Cafeman

"Remember I'm working on a Space Invaders (5200 Invaders working title) that represents the arcade version better." Got a web page up?

What game/system are you working on, Albert? (if you are allowed to say). Hombrew or professional product? I didn't know you did that! Just curious.

"Looks like a snes game so far " You hear that Alan?

One of the reasons I put up that page was to get feedback like this. Again I'll say it -- I'm surprised that gamers actually expect it to be a Square! Myself, I understand and I agree with the arguments, especially the NE146's comments about a humanoid player making the game seem more a generic NES clone than a 2600 Adventure sequel. But from what we've discussed already, I can guarantee you that you will unmistakeably know this is "Adventure" once you finally get to try it out. Oh, and I never played Indenture on the PC and I don't plan to. I don't want any ideas from that. I'm playing 2600 Adventure (AtariAge ROM on Stella) as my source material! About the angularity and such -- I noticed that W.R. coded Adventure to throw the player back a few pixels when it hits a barrier. Stuff like that , if taken out, would be noticed and probably missed. Again, thanks for all the input so far!

http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/5200d...Adventure2.html The link above is where all the updates will be. If you are interested (and how could you NOT be?!), please check it out to see the first screen shot. Also, feel free to report back here with feedback & comments for Alan & myself to digest! (_)3 Cafeman

Debro and Tempest, didn't you guys have some code hacked that would allow the boot-up Atari screen to allow year2000+ dates? Would you mind sharing that again?

Atari-Jess, 5200 is coded in 6502 ASM, pretty much the same as the 2600. But the 5200 has the Pokey and Antic chips as well as the 6502 processor, so the coding techniques are all different. I've never beaten the 3rd part to Adventure either. I get lost in the dark, a blinking dragon eats me or a blinking bat takes my key. Then I quit.

I'm not sure what the alarm is about with memory. We have 32K to deal with. The original adventure was 2K or 4K, I forget which. There are a number of ways to reuse data for different screens (like each castle is the same data). I don't believe you need to store all screens in memory either since these simple screens will draw nearly instantaneously. Why all the worrying about memory?

It's definitely NOT a port. It's an all-new game, with all-new mazes. We both want to keep the flavor of the original.

I'm very surprised that people want a square for the main character. If it were up to me I'd take advantage of the 5200 and draw a "man" or "elf" character with animation, using a 2 players, or a player and missile, or 2 players and a missile, for great detail. well, I wanted to say more but gotta go put the kid to bed .. I'll add later...

when I read this topic, I couldn't stop thinking "I do not like green eggs and ham!" Welcome aboard!

quote: Originally posted by Raccoon Lad: Wow, NE146 posted his message at 1:46, shortly after I posted my 146th message. What a coincidence! ==> Wow. that's eerily eerie! If I believed in such things, I'd be playing those numbers tonight. Anything you guys would like and/or expect to see in "adventure II", feel free to post it here.

Environmental Discs of Tron?!! You're going to have a hard time getting me out of that one! Incredible!

Wow, great description! Makes me want to track down this game! I have never seen the game, or the film. I guess I just was into different things back then. It seems like a very deep game, with all that goes on & all the different screens.

Heh, that's a good suggestion actually. We are open to all suggestions! And there are no sprites shown because we haven't decided on a final 'look' to any of them yet. If you have some suggestions for sprites, you can email them to me (for now) at [email protected]

Every time I start to feel even the slightest big smug about my abilities coding this 5200 hardware, somebody bring up something like THAT which makes my head spin .... when can I finally say "Now I have become the Master!" [/DarthVader]

So you are saying that while the game is running, you are going to modify the Display List in memory? Replace 8 Antic E lines with 1 Antic 2 line? Ewwwww...sounds scary! Was this kind of practice done in any games you have seen? If so, why? To 'pop-up' text? Just Curious.

