Muddyfunster

Sorry @bhall408I've only tested on A7800 and JS7800. I don't use ProSystem. JS7800 is browser based and should work on your mac. I've added to the first post versions for 128k+16kRAM. I've only posted the .BIN, not sure if that is all that is needed to run on Mateos etc. I can add the .A78 if needed Also added a version with the DEVCART switch on, not sure if that's also helpful.

Good stuff, Just to be clear though, the 144k version will only be for the demo, the final release (targeting real cart / physical release) is always planned to sit on a 256k + 16kb RAM cart due to how the game organises all the graphics and screens across the 4 levels (90 or so screens). Appreciate the real hardware testing though, that will be super helpful!

Ok, I think I can easily make a 144k version just for the demo and I'll drop that in the first post later. Hopefully that will work for the Mateos as I know a few folks have those and I really would like to know how things work / look on real hardware.

Thanks @-^CrossBow^- The demo *could* fit into 144k standalone with some minor tweaks I think, but going forward the extra levels mean that the game needs 256k. So it would be a one off for the demo. Does Mateos work with 128K + 16KRam bank schemes? (Not sure what the Mateos can and can't accommodate).

Latest Demo is Alpha 35 (March 2021) and can be found here E.X.O. Elite Xeno Operations. Your objective is to rescue your 4 team members who are all inconveniently being held in different places. How rude. E.X.O. - Inspiration E.X.O is heavily inspired by games like Cybernoid, Starquake, Exile and even Adventure. Flick screen shooter/adventure/explore type games. E.X.O draws on these archetypes, it has shooting but it's not trying to be a 'schmup', it has exploration, it has some puzzles (with more planned), it has a lot of "figuring out" that the player needs to do, to solve each screen and level. It originally started as a "port" of Cybernoid, but I wanted to go in a slightly different direction so after converting some sprites that changed. Controls E.X.O needs a two button controller. (added emphasis!) Button 1 is mapped to lasers (useful for softer targets, mines, probes). Button 2 is mapped to rockets. (default is a "down" rocket, rockets can be flicked upwards by using up + button 2. Up activates thrust / engines. left and right to move left and right. Gameplay & Objective Each level has a generator and a security code. To rescue the team member and leave the level, you need both. Each level also has a hidden artifact and at least 1 hidden room. Switches, room names, etc, can be clues. Artifacts are optional but collecting them is rewarding.. You will not be able to get to the security code until you have disabled the generator and weakened the security systems that block the way. (Generator -> Code -> Exit). Rockets are limited, use them sparingly! replenishment crates are in the latest demo. User Interface in game : Left to right : room name (useful if you find a bug to tell me where!), rockets remaining, lives remaining, security code retrieved, generator destroyed (lights go green when collected/destroyed). Dotted around the level are restart points. = inactive = active If you lose your ship, you will restart at either the beginning of the level or the most recently activated restart point. You will need to learn the map and plan your strategy accordingly. Good luck operative! New for Alpha 35 (March 2021) : EXO is a 512KB binary - Works fine on Dragonfly (Sorry Concerto owners). Testing and working fine under BUP, A7800, JS7800 & Argon World 1 and 2 are mostly complete and playable. Progress is carried over between worlds and can be seen on the world select screen. World 3 and 4 are just samples. Music is added throughout the demo. Some tunes are placeholders, meaning they are being used on levels but will later be used elsewhere. Lots of bug fixes and balance updates New collision system is integrated. Know issues with Alpha 35: PAL movement speeds are wrong, they are a too slow right now. This is high on the priority list to fix for the next demo. Saving and loading doesn't work, its a placeholder for now. Probably the odd bug that I've not yet spotted although lots of base code has been rewritten and bugs and glitches taken out. Road Map for EXO Music! - @Synthpopalooza has flexed his musical muscles and more tunes will be added in the future. Non-linear progression. You can tackle World 1, 2 & 3 in any order. World 4 is accessible once all three team members are rescued. World 5, you need to figure that out More cinematics Instructions, cinematic viewers and status - these will be available on the barracks screen and status will be available "in game" via pause. Timers - yep, for a bit of fun, your world runs will be timed (and saved when you save the game - viewable from the status screen in the barracks), so you can show off your best times for bragging rights. Boss Fights - coming soon. Special Thanks : @mksmith @RevEng @SmittyB for answering my never ending stream of questions and providing great advice. Thanks to @[email protected]^CrossBow^- @Trebor @ZeroPage Homebrew for comprehensive testing and feedback. Media: August Update (mostly new features and stuff coming soon) October Alpha 7 update : World 1 Map 3rd Jan 2021 : tidy up of main post, link to latest demo. Old out of date links removed from first post. EXO_Alpha35.a78

are you using tallsprite ?

