Adventure II for Atari 8-Bit Computers?

[ApolloBoy]

I would second phonedork's suggestion, I always found using the spacebar or having a second controller to be a little awkward so I'd like to be able to have the button do a little more. And slightly off topic, this will most likely be out by February, right? I might actually sell my 5200 because I haven't played it much and the only thing holding me back is not having Adventure II on the A8.

[Shannon]

Seems to me a half second maybe a second or less means drop it.

 

Anything more switcheroo...

 

Probably would require a little play testing to tweak.

[+Cafeman]

Hmm, I was actually thinking the opposite - that a quick press would be the left/right switch , and a half-second press would be to drop the item.

 

The rational is that when you are confronted by a dragon and need to quickly switch the sword to the other side; or if you do it to avoid the troll who is heading to steal your carried item - you want to do it fast.

 

But to simply drop an item, there's no pressure there - you can hold it in a half second or so.

 

I know I don't want to accidentally drop my item trying to swap sides with it. I hate dual-functionality on one button, to be honest. It'll have to play right .

[Goochman]

If we are to multi-use the joystick button my vote would be for a long press to drop something and a tap for quick use.

 

Then again it depends on how the game plays - if you need quick use at a certain time you dont want to have to hold the button down for a second or two - conversely if you need to drop something quickly in the game same rule applies.

 

I would presume the 'drop' action would be the exception vs the rule and quick action something more frequent - but I havent played the game

[+Cafeman]

You might want to quickly drop the sword, then pick it up from a different angle so that it protects you more. the argument goes both ways .. I didn't think this kind of extra programming would be needed to be honest.

[Shannon]

Well we won't know until you try, now will we?

[phonedork]

To be honest I think the suggestion of tapping the button to change sword/bridge position works. While holding the button would drop a item. The two button of the 5200 was great and all, but I hated the position of the buttons. Honestly I would rather play with a 2600 controller with the multiple button feature then even the 5200 controller layout with 2 buttons. But its all entirely up to you cafeman. Its a great game either way. Perhaps a option to choose which one we prefer? Multiple single button mode or spacebar/second button control. I would love to sit back and play while not trying to find the second controller to switch sword positions while a dragon or two is chasing me. I think that situation would be more harder to deal with using a second controller. I would be fumbling for the second controller trying to control a atari 2600 controller with one hand and trying to push the button on the second controller. For those of you who remember 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark" for the 2600 might remember trying to use the second controller to select items while trying to move out of the way of snakes will see what I mean. Tapping the one button to switch sword position would be much easier in my opinion.

[phonedork]

There would be an extra charm to the game by bringing in the simplicity of a single button with multiple instructions. Cafeman, you play with a emulator. Picture yourself on a real system sitting back with two joysticks trying to run from a dragon by holding the controller with one hand for moving away while using the other hand to find the second controller button. If the dragon is on your ass and you finally see the sword, will you have time to grab it and find the other button in time to kill it before it gobbles you up? Your Dragons are pretty damn menacing!!! I just picture myself sitting on the edge of my bed with the 2600 controller in my lap trying to control a joystick type controller and trying to lean it against my lap for leverage while trying to find my second controller button. It will make the game harder. But only because of the control scheme. Tapping the button as soon as you get the sword would switch positioning quickly enough to evade or kill that dragon.

[+Cafeman]

I see your point. I made the game with 2-button control clearly in mind. I am thinking that the one-button w/dual functions method is clearly the best for the XE version so I'll add the code soon, then see how it plays. Again - quick tap of the button = item switch, hold button to drop item. Funny that this solution never dawned on me last year.

 

I made the dragons aggressive because all 1980's games have aggressive enemies and that's how I like it. I hate games with no challenge. At first easy games are nice but once you get skilled, you get bored if there is no challenge. Personally though, I find the Orange and Green Dragons pretty easy to kill - its only when the Green or Red dragon catch me off-guard where I jump and feel the menace.

