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jbs30000

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Posts posted by jbs30000

  1. Posted

    Random Terrain

     

    256K is cool, but I don't need that much memory for a QBert game :cool: . I'm not sure what he means by "use a missile as a 'fake player' by varying the width" I thought that was what NUSIZ0 and NUSIZ1 are for. And shifting a player object per line might be useful, if I knew what that meant :?: (I've never played Stampede, or Dolphin).

    But I'm certain that the improvements will help on future games.

     

    retrogeek

     

    Thank you. I hope to accomplish a lot more this weekend because once Monday rolls around I'll be spending a lot of time on my college classes, and even though this program won't be as big or complicated as my Tron game, so far working on it has been trickier than I thought.

  2. Posted

    OK, here's something slightly better. The sprites for QBert not jumping are slightly better than before, although I'll probably have to re-do the sprites of when he jumps down/left or down/right.

     

    Also, his jumps look like jumps now, although it takes a little longer than the arcade or 2600 versions.

    QBert.bas.bin

  3. Posted · Edited by jbs30000

    OK, first off, I know I'm starting a lot of threads, but after this week I'll be starting spring term at my college and won't have much time to post any more.

     

    Anyway, as I've stated in another thread, I'm working on a QBert game. I'll use this thread to get your opinions and post updates.

     

    Where I'm at right now is that I have the playfield set up and QBert can jump from cube to cube using the joystick. Right now, if he jumps off of a cube he'll fall to his doom and everything resets. If he lands on a disk he'll be flown back to the top cube.

     

    There are no sound effects or music yet, but I'll be playing with Random Terrain's program to come up with some.

     

    I'd like your opinions on how to improve what I already have. My own opinions are that I need to improve the jump routine as he just moves diagonally instead of looking like he's actually jumping, and I'll probably also see about making better QBert sprites. At least the left and right facing ones (There's also up/left, up/right, down/left, down/right which I think look OK).

    Also, I know that 4 cubes across isn't very much, but it's the most I can do. And also, sadly, I can't make the top of the cubes different colors than the walls of the cubes. This means for rounds where QBert has to change the "cube color" twice he'll basically land on it the first time, and fill it, then land on it again and empty it.

     

    So fire away with any questions, comments, and criticisms. Thank you.

    QBert.bas.bin

  4. Posted

    When you tried using player0 twice AND player1 twice were you setting COLUP0 and COLUP1 before each drawscreen? If not, that is the reason flicker is bad.

    Yes, I changed colors before both drawscreens.

    Also, Stella will appear to flicker a little unless you use Alt-P for phorphor effect. The phoshor effect simulates what it would be like on a real 2600 and real T.V.

    Wow, that makes a big difference, no flicker at all. I might just try that with four sprites. I'm surprised it's not the default option. Thank you.

  5. Posted

    No, when I tried using player0 twice AND player1 twice the flicker was really horrible. If I just use player0 twice the flicker is tolerable. And I only need 1 copy of the ball and missile1, so I'm good there.

     

    So now that I've decided on that, and have a playfield that I like, all that's left is the game play. For me, it's going to be a little tricky because it's not simply a matter of changing x and y coordinates, I also have to change QBert's sprite while he's jumping, and then again when he lands, and then for Coily (the snake) whenever he lands, I need to change to the sprite where he's all bunched up, and then switch back to normal.

  8. Posted

    Well yeah, I am planning on making a playable version, but the flickering really bothers me. It makes the sprites appear too transparent.

     

    Using missile1 and the ball for the disks (I'm using no_blank_lines so I can't use missile0) works, but then I'm only limited to using 2 sprites, so if I want, say Q*Bert, Coily, and a red ball on the screen all at the same time, I can't.

     

    If I used the standard playfield I wouldn't have as much as a problem, but I need it to be 32 pixels high.

     

    Anyway, I'll figure something out I guess. It isn't that big of a deal.

  9. Posted

    Just for the heck of it I thought I'd try to make my own version of Q*Bert. Since I want it to be somewhat nicer looking than the original Atari 2600 version I made the flying disks be sprites instead of just using missiles like (I think) the 2600 version does.

     

    Usually 3 or 4 sprites doesn't cause me that much flicker, but because I'm using the SuperChip option and a 32 high playfield I think that it's making the flicker worse.

     

    Now I know it's impossible to eliminate it, and using the multi-sprite kernel isn't an option because mirroring half the screen won't work for a game like Q*Bert.

     

    So, are there tricks I could use, like turning something off that would free up more time for scanning the screen? Or am I just going have to accept the fact that I'm stuck with 2 sprites and use missile1 and the ball for the disks?

    QBert.bas

    QBert.bas.bin

  16. Posted

    Wow, thank you. I'm glad you like it.

     

    The light cycle game was the hardest for me. I had the HARDEST time working on an AI routine that would get the enemy cycles to see which direction they could go without crashing. Once I figured it out, I just went with it. So yeah, the only AI the light cycles have is trying not to crash.

     

    The tank game is my favorite too. The AI is a little more advanced with them because if you come to close to them, they will chase you. A weakness however, is that they only have one missile between the three of them.

     

    I didn't give the spiders any AI because they don't seem to have it in the arcade game. I just call the random number generator and depending on the output, move them up, down, left, or right.

