Revontuli

New builds that experiment with the Battle Mode mechanics - the 3_25 build removes everything but the full-meter effect of adding a layer of blocks (and removing other player's gems, but only at the full meter). The 3_26 build will speed up the opposing player's gems until the gems are placed. The higher the meter, the faster the gems drop. A full meter will 1) add a layer of blocks 2) remove the opposing player's gems and 3) have their NEXT gems drop at a very fast speed! Give these builds a try, let me know what you think, and as usual note any odd bugs. Thanks! Minimal Battle Mode: DragonsCache_3_25_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_25_2020.bas.bin Speedup Battle Mode: DragonsCache_3_26_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_26_2020.bas.bin Edit: I still need to change the instructions, so don't be misled! Edit Edit: The files seem to work on both MAME and BupSystem (the high score support can be tricky with some emulators) - in case you wanted some variety in emulators again!

I was wondering how much of an issue that might be - I'm thinking of moving the "destroy opponent's attack block" to halfway up the meter, or maybe removing it entirely - I'll try and post a build with some changes soon. Thanks!

New build: DragonsCache_3_18_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_18_2020.bas.bin After a lot of reading up on assembly, I customized a bit of the high score module, partially to make it fit more with the resolution and aesthetic of the game, partially to learn more about the save system, and partially to learn more on how assembly works I *do* need folks with access to hardware like the Save Cart and AtariVox to make sure the scores still save properly. I shouldn't have changed code that specifically saves/loads from the cartridge, but I can't promise that I didn't make a mistake somewhere. The actual scores and intials *should* save/load properly, but I've no way of knowing without some brave soul trying it There's an encoding/decoding of initials, so if they are garbled after saving/loading, I know where to start looking for a fix...just don't get too attached to a personal best save score just yet. The current plan it just to save the scores themselves. I've too many variants of the Race Mode to store them all, and rewriting the score system to account for times instead of numbers is out of my current expertise (and a little precarious with the score saving system as it's currently written). This feels close to completion, hopefully it's just details left. I still want to adjust how the title screen and leaderboard transition. I want to make sure the "attract mode" cycles in a way to prevent screen burn-in while still feeling nice - If I could change one thing about the 2600 Dragon's Descent, it's changing how the title screen it just a single, static high contrast image that might be on a CRT for hours at, say, a place like PRGE. It makes the title sequence feel more "arcade-y" as well.

I always liken the TIA to a drum kit made of water cooler bottles and trash can lids. You *can* make some cool music with it, but you need to know what you're doing, work within its limits, and it'd drive a conventionally trained musician nuts. You have to fit the music to the chip more than use the chip to create the music, even more than usual. I wouldn't call the stuff I've done amazing (the examples folks gave above are incredible!), but I like to think the tracks I've done are at least tolerable to listen to, especially if you're used to ye olde chiptunes. I've very little music experience, but I've gone with the "Shower Quality" approach. I make instruments (typically the square wave) with a fair amount of echo, "smoothing" out the rough/sharp tones. The end result can sound a bit like a robot's church organ, but that can be cool, too This approach is a bit more feasible on the 7800, where you have a lot more ROM/RAM to play with. With the way I budgeted ROM space on most of the games I do on the 2600, I was thinking about trying to fit a music system in 100-300 bytes (*possible* but it'd be ugly), where I'd easily have a few kilobytes to devote to sound and music on the 7800. I don't really compose new stuff, but arrange things like folk reels. Dragon's Descent uses "Tam Lin" aka "The Glasgow Reel" for its theme. Folk reels are great because they're 1) typically simple, note-wise 2) usually stay within octave 3) are short, yet 4) being dances, are designed to be repeated indefinitely. All of these qualities make them perfect for putting into an Atari game that uses the TIA. I also try to fit sound and music in a game at the same time, which typically means one channel for music, one for sound, so the echo effect tries to cover for that limitation as well. I believe the tracker system I use (in 7800basic) tries to grab whatever channel it can, so you can kind of get a "2.5" track effect, which is great as long as you have a sound priority system in place. That said, I tend to limit my music to a single track with square waves - I'm very picky about drum beat channels. I'd rather have no bass than a telltale "This is a TIA trying too hard" drum beat. I also admit I'm not really practiced enough to make a good bass work on my own. Weirdly, the simplicity of the TIA means it's less intimidating for me - my limited musical knowledge would feel more out place when dealing with something like, say, the POKEY or SID.

