Creature XL

On Linux (made a Docker container once to use with Windows): - GVIM (with a few plugins and macros) - cc65, ld65 (steep learning curve, but very powerful for complex stuff when using memory maps for the linker) - atari800 (linux) for quick test runs - Altirra (using wine) for extensive debugging (it is awesome for that!) - (if needed) Makefile to do all kinds of gfx conversions and data packing Edit: Serial cable to real 800XL hooked up to old CRT monitor for testing if it runs on the real thing and gazing at the nicely blended pixels.

This emulator is so awesome for debugging. Been absent for quite some time ( I used 2.50 I think the last time) but I am back in now I am really happy to read about the trace-breakpoints - they will be very useful to me! One request, which I might have thrown your way years ago (and forgot your answer to it): Being able to change the speed with a keystroke (toggle would be enough). So I can play the first part of my game until I come to the point where I need the slow-mo. Of course it would be absolutely fantastic to trigger the speed with a breakpoint

atari800 (on Linux) is my test emulator while developing. So it runs there fo' sure It is (most probably) not malformed. The listing above was generated by my own (simple) COM-file analyser / segment extractor. I read the documentation of the ATARI OS file format to hack it together. However, I will take a closer look at this in the next days. To be sure, I will send you exactly the same link I sent my mates (maybe Dropbox does something fancy?). All other versions I distributed via my OwnCloud which is down till I find the motivation to get it up and running again.

Hi, I am having trouble to get my own (WIP) game running. To exclude any memory problems maybe someone can help out. This XEX (an older build) loads and plays well: Segment: $a700 - $a8fc. Lenght: 1fd ( 509) Segment: $a100 - $a1a7. Lenght: a8 ( 168) INIT at: a100 Segment: $4000 - $60ec. Lenght: 20ed ( 8429) INIT at: a11b Segment: $8dc0 - $96ff. Lenght: 940 ( 2368) Segment: $2000 - $83c1. Lenght: 63c2 ( 25538) RUN at: 2200 Segment: $b000 - $bfff. Lenght: 1000 ( 4096) A more recent build with the following segments gives me "Cannot boot image": Segment: $a700 - $a8fc. Lenght: 1fd ( 509) Segment: $a300 - $a3e2. Lenght: e3 ( 227) INIT at: a300 Segment: $4000 - $6c9e. Lenght: 2c9f ( 11423) INIT at: a31b Segment: $2000 - $85b9. Lenght: 65ba ( 26042) RUN at: 2200 I am using "Package version: 3.0" on a S7 edge. Any help appreciated. I am not a heavy user of the emu, however, when showing my mates the current state of teh game (via Slack) it would be awesome if they can check it out on there mobiles real quick.

Sent! I did the scrolltext rather quickly so I have added only people to the greetings which names stuck in my head. But I love you all guys Hope you all have as much fun as I plan to have today

I guess I will have something as well. Without music though. As I started yesterday no one of The Morons has any time Any spare RMT which kinda fits will be added if I find the time to do so.

Then you haven't far enough There are some spiders which use soft-sprites. Although very very basic. Not so fancy stuff as Heli, Ditch and HAR'em Are you sure that RGB dosen't use soft-sprites? Or is your definiotn of soft-.sprites "freely moveable over teh background with saving and restoring the background"? I was refering to any rendering of moveable objects with chars or bitmap. In the beginning of the 80's that is correct. Some month ago I have played some games of that area. In a time when one colored objects with a coarse resolution is acceptable, PMG is the bomb. But mid/late 80's I think this wasn't acceptable anymore. EDIT: Let me rephrase my statement from above. Games I want to make ATM are unthinkable without soft-sprites.

Probably because the PMG is not powerful enough? I couldn't imagine to make a game these days without soft-sprites

We (Morons of H.A.R.) wanted to enter this year, however, we decided in May that we will not be able to make "great" game till August and entering with a "beta version" again, was a no-no. Additionally, my hands are not as fit as they were and I am just not able to code 8h at work and 4h at home. So I took an Atari-break (as you may have noticed in this forums). BUT, the game is not dead and will be continued on now the summer is over. As the graphics Flash has done till now are so awesome, I am tempted to release a teaser video. We will see

Just had a quick look in the GTIS color generation. I am very happy that you added it. Will read it when I have time and muse The HW manual in general is an awesome piece of write up. Only reference I use!

