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Coolcrab

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    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

    New Version is up! Bugs are fixed :) The score glitch was caused but too many gosubs.

     

     

    Yep, the trees keep scrolling when you reach 362 points so that's fixed. It's good that you can start the game with fire now, this should be a standard for all games IMO.

    The speed progression is nice and the max speed is pretty fast. I like that the game gets frantic fast enough to stay challenging and keep players going.

    The climbing sound volume is also nice now, gives a good audio cue of the game speed without being annoying.

     

    Apparently it's not possible to have no more than 3 branches in a row but it's not that important as it doesn't affect the gameplay negatively. With only 3 branches in a row it might even become too easy.

     

    You're aware of the max speed not resetting after game over and the glitch with the score minikernel so these 2 bugs still need to be squished. ;)

    I'm glad that you like it. The bugs are dead. (Now to hope no new ones are up :P)

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted · Edited by Coolcrab

     

    If you have time, could you check if you can keep up with the new top speed? Its twice as fast as the speed in the last version. I can't survive without using slowdown.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    [Editing auto quoting in the forum seems broken. I guess I'll have to stop using it.]
    v0.19
    I used the slow down to speed up trick to reach max speed, and there seems to be a bug related to this. When you start a new game after rolling under the speed counter, the new game starts at(or near) top speed. This seems to persist.
    I can keep up with the current top speed for a time. It feels to be about one notch below turbo MS Pacman arcade's speed; which is appropriate IMO, as in MS Pacman, you can predict where your obstacles are going to be far in advance of your movements, unlike Monkey King. This type of speed uses up my brain's stamina, and I don't have as much as I used to.
    Using the glitched high-speed startup, my current top score after 3-4 games is 452. Allowing the game to speed up on its own while using no slow downs, I reached 718 on my first try. I could definitely do better with more sleep:-) and practice. The only powerups that I'm using are 'remove branch' and 'add heart.' I tend to lose my last heart to either a coconut, or closely successive delayed(on my part) movements.
    Dodging coconuts at that speed is quite thrilling. =D

     

     

    Oh, I'm probably not setting the 'high speed' bit to 0 when restarting. I'll fix that! So it starts at speed = 255 instead of 75.

     

    But you like the new speed? Is the ramp up good or should it be a bit slower?

    Currently it gets +1 speed for every bleep up to 510, starting speed is 75. (So if you don't slow down the top speed is reached at 435 points.)

    The top speed trick will only get you to 255 speed at the moment (so old top speed) I might fix that.

     

    A slowdown takes down 20, so it does next to nothing at high speeds. I'm thinking of making it 40 at high speeds, just to make it be noticeable.

    Less skilled players would have to use the slow down a lot. Which is not bad I think. Gives you a reason to come back.

     

    Thanks for testing!

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    V0.19 is in the Bb topic, it has a graphics glitch so I won't post it here until that is solved. But Fire button has been implemented as a game starter, the speed can be twice as fast which outright kills me and some glitches are solved. I also switched game modes so that A/A is a multiplayer game that ends when either player dies. B/B is single player endless game. This was done to empathize that its a multiplayer game. (Javatari versions might stay the way they are, just to make it more accessible, but otherwise this seems more logical.)

     

     

    That is more challenging.

     

    attachicon.gifScreenshot crop at 2018-09-06 03-07-27.jpg0.18b

     

    I'm probably mistaken, but I could swear that the AI sometimes fails to pick up rocks, even when I let him 'go first,' and they are directly in his path.

    Damn you are good! I let him walk for 1000+ points on his own and he did not miss any dots. But I'll test it some more.

    If you have time, could you check if you can keep up with the new top speed? Its twice as fast as the speed in the last version. I can't survive without using slowdown.

    I find it handy sometimes to slow down Stella's emulation speed to 10% to be able to catch things like that.

    How do you turn that on?

     

    That's one option, but using the TimeMachine is even better IMO.

    You mean frame back in the debugger or some other function?

    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

    I just played version 0.18b and found a bug:

     

    Every time you reach 362 points the scrolling stops - you can still move your monkey but the trees don't scroll anymore.