     

    The cone game can use a lot of work. The walls don't come down with the rotating blocks, and you can move the player right under them after they stop dropping and shoot them all, or almost all, so it isn't much of a challenge.

     

    Anyway, thank you for the post, I appreciate it.

  17. Posted · Edited by jbs30000

    I'm through working on this game. It's better now, but still has a bug or two that I no longer have the patience to try and fix.

     

    Improvements from what I posted a couple of days ago:

    -Enemy light cycles now include a light cycle sprite, instead of just showing the light wall.

    -Timer in grid spider game cut to make it harder to play. Score increases when you kill a spider.

    -You usually can make it to level 2 after clearing all 4 games in level 1, and even usually get to level 3.

     

    Bugs:

    -The light cycle game can mess with your life counter when you win or lose.

    -It happens rarely, but in the tank game and grid spiders game, the missile you fire might just pass through an enemy.

     

    Anyway, that's about it. The main menu in each level changes, just like in the arcade game, so that if you go up for example, on the first level you'll get the tank game, but the second level will get you a different game if you go up. Also, just like in the arcade game, when you complete a game, you can't play it again until you advance a level.

     

    And for the heck of it. When the game first starts: 1C PP = 1 Coin Per Player; C 0 = Coins 0

     

    I'll post the source code, but any of you who haven't looked at any of my code before will run for the hills when you see it :D. It's not the neatest and this is a pretty big program. I started making notes but decided, what's the point? I'll post everything anyway and if somebody actually wants to make an improvement or two but has no idea what the heck I was thinking, or is just confused by my sloppy programming :ponder:, go ahead and ask, and I shall answer.

     

    Edited to add - While in the main menu, if you press the Start button it will add more lives. You can have a maximum of 6 I believe.

    Tron3.bas.bin

    Tron3.bas

    Tron_Notes.txt

  18. Posted · Edited by jbs30000

    This post edited twice.

    Using the Stella debugger, it turns out my lives getting messed up have to do with bank switching. Three asm commands that show when the breakpoint of $F3<32 is trigged is

    LDA $D4

    PHA

    TXA

     

    Now $D4 is Temp7 which is used in bank switching. Although I don't know why $D4 would interfere with $F3. And it doesn't do it all the time either, but when $F3 is less than 32 it seems that it has to do with $D4.

  19. Posted

    I'm pretty much done with my Tron game. There's one glitch left, and the scoring system, well, I gave up on that a while ago.

    For those who don't know, about a year ago I started working on an Atari version of the Tron arcade game. My bigest problem was the light cycle game.

    What I have now works, but is a little tricky in that sometimes you can go right up against a wall without crashing, and other times you can't.

    Anyway, the glitch is that after completing all 4 games, you're supposed to advance a level (there's 3 levels all together). After completing all 4 games on the first level, one of the games in the second level caused the game to completely start over. So, I'm posting 3 games, one for each level.

     

    The Tank game is my best work and I'm extremely proud of it. The rest of the games......meh, they're so so. Only the Tank game and MCP Cone has sound effects. Also, when you start from the beginning, if you press Select (F1 on Stella) some Tron music, provided by lord_mike (does he still post here?) will play. If you press Start (F2) no music will play.

    Tron31.bas.bin

    Tron32.bas.bin

    Tron33.bas.bin

  20. Posted

    It would help us to help you if you could post source, even if just the relevant part

    SeaGtGruff was right, I did have a few nested subroutines and changing a few to GOTOs did the trick. When I finish the program I will post the source along with the program.

  21. Posted

    I'm not familiar with the Stella Debugger but I'll look it up. Thank you.

    And yes, I do have a few. Maybe I'll see about adding more labels and changing the gosub's to goto's. Thank you again.

     

    Be careful if you do any gotos from within a subroutine (that you gosub'd to) that you call "pop" as many times as the subroutine is deep before calling goto from within a subroutine. Otherwise each time you do that puts the game within a less and less stable state - first shown by degradation of the pflives and then finally by just locking up (after a few times).

    It seems weird that I'd need a pop before goto, but I'll remember that. Thank you.

  23. Posted

    In a game I've pretty much completed, there's a part where the number of lives decreases even though I do not put lives=lives-32.

     

    Has anybody else had this problem before or have any idea of what could be happening?

     

    Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

  25. Posted

    OK, some of you remember a long time ago I started a VERY ambitious project to make a bB version of the arcade Tron. As I've said before, I've completed 2 out of the 4 games (I'm saving the grid bugs/spiders for last), the only one I'm having trouble with is the light cycle game. I haven't touched the entire game program in about a month, because for a couple of months before that I could not make it work. I almost feel like giving up, but I really like how the other games turned out (especially the tank game), I don't want to throw out the whole thing because of one game.

     

    So, if anybody wants to make this a joint venture, I'd REALLY appreciate it. I think it would be best if someone could make a light cycle game that I could incorporate into my game. I thought about posting my source code with a separate text file explaining everything, but that would probably be too big and complicated. It's probably easier to just have someone write a program, and have me make a few changes to insert it into the rest of the game. Although I have no problem posting my code for anyone to examine if they want.

     

    Thanks in advance.

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