Glenn Jupp

In a topic from a couple years back there's a scorpion sprite for the vapourous 2600 port of Dragon Warrior. Kinda like the one from Cave In, but cuter. Tawa pona

I just got one of the semi-recently mentioned TV Scoreboards from Radio Shack, the model with the "don't point that at me" light gun. Trouble is the gun registers everything as a hit. Haven't opened anything up yet. Any advice on what to look at first?

Hey S.M.S. don't give up yet. Try signing up again. Could be your application got lost in the mix-up.

Now don't everybody start fretting about "The List," 'cause I didn't sign up until the evening of Oct. 3rd but afternoon the next day I got "The Reply." So relax. 250 is more than it seems.

The other night I mucked about with Adam Tierney's sprites for a bit and came up with this: Yeah, I know, the "iconic" version has been abandoned for the "rotoscoped" version. But it's cute! Anyway, I asked LeGeek about converting rotos and he said "go for it" (thanks). So stay tuned, but don't hold your breath.

Atari-fied approximations of blood curdling screams and bellowing roars. A big thump of a dead wumpus hitting ground. Maybe add in a musical victory fanfare (or funeral march, as appropriate). You can hear for yourself "Real Soon Now."

I hadn't thought to research audio games. Some interesting stuff there. Anyway, I don't think splashing about in puddles will be necessary. I'm just going with a 6x6 grid to move about on. Seeing as how the pit will stay in place, and the bat moves only if you move into its square, those should be landmarks enough. Many more reference points than that and you might lose any chance of getting just a little bit lost (part of the challenge in the game play, I think). In fact, I've been wondering about ways to make the map grid a bit more funky. If you look at the original Wumpus programs, the caves get rather peculiar. You're moving about the vertices of a dodecahedron, or along a mobius strip, or stuck in a big loop of one-way caves. This was all because the programmer was sick to the teeth of boring cartesian grids. Making the map grid toroidal is easy, and perhaps too simple. Funkier would be some kind of mobius torus (go off one edge in column/row X, reappear on the other side in column/row 6 - X). Or maybe the top edge connects to the left edge, and the bottom to the right. No random warping, though. That would just be annoying.

There was a demo text kernel for batari Basic in this thread... http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...73251&st=50 If the screenshot isn't enough for you, then download the binary, pop it into your favourite emulator, and have fun screencapping some venetian blinds text.

Got a 7800 (as a spare if the magic smoke should escape my 2600jr), Genesis CDX, Saturn, and Xbox 1. Also, I'm in imminent danger of getting a Dreamcast.

Just want to add some more abject pleading for 4A50 bankswitching in bBasic. After all, you can never have too much memory to waste...

There a few other, non-bBasic sound tools to be found: Sound X by Ed Federmyer Sound Paddles by (I think) Jim Nitchalls and Dennis Caswell Frame Timed Sound Effects by Eckhard Stolberg I don't think these are on the big list here. You might have to scrounge around your other favourite rom sites for 'em. Sound Paddles is fun, one paddle for the waveform, the other for the pitch. It's like fiddling with a wonky radio. But Frame Timed SFX is my favourite. Sequencing quick changes in waveform and pitch can give some nice effects I'm finding. Very useful for this no-visuals Wumpus Hunt game I'm working on.

Thanks fer posting that. I know there was talk of such a thing, but I didn't recall if it had actually been done/posted. And yah, it is hex, but I meant to say that you'll have to convert from hex to decimal in head. Of course, proper programmers should naturally think in hex instead of decimal (and real programmers should think exclusively in binary). Or something like that...

Maybe the eveil, blood-sucking sword could feed of the player's HP only on a miss. It's gonna get blood from somebody! Or maybe it takes HP every attack, but damage done to the enemy is added to the player's HP, or perhaps just a portion of the damage done (half? quarter?). Or give an option each turn to sacrifice HP for a better chance to hit, or do more damage, or both.

Now that I've thought a little more on it, another way to go would be to use a SCORE.ASM routine that's modified to display the full hexidecimal set (0-9,A-F) and then work with the three bytes of the score (sc1, sc2, sc3). Could show a whole 'nother byte that way. But then you have to do that crazy BCD (my new favourite phrase) in your head.

Sure. When your program starts, set the score so it matches your sprite position (eg, playerx=40, playery=30, score=040030). From then on, when you change the sprite position, change the score at the same time (eg, playerx=playerx+2, score=score+2000. playery=playery-1, score=score-1). Just let bBasic do all that crazy BCD for you.

Nice. Makes me wish I had a 7800, and a version of batari Basic for the 7800. Been mucking about with Eckhard Stolberg's "frame timed sound effects" program from the old Stella list. Things are going slower than I'd like, but stuff is happening. I'm wondering if/when I should start up a topic in the bBasic sub-forum, or maybe the new bug tracker.