     

     

    Glitches are fixed and Higher max speed, fire button starts game, flipped game modes to emphasize its a multiplayer game.

    THere is a small graphics glitch but it does not seem to be game breaking, so I felt OK uploading.

    • Like 1

    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

     

    Unsolicited advice here, but, sometimes I use yet another variable for longer lasting timing needs. I increment a counter variable and at the same time increment an additional counter. I do this at the beginning of my main loop:

    main
 counter = counter + 1 : if counter = 255 then supercounter = supercounter + 1

     

    I was actually thinking of how I could make the game go faster, as people seem to think that the max speed now is very manageable.

    At max _speed it goes 1 pixel per loop and going above that will be hard I think without getting jumpy. Or call the move routine when supercounter =1 and then the normal move to do it twice.

    The question is however how does one get down from this speed? because if its 1+50 and you go down by 30 twice it will be 1 + 245 instead of 0 + 245.

    I guess something like IF slowdown > _speed then supercounter = supercounter -1 ?

    Efficiency is important here as I lack ROM. :P

    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

    I just played version 0.18b and found a bug:

     

    Every time you reach 362 points the scrolling stops - you can still move your monkey but the trees don't scroll anymore.

     

     

    Oops, I see why. Speed goes over 256 and the speed up works if speed > 0. So it stops at 0.

    I'll have a fix up later today.

    RetroN 77 Community Build Image

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    Just installed the update to my Retron and love it. Thanks for putting this together. Since I bent some pins on the cartridge slot I've had to only run roms, and this makes it so much easier.

     

    So I am not the only one! You can get a new one if you still have the receipt.

    • Like 1

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

     

    For starting the game with the fire button just add a delay - ignoring fire button presses for ~3 seconds or so after game over should do the trick.

    Check the batari Basic forum for examples, this was used in a few bB games IIRC.

     

    Good point about the moving sound, i find it too noisy as it is but making it quieter should help.

     

    If you have enough variables and rom-space left maybe make the winning player flash or make him bigger to give a visual cue who won the round at the end.

     

    - Running out of space so have to prioritize. But that would be a good idea if it fits.

    - Uhu, its a bit quieter now.

    - Thats a good idea. maybe change the BG or something. I should be able to do that. (but it would take space away from point 1 :P) I like this more though.

    In the rightdifficulty button A game mode the game ends when one player dies, so you still see lives of the surviving one. In the endless game mode there should be something. I'll try this idea. Thanks. :). I'll try to implement it after work.

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    I just played Monkey King a bit, nice little game! You made some good progress since the version that was shown at ZeroPage Homebrew.

     

    I have a few suggestions:

     

    - Let players start the game with the fire button, that's always better than having to press the reset switch.

     

    - Remove the sound when the score increases. That constant beeping is quite annoying especially when the game gets faster IMO.

    That would also make it easier to concentrate on the coconut sound.

    Or just play a sound for each 100 points reached.

     

    - Maybe don't allow more than 3 branches in a row, having 4 or 5 in a row looks a bit weird and not much like a tree.

     

    Looking forward to see how this one comes along. :)

     

    -It used to start when you pressed the fire button, but I noticed that it often restarted after you died. (thus losing the chance to see the score, etc.) So that might be annoying for people who are going for high scores. its a good one to ask around for though!

    -I can make the sound quieter compared to the other sounds. Its already 60% vs 100%. Maybe 40% is better. But I would like to keep the sounds in, it helps me estimate how quick its moving.

    -I'll look into that. I agree that it looks weird.

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

     

    I like your point about the slow down to speed. That definitely could be a useful tactic in 2 player.

     

    attachicon.gifScreenshot crop at 2018-09-02 00-48-45.jpg

     

    To increase the difficulty, I was allowing my power-ups to reach 'add branch(though the AI was long dead)' before activating every time I would fully refill my hearts.

    My game finally ended when I became too distracted by the video I was listening to in the background. I'm playing with a NES type gamepad FWIW.

    Woow you just killed my record by a factor of 10! :P

    Want me to put you on the webpage?