That workflow is much easier with 160A sprites as you only have 4 indices and 3 actual colours (+ transparent). With 160B you have more of both so the work flow is more complex. To recap what @SmittyB wrote, you either have to adjust the palette declarations (P1C1=$xx and so on) or tweak the index for each graphic. For example, if you have 2 sprites, you might load them something like this : incgraphic moose.png 160A 0 1 2 3 incgraphic dog.png 160A 0 2 1 3 In the first example, moose.png just has default index settings applied (0 1 2 3) so no changes, it's displaying exactly how I want. In the second, dog.png has the indexes in a different order (0 2 1 3) that's because maybe it's using a palette i'm already using for something else and I don't want to adjust the palette colours (P2C2 etc) to make dog.png look correct because that would screw up the other sprites using that palette (you don't want to start playing palette wack-a-mole), so in stead I swap colour 2 and colour 1 around by changing the index (0 2 1 3) I also found this initially a bit confusing and it is more complex dealing with 160B sprites due to more colours and sometimes the transparency index ends up being moved to something other than 0,4,8,12. Best way I found was to fiddle about with some sprites and palettes. Expect them to end up looking like an explosion in a hello kitty factory while you figure it out but you will nail it. I find I have the least bother with the editor in ADS, more problems with GIMP. I hope that helps at least a little bit. If I get some time, I'll post a blow by blow example using a 160B sprite and my workflow / process.

yup You can also share the individual palettes between sprites, so you could, as Matt stated, have a 160B palette (palettes 0 through 3) but still have a 160A sprite that uses palette 2 or 1. It's fiddly to line that up, but is doable.

160B is really nice but it comes at a price, the graphics take a lot more space to store. If it's just 1 sprite, I adjust the palette to the sprite, if it's more than 1 frame or sprite then I tend to move the indexes to match each. I find setting every colour to something not in the sprite (like bright pink) means you can check that all of the transparency index are right. I then change 1 colour to say white, see where it changes on the sprite and substitute the correct colour. It sounds long winded but once you get used to it, it's not so bad. With 160A it's much quicker due to only being 3 colours instead of 12. The biggest pain is usually transparency indexes going awry.

Really nice start @fultonbot Title screen is very neat and I love that rolling colour effect. In game, the explosions are nice and meaty and when I saw the boss ship, it instantly reminded me of the battleships in Uridium. The text seems to fly past a bit quick, maybe slow that down so it's easy for my old eyes to read

Thanks guys appreciate the quick advice. I confirm a suitable quantity of paperclips

@Karl G Trying to copy your atarivox setup. To connect to Stella, in addition to the AtariVox, I just would need the 2600daptorII but flashed to AtariVox support firmware? Is that just a case of running a flashing program or does it require anything funky like an ST2 cable like early firmware UNOcart? Do I need to grab anything else? Thanks!

Can I reserve $19,$75 for EXO please?

Easy centering of text Sometimes you want to have centered text rather than left justified, like on a menu or something. An easy way to work out the PLOTCHAR co-ordinates : Step 1 - calculate the length of text you want to plot including spaces Step 2 - multiply by the font type (x4 for a 4 pixel wide font, x8 for an 8 pixel wide font) Step 3 - divide this by 2 Step 4 - take this remaining number away from 80 (80 being the middle of the screen) result is your x co-ordinate to center the plotchar. Example. I want to center the text "GAME MENU" Step 1 - length = 9 (8 letters + 1 space) Step 2 - 8 pixel font so 9*8 = 72 Step 3 - 72 / 2 = 36 Step 4 - 80-36 = 44 result : our x co-ordinate to horizontally center "GAME MENU" is 44. plotchar 'GAME MENU' 0 44 0 I've also added an excel and opendoc file that does the calculation for you. These are provided "as-is". Hope this is useful ! plotchar calc.ods plotchar calc.xlsx

