Mad Me? No, it's Mad Mix

[José Pereira]

Done by Spanish House TOPO SOFT, it was the winner of Game contest by PEPSI.

 

 

Spain and A8 no, and one more that we can have, but sad true is that we don't!...

 

 

One more I think I have solutions.

 

 

Normally Zx Screen bordered with Candies:

 

 

And because it will Scroll vertical and Horizontal it willbe a problem to get with Fine Horizontal on A8 (C64 looks very bad and they just take the candies off).

 

So, what is the solution on A8, simple I get it from the Game Map at "World of Spectrum":

 

 

If we just have the Candies at the the Sides, Tops and all the Level is inside, the problem is fixed and the good Fine A8 scrolling will do the rest.

 

Now colour the sides, the Top will follow (a little more tricky...), the PMs. use are no problem, this Screens just are examples:

 

 

G2F 48wide:

 

 

ATARI 800WIN PLUS without Artifacting:

 

 

ATARI 800WIN PLUS with GTIA Artifacting:

 

 

Is there any "Unemployed" Coder out there?

 

 

 

Greetings people.

Be :cool:and keep tuned here to more !...

José Pereira.

[miker]

Heaven: isn't it the best chance for you to finish 4PAC?

[Heaven/TQA]

still got the sources... and even the title screen of famous Dracon...

[José Pereira]

Heaven: isn't it the best chance for you to finish 4PAC?

 

 

4PAC?

The name isn't strange to me... what is the idea/way of this Pac-Man type.

 

I've trying to find something about it here, but I go back to 2004 and still didn't figure anything about it...

 

José Pereira.

[emkay]

 

 

And because it will Scroll vertical and Horizontal it willbe a problem to get with Fine Horizontal on A8 (C64 looks very bad and they just take the candies off).

 

 

 

Don''t forget, the A8 has no hires scrolling. So "HW-scrolling" is obsolete.

 

At the end, the game will run on the A8 very well. The main playfield can be overlayed with the players, the missiles give the "red" over the candys.

 

The solution is to roll the charset memory.

[José Pereira]

 

 

And because it will Scroll vertical and Horizontal it willbe a problem to get with Fine Horizontal on A8 (C64 looks very bad and they just take the candies off).

 

 

 

Don''t forget, the A8 has no hires scrolling. So "HW-scrolling" is obsolete.

 

At the end, the game will run on the A8 very well. The main playfield can be overlayed with the players, the missiles give the "red" over the candys.

 

The solution is to roll the charset memory.

 

Oops, I know that A8 only go by colour clock (2:1) but never though in Hi-resol. Scrol.

 

 

And what happens if I'm on Hi-Resol Gr.8 or Gr.0 and turn on Horizontal Scrolling? Nothing will happen?

 

 

So, what have to be done scrolling like ZX/CPC, no Fine Scrolling?

Thinking on one side, there's no problemas it will not be any chars clash (like if it was in Antic 4 without Fine Scrolling).

But eevn without it how do you place Chars in Screen and then start moving them. Or thereis Char Scrolling but at if ut was 2:1 Resol.?

 

 

Thanks.

Greetings.

José Pereira.

[TMR]

And what happens if I'm on Hi-Resol Gr.8 or Gr.0 and turn on Horizontal Scrolling? Nothing will happen?

 

It works as usual, horizontal shifts will be in colour clock steps so it moves two high res pixels a time. i haven't played Mad Mix for a while, but if it needs to go at one pixel a frame rather than two it'd be possible to either drop every other frame or possibly to have two buffers where one is offset by a pixel horizontally (that'd be fiddly to maintain for multi-directional scrolling but i'd assume it wasn't impossible as such).

 

So, what have to be done scrolling like ZX/CPC, no Fine Scrolling?

 

They shift the bits manually, but since they skip frames it usually only boils down to moving two pixels every second or third frame. That's probably why Mad Mix has the candy stripes around the edges, it takes up screen real estate that the CPU would otherwise need to be moving.

[José Pereira]

And what happens if I'm on Hi-Resol Gr.8 or Gr.0 and turn on Horizontal Scrolling? Nothing will happen?

 

It works as usual, horizontal shifts will be in colour clock steps so it moves two high res pixels a time. i haven't played Mad Mix for a while, but if it needs to go at one pixel a frame rather than two it'd be possible to either drop every other frame or possibly to have two buffers where one is offset by a pixel horizontally (that'd be fiddly to maintain for multi-directional scrolling but i'd assume it wasn't impossible as such).

 

So, what have to be done scrolling like ZX/CPC, no Fine Scrolling?

 

They shift the bits manually, but since they skip frames it usually only boils down to moving two pixels every second or third frame. That's probably why Mad Mix has the candy stripes around the edges, it takes up screen real estate that the CPU would otherwise need to be moving.

