playsoft
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Posts posted by playsoft
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Out of curiosity, why wasn't it setup so that Port 1 could host a trak-ball and still have it selectable? Why the requirement for port 2?
I like the joystick in port #1 for the AtariMax menu selection and the trak-ball in port #2 for simplicity - it can be detected at initialisation and there's no need to swap anything around. I used the same setup in the ports of Bug Hunt and Slime.
Much better! Changed out U12 and it works normally now. I do believe the trak-ball is the best method to play this game. Just scored 108750 on my initial test play! Nice!
Great - I had one go in mine last year which resulted in the middle column of buttons not working. Trak-ball is my favourite control too.
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Doesn't let me edit my previous post, but I have a fully working trak-ball plugged into port 2 of my 4-port 5200. I can then choose #3 and it switches to Trak-ball controller. But from there I'm unable to actually start the game. Pressing Start and Pause do nothing. Pressing reset does reset the game. But I can never actually get it to start once selected to trak-ball mode. Additionally it is then stuck on this mode and doesn't allow me to switch it back so power cycling the 5200 is the only way out?
Has this been tested on 4 port units?
Yes, it was developed on a 4-port using an Atarimax Ultimate SD - the same setup as your video.
What should happen (and this all works for me) is that once you have pressed 3 on the joystick keypad and "TRAKBALL CONTROL" is displayed, control is passed to the trak-ball keypad.
Start, Pause and Reset on the trak-ball keypad should then all function appropriately. 1 and 2 on the trak-ball keypads should also work, passing control back to the joystick keypad.
Reset will reset but maintains the high score and the selected controller, so it sounds like that is working correctly, but none of the other trak-ball buttons?
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Did the 8-bit original support Paddles and Trak-Balls or did you add all of that to this version, Playsoft?
The original A8 version on the New Year Disk only supported the A8 joystick. After the NYD was released it was suggested it would make a good paddle game. Paddle control was added with a few other tweaks here:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247435-blowsub-scores/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3415939
Only the 5200 version supports the trak-ball.
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This game looks pretty fun. It reminds me of some levels on the Atari 2600 game Air Sea Battle, but with better graphics and things are shooting back at you!
It looked on the video like shooting the eel is a bad thing to do. Is that correct?
Correct, don't shoot the eels as you are electrocuted for a short time and cannot fire.
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Just to say that this hack uses the DK Jr port by Kenfused.
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I neglected to mention in the first post that it is a 16K one-chip image. If you run it as a 16K two-chip image then you get the garbled graphics.
In Altirra or Atari800Win PLus you just choose the cart type (16K one-chip) when you select the .bin file.
I downloaded Kat5200 but I couldn't see any obvious way to set the cart type for a .bin file. However, it loads .car files (where the cart type is embedded in the header), so I created one and that works fine.
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Anyone got a video by chance?
There is a video on youtube, although they are not very good at playing it:
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Dad really enjoyed this game, So far he's up to 27,150!!!
I think its a lot better than Kaboom.
Thanks for making it, 5200 needs more like SeaQuest!
Glad your dad liked it!
It is based on the old Depthcharge arcade game and I never thought about it in relation to Kaboom but this is the second time someone has mentioned it. It does have similarities, but with you doing the bombing.
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This was mine and Harvey's contribution to this year's A8 New Year Disk.
BLOWSUB INSTRUCTIONS
Controls
Start = begin game
Pause = pause/resume game
Reset = reset
Before you begin a game you can select the control method with:
1 = digital control via joystick in port #1
2 = analog control via joystick in port #1 (also suitable for paddles)
3 = trak-ball control in port #2 (only available if a trak-ball is connected)
Note that the keypad will follow the controller port.
Gameplay
You control the ship at the top of the screen.
Use the joystick to move left and right.
Press the trigger to drop a depth charge.
Up to 4 depth charges may be launched at any one time.
You start the game with 90 seconds on the clock in which to destroy as many deep sea submarines as possible.
These are the submarines without their rigging up, in the darker sea towards the bottom of the screen.
You are awarded 100, 200, 500 or 750 points for each one you destroy, depending on their depth.
You receive no points for destroying the other submarines.
Every 10,000 points you will get a time extension of 45 seconds.
The submarines will launch missiles at you.
When hit by a missile your ship is destroyed, but a replacement ship will quickly become available.
Occasionally when your ship is destroyed a survivor will escape on a rowing boat.
