starforce

Raimais

City Connection

Elevator Action

Rygar

Bubble Bobble

[Top Games You'd Like to Have for Atari 8-Bits]

Would be valid for you games that doesn't exist, but should? x)

I would like to play things like: (and maybe program some of them)

 

- a "Kick Off 2" type of game (sensible soccer.. what's that? )

- "Star Raiders Galaxies" (a modern sequel to the original, with good space combats)

- "Montezuma's Revenge 2" (with a better title probably.. and some ideas from Spelunky)

- a "Wonderboy" type of game (the arcade one, or the ones in the "Monsterland" series)

- "Exed Exes XL" (an Atari version of the arcade one)

- a good arcade racer, with a good frame rate and with hills (the engine/game that I have in mind doesn't have a good model)

- a game in the "Galaga" family

- "BallBlazer 2" with 4 player support, 2 per team (maybe connecting 2 Atari computers)

- a "Super Mario" like game

- a good pinball game also..

- a good first person game (only raycasting), with colorful graphics and over 30fps, with enemies, shooting but also puzzles.. maybe capturing some of the action that Encounter had..

 

+ lots of others 2d games: Rally X, a good 2d golf like game, a PacMan like game (with new mazes, ghosts and abilities), a "Lunar's Lander" type of game (but with elements of "Gravity Crash" in the ps3)..

 

Most of these are because I believe that a very good version can be done in the A8, with good graphics and very playable.

 

I support Irgendwer in trying to do "new" things, but I understand that the probability of that happening is lower than straight ports, if we are doing this just for hobby..

Maybe a compromise and ask for "new levels" in the "not so straight" ports?

 

[Could PoKey do this]

@Antonio, as a Planet Golf purchaser I'd love to see it on the Atari, great work...Loved the intro disk..

 

Offtopic.. yeah, nice game there

Pretty good samples and animations.. and I suppose that's the c64 high resolution mode?, it would be difficult to have the same clean look in the A8 (or a lot of work using pm's underlays).

 

 

I "LOLed" at the alien x)

 

@Antonio, have you published info about your ball physics and collisions code?.. it would make for a nice article.

Sometimes I think about doing something like "Super Stickman Golf" or "Desert Golfing" in the A8.

[PG's POKEY corner]

And my other entry for the compo, which ended up fourth.

 

https://soundcloud.com/pseudografx/atari-goes-on

 

Nice..

 

The rhythm and some of the instruments remember me a little of the Wings of Death music (or was it Lethal Xcess?).

[STUNT CAR RACER?]

Greater than perfect conversion guys..

 

Annoying question for all involved.. sorry to ask x) ..

If this could be "easily" converted to use gr.7 like graphics (or the equivalent char mode), how much do you think that would improve the frame rate?

I would hope for something near 12 fps.. like 1.5x faster.

 

Regards!

 

[5-color mode with almost no restrictions]

Nice.. so when do we expect a working test? x)

 

Also, why 240 lines? .. I suppose it should work for any number of lines?

And how would using narrow mode (128 pixels) help you to achieve this?

Is possible to still use pm's?

 

Regards.

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

If using Antic4/GR.12 it'll be perhaps not because other than a static image there will be no cpu/cycles to move anything on the badlines because remember that in these and all on the screen for each scanline you have to change 4 colour registers (PF0/PF1/PF2/PF3).

In here like now using bitmap mode GR.15 you don't have the badlines and even less one colour change because there's not PF3.

You also need to change the charset every couple of lines probably..

 

But not having cycles available in the bad lines doesn't prevent you from changing the graphics anywhere, or using this for a game.. I don't follow your logic here.

Obviously, if doing a game I would try to use one IRQ every two lines (not one big DLI over the whole screen), but I need to test if this works well changing 4 registers.

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

Would this be workable in Antic 4 mode to get the PF3 combinations, and 23 colors instead of 16?

Yes, but (normally) you would have the same restriction of selecting the new color for all the character.

I would use it as a new color in the "hue" lines and would leave the same 4 values for the "luma" lines (set PF3 equal to PF2 there), so that you get 20 colors instead of 16.

I think you can change the use of PF3 per line, but I don't remember how that works.

Also using chars can complicate the timing to use DLI's (or IRQ's) but it should be doable.