I've been looking at how the high score system works, and I might try to make some revisions. With what I have, I really only have space to save 4 modes, which was fine for the 2600, but keeping track of the "Hard Mode" is a bit of a hack (adding 70000 points, mainly to have a "7" in a digit that will likely not change). One idea I have is to make "Hard Mode" its own set of modes, taking the place of the "Infinite/Finite" score modes. Infinite/Finite modes will still be options, but in terms of scoring they'll be in the same "slot," so instead of the old scoring leaderboard categories being: Finite/Default Maze Infinite/Default Maze Finite/Random Maze Infinite/Random Maze The game would have the new scoring leaderboard categories be: Easy/Default Maze Hard/Default Maze Easy/Random Maze Hard/Random Maze My reasoning being that Hard Mode changes the game more than Finite mode does - For folks playing a long time and getting good at the game, Finite mode would not be the best way to get on the leaderboard, but, really, the mode is meant for people new to the game, or those who want to play to an "end" and not for a competitive/personal best score. I hope this makes sense - adding more categories isn't really an option if I want to have this all compatible with the Atari Save peripherals out there. The changes I'm making will require enough testing as it is, if the alterations I make pan out. If there's an outcry I'll keep the current categories, but I think this will help organize the playstyles and scoring in a way that makes more sense.

The issue with the High Score system is that it's a separate module that I haven't written, and it would be very hard for me to change it while making sure it still works. While it's very handy for tracking high scores, its other function is that it can be used with external save hardware for the Atari like the AtariVox and SaveKey, and it wants the score formats in a particular way. I've been thinking about adding more graphics on the various title and menu screens, but there are multiple "spaces" I might have to deal with - even if I have ROM space, my title menus end up taking a lot of screen space, so fitting more stuff without crowding can be tricky. We'll see Thank you for your help and feedback! Let me know if you play any more 2-Player modes - I still need to subject Battle Mode to more field testing!

I'm putting a request for $12,$48 for "Dragon's Cache." Thanks!

I just did a bunch of stuff for my *other* 7800 game, Dragon's Cache, but I'm hoping to get both of these projects done! I'm working through the "fiddle with menus, sounds, etc." I asked this question in the other thread, but are there any *small* features that y'all feel might be missing? I'm not thinking about gameplay features so much as options or UI quirks that would, say, involve the menu or title screen. Anything about the start->play->game over->restart "rhythm" that might be adjusted? I'm just figuring out the last bits of polish I might need... I'm also at the stage where I need to outline/gather/create the other materials Dragon's Descent will need (instruction manual, physical artwork etc.), but I'll try and keep folks updated!

OK - I figured if I have cryptic instructions for Battle Mode I could take a stab at help for the other modes. Hopefully the instruction screens aren't too intrusive - if folks find them annoying I can take these out, but the infrastructure was in place, so I'll see what people think. It's just one more button press, and won't repeat unless you return to the title screen. DragonsCache_3_06b_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_06b_2020.bas.bin

New build with some ongoing fixes: DragonsCache_3_06_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_06_2020.bas.bin -Incorporated RevEng's fixes, hopefully correctly -I brightened the font colors a bit - see if that helps on a CRT. -Leveling/Speedup was only working on single player score mode. I added it to the 2-Player score mode in this build. For reference, leveling up is based on how many *gems* you've taken, around 75 gems per level (if I remember right), not your score (which adds some strategy and further incentive to go for chaining). I don't think I'll add the leveling/speedup system to the Racing or Battle modes - they have their own challenges as it is. -An instructions screen for the Battle Mode shows if when you select it - it's short, terse, and a little mysterious but better than nothing. It should appear every time you select the mode from the title screen, but not bother you when you choose a retry/rematch. Hey, "AVOID MISSING BALL FOR HIGH SCORE" was good enough for pong

A repost/update of the Battle rules for anyone trying 2-Player (I've also posted these rules to the original post): For Battle Mode, when you match 3+ gems they don't disappear, but change to an attack block that helps fill a meter you see in place of the score. Press both buttons on your joystick at the same time to "activate" these blocks, using (and removing) them. You can use these attack blocks at any time, and they'll remove the other player's current falling gems. If your power meter is totally full, a layer of indestructible blocks are added at the bottom of the other player's pit. Attacking will use up your meter, but if you "combo" into a new set of attack blocks after the old ones disappear, the meter is preserved, so some planning/strategy is involved, and trying to fill a meter without relying on combos is tricky (and risky). In single player, you can play a "Practice" mode with these rules, mainly to learn this new dynamic. You only score a point when you "attack" with a full meter.

