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Lodmot

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Posts posted by Lodmot

  1. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Alright, got a new version of the Car Physics engine up. I completely re-wrote the way the physics were calculated and was able to spare one variable. Considering I was hoping to get 3 cars in the game simultaneously, that's 3 variables which I've freed up for use.

     

    The physics are slightly different too. I think they're a bit better now, actually. The car doesn't move awkwardly fast (but if you prefer the fast speed, you can always turn it on via the left difficulty switch ^^), the car will no longer get stuck when you drive off the screen towards the left, and if you're moving in a certain direction and press the opposite arrow key, the car will slow down and begin moving in the other direction as it should. Also, de-acceleration is much better now. If you're at full speed and let go of the joystick completely, the amount of time it takes for the car to coast to a stop is longer than the time it takes to accelerate full speed. It works quite nicely now.

     

    Hope you guys like it. :3

  2. Posted

    I'm not sure if diagonal movement would work here.. I think I need to clean up some of the code, because I'm sure there's probably lines of code in the physics loop that aren't needed. I originally wanted to make a full game out of this, but like I said, I'm not sure if what I was intending to do is actually possible on the 2600...

     

    I wouldn't say that! I'm sure with some clever code cleanup you could totally turn it into something resembling your intended game.

    Hmm... Perhaps.

    What I wanted to try and do was get up to 3 cars (including the player) duking it out against each other. Obviously by making 3 cars on the screen at once, graphical flicker is unavoidable.

     

    Ill look into the code further when I get home from work tonight.

  3. Posted

    Nifty! I actually had a similar idea, except the goal was to smash a large truck into smaller cars a la destruction derby. This could turn into a really cool game! A couple thoughts: - Is diagonal movement a possibility? - Full speed seems to be awful fast. I assume though that it wouldn't be difficult to tune it to a particular game's needs. All in all though, pretty cool demo!

    Thanks for the response Nateo. :3

    I'm not sure if diagonal movement would work here.. I think I need to clean up some of the code, because I'm sure there's probably lines of code in the physics loop that aren't needed. I originally wanted to make a full game out of this, but like I said, I'm not sure if what I was intending to do is actually possible on the 2600...

  4. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Thanks for the response ^^

    I got another new version up, which allows you to shoot missiles from the car.

    I'm sorta going for a Twisted Metal-styled game, where you battle other AI cars but I don't know if that's possible yet.

    The one car that you control on the screen already uses up like 6 or 7 variables, most of which are for physics. o.e;;

    • Like 1

  5. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    cars.jpg

    Here's my next project that I'm working on... What started out as merely a demo showing off a car physics engine, has actually turned into a full-fledged game. You basically control a car that zooms around the screen, and the objective is to destroy the opponent cars. As you progress through the game, the enemies get more difficult to shoot at, and there are pickups scattered throughout the screen that will change your weapon.

     

    This is actually my first shot at making physics in Visual BB. I made it so that when you press the joystick in a direction, the car will gradually speed up, and you can actually swerve around corners. It's also my first game that has animated explosion sprites.

     

    Updates 3/11

     

    Alright, so I've got everything in the game fully done as far as the game itself goes.

    Now is the tricky/fun part: optimizing the code. I've done a lot tonight with optimizing the code.

    After going through the entire game and re-arranging portions of the code, I'm amazed to say that the game runs at 262 scanlines with two active cars on the screen. No changes in gameplay had to be done! ^^

    When there are 3 cars on the screen, the game runs up to about 274 scanlines, which is way better than the 282 I had it using up before!

    Hopefully at this point the game will not roll as much as it did before on the real system.

    So, here's to hoping I can get it nice and smooth-running, but 262 scanlines is 16 less than where I am right now, and that seems to be a looong way down. xDD!!!

     

    Here are some of the features I've got in the game:

     

    - Changing backgrounds

    - AI difficulty increases as you progress through the game

    - 1P and 2P modes

    - Changing the left difficulty switch alters the max. speed of the cars.

    - During a 2P mode game, the right difficulty switch enables a battle consisting of both players along with an AI car.

    - Working game over screen

    - High quality title screen (no music as of now)

    - Different weapon varieties -- remote mines, homing missiles and fire missiles

    - Realistic car physics

    - Pressing the reset button during a game will bring you back to the titlescreen

    - Two separate score displays for both players during a 2P game

    - Awesome explosion effects

     

    Hope you guys like it! ^^

    automayhem_beta2_03122012.bas.bin

  6. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Hi. I was wondering when I should expect my custom-made 2600 carts to come in.

    This past Sunday, I ordered two carts that I wanted to be made the same way. The weird thing is, the site gives two completely different estimates for shipping the items.

     

    On the custom cartridges page, it says:

    "We will ship your completed cartridge within two business days upon receipt of your label and binary files."

     

    But on the 'Shipping and Returns' page, it says this:

    "Orders placed with AtariAge are generally shipped within one week of receipt of payment."

     

    I guess the two statements are consistent with each other..

     

    So I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever tried the custom cart service and how long did it take for them to get their carts?

     

    Thanks. ^^

  7. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Any suggestions or small ideas for the game? 0:

     

    Does the game play by itself if the title screen sits there for a while?

     

    Can the player choose to start the game using the fire button or the reset switch?

