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yorgle

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Everything posted by yorgle

  1. What concept from the flash animation are you hoping to convert into a game? No offense, but the concept of a character moving around shooting at something is hardly original. Let's face it, the appeal of the animation comes not from the concept of someone shooting something else, but from basically three elements: 1) movie-like visualization in 3D; 2) stylistic representation of the characters; and 3) surrealism of the large blue bird. I'm not much of a programmer, but it's plain to me that none of these elements is particularly suited to the 2600's limited capabilities. IMHO, a game should not require an accompanying comic book to explain what is on the screen (e.g., swordquest).
  2. Thanks for the advice. My initial inclination was to purchase an atari printer to keep the retro theme going, but because I plan on actually using it, I am concerned about getting replacement ink/ribbons/etc. to keep an atari printer functional. I think I'll go with one of the interface options mentioned and use an old deskjet that I've got laying around.
  3. What printer options do I have for my newly acquired 800xl system? Do I have to locate an original Atari printer or can newer style printers, such as HP Deskjets, etc. be made to work? If I have to go with an original Atari printer, which model would be best for letter quality word processing with occasional graphics?
  4. OOPS! Turns out it's an 800xl--- not a 600. Does the same still apply as to the monitor port?
  5. I've found a good deal on a 600xl and disc drive that I'd like to purchase so my daughter can learn programming. But before I lay out the cash, is it possible to use a new-style flat panel monitor or small flat panel tv with this computer? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
  6. Aww, c'mon, I'll stand up for that one (even though Mr. Robinett seemed surprised by my fan-email about it). Putting a CodeView-style development environment on a tiny little micro years before CodeView was invented for the PC is quite an accomplishment. Had the SARA chip been invented before Warren did his Basic Programming cart, it would have been quite something, IMHO. With 64 bytes it's very close to being usable; another 128 would help enormously. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Robinett is my hero (after all, he gave the world "Adventure") and I absolutely appreciate the ingenuity and skill required to actually make a functioning program like this. I'm just saying that despite the heroic effort, as a practical matter, it's a tedious and useless program with little similarity to the BASIC languages used on personal computers at the time.
  7. Mr. Robinett's "Basic Programming" comes to mind. Don't get me wrong, great concept but why would you expect anyone to devote any time whatsoever to writing a program, in Basic, without a keyboard, that you had no means of saving. Oh, I get it-- the limited RAM would ensure that your programs would be short enough to memorize....
  8. Seeing as they don't have arms they'd have to peck each other to death with their snouts. That would be hilarious- especially it the sprites were animated to have them lean forward slightly when pecking. In the meantime, here's my 30 second hack wherein the goal is to get Rhindle to the stadium:Rhindle_in_Chicago.bin
  9. Love it. Looks like they're playing basketball with the player from Adventure. It's the kind of game you'd expect dragons to play. You should add the bat to the sidelines to cheerlead.
  10. I agree. So much so that without any real interest in videogames in general, I nevertheless bought a 2600 system just so that my daughters could play Adventure. I soon found myself staying up at night learning assembly so I could create my own additions to the game, (more dragons, rooms, etc). IMO, Adventure's success is because it's about as close as a person can get to being litterally "inside the game." It operates in real time. There are no arbitrary restrictions to the player's actions (except perhaps the line-barriers). It allows use of game tools (e.g., bridge) to go beyond simply winning the game itself (e.g., peeking into other rooms, secret room, etc). And the fellow inhabitants of the Kingdom have personality. In theatre, there's a concept called "willing suspension of disbelief" which refers to the quality (or lack thereof) which prompts the viewers to forget the unreality of the stage and accept as "real" the actions they are seeing. Adventure has that quality. It doesn't matter that the dragons look like ducks-- because they act like dragons. Not mere representations of dragons, but real dragons. It doesn't matter that the walls and castles are just square blocks- because they consistently act like solid walls or blocks. Adventure is a great videogame for the same reason that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are great literature. Hats off to Mr. Robinett.
  11. I assume you're talking about my MisAdventure adventure hack. Yes, there's some extra programming in it but I really can't take credit for it-- it's about 99% Nukey Shay's optimizations. But I did have to create all the extra rooms. The point of the forests is you're supposed to get lost in them. I made it so that the screens don't line up the way you would expect. Anyway, I'm working on a new version soon.
  12. Great concept. Love the wolf sprites.
  13. Thanks, Nukey. Height can be whatever it takes to get it to look right.
  14. Anyone have a good 8 bit wide, n bit tall sprite of a magician or wizard? For the life of me I can't seem to draw one that is recognizable as such.
  15. Just returned from looking at the SaveKey and it looks to be exactly what I need. Thanks.
  16. Since wetting my feet with my MisAdventure hack (Thanks again, everyone for the help) I've begun planning its sequel and came up with a somewhat crazy idea of spreading the game across several cartridges (a sort of swordquest concept, but with each program recognizing certain variables set by the previous program). Before I begin, does the 2600 have any capacity whatsoever to store a small amount of data in-between switching cartridges? Perhaps in a memory device in the unused joystick port?
