Ryan Witmer
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Posts posted by Ryan Witmer
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12 hours ago, MrFish said:Stephen, those tests we're done with horizontal scrolling and parallax.
The stuff you can do with scrolling tricks is actually pretty amazing and any decent Galaga port is going to make crazy use of this stuff. I still remember when I was playing Space Invaders and it dawned on me that the alien formation was really just a scrolling background, in effect. At least I'm pretty sure it is.
I'm trying to make use of some these tricks right now in my current project, and although I'm not on the Galaga train, I'd love to see how someone pulls it off.
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Don't need Galaga. Galaxian has always been the better game anyway.
Yes, I just went there.
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So, I got the first of the character specific effects kinda-sorta in place this weekend. I started with Ratcatcher veteran Pork-Chop, who can use his ratcatching net to slow down the other player.
There's a neat little graphical effect for this, which you can see in progress in this screenshot. This attack will slow down the other player's movement for a few seconds, making it more difficult to dodge and generally react to things.
While this particular attack isn't all that special, by getting this done I've established the foundation of the attack system and written a few useful pieces of code that can applied to some of the other characters. This first one is definitely the hardest, and they should be easier from here on out. Will I have all of the attacks ready for PRGE? Maybe. Of course, anything I have ready may be changed drastically for the final product.
(Sorry, no more character art!)
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I'm not a hardware guy, but I'm a 5200 programmer with an interest in the 7800, and from my understanding a device like this would probably be possible.
The 5200 and 7800 use the exact same 6502C CPU, as far as I can tell, so the 7800's processor should be able to natively run 5200 code. That being said, I'm not sure if differences in the bus configuration would allow the code to work correctly, and any adapter might need to contain its own 6502C.
The 5200 has 16KB of RAM, whereas the 7800 only has 4KB, so an adapter would need to include this extra RAM. I doubt it would be possible to simply extend the 7800's RAM with another 12KB, so it would probably need the full 16KB.
The adapter would also need to contain a GTIA, ANTIC, and POKEY chip. GTIA and ANTIC are the graphics chips in the 5200 and I'm not sure how easy those are to come by these days. The 7800 only uses POKEY for sound when it's present, from what I understand, but the 5200 uses POKEY for a whole lot more. In the 5200, POKEY is responsible for scanning everything on the controllers except for the primary trigger, which GTIA handles for historical reasons. It also does random number generation and few timer related things, so it's an essential component of the system.
I doubt that the 7800 controllers could be used at all, even with 5200 games that don't use the keypad. The digital signals from the controllers would somehow need to be mapped to analog signals that POKEY recognizes, and I doubt the 7800's circuitry could do that in a way that would work. I state again that I'm not really a hardware guy, so I could be wrong about a lot of this.
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3 hours ago, David Alexander said:Looking forward to getting my copy of this.
I am too!
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Progress continues, and I've gotten a number of bug fixes and tweaks in place. The biggest thing I still want to get done for PRGE is the character attack system. This is where the different characters will truly separate from each other.
Right now I'm working on getting all the plumbing in place to support the different character attacks, and it's basically ready. When you've accumulated enough fairy power, your gauge will turn green to indicate that an attack is available. Pressing the second trigger button will make your attack and consume some of your fairy power. Use these attacks to pressure your opponent into mistakes and hopefully win the game!
I'm trying to put the first of these attacks into place right now. After I get one working, I expect the others will follow fairly quickly, assuming I can think of things. I really want to have these available for Portland, although there's a good chance that whatever I come up with will change between PRGE and the game's final release.
I'm also playing around a bit with sound effects and maybe even some simple music. That would be nice for PRGE, but that place is really loud so I'm not even sure you could hear anything I put in there at this point.
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Now it's time to look at the various things that are currently present in the game. The final game will almost certainly have more stuff, and I might even get some new things in place for Portland, but at the very least these things will be in the demo:
So here's what's going on here:
Clouds: Clouds randomly drift through the fairy arena. Contact with clouds will sap your flight power, so they should be avoided! Clouds can be shot and destroyed, and you'll want to do this as often as you can because destroying enough clouds will generate...
