The Maxx

Beta .02 - "blindfold" mode can be set with the left difficulty switch.

Hunt The Wumpus (bB) Controls: Reset switch - Reset the game Fire - Begin game | Prepare Bow Joystick - Move hunter | Shoot arrow Credits: batari, jwierer, iesposta, Random Terrain, RevEng, bogax, jnssilva, snjsilva, (probably a dozen more that I can't think of right now - I'm tired) Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/YbM3wSAezh0 ROM: wumpus beta 03h.bin Other games to check out: Mine Dig: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260288-mine-dig-atari-2600/ Kuru Kuru Tsuchinoko: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260492-kuru-kuru-tsuchinoko-atari-2600/ Danny: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261378-danny-atari-2600/ No Touchy: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/263607-no-touchy-atari-2600/ Or, you can try some of my ancient & crappy graphics hacks: http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=496050 Balloon Fight (Joust) http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=496049 Q*Boing (Boing) http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=496048 Deadly Dogs (Tron: Deadly Discs) http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=496047 Alienated (Space Invaders) http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=496046 Hang-On (Enduro)

Thanks for all the information above. Admittedly, much of it is over my head... maybe as I get smarter/more acquainted with this stuff, things will start to sink in. I went ahead with my idiotic code duplication method and used bankswitching to get 32 maps. I realized while creating the maps that 32 should be more than enough... at least more than I was really interested in making. Haha, tedium! Anyway, here is another oddity I ran into: I had some event code that looked like this: if !fireLimit && joy0fire then arrowRoomNumber=roomNumber : fireLimit=1 : readyBow=!readyBow : sound=2 if !joy0fire then fireLimit=0 The above works in Stella, but crashes the game on real hardware. I was able to eliminate the issue by adding another line: if !fireLimit && joy0fire then sound=2 if !fireLimit && joy0fire then arrowRoomNumber=roomNumber : fireLimit=1 : readyBow=!readyBow if !joy0fire then fireLimit=0 This works on real hardware, but I can't figure out why the difference would matter at all. Any insight? /edit WHOAH, WTF HAPPENED THERE? ... AA forum is being strange. I'll try again Thanks for all the information above. Admittedly, much of it is over my head... maybe as I get smarter/more acquainted with this stuff, things will start to sink in. I went ahead with my idiotic code duplication method and used bankswitching to get 32 maps. I realized while creating the maps that 32 should be more than enough... at least it was more than I was really interested in making. Haha, tedium! Anyway, here is another oddity I ran into: I had some event code that looked like this: if !fireLimit && joy0fire then arrowRoomNumber=roomNumber : fireLimit=1 : readyBow=!readyBow : sound=2 if !joy0fire then fireLimit=0 The above works in Stella, but crashes the game on real hardware. I was able to eliminate the issue by adding another line: if !fireLimit && joy0fire then sound=2 if !fireLimit && joy0fire then arrowRoomNumber=roomNumber : fireLimit=1 : readyBow=!readyBow if !joy0fire then fireLimit=0 This works on real hardware, but I can't figure out why the difference would matter at all. Any insight?

Interesting! Thank you! I actually shortened the stageData for this post. It's more like 39 elements. Building the room data arrays would be a challenge (I wrote a program that helps me build the stages), but the method you've shown here makes some sense to me... I will have to do some testing. ... Hmm, actually, I think I have an idea for how I could write another program to gather elements from the multiple stages built in the editor and combine them to correctly form the data arrays that work with your method. Still, tedious. HAHAHHA. I may need to take a break from the project.

