kenjennings

Best as I could, the rules are the same as for the C64 original. Yup. Every 10 hits increment speed. Doesn't matter which player hits. Any hit counts. At 80 hits it returns to the original speed, and the 80 hit countdown begins again. Good ideas. Yeah, it is easier with two players and the fact that shots can be restarted with another button press once it has traveled half way up the screen. An option to disable the shot restart is on the to-do list.

Hi lo! Would you download the current build from Github and try on the mist fpga again? I replaced the VSCROL hack with regular LMS instructions in the display list. Hoping this will make the screen stable for you.

I meant to do that. 🙂 (At least I hoped so.) The stars are bigger/brighter/flashier than the C64 version so they are of off-putting when trying to focus especially when the mothership is moving fast. The mountains blow your focus too. Makes it a bit harder to play. Request denied. Sound is on the list. I know as soon as I have it making noise people will consider it complete, so I want to deal with it toward the end. I have worked out some sounds that are more like the original Space Invaders than the C64 version. Yeah, timeout on the game over screen is do-able. It also depends on if there is (will be) any end-game audio. I think a minute of wait time is appropriate -- the player should be smart enough to press the button.

Current build updated on github. Revised motion control by an array lookup based on NTSC v PAL. Motion control values are scaled on PAL across 5 frames to match the apparent speed of NTSC. May God have mercy on your soul. (FYI -- poorly tested. 🙂 It amazingly did not crash outright. Ran it in NTSC and PAL twice.... but not very long. It seems like they are the same speed. PAL has a bit of jerkiness where an extra movement is inserted to fit NTSC.)

motto at my real life job: Everything is possible given enough time and money. Yeah. Someday somehow. Been thinking about how to make the different speed levels running at 5/6 to run at 6/6.

The 1NVADER title graphics relies on the Antic Vscroll "bug" to turn each scan line of Mode F/Gtia pixels into three scan lines. The effect works on Atari800 emulator, and Altirra. Altirra is usually the gold standard for cycle-accurate behavior, so if it works there it's usually guaranteed to behave the same on real hardware. If I had to guess I would figure the Mist doesn't implement this "feature" of Antic.

The "PAL" tag is a debug aid, so I know what I'm looking at, if there are display issues. It will be removed when the game is more "official".

I inserted code to force laser removal just before the game switches to the Game Over event. I hope.

Well, now that's an interesting catch. Never saw it do that. I guess I assumed the normal game play would complete all motions before the end game event kicked in. Something to do....

Some updates applied to the current version on GitHub. Colors should be more consistent between NTSC and PAL. The Mothership on the Title Screen and the Game is now multi-color. Playtesters list is updated for bugs/features suggested. Yes, there still in no sound. https://github.com/kenjennings/Atari-1nvader

WORKING AGAIN. Stupid programming trick accidentally killed it. Did you know MADs will accept "rts" in the label position?

Yes, something mixed in with other recent fixes whacked the game over display. It looks like the player input to return to the Title is working, so the game over routine is not crashed... maybe just invisible. Messed up color table? .... Possibly something else

Yeeeeah..... ? Ummmmm. I see that. Hmmmm. The last things added were fixing the PAL colors and removing the scores during the countdown. Neither should be code related to running the Game Over graphics. Maybe..... I messed up something in the color table and the animation is running, but using black for the colors. My wife had surgery monday, so I'm occupied waiting on her for a while. Maybe on the weekend I'll have some time.

Current version now erases the game scores/high score when the countdown starts, so the inconsistent overlap is not visible when the mothership flies up/off the screen..

I adjusted the PAL colors. They should match NTSC a bit better. Code and XEX checked into GitHub (Don't have a second joystick with me at the moment, so I don't know for sure what the Player 2 gun looks like.)