SpiceWare

Revised the level data to use unsigned char, instead of unsigned short int, for a 608 byte savings. I used 284 of them to allocate space for 16 Delta levels for next month's level design contest.

Starfield is randomly generated at the start of every sector.

Looks like there's just 5 Delta levels, and I copy/pasted the level data so I don't know which ones they actually are. Level data currently looks like this: const unsigned short int delta_1[] = { 256, 512, // ship starting X, Y location 8, // station count HS + 20, 8, // station 1 X, Y location VS + 84, 72, // station 2 X, Y location HS + 148, 136, // station 3 X, Y location VS + 212, 200, // station 4 X, Y location HS + 276, 264, // station 5 X, Y location VS + 340, 328, // station 6 X, Y location HS + 404, 392, // station 7 X, Y location VS + 468, 460 // station 8 X, Y location }; As discussed in the comments of blog entry Disperse Revision, I'll be revising that to save ROM space - currently that takes 38 bytes per level, new format would take 19. However, new format has the potential to break existing levels. Stationary objects (asteroids and mines) are randomly positioned at the start of each level. The number of objects (32, 64, 96, or 128) is determined by the difficulty level. My plan at the moment is to finish preliminary support for E-Type missiles and the Spy-Ship, after which I'll revise the level storage layout. After that I plan to set up a page at my site where people can enter in values for a few levels, then click submit and download a ready to run ROM. If you like the results then post that ROM to AtariAge so the judges to try out. Who the judges will be is yet to be determined - could be a select few, could be everybody at AtariAge, or some combination thereof (such as 4 programmer's choice, 4 artists' choice, 4 musician's choice, and 4 AtariAge popular vote).

Gamma 1 = Albert: Gamma 2 = Nathan: etc. If you're puzzled, check the radar Delta levels are just placeholders until I have time to write up something to allow others to create levels.

What's random is when a station pod will shoot. On 256/hard the when is 85% of the time. What's not random is: Which pods will shoot - only two pods on each station can shoot, the two that are closest to the Star Fighter. If those are both destroyed, the station will not shoot. The direction the pods will shoot - they always target the Star Fighter. a cool-down timer is associated with each pod. All pod timers are reset at the start of each round/new ship, and an individual pod's timer is reset whenever it shoots.

They didn't wait - there's a random element that controls when a station will shoot. Currently it uses this: i = 25 + // 25/255 = minimum 10% chance a cooled down pod will fire ((MM_LEVEL * gSector)>>2); // increased based on difficulty level and level gPodFireChance = (i > 255) ? 255 : i; when means there's a 10% chance on the initial level of any difficulty, and an 85% chance on level 256 of Hard. Also, in your video it sounds like you're rapidly hitting fire? You can just hold the button down.

I used to liked Dodge'Em; though, I haven't played it since 2007 when I maxed out the score, after that it became boring.

Thanks! The difficulty ramp up still needs to be worked out, until then the later levels will be unplayable. The stations shooting before the Star Fighter starts to move is a bug. Turns out the start of game tune is the wrong tune! I believe the correct tune is shorter in duration.

If I counted the 2600 homebrews correctly (10 per page, 8 on the last page) then there's 98 in the store - which means 50% of the homebrews are 4K games.

Bummer, something's come up so I won't be able to make it this year

Awesome research, thanks! I'll update the blog entry this weekend.

You might like to check out the Stealth option in Frantic. After Draconian's finished I plan to reboot Frantic to use the new CDF bankswitch/coprocessor scheme that we've developed. Amongst other things, that'll let me add back in the speech samples.

4 bits per sample. The CDF playback rates that iesposta is currently using for those two samples are: Battlestations - 95000 Blast Off - 110000 Though I don't know what those would be when translated to Hz.

Surprisingly enough, the new samples: Battlestations - 990 bytes (the packed data) Blast Off - 1243 bytes used less space overall (2233) than the placeholder samples (2405): Battlestations - 1335 bytes Blast Off - 1070 bytes

Johnson, though that's a common enough last name I doubt it'll help.

