joelm

I'm in. I can test it on a 7800 or 2600. How do you plan on pushing the code out, test cartridges or ROM?

Oh... I hadn't realized that I strayed into DPC+ territory. I had a work around in mind that won't look as nice but I want to go simple on this project. Thanks for the heads up.

When I use the following Kernel Options: This combo should be good to go according to RT's site, but when I try to use it I get a syntax error for the line: bkcolors: The error is: Here is the code generated when I drag the playfield over to the .bas from the Projects tab on the right: I'm not sure where the error is, but if I remove the background statement in the kernel options and rem everything relating to bkcolors: then the program works but generates everything else in black and white. Any thoughts?

Hey I just thought I would throw this out there for anyone contemplating having custom carts made. I placed my order with Al for the two carts and they were at my door in about a week, both look and work great. I cannot comprehend, with everything else going on, how Al was able to get everything done and shipped so quickly, but the whole process and end product are definitely worth the price of admission.

Thank you. I had thought about using crowd noise but my attempts to implement it have been less than stellar. Since these are for Christmas gifts I went ahead and decided to order them as-is. My plan is to try another sports game and see what I can do about crowd noise... adding decent sound to my games has always been a steep hill for me to climb, I spent days on the dog bark and I am still not 100% on it. Thank you all for your input, I have considered removing all of the personal touches (kid's names, etc.) from the binaries and making them available in the homebrew section with manual files, maybe that would be a good time to get a crowd noise figured out.

Everything works on my 7800 - I didn't actually get around to testing them on my 2600. I would assume that if they work on a Harmony cart that they should work when burned to an actual cart. I could be wrong though... I have never ordered a custom cart.

Update - 13 Oct 13: I am pretty sure I have both games where I want them to be, given the limits of my abilities. I had only minor changes to Autumn's Fussball but I did make some more significant changes to Grace's Fowl Hunt. Please try out the most recent versions of both games and let me know what you think. Again, I am looking to get these ordered as soon as possible but any feedback would be helpful. Remember, I write my games to be played on actual Atari hardware so if you have a Harmony cart (or something similar) that is probably the best way to experience both games, they should work fine on emulators though. Thanks again!

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I tested it with XP Service Pack 2 & 3 and Windows 2000 - No dice. None of the Vistas work either.

I just tried running it as an administrator and no dice. I am running Windows 7 perhaps there is some connection there. I'm not even sure what the program looks like, the Music and Sound Editor has actually never worked for me, no matter which build of Visual bB I had at the time, it has always come up with an error code.

I have the same problem with the same error message. I tried downloading the latest builds/versions from the links posted and I still get the same error. Perhaps there is something deeper at work (or not) here.

Ok, so I have updated Fowl Hunt with some of the suggestions I received and I think the game has gotten a lot better. The new build is attached to the main post. Now there are only 8 levels - the duck speed still increases and the time allowed still decreases but the number of shots you get varies a little (between 12 and 16 depending) The scenery changes a little every two rounds and I tried (not altogether successfully) to capture a dawn to dusk day of hunting using the background color. I also ended up refining some of the code (my coding is very sloppy) and changing the score font. Let me know what you think of the updates. - I just tested it on a 7800 using my Harmony cart and it appears that I have the difficulty switch settings backwards. Left switch set to B seems to allow the duck speed to increase and Right switch set to B seems to make the aimer smaller. I guess that is one thing I need to fix with the next build. Update - 8 Oct 13: I added some "eye candy" type of things to spice up the background a little (moving clouds, etc.). The difficulty switch issue is fixed, at least as far as Stella and my 7800 are concerned, I haven't taken the time to make sure it works on my 2600 too but I assume it will because it now works on the 7800. Some slight code cleanup was accomplished.

I would like that too, sadly my sound skills with the Atari are somewhat lacking and making music is something that has escaped me up to this point. It probably would spice the game up though. I thought about adding a roaring crowd, that is well within my skill level, but I might try to do something with music. I don't know what Al's turn around time is on custom carts though and I want to get these things perfected in time for Christmas... Something to tinker with.

Thank you. Yeah, I kinda thought that while I was testing it. I may streamline the game and cut off a few levels. The changing background I hadn't thought of but that is a good idea and I think I get make the space for it pretty easily. I thought the flashing would provide her with more evidence that the gun had fired... it is very annoying on Stella but not as noticible on my RCA CRT, still I will think about alternatives. Thank you both for your input so far.

