Galaga for 8-bits?

[EnderDude]

I'm just going to wrangle us back to the subject that was intended, because I hate flamewars. So, yeah... Galaga on the 8-bits...

Edited September 19, 2018 by EnderDude

[EnderDude]

So, I think colpf0-3 and colbk is reserved for the enemy colors and the black, and colpm0 and colpm1 is reserved for the white of the ships. Is that our basic color register scheme?

Edited September 19, 2018 by EnderDude

[peteym5]

Has anyone volunteered to start programming this game? Start some graphics design with a font editor? See a lot of talk about using different techniques, but no one has came forward and says they are going to do it. There is of course copyright issues that can be a risk if someone wants to sell it for profit. I am only going to be here to lend support because I would like to see someone else take on this project. I have experience using different techniques for more onscreen colors. Maybe make this into a group project. I can ask if Video 61 or Albert can make a cartridge for collectors willing to buy it. Just that we do know they have concerns about people downloading and sharing material.

 

I am not sure if someone will be using an Antic 4 or Antic 14 (graphics 15) set up. Using a graphic 15 (bitmap) screen will make it difficult to render movement within a single VBI cycle. Also use up considerable memory to store the graphics patterns of the 4 bit shifts of the enemy ships. Antic 4 character set mode makes it easier to move "soft sprites" at a reasonable frame rate. Even though your placement is limited to the 40x24 grid. Maybe use the short font, 4 pixel tall characters, and make a 40x48 grid. Putting the players behind the play field, and make of other color registers black. would need to make the border black as well, can set DMACTL to wide screen.

 

Super IRG is another possible way to get around the limited onscreen colors, I would use that where red + blue to make purple.

 

Player/Missile multiplexer is certainly not an option here because of placing stuff in rows, would be flickering way too much.

 

There are a few options before we even get to VBXE.

Edited September 19, 2018 by peteym5

[_The Doctor__]

hey everybody, I looked outside and no army of attorneys, process servers, or certified deliverers were there... I think we're safe!

 

pete go back and read the thread from the beginning and answer your own questions...

 

what, you want to scare people and then turn it into a profit making venture with lance?

 

pete don't go near the copyright issue, you won't like it... consider what you have done...

I tire of people who bring this up only to see them breaking all the rules themselves...

merely to watch them try to profit later as the rip whole ideas off... after those warnings.

remember you posted exactly what you were doing and what ip you are ripping off, do you think simply changing the name or 1 or 2 attributes protects you?

not very smart.. i am goin to clone blah blah, but to save myself I'll name it Scario Mothers and instead of a mushroom i'll make it a strawberry, change the hair color and make a quadruple jump... you see no court or nintendo would allow that IF an issue were made of it- most assuredly those posts and messages would be produced to the courts and you would lose. They would only go after those who are making money off of it- or if you made it defamatory to the brand causing injury to them. (ie slutio bro, hate game etc.). You see you've made posts like that petey for a number of titles... face palm...

 

If this is the way you are going, I am sure something can be done petey, It was a good idea to go back and edit though...

 

the hobby community will do just fine without you and lance turning it into something you wanna own or profit off of.

 

Since it is highly doubtful anyone is going to try to make money and they are doing this out of love and as tribute, I am 100% certain no one is coming after the fellows for re making galaga with great graphics or a port or two from other platforms... heck even an emu on the A8 as has been done for a number of titles already...

Edited September 19, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[peteym5]

If good people want to be involved with programming this project and want compensation for their work. If someone wants to make it and give it away for free, that is up to them. If that happens, it will be risky invest in materials for a collectible package, on cartridge, or on floppy and expect a big return. Some people have invested to make 50 or 100 units, and only selling a fraction of them, ending up with unsold materials.

 

Now has anyone drawn up any test graphics and maybe do some animation tests in Basic or a quick assembly mock up? That would be a good start.

[adamchevy]

I’d love to see this happen. Then I would like to see it ported to the 5200!

[Kyle22]

If good people want to be involved with programming this project and want compensation for their work. If someone wants to make it and give it away for free, that is up to them. If that happens, it will be risky invest in materials for a collectible package, on cartridge, or on floppy and expect a big return. Some people have invested to make 50 or 100 units, and only selling a fraction of them, ending up with unsold materials.

 

Now has anyone drawn up any test graphics and maybe do some animation tests in Basic or a quick assembly mock up? That would be a good start.

The Love of Money is the Root of All EVIL!

 

Edit: The AtariBlast guys did it for free for the love of the platform and the Community!

 

And MANY others. This is what GOOD people do.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Kyle22

[_The Doctor__]

Good people don't 'volunteer' and then ask about payment.

 

Good people might say I'll help you out if you buy me some floppy disks/favorite drink/pizza etc..

 

Good people don't ask others to volunteer and then want payment for themselves..

Edited September 20, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[EnderDude]

I've made a mock-up in GIMP, and it looks pretty good. I have to hand it to the indexed color mode, as it gives me a lot less headaches with color constraints.

[Heaven/TQA]

Quite near to player arent they?

[emkay]

The original game uses the screen 90° turned. So it is ok, to use 32 bytes width and full height for the game screen.

[Rybags]

The NES codebase would be an excellent starting point as it's probably the closest to the original of any home version - ignoring of course modern releases which are usually just the original code hiding behind an emulation engine.