 

 

1:1 or 2:1 doesn't matter. Off course it could be in 2:1 scrolling. If the Screen was in 2:1 it will scroll in 2:1.

But it is in 1:1, and I still don't understand.

I have a Screen in 1:1. I enable Horizontal Scroling, it moves 2pixels or nothing happens because horizontal scrolling doesn't support Hi-resol. Modes?

 

 

 

 

 

And if it done on ZX/CPC/MSX way, without Fine Scrolling, can I kept the Candies on the sides and just move the interior Playing area?

Is there any A8 Game with some sides static and Interior Playing area moving (Titan game from Atlantis, Right side Panel and Vertical scrolling)?

 

 

 

 

And about Vertical Scrolling there isn't any problem, because 1Line at a time and Hi or Antic4 are 1Line...

 

 

 

Sorry not to understand this very well.

Thanks.

José Pereira.

[TMR]

1:1 or 2:1 doesn't matter. Off course it could be in 2:1 scrolling. If the Screen was in 2:1 it will scroll in 2:1.

But it is in 1:1, and I still don't understand. I have a Screen in 1:1. I enable Horizontal Scroling, it moves 2pixels or nothing happens because horizontal scrolling doesn't support Hi-resol. Modes?

 

The horizontal scroll always moves in colour clocks which match up with the 2:1 pixels, it can still move the 1:1 ratio modes but continues to step two of their pixels horizontally each time rather than one.

 

And if it done on ZX/CPC/MSX way, without Fine Scrolling, can I kept the Candies on the sides and just move the interior Playing area?

 

Well in theory yes but you're probably going to end up taking the same kind of hit to refresh speed that the Spectrum or Amstrad version is suffering. They're doing it through necessity, the A8 has other options.

 

Is there any A8 Game with some sides static and Interior Playing area moving (Titan game from Atlantis, Right side Panel and Vertical scrolling)?

 

i doubt it's particularly popular, look at how slow and small the play area is in Titan for example; it's moving the scrolling by constantly refreshing the antic mode E bitmap and drawing the enemies in and there are two buffers so that it can take a couple of frames when things get busy.

 

And about Vertical Scrolling there isn't any problem, because 1Line at a time and Hi or Antic4 are 1Line...

 

Yes, the vertical scrolling should be possible in single pixel steps.

[Heaven/TQA]

as having hardware scrolling feature plus overscan mode (or widescreen playfields) why should I narrow the screen? maximum down to 256x resolution and then go for hardware scrolling again.

 

7 cities of gold does have gfx around the scroll screen.

[José Pereira]

as having hardware scrolling feature plus overscan mode (or widescreen playfields) why should I narrow the screen? maximum down to 256x resolution and then go for hardware scrolling again.

 

7 cities of gold does have gfx around the scroll screen.

 

Hi.

What are you saying, I don't understand very well:

Playing Area in Narrow or in Wide Overscan?

If it's in 32wide where you put the candies? Must be inside, outsidetheyhave to be just PMs. and almost all lost outside...

 

 

 

Just go back to Seven Cities and yes, it has Scrolling inside.

This is inside a 12Chars wide Box and it moves at a speed not very different from what we would need for a Mad Mix Game like... but in a wide Screen? Probably no more than 32Narrow Mode (Large width will get less speed of Scrolling done in Z80 way, probably?)

This Scrolling are like Z80 Machines or it's Hardware Scrolling with constantly replace of sides Status Area?

It seems that it uses just 2Players for "our Guy" and the Backgr./PFs.... but how it will look this way if you enlarge the Scrolling Area?

Seeing Titan, although it could, probably, be better coded, I am a little bit "yes, no, believe if I see it!..."

 

Probably the best way of seeing what "is or not is" possible/speed is some Demos around there.

There some very good and almost impossible archievements in Demos that some type/kind of this must have been done (and a PacMan "type of" game isn't a Shooting with lots of Enemys, speed and many things happen at the same time all the times...)

 

 

Some more comments/ideas/suggestions?

Greetings.

José Pereira.

[TMR]

Probably the best way of seeing what "is or not is" possible/speed is some Demos around there.

 

Nonono, hang on... demo code is heavily optimised for the job in hand and doesn't usually translate well into game code because larger chunks of memory which would otherwise be used for level data can be thrown at what is going on. Look at games, if you see an example of what you're thinking of that works well there it might be viable.

[José Pereira]

Probably the best way of seeing what "is or not is" possible/speed is some Demos around there.

 

Nonono, hang on... demo code is heavily optimised for the job in hand and doesn't usually translate well into game code because larger chunks of memory which would otherwise be used for level data can be thrown at what is going on. Look at games, if you see an example of what you're thinking of that works well there it might be viable.

 

 

Yes, you're right.

Stupid I am. I was just thinking in the Scrolling itself and forget all the others stuff behing Games like Levels, Shapes,...

 

 

José Pereira.