jrok

The basic concept behind flicker is that the display alternates between states on (typically) alternate frames. That's the sort of flicker I'm using here. The color loss is not so bad with phopsor emulation, but it would be great to minimize it. Thank you very much for the explanation, supercat. Could that technique still work with a 2 line kernel, or would the color have to alternate every third scanline instead? Thanks! Jarod.

Thanks Zach! Honestly this project started out as a sprite looking for a game, but as a gamer I am very hardcore when it comes to play mechanics. I think I'm going to pretend the graphics don't even exist until I get the automata up and running. Cheers, Jarod.

Okay, so I think I figured out the friction operation: include fixed_point_math.asm dim playerX = a.b dim player_dir = c dim velX = d.d playerX = 40.0 player0y = 55 player_dir = 0 velX = 0.0 const leftborder = 22 const rightborder = 130 Main COLUP0 = $0E COLUP1 = $0E if joy0right && player_dir = 2 then velX=velX+0.125 if joy0left && player_dir = 1 then velX=velX-0.125 playerX = playerX + velX drawscreen player0x = playerX gosub Move goto Main Move if joy0right then player_dir = 2 if joy0left then player_dir = 1 if !joy0left && !joy0right && player_dir = 2 && velX>0 then velX=velX-0.0625 if !joy0left && !joy0right && player_dir = 1 && velX>0 then velX=velX+0.0625 goto Object return Object player0: %11111111 %11111111 %11111111 %11111111 end return Of course, this seems a little sloppy to me... it seem like there should be some sort of div/mult operation that would handle this more efficiently. Also although the movement seems okay, I'm having trouble establishing boundaries for the object to "bounce off of." I've tried doing a directional shift when the object X requals or exceeds the constants "leftborder" and "rightborder", but the object always seems to cruise right through. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks! slide.bas

Thanks! And you're absolutely right... the game mechanics are sort of in limbo right now, and there's not much game here so far. I'm sort of stuck right now on creating a frictional surface, which I think will drive some of the difficulty. I'm not sure if I want the game to necessarily end when you are clean. Instead, I think I will have the level end, autowalk the character off screen and have the score graphics display "Day 2", "Day3" etc. This sort of progression might be a good way to introduce new enemies and game mechanics, and ramp up the horror elements. Cheers, Jarod

How is a game about a naked woman rubbing herself and getting spanked by a ghost "perverted"? I just don't see it...

....ouch With a custom kernel, it would indeed be possible to do that, thus allowing the main sprite to be displayed without flicker or to use flicker or flicker-blinds to add more color to the main sprite. I'm not quite sure what the enemy is supposed to be, but if it will always have vertical separation with the main sprite there should be no problem with displaying it and the main sprite simultaneously. You know, I've heard the term "flicker blinds" tossed around before, but I'm not sure I understand what it is. I assume that it has to do with an interlaced display. If there is a good explanation of it on AA, could you point me in the right direction? Thanks! I actually started out with many more tween frames, including a turning animation for switching directions. I guess the main problem is that my sprite is so huge the extra frames weren't leaving much room in my graphics bank for anything else. I'm not happy with the current state of the sprite...the walk cycle is too robotic, and I am not sure why anyone would wear their hair in a pony tail while taking a shower. I will revisit her look after I can get all my game mechanics and difficulty logic in place. Cheers, Jarod.

