R0ger

Thanks for all the replies, I think I have more than enough to choose from. Do you have some tool for viewing FNT files ? For Atari or PC ?

Since the pot is typically moved like 3 times over the life of the Atari, I would bet on the dirt. Contact cleaner should work.

Well there for sure would be some fixing, but I'm also looking for inspiration, and if I can start with something, it's always nice. And I only need 40 something, not interested in lowercase, and I want to have as much space left in the charset as possible.

That's just statement, not argument. Even in character mode you need to either shift the data or have them preshifted. It could only be faster in some cases, if you could fit all graphics into the charset (or more), and you just modify the VRAM, not charset itself. But that's unlikely in Galaga type game. And once you start processing the content of the charset, you have to manipulate same number of bytes as in bitmap modes. Character modes gives you fifth color. It allows for fast use of the same tiles on several places on the screen, which is useful in platform games. On the other hand you have to deal with bad lines, and they especially complicate color switching DLIs. The code, if you want to have masking and Y positioning, dynamic allocation of characters across several charsets, is pretty complex (but not necessarily slower). Bitmap modes make Y positioning simple, and have no bad lines. The code is generally simpler. You don't need to care about character limits, or charset DLIs. Bit shifting, masking, background processing (either clearing or storing), PMG coloring, all is pretty much same in both modes. I made the bitmap / character mode decision several times for my projects, and it was never simple. Most of the time I choose the characters for the 5th color, if the game allows for it. But sometimes is just not worth the hassle. Edit: yeah, C64 VRAM simulation is also good for char mode.

Why would be bitmap modes "lot slower with soft sprites" ? It can be in some cases, but in general ?

I'm looking for some fonts for my project. Is there some place with public domain Atari fonts ? I mean the standard fonts, 8x8, ATASCII encoding. Or any 8x8 font, reorganizing is not big deal. I'm especially looking for something like Gothic, historic font, but readability over decoration.

Can't you do that only for all channels at once ? Is it used somewhere ?

What do you mean by "correction for the basses" ?

I'm certainly interested even in the unfinished stuff. I would even call for more. It's inspiration. I agree that 'finishing stuff' is special skill, completely different from coding. And it's very rare skill. But saying 'you should not publish unfinished stuff' is just silly.

I personally couldn't care less for parallax scroll. Problem isn't that we don't have enough games with parallax scroll. We don't have enough original games period. The gameplay is priority number one for me. Graphics number 2. Technical features are the last thing. It's somehow interconnected with graphics, like when you find a way to have more colors. But if the games is screen-based, horizontal scrolling, full scrolling, if it does have parallax or not .. that's just icing on the cake.

I'm certainly thinking about platform game. More like fighting / platform combination, something like Bruce Lee or First samurai. But .. I am already working on 3 other games, and I don't want to start fourth. So in 5 years, if everything goes fine. Even so, I don't have ambition for the game to be Sam's Journey big, nor colorful. I have to agree that we don't have good game making community. We have tons of music and demos. Lot of GFX work, under which I put those 'game concepts', ie. games which can't be played but look nice. We also have lot of very good ports. But original games ? Not so much. We don't have much discussion on game design. We don't have much real game concepts, ie. game, which can be played, but only have simple placeholder graphics. We don't have the same friendly rivalry we have in other areas, or at least that's my feeling.

AFAIK Sam's journey does not require any modification, as long as it is PAL C64.

Emkay is emkay, what would we do without him

Well you didn't make such game. I didn't make such game. Neither did emkay. So I guess that's why We might not be able to have games this pretty, but we should be able to have games this much original, this much well done, with this much passion put into them. As for me, it just takes too long. My current game (to be released soon), which is pretty simple, took 2 years to be made. I have plans for way bigger games, but how long is that going to take, no idea. When you doing it in you free time, for free, it will be like this. Maybe the only difference is that on C64 more people will buy the game, so people can invest more time into it.

It's totally possible to make basis of game engine over weekend. Playable demo even. But even then it will take 2 years to make a 100% complete game out of it. That's why demos are easier (it only takes like 2 months after the first weekend)

Well nobody here has full insight into Sam's journey. I've heard it's by far not as simple as moving few sprites, but I can't go into details, as I don't know them. What I meant by Sam's journey is a miracle, is the fact, that a programmer took it as a main job for more than a year, if I understand it correctly. That's unlikely to happen on Atari.

Some info in English is here: http://battleofthebits.org/lyceum/View/Raster+Music+Tracker/ I suggest loading the demo songs, and analyzing them track by track, instrument by instrument. Also you should know that many sounds use 2 channels, either for 16bit frequencies (1+2,3+4) or for filtering (1+3,2+4).

So no game from you ? Not so simple ? Pity .. sorry for misunderstanding.

Well of course, if someone is going to do it on Atari, it's going to be you. You seem to have all the problems solved, it's basically done, right ?

I don't see game like this coming to Atari any time soon. It's miracle it happened on C64, and it has way bigger user base.

Help / Changelog ?

The new system settings will get some getting used to, but in the end it makes sense. Anyway .. I'm here to report the PAL artifact simulation is way better now, I don't know about any problem at the moment. Also the related Adjust color sliders work properly now. Thanks ! Altirra 3.0 - note the white pixels on every second row: Altirra 3.1: colors everywhere ! Real 800 XE:

Can someone confirm the debouncing is really needed ? I know everybody says it is. But we did some tests, and couldn't really encounter situation where it would be needed, tested on like 5 machines, both XL and XE. Is there some more info on it ?

a8.fandal.cz allows search by year too (search in details), and AFAIK has everything.

See first post on this page (page 3): The term "software sprites" just means anything that moves around independetly that is rendered in software rather than using hardware, that can be anything from a single character object moving around from cell to cell like early Jeff Minter VIC 20 games to fully masked, objects with pixel accurate positioning... and pretty much everything in between really. I think that covers it nicely ..