MayDay
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Posts posted by MayDay
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You guys should check out this thread... and please forgive my ignorance.
And for the record, I was in TN yesterday... stopped at Graceland, it was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. 
If you don't want to read through it, I think the conclusion was pretty much that is possible, but you would need specially designed games in order to play online.-JD
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I've been thinking back to when I posted this originally lately, and thought I would weigh in on this subject again. I've told about my experience before in other places here, but will write it again for people who haven't seen it. I took two semesters of C++ and one of Visual Basic, all about 4-5 years ago. This just covered the basics and with the single exception of loops, has really not helped me. In other words, there is no way I could today (or then, for that matter) program a playable game in either language. I looked up my last test in C++, and it was to make a program that would act as a store inventory and track the amount of x item left for 10 different items. The clerk would type something like "sold joystick" and it would have to track that there was one less, and tell the clerk what if any were there upon command. Very basic, and for all intents and purposes I think it is safe to say "I have no previous programming experience".
I have spent the last few months really studying all the code, books, tutorials, and old threads posted here to try and learn Assembly. While my efforts have for the most part paid off (at least in the sense of my 2600 coding abilities
) I really don't think most people have the combination of time, motivation, and maybe in some cases the ability to do this if they have never programmed before.So the real question is whether or not this is possible. It was interesting to see how different people responded, and I think in some sense almost everyone who did is correct. The short answer is yes, it can be done... to an extent.
The reason a lot of games that exist look similar is because the limitations of the machine forces them to be. So when a new idea came out, other people instantly jumped on that idea and created similar games. You could take a few of these different "genres" (for lack of a better term) and implement them into a code generator. For example, if "multi_sprite_side_scroller" was an option, it could follow games like frogger or freeway. While you couldn't create Go Fish! with this, you could maybe make a game where you are a baby turtle, and have to make it to the ocean (at top of screen) while animals go across the screen looking to "eat" them. Three lives, and you are done. Each time you make one, the game speeds up. Ok, it's lame, but it's still an idea for a similar game.
Other "style" games it could recreate:
1. Combat (was mentioned earlier) could become say "ninja" and flip ninja stars instead of 50 mms rounds (even though they look exactly the same). Or, change the sprites to cowboys and change your joystick to a different controller setting and play a western shootout.
2. Space Invaders... into something.
3. Multi-Sprite scroller as mentioned above
4. Side scrolling game where player is at edge of screen. It could be in space, in the air, in water, in a cave, etc. Once this option was picked, those could be further options. Think Chopper command or Armegaddon! where you have to dodge incoming asteroids in order to land on the main body to blow it up... only you never get there
5. maze games (pacman)
6. room based games (adventure)
I had came up with a few other generic ideas, but these are the ones that stuck. It would not be possible to really create an "ending" to these games without actually coding one in, so the program would need to keep score and or maybe reset itself if a playfield is "finished" or player is killed. Speaking of Pacman clones, probably forget the dots or the ghosts... probably something two player only.
With such limitations, it would be impossible to create anything cart-worthy. I think this tool would have two main uses:
1. create a very simple 1 player only with no real AI or 1 vs. 1 game that someone couldn't otherwise create by actually coding it. They could play it on their own computer or burn it off on a cart for themselves. Since these games are really basic (and would be easilly known to have developed from the tool) they shouldn't really be sold to anyone. Or take your new game and post it as a game pitch. If it's already visible, then you know it is possible and you won't be wasting the time of other programmers with something like this.
2. a development tool for programmers. This would be a super quick way to see what a game might look like and if it is worthy of your further efforts.
I think it's possible and wouldn't be terribly difficult to create, especially if several people worked on it together. One person could create something like the player movement subroutines and this could all be brought together using include files from a javascript creator. It can be done, and I think it would be semi-useful. I'm off to Alabama for up to a week, I'm interested to see what comments will await me upon my return home. I think this would reach a bigger audience than batari's program, but would also not be quite as useful in creating games either. Like everything else, it's always a trade off.
-JD
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A friend sent me this link, which I thought you guys may (or maybe not) find interesting.
WARNING! While this isn't a porn site or anything, it does have like adult website ads or something all around where the video plays. So it probably isn't safe for work or around kids in other words. The video itself is of a trio of teenagers rapping about being the 1337 (LEET) of the video game world from the Atari through today.
