MobiusAqua

I don't know if anyone's already suggested something, in terms of how to make your sprites animate, but I had a bit of a problem getting the Zelda character animation routine to work with my current project, as well, so what I ended up doing, was ripping that out, and coding in a routine of my own, that works just as well, if not better. And anyone else can use this, too, if they want to. (I plan to release the source under GPL, when I finally finish it -- after I stop procrastinating... ) What I do is define a variable for each sprite that I want to have animate. For my game, I plan to have at least nine: one for player one, another for player two, and seven others, for the seven possible enemies that can be on-screen at once (even though I might have to edit this, the farther down the line I go). For my example, I'll call this variable playeranim. Then, I load each sprite of the animation sequence with incgraphic, one right after the other, so 7800basic loads them all into memory in the same order. Like this: incgraphic gfx/mastersprite1.png 160B 0 1 2 3 incgraphic gfx/mastersprite2.png 160B 0 1 2 3 etc... Once that's taken care of, I set up another variable for each character, that keeps track of how many times the 7800 (or MESS, ProSystem, insert any 7800 emulator here) has run through your game logic routine. So, like, the first time your routine is run, it'll add one to each of these counter variables. The second time, it'll add another, and so on. You can use this to pick out exactly how many times it'll go through the logic routine, before the animation frame changes (I hope that makes sense; if not, I can find some way to explain it better). For example, I'll make a variable I call passcount. Every time the 7800 or MESS reaches your game's logic routine, I'll have it add one to passcount. passcount=passcount+1 When you hit the right number of passes, you add one to the variable you set earlier (playeranim in my example), which keeps track of what animation frame your player character is on. So, something like this: if passcount==5 then playeranim=playeranim+1 If you like, you can go even farther, and reset passcount to zero each time you add one to playeranim (which is what I do). And then, when you get to the line in your routine, where you draw the player character to the screen, just replace the part of the plotsprite command where you tell 7800basic what animation frame you want the game to draw, with the variable you set up, like playeranim, in my example. So, something like this: plotsprite draker1left 0 drakerX drakerY playeranim I hope that makes sense, or helps. If it's confusing at all, I can try to find a way to explain it better.

Desert Falcon was one of those games I enjoyed playing, whether alone, or with my brother, when I got my 7800, several years back. It's just a really fun game to come back and play. For some reason, one of the things I like about it, is the really electronic-sounding noise you hear, when you reach the Sphinx, at the end of each level. I would say it's a "solid game", in my opinion. Ballblazer was really cool, too. I think it's more fun playing that two-player, rather than single player. But I'd say it's a "solid game", too, if anything, for the epic POKEY music. That's also one of the reasons why I like it.

Oh my goodness! Why wasn't that in the original release! Nice!

This looks really cool! I'm impressed by the vertical scrolling in the background, too. It'll be epic to see how this turns out!

This thing is going to be absolutely epic. I can already think of some of the games everyone can make... props, Mr. Vendel! And everyone else who had a hand in it.

A mint dark chocolate bar (which I just finished), a bag of jelly beans, and a little bit of money. I'm already trying to decide what I'll put it toward.

Epic! Thanks for the update. I'll have to check one of my projects for the "shimmer" bug. And a question, if you don't mind: I've heard that the new AtariVox+ has some sort of a sound generator? Will a future version of 7800basic possibly support that feature, as well?

For me, there are three things that stick out in my mind, as being simply amazing: One of the times, probably a few years ago, when I was playing through Star Fox on the SNES in easy mode. When you reach the Andross Space Armada, your Arwing slows down, from going at hyperspeed, and the exact moment the camera zooms through the Arwing itself, to go into first-person mode, this song starts playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KISsTTcbJk8 Also from Star Fox, when you defeat the boss in Corneria, the explosion quiets down, with all these particles flying through the air, and you're rewarded with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLKz8PLC2j0 I could almost feel tears wanting to come out of my eyes, the way that was just synced so perfectly. I'm starting to realize Star Fox on the SNES might just be an incredible work of art. Speaking of works of art, the third one was from Terranigma, a game I only ever played on an emulator. If you've never played it, it was apparently supposed to be the third in a so-called "Soul Blazer Trilogy", with Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia (or Illusion of Time, if you live in Europe), and Terranigma, which North Americans like myself never got to see in cartridge form. At the beginning of the game, when you finally leave Crysta, the village at the beginning, you enter the Underworld, which has this absolutely amazing visual effect, at the top of the screen, to accompany the unique world map, and amazing background music. Here's the song that plays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKAB1V4zTE That video kinda shows the effect, but to really see it in action, watch this: https://youtu.be/Nsb2eFt7BCs?t=19m35s It should start right at the point where you first enter the underworld (at 19:35 into the video).

