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Kurt_Woloch

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Posts posted by Kurt_Woloch

  1. Posted

    [*]Watch for the flashing bars! You'll get extra points every time you eliminate one. The longer the bar is, the more points you get-from 400 to 1300.

     

    That's actually wrong... your score doesn't increase by doing that, but the TIMER does, so you'll actually get extra time, which turns into points if you don't use it up.

     

     

    So... how can I see my high score? It seems the game throws it away as soon as the games over, and I can't get a screenshot!

     

    Easily... actually the game keeps track of your high score and shows it now and then while in demo mode, as you can see on my screenshot:

    post-8393-1231448374_thumb.png

     

    Of course my entry is the shown high score of 25300.

  3. Posted

    Another Mockup (click for animation):

    post-4682-1231254801_thumb.png

     

    OK... here we have an area of 20x34 blocks... and only colored in 1 color, so we only need 680 bits, which would be 85 bytes... looks more doable to me, except for the digits on bottom... I don't think it's possible to put 3 digits next to each other, and another 4 on the same scanline. Maybe if you could use 3-pixel wide digits, it might work. And then there's the question how you're going to do the green line that marks the line the player has just drawn...

  4. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    Uhm... yes. The problem about this mockup is that to store that kind of playfield, you'd need more RAM than the 2600 can provide, although the resolution is already considerably reduced compared to the arcade version.

    Let's see... We've got 40 horizontal "blocks" of playfield (each of which is 4 scanlines high in that mockup) and 30 vertical ones. And you have 2 possible colors in which the playfield can be filled plus a third color which denotes the lines laid down by the player. So that's 2 bits per block, which actually corresponds nicely to the 4 bytes of playfield you have to fill in each line. So, you'd need at least 30x40x2 bits, that is 2400 bits or 300 bytes to store the playfield. Unfortunately, the 2600 only has got 128 bytes of RAM, so this mockup isn't possible unless you put at least 256 bytes of additional RAM into the cartridge.

  5. Posted

    Kabobber 20 minutes - This was surprisingly fun. I was expecting an unfinished game but it appeared to be final or very close to final. I definitely be playing this more!

     

    Yes, we had that game earlier in the HSC. As far as I remember, the programmer said in an interview that the version out there is the exact version "as finished by him". The problem was that Activision didn't want to release it this way because at that time they wanted to do more complex games (8k) and Kaboober only was a 4k game. The programmer still considered it "finished" and refused to expand it into a more complex 8k game.

  6. Posted

    OK, here are my times for the rest of the week...

     

    Toyshop Trouble: 157 minutes in 4 sessions

    Reindeer rescue: 8 minutes

    Jack and the beanstalk: 79 minutes in 5 sessions (which included testing a version I modified in order to help the atari2600land, the programmer, with the scoring for levels 2 and 4)

     

    Total gaming time: 244 minutes (61 minutes per day), all played on an emulated Atari 2600 through Stella.

  7. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    I put in the beginnings of a scoring system with bonus points for completing screens, etc. I can't figure out how to keep track of highest/lowest screens in levels 2 & 4, and if nobody can help me out, i may scrap the scores altogether. If you'd like to help me out, the variables you can use are listed right after the level_2 thing in the second bank in the .bas file. Also, I don't know what should happen if you run out of time in the castle (which you have 2 minutes. I'd like to make it longer, but i don't know how), should you lose a life or have it be game over? right now, if the time runs out in the castle, you just don't get any bonus points.

     

    OK, I think I can help you out... I introduced the variable m in level 2, which keeps track of the maximum/minimum screen reached.

    The initialization code changes as follows:

     

    s=0 : v=0 : m=a

    (m = a has been added, this sets m to the entering screen at the beginning)

     

    The lines surrounding the label level_2_screens run as follows (line p=160 comes before level_2_screens, l=160 has been moved here):

     

     p=160

level_2_screens
if player1y=88 && u=0 && a>m then statusbarlength=244 : m=a : l=160 : p=160
if player1y=8 && u=2 && a<m then statusbarlength=244 : m=a : l=160 : p=160

     

    (The line p=160 after those lines should be removed since it has been moved before level_2_screens)

     

    This additionally checks if the player has reached a new screen before refilling the status bar.