[New home res games]

... But for Pmg you need DLI, which will kill all performance via WSync, so in the end there's no performance advantage.

Remember that you could also use IRQ's if you want to sync some changes to a specific horizontal position.

It's not perfect (there is some jitter, according to what instruction was interrupted), you lose one audio channel (well, you can use it for samples..), but you can avoid stalling the cpu for some cycles.

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

Aaaand.. couldn't resist doing a couple more.. this is kind of relaxing, like a coloring book x)

 

house.xex

 

wario.xex

 

Altirra's palette, pal, pal blending.. hope they look good in a real tv.

 

Both pictures have one color (hue) change for the last 32 scan lines (and that simple change gets you 4 new colors).

All players are free, so you can still add a lot of color if you really need it.

 

Should do this with irq's, but didn't have the time..

 

Regards.

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

Don't know if your converter or what, but your version seems to miss the darker reds and some of the greens.

I did a fast version also, it should look more like this:

 

 

screen.xex

 

Also, I suppose using the pal palette from altirra is not that correct for this conversions, because the final image seems to have half the saturation.

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

Couldn't resist doing a small picture using gameboy tiles, colored by hand.

I added some code to the script to modify a picture to show what you would see in pal emulation, but packing the pixels for 2bits per color would be pretty simple.

 

Original: (Altirra's palette, 128 pixels wide)

 

 

With color + luma lines (with pal artifacting):

 

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

deleted

[Mode 15 PAL Blending?]

Yes it's old but not neglected

...

 

So only thing missing for you to experiment with is python converter... I have a gui version that's kinda easy to work with, but one important part still need manual value editing in source - color mapping from 16 color pc bitmap image to PalBlending 16 "colors". When I figure that out I'll upload exe or source in python, what ever people want to use...

 

ps. If anyone has ideas on how best to handle color mapping automatically or semi-auto please feel free to write !

Luma 0 or luma 2 (joystick up), plus scanline jitter (joystick button), plus altirra pal, fullscreen, pal artifacting and frame blending --> perfect! x)

Maybe frame blending is kind of cheating (unless you have a "modern" tv that do it for you.. whenever you like it or not), but is difficult to get the "correct" screen interlace look in emulation.

 

If you were to do a game would you try using irq's instead of fullscreen dli's? (and maybe narrow mode).

 

What do you mean with color mapping? re paletizing to your 16 (?) colors?

I recently did code to re-palettize (c#, unity) a png using a 256 color palette and also to compress (shrink) images to different zoom levels.

Don't know if that would help.

I was using Imagemagick before, but I wanted more control about what colors you get when you shrink an image, and you start blending a lot of pixels into one..

[Project-M 2.0]

Project M has the most realistic bird effects I've ever heard on the Atari!

 

What? (anyway that would have been Miker )

 

(Lol.. I just now saw the video)

 

Btw the depths shaded project m.... how can you toggle it?

 

That's the second floor of P.M 2.0..it was a quick a hack to the renderer, but is still rendering (monochrome) textures, so it could run a loooot faster than 20 fps, if done correctly.

[Shamus fixed for XL/XEs with title music?]

Without looking at the code, sounds like you need to use another key for unpause (like esc), instead of space..

[screwing with pirates]

Have any companies done more subtle things like altering gameplay if a cracked copy is detected. For example, they could ramp up difficulty more quickly on a cracked copy. This subtle approach is less likely to get detected and defeated.

 

Alternate Reality the Dungeon, with the FBI agents and the "long arm of the law".. but that wasn't "subtle" x)

 

Gods in the atariST did that, for all the levels before the first boss, that I think was inmortal.

The only problem was that, when I played a good "backup", I was disappointed about the real difficulty of the game.. the bad copy was much more challenging

[Plaform game engine]

Nice, reminds me a little of WTBOY

 

Nice.

The "infinite" jump is in the code, but commented, the "wall grab/slide" should be easy to do, and something like the big wheels could be done easily by animating chars in the font (but maybe using 2, 3 or 4 fonts interleaved in the screen).

 

I believe one of my inspirations at that point of time, was something like star guard:

 

 

Also doing something with a fraction of the options in n++ (and a little less hardcore), would be nice.. kind of a modern lode runner.