Lodmot

January 31, 2012

Are you sure all of that code needs to be in the last bank? Have you tried only having the drawscreen in that bank just to see if that's all that is needed (as an experiment)?

Yeah, unfortunately it does, in order for the playerscores kernel to work properly.

I tried numerous times to keep the playerscores kernel in the last bank while having the main game code in the first bank, and it just caused the weird screenshot that I posted earlier.

January 31, 2012

Okay.. o.o

As long as the gameplay itself doesn't get changed, I can let you try and make it less laggy. I'm sure there's a way to program it more efficiently.

I just don't want the actual gameplay design to have to change because of it, because how it works now is how I'd like to keep it.

I don't know about the resizing thing. There's not much space left in the main bank to add much more code to it.

January 31, 2012

uggu! uggu! uggu! I finally understand missiles! Thank you for the webpage, R.T.!!! Soon I will be programming masterpieces! \

uuuuuuuuggggggggggggguuuuuuuuuuuuu11111111111111111

EDIT EDIT EDIT HHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EDIT EDIT

Lodmot, we are going to have an incredible adventure I can feel it!!!!!!!!!! I am awaiting your PM with the latest code. I learned so much today I'm so overjoyed - I know I'll be able to simplify tons of code and everything will be running smoothly!!!

LOL!!!!!!! You crazy person 8D! Me likes. o;

Check the first post! ^^

January 31, 2012

xDDDDDDDDDD

Alright.

Yeah, you can help. :3

And it's okay that you act young. I do too! 8D

HUAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAHAHHAAHAHAHAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

So anyhoo, yeah. ^^

Just so you know though, this is gonna be my biggiest project I ever done so far.

I hope to have a titlescreen, sound effects, 4 music tracks (two of which are ready), a menu select, and 2P mode. O:

Also, I presume you know the objective in the game by this point.

I was thinking about it like 5 minutes ago, and I'm thinking I'm gonna have to bump up the game to 32k, which is the max you can make your games in Batari Basic. LOL!

The two music tracks I made for the game are so intricate that they take up almost 4K each. And I still need that extra space for programming everything else in.

And ontop of that, the game is already getting laggy! X_X

January 31, 2012

o.o;;

I'm not sure I like that idea right now... I'm used to just making games by myself.

Also, have you done any kind of programming in general before? If you're just learning how to program for the first time, it may not help me very much. >.<

I'm sorry if I offended you. :/

January 31, 2012

xD Sure, no problem. ^^

Just so you know, for security's sake, I will eventually have to stop posting my updated source code. This is an original game of mine, and I don't really want people stealing it. Perhaps later on I could just PM it to you?

Basically what the memory banks are for is to allow the game to be bigger than 4k. Usually your game starts out being 4k in size, but if that's not enough, you can extend it to 8k, or in this case, 16k. But because the Atari 2600 can only address 4k at once, you have to do what's called "bank switching".

January 31, 2012

I didn't notice any lag.... o.o

Thank you for the tip though. That's definitely a good idea. ^^

EDIT: I see what you're talking about. It happens on the emulator, but on the real console it actually plays smoothly. Not sure why.

I also just noticed a problem where the screen goes black when you beat a level, which I just fixed. It was due to the multiple banks the game now has.

Meantime, I should probably optimize the code a bit so that it runs a bit faster, especially for all the stuff I have planned for the game.

January 31, 2012

xDDDDDD Very well ^^.

I'm actually surprised I was able to fix it. Had I not, then I probably would've had to put the project on hold.

January 31, 2012

hi Lodmot,

I have to get to bed, I'm getting sleepy. I will check out your code and games as soon as I wake up tomorrow. Goodnight an good luck in all your life's endeavors. X3

Okii. ^^

Good night Reo. I have Tuesday off completely, so I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow.

