Devin

Excellent! The addition of the eggs drastically improved the gameplay - on what is already an excellent game! I wouldn't touch the music or sound effects from this point on. Its just too good in its present form. Why did you have to remove the highscore? Why not go 4k? This game deserves to be on its own cartridge.

The "Discs of Tron" is a classic - and doesn't look that hard on the 2600.

The border is a tad small - and it can be annoying to accidentally bump into it and die. The game is still extremely fun. Would it be possible to have a wider border - and perhaps one that is not deadly to the touch? Maybe there can be two difficulty levels.

You could also use a table approach: LDA SWCHA BIT JOY_UP BEQ JoystickUp BIT JOY_DOWN BEQ JoystickDown BIT JOY_LEFT BEQ JoystickLeft BIT JOY_RIGHT BEQ JoystickRight ;=== No input JMP JoystickEnd JoystickUp ... JMP JoystickEnd JoystickDown ... JMP JoystickEnd JoystickLeft ... JMP JoystickEnd JoystickRight ... JMP JoystickEnd ;---------------------------------------- ;Table. Has to be memory for BIT command ;---------------------------------------- JOY_UP .byte #%00010000 ;Up bit JOY_DOWN .byte #%00100000 ;Down bit JOY_LEFT .byte #%01000000 ;Left bit JOY_RIGHT .byte #%10000000 ;Right bit JoystickEnd

Ah.I got it.

Actually, what might make this game quite different from Po-- ... er... Tennis for Two would be an extra twist. Why not allow the players to fire a missile at each other during play? The missile would be rather slow-moving and would score a point if they hit the opponent. This way, you have to *hit* the ball and *dodge* the opponent's missile. Clever players would shoot the missile to strike near where their opponent needs to hit the ball. Just a thought... perhaps a bad one.

It looks good. You have to be a tad careful though. Atari is extremely aggressive to protect the trademark on Pong. There was an excellent game called "Plasma Pong" which was shutdown due to its use of "Pong". Perhaps it might be wise to rename it - "Ping"?

On the subject of bad games... Does everyone here know about the Angry Video Game Nerd?

I'm pretty sure the 2007 X-Mas releases will get entries in the DB soon. Al was pretty busy building and shipping things until now Okay. It sounds like business is good!

Dang! How'd I miss that? Time to get a real 2600, then. The game doesn't appear on the Atari Age game directory. Other great homebrews are listed.

Well, there's a very, very, very, very small chance that less than a dozen of the original levels can be converted properly to the VCS, in which case it would make sense to fill some gaps with custom levels. You can take the risk and try and design such a level if you really want to straight away, using either the Jumpman - Under Construction tool or the Jumpman Lives! editor. The later can only do basic levels with bullets as obstacles, but is overall easier to use. Much more challenging would be creating new levels with Jumpman Zero, which requires real programming, but offers fancy 3D effects Hmmm, I think I distinctly heard a gauntlet being thrown down. I can help with some levels, but I'm quite busy with my goofy-little-homebrew. I'll take a look at those links. It might quite fun to create some levels based on landmarks - perhaps Johannisburg Castle.

You definitely need to have a level based on the Atari Age logo!

Ah. I never played that game. Interesting. Actually, I like the biological theme virus more. Perhaps Seemo will call the game the "The Omicron Strain"?

That's not coffee in your cup, is it?

Wow. That is fun! It would be great with a "virus" or "disease" type theme.

Thanks. I don't plan to finish the C64 version - it was written in BASIC. ... and "spaghetti BASIC" no less.

Excellent. I just have to say that those sharks are exceptionally aggravating!

That is incredibly compact. I will definitely look into it. Did you write Go Fish? That is one of my favorite homebrews. Is there any emulator that supports the Vox?

I'm so tempted to disassemble that... Must.. use... time.. productively... Well, here it is in ASCII: 1010111 W 1010101 7 0110101 5 0101011 + 1010101 U 0101010 * 1010100 T 0101010 * 0101111 / 0101010 * (extra 0 added) So there you go. It says "W75+U*T*/*". It must be that "l33t Speak" I've heard of.

The mockup looks excellent. That was my favorite DOS game ever - it still is fun to play on DOSBox.

I'll definitely look into it. I am still optimistic I can fit everything in 4k. My optimism is most likely unfounded. Thanks for the link.

You should see the rest of them! I also drew some pictures for the characters of Homestar Runner. Finally, Strong Bad can use those gloves!

Perhaps. That would really make the game shine. What is involved in getting AtariVox to work with the game? I would imagine that would push me into the 8k or even 16k realm.

Damn, I didn't know about that. If I had that when I was kid, I probably would have lost countless hours! Most of the boxers I will add will be a tad silly. This boxer is the first opponent and is basically nothing more than a punching bag. I think he will make Glass Joe and Gabby Jay look like pros.

This project is finished! You can get a copy Here original first post Hello everyone, I am announcing that I am in the process of writing my first homebrew Atari 2600 game - K.O. Cruiser. This game has a bit of a history. Back in 1986, I started programming my first graphical game on the Commodore 64. I was inspired by the arcade version of the Punch-Out. While I was impressed by the graphics of that classic game, I didn't like the simple stick-and-move logic. The version I was working on would allow the players to move around the ring. At first I played around with the idea of a side-view of the boxers, but it didn't allow much flexibility on designing the faces. So, like Punch-Out, I went for a first-person view. I went as far as to design a total of 15 characters. I also was able to get an early version of the game working. By this time, it was the start of 1987 - and events would discourage me from finishing the project. Later in 1987, Nintendo released "Mike Tyson's Punchout". I realized, sadly, that I couldn't make my Commodore BASIC version look better (and I didn't know how I could). As a result, I abandoned the project and concentrated on knocking out Tyson (which I never did). Anyway, I was introduced to the idea of writing an Atari 2600 homebrew by Zach. So, why not finish the game I started 20+ years ago? Even though I have a third of the horizontal resolution than I did on Commodore 64 BASIC, I have far more control over the vertical resolution and colors. Not a bad tradeoff. In fact, my Atari 2600 version might have better graphics. I'm attached a screenshot of the original Commodore 64 version. I've also attached a copy of the Atari 2600 version (still in progress obviously). Please remember that my Commodore 64 version came before Mike Tyson's Punchout. Notes: To punch, hold down the button and push either left or right. The button + up/down will block. The computer runs off a simple macro-language that I wrote for the game. It controls animation, basic timing, and conditional branching. This will allow each of the boxers to have different styles and behavior. For this early version, the computer simply walks up to the human. There is a 10% chance he will throw a punch for each cycle (flip torso, legs, bob). If he throws a punch, there is an equal chance of a left or right. The computer currently doesn't block. I will add this functionality later. The ring will not be green in the final version. I was testing the colors read from the background buffer and choose a rather visually-offensive pattern. This will change in the final version - as will the appearance of the ropes. The computer moves back slowly when hit. The system will update the speed later. I'm updating the color of the computer every two scanlines. I just haven't gotten around to creating some nice shading. To Do: Sound. Knockdown logic. Right now both the computer and human are in "god mode with infinite ammo". Health bars. I will probably use a combination of the playfield and missiles. Future: I don't plan to write a fancy intro screen. It will probably just be a player0+player1 bitmap. I hope to fit 4 or 5 boxers on the final version. However, I might be forced to bank-switch. If so, I should be able to fit far more boxers. I'm not sure how hard it is to implement. Since I have a basic "boxing platform", I can add characters by just updating graphics and the macro for each. As a result, I will create several sequels. One will be the "Homebrew Circuit" where everyone here can create their own boxers! KO_Cruiser___b1.bin