Agreed, I have a bit of disposable income right now and was searching around the store for it... bupkis. Hopefully another run will be made at some point.

Scenario: I decided to make Atari games for my two oldest children (both girls, ages 3 and 7) for Christmas - to be put in cartridge form with custom manuals, etc.. I pretty much have the games done but would like some playtestors to try them out for feed back. Remember, both of these games are written to be played on actual Atari hardware so the gameplay may vary on an emulator and they were both written to be played by children with some mild challenge for adults Game 1: Autumn's Super Fussball - For my 3 year old, she loves soccer and has basic Atari playing skills autumnfussbal-2.bas.bin autumnfussbal_playtest10.bas.bin - Updated 13 Oct 13 One or Two Player You get one minute to score as many goals as possible against the "Evil Pickle" goalie. In One Player Mode: Left Difficulty changes goal size and the speed of the Evil Pickle Right Difficulty does nothing Two Player Mode: Left Difficulty only changes goal size Game 2: Fowl Hunt - For my 7 year old, she is pretty good with the Atari and likes a challenge. fowl_hunt_playtest.bas.bin fowl_hunt_playtest10.bas.bin fowl_hunt_playtest15.bas.bin fowl_hunt_playtest25.bas.bin - Updated 13 Oct 13 Currently One Player Only There are 10 different levels, a final score is given after the 10th level. Duck speed and time to complete level vary (time gets less). You have 15 shots to kill 10 ducks. On certain levels the ducks drop bombs, you can shoot the bombs to stop them from going off but you still only get 15 shots to destroy the bombs and 10 ducks - a little strategy is required to decide which is a priority for each player. Left Difficulty on A = Hard Mode - faster ducks on higher levels, etc. Left Difficulty on B = Easy Mode - slower ducks on all levels, etc. Right Difficulty on A = Hard Aim - smaller aimer Right Difficulty on B = Easier Aim - larger aimer Scoring: Duck = 100 points/each Destroyed Bomb = 50 points/each Killing all 10 ducks on a level = 1000 point bonus A bomb landing and blowing up = - 100 points/each That pretty much sums them up... let me know what you think. Thank you ahead of time.

"KIA" = Killed In Action, but that is an odd glitch I have never seen. There should only be 3 ways to die; getting shot down by the fighter, colliding with another plane (which may not be obvious if they aren't painted by the radar), and colliding with a parachute. I have never had anyone be randomly sent to the KIA screen before, is it possible that you are hitting a blacked out enemy plane? What emulator are you running? An earlier version of the game allowed you to kill the parachutists but that kinda seemed morbid and I didn't have any animation done to show the chute collapsing, they simply disappeared. I guess I could add that back in, but I thought it would be a good way to add points, since the targets are random it would be difficult to have team tournaments without a dirty way to even out the points. First off, thank you. As for using NUSIZ, I have considered that but I think that groups of enemies that are tied together aren't challenging opponents (I might randomize that with the fighter though, so thank you for the thought). For the enemy bombers and scout planes I think going over to a multi-sprite kernel might be a better option, and it would make two player more challenging for the radar operator. As I said earlier in the thread, I am just getting started and I haven't really figured out how to do some of the more advanced things, like integrating multi-sprites, etc. Essentially all of my games, so far, have been based on the 2-sprites, 2-missiles, 1-ball concept that the 2600 was designed around. As for right now, I am still piddling around with the AI in an attempt to make it more "intelligent". I may end up broadening the play area so that enemy planes aren't trapped by the edge of the screen, that seems like a good way to solve some of the radar glitching too.

