Dionoid

I just tested Stella 6 on the RetroN77, and I'm really impressed by it! No more screen tearing The default scan-line TV mode is perfect Games finally start up in normal 4:3 mode (I still don't understand why anyone would prefer the deforming 16:9 mode) Sound emulation is much better than on Stella 3 My R77 will stay out of its box and is now placed next to my TV set permanently. And from now on I'm calling it the "StellaBox" :-)

Indeed, ledges will only be grabbed when you face the direction of the ledge. So when you're standing on a sinking wall, make sure to face the blocks next you to, as these will become a ledge as soon as the wall sinks into the sea. If this doesn't work in your case, then there's a bug somewhere. Please describe exactly what happens, so I can track down the bug :-)

Wow, this is great! Can't wait to try this out. Can I create any folder to store homebrew binaries? And does this version allow you to choose a TV mode?

Thanks! I'm planning to make some changes so that the difficulty slowly ramps up. I got some helpful feedback at yesterday's Zeropage Homebrew stream.

Thanks for your kind words, Matt! Like I said before, your version is pretty impressive knowing that it is your very first Atari 2600 game. But I think I understand why you've decided to put your version on hold, because as a developer, creating a game from A to Z requires you to sacrifice a lot of your spare time, so you need to make sure it's worth the effort. And when someone else is basically making the same game, it's hard to justify the effort and keep motivated, unless you're either doing it purely for educational purposes, or convinced that your version will be significantly better or different. That said, I think you have proved to master '2600 development in a very short time. That is impressive and I hope you keep programming the Atari, as I'm really looking forward to your next game.

I just added a new version of ToR to the original post, which supports diagonal joystick positions. I think this will make the controls better and more intuitive when playing with a 8-way joystick. Thanks to @fluxit for the feedback and testing.

FYI: Fluxit has sent me a PM explaining the situation(s) where the controls behave different than expected. It turns out to be caused by playing with a joystick and sometimes using the diagonal directions (instead of just left, right, up or down). As I mostly test on Stella with my keyboard, I never noticed this. I'm working on supporting a 8-way joystick as we speak...

Thanks for the feedback! The way this game responds to joystick input is indeed different than most other games. The movement of the little stick figure is actually done with a series of micro-animations; that's why the animation looks so fluid. For example: when you let the little stick man run to the left, you actually see a number of small 'step left' animations glued together. After each 'step'-animation, the joystick input is polled to see if another step-animation should be done (if there is nothing blocking your way, or course) As soon as such a micro-animation has been started (e.g. a single 'step' animation) it can not be stopped halfway; it needs to be fully executed before the joystick is polled again. I think this is where you sometimes perceive a bit of 'lag' in the controls. For some micro-animations it makes sense that you cannot stop them halfway. For example in a jump animation or a single run-step animation, the stick man is actually not touching the ground anymore at some point. It wouldn't make sense to be able to stop a long wall-jump halfway in mid-air, right? But for other micro-animations, like climbing up or down a ledge, it probably makes sense to be able to 'stop and revert' the animation. For example: if you're climbing up a ledge, and halfway the animation change your mind and want to climb down again, ideally you should be able to do this. While the controls in the original PC game also have this exact same 'lag', I might be able to fix something to get better control over climbing up or down ledges. Let me look into this.

That is indeed what the game is trying to do (exactly like the original by the way). There is only one way to escape this....

Hi, I've just uploaded the first playable version of my "Tower of Rubble" port for the '2600. Get instructions and downloadable rom from the top posting here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/286275-tower-of-rubble-2600-dionoid/?p=4181933 Cheers

Amoeba Jump will be released together with a small number of other games in a few months. Probably somewhere in May, but don't hold me to that :-)

I joined AtariAge just over a year ago, so way too late to be able to buy a copy of Boulderdash. And I never saw one on eBay so far. A re-release would be really great. Even a hypothetical re-release makes me happy :-)

Does this mean that TV effects (s-video, composite, etc) could be enabled in Stella on the Retron77? That would make the graphics soooo much better!

Well deserved, guys!!! Are there any plans for a cart release?

Wow, that's an amazing breakthrough, guys!

I had to read your answer twice, Steve.... Wow!!! Does this mean you are working on a SDL1.x port of Stella 6? Or did you somehow manage to get SDL2 working on the device? Or is Hyperkin involved and did you team up? So many questions :-)

Thanks for the kind words! It is my first assembly game and it was a great experience building this. I'm a professional software developer (Java/.NET) and a couple of years back I made a game for mobile phones, so it's not like I was new to programming or game design :-) And of course I got a lot of information from the AtariAge forums when I coded this game!

Anyone knows where I can order an 2600-daptor in Europe? Thanks!

This game is evolving very well! I love the AI you added! Some suggestions: Make the colors for the PAL version more bright; PAL usually is a bit darker than NTSC when using the same color luminance value. Try switching around the sound effects for hits and misses. I'm not sure, but maybe the muffled sound better suits a 'miss'. Don't allow players to leave the screen and enter from the other side. This makes it more realistic IMO. Add an intro screen :-)

I wish I had read this topic earlier I also got an Compumate from ebay (seller from Venezuela) and it has the same problem. Probably a faulty ROM. I contacted the seller to see how we can solve this problem. Let's see...

Nice, this reminds me of International Karate on the C64. This looks promising so far. I didn't have a change to play against two players though. A few suggestions: - Add sound effects for kicks and punches. And a special one for if you actually hit your opponent and score a point. - Add animation (this would make moving left/right more realistic) - Add AI so you can play this in single player mode. Keep up the good work!

Whoa, another developer doing Tower of Rubble for the '2600? No need for apologies, Matt; your version looks and plays nice. Really impressive for your first Atari 2600 game! And it doesn't look like a typical batariBasic game, which is a good thing. Of course using DPC+ allows you to add much more visuals to the game compared to the 'vanilla 6507' assembly port that I am working on. But in the end it's the game-play that matters, and I think you're on the right track here. Looking at the movement of the little stick-man, I think you also studied the original PC game to copy over the 30 frames/second animation, right? I did exactly the same :-) It looks like the Atari community will get (at least?) two good versions of Tower of Rubble to choose from this year. Knowing that good '2600 developers are scarce, it's kind of a waste to have two developers working on their own version of the same game. But on the other hand: developing games is fun, and that's what it is all about. Good to have you in the '2600 homebrew developers community, Matt :-)

Thanks for sharing your brainstorm :-) I want this port to be close to the original, so I'm targeting a single player game. But I agree this would also make a great 2-player game! My plan is to have player0 white (as it is now), and use player1 and missile1 to draw the vertical block-strike beams and hyper-beams in green, which looks better IMO. The side-strike beam is going to use bgcolor indeed. Give me some time to work on a playable version, so there is more to discuss :-)

Finally after 14 years the OP got my answer! However his last visit to AtariAge was also somewhere in 2005.... Basically I was surprised to find out that Atari in US probably mixed up the PAL and NTSC versions of this game, and shipped the wrong ones to Europe. I kind of like these kind of stories.