     

    The scoring lines of level 2 have been changed as follows:

     

      if player1y<5 && u=0 && a=m then score=score+p
if player1y>88 && u=2 && a=m then score=score+p

     

    (note the additional condition a=m here, which compares a to the maximum/minimum screen)

     

    This checks if the player has completed the last screen he has reached (if not, he's gone back to a previous one, thus the score shouldn't be added)

     

    The lines that lead back to level_2_screens now lack the statement "l=160" which has been moved to the lines immediately following level_2_screens, thus they run:

     

      if player1y<5 then player1y=88 : f{0}=0 : player0y=0 : player0x=0 : a=a+1 : goto level_2_screens

     

    and:

     

      if player1y>88 && a>1 then player1y=8 : a=a-1 : f{0}=0 : player0y=0 : player0x=0 : goto level_2_screens

     

    This prevents the status bar from changing if the score doesn't get awarded.

    These changes cost exactly... 40 bytes (but optimizations are probably possible).

  8. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    OK, I think I found some more bugs:

     

    1. In Level 3, when the gate closes at the beginning which you have to open, it doesn't close completely, but leaves a small gap.

    2. In Level 4, there's still a little glitch between, I think the 4th and the 5th screen from the bottom, where the beanstalk reaches a bit more to the right in the upper screen than it does in the lower one, so if you get to the rightmost end of the beanstalk and try to go down, that rapid screen changing thing happens again.

    3. If you play variation 2, the 10 screens are not in order, rather it shows the first screen again and again (and I think both the positions of the troll and Jack update multiple times between each showing of it), and also doesn't end the level after the screen has been completed 10 times.

     

    That's all for now, though I'm not sure if I found all the bugs... there may be more if you try to really play through varations 2-4, which I didn't do.

     

    By the way, I think some scoring mode would be nice. Maybe a good idea would be some "bonus", where, say, you get a time of one minute for each screen, and at the end of each screen, the remaining time gets added as points. Or the time gets increased by, say, 30 seconds for each screen made. This would be the scoring for Level 1 (I'd suggest 10 points per second left over). Then, of course, you'd award a bonus for completing Level 1.

     

    Then, at level 2, you'd do something similar, but here you'd have to keep track of the highest / lowest screen that has been completed so that if the player goes back, the timer doesn't reset, but only scores again when the player has reached a new screen it wasn't on before. Then, of course, another bonus for completing level 2.

     

    For level 3, I'd put in a general timer, which gets increased by some amount for collecting each of the 2 items you have to collect, and at the end again gets accumulated as points, but I'd give points for the collected items too, and of course, another end-of-level bonus.

     

    Level 4 would work the same as Level 2 scoring wise. Just a suggestion... otherwise we'll never have the opportunity of playing Jack and the Beanstalk in the High-Score competition. :-)

     

    Here are some examples for the point values:

    Level 1: Starting time 1:00 for each screen, 10 points for each second left over from that at the end of each screen, Level-End bonus of 1000 points

    Level 2: Starting time 0:30 for each screen, 10 points for each second left over from that at the end of for each new completed screen, Level-End bonus of 1500 points

    Level 3: Starting time of 3:00, 500 points and 1:00 increase for the harp, 1000 points and 1:00 time increase for the goose, 10 points for each second left over at the end of the level, Level-End bonus of 2000 points

    Level 4: Starting time 0:20 (!) for each screen, 20 points for each second left over from that at the end of for each new completed screen, Game completion bonus of 3000 points

  9. Posted

    OK, here are my gaming times for Dec. 29th-31th, 2008:

     

    Toyshop Trouble: 135 minutes (in 3 sessions - yeah, again)

    Reindeer Rescue: 25 (will probably play some more in the next days)

    Jack and the beanstalk: 23 minutes (in 2 sessions with 2 different versions)

    Radar Lock: 9 minutes (tried once again, but couldn't make much more sense out of it)

     

    All games are Atari 2600 games emulated on Stella.

  10. Posted

    Keep reporting stuff you find wrong/improvements, I want this game to be as good as possible.

     

    OK, uhm... seems you broke some things that already were working...

     

    1. The fire button from the title screen now takes you immediately to the end message... but how do you start a game without going through the password screen now?