     

    Also if you want more challenge, play in gamemode b for right difficulty. (So game ends when either player dies) and try to keep the AI alive allongside yourself and see how far you can get.

     

    You can remove the coconuts before they hit him and let him take points to heal up. (He doesn't chase them, but if they are on his path he will take them and if he has 3 he will use it to heal up. Oh and if he has two he will use it to kill the coconut if it falls)

    [final] Monkey King

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    There seems to be a bug with the slow down power-up. It no longer allows you to slow down the game to a snail's pace, but 5 slow downs in a row cause the game to instantly accelerate to a fast pace, at which point it no longer responds to slow downs at all AFAICT.

     

    Otherwise, the power-up progression(now that I understand it:-)) works well. The rocks may spawn just slightly too often however, as careful power-up management now seems to allow me to easily play as long as I wish on AI, endless mode.

     

    Ah, yes- is the remove branches power-up supposed to also remove coconuts? It does.

    Yes the slowdown speedup is unintentional, the variable goes below 0 and then starts out high again. You should be able to slow it down again but you will need about 5-6 of them to get back to the start again.

    (The game starts at speed 75 and goes up to 250, every point adds one speed and the slow down subtracts 30)

    I can easily remove it, but this might be a good strategy to thwart others. What do you think?

     

    I could make the rocks a bit more rare, maybe only in the 1p mode. In 2p it's a lot more difficult if the other player also grabs them. It's very much designed for 2p and hacked to be fun for 1p I would say.

    What was your too score btw? Is it above 748? That's the current high score.

     

    And yes the coconut is supposed to die with the remove branch power. It makes it a lot more useful to carry around.

    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

     

    I made a list of constants you can use instead of raw color values. You can cut-and-paste one or the other for NTSC or PAL60. Of course, this doesn't make the resulting ROM both NTSC and PAL60. But, at least makes compiling either one easy.

     

     rem //** NTSC Colors **//


 const _aqua = $B8
 const _black = $00
 const _blue = $86
 const _dkgray = $06
 const _fuchsia = $58
 const _gray = $08
 const _green = $D8
 const _lime = $DE
 const _ltgray = $0A
 const _maroon = $52
 const _navy = $A4
 const _olive = $E8
 const _purple = $6C
 const _red = $44
 const _silver = $0C
 const _teal = $AA
 const _white = $0E
 const _yellow = $1E
 const _brown = $E6
 const _dkblue = $70
 const _pink = $5E
 const _skyblue = $AE
     rem //** PAL Colors **//


 const _aqua = $78
 const _black = $00
 const _blue = $D6
 const _dkgray = $06
 const _fuchsia = $88
 const _gray = $08
 const _green = $38
 const _lime = $3E
 const _ltgray = $0A
 const _maroon = $82
 const _navy = $94
 const _olive = $28
 const _purple = $AC
 const _red = $64
 const _silver = $0C
 const _teal = $9A
 const _white = $0E
 const _yellow = $2E
 const _brown = $26
 const _dkblue = $C0
 const _pink = $8E
 const _skyblue = $9E

     

    That is useful! Thanks. Although that would require me to know what Fuchia and teal is. But I can look up the color hex in one and compare it to the other.

     

     

    I just got around to trying this out today and it's much more fun than the screenshots led me to believe. This is really enjoyable. Great work so far!

    Thanks! I admit that the graphics are the weak point here. But with the space (and knowledge) limitations it's hard to really up those in a meaningful way. I'll try to make a gameplay video soon-ish and hopefully that will enthuse more people.

    • Like 1

    [Final] Monkey King

    in batari Basic

    Posted

     

    It says "recently, it has been discovered that PAL televisions will play NTSC binaries without any problems except different colors. Optionally, you may prefer to create a PAL60 binary, which uses the NTSC timing but PAL colors. To do so, use the NTSC TV format but specify the colors from the PAL palette" on the bB page.

    Yes I looked at that. How do you set it to pal or NTSC? Is it that little drop-down in the vbb program or do you need to add some kind of code?

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