I'm trying to incorporate acceleration/friction in "Shower Scene" to mimic a slippery shower floor, and I'm running into some trouble. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated. Basically, I can get objects to slide in a positive direction, but am unsure how to do negative operations. The ideal end result would start the object at zero acceleration, increasing velocity towards a maximum value (top speed) on joystick inputs, and decelerating to zero at a slower rate (the friction value) when the joystick isn't read. Also, if the object has built momentum in one direction when the opposite joystick input is read, it shouldn't instantly change directions but rather should decay to zero first before it begins to accelerate in the opposite direction. I hope that makes some sort of sense to someone out there Here's what I have: include fixed_point_math.asm dim playerX = a.b dim player_dir = c dim velX = d.d playerX = 40.0 player0y = 55 player_dir = 0 velX = 0.0 Main COLUP0 = $0E COLUP1 = $0E if player_dir = 2 then velX=velX+0.125 if player_dir = 1 then velX=velX+0.125 if player_dir = 0 && velX>0 then velX=velX-0.0625 playerX = playerX + velX drawscreen player0x = playerX gosub Move goto Main Move if joy0right then player_dir = 2 if joy0left then player_dir = 1 if !joy0left && !joy0right then player_dir = 0 goto Object return Object player0: %11111111 %11111111 %11111111 %11111111 end return I've tried certain things like negating the value of velX and creating deceleration values, but nothing has worked so far. Thanks in advance for any insight. Cheers, Jarod. slide.bas EDIT: I guess it would help if I could even spell "acceleration." Sorry.

I wasn't even considering that batari Basic uses a 2-line standard kernel. The fact that you were able to create such a great-looking sprite without single-line resolution is very impressive! Michael Thanks Michael! It was so grueling at times, that I've actually begun work on a bB-friendly animation IDE to share with the community. Basically the frontend will function a lot like an old fashioned light box program and output batari basic code. One of the features I'm incorporting will be automated splitting and flickering of large sprites like this one, as well as onion-shell frame tracing, live animation previews and framerate adjustment. If I can flesh it out somewhat, perhaps it will be a nice little tool for non-programmer graphic artists to get more involved in the bB development process. Cheers and thanks for the good vibes. Jarod.

Actually you are the second one on the thread to suggest that, so maybe not such a small minority after all. Maybe someone can do a male hack after the game is complete? I wouldn't have a problem with that. Aha! Yes, I forget about that one as well. Definitely a classic.

I should've seen that one coming Hrrrmm, maybe. But first I'd have to turn the ghost into a mute, chalky-skinned epileptic. Then I can program a terrible remake of the game a few years from now, replace the bather with an American TV actress and insert random Western pop cultural references... it'll make millions...

Different colors would be doable, but adding the words would be a stretch. Hey what am I, made of flicker? Thanks! I guess a male version would work just as well, but since when does a horror movie have a "shower scene" with a man? I want to try to keep this a little realistic lol. Cheers!

Okay I fixed it now... sort of. When you get up, the towel still vanishes, but at least it doesn't break the soap routine. I reposted the fixed file in the original post and have attached it here as well: Cheers, Jarod

You know, the scary thing is that the sprite looks so... um... good. You gotta wonder how much time jrok spent getting it to look "just right" in its (I mean, her) various poses and postures. And then you go look at those old Mystique games and wonder how they could have been so bad. I mean, if the sprites in those games had been as well-done as jrok's, they probably would have created a *lot* more of an outcry! Michael Hahah well, to be fair it all started out as a pseudo 3D experiment. I tried a few figures with "clothing" first but they tended to overcomplicate the form... just random black lines for the sake of 8-bit "modesty." I was driving myself nuts trimming the spritelines as it was... even a simple pair of Capris pants might have put me in the mental hospital!

MAJOR BUG: It appears I started getting so "clever" right before I posted this thing that a major bug slipped by . Most of the time when you recover from a slip, the towl will vanish and the soap trick will stop working altogther in the current BIN... I'll see if I can work up a fix and post a new file tonight. Cheers, Jarod.

I was doing that by flickering the ball in an insane, completely convoluted way. For some reason I thought I could eventually make each ball look like a falling stream of water... nope, I couldn't.

Thanks Maus. Basically it took some trial and error to get it to look right. First I defined two single-line sprites and assigned them to player0 and player1 and then defined the height of both players at 67px. Each frame that the water stream is shown, I set the hi pointers of both players to their coordinate y values and set their lo pointers relative to a pair of cycling variables that I reserved for general animation purposes. The key is to set the lo pointers to a value that is always greater than the height, but varies in how *much* greater it is. For instance: player1x = sprite_x : player1y = 50 player0x = sprite_x-8 : player0y = 50 player0height=45 : player0pointerhi = 50 : player0pointerlo = 100 + [some iterative looping variable] player1height=45: player1pointerhi = 50 : player1pointerlo = 100 + [some iterative looping variable] Hope that makes sense. Jarod.