    2. In Level 2, Jack doesn't fall down anymore... he can't go up and down while not on the beanstalk, but he can float left and right in mid-air without falling. And if you climb to the top of the beanstalk until you can't go up anymore, the way down is also blocked.

    3. In Level 4, there now are several "dead-ends" where the beanstalk reaches to the bottom of the screen, but isn't continued in the screen below, which results in the game repeatedly changing between the upper and lower screen as long as you hold the joystick down. While this repeated changing occurs, the music also slows down.

    4. You can't escape from the end message by any other means than switching off the VCS (or exiting the emulation).

  11. Posted

    OK, my score is probably the worst of the bunch... 11221.

    post-8393-1230672249_thumb.png

     

    I have to admit I only played 2 games of this... the first game lasted for 8 minutes, the second one for 9 minutes. I didn't make mission 2 in both of them.

    This game has got some problems that made it to kill my motivation to continue playing. First, the games already take pretty long. Then there are times where you have to find the enemy, which isn't too easy. And in the middle of the combat, you often get shot at and don't know how to avoid being hit. At least after my second game, I had no clue on how I could improve my score... the enemy just keeps firing at me and it seems to be a question of luck if I get hit or not. If there is a chance of dodging their shots, the time for doing that is pretty short. Thus, no motivation to play more than these 2 games.

  12. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    Sorry, I'm a little late this time... here's my gaming time from the past week:

     

    Toyshop Trouble: 561 minutes (in 9 sessions) - still couldn't get away from this game even though its week at HSC has ended... but I've made it past Dec. 25th by now, so gaming time for this will probably drop off this week.

    Jack and the beanstalk: 76 minutes (in 3 sessions, each time trying a new version of it)

    Radar Lock: 8 minutes (only played it once and found it a bit confusing... especially it's hard to find a single enemy you still have to kill)

    Reflex: 5 minutes (interesting homebrew, but a bit confusing)

     

    Total classic gaming time: 650 minutes (93 minutes per day).

     

    All games are 2600 binaries played on Stella.

  14. Posted

    Well, I tried this too, and I think I spotted some errors:

     

    1. On my first game, the cut scene between Level 1 and 2 didn't behave correctly. When the sun sank down, the sky didn't get dark, and when it rose again, it actually went too far, that is, it "shot through the roof" and reappeared again on the ground, with the final position being a bit above the ground, but not as high as it should be. On my second game, however, the cutscene behaved correctly. In my opinion, in that cutscene, the sun generally lowers and rises too quickly.

     

    2. On Level 2, Jack doesn't start at the lower end of the beanstalk, but only 2-3 screens below the goal of the level. This behaviour is consistent.

  16. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    Here's my playing time for this week:

     

    Toyshop Trouble (2600) 283 minutes (pretty good and addictive game)

    Omicron (2600) 92 minutes (very short games, but many tries)

    Carnival (Arcade) 40 minutes (got interrupted by a research company, this is net playing time)

    Burger Time (Arcade) 23 minutes (for a change, I like to play this once in a while. Didn't make the 6th screen this time.)

    Jack and the beanstalk (2600) 21 minutes (pretty well done, though it's coded in Batari Basic, and Level 2 is still in the works)

    Earth 2050 (2600) 10 minutes (Tried this once again)

    Burnin' Rubber (Arcade) 7 minutes (trying to get farther than on first try by going slower)

    Space Tunnel (2600) 3 minutes (to compare it to Earth 2050, which definitely is a hack of it)

     

    Total playing time: 479 minutes (68 minutes per day)

     

    All 2600 games emulated in Stella, all arcade games emulated in MAME.

  18. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    OK, I also switched to the strategy of trying to dodge the cars instead of killing them. The game is actually easier to play if you do that... and needless to say, I've got a higher score now, though I failed at the 5th road with that half island.

     

    So my new best is: 205752.

    post-8393-1229456127_thumb.png

  20. Posted

    OK, I'll categorize my list somewhat...