I'm afraid to ask what you might think of me... I'm 26! (If it helps, I don't feel like I'm 26...) Because of that, my childhood would be the 16-bit era, but I didn't get a Super Nintendo until around... 2004, I think... and a Sega Genesis until 2012 or 2013. Interestingly, when everyone else was possibly playing SNES games, I had a 4-switch woodgrain Atari 2600 hooked up to one of my grandmother's old 13" monochrome TVs. Played that thing for hours, or at least until my legs fell asleep (I sat on a box, lol). Pole Position, Pac-Man (I liked it, anyway), Ms. Pac-Man (would play for hours against only one ghost... yeah, I was that bad against four ghosts! ), Berzerk, Missile Command (used to be afraid of the "game over" sound after a while, or as my dad called it, "total annihilation" lol), among others. I later got a 4-switch Vader, and I don't know if I still have either one, but I do know that both lost a switch, each; one lost its Game Select switch, the other its Game Reset switch. You can guess which one I still played after that. A few years later, probably around 1999 or so, my mother gave me my first computer, and I got really into that. Next came the NES (my cousin had two, and he gave me one, along with TMNT2 and SMB3; my brother played the heck out of TMNT2, growing up, and I've gotten as far as the final battle with Shredder, but I've conquered SMB3 at least once... the game froze right after the curtain went down... lol) Then came the SNES, which is pretty much my favorite console, but I also enjoy the NES, and the Atari 7800. The Atari 7800 I didn't even know existed (I'd heard of the 5200, and then there was a huge leap to the Atari Jaguar, but I didn't know about anything in-between until several years ago, which includes the 8-bit computers, and the ST), until I actually saw one for the first time... and it was like falling in love with the 2600 all over again. My brother and I loved playing Xenophobe (we still do, even though I can't find my 7800, now) and Ballblazer, and I liked to play Impossible Mission (before I knew it was truly "impossible"), and would play Commando every now and again. That's one of the reasons why I wanna make at least one game for the 7800; I feel it has a lot of untapped potential... or there's just something about it, that I can't quite explain... I hope this doesn't sound too weird, coming from a guy who was born right at the beginning of 1989, and missed out on that fun joyride that was the 1980s, even though, if personal time machines ever go mainstream, I'm seriously considering trying to live out 1980 onward.

Hey Baby Climber! Welcome! I like Tetris on the NES, like BigO does, too. I also like Super Mario Bros. 3.

Oh my goodness, those look epic!

While I've never had the pleasure of meeting Bob in public, I've seen his work, even before I actually signed up on here. And let me just say, that had Bob's games been around in the mid '80s, I think Nintendo and Sega would've really had a run for their money. In fact, he's one of the reasons why I wanted to pick up Atari 7800 development, for myself. He seems like an incredible man, both in his personality, and his coding skill. I can understand when things start getting you down, and part of me has a pretty good idea. May the Lord be with him, and give him the strength he needs to get through this.

I agree with the others. You set goals for yourself-- 48KB ROM, so you didn't have to bankswitch, and whatever gameplay and voice samples you could fit into that. And from what I've seen (given that I've only played the ROM -- I'll have to find my/buy another 7800 before I can even think about buying a cartridge), I think you definitely succeeded... as usual, King Friday. Anything else added onto that would just be icing on the cake. But I agree, and definitely with the random things I've been doing with 7800Basic to familiarize myself with it, and trying to actually churn something out, I admit that I've been going back and forth-- mainly, should I do 8x8 or 8x16 sprites? And I also have to admit, one thing I found interesting, was on the title screen, when you hear the "Fighter pilots..." sample, the logo keeps color-cycling. I just thought that was pretty cool, since I thought SALLY could only work on playing the sound, and nothing else.

Pardon me if this sounds like a weird question, but when you say this, does that mean that, when you're working with ROMs that bankswitch, there's always two graphics blocks available -- the bank you're currently on, and the "last bank"? I figured that the code and graphics swap in and out of work RAM at the same time, rather than separately, but I wasn't sure if you had access to two graphics blocks at any one time, or just the active block.

Right now, I can think of two things, off-hand: (1) Either finding my Atari 7800, and if I'm lucky, its power cord, or just buying a new 7800, when I get the money. I'm thinking about the latter, because the "Select" and "Reset" buttons on my 7800 don't work, and those might be nice to have, especially if I ever think about whipping out a 2600 game, or playing one of those 7800 games that uses those extra buttons, and... (2) Making and/or finishing an Atari 7800 homebrew game. I'm also thinking about another console I've had my eye on for a few years, but never had enough money to buy (unless I checked eBay), the ColecoVision. Especially with all the homebrew games coming out for it these days.

I hope it won't make too much of a noticeable difference, but that'll be really cool. It'll be great for the game I'm working on, too. I was curious as to why my own game, Bentley Bear and T:ME Salvo looked letterboxed, yet Frenzy and Donkey Kong XM filled more of the screen. I almost thought there was some secret command.

I have to admit, this is really cool, and I wanted to thank you for making this, RevEng. I was thinking about learning how to code for the 7800, as I had learned a bit of 6502 machine language from a few threads over on NintendoAge, but the DLs and DLL looked really confusing, at first. There are a few things I'm curious about, if you don't mind my asking: first, I noticed a few of your screenshots of files being compiled, that some of the earlier ones say the graphics block starts at $E000, while every single time I've tried to compile a program, it always says the graphics block starts at $F000. Is there a way to start the graphics block at a different address, or would I need to use bankswitching? And second, is it possible to make games use more than just the 192 pixels in the middle of the screen? I've heard you can use more, like up to 240 pixels, I think? If you know what I mean?

I don't mean to make anyone angry or anything (especially if this is kind of a touchy subject), but I wonder... does anyone know how Taito treats homebrew ports/clones of their games? I know someone said something about Space Invaders, which is kinda cool how you can make clones of it (as long as they're not called "Space Invaders"), but what about other games of theirs, like... oh say, Bubble Bobble? I'm tempted to send them an e-mail myself, but I'm just wondering if anyone's ever made a deal with Taito in the past, or just asked "hey, I made this port, is it okay if I release it/make it available for download?" Another thing that scares me about it, is that they're owned by Square Enix, which... has really questionable timing, when it comes to throwing C&Ds at homebrew hacks, and things like that.

Looks like that's gonna be pretty cool!