He should row out of the way as quickly as possible by repeatedly pressing the trigger or waggling the joystick left and right.
There are mines in the sea which you should aim to hit. Doing so will destroy all submarines currently on-screen.
There are also giant electric eels in the sea. You should avoid hitting these as they will cause a shock!- 8
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a8isa1, on 14 Jan 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:
After first playing Blowsub in an emulator when I played it on my 800XL I discovered it was much more difficult to row the boat/raft with my thumb. Takes forever.
Did you consider jiggling the joystick ala Track 'n Field and Summer Games?
Great game!
Thanks!
Agreed, it is hard work with the joystick trigger - I've updated it so you can row with both trigger presses and (left-right) joystick waggling!
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Here is an updated version with the following changes:
Before starting a game press Select to switch between joystick control (port #1) and paddle control (port #2).
During a game press Option to pause/resume.
Press Esc to abort a game.
Reset will now cold boot.
The sonar sound will start playing quicker once you are down to 30 seconds remaining.
Graphics tweaks to ship/eel electrocution frames.
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therealbountybob, on 05 Jan 2016 - 12:01 AM, said:
66,900 nice game guys Would be a good one to add paddle support to. If you could add reset to reboot too. Perhaps a more dramatic countdown when you are low on time.
By coincidence I've just sent in a review of all the submarine arcade games I could find for a future edition of Pro© Magazine, so now I need to update it (sorry whoever is doing the translation for the German edition!)
The 5200 joysticks in analog mode work nicely, so I think paddles will too. I don't have any so I've just ordered a pair... it will be fun to play some paddle games again too.
snicklin, on 05 Jan 2016 - 10:58 AM, said:107,300
I've realised that the electric eels are magnetic....
... they're attracted to my bullets.
The eels were originally to be mermaids with the idea being you'd lose points for hitting them. But we could not get a nice mermaid graphic at that size and switched to the eel because it was easier to draw - but with the ship electrocution it turned out better anyway.
Aking, on 06 Jan 2016 - 9:35 PM, said:132800 , need that 5200 conversion ...
On it's way...
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Thank you everyone, it is really flattering to see it being played.
I also got to just under 120,000 points but that was before the survivor was added. Then I ran out of time and never got to adjust the difficulty settings properly (that time was spent debugging why it did not run on my 800 but did on my other machines - turned out to be something OS-A did differently).
While the game is only meant to be 5 minutes of fun, I do not want it to get too difficult. For those of you that have reached around 100,000 points or more, has become too difficult? Or is that long enough to play a simple game?
If it's too difficult there are a number of things I can tweak and perhaps try them out here for feedback to see what you think.
Thanks,
Paul
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I would just like to add that Harvey (kiwilove) should also be credited for Blowsub.
Happy New Year!
Paul
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Tempest, on 19 Dec 2015 - 12:12 AM, said:
This isn't working. When I select File > New I get a new workbook file with nothing in it and there's nothing to right click on. I don't see that Load EXE from Files option.
The empty workbook is correct. The text area to the right of slot 001 should be orange, indicating the currently selected slot. If you right click on the orange area it will bring up the menu.
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Tempest, on 18 Dec 2015 - 2:29 PM, said:
Can someone turn this into a .CAR file so I can try it with The!Cart?
Do you have Maxflash Cartridge Studio? If so the following steps will create a .CAR file:
(1) File -> New
(2) Right click on slot 1 -> Load EXE from File(s) ... and select the .XEX file
(3) File -> Export -> Export Collection to CAR Cartridge Image -> Maxflash 1mbit Flash Cartridge
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If testing PAL mode in Altirra made no difference, check the palette with System -> Video -> Adjust Colors... Click on Preset and select default PAL. The platforms become pink, as does DK Jr's face, feet and hands and the pads at the bottom are more yellow than green. This is also what I see on my PAL 800. However I am a bit colour blind!
So we could have a different version for PAL or modify the program to select the appropriate colours for the type of system it is running on.
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therealbountybob, on 16 Dec 2015 - 7:13 PM, said:
Any thoughts on my question about game design using tables for movements / limits, rather than collision detections for everything? Was Popeye the same? Donkey Kong too? I suppose this method ensures the player always stays on the platform rather than moving into it to make the collision, say when jumping, and you can have areas of the screen marked as hostile but the same playfield elsewhere is ok. Has anyone seen an article on this anywhere?