-JD
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I got tired of looking at my Dodgeball code yesterday, and started playing around with sprites for this instead. Right now everything except the drakee sprites are limited to 8 pixels, and they are 16. Some I'm kind of proud of (scorpions), and others I just hope people will be able to recognize (ghosts). Anyway, here is an idea of what enemies could look like in a 2600 version.
The dungeon creatures are a little weird, and I put them against black to better show what they might look like. Anyway, feel free to improve my designs or finish the enemies I didn't get around to creating. And since it is just a color change, don't worry about the magidrakee, unless it is a new design. I also have something special in mind for the Dragonlord, so while you are free to play around, keep in mind that if I ever get to this game, I will probably not use your idea for him.
Thanks for looking!
-JD
Edit- I should have included my ideas for the hero sprite as well. Also, the dragons are going to require 16 pixels as well, I was trying with 8 and decided that there is pretty much no way to do them. If you are unfamiliar with DW, here is a link to the enemies in the game
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yep, it's a scam... best "hidden" of all I've seen so far. As for whether or not the information is real or not, that's another question.
Dont let this amazing information slip buy.You are bidding on information on where to buy the Xbox 360 for these very cheap wholesale pricesYOU COULD PURCHASE THESE IN DEMAD PRODUCTS FOR A BARGAIN, AND SELL THEM FOR AMAZING PROFITS.As for the retailers selling them "at price", it isn't going to happen. A "very small" markup is still a relative figure. They take up a large amount of shelf space, so despite their high turnover rate (right now, not in six months), I would say they are making no less than 25-50 per system. The $275 figure this scam quotes is probably a fairly accurate estimation. Most items retailers sell have about 60% of the final price as markup (ie- a 20 dollar item costs them 8 bucks). The biggest single exception to this is Wal-Mart who sells their 1 or 2 lowest priced items in a product (lets say TVs) at or below cost. As you probably are aware, this is just a ploy to draw people there, who rarely purchase this product anyway and will buy a tv somewhere in the middle range that is equal to other retailers, if not being marked up $10 or $20 more than competitors. Thus, most of the time they are selling the same items for a higher price, and the customer thinks they are getting a deal because of the "always low prices". And to think the FTC made them change it from "always the lowest price" because that statement was misleading. Okay, my Wal-Mart rant is done, it belongs somewhere else. However, I'm pretty sure neither them or their competitors are "taking one for the team" with this console or any other. And if they are, it is in terms of making a smaller percentage of profit. Having a large overhead and low profit percentage (as this system being sold at cost would contribute to) is the biggest sin in retail, and the big retailers are way too smart (even the dumb ones like KMart) to allow this to happen for any product.
-JD
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and one ended in BIN... $390. doh! Hope they used PayPal
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That is pretty sweet... I thought they were umm.... lip sync playing? As it goes on though, it's pretty clear that it actually is them.
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Yeah, I don't have much empathy for the people who buys these either though. I mean, who jacks out several hundred dollars without reading what they are going to get? The real losers here are the kids, half of whom probably won't get anything (since the parent's aren't getting their money back). How would you like to call your friends over Christmas break... "hey Billy, wanna come over and check out the pictures of games on the box we could have been playing if my parents could read??" As for the offenders, they should have their ebay accounts revoked for intentionally misleading buyers. This is exactly why I don't use ebay much, but that's another subject. However, when I do, I'm also careful to read exactly what is being sold because you see this kind of thing way too often. Yet with REAL items like prototypes, they seem to crack down immediately if they aren't listed "correctly".
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As far as I'm aware, none of the bit hacking programs are able to change colors. In order to change colors, you need to change the actual colors in the code. If you have Distella, you can use the rom to create a .asm file. Once in the .asm file, you would search for the colors and try changing them. Once you are done changing them, you would need to use DASM to recompile the code back into a binary file (the rom) so it would play in an emulator.
You can get DASM here.
You can get Distella here.
Tips for changing the colors in the code:
A hexidecimal color chart can be found here so you have an idea what color you are going from and going to. The top chart is for NTSC (USA) and you would use the number going across first.
Once into the code you want to look for things such as this:
lda #$00
sta COLUPF
lda #$28
sta COLUP0
lda #$0E
sta COLUP1
lda #$CE
sta COLUBK
lda is loading the color and sta is storing it. #$00 is the way black is written before it is stored to COLUPF (playfield). To change the playfield color from black to say, yellow simply type #$1E instead of #$00.