January 31, 2012

UPDATE:

I got the playerscore.asm kernel to work with the 16k rom size! The weird thing though, is that I actually had to put the main game loops into the 4th bank in order for it to work. It seems to me like in order for the playerscores kernel to work properly, the entire game code (or most of it at least) needs to be in the same bank as the "inline playerscores.asm" commands, or else it messes up like in the picture above. That makes sense I guess, but now I think I've ran out of space in the 4th bank, because when I compile, the message looks like this:

Compile started at 1/30/2012 9:56:57 PM

Compiling C:\Documents and Settings\Win2K\My Documents\My Atari Games\Game Catcher\Game Catcher\game_catcher_2012y_01m_30d_1306t.bas

2600 Basic compilation completed.

DASM V2.20.07, Macro Assembler ©1988-2003

bytes of ROM space left in bank 1

bytes of ROM space left in bank 2

bytes of ROM space left in bank 3

bytes of ROM space left in bank 4

Possible duplicate label: L012 90ad

3309 bytes of ROM space left in bank 1

4052 bytes of ROM space left in bank 2

4052 bytes of ROM space left in bank 3

Compilation completed at 1/30/2012 9:56:58 PM

view output file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Win2K/My Documents/My Atari Games/Game Catcher/Game Catcher/bin

Post compilation files deleted

As you could see, where it lists the amount of bytes in each bank, bank 4 is not there. That makes me think bank 4 was entirely used up, and the compiler had to resort to moving some of the game code to the first bank? I'm not sure... I'm just guessing.

But yeah, so that's what's up. :3

January 31, 2012

I didn't help you LOOOOLLLL XDXD I'm Reo...I am trying to learn off you tytytyt :3333333

xDDDDDD

January 31, 2012

this thread is evidence enough of what went on XD. Thank you SOOOOOOOO much for sending me the code. It's not ever yet I thought ??? ?

Alright. XD

If you ever want me to credit you for helping, let me know.

I don't feel right asking people for help and not at least acknowledging them when I release the game.

January 31, 2012

@ Lodmot: I promise to download a .bas file from you asap, once provided. I cannot open .bas.bin, just .bas like in game_catcher.bas, do not need bin at this moment, I can compile on my own.

Uploaded!

By the way, the source file I put up is the 16kb dump, so it has that weird error that I mentioned in my post above. You'll have to revert the rom back over to 4KB and get rid of the bank indicators in order to get the game to play correctly.

Also, would you guys like me to credit you both for helping me on my first really ambitious project?

I really appreciate the support, so the least I could do is mention you at the top page, or somewhere in the game maybe.

January 31, 2012

Alright... Kinda ran into another problem...

I was planning on putting a bunch of other stuff in the game (title screen, 2P mode, music, etc), but in order to do that, I have to make the rom size 16k.

Now the game will start, but when you touch one of the squares, this happens...

game_catcher_2012y_01m_30d_1306t.bas.bin.png

It has something to do with the playerscores.asm kernel, but I don't see what I'm doing wrong...

Here's what the code looks like in the beginning:

  set romsize 16k
  set optimization inlinerand
  rem Titlescreen Code will go here.
__Start_Stage
  COLUPF=$d2
  player0x=50 : player0y = 60
  player1x=(rand&127)+1 : player1y=(rand&63)+1
.... and so on.

And here is how the game's code ends:

............
  %01111110
end
  if s > 99 then v=v+1 : goto __Start_Stage
  goto __Win
  bank 2
  bank 3
  bank 4
  inline bcd_math.asm
  inline playerscores.asm

All I did was add the first two lines at the top of the code, and these last 5 lines indicating the different banks (which have nothing in them because that's where the music and titlescreen would go), and two asm files. Based on the instructions for both Batari Basic and the playerscores kernel, I'm pretty sure this is a glitch in the playerscores kernel of some kind rather than my own code...

January 30, 2012

Actually, I discovered that the glitch with the boxes looking like lines was my fault. XDDD

But I got it fixed now. Also, I was able to incorporate the use of actual stages! The game has 15 stages of gameplay that you can do. They get harder as you go.

There's actually a bug that I have to fix where periodically the game won't notice if you or the CPU player collected the specific amount of games. I believe that's

some kind of timing issue and is easily fixable. But anyway, I'm gonna upload this new version when I get home. I'm using my school's computer right now. xDDD!!!