Mmmkay. I have a problem. My game is in a playable state and I am at the point where I would like to add multiple stages. I wrote the code to read a data table to load a map. I was shortsighted and didn't test to see if the method I had in mind would work. Now I am unsure how to proceed. I have a variable "stage" and thought I might be able to load each stage like this: if stage<>0 then goto skipStage0 data stageData 0, 16, 22, 12, 5, 4, 44, 36, 42, 12, 20, 13, 8, 0, end skipStage0 if stage<>1 then goto skipStage1 data stageData 40, 0, 46, 8, 17, 20, 40, 4, 20, 28, 1, 33, 4, 4, end skipStage1 etc... Then I have six events that change variables based on the data. ie. temp2=stageData[9] : temp3=temp2/7 : temp4=temp3*7 : temp5=temp2-temp4 xPos=26+temp5*16 : yPos=24+temp3*32 player0x=xPos : player0y=yPos roomNumber=stageData[roomIndex] monsterRoom=stageData[10] monster2Room=stageData[11] monster3Room=stageData[12] monster4Room=stageData[13] (It's not especially necessary to understand what the code above is for... I just posted it to illustrate how the data is being used and why I wouldn't have to duplicate the events for each data set.) However, as more advanced bB users probably saw straight away, you cannot have multiple arrays with the same name - even if you skip the events that load each array. I was shortsighted and didn't think this was going to be a problem while developing the rest of the game. D'oh! So, I am wondering if anyone has a solution to load a data set based on a variable... and use that data set in a bunch of events without having to duplicate the event code for each data set? I hope this makes sense. ... I did some calculations (and they are probably wrong) by commenting out stage data and load event code. If I could load an array similar to the way I thought i could, I might be able to get around 50 different maps. If I have to duplicate the events per map, I might get 8.

Hello again! I have run out of graphics ROM in my game. Luckily, I have most everything I need. I would, however, like to have an arrow cutscene of sorts. I started messing around with a script to draw the arrow this morning. However, I have a few problems. 1. The framerate is all over the place. I have tried adding an extra drawscreen here and there, but I can't seem to get it right. 2. Stella detects the ROM as PAL 3. The background color changes - probably due to #2 Thanks in advance! //edit// I found some graphics ROM and ended up ditching this bit of code.

While I am at work and cannot check to be certain, I am nearly positive that your answer is spot on. I think I did set NUSIZ0. Thanks!

when I use "const noscore = 1", my missile0 changes size. Is this a bug or known behavior? (DPC+ kernel) The white rectangle is my missile0:

Holy necro-post Maxx-man! I went back and figured out how the graphics were stored in Tron - Deadly Discs. It was kind of bizarre... I wonder if it was some sort of attempt by Mattel to keep pirates from hacking the graphics. The hotdog animations are my own. I might have ripped them from the INTV version, but Mattel chose to squish the enemy players in Deadly Discs and they simply wouldn't have fit. Anyway, I couldn't find the original Deadly Dogs post, but since the hack is already mentioned here, I thought I'd just post it here. Maybe someone will enjoy it: Deadly Dogs.bin

There is also this homebrew: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/77595-my-second-homebrew-bobby-needs-food-finished/ I think Rob Mitchell sold me a Sega phaser adapter. Browsing the forums, it would appear that CPUWIZ has also built a few.

We plan for the cartridge to be available from the Atariage store. CaptainBreakout, a brilliant artist, is working on the label. The man is very busy with a new baby, so it could be some time before the work is completed. He sent me some sketches and it will be worth the wait. Until then... you may be interested in this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Atari2600homebrew/permalink/254971394924034/

I'd nearly given up on adding anything to this one... if bBasic is reporting it correctly, I just wrote in a silly little routine for the police car that bumped the ROM space in the graphics bank from 5 bytes to 1877 bytes. So, maybe I will be able to do some extra stuff. I still only have 7 bytes in the main game bank, but maybe I can move some stuff around and do some funky bankswitching. I'm a little bummed about my other game though... I made a for loop to draw the caverns and it briefly messes up the framerate each time the player moves. I need to sort that one out because I would be thrilled to get it going on the 2600. I haven't been having this problem. Are you holding up while jumping to ollie over the holes? The hamburger will replenish one HP.

It should work on a Harmony (it does on mine). I don't think any of my games will work on the FB portable because I am using the bB DPC+ kernel.

These are all great ideas. My problem is that I have run out of ROM in the graphics bank. I've been wasteful - the cop car is made up of playfield graphics... and it is eating up a lot of space. I could probably draw the car with a table. I don't know... I'm still just trying to figure batari Basic out. xD Who knows... maybe I'll pull my head out and figure something out so that I can add your ideas.