No. The 7800 controls are designed to be backward compatible with the 2600 in such a way that both buttons appear to the 2600 as the same firebutton.

Thanks! no need to imagine.

Yep, covered that in Blast Off! when I noticed "Alert Alert" took up more ROM than any other sample

http://samples.mameworld.info

Finally recouped enough from my trip to Wisconsin to work on Draconian! new samples from iesposta for Blast Off and Battlestations new start of game tune from iesposta fixed a bug where you could destroy a station by hitting a closed station core. revised the SECTOR # display logic For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0 or newer) draconian_20170716.bin Please reference Rules of the Game for what's been implemented and what's to come.

and a bug fix too! new samples from iesposta for Blast Off and Battlestations new start of game tune from iesposta fixed a bug where you could destroy a station by hitting a closed station core. revised the SECTOR # display logic The bug with destroying the station was caused because the hit energy core test was always being run. As such, if you hit the red pixels in this image the station would be destroyed. The test now only runs if the core is open. Last time, as mentioned in the comments, I didn't like how the SECTOR # was hiding the radar during the ship's ramp-up, so I was planning to do this for the SECTOR # logic: show SECTOR # play opening tune show Score/Radar/Lives play Blast Off sample ship starts to move Turns out the opening tune is only played when you start a new game. So I ended up going with this: show SECTOR # if appropriate, play New Game tune play Blast Off sample show Score/Radar/Lives ship starts to move For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0 or newer) draconian_20170716.bin Please reference Rules of the Game for what's been implemented and what's to come.

You can do some experiments in Collect for vertical scrolling. It'll be chunky scrolling though. In the Kernel section look for this bit of code: ; The Arena is drawn using what is known as a 2 line kernel, or 2LK for ; short. Basically the code is designed so that the TIA register updates are ; spread out over 2 scanlines instead of one. TIA has a feature for the ; player objects, as well as the ball, called Vertical Delay which allows ; the objects to still start on any scanline even though they are only ; updated every-other scanline. Vertical Delay is controlled by the TIA ; registers VDELP0, VDELP1 and VDELBL. ; ; ArenaLoop: ; line 1 - updates player1, missile1, playfield ; line 2 - updates player0, missile0, ball ; if not at bottom, goto ArenaLoop lda #0 ; 2 2 sta PF0 ; 3 5 sta PF1 ; 3 8 sta PF2 ; 3 11 lda ArenaColor ; 3 14 sta COLUPF ; 3 17 lda Variation ; 3 20 lsr ; 2 22 - which Arena to show tay ; 2 24 - set for index ldx ArenaOffset,y ; 4 28 - set X for which arena to draw stx ArenaIndex ; 3 31 - save it for Kernal use lda ArenaPF0,x ; 4 35 - reflect and priority for playfield and #%00000111 ; 2 37 - get the lower 3 bits for CTRLPF ora #%00110000 ; 2 39 - set ball to display as 8x pixel The value that ends up in ArenaIndex is what controls which Arena to display. Based on the table at ArenaOffset the 2 values used are 0 or 22. If, instead, you vary the value over time from 0,1,...,21,22 you'll end up with a scrolling playfield. For grins, I made a quick revision to Collect so that the 2nd joystick will scroll the playfield (so don't try playing a 2 player game). Search for SCROLL in the source to find all the changes. If testing in Stella use keys Y and Y for the 2nd joystick's up and down. Collect Scrolling.zip

Glad you were able to figure it out!

A sequel was under development: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/combat2/combat2.htm ROM's here: http://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=1137

Run it in Stella. This is what it shows for the NTSC version. This is what it shows for the PAL version: You can also force the NTSC version to appear like it does on a PAL Console & TV: As well as force the PAL version to appear like it's on an NTSC Console & TV: In reviewing those, the pants will be green if the cartridge is played on the appropriate console.