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Alien Pinball version 0.7 (download on first post). What's new: Wall hit modifications (always) Flipper modifications (always) Some graphic changes. For each level the space ship bumpers change their behavior. Comments are always welcome.

Wow Save2600, I never knew this one existed. Grabbed and played a little. Was surprised they used paddle controllers. I ended up changing Stella to use the joystick so left and right were backward which impaired my playing a bit Thanks for letting me know about this one.

Just got back from fixing The Grand Lizard.. Wahoo.. nothing major just a dirty switch. Mountain King - I will have another binary pretty soon. Found a place I could re-use some code so I have a little space to play in. On the background, sometimes when I look at it, I like it, sometimes not. It's almost like breaking the 4th wall. Then again I don't think anyone is going to confuse this for real pinball Papa - I'm using the DPC+ kernel. Tried the PF0 statement without much luck. On the left it created a stair step effect of playfield colors with with the 64 bite position on. The right can fill completely with no stair step. I also tried using it with various binary values but nothing looked good. Looks like only the last 4 bites are used with this. The colors behind the city-scape are made using the background colors. I don't see a way to limit their width. Good to know this is available though. I'm a noob to batari and this is my second program. I didn't know of this command. Could come in handy later. Thanks!

Asking for opinions on this. Does this simple graphics change distract from the look of the game. Is it distracting or do you like it better? I'm sort of torn on it. On one hand I like the more colorful playfield, on the other the background lines go beyond the border of the playfield. What do you think?

Very nice. Could you slow down the meteors? Might just be me but I felt they fell a tad fast. Oh and yea make the ship explode

It has star in the title! I'm in! Seriously, looking forward to checking it out.

Papa that you have enjoyed this game, makes it worth the work. That you have taken the time to make a post about it, makes me very happy! Appreciate it! I'm just trying to make something on a system that I have always loved, that I would want to play. I did find a way to free up a couple of variables and work continues, but now I have a severe space limitation and currently don't see a way of putting in the additional flipper code I have done. I was somewhat successful in adding code where the player can catch and hold (small bounce) the ball. But it it makes it hard to play as you must release and re-fire the flipper quickly before the ball slides from the flipper into the center of no return. More realistic, but not much fun and scoring suffers greatly. I will be doing a newer version either way. Even if it's just bug fix release.

Hey iesposta, Yup A-Z and var0-var8.

Thanks RT, but I'm using every sprite I could get me grubby little hands on and wishing for more And my variables are doing double duty where possible.

Thanks Zack. I have made a modification to the top wall. I played it multiple times and did not see the error so it "might" be fixed. There is so much going on in this code that when testing I see new stuff all the time that never happened before. I removed the old version 0.6 and replaced it with the new code but with the same name. So 0.6 is the current version. As for improving the ball, I'm don't think it will ever be like a real pinball machine. I don't think the Atari Video Pinball game was even close. Midnight Magic was closer but nothing like a real pin. The only video game I've seen even close is the Pinball Arcade and that is only if you have a pretty good PC so there is no lag. I will keep trying though. Currently space is extremely limited and I would be shocked to find a free variable

Mountain king was spot on about the flippers. I had not even considered that. Added, and thanks Mountain King! Version 0.6 (down load on first post. It's not in order now, must have been the way I edited it. Whats new: You can now multiply your bonus points. There is an indicator that shows the bonus multiplier on the lower left side, outside of the table) Get 5 bonus point and it's x2 bonus. Get 10 bonus points and it's x3 bonus. Flipper update (thanks again Mountain King ) Some graphics updates.

A new improved Cows!!! Now with Trees! (well, tree to be more exact). I didn't realize that there were no trees in the game for the cows to eat as mentioned in the setup.... so.... now there is a tree. The cow will run by the tree and eat some of it. If the cow eats the entire tree then methane gas will build even more. If the cow eats 4 trees too much methane will be generated and your ship will crash. The status bar on the bottom right will indicate how many trees have been destroyed.

And now version 0.5 What's new: Decreased the gravity Modified some wall effects. This version is easier than version 0.4 Download from first post.

Alright thanks for trying it out on a real machine! Plunger does not have strength variance. It only pulls back and fires so that is normal. There is no skill shot so I didn't see that as a priority. Was the left difficulty in the A position? If so, B is much more forgiving. It sounds like the graphics didn't roll and it worked on a Harmony, 7800 and first gen 2600 which is good news. I would assume the player flicker was not too bad? While playing on Stella with difficulty B I was able to play quite a bit. I didn't get as far as on the the previous versions though. Could be I have made it a bit too difficult. Hopefully others will try it and chime in. Thanks much for the input and giving it a go on real hardware!!!

Snowed in so..... Out pops version 0.4 I have tried to take the above input and make changes. Thanks! Whats new: I have included the left difficulty switch. There are also many tweaks to the game. The pinball finds it's way to the flippers quite often now. Left Switch on B = Easy game Left Switch on A = Harder Game SWITCH A: Gravity is more of a factor Ball behavior is different Joystick up for both flippers is disabled. Wall hits are slightly different. The tilt is more sensitive. So game A is much more difficult. Actually I think game B is harder than the other versions. Please let me know if you can get the space ship bumpers to red (I can't). Added game start and game over music(?) Please give it a try and post your thoughts. It's crazy but because of my inefficient coding I'm pretty much out of space. I still have no idea if this will run on an actual 2600. If you have the means please let me know if it works.

