Steril707

Ultima 4/5 ruled the eighties computer roleplaying games along The Bards Tale on C64/Apple II and maybe PC, but who would have used a PC back then? Really crazy you have never heard about these games...It's like not knowing Wing Commander or Wizardry. Especially the last ones, Ultima 7/8/9 made a big impact on gaming. Take Ultima online into account as well, which was the first reknown MMORPG, long before the WOW-craze. Not knowing this compares to never been hearing about Command and Conquer at least. Really hard to believe you haven't heard of the Ultima games.

Hey Atariboy, of course it's sad to have a Bombjack without the backdrops, but as i see it there is simply no way to integrate them. I use the playfield graphics for displaying the platforms and bombs, so, no good way of having backdrops. If the enemy sprites wouldn't move around as much as they do, i could think of using player graphics (=sprites) for the platforms but then the bombs would still ned to get displayed. Overall, its simply too much overhead. A feasible approach, using my current "engine", would be to flicker playfield gfx, like ladybug does, so it would be possible to have the backdrops having a different color from the platforms and bombs. But given the size of the backdrops, i guess people wouldnt want to play the game for feeling nausea after around 10 seconds of doing so. As for your Mockup-pics, they don't take the Ataris' restrictions into account. Your backdrops would be needed to built up with player graphics (having 160 pixel resolution per scanline), but usually you would built up something like that with playfield graphics, and then you only have 40 pixels horizontal resolution for one scanline. Check out Retrofans Mockup pics, i think he quite nails the 2600's restrictions with his Mockup stuff.

Hey Manuel Also quasi Sachen die man so hier nicht als Modul leich herkriegen täte?

Hey Supercat, the enemies are basically one bird flying around all over the screen and some spacemen walking around on the platforms. Later on the spacemen fall to the ground and transform into flying enemies as well. This is the difficult aspect of the whole affair, i think. You would have a couple of freely moving objects on the screen. hmm... Well, not necessarily... the logic of the enemies could be changed so they never are more than one in a scanline... similar to how Atari did it in Joust and Phoenix. The enemies spawn one after each other, with the bird usually being the first. There are usually two spawning positions per level, if you are on the left half of the screen, the enemies spawn on the right position, and if you are on the right half, they spawn on the left one. After spawning, they walk left and right on their platform for some time, then fall down to the next platform where the start walking again, unless they hit the ground, in which case they transform to flying enemies. Now the screen is divided in "zones". One zone usually is one row of bombs and platforms, and the logic could be changed in a way that the walking men aren't allowed to fall down unless the zone below them has no enemy on it, and a new one is only allowed to spawn if it would be alone in the zone in which to spawn. Similarly, the heatseeking flying enemies as well as the bird would only be allowed to leave their zone if the target zone is free. Now we could get a problem if the bird blocks a zone, and another enemy is in the zone above the bird. Therefore the logic could be changed so that two objects (the two players) are allowed in each zone, one of them being the player. Now, of course, you can't limit the player's movement, so if the player decides to enter a zone where there are already two enemies, those two begin to flicker at 30 Hz, but one of them would try to use the next opportunity to leave that zone. Does that sound feasible? Another idea would be to limit the color changes in the background in order to reduce the number of writes and allow a one-line kernal. What if the foreground only changes between one shade of red (for the bombs) and one platform color (different per level), and background color changes would only occur once per "zone"? Another idea would be to have "double enemies" in some places, that is, two enemies that are actually two copies of the same player, which spawn and fall together (the platform layout of that level would have to allow for that, however). There are some really good ideas in your post. I will surely use some of your suggestions... Thanks a lot... Mike

Hey Supercat, the enemies are basically one bird flying around all over the screen and some spacemen walking around on the platforms. Later on the spacemen fall to the ground and transform into flying enemies as well. This is the difficult aspect of the whole affair, i think. You would have a couple of freely moving objects on the screen. hmm...