  17. That was one of the key points I looked at in making the game- that it remain challenging even after the mazes had been figured out. The hit points definitely help do that. Interestingly, my 8-yr-old daughter soon figured out a trick- when you see the bat carrying a dragon, grab the bat, carry it (and dragon) to the sword and hold the dragon helplessly against the sword until its dead. Consequently, I was forced to change the code so that the bat no longer carries dragons.
  18. Actually, it's powers of 2 (e.g. #$02, #$04, #$08, #$10, #$20, $40, and #$80). The AND value limits the number chosen by trimming off the upper bits of the value (so if your game used no more than 32 rooms, you'd use AND #$1F...decimal values 0 to 31). Room numbers above $7F are used to determine if the map differs between game variations, so you'd still be limited to a maximum of 128 rooms without removing that routine (AND #$7F). The magnet has a matrix of what it attracts...so you can just remove the byte pair that indicates the princess. Similarly, each dragon has it's own matrix of what objects are "liked" or "feared" more than others...so the princess could be placed high on the list...with a comparison done in the dragon routine if it is guarding the princess (and if so, kill the game). Thanks, Nukey and everyone else. Stay tuned for an updated .bin within the next few weeks.
  19. I know. I'm working on the randomization routine and hopefully the final version will hide the princess in more locations.
  20. I purposely made the forest rooms connect illogically to make it possible to get "lost in the woods" Nukey: thanks for the input. I never thought about the multiples of two thing but that explains why the game would lock up while experimenting with some values. I'll play around with it some more. Everyone else: Thanks for the comments. I'll definely fix some fo the room connections. I really hate how flickery things can get when all of the dragons are after you, but there's not much that can be done about it. I forgot about the princess sticking to the magnet. Ha Ha. If I were really good, I'd figure out how to make it so the dragons could eat the princess as well as you so the goal would be to get her back to the green castle alive.
  21. So that's what that is... thanks. BTW, am I correct that the "RndMax = $xx" should be set to the highest room number to dispurse objects throughout the game? Or am I way off. ;RD0 used to calculate map direction value when including differences RD0 = RoomDiffs - $80 WinRoom = $58 ;(Topmost Green Castle's room number) ByteNum = Game2Objects - (Game1Objects+1) ;number of bytes in each "fill" table RndNum = Loc_4 - (Loc_1 + 3) ; offset value for the room bounds table RndMax = $55 ;Mask for the upper bounds of the random seed WAS 1F Gates = $05 ;# of castle gates - 1
  22. Nice job at creating a variety of interesting rooms using the original seven-row kernel. I rather like the multi-height kernel Nukey came up with, but you do an amazingly good job with the standard one. In all fairness, though, the game seems perhaps too big. In the original or in Adventure II, one could usually count on finding something in every castle except perhaps the gold one (and one needed to ket into the gold one whether or not there was anything there). Here, it's frustrating going to the trouble of unlocking a castle and then finding nothing there. Perhaps Adventure needs to be modified slightly so as to allow use of the SuperChip for an increased number of objects. Also, if the game could have door objects coded so that they could be unlocked by mere touch (I would guess that specifying the player as the "key" would probably work) you could have a system of warp-gates. For example, outside the white castle you could have a warp gate to a room near the gold castle and vice versa. Both warp gates would share the same "state", but have different display tables. Consequently, the one near the gold castle would initially be invisible, while the other would be unlocked by touch. The two gates would teleport to each other. Thus, once a player had been to the white castle he would be free to teleport between it and the gold castle, but not until then. Thanks for the ideas. I agree the 7 row display is limited but I wanted to keep the overall look of the original game. For some reason the randomizing routine doesn't do a good job spreading things out- I'll keep tinkering with that. Plus, I realized after I had coded all of the rooms that how they are numbered affects gameplay in that you don't want to have the randomizing routine placing necessary objects in inaccessible locations. I'm still learning assembly so this hack was limited to simple modifications. It was also an exercise in programming eproms and building carts. Now that I've had success with this cartridge, I'm going to start on a Wizard of Oz game for my daughters. Similar to adventure but will have to find bucket of water to throw on witch to get broom and return broom to Oz while avoiding monkeys and guards. Maybe that's been done, but I'm more interested in these things as means to learn programming. Thanks again for the input.
  23. Well, here it is- my first venture into programming. Thanks to Nukey and everyone here for your help. It's yet another adventure hack, but this time with a twist. Forget the chalice. Your task is to find the princess and get her back to the emerald city where she belongs (not the yellow castle). Watch out for the baby dragon- he's quite mean. Levels 1,2 and 3 are the same rooms but dragons are slower in level 1. Levels 2 and 3 are the same except for random objects in level 3. Comments, criticism and complaints welcome. Note: there are no secret rooms (although some are well hidden) or easter eggs. Side barriers are just that, so don't waste time looking for a dot or a way through them. My goal was to focus on gameplay. missadventure.bin
  24. Thanks. I figured it out eventually. Also figured out how to fit a socketed pcb into a standard cart case w/o having to have a big hole in the top for the eprom. Just cut out and shave off the spring mount flush with the inside of the case and then use two ballpoint pen springs (one on each side of the door) in place of the stock spring. Works great.
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