Fairy dust: Fairy dust appears after you've shot enough clouds. Collecting fairy dust will restore some of your flight power, keeping you in the air. So to sum up, blast the clouds to generate fairy dust so you replenish your flight power. Don't touch the clouds, because you will lose flight power. Simple!
Player shot: This is the basic player shot, fired by pressing the primary trigger. Shots are fired toward the center of the screen. Lots of things can be shot!
Shooting stars: Shooting stars appear near the center of the playfield and shoot at you! (GET IT?! THEY'RE "SHOOTING" STARS) Destroying shooting stars generates fairy power that can be used to attack your opponent in some character-specific manner.
Star shot: These are the projectiles fired by the shooting stars. They will damage you, and four hits from them will kill you and cost you the game!
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20310, this is definitely farther than I've even gotten before. I was seeing some crazy enemies I'd never come across before!
This game fascinates me because if you showed it to me out of context, I would swear it was an Intellivision game. It looks and sounds exactly like one in my opinion.
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It's time for a basic explanation of the game screen so you know what you're dealing with. Here's a nicely labelled screenshot:
So here's the deal: Player 1 is on the bottom, player 2 is on the top. You scoot around your half of the screen, hopefully with a trak-ball, shooting things and trying to stay alive. I'll talk about the things you can shoot later, but for now let's look at the various screen elements that I've labelled.
Awesome portraits: The label says it all! Aren't they great?
Fairy power: Fairy power can be accumulated by shooting certain things and your current level is displayed on this gauge. Fairy power is used to launch character-specific attacks against your opponent. None of these are in place yet, but I'm trying to think of them and how they will be implemented. I'd like to have a "light" attack that consumes part of the gauge, and a "super" attack that requires a full gauge.
Health indicator: These four dots represent the four hits you can take before you die. Not everything you touch will hurt you, some objects will affect you in other ways. Right now there is no way to regain health once you've lost it. Perhaps one of the characters will have a way to do this, not sure yet. If you run out of health, you lose.
Flight power: These two lines represent your ability to stay in the air! Each player's flight power will reduce over time and also in reaction to certain game objects. Flight power can be regained, and I'll explain how later. If your flight power runs out, you lose! Since it is constantly dropping, you always have to be thinking about how to maintain it.
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On 9/3/2019 at 12:34 PM, Giles N said:You program and do grfx and sound yourself?
I do all the programming myself, and some of the graphics. I work with an artist who helps me out with some stuff. I did everything in RealSports Curling, since that wasn't exactly a graphics intensive game.
I do all my own sound, but I'm really bad at it. I'm hoping to get better for my current project.
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20 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:I really can't wait to see the demo for your next project. Very nice reveal...only available on the Atari 5200 Podcast.😉
They only got the exclusive scoop because Bob kept telling me Curling was great.
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Oooh, I'll listen to this tonight after work. I'm sure I sound like a dork.
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1 hour ago, Giles N said:What are the sprite-limitations or options on the 5200?
There are 8 sprites. Four of them are called "players," these ones are 8 pixels wide. The other four are called "missiles," these are two pixels wide. All of the sprites fill the entire height of the screen, they're basically screen-high columns of pixels.
Each player sprite has only one color, and each missile corresponds to a player and shares its color. There is a mode called "5th player" that allows you to make the four missiles an independent color. There are a number of programming tricks you can use to get more color and to make it look like there are more objects than there actually are. Anything but the most basic of 5200 games will rely on lots of these tricks. There are actually several other sprite details, but it's too much to go into here. There's a lot of information out there on the ANTIC and GTIA chips that can explain it better than I can.
1 hour ago, Giles N said:How many frames can sprites have?
As many as you have ROM space for. Sprite data is really small, each byte contains eight pixels, so it's not hard to cram a lot of them in there.