 

Maybe I'll have some time to work more on the port , this weekend...

[suspicious_milk]

Hey Cafeman, sorry I'm late to the party . . . but you can add me down as interested and a guaranteed sell.

 

Probably too late, but instead of supporting one button on the left joystick how about supporting the Atari Keyboard Controller instead. 99% of XL/XE/400/800 owners no doubt have one from 2600 Star Raiders or the old school style (code breaker, basic etc). Plenty of other buttons available for other options too (though then you'd need an overlay).

 

Myself and my 8 year old son, would love to playtest, but no Atarimax cart. ATR or CAS img's and I would/could run from SIOSD or real disk/tape.

 

In any event, thanks for the hard work and I'm looking forward to buying and playing!!!!!

Edited December 6, 2012 by suspicious_milk

[suspicious_milk]

Maybe this game needs a foot controller?

 

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 121033154660

 

and there you have it

[phonedork]

Its been a while... How is the game coming Cafeman???

[DracIsBack]

Here's to hoping this game comes to A8 in 2013. :-)

[+Cafeman]

Status update: currently re-programming and debugging the random-hiding routines, and the one-button control. Expect a bigger update near the end of the month.

[phonedork]

For he'sssssss a jolly good fello...........

[+Cafeman]

There's a LOT more code in this version's routine, "RandomItemAndScreenRoutine".

 

There are 3 sets of normal hiding "rules" in the XE version.

 

Rules A = for Small levels - only 2 kingdoms

Rules B = Med/Vast some levels, usually the first game variation of a set. Example - Game #8 intermediate vast.

Rules C = Med/Vast some levels, usually the second game variation of a set. Example - Game #9 intermediate vast / different maze.

 

This was a way to have more randomness but still allow different levels to have their own 'flavor'. So not only do the individual mazes change , the hiding rules - as to what item will initially be in what kingdom - changes.

 

When VR mode is activated, new rules are activated - basically any item can be in any kingdom randomly, except that a castle's key cannot be inside its own castle, of course. That would be bad.

 

It was more thinking and logic and testing than I expected!

 

RandomItemAndScreenRoutine
lda VeryRandomSwitch
beq NormalRandomRules
jmp RandomRulesVR
NormalRandomRules
lda WhichGameSizeSMV
cmp #$73	;"s" for "small" ;be careful you didn't change where the "s" is!
bne RandomMediumVastRules
jmp RandomSmallRulesA
RandomMediumVastRules
lda WhichGame
cmp #$02 ;level 02
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$03 ;level 03
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$06 ;level 06
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$08 ;level 08
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$0C ;level 12
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$0E ;level 14
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$12 ;level 16
beq RandomRulesB
cmp #$14 ;level 18
beq RandomRulesB
jmp RandomRulesC ;levels 7,9,13,15,19,21,22 are "C" Rules
; *** for Med and Vast mazes:
RandomRulesB
jsr HideGoldKeyB
jsr HideGreenKeyB
jsr HideIceKeyB
jsr HideRedKeyB
jsr HideSwordB
jsr HideBridgeB
jsr HideMagnetB
jsr HideChaliceB
jmp RandomItemAndScreenRoutineExit
. . .

[accousticguitar]

:thumbsup:

[phonedork]

OMG!!! This is so awesome!!!

[JT Cook]

I am really excited about this one. I have a 5200 but couldn't bring myself to buy it since the 5200 controllers are so awful. But an Atari 800 version would be pretty ideal. One thing I would love to see is the selection of different player sprites (I remember you mention you played with this idea way back when). One of the player options was a knight, I think it would be fun to have the option to play as that or the square.

 

The other thing I want to mention that you may or may not have fixed, there are two screenshots of a Gold Castle, in the upper left hand corner of the screen, part of the back tower, there is an incorrect tile placement.

