+atari2600land Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 (edited) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Qix is doable on the 2600. Of course, the game will have to look different, but the gameplay I believe could be the same. The playfield will be used as the board, and with 200 free spaces, you could divide the score by 2 to find out the %age of the board you've cleared. I wish I could do this, but I don't have the programming skills to do this, so if anyone else wants Qix on the 2600, maybe someone will actually do this (I'm wishing for a Ballblazer-type scenario here, although that's pretty rare.) I've made a mockup picture using bB. I think the game could be done using bB, and if someone else wants to attempt it using bB, that's fine, but one done in normal assembly code would be cool, too. In this mockup, missile0 is the cursor. Everything else is pretty much self-explanitory. Edited December 29, 2008 by atari2600land Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnidog Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Funny you post this..i was working on a Title Sprite for this game... small world I think its possible... this was a great game for other systems Paulie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnidog Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 quick Title screen i made enjoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 I did love to play Qix on my ancient Game Boy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 I play the XL version often. Fun game, if a little sluggish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 IIRC there had been some in depth discussion about Qix at AA a few years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 IIRC there had been some in depth discussion about Qix at AA a few years ago. Previous Qix discussion thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 I don't know what you people are going on about. I think the 2600 version of Qix is great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Is it April 1 already?? Where did you get that? If it's a mockup, it's a helluva mockup! -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 (edited) 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. Edited January 6, 2009 by Kurt_Woloch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrofan Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Another Mockup (click for animation): Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Another Mockup (click for animation): 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... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrofan Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 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. Or we use the Space Invaders trick with the alternating lines And then there's the question how you're going to do the green line that marks the line the player has just drawn... I think there must be a possiblity to do this in the way Missile Command or Etch-a-Sketch draw lines. Is it a player sprite? The Idea is, that the area will be filled with PF graphics if you reach the end (and the line disappears). When yo do not draw a line, your player is a dot like the enemies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrok Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 (edited) And then there's the question how you're going to do the green line that marks the line the player has just drawn... I'm a little unclear why everyone seems to think ithat the "slice" line needs to be a single pixel vector. Wouldn't it be much simpler to just draw this path with the pfpixels, (a la sssnake and "tron light cycles") and call it a day? If we are worried about the detoriorated look, we could make up for it with another visual device, like changing the color of the entire playfield as it gets closer to completion. Edited January 6, 2009 by jrok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrok Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 (edited) And then there's the question how you're going to do the green line that marks the line the player has just drawn... I think there must be a possiblity to do this in the way Missile Command or Etch-a-Sketch draw lines. Is it a player sprite? The Idea is, that the area will be filled with PF graphics if you reach the end (and the line disappears). When yo do not draw a line, your player is a dot like the enemies. If I'm not mistaken, aren't the lines in missile command only possible because they have vertical trajectories - ie. they are limited in the number that can be drawn on the same horizontal line (to three per line, I think)? Edited January 6, 2009 by jrok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrok Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Actually, maybe we could even spare the use of a missile in that setup. Instead of using a graphic to represent the player, we could simply flip the pixel behind the "lead" pixel. That way, when the player is slicing or tracing the edge of a completed shape, he could gauge his position with a black pfpixel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 If I'm not mistaken, aren't the lines in missile command only possible because they have vertical trajectories - ie. they are limited in the number that can be drawn on the same horizontal line (to three per line, I think)? Yup. You can draw one pixel/object/line without problems (5 objects in total). For more pixel it becomes more complicated and less flexible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrok Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 If I'm not mistaken, aren't the lines in missile command only possible because they have vertical trajectories - ie. they are limited in the number that can be drawn on the same horizontal line (to three per line, I think)? Yup. You can draw one pixel/object/line without problems (5 objects in total). For more pixel it becomes more complicated and less flexible. That said, what do you think would be a good way to approach drawing a seamless "dynamic" horizontal line without using the playfield pixels? What about a sprite shape that incremented from $00000000 to $11111111 while alternating between NUSIZx = $5 and NUSIZx = $7 until it reached 32px wide? With 20hz flicker, could you then get something approaching a transversal, single-pixel line? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 That said, what do you think would be a good way to approach drawing a seamless "dynamic" horizontal line without using the playfield pixels? What about a sprite shape that incremented from $00000000 to $11111111 while alternating between NUSIZx = $5 and NUSIZx = $7 until it reached 32px wide? With 20hz flicker, could you then get something approaching a transversal, single-pixel line? All that flicker just for a line which is only virtual for gameplay? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrok Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 That said, what do you think would be a good way to approach drawing a seamless "dynamic" horizontal line without using the playfield pixels? What about a sprite shape that incremented from $00000000 to $11111111 while alternating between NUSIZx = $5 and NUSIZx = $7 until it reached 32px wide? With 20hz flicker, could you then get something approaching a transversal, single-pixel line? All that flicker just for a line which is only virtual for gameplay? Well, no, I was just suggesting it as a thought experiment. As I said above, using the playfield pixels for drawing both lines and completed shapes seems to me like the most efficient way to get the job done. Qix was a pretty game to watch in the arcade thanks to the minimalist vector display, but its got to be the gameplay we are hunting here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrofan Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Updated Mockup. Less lines for the Qix so it looks a little bit more like the original. Stripes for the PF graphics so it looks more vectorized. (click for animation) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CV Gus Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 (edited) Funny about this post- I was just wondering what a CV version of Qix would look like. Since no more than two colors can be shown on a single 8-pixel line/space, I would assume that the little marker would have to move at 1/2 space at a time (horizontally). Since you'd want to keep the extreme edges clear (they disappear off the sides on many older televisions), your marker would move about 60 times from the left to the right, although vertically could be more liberal. Edited January 6, 2009 by CV Gus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 so this mockup isn't possible unless you put at least 256 bytes of additional RAM into the cartridge. Well darn, if only it weren't impossible to add RAM to the cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 so where can we download the rom for that awesome 2600 qix zylon posted? That is a great looking mockup, btw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 I say screw the RAM limit... that's why they invented the SuperCharger! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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