Just Jeff

Just wiped it all out again, found the 6.4 extension and installed it and got a brand new copy of 3.0 as you can see here:

Thanks I just tried it. Still not right though. Here is a screen shot of two instances running at the same time. The one on the left is launched by double clicking the .asm file, the one on the right is launching from my start menu (see two blue buttons). The one on the left is now showing 6.4 but will not allow me to enable the extension (see only one blue button). And judging by experience, if I uninstalled and re-installed, I would end up with 3.0.

Oh yeah.. That's one of the first things I did. I have made a little more progress though. If I launch VSCode from my start menu, it loads the 6.4 extension. Then, if I open files from within that instance of VSCode, they will use the 6.4 extension. If I go to my .asm files, however, and open them, it uses the 3.0 extension. I've tried file changing the association to Word Pad, then changing it to the newly reinstalled VSCode but that doesn't work. It will bring up the 3.0 extension.

OK so it worked yesterday but today it stopped: Uninstalled and reinstalled the extension and it went back to 3.0. It really likes 3.0. The "Install Another Version" in the drop down assures me that 3.0 is the most current version. Notice the 0.6.4 is grayed out when enabled, and the 3.0 one is not. N

Thanks I did get it worked out. I resorted to trying to uninstall VS Code, but it wasn't appearing in Add/Remove programs. So I download and just installed it again without uninstalling. But when I added Atari Dev Studio, the same exact thing happened, I ended up with 3 again. But I noticed a reload button at the extension area that I hadn't seen before. I was aware of the reload requirement, but assumed it meant restart VS Code. Anyway hitting the reload button took care of it.

Mine is stuck in the past. Does anyone know how to overcome this? It won't update. Says 3.0 is the newest available. I have even uninstalled it completely and installed 6.4. But when I install it, I get 3 again: Note 6.4 is found After a restart and install of 6.4, 3.0 is what I end with.

Polishing continues.. New .bin attached. Now with: Hints. Turned on by default (difficulty switch set to novice mode.) Change either difficulty switch to expert to disable them. The hint routine detects movement, and has a random delay so if you need a hint, you'll need to stop moving the joystick for a few moments. PAL Colors. Hold the Reset switch at power-on to enter PAL mode. Games 3, 7, and 8 now re-shuffle when you run out of moves instead of ending in a confusing "Yeah you are way ahead of the other player in points, but you lose" situation. Advancing to the next level on 3, 7, and 8 is now time based instead of score based. Screen Saver. Score colors included now in Attract Mode. There is now a delay at game over so you can give a quick look that you did in fact, run out of moves. Game 8 no longer has a score for the same reason as bullet point #3 above. Its simply a color-matching block battle to the death. Yeah I also had difficulty telling the two apart so I adjusted the green one notch only. If you go too green its starts looking dull on CRTs. This issue arose because the gray was tweaked when the second player was added because the white cursor didn't show up very well on gray and yellow, so both were darkened for contrast. We ran out of ROM after the first couple of items in that list so optimizing has become a requirement to add just about anything since. 2 bytes ROM, and zero bytes RAM are free at the moment. Three improvements mentioned in the last show are still outstanding. Other that that, they all were implemented. I believe we agreed with every one of the suggestions/comments. The three outstanding comments/ideas are: Games 2 and 6 don't show the timer Special sounds for different types of matches Progressive sounds for multiple matches And of course, Jeremiah and I have a list of about 20 more. These may or may not get in. Its getting harder and harder to optimize and some of the recent implementations above should probably be improved- for example, difficulty switches for player 0 and 1 should operate more independently and the game over time delay should probably be longer. Also, it happens also when you first load the game so you see a black screen. Thought it was pretty cool at first but eh.. maybe not. main.asm.bin

Right... Free tools, cheap computers, and people around the planet standing by to advise if necessary. On top of that, I still can't figure out why they so often had only one person working on the code. Pay $10 million for the rights to ET, but only one guy writing code? I don't get it.