Thanks! That means a lot to me coming from you! Good call. Consider it done. I just posted a new build... it fixes something small that was nagging at me. When I have more time, I might experiment to see if I can free up some of the graphics bank so I might be able to add some more junk.

Hold Right while hitting a ramp for an extra boost. I can see there are a few things I need to tweak. I'll post a new build soon.

Danny (bB) Skate down a road, collect fruit, avoid obstacles, and dodge the police. Controls: Fire - Begin game | Jump Fire/Up - Ollie Down - crouch Right/Left - speed forward, slow down Hold Right while hitting a ramp for an extra boost Credits: batari, jwierer, Random Terrain, RevEng, Richard Ivey (and other FB folks who gave feedback), bogax, Mountain King, CaptainBreakout, jnssilva, snjsilva, anothercollector. Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Atd-TCL0brQ ROM: danny beta .4i.bin Other games to check out: Mine Dig: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260288-mine-dig/ Kuru Kuru Tsuchinoko: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260492-kuru-kuru-tsuchinoko/ Hunt The Wumpus: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/262944-hunt-the-wumpus-atari-2600/ No Touchy: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/263607-no-touchy-atari-2600/ Or, you can try some of my ancient & crappy graphics hacks: Balloon Fight.bin (Joust) qboing.bin (Boing) Deadly Dogs.bin (Tron: Deadly Discs) Alienated.bin (Space Invaders) Hang-On.bin (Enduro)

My second game was received with less enthusiasm than my first and I was thinking about throwing it in the same cart as my first - as an easter egg or something. If my third game doesn't grab much attention I might want to do the same. So, my third game is already out of graphics ROM. However, I think there is likely enough space on a DPC cart to contain all three. Would the graphics bankswitching method above still be necessary if it is a game running from a completely different bank? I am assuming the answer is yes, but assuming gets me in trouble. Maybe there is an easier way?

Thanks again for all the information! The asm stuff is beyond me for the moment, but maybe one of these days I will take a good hard look and start to figure things out.

<edit> Ah, the starfield stuff was in my current folder! Thanks, man!

OH! I think I did install that.

Three more newbie questions: (DPC+) 1. What's up with missile0? Every time I try to change the height, it draws weird diagonal lines. Is there a way to get it to behave more like missile1? 2. Can I get missile1 to be any wider than 8 pixels? 3. If I understand correctly (which is unlikely), all of the graphics are crammed into one bank. I am running out of room in that bank - is there a way to store more in another bank? Ha. Thanks in advance.

This is excellent. I always thought this was a cool arcade game! It has been awhile since I played the arcade, but you seem to be replicating the experience very well. Three things (admittedly, I did not read the rest of the thread, so maybe some of this has been mentioned) 1. Sometimes a worm will walk on top of (and in the same direction as) an ant. This is deadly since you have to eat the ant or you will die, but if you eat the worm you will die. 2. In my opinion, the controls are a little too precise... It seems like if you are pushing down and left... and your tongue is over a hole, it should go down. However, you'll miss it. So I seem to spend more time just finding the hole than should be necessary. I wouldn't be able to read your code, but I'm imagining from some of my own games that it might be remedied by changing the sequence of events - meaning, check if the joy0down/up and reposition the y coordinate before checking joy0right/left. Just a guess. 3. I think I found a bug. I had reached down into the bottom of the anthill when an ant spawned on top of my aardvark's tongue. The death music kind of went into an infinite loop. I know how vague this description is, so I took a small video to show the location of the ant (my aardvark's tongue had nearly, if not fully, reached the end of the tunnel) and for you to witness the music loop yourself. Nice work! This one is becoming so great! (My apologies if any of this has been mentioned before) https://youtu.be/8lnW5LKEhYo

I got my platformer engine working on real hardware today. As it turns out, I needed to set more limits on when different events in the code were triggered. I must have tried 50 some odd things first... I'll work on the skate game next. I am pretty sure it is a similar problem.

Interesting... I switch banks with the platformer, but not with the other two. It makes me think I should set up my Atari next to my PC and test each build on real hardware as I go. Even more strange is that I didn't have this issue at all with my first two games... it's like I get worse as I go... haha! Thanks for the feedback. I will keep playing.