Throwing my hat into the ring...

[TI99Kitty]

After making Extended BASIC suggestions to Opry99er and Primordial Ooze, and skimming through the handbook last night, I've decided that my XB skills aren't as rusty as I'd originally thought, and I know enough to at least start on a new XB game. I don't want to go too much into it yet, since real life, unfortunately, has a lot of demands on me right now, and I may not finish it anytime soon.

 

I will say, however, that it won't have a conventional scoring system. Scoring will be simply a way for the game to decide when you're ready to engage in a "boss battle." The game will require TI Extended BASIC, but will otherwise run on an unexpanded TI (i.e., it doesn't require E/A, 32k expansion, etc.). I'm toying with the idea of using speech, but it will depend on how large the program ends up being, and whether I feel it actually adds anything to the gameplay. If I have room for a title screen, I may be asking Owen for help with the title screen music.

 

Oh, and it's loosely based on a movie that came out around the time of the TI-99/4A*. Feel free to engage in speculation. ^_~

 

 

*disclaimer: not "at the time the TI came out," but "around the time of the TI's original lifespan."

[+save2600]

Sounds exciting! Will have to keep up with the development on this one. Hmm... a movie from '81 that might feature "boss" stages. 1981 was actually a phenomenal year for movies (all around great year in general come to think of it) and I can think of a few that were my favs:

 

Clash of the Titans

Dragonslayer

Time Bandits

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Escape From New York

Superman II

 

...any of these would translate well to a TI game methinks. Especially Clash of the Titans, Time Bandits and Escape From New York.

[Opry99er]

Escape from New York-- starring Rhea Pliskin!!!!

[+save2600]

Escape from New York-- starring Rhea Pliskin!!!!

 

That's 'Snake' Pliskin to you buddy boy... lol

[TI99Kitty]

Escape from New York-- starring Rhea Pliskin!!!!

 

That's 'Snake' Pliskin to you buddy boy... lol

 

He's referring to my IRL name, LOL.

 

And who said it was 1981? Guess you didn't read the *disclaimer... ^_~

 

But, yes, many of those would make good games. Hmmm... "The Time Bandits Escape from the Lost Ark." ^_~

Edited January 18, 2010 by TI99Kitty

[+save2600]

And who said it was 1981? Guess you didn't read the *disclaimer... ^_~

But, yes, many of those would make good games. Hmmm... "The Time Bandits Escape from the Lost Ark." ^_~

 

LOL! Great title. So "around" the time of the 4A's release then... that could be anything few years back or forward. Too vague for me.... need_more_info to go on First movie to come to mind though was Alien, but that would have been closer to the original TI-99/4's time, not 4A...

 

Okay - thought of a couple others now that the timeframe might be a little more flexible:

 

Goonies

Gremlins - a nice bitmapped GROM image of Phoebe Cates would be nice

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back

Edited January 18, 2010 by save2600

[TI99Kitty]

First movie to come to mind though was Alien, but that would have been closer to the original TI-99/4's time, not 4A...

 

Actually, according to trivia I've read, originally "The Attack" was supposed to be an "Alien" tie-in. I don't see any resemblance, personally... O_o

[+save2600]

Actually, according to trivia I've read, originally "The Attack" was supposed to be an "Alien" tie-in. I don't see any resemblance, personally... O_o

 

 

No kidding. Just as Zero Zap doesn't resemble Pinball either

 

 

[InfernalKeith]

Actually, according to trivia I've read, originally "The Attack" was supposed to be an "Alien" tie-in. I don't see any resemblance, personally... O_o

 

 

No kidding. Just as Zero Zap doesn't resemble Pinball either

 

 

ZeroZap doesn't even resemble a game.

 

I can't wait to see "Ordinary People: The Game"!

[+retroclouds]

Now that is great news! I can't wait to play your mystery game

[TI99Kitty]

Good news! I've started coding, and I have some code ready for testing!

 

100 CALL CLEAR

 

Of course, I'll continue refining this, but I hope to add a "PRINT" statement soon!

 

okay, so I'm a bit of a smartass...

[InfernalKeith]

Good news! I've started coding, and I have some code ready for testing!

 

100 CALL CLEAR

 

Of course, I'll continue refining this, but I hope to add a "PRINT" statement soon!

 

okay, so I'm a bit of a smartass...

 

Hate it!

 

[TI99Kitty]

Okay, quick question before I go back to sleep... I want to try using multi-color sprites, which means layering two or more sprites. I've read about this being done on the ColecoVision, but has anyone tried it in TI XB, and if so, how well did it work?