New build! This fixes it so the High Scoreboard only shows up in scoring mode - it didn't really make sense when it showed up in the Race/Battle modes: DragonsCache_3_05_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_05_2020.bas.bin Awesome, I'm looking forward to it! I haven't tested the 2-player modes much, so I'm bracing for bugs and quirks Awesome-It's great to see it playing on a physical system!

OK! First pass on High Score support, plus another music track (from an old Irish tune...) DragonsCache_3_03b_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_3_03b_2020.bas.bin Keep in mind that unless you have hardware to save your scores, they will reset if you change the number of Gems (i.e. difficulty), as the system only holds one leaderboard at a time. Single player and 2-player score modes can qualify for the leaderboard. The 2-Player head-to-head score mode ends when one player scores more than the other (when the other has a game over), so it's not the best way to get a "personal best." [EDIT:] This build seems to run fine on MAME A7800 (my usual emulator), but not on ProSystem. BupSystem can run the game but hangs when the high score screen shows up. As always, I'm curious (and appreciative) to see how it might perform on a physical 7800...

That fixed it! Back to work on incorporating it into the rest of the game... As I mentioned above, my current plan is to separate out the score modes by number of gems, 4-6 => Easy=>Hard. I think this should also work for 2-Player score attacks without too much trouble, but I'll find out

I'm pretty sure, even though that's the obvious suspect. Here's how I'm defining the graphics: rem graphic files incgraphic gfx/hiscorefont.png 320A newblock incgraphic gfx/PaletteSpriteP.png 160B 0 1 2 3 12 5 6 7 13 9 10 11 incgraphic gfx/Gems4.png 160B 0 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 10 11 13 14 15 incgraphic gfx/alphabet_8_wide.png 160A 0 3 1 2 incgraphic gfx/scoredigits_8_wide.png 160A 0 1 2 3 rem etc... Is there a good protocol for setting graphics modes, double buffering, etc. when dealing with "drawhiscores attract"? This is roughly how I'm doing it: __HandleHiScore doublebuffer off clearscreen gamedifficulty = 0 drawhiscores attract drawscreen doublebuffer on clearscreen savescreen _TitleScreenSwapTimer = 0 goto __StartMainTitleScreen

Remember that easter eggs are a thing That ended up being today's project - I'm adding a "D" track, which is a slower tune to mix things up a bit. I'll also likely go back to revise "A" a little bit. They're folk tunes I transcribed "directly" (by TIA standards) from sheet music, and now I'm seeing if I can get them to sound a little more like the source material, or at least play a little more smoothly in places. Thank you for your help and feedback - I've done (do) a lot of coding, and for some reason 7800Basic and the 7800 in general are in that sweet spot of simplicity and complexity that I can manage while I have my work stuff compile. I'm amazed at what it can do, while being easy to manage (you know, compared to hundreds of C++ files compiling collision libraries and 3D shader effects, as much as I love all of those). I'm having a lot of fun working with it, and I hope to have some more stuff out soon!

OK - in the immortal words of Space Ghost "Don't panic, this happened once before, I just can't remember what I did to make it better..." The hiscore font is rendering as if it's half-width (or maybe double-byted, if that makes sense): I remember this being an issue, but cannot remember the sequence of settings to fix it (and can't find the specific topic that covers this). I'm wondering if using mode 160B and/or double buffering makes any difference - I turn double buffering off before rendering hiscore attract and turn it back on after. I *did* set doublewide on before setting the displaymode (which was in a recent topic that looks like this), which was the first thing I thought of. I'll keep working through it, but this is likely another obvious oversight.

That did it! I figured it was something like that. Now I just need to get all the graphic modes switched around properly so they render right *Then* I need to figure out what modes to save, and the best way to switch them around. Thanks a ton!