Wow, this sounds neat, and totally original. I can't wait to fire it up! Michael Obligatory question: "Got any screenshots?" Thanks Michael! Sure thing! Here are some screenshots from x26:

I decided to turn one of my graphics experiments into an 8k game. It's basically a spoof on the classic "shower scene" trope of American horror movies. You control a woman trying to take a shower in the locker room of a new fitness center that is haunted by a pesky poltergeist. The ghost will frustrate your sanitary efforts using a variety of tricks and traps, with new ones unveiled a bit at a time throughout gameplay. One of the goals of the game is to keep things mysterious and surprising. Although events will start out innocently enough, if you get far enough into the game things things will get progressively darker and more sinister. Controls: Joystick left/right : Move the character horizontally. Joystick up (under Active Shower): : Scrub upper body Joystick down (under Active Shower): Scrub lower body Joystick down : Duck Fire Button: Jump Wiggle Joystick left and right: If you slip and fall, wiggle the joystick rapidly in alternating directions to get back on your feet. Gameplay: Right now, there are only a few game mechanics in place. Showers: The ghost randomly turns shower nozzles on and off. If you scrub yourself while standing under a running shower, you will earn points and gradually clean yourself off. The far left and far right showers earn you 10x as many points as the middle one. The two green indicator bars at the bottom of the screen display the current B.O levels of your upper and lower body. Soap Trick: The ghost will randomly slide a bar of soap across the slippery floor. If it hits your feet, you will slip and fall, and must rock the joystick left and right to gain traction and get back up. Flying Loofah: The ghost will randomly hurl a loofah at you. If you don't duck it, you will slip and fall, and must rock the joystick left and right to gain traction and get back up. Towel Trick: When you have fallen down, the ghost will grab a wet towel and attempt to whack you with it. With each successful hit, you lose one health point. When you have lost all your health points the game is over. Press the fire button to begin a new game. B.O Meters: Two green meters at the bottom of the screen gauge the B.O. levels of your upper and lower body. The meters will gradually diminish as the character showers off. When the meters are fully depleted, the game will proceed to the next level (not implemented yet.)

Thanks Fred! Compiles fine now. Where do I send the chocolate and beer? Cheers, Jarod

Hi Fred. Thanks for the help! Yep, one of the first things I tried wsa including the routines in the last bank, but that didn't work. If it's an addition operation it fails on: Add44to88 0000 ???? (R ) If subtraction: Sub44from88 0000 ???? (R ) I added an example BAS file to my original post above if that's any help. The program compiles and functions without bankswitching routines, but fails with them. Thanks again! Jarod.

I've been having some trouble getting fixed point math to work with bankswitched games. I've tried to troubleshoot the fixed-point module, but I feel like my head is screwed on backwards looking at it. compilation fails. In the version of fixed_point_math.asm that I have, it assigns for bankswitched games with: ifconst bankswitch Assign88to44bs: ; A(4.4) = A,X(8.8) stx temp1 rol temp1 asl rol temp1 asl rol temp1 asl rol temp1 asl RETURN ;assignment from 4.4 to 8.8 ; Assign44to88bs: ; A,X(8.8) = A(4.4) sta temp1 lda #0 asl temp1 sbc #0; eor #$ff; do sign extend rol asl temp1 rol asl temp1 rol asl temp1 rol ldx temp1 RETURN endif If the program contains no operations, then it compiles fine. But compilation fails on any operation, additive or subtractive. Is this a portion of the module that just wasn't completed? If anyone has found a workaround, I gladly will send you chocolates and a case of beer. I am using the latest-greatest 2600basic.exe and DASM V2.20.07. Thanks in advance! fixed_point_math.zip bankswitch.zip EDT: I just attached a sample program (courtesy of Michael Rideout) that illustrates the problem. Compile fails on this operation: if c{1} then p0_y = p0_y - momentum jumping.bas