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Magical Fairy Force, my upcoming 5200 title, will be demoed at the AtariAge booth at this year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo. This thread will track the development of this demo and also explain how this game works. I will be in attendance at PRGE for most of the day on Saturday, so if you see me hanging around, hit me up and I can show it off in person.
The game is very heavily influenced by Twinkle Star Sprites, an awesome Neo-Geo game that you should go look up if you aren't familiar with it. Twinkle Star Sprites is a competitive top-down vertical shooter featuring a cast of cutesy characters blowing each other up. If Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and a game like Strikers 1945 had a baby, it would be very much like Twinkle Star Sprites.
My game has the same basic gameplay concepts as TSS, but the details are very different. In this game, you will select one of eight characters, and attempt to defeat your opponent's character by shooting things on your half of the screen. Each character will have a set of unique abilities that can be used against your opponent. The last fairy still flying wins the game.
For the Portland demo, the game will be locked into the two-player mode, so you'll see a character select screen like the one above. The game is compatible with the trak-ball, and hopefully we'll have two working trak-balls hooked up for the demo. The full release will include a single-player mode, hopefully with simple character endings. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do the single-player AI, but if I could make a 5200 beat me at curling, I'm sure I can figure something out.
For a more detailed look at the eight characters, check out my previous character thread.
For the demo, the gameplay should basically function, but a lot of details will be missing. In particular, I'm not sure how specialized the characters will be at this point. Currently the only difference between them is the size and shape of their character sprites. None of the special attacks are in place yet. At best, I might have a basic character ability set up for each character, but I wouldn't count on that happening by October.
I will continue to post here with more information and gameplay details as the PRGE demo evolves. I will also be posting the demo ROM once it's ready so anyone that isn't attending the show can give it a try. At this point, I expect the game to be completed early next year. As is my style, the ROM and complete source code for the finished product will be freely available so people can play around with it or perhaps port it to the Atari 8-bit computers, as some kind folks did with my last two games.
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The final character is revealed at last! If you've been following along, this one should come as no surprise...
Zevasha
Age: 332
Likes: Crushing her enemies, seeing them driven before her, and hearing the lamentations of their fairies
Hates: Queen Sugar
The ancient foe of Queen Sugar and the tormentor of the good citizens of Fairy Land. Zevasha was defeated by Queen Sugar centuries ago, but has returned with a new army and new powers. Have Queen Sugar's subjects become too soft in the years of peace? Does anyone have the strength to resist Zevasha's evil?
Notes: Well, this character is inspired by just about any evil queen character you can think of, but in particular she's modeled after Queen Nehelenia from season 4 of Sailor Moon. The final boss of the game, but too cool to be unplayable. Her name comes from a completely different game that I had in mind about 20(!) years ago, but never did any real work on. The name came back to me while designing this and I really wanted to use it, so here we are!
And with that, the cast is complete! I was only planning two characters for Portland, but it looks like everyone will be in attendance. As this thread has served its purpose, I plan to start a new one covering how this game actually works so that those of you making the trip to PRGE won't be completely confused. If you're lucky, you'll bump into me there and I can demonstrate in person.
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8 hours ago, Giles N said:So, any new games in production, right now?
Yes, right now I'm working on Magical Fairy Force.
An early version will be at the Atariage booth at PRGE this year.
8 hours ago, Giles N said:How much time did you spend on making these games?
Well, I keep getting faster. Ratcatcher took about 3 years of calendar time, Curling took two. I expect my current project to be done in about a year and a half.
8 hours ago, Giles N said:How much time available to you now for making 5200-games?
Not very much, I squeeze in time around my real job.
8 hours ago, Giles N said:—
What’s your top 10 or top 15 of the officially released 5200 games.
I got that Qix is number 1.
🙂
It actually isn't. River Raid is my favorite game on the system. I don't have a definitive list, but Berzerk, Ms. Pacman, Kaboom, and Countermeasure are among my favorites.
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It's time for our first true villain!