     

    Home Consoles: Atari 2600 (since 1984), Philips G-7000 (found in the trash)

    Portable consoles: Sega Game Gear (since 1992)

    Home Computers: TI-99 (since 1983, actually two of them), Commodore 64 (since 1984, also 2 or 3 of them), Amiga 500 (since 1987), 386/25 PC (since 1997), Pentium 133 PC (since 2000), PIII/800 PC (since 2001), Quadcore PC (since 2007)

    I leave out the pocket computers since I really don't have any games for them (though it should be possible to write some for the Sharp PC-E220, but no-one to my knowledge did that)

    Handheld LCD games: Snoopy Tennis (found in the trash), Sea Ranger (found in the trash), Gefährliche Rettung (since 1982), Mickey & Donald (theoretically since 1983, but sold it at a house flea market in 1987 or 1988 only to pick it up from the trash again some years later!)

  21. Posted · Edited by Kurt_Woloch

    OK, here's my gaming time for this week... I'll add some commentary to some of the games this time.

     

    Bump 'n' Jump (2600) 162 minutes (pretty good conversion for 2600 standards)

    Robotron: 2084 (TI-99, emulated in MESS) 79 minutes (good conversion too, but noticeably works with character graphics and is a bit different from the original)

    Moonsweeper (2600) 13 minutes (turned out harder than I thought it would be)

    Burnin' Rubber (Arcade, emulated in MAME) 10 minutes (for comparison to the 2600 version - same game as Bump 'n' Jump... seems pretty hard!)

    Spongebob Jellyfishing (2600) 5 minutes (Batari Basic game)

    Spongebob Pixelpants (2600) 5 minutes (another Batari Basic game)

    Pacman 4K (2600) 4 minutes (for comparison of the changed sound routine)

    Earth 2050 (2600) 3 minutes (looks pretty good, but the enemy movement seems a little illogical)

     

    Total classic gaming time... 281 minutes (40 minutes per day)

  23. Posted

    OK, it now sounds and looks better. As I suspected, the sound for eating a monster and a fruit are the same. What occurs to me now is that while the fruit eating sound has about the correct pitch (but actually should go first down, then back up), the pitch of the sound of eating a monster is too low... it should be about the same pitch as the "siren" and the sound that plays while the eyes return to the house. Actually, I think a reversed version of the eyes returning sound would be a good idea here. Of course, that's not really feasible as long as the monster and fruit eating sounds are the same. That's why I said it'd probably be a request for the 8K version. But from the delay standpoint, it's definitely better now.

     

    Hi there,
    but maybe it would be possible to lengthen only the delay, without lengthening the sound? However, if you have the delay set up to simply wait for the end of the sound, if probably won't work this way...

    Try this one. I would have posted to the first post but I couldn't edit it.

  24. Posted

    I think the toughest challenge here would actually be the sound transfer, which should occur in exactly even intervals (i.e. once per scanline, as you wrote), or else the sound would be horribly distorted. One problem here is that, to my knowledge, the Colecovision VDP has no scanline counter... it only generates one interrupt per frame. Or is there a timer in the Colecovision which would be able to generate interrupts that often? If not, you're in for some serious cycle counting...

    Where did you get the 28 cycle count between VDP accesses? I've written a demo for the Creativision, which uses the same VDP, and the first version of it overloaded the VDP with data, that is, it wrote data faster than the VDP could handle it, so the VDP dropped some of those writes which occured outside of the vertical blanking interval. However, I managed to solve that problem by blanking the VDP output while the picture gets drawn. This, however, obviously isn't an option here.

    The Creativision uses a 6502 CPU, I think running at 2 MHz (or was it 1 Mhz? I'm not exactly sure...), and for all you cycle counters out there, the code overloading the VDP in the active display area, but not in the blanking area, ran as follows (note: VDP_Data_Write is not a zeropage address, but GraphicsPointer is):

    	LDX #$00
LDY #$03	;3 x 256 bytes
VDP_Write_Outer_Loop	
STX VDP_Data_Write
INX
BNE VDP_Write_Outer_Loop
DEY
BNE VDP_Write_Outer_Loop

     

    (This writes the pattern name table)

     

    However, the VDP was not overloaded by the following code, which copies the pattern and color tables:

    	LDX #$18		;prepare loop - we have to write $1800 bytes of data (that is, 6K for each loop)
LDY #$00
GraphicsCopy1
LDA (GraphicsPointer),Y
STA VDP_Data_Write
INY
BNE GraphicsCopy1	;end of inner loop
INC GraphicsPointer+1
DEX
BNE GraphicsCopy1
RTS			;end outer loop

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