Hi ByteKnight, I like your progress! I beat the game after a few tries, but one thing I'd like to see is a bit more strategy/options when fighting the wizard guys. For instance, was the decision to not let you shoot up or down just a way to increase the difficulty? The only reason I'm asking is because I found al the keys and the Chalice really quick, but getting the Chalice back felt more like a chore, with those small corridors giving me no chance to survive if a wizard appeared. But then I figured out to just sort of hunt and snipe the wizards right before I got the Chalice (I like the little sniping hole in the Grey castle screen BTW). Anyway, once I figured that stuff out, I can beat the game in less than two minutes, sometimes less than one, so some varied challenge might be in order. More enemies, areas and item types would help. A uniqu game mechanic like the original "bat" would be interesting too... how about a thief that steals your items, who you have to hunt down? Anyway great start! Jarod.

I've attached a quick edit that might help produce a sample "mob" of Robotron grunts. In the attached file, I made two small changes: Outside of the loop, I altered your robot sprite and colortable to create a column of three robots instead of one: rem CHANGE #1 rem Draw a taller player1 sprite with three robot shapes player1color: $D8 $D8 $30 $08 $08 $30 $1E $30 $D8 $D8 $D8 $30 $08 $08 $30 $1E $30 $D8 $D8 $D8 $30 $08 $08 $30 $1E $30 end player1 player1: %000000000 %000000000 %001111100 %010111010 %010111010 %001111100 %001111100 %000111000 %000000000 %000000000 %000000000 %001111100 %010111010 %010111010 %001111100 %001111100 %000111000 %000000000 %000000000 %000000000 %001111100 %010111010 %010111010 %001111100 %001111100 %000111000 end Inside the loop, changed the NUSIZ1 property to create two horizontal duplicates of the robot sprite. rem CHANGE #2 rem Draw three close copies of player1 NUSIZ1=$03 So now, you have a "mob" of nine robots hunting the character as one big group. They cannot move independently from each other, but they still hurt the character when they touch him. Not sure if this is helpful or not. For independently moving multicolor robots in bB, you will have to use flicker. Cheers, Jarod. robohunter_enemy_mob.bas

Thank you, I really appreciate the help! I guess the pfcolors will have to be removed if I want to give the player the ability to shoot and have multiple enemy sprites. Pfcolors has no missile limitations, but you lose a missile for each multicolor player in the standard kernel (no multicolor players allowed in multisprite kernel). But you could still flicker the ball object to draw all your bullets. And in the standard kernel you could still have up to three independently moving multicolor enemies with 30hz flicker, and with some thoughtful programming could extend that to as many as nine "shootable" enemies with NUSIZx (although in that instance, each group of three would still move together, like a military unit).

Okay, so I've been working on this animated figure in the Graphics Geekery thread, and I've come to a realization. No matter what subtle changes I make in color or shape, it's always pretty much going to be what it was originally designed to be: A naked woman. Since I don't want to make any sort of "Mystique" type pixel-porn, and I don't want to completely throw the character away, I've been racking my brain to come up with a fun, non-sexual(!) game concept for it. Hoping for some help on brainstorming. Here's what I've got so far: "Shower Scene" (demo binary attached) You've just completed your first workout at a brand new gym, and are ready to hit the showers. Unfortunately for you, the gym was built on a sacred Indian burial ground, and those darned ghosts are up to mischief. Shower nozzles turn on and off mysteriously, flying loofas strafe you like fighter jets and phantom a-holes snap towels at your booty. Can you scrub yourself squeaky clean before the forces of dorkness overwhelm you? Shower_Scene_demo.bin "Forbidden Fruit" You control the Serpent in the garden of Eden. Eve is being all "goody-goody" about eatin' them apples, so you must guide her into their path using reflexes and strategy. Anybody have any other ideas, or thoughts on mechanics for the two I have? Thanks, Jarod.