COLUP0 = player 1, COLUP1 = player 2, and COLUBK is the background color. Missile 0 is the same color as Player 1 (ie- player 0), and Missile 1 is the same color as player 2 (player 1). The ball will be the same color as the playfield. Usually this code will be near the top of the source code, but more complex games will have it in the middle if sprites are repeated or colors change a lot for some reason.
I know it is a lot of work for simple color changes, but as far as I know it is really the only way to do it. If you're willing to go to that much work for colors, I suggest you check out Andrew Davie's programming tutorial here.
This is a quick and dirty help guide, and far from being complete but I hope this helps you accomplish your task. -JD
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Nevermind, Mr. Kroko is back to work on these and I am just going to wait for the second wave to come out.
Thanks to everyone who looked.-JD
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I don't think there will be a "final word" on the prototype, since he claims he doesn't even know whom it was sold to now. I agree the guy is a little off-center, but you have to remember he's young. At first I didn't believe it either (and I'm still not convinced), but you need to be careful about calling him a liar too. The part where I started to take interest was when I found the website of another guy claiming he has the same proto. You know the saying, where there is smoke there is fire...
Anyway, just to clarify, I didn't post them as "proof", but rather found them interesting and decided to pass them along. I for one hold hope that it is real and will be made available in some form, but also know that Vancouver is an odd place for it to show up...
-JD
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So this feature is already implemented in the next version of batari Basic? Does that mean we have 74 cycles instead of 76 to start with? Or will it be even less than that due to other things in the programming?
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Well, since this topic has gotten no response so far, I thought I would try to start things off by sharing what I know about missiles (which is not all that much). First there are two missiles (three if you count the ball) and each missile is associated with with one of the players. The player 0 missile will share a color with the player 0 sprite, as will missile 1 with player 1. The missiles start out at one pixel wide but can be expanded into 2 pixels, 4 pixels, or 8 pixels. The width of the missile can be changed on each scanline. The missile’s height can be a single pixel, or can run the entire screen (192 pixels).
From Alien Bill’s tutorial:
“the Atari can tell if any 2 of its 6 items (players (P), missiles (M), ball (BL), and playfield (PF)) have collided. There are 15 1-bit latches. (Do the math...the playfield could've hit any of the other 5 object, the ball could've hit any of the other 4 objects (we've already counted the playfield/ball collision) etc.... 5+4+3+2+1 = 15.)
[table inserted here with values]
What this says is if, say, Missile 1 has hit Player 0, then D7 of CXM1P will be 1. If the two missiles collide, then D6 of CXPPMM will be 1. There's one final trick which seems confusing at first but is secretly useful: when two things collide, that latch stays set with a 1 even if they then move apart. Latches stay set until you hit the register CXCLR, which resets all the latches to zero. So that way, you don't have to check for collisions every time if you don't want to. In practice, most games will read all the collisions they care about and then hit CXCLR every time screen frame, but it's nice to have the option.”
If you are a beginner and have not already done so, please check out the following code, which as I said in the first post can be found at Kirk Israel’s website.
And if you aren't a beginner, please correct all the mistakes I made and add to this!
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nice quadrun imitation...but isn't there another game with voice-synth? And while it's not really rare, I'm also quite fond of kung fu master! On another note, it appears Dolt has swung a baseball bat a few times before
You guys didn't come off bad at all, and actually seemed pretty nonchalant through the whole deal. Most people I've seen are like "I hate you" and you guys were "yeah, this has us upset 
... can we have our free stuff now?! "-JD
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Is the show over now, or is it the one that's on? I just saw this and they were talking about a DVD collection.
-JD
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It strikes mine... is the source available? Since you've already posted in my Dragon Warrior thread, I'm guessing you know my intentions!
(and if not, you should now). As I said, it will be quite a while before I start this, but thought I would ask while the thread is fresh.Thanks,
JD
PS- I've been studying the code from that demo I asked for, and I must say it's quite impressive. I have one question though, are the numbers to the right of your code that are commented during the kernel a timing count or something else? I also think your spaceship code is very well suited for this if you were interested in adding to it (and they would bless it).
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If you're taking on magidrakees and skeletons it would take hours to level up at that point. If you want to level easier start taking on the wraith, wyvern, rogue scorpions, etc. and maybe even sneak around in the more dangerous areas and try to catch a metal slime. I don't think it's poorly designed or programmed, and intend to keep it as close to the original as possible if I ever get to this project.