Well... not really. I only wanted to see what the kernel has to be able to do. In principle, the kernal should repeat as many times as there are possible rows of bombs. Inside that loop, the lines for platforms and the lines for bombs would repeat as well. ---------- Thats whats happening in my code so far. The levels could be designed to take this into account. The question is what you mean by "customizing" each level. ------------- At the moment i am reading the levels out of a data table in rom, partly comverting stuff into some zero page ram locations (the bombs) and directly reading stuff out of romspace (the platforms and their collision data for instance). Customizing would mean for me to write a different kernal for each level, and thats what your approach sounded to me like. I am sorry if i misread that. Basically, each level does have different data, so there is already some difference between levels. What you probably mean is if inside the visible area, different branches would be taken depending on the level. If that's the question, then yes, I would suggest that... but only for a small piece of code which either branches to the repositioning code or continues to draw the screen, depending on what's feasible in the given row. --------- Well, as i said, i hope i can do a reposition in my init sequence for each row, which would lead to a space in the middle wall rows (which i was able to avoid up to now). But that would be okay i guess. It keeps the code modular, and i dont need to have any branches. Well, looking at Retrofans' mockup, the sprites seem to be 12 scanlines high. And if you think a one-line-kernal isn't feasible, maybe you should think again. I looked at the source code for Coleco's 2600 Donkey Kong (which you can find somewhere on the net), and Mr. Kitchen managed to display an asymmetric playfield (at least in the 1st screen) along with 2 players, one of which (Mario) is even color-striped. ------------- I just downloaded the game, and i am surprised. This is the first time since 1983 that i see the VCS version of it, and i have to say i really don't understand what the fuss is about. The game looks nice, and plays extraordinary well. I dont understand why Donkey Kong himself looks the way he does (big meh), but other than that it's a quite spectacular game for the 2600 and the time. But he narrowed down the playfield to 24 of the 40 available columns so that he has only 4 playfield writes per scanline, ------------- so do i. in addition to the 3 writes for the players. By the way, he repositions the enemy sprite (Mario doesn't get repositioned) in the scanlines where next to nothing is being drawn (in the middle of the ladders). And his kernal differs considerably for the two screens. ----------- Thats what i meant with "customization". If i code, i head for one routine doing all the stuff if possible, not different ones. I agree though, doing something like DK needs customized kernals. Those two screens play like different games, but Bombjacks stages don't. So, in total he does 7 writes per scanline, which is pretty good in my opinion (probably the maximum you can do). OK, so you are doing 5 PF writes, 2 player graphics writes and 2 color writes per line (FG/BG of the screen), which would be 9 writes, which probably isn't feasible for a 1-line kernel. ------------- Well, coding for the 2600 is entering a world of full of compromises. Like you noticed, having all that stuff in a 1lk, i would need to give up the colorfulness of the game, bombs would have the same color as the platforms and the background would be completely dull in one color, which would be a shame. I tried that out, and it looks boring, and i feel most people here, given the choice to decide for one version or the other would happily trade the more colourful but less platformy for the other , dull looking version, even if that means having a few platform levels less. OK, I see... so the levels can be redesigned so they fit the programming that's possible on the 2600 better. ------------------ Let's see what happens. I think something fun for people who like Bombjack as much (and more) as i do is possible, even if it's not 100 %of the arcade experience. Greets, Mike

that's true..shame on you, Thomas...

Hey Zonie, i just have the older version of the Vecflash, that one still using serial connection, but as far as i remember about the usb one, you don't have to keep the cable plugged in. Which version of the Vecflash software are you using? I have two different versions on my PC, and the older one isn't all too easy to use, but more "versatile", the newer one is actually bulletproof though. greets, Michael