[+Cafeman]

@ JT Cook - the different player sprites remain in the game as an unlockable 'secret' from the title screen. There is a side-effect when you pick the animated Knight, however - the animated Knight is a big bigger than the Square, making it more difficult on some screens to work your way around, and on some screens (the broken islands) the Knight simply doesn't fit on the narrow path - so if you needed to get a Key on that screen, you'd definitely need the magnet if you were playing as Knight. I considered this no big deal since it isn't part of the main game anyway. (When we had the contest to create sprites, the animated knight really didn't fit the size and frames 'rules' but he ended up so cool I had to throw him into the game anyway.)

 

Yes I do recall that incorrect tile on the castle top (it isn't all that noticeable on a TV screen on 5200), now that you mention it. It shouldn't be hard to fix but I'll have to recompress the whole screen, which I haven't done since about 2006. Someone remind me again if you notice I have not fixed it yet.

 

Concerning status overall -- I am still working to complete the random routines and I've worked on it for the past few weeks as time allowed. I have to be careful that the new 'hiding rules' don't cause unsolvable / unbalanced situations, and it frankly was more hours to code/test than I originally thought. No problems, I'm just slow. These new routines are at least 90% programmed and partially tested.

 

(3/6 update: The new RandomItemHideRoutine is now 100% programmed, I had a few bugs that are now fixed, and it is working well so far. I consider the Small mazes done (normal and the VR mode), and now I'm testing the medium/vast hiding logic. The new RandomItem routines/tables take up almost 1k more memory than the 5200 version. I was surprised at that.)

(3/8 update: Random Hiding works well. There are 16 locations for items to be hid in Kingdom1, 32 in K2/K3/K4 each. Very random mode picks any of these. Testing has allowed me to tweak the (X,Y) locations on each screen so that things are "reachable" and not embedded in castle wall. Over this weekend I'll keep playing VR-mode games ("Very Random") to verify you can actually reach all the items and solve the game. Also this weekend I'll be fine-tuning the new "one-button control" option. After that I'd like some folks to test a trial version out on emulator, while I work on the final buttoning up of the bank-switching and a few other minor things.)

(3/10 update: One-Button control now functions. I am thinking this should be the only control scheme, for simplicity's sake. It doesn't take long to get use to holding the button for a moment to DROP, or tapping it to MANIPULATE. )

(3/11 update: Not too much else to tweak. I finally got down on my list to add the "Adventure Time" statistic to the Game Win screen, and did 2 other little things that bugged me. Next I will test a bunch myself to ensure the hiding rules seem to work (there are a lot of levels) and then on to the final stages of dual bank switching routines (so people can play demos on their RAM cart) and one or two other little things. )

 

 

After that:

• test/tweak the feel & timing of the one-button control as mentioned earlier in this thread. (Done)
  
• a handful of other other (very simple) changes that I have a list for.(Done)
  
• get Perry to help me to convert the bank-switching into "dual methods" - one for 64K PCB, and one for testing on emulators and multi-carts.
  
• test it for a while
  
• then it will wait on AA to physically create the carts/manuals/labels if these are not done by that time. I can't remember if we were going to do another box for this version or not.
  

So, inferring a timeline from all this, the game is still many weeks away from physically being in anybody's hands.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Cafeman

[JT Cook]

Sounds good!

 

One idea, is if you are playing as one of the secret characters, maybe have a key to toggle between the special character you selected and the default square incase you hit a room as mentioned above. Maybe the space bar if it isn't already used.

[DracIsBack]

Bring it on!!!!

[+Cafeman]

As long as the forum allows me to edit, I will be adding red updates to my last status update, a few posts above this one.

[accousticguitar]

I'm glad to hear things are coming along. :thumbsup:

[+Cafeman]

Updated the status a few posts earlier. While you wait ... how 'bout a map! Unlike 5200 Adventure II, the two ramparts/tower screens now wrap around to each other and no longer lead to the Dark Kingdom and Ice Kingdom ... those exits are found at the edges of the Hedge Maze now. But you'll still need to check inside this tiny Kingdom 2 castle for possibly hid items.