Sure it will. After all the replay is basically a sample player Honestly, don't know and don't care. When I would use such a player for the main loading part of my current game I won't get much love as it loads lots of data and hi-speed SIO is very useful. And the data loaded between the stages is so small lthat even slow SIO just needs 5-6 seconds. So not worth to make a music for this part. Isn't even on the C64 the loader music only useful for the normal speed floppys and tapes? Or is it still used with turbo chargers and what not? Back to topic. I heard some of the tunes and I love the sound (regarding they are playin gon an A8). Very good job. Hopefully someone puts this to use in a real production... HEAVEN?

So in the future we have awesome SID-Music while the game is loading and "simple" POKEY sound in the actual game/demo? Hilarious But then again, noone can say C64 has better loading music

I am pretty sure I will regret this, but I am way too curious. Some years ago, when I started to experimenting in writing a tracker to run ON the A8 and asked you for input, you said it is not worth it. Only a PC tool would be useful. Now it seems you are saying something totally different? BTW, the "Bankong knights" is cool.

Basically, as mentioned by others earlier, there are multiple answer. And different periods of time have to be considered. Maybe not on a year basisi, but definatly "the beginning (1979-198?), the commercial time (198?-198?) and the hobbiest time (1992-now). The hobbiest period could be divided into pre-Internet and Internet-time. Just an idea, if other time periods are more suitable its fine with me. But comparing Starraiders to Yoomp!, Crownland and RGB is not fair IMO.

Or just leave teh engine out (or make it different? However, the gfx of the actuall track seem to 4 colors and not so hard to render in GR.15. "Just some lines"

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't get LucasArts 1 million dollar? I am not sure if any games company earned that anmount of money with Atari games. On a side note, if you are interested what I (and other coders and artists on here) can do for 1 million dollar, feel free...

Honestly? Not much. The sales of 8-Bits wer defined by games. Here is the reply from my C64-mate back in the days, when I told him that is computer suckes because all his games use the same colors. "But you don't have these games on your Atari".

You want demotivation? You want me to talk your work down? okay, I see only static pics no moving sprites or animation! kidding, mate I assume this aren't "simple pictures". As long as you aren't "RPG Games" in disguise I would never Keep up working. I'd suggest to hold back on previews for one reason, the impact on "us" not in the know would be bigger in contrast to seeing every step of the way. You can make videos showing the progress later. At least that's how I do it (except for a few beta testers I feel I can trust of course).

Well, being an Atari user back then, I haven't played Elite aswell. Question is: Is it playable in 2015 or is it "just that good" when you are 16 in the 80s?

Haven't thought about this TBH. Not necessary disabled, but you would have to know the "interrupt situation". I am sure that is what you had in mind. If I implement it I will think about it more closely. But, you might have helped me debug the code before I coded it. If someone else here wants to do the thinking for me, be my guest

What do you think what "ca65" is? But, I am thankful for your post as I omit the explicit use of the macpack. Thank you.

Because it uses more memory? Because it in most cases just doesn't matter? We are here in the Programming part of the forums. So for you in German: To clarify for the non-German speakers; http://www.phrasen.com/uebersetze,Wenn-der-Kuchen-spricht-haben-die-Kruemel-Pause,76808,d.html Although I am not sure if the English version really means the same as the German. But it is close enough. After all, we are all thinking the same thing here

That is exactly how it done. CA65 has a macro "jXX" for this. And I bet MADS or other assemblers have them too. If not shouldn't be hard to implement if the assembler supports anonymous labels. As soon as ca65 tells me a branch is too far away, I use the "j-version" aka longbranch. And later, short for the release of the prod I check all longbranches and try to optimize them away with code shuffling. Sidenote: what I mean by anonymous labels. You can do this in ca65 for example: beq + jmp far_away +: nop I would be surprised if the macro package "longbranch" implements it differently. Haven't checked it.

Here is an (untested) idea. Check the stack usage of your program. When not much recursion is in use it shouldn't take more then 64 bytes (aka 32 nested subroutines/IRQs!) or so. I use the RAM from $100 - $180 in my last production without any problem. Here is the idea now. Put the tables in this memory area like so: org $0100 tab_level: .word level_01-1 .word level_02-1 .word level_03-1 .word level_04-1 To call a routine depending on a variable do this: tsx txa ldx CurrentLevel ; level id times 2 txs rts ; should use the desired address (untested!) Each subroutine needs a stub like this: level_xx: tax txs It is a bit ugly, because only the X register can access the stack-pointer but it should work. As always, if I missed something please correct it. I will try this later in my own code. It basically saves the bytes used by the table in the code and very few cycles and bytes. However, just to use the TXS/TSX instructions for once it is worth implementing