Well its been a month so why not post an update? We've been working on adding new features and optimizing. As a result the program size has more bytes left (150), while new features have been added: On level 8, an additional gem color is introduced at level 5 for some increased difficulty. Also on game 8, as the level increases, each match has greater value on the progress bar, which reduces the matches you need to be ahead to win. Much larger rewards for large matches. Basically 10-fold increases for longer matches and to a lesser degree, multiple matches. There's even a million point match. Game 8 (Head to Head) reshuffles if you run out of moves now, instead of game over. There is a game-over sound. Games 3 and 7 have faster decreases in the timer bar as the level increases. .bin attached main.asm.bin

To slow down by 50%, add a frame counter, then AND it with #%00000001, then execute moves only when bit D0 is equal to either 0 (or 1 if you prefer). I would start with slowing the horizontal speed first since having half the resolution of the vertical makes it move twice as far with each increment or decrement. Something else that is making it difficult is the edge boundaries being right at the front of the paddles. Maybe put a little more slack in there.

Not explicitly what you specified, but Excel with conditional formatting and formulas is what I use. Just put 1s where you want bits, and then copy whatever is output on line 73 and paste in the code.

I think so.. yeah. The yellow is close too.

Alright the show went well. You can watch it below. Also, the latest .bin is attached which also incorporates one of the suggestions- different colored cursors for each player. Player 1 is white and player 2 is black. And finally, another updated task grid, freshly loaded with new suggestions below. main.asm.bin

Hmm.. Did it without thinking.. Yes, one of the most stressful things for me to discuss is "Player 1". What do you mean!!! On another note, we're tweaking the game some more and will post it after the show tonight.

Head to head (game #8) is done. Player 0 adds to the progress bar, player 1 subtracts. Whomever makes it go all the way to their end, wins. .bin attached main.asm.bin

The 2600 can do a close approximation of this game fairly easily. I would recommend that you just learn how to draw the screen (without worrying about the gameplay yet.) After that, adapting your existing assembly code won't be too hard. There is a very, very basic tutorial here: https://www.atariage.com/2600/programming/2600_101 If you want, post your existing code and we'll take a look at it. Also, I recommend using VSCode for writing. There's a nice Atari extension that recognizes everything, and you just hit one key to compile and launch in Stella.

I updated the task grid and hooray!! No more column 1 items and only 3 column 2 items.

Good Afternoon, We have a complete game at this point- which is not to say we are done, exactly. We have 136 bytes left and intend to add things we and others think the game could use. Jeremiah added fdr4prez's suggestion of indicating number of moves left. The progress bar (now at the top) will be green when you have 3 or more moves left, yellow if you have less than that, and red if you've lost. He also added the falling sound when the empty blocks are being refilled and did a lot of optimizing. I finished up the game versions and did kernel work as well. Here are the game versions: 1- Standard single player game 2- Timed version. Currently set at 35 seconds. 3. Battle the status bar. Status bar decreases with time, but when you make a match, it increases. If it runs out, you lose. If you fill it, you advance to the next level. 4. Standard two player game. Finish a screen, then its the other player's turn. 5,6,7 are two player versions of 1,2, and 3 where both players are playing simultaneously and cooperatively (not competing with each other) We'll probably be adding a head to head version similar to game 3, but instead of battling time, players will battle each other. Feel free to make suggestions and enjoy! Latest .bin attached below. Game 5. main.asm.bin

Ah.. Interesting. Thanks

Ok Thanks. I figured. One more question please.. Is there any value differencebetween these two?

Is this a thing Intellivision did, or did some kid just put these on there?

I like those ideas a lot. We are limiting this version to 2K just for fun and only have 130 bytes left with more 2 player code to do so maybe we can consider it, maybe not. Or maybe the 4K version if we do one. You can see the number of matches found is tracked in $de. Counting manually, I find 13 just like it says. (FYSA The cursor square is red)

We've been working on some behind the scenes stuff and started to work on game variations a little bit. If you play the attached version, you now use Stella's game reset button to start. You can also use game select to play a timed version. Game 1 is the standard version, and games 2 and 3 are identical quick timed games at the moment. Only 35 seconds required for those busy players who are constantly on the go. Note: there is no possible way you will be able to beat my stellar score of 320. main.asm.bin

Good Morning.. We let the BBlocks "Seeking Advice" link above die out and started a more specific thread where we've been posting updates. Its pretty far along now: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/308157-wip-bblocks-bejeweled/

Good Morning, Here is the first successful try at game-over detection. It simply changes the background color around the score to red when it has determined you lost. Its green when it detects a possible move. It seems to work well, but its a lot of code that will surely be rewritten one way or another. (Only 39 bytes left of the 2K) .bin attached. Apparently I've been playing this game all wrong. Trying to lose, I've been achieving my highest scores! Updated grid shows only 2 items left in the left column, and those are fairly well progressed. main.asm.bin