I always thought 5200 Robotron was done pretty well, although I never played it on a real system. (only on emu). You mention Cloak and Dagger a lot. I have never seen nor played this game. Is it an arcade game? You guys sometimes refer to a prototype of this game -- on what system is it supposed to exist again? WHat's the game play like? ------- Myself, I will make (or share in the making) of probably three 5200 games, with Koffi: Yellow Kopter being the first. After that, I doubt anything could motivate me to do a 7800 game since I never was into that system. I assume that nobody makes 7800 homebrews because the system is not well documented?

The game that Ubersaurus describes sounds like Space Panic. Tempest! Giving up 5200 coding so quickly! Well, finishing and releasing Cypher will be nice, give us another ROM to play!

Here is another color question. I recall in Atari BASIC, that I could use Setcolor to (for example) modify a color from Dark Red to Light Red. Is there some way to vary intensity in Antic E, a 4-color mode? Right now I load a #$xx value into a color register. I assume that modifying a certain bit might change the intensity / brightness put keep the same hue? Then again, I never used ANtic E in BASIC.

Since I began coding for the Atari 5200/Atari 8bit hardware in May 2001, I've wondered a few times about the pros and cons of using different Antic modes. For my first real project, Koffi: Yellow Kopter, I'm using Antic E. I chose this mode because it was used for Defender and Joust and other great 5200 action games, and it has great resolution. From what I gather, the pros and cons of Antic E are: Pros -- high resolution -- 4 color mode (as opposed to 2-color modes) Cons -- Uses a lot of memory (not a big issue w/32K ROMS, however) -- Complexity -- due to its memory use, your screen RAM is guaranteed to cross a 4K boundary, which adds complexity to screen-drawing routines and Display List code. -- Lots of memory needed to store your data, and hence lots of time & space used to draw the screens in such a high resolution. 1 Byte = 4 pixels in Antic E. -- Speed could be effected due to longer time to draw the higher rez screen (compare 8bit Antic E Qix VS 5200 Antic D Qix, which is lots faster. I THINK these are the Antic modes that Qix uses; even if I'm wrong, the 2 versions do use different modes and the argument is still correct). CONCLUSIONS -- it seems to me that the gains outweigh the extra hassle of more complicated and tedious coding in Antic E. After all, resolution is very important, as are the number of colors. With DLI's you can change colors every scanline, but if you used a 2-color mode, you'd only have 2 per scanline. -------------- Antic 4 -- this character map mode seems to be the most commonly used mode for 5200 games. For a while I've wondered if I should just be using Antic 4 instead of E. Antic 4 seems to allow more detailed visuals, with each redefined character being comprised of 4 colors, but at the sacrifice of lower resolution (than Antic E). Is this correct? ----- A final thought -- why did coders decide to use Antic E for Joust? Couldn't you do just as good a job with Antic 4? OR could you? Are there any reasons why Antic E was superior to Antic 4 for a game like Joust? My guess is resolution.

Okay Debro, let me know if you want any of my stuff to assist your Antic E project.

Hey Dan, I notice some color values are different from what the article at www.atariarchives.org's chaper1 lists their values as. I notice this specifically when I use a DLI to load a color into Playfield2's color. When I used #$42 (red in the document), it was lavendar for me. When I used #$36 (orange in the document), it was pink. I have not notice any ROMs showing strange colors. Any explanation?

HITCLR EQU $C01E ;Collision registers clear What is the purpose of this GTIA memory address? Also, after detecting a collision, is it necessary to reset registers in any way? My main character is Player0 and Player1, one of the lightning bolts is Player2. I detect if Player2 has collided with Player0 for a death routine, however, it seems that something happens sometimes where the check fails. I can only guess that perhaps Player2 Lighting might have collided with Player1 (part of Koffi character) and set the switch differently; or perhaps something else? [ 10-15-2001: Message edited by: Cafeman ]

C. Shell -- I plan on doing just that. I had hoped this cable was available someplace, and I just have never gotten around to checking Radio Shack yet.