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CDS Games

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Posts posted by CDS Games

  3. Posted

    It uses the joystick, and you push fire and up to activate the Superzapper.

     

    I would imagine the driving controller would be a good candidate for this, although then you'd have to use a second controller for the superzapper.

     

    The 5200 version has Trak-Ball support? I would think Tempest would be hard to play with that. *shrug*

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    Anything interesting hidden in the code other than the copyright?

     

    The "TEMPEST" title lettering from that magazine article on your site--I guess that's not really hidden though. Also, point values show up when you shoot the fuseballs.

     

    Here's one intriguing thing. The entire program is set up for 8 lanes/rails: player movement and shooting, enemy movement and shooting. So why does the original "underwear" screen have only 7? When you play the proto, it treats the center lane like 2 lanes. Also, if Carla was planning on sticking with 8 lanes, that screen with alternating light/dark lanes could never have worked. With a reflected playfield, lanes 4 and 5 have to be the same color.

     

    I'm pretty sure that original screen was just a placeholder..something they threw up there temporarily while the game mechanics got ironed out. No sense spending time on an elaborate level design if it can't be accommodated by the movement routines.

  6. Posted

    "I started working on Tempest, mainly because people said it couldn’t be done on the 2600." - Carla Meninsky

    Ok so this is pretty cool. A few days ago I started messing around with the Tempest proto, basically trying to make it more playable. Isolated and fixed a few of the main problems. And the more I'm playing this new version, the more it impresses me as a remarkably faithful translation from the arcade and a pretty fun game as well.

     

    Here's a new, partially fixed ROM, and a list of what was changed: tempest_fix401.bin

     

    post-31389-0-99784400-1459552626_thumb.jpg

    * Level screen redesigned with 8 vector-style lanes/rails
    * Shooter and enemy positions tweaked accordingly
    * Player shot speed increased
    * Player shot and enemy angles can now be varied independently
    * Disappearing shot problem fixed
    * Copyright partially restored (this was in the code already, just wasn't visible, then I tried to fix the 6-digit code but botched it up)

    It's still rough I know, but even with those few hacks it is much easier to play and much more enjoyable. My high score so far is 37050 and I made it into the red levels.

    The problems with the proto seem to have more to do with it being incomplete than it being a bad game. But give it a try, see what you think. This all has left me convinced that Carla Meninsky did a fantastic job on this despite everyone from 1983 right up to 2016 saying you couldn't do Tempest on the VCS.

     

    You can, and she did!

    • Like 18

  7. Posted

    One of the ps1 games we played the crap out of was the collection of 30 Activision Atari games. The games are so easy to pick up and play. Just plain and simple fun.

     

     

    Exactly. This really hit home for me with my kids. Air-Sea Battle was a staple for them around 3-6 years old--you are guaranteed a 2+ minute game, there is no way to die, and if you do nothing but mash the button once in a while you will eventually score some points. Just an excellent, excellent game for the youngest kids who don't quite have the coordination yet. Freeway also is great.

     

    I recently showed them Age of Empires, and they really were fascinated by that. But of course all they can do is watch. Just yesterday my 6 year old daughter asks me if I could teach her to play. She doesn't even use a mouse yet. :D

     

    Great thread here. It's easy to see why those of us born in the 70s fell in love with the VCS...but it's heartwarming to know that some younger folks are as well.

  8. Posted

    Ok, I've corrected the PAL dark gray backgrounds...they are all a step lighter now. The first post in the thread now has the updated PAL ROM.

     

    As far as fine-tuning sprite colors, I don't have any PAL equipment or even a Harmony cart to test colors on--just Stella. So I'll leave that up to you folks in Europe. To give you a head start:

     

    * The sprite color data is mixed in with the sprite graphics data in banks 0 and 4. Find the sprites, and usually (but not always) the color tables are nearby.

    * The level background colors begin at F24A in banks 2 and 6, and the level playfield colors begin right afterward at F25A.

    * The colors for the 4 characters on the title screen start at F376 in banks 3 and 7.

     

    Any other locations you need, just ask. And if you come up with a new PAL conversion, please post it in the thread for comment and discussion.

     

    By the way, there is indeed a manual for this--it is currently in Al's hands. :)

  9. Posted

    I happen to love using my imagination and find much of the content today too all-consuming and life-replacing when compared to old five-minutes-and-your-done games like checkout line Pacman machines.

     

    Yeah this is key. Between jobs, kids, home projects, I just can't see myself spending hours and hours on a video game. The classic games are great for unwinding for a few minutes.

     

    I notice the benefits with the kids too. They can spend hours turning into potatoes in front of the TV if we'd let them. But Atari self-regulates. They play a bit, have some fun, then get bored and do something else.

    • Like 4

  13. Posted

    SECAM 60 version now added to the first post, pour encourager les autres. Seriously though, I am actually delighted with the way this turned out.

     

    post-31389-0-38053100-1451755571_thumb.jpg

     

    It was a bit of a mess in the beginning, because I was just trying to match to the closest hue. But seeing how fantastic those dark blue walls looked on the black background, I simplified everything and just splashed in the brightest colors for the enemies/objects. Spot color--that's what seems to work best.

  14. Posted

    A PAL 60 version has now been added to the first post of the thread.

