New to 2600 Programming. Need a quick answer.

[Krayt88]

Hey all. So I'm pretty new to 2600 programming and i'm still in the conceptual stages of a game I'm working on but before I start coding it I just have a quick question for all you pros: Is it possible to program a game that has one player using a joystick and another using a paddle controller? Without going into how such a game would be played, I'm just wondering if it is even possible to code a game to use different input devices for different players.

[SeaGtGruff]

Hey all. So I'm pretty new to 2600 programming and i'm still in the conceptual stages of a game I'm working on but before I start coding it I just have a quick question for all you pros: Is it possible to program a game that has one player using a joystick and another using a paddle controller? Without going into how such a game would be played, I'm just wondering if it is even possible to code a game to use different input devices for different players.

Of course you can! As long as one type of controller is plugged into one port, and the other type of controller is plugged into the other port, and you know which type of controller is plugged into which port, you can read each port separately, and process the input accordingly.

 

With the paddle controllers, you have a *pair* of paddles plugged into one port, so you could either have three players-- one player with a joystick, and two players with paddles-- or you could let one player control both paddles (which might be a little bit awkward), perhaps like turning the two knobs of an Etch-A-Sketch tablet.

 

Michael

[Krayt88]

With the paddle controllers, you have a *pair* of paddles plugged into one port, so you could either have three players

 

Michael

 

Thats exactly what I was planning to do! Thanks for the good news!

[Gemini]

I'm still pretty new to this too, but one of the things I found out abruptly was that the paddle controllers are a bit wonky to program for because you have to manually figure out their response values, which optimally takes a large number of scanlines.

 

So I just wanted to warn you that whatever idea you have, make sure there's a section of it that gives you an ample amount of time to run paddle input checks so you can properly calculate the paddle position.

 

Essentially, the more checks you make during a frame, the more of the paddle's range you can use and the more accurate you can make your paddle movement.

 

I'm still in the conceptual stages too so I haven't any source code to share yet. ^_^;

Edited January 21, 2008 by Gemini