I'm still working on a new build - no big changes in terms of the gameplay, but I'm messing around a bit with the title screen/"attract mode." I'm split on whether I should include the highscore support, as useful as it is. Frankly, I've too many modes for the save systems to get everything. The current plan is to just store the "score" for 4, 5, and 6 gems in single player mode, although even that would be a little awkward as I'd likely need to synch it with the switches. In the short term, my bigger problem is that my code for the hssupport just isn't working right now. Simply calling hssupport (without even invoking it by, say, calling drawhiscore) causes the game crash/black screen on startup. I think included the font in the proper format in the first graphic block, there might be something in how I'm ordering resolution settings and managing the double buffer. It's still odd that it basically crashes on load, though... set romsize 48k inline hiscore.asm set tv ntsc set hssupport $1248 set trackersupport basic rem I still have the old texts from "Dragon's Descent" set hsseconds 4 set hsscoresize 6 set hscolorbase $FE set hsdifficultytext 'seven levels' 'random' 'infinite' 'randomly infinite' set hsgameranks 075000 'elder wyrm' 072000 'great wyrm' 071000 'wyrm' 070500 'lost wyrm' 070000 'hatchling' 5000 'elder wyrm' 2000 'great wyrm' 1000 'wyrm' 500 'lost wyrm' 0 'hatchling' rem ...later on, after dim variables, I include graphics... incgraphic gfx/hiscorefont.png 320A newblock incgraphic gfx/PaletteSpriteP.png 160B 0 1 2 3 12 5 6 7 13 9 10 11 incgraphic gfx/Gems4.png 160B 0 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 10 11 13 14 15 incgraphic gfx/alphabet_8_wide.png 160A 0 3 1 2 incgraphic gfx/scoredigits_8_wide.png 160A 0 1 2 3 rem etc... If there's anything obvious to try, help/advice would be appreciated. Strangely, for a while it kinda worked on MAME but not on Prosystem, now it doesn't work on either. I don't have a good way to *really* test the save feature regardless, lacking the hardware (emulators are obviously very limited in this capacity), but I also don't want to tie up a lot anyone else's time unless I have a good plan forward. The hssupport is a great fit (both technically and design-wise) in Dragon's Descent, but I'd still have things to figure out on the tech *and* design end for this game. I don't want to invite *too* much feature creep, but are there any little features/"quality of life" stuff people might still want for Dragon's Cache? Something along the lines of the win/loss counter or music track selector that I recently added? I'm as grumpy as anyone about the lack of a CPU opponent (see above posts for why I'm not including one), but is there anything else someone would want on a final cartridge? I'll warn folks I'm not making any promises but I'm working on a few other projects, so it would be nice to get this one to a "completed" state...

Awesome, thank you for testing! My hope is that the central game portion is more or less finished - I might be messing around a little but more with the sound, music, or menus but ideally I want to move to the publishing phase relatively soon. The testing helps immensely!

Sorry, everyone! That's what I get for updating two games at once. Here's the latest of Dragon's Cache (also updated in the earlier posts): DragonsCache_2_25_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_2_25_2020.bas.bin

Audio bug fixed (Thanks RevEng!) - Latest build: DragonsCache_2_25_2020.bas.a78 DragonsCache_2_25_2020.bas.bin [EDIT: D'oh- wrong build. Added the new one - That's what I get for fixing bugs on two games at once! ]

I consulted with RevEng, who in turn worked on some stuff in the music tracker. That seemed to fix a sound/music related bug in Dragon's Cache - let's see if it affects Dragon's Descent: DragonsDescent_2_25_2020.bas.a78 DragonsDescent_2_25_2020.bas.bin I've also been yielding to the temptation to mess with the sound effects as well (I have some spare extra ROM space, let's echo *everything* ?) so they might change a little bit as I update...

Thank you! If this trend continues, I'll be increasingly suspicious of the sound system, there might be a bug or glitch there. There's a glitch in Dragon's Cache that's been relatively easy to reproduce involving the menus, and I think sound has something to do with it (as it seems to go away when I remove a specific call to play a sound effect), so if there is something to fix, a special build of Dragon's Cache might be the best place to start looking. I'm using the built-in 7800Basic modules for the music and sound, so I might need help or advice on this issue from someone like RevEng - I need to get some sleep, but I'll aim to post in that thread soon.

No clue why level 7 would be any different, at least in a way that would introduces crashes like it has - although I'll certainly look. If you want to still test, could you try this version? I'm been having some issues with Dragon's Cache that might involve the sound, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the issues with Dragon's Descent as well, so here's a soundless version: DragonsDescent_2_19_2020_NoSound.bas.bin DragonsDescent_2_19_2020_NoSound.bas.a78 If someone still gets crashes, level 7 or not, then I can rule out the sound being an issue. I'm suspicious since it's a separate system, and I'm not 100% sure how it might come back into the main game loop. Thank you for playing/testing!