 

I'd have done something about it myself but my NES knowledge isn't much. The Atari would have problems doing the amount of movement going on though, so it'd probably need to be a VBXE job.

 

The 7800 code would probably be a more realistic conversion as there's not as much going on.

 

The expansion/contraction of the swarm IMO is one of the essential things for an authentic experience - without it all you have is an enhancded Galaxian clone.

[popmilo]

The Atari would have problems doing the amount of movement going on though, so it'd probably need to be a VBXE job.

The expansion/contraction of the swarm IMO is one of the essential things for an authentic experience - without it all you have is an enhancded Galaxian clone.

Amount of movement doesn't look like impossible task imho. IF that swarm expansion can be done using char anim, then what's left are bullets and enemies. Max enemies is around maybe 10 or similar. Mostly it's max 8 moving at single time.

This is an oooold example of soft sprites in char mode but good enough for speed estimate. It's not 50fps, but good enough imho:

 

If anyone is going to start this project in open source/hobby/free/"let's work on it and have fun", I'm in

 

ps. Just don't expect this to be done in a year

[Rybags]

An idea I had re expansion is to use dynamic DLists with inserted extra lines which can cheaply take care of the vertical aspect.

 

Horizontal - I'd suggest doing it in a staged fashion, maybe 2 or 3 per frame.

[José Pereira]

ps. Just don't expect this to be done in a year

As usual... 2 or 3 are enough?

[peteym5]

Amount of movement doesn't look like impossible task imho. IF that swarm expansion can be done using char anim, then what's left are bullets and enemies. Max enemies is around maybe 10 or similar. Mostly it's max 8 moving at single time.

This is an oooold example of soft sprites in char mode but good enough for speed estimate. It's not 50fps, but good enough imho:

 

If anyone is going to start this project in open source/hobby/free/"let's work on it and have fun", I'm in

 

ps. Just don't expect this to be done in a year

I would like to see some of the programming used for character set soft sprites. Can it do more than one shape of sprite? How hard would it be to add player/missile underlays?

[popmilo]

I would like to see some of the programming used for character set soft sprites. Can it do more than one shape of sprite? How hard would it be to add player/missile underlays?

Here you go

 

softsprites.zip

 

Think this latest version is for demonstrating 60fps softsprites in ntsc mode (for 1942 example).

If you find your way around in source, you can include different sprite images and change number of them etc.

 

It can handle as much frames as you wish depending on free memory (guess 256 is limit).

These are preshifted so one 8x16 sprite takes 4 frames x 3 bytes x 16 lines = 192 bytes.

Add 192 more if masked (as in example). For Galaga maybe it could work withiout masking...

 

Coloring with PM is whole another can of worms

Best to use PM for status, player sprite, weapons, sfx or similar...

[popmilo]

As usual... 2 or 3 are enough?

LoL

Sure. For each person you add to project add +1 year

[EnderDude]

If we could do Mario, we can do Galaga, if DMCA doesn't screw us up :

Edited September 20, 2018 by EnderDude

[xxl]

let's go

t.obx

[peteym5]

Here you go

 

softsprites.zip

 

Think this latest version is for demonstrating 60fps softsprites in ntsc mode (for 1942 example).

If you find your way around in source, you can include different sprite images and change number of them etc.

 

It can handle as much frames as you wish depending on free memory (guess 256 is limit).

These are preshifted so one 8x16 sprite takes 4 frames x 3 bytes x 16 lines = 192 bytes.

Add 192 more if masked (as in example). For Galaga maybe it could work withiout masking...

 

Coloring with PM is whole another can of worms

Best to use PM for status, player sprite, weapons, sfx or similar...

 

The closest thing I did to using soft sprites is the game Megaoids. Where the asteroids in the game are comprised with font characters, But as many can see, the movement of the asteroids is 4 pixels horizontally and 8 pixels vertically. Probably see some effects from that when the asteroids pass over each other. I thought I did a good job at hiding any weird flickering when stuff moves around. There is a slight Super-IRG effect used in the game, to make the asteroids appear to have some darker shading along the edges, and textures in the middle.

 

I did the star fields effects with font characters also. Just has one pixel in the middle and the VBI routine checks if an asteroids is present over where the stars are, if not, and byte is 0, it places a star there.

 

I experimented with short font characters, was going to use 4x6 font characters for Megaoids, but I noticed I suddenly started having less CPU. Seem to loose time during the VBI cycle with the VSCROLL DLIs. Wonder if VSCROLL puts any delays on the CPU clock.

Edited September 20, 2018 by peteym5

[jefffulton]

Just got back from a vacation where there was a Galaga/Pacman machine on the Cruise Ship - I did not play that many times, because I did not want to spend my cruise in the arcade.. but WOW I forgot how much I love that game.

 

So if we cant have this on the 8-bit there are actual Standup emulators for the PC correct? IS there a correct original version of this game that one can play at home??

 

James

Namco Musuem for the PS2, PS3, PS4, Xbox, 360, Xbox One. PC - Mame.

NES Emulated one is pretty good too.

I personally love the 7800 version, while not Arcade Perfect it is no 2600 Pac-Man.

[popmilo]

let's go

What's that conversion from ?

[+Stephen]

What's that conversion from ?

Only thing I can find about it online is that is was for the Acorn Electric (perhaps referring to the Electron) which I believe was a 6502 based system.

[+CharlieChaplin]

let's go

 

playable ?!? or demo only ?!?