 

I remember the limit on how many sprites can be on a line, and I'm not worried about that, since I would only be layering the player's sprite, and I'm content to only use two visible colors. I'm more concerned about how well CALL MOTION can synchronize two sprites, since it is for the player sprite.

[Opry99er]

Oooohhh, fun!!! . Yes, this is certainly do-able. If you want a reference point for what two linked SPRITEs look like, take a look at the title screen for "Lemonade Stand." The lemon that moves across the bottom is actually 2 SPRITEs joined together... At slow speeds, you can see a bit of offsetting, but at higher speeds, it is unnoticeable.. With CALL MOTION, if you are using a JOYST function, it should also be nominal (the offsetting). Give it a shot!!!

[Opry99er]

You can use a subprogram to link the two SPRITEs into your CALL MOTION routine.... I'll post an example later. . Neato.

[TI99Kitty]

Oooohhh, fun!!! . Yes, this is certainly do-able. If you want a reference point for what two linked SPRITEs look like, take a look at the title screen for "Lemonade Stand." The lemon that moves across the bottom is actually 2 SPRITEs joined together...

 

I'll have to take a look at that again. I'll admit, when I played it before, I didn't notice anything special about the lemon -- but then, that's a good thing.

[Opry99er]

Yea... . It's 2 Double Sized double magnified SPRITEs linked together... The word "ade" is an offset slow-moving SPRITE below "LEMON". Like I said, at that slow of a

speed, it's pretty easy to notice the offset.... But any faster, and it's all good.

[TI99Kitty]

Yea... . It's 2 Double Sized double magnified SPRITEs linked together... The word "ade" is an offset slow-moving SPRITE below "LEMON". Like I said, at that slow of a

speed, it's pretty easy to notice the offset.... But any faster, and it's all good.

 

I'll check it out after I've had a chance to get some sleep.

 

I managed to not get anything done last night, but I'm off for the next three nights, and hopefully I'll have something to show for it before this weekend!

Edited January 19, 2010 by TI99Kitty

[TI99Kitty]

I may have to rethink the sprites. After looking at the character sets available in XB, I came to realize I wasn't going to have full text capability. I picked out only the characters that I'm going to use for sure, and reassigned those to ASCII codes 33-63, leaving me free to start my sprite characters at ASCII 64...

 

For a single-size, four-tile sprite, with up, down, left, right and diagonals (not to mention a "neutral" position), that takes up ASCII 64-99 (9 positions x 4 tiles = 36 characters). Then, to add a second color takes an additional 36 characters -- ASCII 100-135. And that leaves me ASCII 136-143 for everything else in the game, including damage counters, power-up tokens, background scenery, special effects, and opponents. >_<

 

This means either a single-color, single-size, four-tile player sprite; a two-color, double-size, single-tile sprite; or a single-size, four tile sprite for the main color, and a double-size, single-tile sprite for the secondary color. Hmmm... Tiny player sprite, or Atari 2600-looking sprite... Choices, choices...

 

For now, I'm going to proceed with a single-tile sprite. Having two colors may be moot at that size, of course. We'll just have to see how it works out...

[TI99Kitty]

Okay, most of the time I've wasted spent on this so far has been spent trying to get the graphics less sucky looking not too far from what I had envisioned. I swiped borrowed the sprite movement routine from "Honeycomb Rapture," and when I get further along, I plan to add keyboard support (for those of us who still play games on our IRL consoles) to the routine.

 

Before I put up the code-so-far, I'll give a little bit of background:

 

The movie that inspired this little game was hardly a blockbuster. In fact, from what I remember at the time, the studio hardly promoted it at all. I remember movie trading cards, and that's about it. Actually, I think they may have been embarrassed by it. Really, it wasn't as good as it could have been (like this game will probably wind up being, LOL), despite an excellent cast. Still it was an entertaining way to waste a couple of hours, and it's always had a special place in my heart.

 

I like to think that, if the studio had released a video game of the movie, it would have been something like this, only it would have sucked a lot less better.

 

