Dionoid

This is a work of art! Amazing to see this on an '2600. I have problems navigating up and down the menu - it seems to go way too fast. I think you probably want to check if the joystick was released before going to the next menu item.

Thanks for sharing this code, @Omegamatrix! I like your trick of changing the stack pointer to COLUBK and then using a single JSR instruction to set both BK and PF colors. And luckily the chosen colors look similar on both NTSC and PAL! I also see that you're using TIM8T as automatically decrementing index in the graphics data, which is a cool trick that I never saw before. This is my analysis: because each scanline is 76 cycles, this means that reading INTIM each scanline (76/8) will give you a decrement alternating between 9 and 10, which you have countered by using 3 or 4 free bytes in the gfx tables. Am I correct?

Does this mean that the BoulderDash demo is now supported?

Nevermind... I just saw Ninjish Guy, which clearly uses a sine table or something 🙂

The graphics look great and I love the ‘rewind’ animation when you die! Did you try using a sine table for the height of the jump? IMO that would make de jump animation look more realistic. The easiest way to implement this is by keeping an incrementing index into a sine delta table. (to generate sine values: https://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/Sine-Generator-Calculator.phtml)

Your explanation of ORG and RORG is really good! The code example below 'Making use of the extra ROM' was a bit unclear to me (like the purpose of 'inc $80'). I think a real example would probably work better here.

The Harmony Encore is great; you won't regret it. And my next game (Tower of Rubble) is actually going to support the 7800 pause button (if you buy the cart-version that is :-).

Great feedback. Added to version 1.1: Introducing the new "1 player pro" mode, where the beams are random and there's no difficulty ramp-up; complete chaos right from the start 🙂 In two player mode, the number of seconds passed are now shown at the top of the screen. The score (e.g. "2 - 3") is shown when one of the players dies. Get the rom from https://atariage.com/forums/topic/286275-tower-of-rubble-2600-dionoid/

Indeed the cart release is going to have Savekey/Atarivox support. And it will also allow you to pause the game using the PAUSE button (Atari 7800) or the COLOR/BW switch (Atari 2600). Just something extra for the folks who buy the cart 🙂

I could add an additional "1 player hard" mode, in which the beams are random and there's no difficulty ramp up. Does that make sense?

Thanks, I appreciate that a lot!

Thanks! At the moment we're working on the manual text and artwork for the cart; it's going to be really cool. About the random vs. predefined positions and occurrences of the laser beams: I understand your concern, but I found that only in the beginning (up until around 100 seconds) I'm able to sort of "recognize" situations, while I still have to position myself strategically on the tower and respond to the laser beams constantly. After 100 seconds, it gets very hard to memorize situations, while it is probably still possible if you play the game more often. And IMO the benefits of a predefined game are: Everyone plays the same game, so it's fair to compare high scores (as everyone got the same laser beams in the same order) There is guarantee (by me!) that it's possible to survive on the tower until the score rolls (9999 -> 0) It's easier to help people solve a particular situation. Like someone in this thread was saying that he/she couldn't get past a score of 96; now it's possible to provide some guidance there, as the situation at score 96 is known exactly. If you want to break the high score, you could try to memorize difficult situations where you should maybe make a counter-intuitive move. E.g. at 392 seconds you have to jump to the small island on the right, because on the big island there will be no escaping the laser beam (just making this up, by the way :-) Anyway, just have a go with this version and please let me know if it works for you.

Final version 1.0 was just released! Get the roms from https://atariage.com/forums/topic/286275-tower-of-rubble-2600-dionoid/ New in this version: Somewhat brighter colors in the PAL version, to better match the colors of the NTSC version In a single player game, the different laser beams now appear in a predefined order and location! To ensure the game is playable till the end, I played the game for >4 hours in the Stella emulator until the score rolled (9999). I didn't count the number of times I died (it was a lot!!). By using Stella's time machine feature, I could rewind the game right after I died, and in all cases could prevent getting killed by either doing my move earlier, climbing up instead of down, running left instead of right, or doing the “long wall jump” across a gap a bit earlier or in the other direction.

