mksmith

So DionoiD has now released his WIP of Tower of Rubble and his take is amazing to say the least! Great visuals, music and game play really makes it a fantastic Atari 2600 conversion. So for now I'm going to leave this to one side - I might pick up the game to maybe do something different down the track. I'm also making the source code available if anyone wants to make use of anything.

A new release is now available (v0.1.3) which adds the following: Fixed issue (hopefully!) where the VS Code Workspace folder was not properly determined (thanks TwentySixHundred!) Fixed issue launching Stella with a space in the compiled game filename Fixed issue validating potential errors from the compiler and is now less strict (thanks Lillapojkenpåön!) Updated the debugger output to include information from stdout and stderr pipes to help identify future potential validating issues Thanks to TwentySixHundred and Lillapojkenpåön for helping with a couple of compiler/launcher problems. I should be able to now move forward and start looking at cross-platform and additional features.

A new release is now available (v0.1.1) which adds the following: Added debugging information to all processes. To view this output, open the Developer Tools using either CTRL+SHIFT+I or Help -> Toggle Developer Tools from the menu. Added options to Stop/Kill the batari Basic and Dasm compilation process This output displays each step called by the code and may assist in debugging any issues that arise.

Ah thanks - perhaps that might be it! I'll do some checking around spaces and hopefully that will fix these issues. Stella launching might also be affected by the same sort of issues. Update: Spacing is working for me during debugging. Looking at the code the error 1 is stopping any further continuation of the process. I'll PM you.

Hi Lillapojkenpaon, If you clear both those can you compile and run Stella? Also does the output window appear for batari Basic? It logs the compile and execution of the program and Stella. I do have another user who cannot do this currently but I have yet to determine why - trying to work out whether there is some sort of log file that might show what is happening. I have a very clean Windows 10 machine (and 2 others I have tried) with a straight download of VS Code and then an install of the extension. Thinking their might be something missing with typescript but until I can work out how to confirm the issue I just not sure where to turn...

hehehe... Yes gotta use all the game mechanics

Dionoid, Wow mate this is a brilliant interpretation! You have really nailed the basics of the gameplay and presented it in a very Atari 2600 way with imaginative colors and rendering to remove blocks! Also love the music - great rendition! Look forward to the remainder of the game being finalised!

Thanks Tony, hopefully we might be able to add a few things down the track to help out but will see how it goes. Let me know if you have any suggestions/feedback!

Hi everyone, The first release of the extension is now available and can be installed directly from within VS Code (via the marketplace) - see the first post for more details. Special thanks to Stephen Anthony for allowing Stella to be included along with the extension.

Congrats Karl!

@Random, Pretty impressive editor! I've been using the AlienBill one (https://alienbill.com/2600/playerpalnext.html) which I adjusted to include a few more frames but this one is very feature rich! I need to investigate just what is possible to show in these tabs.

I use VS nearly every day also so it's something that's familiar and enjoyable to use.

Thanks! Coding in a good environment is a really important requirement to enjoying your dev time. Hopefully soon I'll make it available!

This extension will be a lightend version compared to vbB as a number of the good external tools probably just can't be included due to the focus on VS Code being a specific coding environment and also being cross-platform it just doesn't offer the ability do UI stuff. I may be able to throw open a document with an html document but that's about it. I certainly share you concern about accessing these tools but you can run each as required.

Once this is complete I'll certainly do a 7800 version as it should be an easy process now to replace the compiler. Ill need to take a closer look in regards to either having one extension or two - certainly all together might be a great way to go.

Getting very close to a release. Have a few things to finalise but should be very soon.

Very interesting thanks Sprybug - would love to do a scroller (either way) down the track! Looking forward to the rest of your tutorial!

@Lillapojkenpåön - great thanks. Will leave for now. @Sprybug - no probs! It's a great product (for those who can create music!) and can help elevate batari Basic games to an even higher level for those of us who don't have the time to learn assembly (I can get by just enough to do this sort of stuff but not program a full game!)

Lillapojkenpåön - is this something I should look to fix?

I bought some of the newer cables from Bests around 3-4 months ago. They are thicker as they have all 9 pins cabled (rather than the 6 in the original) but they are very solid and still have the Atari logo.

Awesome well done! No flicker batari Basic is in desperate need of text abilities.

Yeah I think it might! I tried moving the __init_music block to the end of the code (and replaced the goto with a return) and added added a gosub __init_music and it works! Nice little tune also! See attached! musicplayer.bas

Karl, Using my VS Code module I get error 'Cannot open includes.bB for reading'. (never mind I thin maybe an issue on my computer). Using Visual bB it appears to compile as you say but doesn't - the .bin is empty.

Glad it's now working!

@cimmerian - your a mountain of Stella debugging magic