Well, basically you are right, but i think you are forgetting that i am displaying bombs by playfield gfx as well, so you would have to take them into account to. So we have Walls and Bombs in the "Bombkernal" part. I have also two "Spacekernals" for each row (above bomb and below bomb), but your approach would be to customize every level for this thing, and i am really looking for something i can use generally in all situations/levels. I have some other approach in mind though, but that would mean that the middle walls would show a 1 scanline hole at the top of each row, but i haven't actually checked out yet. I wanna get the platform collision code right first, and then i will start to handle multisprites, so i will give you an update on this sometime later. You are right on the lack of platform rows. This is a little bit of a design issue for me, and i am not quite sure in which direction i am heading. Currently i am doing a 2 line kernal, which means i can only update the sprites every two rows. Retrofans' Mock-up is using a 1lk approach, which is not feasable with a symmetric playfield and two player graphics displayed, even with PF0 being left out (what i did). So, if i insert more platform rows, i would have to shrink the sprite size accordingly, which would lead to very unrecognizable Sprites. At the moment i think about inserting one more row of platforms, but thats it. (small edit/addition to the above paragraph: i need around 12 more bytes of ram for each row of platform and bombs on my current design, so thats another barrier. I think having 4 instead of the former 3 platform levels will do fine though and is a good compromise) This Bomb Jack won't be a near arcadeperfect translation like Ladybug, but maybe more kind of an interpretation, hence the "Some kind of Bombjack" in my thread (and game-)title. I am not even sure if i will use the original games platform layouts in any way, though i might be inspired by them. My game will surely feature Bombs to collect, some critters running (and probably flying) around who are chasing you, Platforms and Walls, and thats it. I will try to have this thing resembling Bomb Jack a lot, but i certainly won't promise to deliver something even 80 percent close to the arcade experience on my first 2600 project. Sorry for ranting off a little bit, i just don't want anybody to be all to disappointed if this isn't growing into the Bombjack he or she is used to, which is kind of difficult anyway, regarding the many different versions me alone has played over the years which all felt quite different, but all of them good in their own way (even the tainted C64 one, which i probably played the most of all of them). Anyway, i am open for any constructive criticism and advice, so keep 'em coming...

Check out the attachment, with those -bin files you can listen to some music by Madonna, Harold Faltermeyer (Axel F!), and Prokofiev (sp?)... Chris Tumber made those a couple of years ago, nice example for Vectrex sound capabilities... Vectrexmusic_by_Chris_Tumber.zip

Thanks a lot ! I was exactly playing with Clean Sweep when i saw the wobble ! I'm very happy to know it's because of the game itself ! Not a single wobble with Scramble or Mine Storm. PS : I'm waiting for my VecFlash before trying your homebrews when i use my vectrex ( close to mint condition) god i love this thing! armor Attack, <<< that game wobbles more then clean sweep gave my friend a headache he says, lol. i laughed, i played it for 3 hours straight xD I really suck at cleansweep though my score is like 30,000 On minestorm max level i get to is 4. and on armor attack score is 21,000 im not good at games but i try who cares really though its all about having fun. i think it is atleast.. I think Clean Sweep is one of the rare occasion where i am having a completely different view than the Video game critic http://www.videogamecritic.net/ ....I really like this game, and i think its a well done Pac Man clone, even if its a bizarre Setup (a hoover in a bank, hunted by menacing claws?), but i have seen weirder things in 80ies videogames. On Minestorm i once got to wave 12, but then crashed...which is sad, i wanted to see the Wave 13 Bug in action (the game crashes after level 12, the prgrammers thought nobody would get that far at the time ).

Hey Michael, i am currently in the weird situation that i cannot post any code, for the pc where i code at is not connected to the internet. This will change over the next days though... I think i did all the things you mentioned, but i am not completely sure if i did everything the right way... Hmm, i guess i have to wait until i can post some code, once more anyway, thanks... Michael

Thanks for the support to everybody here... I hope i can learn enough about the 2600 to finish this project. I guess the biggest wall i will hit soon is multiplexing sprites in a clever way...

I am using Skipdraw for my sprites, and everything seems to work fine, and i guess i understood now how skipdraw works in terms of the pointer subtraction it does inside a page. Now i want one of my sprites to have a new color each line... I tried to do the same thing that Skipdraw does with a colortable + appropriate pointer, and wanted to use a simple lda (colortable), y sta COLUP0 inside my kernal, , but didnt get far with this. So, can somebody tell me something about this, or point me to some threads with info about how to get coloured sprites working? I havent found anything here using the Atariage-search yet... thanks a lot, Michael

A little bit of waviness is just normal on certain games. If i may bore you with a little bit coding techtalk, it has to do with the refresh/recalibration the Vectrex does every frame. On some occasions, when there are really many many vectors on the screen you may notice that games start to "wobble" a little bit (some quite much). This happens when the programmer of the game used up to many cpu-cycles in one Frame (over 30.000) for calculations, or more frequently for displaying stuff which takes up the most processor time by far. In some games you have frequent wobble (Scramble, if i remember correctly), but others just sometimes. Watch out for Clean Sweep for instance. When the third of fourth enemy enters the screen, the whole thing starts to wobble like mad, but before the screen stays quite steady. This happens, because when the third/fourth enemy enters the screen, the cycle count goes over 30.000 for displaying him. Hope i could be of help, greets, Michael