What a coincidence! 🙂

I noticed that reading the SaveKey at the very start sometimes failed for me (in about 1 out of 10 cases). Maybe it is a problem of my SaveKey, I'm not sure. Anyway, by waiting a few milliseconds after startup (~80 scan lines), these problems went away.

After starting the update, the screen is stuck at showing just the (+) logo until I turn my '2600 on and off again. Would it be possible to return to the PlusCart home screen after an update?

New version 0.9 was just released. Get the rom files from the original post here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/286275-tower-of-rubble-2600-dionoid/ New in this version: Besides pushing 'up' to climb a block of pebble, moving your joystick left/right in the direction of the block will now also climb it. Allows to revert climbs up/down a ledge halfway through the animation. This helps when you start to climb a ledge, but quickly want to go back because of falling pebble. Game now starts showing an actual tower, instead of a flat surface. Added high score Sound effects on intro/practice screen

Excellent update!!! It's great to see the full filenames!

Hi Thomas, that is weird. What you are describing was a problem with the initial PlusROM version of Amoeba Jump, but an updated version was deployed on 3/18/2020 that fixes this. Actually I had the same problem (my PlusCart appeared to be running the old version of my rom), which I reported to Wolfgang. I assumed the PlusCart used a 'cached' version of my rom, but that shouldn't be possible. To be sure I also checked the code of Amoeba Jump again; it should really save the score on each attempt.

I case someone found this old thread: support for the 7800 detection routine (using zeropage addresses $d0 and $d1) was added in Harmony's BIOS 1.06.

... I just tested this on my Harmony Encore, and you are right!!! Thanks Darrell. But I swear it didn't work on my regular Harmony cart before I flashed it to 'single program' mode. Maybe it had an old bios? Or maybe I accidentally tested an older version of my rom?

Thanks for sharing this pause routine, @Andrew Davie I could test it in the Stella emulator, which supports the 7800 pause button. But I also like to test it on a real '7800 PAL and a Harmony cartridge, but no luck so far: If I run the Harmony cart in multi-game mode, the specific 7800-detection zeropage addresses (e.g. $d0 and $d1) are changed (cleared?) before my rom starts. So the routine will detect a 2600 instead of a 7800 machine. When I run the Harmony in 'single program' mode, my 7800 won't start the game at all. Note that it does work on my 2600. Did anyone find a solution for this? (other than actually burning an EPROM) As a side-note: Out of the 10 homebrew '2600 carts I own, 3 fail to play on my 7800 (which are Aardvark, Star Castle Arcade and Thrust+ Platinum). So I guess my 7800 is kind of picky 🙂

By coincidence I found that the Hyperkin Ranger gamepad sends a unique joystick state as soon as it is powered on (i.e. when turning on the console or plugging in the Ranger). If you have a Ranger plugged into the left joystick connector, and at startup you read the value of the Port A data-register SWCHA, you will see all direction switches of the left joystick (upper nibble) are closed and set to '0'; as if the joystick has moved left, right, up and down at the same time. Note that this only happens for a very short time when the Ranger gets +5V power; after that, the joystick readings are back to normal. ;do this on game init lda SWCHA and #%11110000 beq RangerGamepad_detected ; Ranger detected as left joystick ... Not sure if detection of a Ranger gamepad is useful for anyone, however 🙂 Also, a result of the Ranger's behavior at startup is that some games start up differently. E.g. when starting Pitfall, in some cases the timer will count down immediately (instead of waiting for joystick movement).

Two guys on an island throwing bombs, that must be Cannonhead Clash by @bluswimmer

I think that a set of standard "PlusROM API services" would be very helpful to most developers. Keeping the high scores for your game would be a commonly requested feature; Setting up (and maintaining) a backend database + API yourself is probably not trivial for most '2600 homebrew developers. Also, a shared high score board will draw the attention of players and might increase the number of people buying/building PlusCarts. I'm not sure if you plan on selling PlusCarts in the future, but if so, centralized high score boards would help the sales.