Kitty
Age: 15
Likes: Corn chips
Hates: You
Zevasha's trusted pet and bodyguard, the nefarious Kitty is a mighty force to be reckoned with. Cruel, sadistic, and always hungry, no fairy is safe from Kitty's claws. Everyone in Fairy Land knows that if you want a shot at Zevasha, you'll need to get through Kitty first.
Notes: Kitty was my wife's cat, who joined us shortly after we moved in together. Age finally caught up to him in February of 2018. I was still working on RealSports Curling at that time, but was already putting plans together for this game. I was trying to come up with characters and decided to memorialize good old Kitty in this game. He was a mean old cat (the best kind!) and we still miss him.
Kitty, wherever you are now, I hope you have all the corn chips you can eat.
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Time for another character!
Queen Sugar
Age: 338
Likes: Goodness and light
Hates: Nothing
The mighty queen of Fairy Land enters the battle! Not one to allow her followers to fight her battles for her for while she cowers in her castle, Queen Sugar brings her impressive magical abilities into the fight against Zevasha.
Queen Sugar has ruled Fairy Land for centuries and is nearly immortal. Inspiring hope wherever she goes, her magical powers may be the only counter to Zevasha's evil.
Notes: Queen Sugar is mostly based on Queen Memory from Twinkle Star Sprites, the game's final boss and one nasty character to fight against. Fortunately, Memory's stage music is awesome, because you'll be hearing it a lot while trying to beat her.
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68100. This ain't gonna last.
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This guy might still need a little work, but we got something, so here goes...
Xorex
Age: 35
Likes: Arctic blasts
Hates: Commitment
The mysterious ice wizard Xorex lives high in his remote mountain fortress, developing new and powerful magic and generally ignoring the world around him. He looks like a dork, which is why he shuns outside contact, but Zevasha's invasion provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his powers to the world. The only question is, whose side is he on?
Notes: Xorex is based on my old Phantasy Star Online character of the same name. He was a FOnewm, and one of the great weaknesses of PSO was that it was impossible to make a magic-user character that didn't look like a complete dork. This version of Xorex also incorporates some elements of Noon the ice wizard from Shining Force III, who also looks like a complete idiot but can mess you up with spells and terrible voice acting. "Now bear my arctic blast!"
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I was planning to show another character before this one, but we ran into some trouble with the design so he's been delayed.
Need to keep the hype-train rolling though, so let's meet:
7ZC-BX
Age: 0
Likes: Frooty
Hates: Enemies of Queen Sugar
The robot fairy prototype, model 7ZC-BX, is the first operational unit to come from Queen Sugar's secret military research program. Intended to be a soldier, a bug in her programming caused her to take on the role of a maid instead. Although now obsessed with cleaning, her prime directive still functions and she will drop whatever she's doing at the slightest threat to Fairy Land.
Commanded by Frooty and simply called "7" for short, her weaponry is extremely powerful and she will be an essential aid against Zevasha's evil.
Notes: The name 7ZC-BX is actually a very deep inside joke that a handful of my military buddies would get. Maybe one of them will see her someday. This character is actually inspired by Huitzil from Darkstalkers, who is a robot in a game full of monsters. I feel like every game needs some totally weird design like this, not that any of these other characters are normal, or anything.
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Well, that's a little better. This seems to be one of those games I get worse at with experience. I swear those towers actually chase me sometimes.
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I've owned this game for a long time, but never really liked it. I think I still don't like it, but at least I learned how to play it.
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Blaster is amazing. I'm so glad I bought a copy of that.
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So ... Super PacMan is actually from 1984, just not released officially at the time...
in Atari 5200
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I love Super Pacman, and the 5200 port is really good, except for the fact that it controls really badly with the stock 5200 joysticks, at least for me. I don't have any difficulty with the other Pacman games on the system, just this one.
I opted for Bob's excellent 7800 version instead, but if you don't have a 7800 and can deal with the controller issues, the 5200 port is probably worth getting.