Also check out the links on Chris Romeros site: http://www.vectrex.com You will find some webpages with info and the occasional romdownload here and there. An interesting site with tons of information, but unfortunately not updated that often anymore it seems, is Spikes Big Vectrex Page: http://vectrex.classicgaming.gamespy.com/ Then there are http://www.Vectrex.nl with all the recent infos, downloads, reviews and more, plus http://www.Vectrexnews.com

After seeing Retrofans Mock up Pics of an old favourite game of mine in this thread: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...ic=57802&hl i started coding up my own little version of Bombjack for the 2600. I don't know how true i will stay to the original game, so at the moment the working title is "S.K.O.B.:Some Kind of Bombjack" (in case you wondered about the thread title ) You can already jump around and collect bombs, but no enemies and a couple of other glitches. I am currently working on the platform part of the game, so you cannot jump from a platform, nor do they hinder you. The walls dont work as well yet. Should be done around the next days though. When i am done with the platform code, i would like to do a little level design contest around here on Atariage... greets, Michael (check out the lastest .bin file at the bottom of this post.) Bombjack_v0_1.bin Bombjack_v0_11.bin

sta.w COLUPF1 = 4 cycles (why the 1 at the end?) The 1 is just a typo... Thanks guys...You rock!!!

I am into heavy kernal tweaking at the moment, and i am in the situation now that i need to waste a single cycle for my asymmetric mirrored Kernal. I want to insert typical 7 cycle load store combi like lda blop,x ;4 sta COLUPF1 ;3 into a space that needs 8 cycle to get burnt, so my PF2 gets loadad at the correct cycle later on. That means, I need kind of a 8 cycle lda/sta instead of the example typical 7 cycle one... Is there any trick to do that? I encounter these kind of situations a lot while tweaking kernals, would be a big help for me to know a solution to this.

America is one of the few countries that has Wii Sports as a pack in. In places like Japan, the game is selling on it's own at (I believe) full price. The Wii has quite a few hardcore gamers. If it didn't, you wouldn't hear the constant bickering from the hardcore about the lack of hardcore games. I do think RE4's sales at least proves that there are hardcore gamers on the Wii. I also think when Metroid Prime 3, Galaxy, and Brawl are released, the number of hardcore gamers will increase. In short, I'm expecting something like the DS from the Wii. This paragraph makes you sound like a tard, man. And I know you're not a tard. At least back when I posted regularly here. It was already shown (I forget where) that only 10% of Wii owners never owned a gaming console before. So there are very few grandmas playing with the Wii. While I'll get a 360 and play Bioshock and whatnot, the Wii will also have games that I want. Off the top of my head, Metroid Prime 3, Smash Bros. Brawl, Galaxy, Final Fantasy: CC, Chocobo's Dungeon, Dragon Quest Swords, No More Heroes, Zack & Wiki, and quite a few more. Those aren't simple party games by any means. I don't get the truely next-gen thing, either. Which is what makes you sound silly. Next-gen is short for "next generation." Since the Wii is part of the new generation, it is a next generation console. No, it's not as powerfull as the other two, but that doesn't exclude it from this generation. You shouldnt take Moycon too serious, he just likes trolling the Wii forum. Unfortunately the mods around here don't seem to care.

maybe it would have looked like this... in the right hands... http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...;hl=donkey+kong new light through old windows.... The robot face guy in that thread is right though, you are completely ignoring the technical limitations of the 2600. Get some hints from the other mock up artists here on what kind of things you have to take care of when making 2600 mock up screens (40 pixel wide playfields, one line per color of playfield, sprites are 8 pixels wide, can be scaled up though, etc)...It's okay to push the boundaries a little bit, but don't get completely crazy with stuff.

Combat... This beats most of the modern stuff on the Wii as a one on one party game. At least with the people that i know...

I am not a big fan of Yars Revenge, but i have to admit it really has "athmossphere". The eerie droning sound, the weird setup... Its a little kind of an esoteric experience i guess, that makes it special. Even more back in the eighties.