Edit: One change I might make is to stop the enemies like knights from casting stopspell all the time, since it never seems to work anyway.
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Wow, those are incredible. I take back what I said about thinking Mike Tyson's Punch Out is impossible, now I think about anything *can* be done... even if it shouldn't be in some cases. My whole idea of 2600 programming has been altered by these demos.
-JD
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supercat: Oddly, I just had the idea to program a Boggle-style game on a RAM-expanded 2600, but couldn't figure out where to find a good word list. I know some good techniques for word-list compression, but don't know a good source of lists.Be specific with your needs, I may be able to help and would willingly do so if I can.
-JD
PS- if you need any "help" going through that stuff, let me know!
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I just got home and downloaded it, but won't have a chance to look at it in-depth for a while. Thanks for looking it up, I had intentions of doing so from your first post, just haven't had the time yet.
-JD
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I'm not saying it has to be an absolutely faithful port of the game. Rather, I was trying to show what the original has and try to figure out how much memory is needed to store that, then strip things down from there. I would like to keep the actual size and landscape of the game as well as all the enemies; but am willing to sacrifice things like music and the animation/movement of NPC characters for beginners.
You're right that HP are mostly the same for enemies, however they can be as low as 75% of the max. You already need a random number sequence for making them appear, and as vdub said, it's not that hard (but that doesn't mean I can do it either). There are tutorials, and this part of the game doesn't really have me concerned. Leveling isn't that difficult either, so I would just leave experience points the way they are set up now.
Has anyone played Dragonstomper? Is there source code or a ROM available? I'm assuming they are using sprites for things such as the trees and castles. I *may* try to get a working demo of this game sometime in the future (i was thinking Tantagel castle for starters) but for now I will continue working on dodgeball!
-JD
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Currently out of stock, sells (sold) for $99. They have a waiting list in case they make another run, it tells about it here.
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I've been looking though some information about Dragonstomper and am wondering if it is possible for a Dragon Warrior port to be made.
I've researched Dragon Warrior quite in-depth. Here is what I think is the vital information:
1. overworld= 15,000 squares, 12 unique landscape objects (if you change the squares of the "wiseman cave" in the southeast corner into a cave symbol). This also does not count the character sprite. Towns/dungeons also have 10 additional landscape objects.
2. 7 towns of unknown exact sizes. I would guess 60x60 for each.
Dungeons: smaller visible areas, comprised of stone walls, brick floor, and stairs.
3. Erdricks Cave = B1 12x12, B2 12x12.
4. Fighters Cave = B1 16x16, B2 16x16.
5. Swamp Cave = B1 36x8.
6. Grave of Garinham = B1 22x22, B2 14x16, B3 22x22, B4 11x12.
7. "wiseman cave?" = 12x12.
8. Charlock Castle = F1 22x22, B1 22x22, B2 12x12, B3 12x12, B5 12x12, B6 7x12/3x12, B7 30x30.
There are 10 spells, 30 levels, 17 items, 3 shields, 7 types of armor, 7 weapons, and 40 unique enemies. Only 1 enemy appears on the screen at any time. You have 8 different commands to choose from and 5 statistics that are dispalyed in your window on the NES version.
Does anyone have an idea of how much memory would be required to hold this information? The NES display shows a 16x16 display, I thought that a 9x9 may be possible on the 2600. There are also two battle scenes (one for the overworld, one for dungeons which is just all black) and plenty of text. Each person you talk to says something different to give you clues along the way. There are 10 different animated characters who would have to face 4 different directions (at least to stay absolutely faithful).
I'm pretty sure this can be done, I just don't know how large it would have to be. Carts will also not be an option because of the licensing. However if anyone is still interested in this game, I would love to help out. Having 3-4 people working on this might be ideal because of the size. You would also need to generate semi-random numbers for making enemies appear and for hit points during the battles. A lot of work and I haven't taken into account things like music or a password system to "save" your games.
So, with all that said... any takers (or helpful information)?
-JD
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Tempest Arcade Source Code
in Programming
Posted
I'm not sure exactly what to do with this, but I ran across a disassembly code for the arcade version of Tempest. I know it's 6502, but it looks nothing like what I'm learning for the 2600. I thought maybe some guys here would find it helpful and be able to use it. Tempest.ZIP
I think there may be several versions of this, try googling The Tempest Code Project for further details.
-JD