I brought my laptop, but the wireless sucks here so bad, I can't connect anywhere! D8

Anyway, that's all for now. Next I have to figure out how to get the playerscore minikernel to work with bankswitching, which is more of a pain than I thought it'd be.. Right now, the base game code just BARELY fits onto the default 4K rom size, but I need to increase that to at least 16KB in order to add more stuff to it, like music and 2P mode and an actual titlescreen.

I'm gonna change the first post to list the other things I hope to get working.

In the meantime, TATA FOR NOW! 8D

January 30, 2012

@Random Terrain:

Wow, I really like what you did with the code. It's a lot easier for me to read it now. I even picked up a variable that I initiated but never used in the game! XDD Thank you for helping me. :3

@reo

LOL! Yeah, I see it too. That's quite easy to fix, it's just a NUSIZ issue.

January 30, 2012

Technically I don't, but it's easy for me to make. Right now I'm in the middle of College Algebra homework, so I'll have it up in like 15 minutes or so. xD

January 30, 2012

Well, you've tempted me long enough. I'm diving into your code - probably some of your simpler games first, to try to get myself somewhere close to your level of batari basic programming X3 X3. Here comes reo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ugguuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XDDDDDDD Awesome dude! :3

I hope you learn a lot from my sources.

I didn't even look at many example games actually, I watched a youtube video that explained the different functions as he was making the example game.

It was pretty good. ^^

January 30, 2012

Well, I just uploaded the updated source code. It has everything I did up to the error that I'm stuck at. >.<

I also included the ill-compiled version of the game for no reason at all. xD

January 30, 2012

Thank you for your kind words. :3

Well, I'm having problems again... I thought I got it working, but now it's doing the same thing it did last night. >.<

I'm gonna put up my up-to-date code for Random Terrain to look at. It just won't compile correctly for some reason.

If all goes well, I'm hoping to actually make this a full-fledged game, with music, a titlescreen and 2-player mode and everything.

But I gotta figure this stuff out first and find out why the playerscore kernel doesn't like bank-switching games.

January 30, 2012

If you post your latest code, I can look at it to see if I can find the problem. You can have a ton of labels, so that's not the problem (unless you are using a "known keyword or any labels internal to bB" and that can be fixed by starting your labels with an underscore). I start my labels with two underscores and my variable aliases with one underscore so I don't havedo this, so thank you very much. :3 to worry about anything.

Id greatly appreciate that.

I usually try not to ask people to look at my code because I don't want to seem noobish, but at the same time Im still learning how to do this, so thank you very much.

January 30, 2012

Ehh... I'm having problems making this game...

It appears that some of my loops cannot reach to other loops because of the distance...

I'm stumped, I don't know what to do, and it's driving me crazy..

Unless I figure something out or get help from somewhere, I don't know if this game can be finished... :/

EDIT: Nevermind! I arranged sections of the code in a way that somehow works! 8D YAY! xD

I had a similar problem even when using smartbranching, so I stopped using smartbranching and just use goto all of the time like this:

if _Monkey_Fart = 5 then goto __Giraffe_Candlestick

Well, now my code isn't working at all... I try to add another label for setting up the next stage of the game, and when I compile, it gives me an unexpected error....

I think I have too many labels in the game now or something, because there's no errors in my code. The game has gotten very big, and I'm sure there's probably a more efficient way I could've made the game, or at least some way I could somehow split the code into chunks so it's easier for the console to read, but I'm still pretty new at this. When I run the game, it still plays quite nicely, even on the real console the game runs flawlessly.

January 30, 2012

Does this resolve the issue of the green rectangles getting stuck on the screen? :3

Yes it does! :3

You may want to re-download it because I just re-uploaded it like a minute ago. xD

January 29, 2012

Ehh... I'm having problems making this game...

It appears that some of my loops cannot reach to other loops because of the distance...

I'm stumped, I don't know what to do, and it's driving me crazy..

Unless I figure something out or get help from somewhere, I don't know if this game can be finished... :/

EDIT: Nevermind! I arranged sections of the code in a way that somehow works! 8D YAY! xD

January 29, 2012

Unfortunately I don't. >.<

I deleted the source code to these three demos that I made.

I don't know why, or what I was thinking by doing that.

Now I always keep my game's source, even when I deem it finished.

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Posts posted by Lodmot