     

    I've had that "bug" too--the player sprite is just a bit too low. If it happens again, try moving up a little and going through the door.

     

    I'd have to look at the code, but making doors impassible to monsters would be very difficult. There would have to be some kind of collision check against objects, and I don't think there is one.

  15. Posted · Edited by CDS Games

    Here is the final version.

     

    Gauntlet (Atari 1985).bin

     

    No big changes to game play, just cleaned up a bunch of outstanding issues:

    * Bankswitching glitch corrected
    * keys display fixed
    * finished correcting top passageway issue
    * fixed shooting Death bug
    * minor graphics changes to potions
    * Objects redone on levels 81-153

    I've updated the original post with the final file and some new images. Thanks to everyone who provided coding or playtesting help, and Al of course!

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    Where are you typing in the values, and what game are you working on, first of all?

     

    Each game is different, and I'm not sure how much experience you have with machine language, but you have to find where the code does the color changing.

     

    Sometimes it's obvious, like:

     

    LDA #00

    STA COLUPF

     

    If your game is like that, just change the value at LDA and the playfield color will change.

     

    But very often it won't be so obvious...like the programmer will have one of the RAM addresses hold the playfield color. So in one spot in the code he may have (let's say he chose $D4 as a the address--it could be any of them).

     

    LDA $D4

    STA COLUPF

     

    And then in another spot (or multiple spots) he sets the values for D4. That may be as simple as

     

    LDA #00

    STA $D4

     

    Or it could be pulling the values from a table based on the value of Y like:

     

    LDA FF00, Y

    STA $D4

     

    Or even something more complicated, like he's pulling from an indirect address or something.

     

    If the game you're working on has a good disassembly, then check that out first. Otherwise, when I'm trying to figure a game out without a disassembly, I just advance by frames, scans, and steps in Stella, watching the TIA registers closely the whole time to see exactly when in the code the playfield or colors are changing. Back up a step or two and you can then see which RAM addresses or tables are involved.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    Ah, great question. You got it exactly right: too complex and too many resources.

     

    Dark Chambers does not use diagonal sprites, so that capability would have to be added, and I am not sure I can do that. A better programmer could, but then the problem is that you simply do not have room. Adding animated diagonals means an extra 4 directions x 2 frames per direction = 8 extra sprites per character,. There are 7 characters per bank, so that's 56 new sprites you have to make room for in one bank. Ouch. :)

  19. Posted

    Wow, that's a very thorough analysis! :)

     

    Yes, it's changeable, with a caveat. The program makes the weapon travel a certain set number of pixels in the X direction, and a certain set number of pixels in the Y direction. Change either one and you will affect the angle. But you also change its speed at the same time.

     

    For example, you can increase the horizontal travel 1 pixel to cut down on the angle. But now the warrior also shoots faster horizontally. Also, that will leave you with only 1 pixel difference between a regular shot and upgraded shot speed. I could then increase the shot speed upgrade 1 pixel but that might make it too fast.

     

    You could also slow down the vertical travel to decrease the angle, from 3 pixels to 2. But now the warrior's shot will be quite slow on the straight vertical.

     

    So you'd have to strike a balance between the angle and the shot speed. And also the diagonal shot of the elf through walls.

     

    Let me study the shot speed across all the platforms before messing around with this. I seem to remember that it is pretty slow on the c64. And let's wait for some feedback on the difficulty of the game as well--if it's too easy now I won't have any qualms about decreasing shot speed slightly to compensate.

  20. Posted

    A few days late for the feast of St. Nicholas, but here's a 32k version for your digital stockings.

     

    gauntlet1206.bin

    * Purple sorcerors restored, including disappearing
    * Demons restored and redrawn
    * Added Extra Magic Power potion--all characters can now destroy generators with this upgrade
    * Generators & bones now come in two levels. Shooting a Level 2 degrades it to level 1, while shooting a level 1 destroys it. This permanently fixes the generator shooting issue. Also added a second level 2 bones sprite.
    * Added orange potion
    * Added new food sprite (ham!)
    * Mostly fixed narrow top passageway issue
    * Fixed inconsistent diagonal velocity
    * Added invisibility amulet. Enemies cannot see you once this is picked up. Players turn visible again though when they open a door.
    * Added new level color schemes
    * Increased the frequency of powerup potions

    There are a few bug fixes left, and whatever comes up in testing, and that should wrap it up.

    And huge thanks to Wickeycolumbus and Omegamatrix for help with the bankswitching.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    There's one minor glitch I noticed (while playing the wizard; no idea if it's character-specific). Moving diagonally has inconsistent X velocity. When moving upward diagonally, your X and Y velocity are the same, so you move at a 45-degree angle. When moving downward diagonally, your X velocity is about half your Y velocity.

     

    Wow, great catch! Now fixed. And the top passageway glitch is finally corrected too.

     

    Right now I'm adding some functionalities like a magic power potion and degrading generators. Both of those things are actually done, but having to reassign item #s through the levels will take a bit of time.

  23. Posted

    Any chance your take on Gauntlet for the 2600 will end up on a physical cartridge? I would so get one!

     

    It's been touched on upthread but nothing solid has been decided yet. All's I know is I'd like to have one for myself at the end of this process. :)

     

    One option I'm considering is just to let Al cook them up via the custom cart feature. Maybe I'll shoot him an IM.

    • Like 1
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