Fort Apocalypse

Really awesome! It made me think of being underwater, the way the ship sinks slowly. If it is meant to be underwater, some underwater enemies might be cool. If not then may need to have acceleration downward to better mimic higher gravity? It might be good to use acceleration overall to make movement a little more realistic, but that might make it too hard to navigate the cave quickly (so may need to move/accelerate slowly). The caves are really nice! I also thought it was fun to see how deep I could go. Maybe it could be either a deep sea dive or journey to the center of the earth type of thing. Either way, maybe as you get closer to the center of the earth, maybe the walls get hot(?) and you lose life/energy by touching them? Level completion by finding a base or treasure might be good.

Good game!

How about a tank game - maybe similar to combat, but maybe not - maybe you could go off the screen like adventure and have a bigger than 1 screen map per level. Maybe 9 playfields in a 3x3 orientation? Or maybe you can only leave the screen in one direction (progressive game - kind of like Front Line or River Raid)? Assuming that people liked that idea, then maybe someone could start the tank player definitions (just 8 directions?). Then someone else could define the playfield definitions or decide whether it is going to be scrolling (could just randomly draw dots in the beginning?). Then someone could come up with the enemy tank AI, someone could come up with a title screen and select screen (and concepts about levels), then someone else do the shoot, hit, and die sounds, someone come up with title screen and win music. Any other ideas? (it doesn't have to be anything like that- was just a starting idea.)

That sounds great! I would vote for keeping all of the stuff about the development of each game in its own forum thread- that way everyone in the community can contribute. But if we get enough interest in a competition, then maybe we could go the private team email route (and just post milestones and/or final game). The two biggest hurdles I think will be trying to come up with game ideas that everyone in the team is interested in helping develop and how to handle submitting code/work and integration of different people's code. I'll post again with some proposed ideas to get started...

Have been thinking it might be neat to develop a game as a team. Anyone interested? Any ideas in best way to do it that? (Would say to use source control, but I almost think it might be neat to do it by just agreeing on rotating through teams. It might also be neat to have two teams and have a competition on the forum. )

Thanks! This reminds me a lot of the old cassette/disk magazines that used to have covers.

Awesome!!! I know what I want for Christmas next year!

0.3 more instruments... (all may change) atar0.3.bas atar0.3.bas.bin

0.2 can select instrument by pressing down on joystick. Then hit reset to play instrument "recorder"/flute instrument button now makes it sharp instead of flat. there is a drum but it sounds nothing like drum for now (it will require most work unfortunately). Let me know what you think. atar0.2.bas atar0.2.bas.bin

Just made it through the 1st level. Awesome! I'm not sure why the last screen is so hard (for some reason can't jump high on the first jump on that screen, so it's easier to try landing on the ball), but that made it more challenging. Looking forward to more levels! Might also be neat to have it get harder the second time through somehow. (Was thinking flying dart but maybe a slow flying bat that homes in on you would be better?)

You may have played a guitar, but have you ever played the Atar? The Atarinstrument is currently fairly basic, but supports 2 instrumentalists (2 joysticks). Have fun! I'm thinking I'll probably change the button to be a sharp instead of a flat in the next version and add some more instruments. One instrument I really want to add is the drum kit (down=bass, up=snare, button=hi-hat). The biggest question is how to make the choosing of the instrument intuitive, whether layered instruments should be allowed (via setting sound and doing drawscreen more than once per main loop). I'm thinking of just showing the letters "ATAR" on the screen while you play that are maybe different colors based on the instrument you are playing. Let me know what you think. atar0.1.bas atar0.1.bas.bin

Here is an example I'm working on. If I could figure out how to make joystick1 return the exact same variable with bits in the same place, then I could save a few more lines of code. (Will start a thread on it, too so you can post there if interested in it.) atar0.1.bas atar0.1.bas.bin

If someone could provide a sample of how I might be able to use pfheights and maybe background colors or something that would really help. I'm having a little trouble with it.

Cool! Thanks!!!

On a somewhat related topic it would be nice to be able to do this: but currently this produces the following compiler error because I guess switches aren't allowed to be assigned to a variable or bit. bug.bas

Here is an interesting compiler bug or wierdness. I should learn not to start variable names with "joy", but it is strange what causes this one to happen. If you setup a variable that starts with joy and then later try to do an equals comparison to a variable it will fail with the error: Code to reproduce compile bug attached. If you change all references to joybits to gamebits, it compiles. If you use greater than instead of equals, it compiles. Fun! bug.bas

Using this set of kernel_options is supposed to be ok, so I think I am just doing something stupid. Can anyone figure out what it is? waterskier0.4.bas waterskier0.4.bas.asm.txt waterskier0.4.bas.bin

Wow, I think that looks really good. Do you have source for that? Is it possible to do white for the wake? The only problem with 2 player is that it sucks up resources, but maybe for a superchip game that wouldn't be as much of a problem. What would you like to see in terms of gameplay for 2 player? Could be a lot of running into each other and falling I suppose. Spraying each other would be fun. I'm just having trouble coming up with gameplay beyond the part I had planned for trying not to get eaten by the shark after falling.

0.3 - has enemies different for each level 2 trees, 3 buoys, 1 tree, 3 man eating plants (for level 1-4). Will try to add sound and minigame for next version. Would definitely like to look into superchip features in future version. Let me know what you think. I can still make you die after missing 3 cans if you'd like. I also thought about adding a jetskier that tries to cross your path, but that may be too frustrating since the skier can't turn quickly. waterskier0.3.bas waterskier0.3.bas.asm.txt waterskier0.3.bas.bin

Car looks great! Comments I could make are to set NUSIZ0/NUSIZ1 (depending on which is for car) to show two or more copies of the car maybe: http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-me...ands.html#nusiz And if you want to make it more like frogger you eliminate playfield collision detection altogether. But if you want to use it then you can do this trick: * Whenever player moves set a bit that indicates the direction of movement, like gamebits{2} = 1 means left for example * Then when the player runs into the playfield you can change the players x/y to match the old x,y (when it didn't collide, we assume) by looking at the bits indicating the direction of movement That make sense? In adventure style games it actually moves the player back further than where he originally started to show pushing/struggling against playfield, but this can introduce issues when the object/playfield being pushed against is also on the other side of the direction of movement (then the player can end up "sliding"). So it's best to only move back the same number amount. Note that you have to check for collision after drawscreen (sometimes I forgot this).

version 0.2 - fully functioning game where you try to pick up "cans" in the water (or air). Thought this would be less boring than slalom. 4 levels: freshwater, seawater, night, and blood. Open to suggestions. I want to add a minigame where you have to avoid snapping shark while getting back in the boat when you fall (but you can't fall in current game).

0.2 waterskier0.2.bas waterskier0.2.bas.bin

version 0.1 waterskier0.1.bas waterskier0.1.bas.asm.txt waterskier0.1.bas.bin

Looks like you can get it online for the same price! Flashback 2 at Target online for $17.00! http://www.target.com/Atari-Flashback-2/dp...%202&page=1

Here's a link to the actual BF ad on the target site: http://weeklyad.target.com/target/default....mp;pagenumber=6