Sounds for a Wumpus Hunt: The Wumpus - sure you could stick with growls and bellowing roars. But as described to me the Wumpus has big suction cup feet to keep it from falling down The Pit, so smacking, popping sucker sounds would fit (though they conjure up a mental association with Steve Martin in "Roxanne") The Bat - high pitched squeeks and clicks, the rustling of a huge wing The Pit - hmm. What does a hole in the ground sound like? Is there a breeze blowing over or out of it? Maybe water is dripping into it, with long faint echoes. Or maybe any noises made nearby get the echo treatment. The Hero - footsteps, in at least two varieties for walking straight and turning in place. The twang-thwip of firing an arrow. Well, and bumping into a wall, falling down the Pit, getting carried off by the Bat, getting mauled by the Wumpus. Totally open to further suggestions here. Oh, I had a go at a quick and dirty scent tracking test. It's gonna take a load of fine tuning, but it looks promising.

Turning on a fan or air conditioner or cracking open a window might create a breeze, making the scent travel downwind instead of spreading out evenly. If the heart rate is high (from exertion or fear) it makes sense for the character to sweat more and lay down more scent. But if they're calm and staying still, that one map cell would build up a heavy scent. Dunno what tactics all this might lead to, but it'll be fun to find out. Depends exactly what kind of game is made. Establish one or more goals, like escape or kill all the Wumpuses / Gremlins / Spawn of C'thulhu or some kind of noble-sacrifice-to-save-the-world-clichè-that-I've-seen-one-time-too-many. (Me? Rant? Naah.) On the other hand, there is the great tradition of old games that just keep going on and on, getting faster and harder until game over. The win comes in bragging in the High Score Club. Honestly, I expect I'll try an endless "pitch black wumpus hunt" first, as an experiment or warm up before the big event of a survival horror adventure with a definite ending.

I think it would depend on how it's done. Say each cell of the map grid (RAM hungry, I know) stores a scent value. A certain amount of scent is laid down in the players current cell. Each turn or step, the scent in each cell decays and/or propagates to the neighbouring cells. A player could choose to "lay a trail" off in one direction, hang about there, then double back. The Wumpus / Freddy Kruger / Kandarian Demon might follow the trail to the scent laden area, then get lost there for a while. Maybe. Gotta work up some code to test out this idea. Perhaps different monsters might each have a different sense to use? Or game difficulty would determine which sense the critter gets?

Dungeons of Daggorath! Yes, thank you. I'll have to "research" that one. Two joysticks? Hmm. Wouldn't be able to use the AtariVox then. Maybe just one joystick for moving, the fire button as a general action button or reach out if you're not holding anything. Use the select or reset buttons on the console to cycle through items that have been collected. Except that carries the risk of jostling the console/cartridge connection, and you're left with random vertical lines and screechy noises. Speaking of AtariVox, they will be available again soon-ish, right? Umm, just noticed A Sprite mentioned the 5200 originally. You're not too picky on that point, are you? Ooh, I was wondering about having the Wumpus / Psycho Killer / Brain Eating Zombie track the player by senses other than sight. If it relies on sound also, then the more you move, the better it can track you? Or maybe it follows a scent trail?

Panzer Dragoon got me. Got the first two off the shelf. Pre-ordered PD Saga first chance I could (good thing I did, else I'd have to pay a stupid amount for it now). Even pre-ordered PD Orta when I didn't have an X-box. Hell, it was years before I did get an X-box to play it.

Wow. It's "Hunt the Wumpus," but with sound only. Without getting too ambitious, something should be very doable on the 2600. The heartbeat thing is a good idea, and one that tickles my memory. I think a Tandy CoCo game used a heartbeat instead of a health bar or hit point counter. Gotta look that up. Control wise, I imagine it would be too easy to get lost in the environment if holding down the joystick gives continuous movement. Maybe make one push on the stick equal one step or turn? Even with the 2600, there's been experiments and demos with samples of digitized sound. Beyond my skills though. I'm only at the batariBasic level. PIxelboy, maybe display some simple indicators, and even a screensaver. But I think giving more information on-screen than through the speakers feels too much like letting the sighted players cheat. Gotta see about converting my 2600 to stereo sound. Hmm. Well, A Sprite. I think you've got me hooked here.

Well, I've got a 2600 Jr. Rev. A, a pair of CX-50 "keyboard" controllers, and a Krok. Your sleep 196 test semi-works on my gear. The rightmost column of each pad reads just fine. The first and second columns don't read when a single button is pressed. Holding down two buttons in a column will get one of them read. Maybe. Got a sleep 348 version you want tested?

'Cause I'm just so effin' considerate I give you Chess Clock, the PAL version. chess_clock_pal.bin

It's not a game, it's an application for people playing a game. Chess Clock! Each player uses their joystick to set their time (MM:SS:FF - minutes, seconds, sixtieths of a second), press fire when it's set. After both players are ready, press reset to go back or select to start the countdown for red/left player. Each player hits their fire button when they've finished their move. When a player runs out of time, the buzzer sounds and they lose. Then press reset to start all over again. Hours of fun (especially if each player sets their time for 99:59:59). Thanks to Batari for sorting out the std_overscan.adm so this looks all neat and shiny on my cranky 2600jr. BAS and BIN attached. EDIT: Fixed a bonehead mistake that let those wicked, no-good, cheating players pause the countdown by holding down both fire buttons. chess_clock_1_1.bas chess_clock_1_1.bin