Posted an update to Alien Pinball. Version 0.3 (see first post). New stuff: Gravity is now in play on the pinball. Nudging the pinball can now be done. To nudge hold the fire button + up, down, left, or right. It is possible to tilt and lose your ball and bonus points. If you nudge too often it will tilt. Changed the mothership pylons a bit. I haven't put a lot of test time into this so there could be issues. Let me know. Would also like to know if it tilts too easily or not enough. Is there better ball control with gravity active. I can't tell anymore

Ah yes, ran into this and was perplexed. In this one only player0 can have a collision with any missiles.

Thanks. Mountain King is right. Afraid that nudging will require a rewrite of the pinball movement logic. The ball is floaty. I had another version that did a lot of gravity but that strangely felt odd also. Not sure if I can come up with something that feels like real pinball.

My appreciation extends to all involved.

I just love pinball. I currently have eight pins at the house and enjoy everything about them. So I thought.. humm I need to try out the DCP+ Kernel for the next 2600 project and pinball should be easy.. (yea right). After much work and compromise Alien Pinball is what came out. Now I've come to the conclusion that this will never play like a real pinball. I tried all sorts of ball physics. Some were more realistic but the game play was no fun at all. Anyway this is what I ended up with. Please let me know what you think. Game Info: Starting in version 0.4 switch difficulty is active. Left Switch on B = Easy game Left Switch on A = Harder Game SWITCH A: Gravity is more of a factor Ball behavior is different Joystick up for both flippers is disabled. Wall hits are slightly different. The tilt is more sensitive. From title screen press fire to start. Version .9 I think I have fixed the scan line issues. If you have a harmony cart, please test it Pull back on joystick to pull spring back and press fire to launch the ball. Push left on the joystick to fire the left flipper Push right on the joystick to fire the right flipper Push up on the joystick to fire both flippers (in version 0.5 and up, this is only true if left difficulty switch set to Switch B.) Nudging the pinball can be done (version 0.4 and up). To nudge hold the fire button + up, down, left, or right. It is possible to tilt and lose your ball and bonus points. If you nudge too often it will tilt. At the end of game press fire to begin a new game. Scoring: Space Ship bumper point values - 100 - 200 - 300 (depending on their level). The moving space ship bumper when stationary - 5000 Hitting the right button will freeze the moving space ship for a time. While the ship is stationary the value is 5000. Spinner value - 50 - 100 - 150 - 300 (score depends on the level) Top rollover button value 500 per hit + 1000 bonus points After going over the rollover button at the top of the play field it will award a bonus point of 1000. The maximum bonus points held are 10. There is an indicator for the number of bonus points displayed. Bonus points are awarded at the end of a ball. The rollover button when hit will disappear but can be put back in play by hitting the right wall button. Once you get 5 bonus points, bonus values are doubled. Once you get 10, bonus points are tripled. Mother Ship pylon value - 1000 Space ship bumper and spinner values are increased by hitting both pylons on the middle space ship. When both are hit a ship is dispatched to protect the pylons from additional hits. This ship must be destroyed in order to hit additional pylons. For every successful completion of the pylon destruction an indicator will appear below the ship. Up to four indicators will be shown. On the fifth destruction of the pylons all bumper and spinner values increase, the play field will slightly change and the ship bumper colors will change. I have not placed a way to earn an extra ball yet. I'm thinking around 200k points but will see why you folks think would be a fair point value is. Let me know of any issues. I do not have a harmony cart but have put the code in for it to run on one. If anyone out there tries it, let me know. It's current form is NTSC only (sorry PAL). alien-pinball-0.6.bin alien-pinball-0.7.bin alien-pinball-08.bin alien-pinball-09.bas.bin alien-pinball-1.0.-harmony.bin

I like it either way and a giant THANK YOU!! for making and maintaining this awesome page!

Very nice! Got to level 3 and about 313 points. At times it seemed the player missile would stick on the screen. Also at times I could not fire. I've not worked with any of the kernels but the original so far. Need to take the plunge sometime.

Version 0.3 update adds changes to the playfield, some audio changes (hope its a little better), scoring adjustments, enemy AI (if you can call it that) changes. Progress to next level at 1000 points. Crash on cow is now worth 500 points. Let me know if there are issues. Thanks!

Thanks much Jinroh. Love the input! I've done some changes to the sound and hopefully it's better. I have also slowed the ships decent when it's hit to give the player a better chance of crashing into the cow. Will post the update if I don't think of something else to add. At this point there are 4 levels of difficulty. I can't get to the 4th level unless I code the way there. So it might ramp up too quickly.

A little time has passed with no reported comments on version .02 So should I remove the 0.1 version? New to this and not sure what the proper protocol is.