Acid Fish (updated 10/31/08 with v1.06)

[yuppicide]

Some hippies were partying for labor day weekend on their boat. Some drugs fell into the ocean and this little fishy has eaten one. He thinks everyone is

out to get him, including the coral!

 

Guide your fish through murky waters and don't touch anything. The game gets faster every 50 points until you finally enter a pure panic.

 

For latest comments please see the replies I am posting. You'll find works in progress, known bugs, etc.

 

 

 

acidfishv106.bas.bin

Edited October 31, 2008 by yuppicide

[gambler172]

Hi Yuppi

Great work.....

greetings Walter

[Robert M]

Nice work!

 

I noticed a couple things.

 

1. You need to reset the fish to the middle of the game area each time the game restarts. As it is now, if you swim to the edge of the field and day, then restart the game, you can escape the ring and get infinite points.

 

2. I didn't like that I died if my bubbles hit the walls. Maybe you could use the player's missile to make a bubble animation, and then it won't cause player death if it hits a wall.

 

Cheers!

[yuppicide]

Post #1 has been updated with a minor update to fix some small bugs.

 

Minor bugfix:

 

- Values were not being reset when you die. Thus, if you died on the fastest speed, you'd start off on the fastest speed. This also fixed to reset your fish

when you start a new game.

 

Works in progress:

 

- Enemies: Seahorse and Octopus coming soon.

 

- Water effect: When you press a direction your fish will "slide" a little. Sort of like floating in water, kind of like sliding on ice.

 

- Changing fish color. I couldn't get it to work so far. He always comes out white.

 

- Bubbles: My original thought was that I wanted the bubbles to kill you because I don't want the player to sit in one spot for two long.. keeps you moving.

Since they are not as enjoyable as I thought, I'll see if I can do something about it using missles or something, but if not I'd like to leave the bubbles

in.

 

 

Ideas:

 

- A drug pops out on the screen for you to get. If you can get this before it disappears you will be in "Acid Mode" for 5 or 10 lines. The playfield coming at you will appear and disappear as they move across the screen, so you'll have to remember where the "hole" is to get through. You will earn double or triple the amount of points in this mode. The outer playfield will remain so you cannot escape.

Edited October 27, 2008 by yuppicide

[Impaler_26]

Nice work!

 

I like the concept of your game but i also find it annoying that you die when your bubbles hit the barrier. I think the player won't sit in one spot too long when you put in some enemies chasing the fish...

 

Looking forward to see how this game develops.

[yuppicide]

Originally the game was about a guy going to the mall to get some new shoes. As soon as he got there he started to have a panic attack and your job was to get the f--- out of there.

[Impaler_26]

...

- Changing fish color. I couldn't get it to work so far. He always comes out white.

...

I just saw this...

Sounds like you don't set the playercolor in your gameloop. You have to set the playercolor in your gameloop every time before you call drawscreen, otherwise it will have the same color as the score.

[yuppicide]

Will check again when I get home. Thought I already looked for that.

 

...

- Changing fish color. I couldn't get it to work so far. He always comes out white.

...

I just saw this...

Sounds like you don't set the playercolor in your gameloop. You have to set the playercolor in your gameloop every time before you call drawscreen, otherwise it will have the same color as the score.

[yuppicide]

I drew some enemies. Below you'll see screenshots of the Octopus and Sea Serpent. Originally that was supposed to be a Sea Horse, but it's a little large. Giant Sea Horse perhaps?

 

 

[EarthQuake]

The game is a bit frustrating at first, but it's a good concept. I like the bubbles on the fish, I just think the gap needs to be a bit wider (literally). Oh, and I did you a seahorse sprite. It's a bit smaller but it still looks like a seahorse.

[yuppicide]

Presenting Acid Fish V1.05

 

New features:

 

- As requested, bubbles no longer kill you!

 

- Enemies: Octopus and Sea Serpent randomly appear.

 

 

Known bugs:

 

- First enemy pauses until the coral gets to the bottom of the screen. Each enemy after that moves instantly as

he's supposed to. I have no idea why as of yet.

 

 

Things to come in the future:

 

- More sounds perhaps.

 

- More enemies.

 

- Each enemy move in different patterns.

 

- Figure out something else instead of Sea Serpent. I don't like how big he is.

 

The latest binary is posted in the first post.

Edited October 30, 2008 by yuppicide

[yuppicide]

I like yours 100% better than mine. Thanks. Will add it in after work tonight.

 

The game is a bit frustrating at first, but it's a good concept. I like the bubbles on the fish, I just think the gap needs to be a bit wider (literally). Oh, and I did you a seahorse sprite. It's a bit smaller but it still looks like a seahorse.

[yuppicide]

Has anyone actually tested this on a real 2600 machine? Do you think the gap should be wider?

 

I've only tested this on Stella so far and in there the gap is good, except when you get to "Panic" mode is where it gets hard.

 

Do you think this should be left as joystick or do you think it should be a paddle game where turning will move your fish left and right and the button will make the fish rise up and down like Cave 1K by Thomas in this thread:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35026

 

The game is a bit frustrating at first, but it's a good concept. I like the bubbles on the fish, I just think the gap needs to be a bit wider (literally). Oh, and I did you a seahorse sprite. It's a bit smaller but it still looks like a seahorse.