100 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(2) :: RESTORE 5000
109 REM ** SETUP GRAPHICS **
110 FOR CD=1 TO 18 :: READ CH,CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CD
120 FOR CH=64 TO 96 STEP 4 :: READ CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CH
130 FOR CH=104 TO 136 STEP 4 :: READ CH$ :: CALL CHAR(CH,CH$) :: NEXT CH
140 CALL COLOR(5,9,1,6,6,1,7,15,1)
149 REM ** SETUP VARIABLES **
150 DAY=1 :: REP=0 :: TOK=1 :: ROM=0 :: TS=0.125
199 REM ** SETUP GAME SCREEN **
200 CALL SCREEN (6) :: DISPLAY AT(10,10):"&%; :%""$>!"
210 FOR DE=1 TO 1500 :: NEXT DE
220 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(2)
230 DISPLAY AT(2,1) SIZE(10):":%.";REP :: DISPLAY AT(2,14):"I" :: DISPLAY AT(2,23) SIZE(6):"$""> ";DAY
240 CALL SCREEN(
245 FOR R=5 TO 23 :: CALL HCHAR(R,2,81,30) :: NEXT R
250 CALL HCHAR(3,3,65,TOK) :: C=30
260 FOR HD=1 TO ROM:: CALL HCHAR(3,C,66) :: C=C-1  :: NEXT HD 
270 CALL SPRITE(#1,80,6,92,124,#2,120,9,92,124) :: CALL MAGNIFY(2)
279 REM ** KEEP PLAYER ON PLAYFIELD **
280 CALL POSITION(#1,XPOS,YPOS)
290 IF XPOS>175 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,175,YPOS,#2,175,YPOS) :: GOTO 310
300 IF XPOS<32 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,32,YPOS,#2,32,YPOS)
310 IF YPOS<10 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,XPOS,10,#2,XPOS,10)
320 IF YPOS>240 THEN CALL LOCATE(#1,XPOS,240,#2,XPOS,240)
329 REM ** PLAYER INPUT **
330 CALL JOYST(1,X,Y)
340 CALL MOTION(#1,-Y*2.5,X*2.5,#2,-Y*2.5,X*2.5)
350 CALL PATTERN(#1,Y*3+X+80,#2,Y*3+X+120)
360 GOTO 280
4999 REM ** TEXT CHAR DATA **
5000 DATA 33,0010383810100010
5010 DATA 48,0038444C54644438
5020 DATA 34,003844447C444444
5030 DATA 35,0038444040404438
5040 DATA 36,0078242424242478
5050 DATA 37,007C40407840407C
5060 DATA 38,003C40405C444438
5070 DATA 39,0038101010101038
5080 DATA 42,0044485060504844
5090 DATA 43,00446C5454444444
5100 DATA 44,00446464544C4C4C
5110 DATA 45,0038444444444438
5120 DATA 46,0078444478404040
5130 DATA 58,0078444478504844
5140 DATA 59,007C101010101010
5170 DATA 60,0044444444444438
5180 DATA 61,0044444428281010
5190 DATA 62,0044442810101010
5199 REM ** GRAPHICS CHAR DATA **
5200 DATA 00080002F0305010007CAA7C28100000006CFEFE7C381000
5210 DATA 00240000183C5A18
5220 DATA 001000400F0C0A08080AFC5F7CB41C24
5230 DATA 004022F0F0224000
5240 DATA 18183C5A00002400FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
5250 DATA 0002440F0F440200
5260 DATA 105030F002000800
5270 DATA 185A3C1800002400
5280 DATA 080A0C0F40001000
5300 DATA 24302D3C0A0F0000
5310 DATA 24DBBD5A24000000
5320 DATA 240CB43C50F00000
5330 DATA 060A150E0E150A06
5340 DATA 000000245ABDDB24
5350 DATA 6050A87070A85060
5360 DATA 00000F0A3C2D3024
5370 DATA 000000245ABDDB24
5380 DATA 0000F0503CB40C24

 

"Rep" stands for "Reputation," and is the scoring method used in the game. When the player's Reputation reaches a certain level, it triggers on of several boss battles, inspired by events from the movie. The boss battles will likely give me the most difficulty, so I'm saving them for last. "Day" is the current level (or screen). The shields (or "tokens") on the left side of the screen will be used for special attacks (or for continuing, if you get killed). The hearts on the right side may be used for a subplot, if I have the space (and the energy) to work it in. If not, I'll probably use them for a "health bar."

 

Next on the agenda is to make the graphics for the playing field. I will most likely be using the majority of the allowed character sets to create the background and sprites for the challenges the player will face, as well as icons to represent different moves the player can activate by using the fire button.

Edited January 20, 2010 by TI99Kitty

[Opry99er]

Great stuff, Rhea!!!! You can steal anything you want from my games. . I Posted a blog about that particular development technique on my blog on Opry99er.com. Glad to see the game moving!!!!!!

[+retroclouds]

Looking forward giving it a spin this evening

[sometimes99er]

Looking good !

 

[+retroclouds]

Looking forward giving it a spin this evening

 

Just tried it out, and it's very good! I can't wait to see more

 

These are fun times

[Tursi]

I had trouble pasting the code, oddly, but it looks really great! A suggestion - moving multiple sprites can cause you to have cumulative positioning errors. To reduce that, my suggestion would be that whenever he stops, just manually correct the position of one of the sprites relative to the other.