First off, thank you for the feedback and positive comments. As for the issues: The invincible enemy bomber - I have no idea why this happens, but it can show up at any point in the game. I must have missed a step in the bomber sub-routine but I don't know where. The player points are added in the same line that deducts health from the enemy plane, so it must be coming from the line where I establish the health of the enemy (when it is generated). I will keep hunting that down. Enemy flicker - The radar only really works well on 2 player mode, 1 player mode was an after thought and I haven't sorted out how I want the radar to function. The enemy disappearing from view is the result of the radar losing track of the target, this is intentional (for the most part) as I thought it would make 1 player mode a challenge. However, when the enemy hits the left or right wall edge of the left-hand field, the radar flips outs... needs work. In actuallity you can only see the enemy because the radar paints the target... the enemy becoming visible is the result of a collision between the player1 missile (the enemy radar blip) and the ball (the guideable radar beam). That is what makes 2 player mode more interesting, because someone has to be a pretty decent radar operator to keep both players in the fight. The enemy fighter - Is the result of flickering the sprite, one in every three frames is the exhaust flame. It just so happens that the majority of the "missiles" are fired while the red is flickered. I could flicker the other sprites but I find it annoying, I only used it on the fighter because I thought it was a good trade off for effect. Because I wrote this in Visual Batari Basic (and I am still pretty under-skilled) I would lose the missiles needed to shoot and run the radar if I used playercolors. A Boss - This is an interesting idea... I might be able to accomplish that with the space I have left. This game was written to be played on real 2600 equipment and that actually adds another bug I am working on (although it doesn't affect game play). It was also originally written to be 2 player only so my buddies and I could play it during our retro game nights, I added 1 player mode so I could play it in my free time. At any rate, thank you for the feedback, I am working several of the issues now, so hopefully I will have another release soon. Please keep the comments and suggestions coming. Thanks for playing!

I'm addicted. I would love to have this on cartridge. I'll be looking for it on the store page.

The graphics arent real great, but they are enough to get the point acrossed. To the left is the pilot's view, to the right is the radar. Player 2 can move the square radar beam around to detect the enemy airplanes which are not visable to the pilot unless they are illuminated on the radar screen. That way both players have to work together closely in two-player mode. In one-player mode the radar beam is automatic but still subject to defective tracking.

Alright, after a lot of interruptions and work, I have a decently working version of my first good game (I have done others but they were small very limited games). This is a single player or cooperative, top down, WWII fighter game where Player 1 is the pilot of a P-61 Black Widow and Player 2 (if playing) is the Radar Operator. The player(s) must pilot their night fighter through dog-fights while targets are found and illuminated by the radar. There is a challenge for both players in two-player mode, while the work of the radar operator is done automatically in one-player mode. Two-player mode is really difficult unless you are playing on an actual console using a Harmony Cart. I eventually plan on fixing some minor bugs and adding a good title screen to the game, but I thought I would put this version out there for people to try and gather some feedback. Enemies: There are three types of enemies: He-111 Bomber – Slow but tough. Bv-141 Scout – Light, fast, but easy to damage. And the Ho-229 Flying Wing Fighter – Fast, shoots back… stealth. Your weapons: The .50 cal. Machine guns are default for both modes. The 20mm Cannon is activated when both Player 1 and Player 2’s fire buttons are depressed in two-player mode. The 20mm Cannon is activated in one-player mode when attacking bombers if the left difficulty switch is set to “A”. One final warning… Watch out for parachutes! P61EUROPEBETA15R.bin

Whoops... I thought it was related to the IDE specifically, I hadn't seen the chart before. Thank you for pointing me to it.

If I use "set kernel_options no_blank_lines" in my game, I cannot use missile0. This is really strange to me because the other 4 objects work just fine. If I "rem" the kernel_options then I can use missile0 but I have blank lines on my playfield. I have tried manipulating ENAM0 and RESMP0 and neither helps, in fact ENAM0 seems to make a solid vertical line if it is enabled. Can I have no_blank_lines in my playfield and use missile0 or will I have to make do? This may be a stupid question, but I only recently discovered this problem and couldn't find anything about it in the forums. Please, if I missed something about this issue, feel free to point me in the right direction.

Awesome. I knew that I had missed something obvious. Becuase of my work schedule I am learning to do this between 1 and 2 am after a 12-14 hour workday... I guess I just wasnt seeing it. Thank you.

Hello all, I am new here so please be patient, I'm sure I must have missed something minor. I have been writing the example code from the sessions myself (so I can learn the flow of logic) but, except for the notes and some spacing, have been copying them more or less verbatim. My issue is that whenever I introduce anything horizontal in the code the screen seems to rollover (and flicker) when I run the binary in Stella. For example any change in the background color or any horizontal playfield (lines on the side of the screen work fine). A plain background with no horizontal images works fine with no rolling or flickering. In the initial playfield lesson a basic binary counter playfield was introduced with a rainbow background, my rainbow background rolls rapidly and is verging on headache or siezure. I will include my code (both asm and bin) so you can take a look to see if I am doing anything wrong.test.zip