Edited October 30, 2008 by yuppicide

[yuppicide]

Just a side note. I am moving into my new apartment Nov 1 (Saturday) so I won't have very much time to work on this until early to mid next week.

[yuppicide]

Small updated. Added in Seahorse someone drew me and I think I fixed the pause issue where first enemy pauses.

[yuppicide]

Well, I'm all moved in. Nothing is setup yet, though.

 

Here's what my ideas are for the future and Acid Fish:

 

- Someone suggested the gap to get through is too small. I haven't tested this on a real Atari, only Stella. Nobody has replied yet when I asked what they thought of the gap, so I've figured out on my own solution. The gap is currently 2 playfield blocks wide. I'm going to increase this to 3 wide. The speed currently increases each level until you're finally in "Panic Mode" (the fastest speed). If you successfully clear panic mode I will reset the speed back to it's slowest setting and change the gap to 2 playfield blocks wide.

 

- Still need an idea on what new enemies to introduce. I'd like to have more than two. Maybe 4? I was thinking a starfish, but I couldn't figure out how to

draw one using only 8 pixels wide.

[yuppicide]

Two more enemies will be introduced:

 

Crab:

 

Turtle:

 

I can't draw either very well. Anyone else care to try?

[yuppicide]

Temporarily halted work here to work on my adult 2600 game. Think I want to get that more finished first.

[yuppicide]

oops.. wrong thread.

Edited November 20, 2008 by yuppicide

[yuppicide]

Someone wrote this to me in PM:

 

"I tried to make your game work on the real hardware via a cuttle cart 2

but it doesnt work

do you know the bankswitch code I should use ?

I tried F8"

 

I am unsure.. anyone else? I've never tried it on real hardware.

[lucifershalo]

the one to use with CC2 is F8SC

[yuppicide]

Sounds easy.. F8 = 8K and SC = SuperChip..

[SeaGtGruff]

Sounds easy.. F8 = 8K and SC = SuperChip..

Yeah, that's a nice bit of serendipity. On a 6502-based computer, the last six bytes of the 64K address space are used for three lo-byte/hi-byte vectors:

 

$FFFA and $FFFB = the NMI (non-maskable interrupt) vector

$FFFC and $FFFD = the RESET (or power-up) vector

$FFFE and $FFFF = the IRQ (interrupt request, or maskable interrupt) vector

 

If you're making a program for a 6502-based computer that will be loaded into the upper regions of the 64K address space, then those six bytes are off-limits as far as programming code goes-- you can set those three vectors as needed or desired for your program, but you can't put executable code there.

 

If you're a company that's thinking about inventing a bankswitched cartridge that will have two banks, and each bank will be selected by accessing a specific address (or "hotspot"), it makes sense to put the two bank-selection hotspots at $FFF8 and $FFF9, just below those three vectors, such that all of the "off-limits" addresses are kept contiguous with each other. That's where the "F8" bankswitching method puts its two hotspots-- the "F8" nickname comes from the last two hexadecimal digits of the first hotspot.

 

The Atari 2600's maximum cartridge space is 4K, so a bankswitching method that uses two 4K banks will give you a total of 8K-- and it's conveniently easy to associate "8K" with "F8" in your mind.

 

If you increase your bankswitching cartridges to have four 4K banks, and with four bank-selection hotspots just below the 6502's three vectors, then you get a total of 16K, and the four hotspots will be at $FFF6, $FFF7, $FFF8, and $FFF9-- hence, Atari's 16K bankswitching method is nicknamed the "F6" method, which is easy to remember because 16K and F6 both end in 6 (i.e., if you ignore the K).

 

However, this nice pattern fails when you get to Atari's 32K bankswitching method. If they had kept the pattern the same, it would have worked out perfectly-- eight 4K banks gives you a total of 32K; the eight bank-selection hotspots just below the three vectors would be $FFF2, $FFF3, $FFF4, $FFF5, $FFF6, $FFF7, $FFF8, and $FFF9; and 32K and F2 both end in 2.

 

Instead, Atari put the eight bank-selection hotspots at $FFF4, $FFF5, $FFF6, $FFF7, $FFF8, $FFF9, $FFFA, and $FFFB-- hence, their 32K bankswitching method is nicknamed "F4." What's that, you ask? Aren't $FFFA and $FFFB reserved for the 6502's NMI vector? Why, yes they are. But the Atari 2600 uses a 6507 processor, which can't perform non-maskable interrupts (because it doesn't have a pin for receiving NMI signals, and it can't respond to signals that it can't "hear"), so that means the $FFFA and $FFFB addresses can be used for other things-- like bankswitching hotspots (or, on a 2K or 4K cartridge, two more usable bytes of code space).

 

Michael

 

Edit: By the way, it's tempting to associate the RESET vector at $FFFC and $FFFD with the 2600's RESET console switch, but they aren't connected, because the RESET switch doesn't trigger a power-up RESET. If you want to, you can program your game to perform the equivalent of a power-up RESET when the RESET switch is pressed, by having your game perform a JMP ($FFFC) instruction whenever the RESET switch is pressed. But the RESET switch can be programmed to do other things as well, such as starting a game variation that's been chosen using the SELECT switch. That's actually a lot more useful than wiring the RESET switch to do a power-up RESET or "warm boot," because a warm boot would completely RESET the program as if the 2600 had just been turned on, thereby negating any game variations that had been chosen by pressing the SELECT switch!

Edited March 3, 2009 by SeaGtGruff