mad4j

April 20, 2017

Dear all,

now Ms Snake! is available as GitHub repository at https://github.com/mad4j/atari-mssnake

Daniele

November 22, 2013

Hello!

Given a constant lack of free time, I decided to finalize the development of Ms Snake!

Here the cartridge #0!!

One question: what kind of games are eligible to AtariAge store?

Thanks to all,

mad4j

October 5, 2013

Thanks a lot!

Just a pleasure playing my game on a real equipment.

Thanks again,

mad4j

September 22, 2013

Please,

find attached to the first topic of this thread the updated release of Ms Snake!

Very few changes and two version (NTSC/PAL60 and PAL60). In this release the intro animation should be better but it is bit slow (two seconds eyes open, 1 second eyes closed).

Taking into account my notes, your comments and my free time in the next months.... I realized that this is version 1.0!!!! :-)

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

I will be always pleased to receive your feedbacks,

mad4j

September 22, 2013

^

Me neither. I'll try it out on my Harmony later though.

PS: Is it just me or does Ms Snake have more than a passing resemblance to Daisy Duck?

Yes, very similar :-) updated the first post of this thread with the cover art!!

I'm updating the titlescreen animation... version 1.0 very soon!

September 14, 2013

Thanks for the update! I just ran the binary using Stella but there was no animation on the title screen. What is it supposed to be doing?

eyes closing... but I think that I will update the title screen soon. D

September 14, 2013

Not at all. The 2600 is normally only capable of drawing flawless 48 pixel-wide arbitrary images with players. Wider arbitrary images require other trickery, such as flicker or external hardware assistance, and the 96x2 minikernel uses a form of flicker; here's the comment on the 96x2 minikernel from the manual...

To display a bitmap this wide, this minikernel employs a flicker technique called flickerblinds. While flickerblinds is not as objectionable to most people as regular flicker is, it can still be distracting.

Nothing easily done to do exactly that. You'd need to insert 2 color changes into very specific parts of the kernel, and it's already pretty full.

If you're not using the other player, I think if you use NUSIZ# with far copies you can make a border out of the player by positioning it at the far right border and allowing screen wrap to draw the copy in the left border position. IIRC the positioning for that technique works out right, or very close to right.

Thanks,

very useful clarifications.

I will try to use the second player in order to add some colors.

See you soon,

mad4j

September 14, 2013

Hello!

a new release of Ms Snake! and few questions.

In this release:

1. High scores

2. Animated title screen

3. Support for NTSC and PAL (use BW/Col switch)

Then two questions for forum gurus:

1. Using the 96x2 minikernel, I'm getting flickering and wavy lines. Am I doing something wrong?

2. Is there some dirty hack that made possible to draw the first and the last columns of the play fields with different colors?

It will be very cute if border and snake may have a different color (but, of course, they are both rendered using playfield pixels)

Thanks to all for compliments and suggestions.

Daniele

ms-snake!-0.2-NTSC-PAL60.bas.bin

August 26, 2013

Released Ms Snake! v0.1-NTSC:

fixed scanline count and colors (only NTSC at the moment)
tuning of snake speed
new drawft of titlescreen

See you soon,

mad4j

ms-snake!-0.1-NTSC.bas.bin

August 25, 2013

Anyway, I suspect in this case an older bB was version was used, but I'd like to confirm. While trying to reproduce the issue (I couldn't) I found another pal timing issue and have fixed it up in my private source. Now I'm just waiting for confirmation of the version used here, and hopefully source so I can double-check things before releasing the new version.

Hello, I'm back!

I'm supposing to use bB1.1d, but probably I'm messing up with my local compiler configuration because this is the version reported is

batari Basic v1.01 (C)2005-2007
2600 Basic compilation complete.
User-defined score_graphics.asm found in current directory
DASM V2.20.07, Macro Assembler (C)1988-2003

Anyway, in order to prevent you from wasting time, I've prepared a small example that reproduce the problem (see title_demo.bas).

When compiled using PAL and the no_blank_lines options then Stella reports a steady 311 scanline count (see attached snapshot).

I hope that this will be useful.

Anyway, regarding Ms Snake! I will switch soon to NTSC/PAL60 as promptly suggested.

Thanks to all,

Daniele

title_demo.bas

August 23, 2013

This is great! I have been waiting for a snake game. Here's my high score.

Wow! I really appreciated.

Just one question, I'm interested in different opinions.

You will prefer:

a simple/classic scoring system (1 eat / 1 point)
something more sophisticated (e.g. increasing points accordingly with Ms Snake speed/length)

Thanks,

Daniele

August 23, 2013

It is a PAL game, but is 311/312 OK?

Oh yes! it is compiled as PAL.

I was just reading the interesting post that you made reference.

Using the first method "The Fast, On the Fly Way", I'm obtaining something similar to the attached snapshot (311 or 312 counts). is it correct for a PAL video.

If you may help me, for an NTSC version I need:

change the
```
set tv pal
```
directive
adjust the colors

Right?

Thanks a lot,

Daniele

August 23, 2013

yes, of course! it may be useful!

Thanks,

Daniele

ms-snake!.bas.bin

August 23, 2013

Dear all,
I'm pleased to announce the availability of the first playable release of Ms Snake! my first homebrew game developed using Batari.

It is a remake of the classic Snake.
It is very simple and tested using Stella on Windows.

Obviously is not finished, I'm working on:
1. Graphic of the Title and Game Over screens [DONE]
2. Scoring system [DONE]
3. A second element in the game logic (aka Red Spider) [REMOVED]

It's my intention to complete the game before this Autumn.
Meanwhile I would be very happy to receive your feedback and suggestions

added v1.0 releases