Making these sort of changes does not require all that much knowledge of the game, just the bits you are changing.
I think Popeye uses a mixture of h/w collision and logical maps of some sort. Bottle collision (both punching and being hit by one) looked for h/w collision with the 3 playfield colours contained in the bottle characters. That restricts the rest of the playfield graphics in that they cannot contain those 3 colours together in a position where Popeye might come into contact with them all at the same time.
That is why Popeye's punching was a bit hit and miss (and sometimes bottles would go through him). The change to the punch frame was not synchronized to the display all that well (hence the corruption you sometimes saw) plus the bottles are moving coarsely a character at a time. So there was always a chance you'd miss the 3 colours collision when you really shouldn't.
Not using h/w collision gives you freedom to do whatever you like with the playfield graphics and also avoids situations like the above where the particular collision is not always guaranteed. On the other hand, h/w collision gives you a cheap way of doing it, particularly if you need pixel accurate collision.
With Altirra you can always turn collision detection off and see what happens. You can also break into the debugger and clear screen memory then resume the game and see how it plays. This is DK with all collision detection off and screen memory cleared. Everything still seems to function correctly:
Both DK and DK Jr seem to be logical and do not use h/w collision, not that I've checked that thoroughly.
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This thread started off with the Homesoft port of the 5200 hacked version. Then I started modifying the A8 original too. Then I got fed up of doing everything twice and so just did the A8 original which does not have pause as far as I know.
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darryl1970, on 14 Dec 2015 - 01:45 AM, said:
I always thought that was cool too. Actually, the Atari has registers that will offset the screen.
Likewise, I think Atari is known for it's smooth scrolling.
However, I think maybe Playsoft told me he tried implementing that, but there was an issue.
I know the arcade version only moves the screen. It don't think all of the characters move with it, but I thought it had something to do with certain things moving.
Anyway, two of my biggest issues with the game would be way more than a hack.
1. I hate that Brutus always floats to the right side of the screen when punched. I'd love to see him bounce around the screen.
2. Brutus has really poor AI, and he's really easy to manipulate.
3. Popeye can't punch in the air.
I think we kind of left it at the sweet spot, where it improves it while playing on the strengths that were already present.
Playsoft made some pretty sweet changes for not decompiling the code. Pretty impressive. I had fun drawing the characters around an 80's console color and resolution limitations. It was really fun to see how 1 pixel could really change an animation.
I played around with a vertical shake, since that can be done by simply adjusting the blanks at the top of the screen - but the issue was that you'd need to shift all the player/missile graphics too as bits of Olive and Popeye get mixed up and the collision detection goes off. For a horizontal scroll I think you'd need to remap screen memory for a wider playfield.
I never set out to modify the game, just to put Darryl's graphics in it. If someone else wants to do more with the game then I can provide the source for my changes which hook into the original game.
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tep392, on 12 Dec 2015 - 03:51 AM, said:
I located the platform data in the code. The platform height is measured from the top of the screen. Smaller numbers are higher.
I plotted those out for the first level (and think I have done it reasonably accurately):
They are compared against the top left of Jr, so you can see how he will fall once more than half of him is over the edge.
Interesting that one platform is not covered at all and that others are only partially covered - perhaps something to do with where jumping is possible.
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First clue - it's something to do with the data written to $1036. On the first screen break and edit $1036 to $F0... that seems to extend the bottom left pad to the entire width of the screen.
The first week with a 5200
in Atari 5200
Posted
The 5200 trak-ball has the advantage that you don't have to monitor it and count the ticks to compute the speed. It does that itself, you just read it like a normal 5200 joystick. So there is less overhead reading the 5200 trak-ball compared to the others.
Adding trak-ball support into an existing game will probably work best if the game has analog control to begin with (analog joystick or paddles), as the game will have been designed to accommodate the player moving by variable amounts. This will not be the case with games designed for digital control. Take the Crystal Castles port as an example where Bentley moves one square at a time. For true trak-ball control I think you'd want him to be able to move fractions of a square and multiple squares. I think it would be very difficult to hack the game for that sort of functionality, it probably needs to be designed in from the start.
That said, given the ease of reading the 5200 trak-ball you could modify any game to have "joystick mode" style trak-ball control. The question is whether that would be playable or not. In his guide Dan Kramer says not to do this although he was talking about the design of new games, not hacking 30 year old ones.
PS. Someone else did Missile Command+ but I did a trak-ball port of Bug Hunt.