You can use almost the same code if you are doublebuffering the display. I found forcing a restorescreen and then a doublebuffer flip worked well and prevented artifacts in exactly the same way as Matt's code. In EXO I'm retrieving screens stored in another bank so I'm going between banks on each screen change. This method eliminates artifacts and colour ghosts (where the colours remain plotted for a frame the same as the previous screen before Maria catches up - it looks "rough" if you have contrasting colours without a dimming routine). Clear_Palette BACKGRND = $00 P0C1 = $00 : P0C2 = $00 : P0C3 = $00 P1C1 = $00 : P1C2 = $00 : P1C3 = $00 P2C1 = $00 : P2C2 = $00 : P2C3 = $00 P3C1 = $00 : P3C2 = $00 : P3C3 = $00 P4C1 = $00 : P4C2 = $00 : P4C3 = $00 P5C1 = $00 : P5C2 = $00 : P5C3 = $00 P6C1 = $00 : P6C2 = $00 : P6C3 = $00 P7C1 = $00 : P7C2 = $00 : P7C3 = $00 clearscreen savescreen restorescreen doublebuffer flip return

Sounds great Matt, looking forward to seeing more.

Very odd, I quickly reinstalled just the VS Code base and everything worked, AtariDev Studio was back. Guess Windows just had a BrainFart(tm).

I went to use the IDE today and got a message saying Not sure what's gone wrong but I'm guessing this needs a reinstall.

I don't think @SmittyB is being negative, he's simply trying to illuminate the reality of the situation. Programming a complete game with high production values can take, without any exaggeration, hundreds of hours of the programmers time. That's before we count any extra time for things like sound, graphics, music. This is why 7800 & 2600 programmers will tend to work on projects that appeal to them and that they choose to work on. This is why it's hard to come along and say "we should make X game" and get any traction. If you are very very lucky and that appeals to a programmer then great! however 999,999 times out of 1,000,000 that won't happen. As Smitty said, take the opportunity to learn some new skills. For the Atari 7800, 7800Basic is accessible and easy to pick up and it's very powerful. If you add AtariDevStudio to that as your environment then you have pretty much everything you need to start to learn to code. I did that a couple of years ago with Batari Basic on the 2600. It's immensely rewarding and super fun. I also think the 7800 could host a very credible bowling game. Good luck with your quest to find a programmer!

@RevEng Thanks for the explanation on the colour artifacts I figured it was something like " "Maria says so!". I was using something similar to Matt's technique to stop artifacts in EXO (dimming down when changing screen across banks to avoid that splash of colour from the previous screen), but I found when I moved to double buffering it doesn't work, I guess due to how double buffing builds the screen. I've not yet figured a workaround, but that's a lower priority fix for me. @mksmith This is great Matt, assume it's ok to share code snips as well for the thread? Would be nice to build up the kind of knowledge base we have for Bb.

This looks fantastic @vhzc I love the art style in all of your games and this is no exception. Looking forward to seeing more of this.

Thanks for the explanations both, very informative and helpful

Thanks @SmittyB That's given me something to think about

I think I already know the answer to this question through trial and error and experimenting but thought it a good idea to pop it hear incase i'm missing a trick I assume that once set, set zoneheight 8 set doublewide on -can not be changed for different screens ? to change something to add some text for in 320 for example I'd use a "topscreen" routine instead? Background : I want to use a nice small font (like "font" or "alphabet_4_wide") for a short status display but I find with doublewide on, this does not display correctly so I have to revert to a less elegant 8 pixel font with chunkier letters on screen. Assume I cannot change these settings between screens, so have the main game in zoneheight8 and doublewide and pause screen in zoneheight 16 and doublewide off for example? conclusion so far is that zone heights and doublewide cannot be adjusted after being set ? Is there any known workaround for this or am I missing something in my understanding of these commands ? Is there a way to use then thinner fonts with a doublewide setup using char tiles. Thanks

@Albert Thanks for the render, it looks fantastic (as usual!). Great artwork from @Atariboy2600 ! Thank you both, it really does justice to how I envisioned the box looking.