     

    Is there a two-second pause at the end of the game, and after that, can the player play again by pressing the fire button?

     

    Has the fire button and reset switch been debounced?

    Well, the way it works as of now is this:

     

    -- There isn't a pre-recorded or automated game demo if you sit at the titlescreen for a while. It just stays at the titlescreen and loops the music.

     

    -- At the titlescreen, you press the Fire button to go to the player mode select menu, which from there will take you to the game.

     

    -- At any time during a game (1P or 2P), pressing the reset switch will bring the game back to the titlescreen, clearing all variables, etc.

     

    -- At the Game Over loop, (when the frowny face is shown), a timer is set which will send you back to the titlescreen. You cannot press

    buttons to skip this, you have to wait for the timer. I had to make it like this so the fire button doesn't cause the titlescreen to be skipped

    immediately after the Game Over loop.

     

    -- When you beat a level, you get a green smiley face, which runs on a timer, and then the game will automatically bring you to the next level.

     

    -- After each match in a 2P VS game, it starts a new match. The 2P mode will go on forever until the players decide to stop playing. XD

  13. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Alright, after doing a bit more research I was able to try out Omegamatrix's suggestion by making a single image to the Harmony cart. That did the trick! :D

    So I assume when I get this game put on a custom cartridge, it will not have this problem, right?

     

    Thanks for the help guys. :3

  16. Posted

    Alright, this problem has gotten even stranger...

     

    Last night I went ahead and implemented a game over screen, which resets the game via a timer.

    Today, I tested the game on the real console. I tried the rand/# method, but that didn't change anything.

     

    HOWEVER, as I was playing through the game on the real console, I discovered that if the game over screen happens, and you begin a 2nd game, RANDOMIZATION WORKS!

    It only doesn't work when you play the game first time around.

     

    How's that one for you?

     

    Oh, and also, I use randomization for the "rants" that you get whenever one of the shitty game objects (the playfield pixels) touches the game systems at the bottom of the screen (colored horizontally moving squares). The rants also don't get randomized at first on the real console, but as stated before, after a Game Over and starting a 2nd game, it does.

  17. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Hi. I'm having the strangest problem with randomization in my new game that I'm working on.

     

    What's going on is, I have single playfield pixels falling from the top of the screen, and when they either hit a missile object or reach the bottom of the screen, they are supposed to appear back up at the top, but at a different randomly-chosen x position between 0 and 31 (because they're playfield objects).

     

    The code I have seems to work fine in Stella, but when I tried it on my real Atari, the playfield pixels never get randomized; they always appear at the left-most X coordinate. Periodically the same thing will happen in Stella as well, but on the console it happens all the time. Is there anyone that may know how to fix this problem?

     

    Thanks.

    default.bas

  20. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Mine says "S/N: 13601N".

    Made in Sunnyvale, CA.

     

    Bought mine at a local Game Xchange store, found it in the Employees Only section, and they told me it was untested and considered non-working.

    Took it home and replaced the two controller ports and fixed the color adjustments-- the unit plays perfectly now.

     

    I have the speaker grills in my console and the channel select switch.

  21. Posted · Edited by Lodmot

    Alright, so I have a light-sixer Atari 2600, and it looks like pretty much every other light-sixer out there. Nothing too special about it.

    However, when I was hanging out with my friend, he and I stopped at Game Xchange, where he bought himself his own light-sixer.

    When we got back to his place, I placed my light-sixer right next to the one he just bought, and there were actually a couple

    differences with the two consoles, even though they're both considered light-sixers.

     

    Firstly, I noticed that his light-sixer had an orange-painted trim going around the panel where the cartridge slot and the six switches

    are contained, whereas mine didn't have any painted trim; it was just black. Second of all, on the bottom of the console, I have a

    channel select switch in my console, but while we were testing his, I noticed that the channel select switch was curiously missing,

    however the hole and label for the switch were still there. Very strange.. I know heavy-sixers are known to have this quirk, however

    I double-checked it, and no, his is a light-sixer (supposedly) like mine.

     

    The last odd thing about my friend's light-sixer is that quite a few of the games I have seem to have a hard time fitting in his cartridge

    slot, but on my system they slide right in just fine. And also, the casing kind of humps upward where the cartridge slot is on his system,

    but my casing is straight.

     

    Has anyone else noticed these subtle differences between multiple light-sixers? And if so, what do you think the explanation behind it is?

  23. Posted

    How did you get such good graphics??

    Well, I used modified bullet sprites for the games (colored flying boxes) and the player sprites are used by the player and AI persons. By doing that I was able to avoid graphics flickering. And the rest is just basic movements and color commands.

     

    As for the titlescreen, I actually used the titlescreen kernel to allow for higher resolution graphics. And the menu select screen is done by using a playfield block and the two player sprites for the "1P" and "2P" text.

     

    Unless you have a clear understanding of how the Atari works, what I said will probably sound like greek to you, but technically that's how I pulled it off. There are definitely other games for the 2600 that have way better graphics than this.

  24. Posted

    Oh boy this is looking good! Can't wait to play later when i get home. :3 :3

     

    Uguuuu!!!!

    Hey Reo, did you want to do the other two songs? I'm putting 4 songs in the game total, but only two are done.

    Lemme know if you'd be interested. ^^

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