Ninjabba Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Very nice, looking forward to the final (?) version of this! You definitely should showcase this on e-Jagfest, no excuses I am actually a bit embarrassed to go to e-Jagfest, because with both me and matashen having had almost no time to work on our stuff none of the games I presented last year is complete. Neither is the 1st person shooter from obschan, or Pitfall, or TLA. Life sometimes sucks. Every homebrewer knows these feelings.. sorry I won't attend it myself.. got a weekend booked full with personal matters. We'll have to hook up another time 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 Looking sweet! Not sure how I am going to deal with the palette issues as the icons use palette obviously, and different text etc. Might be a problem because I've got next to no RAM left. Will have a go at adding the new images in soon. Not got time ATM as I am in the middle of a few other projects =\ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Very nice, looking forward to the final (?) version of this! You definitely should showcase this on e-Jagfest, no excuses I'm afraid GadgetUKs reply made clear Alien would probably not be at eJagfest. But in the end it's my fault for being last minute with my part of the work. :/ Every homebrewer knows these feelings.. sorry I won't attend it myself.. got a weekend booked full with personal matters. We'll have to hook up another time I hope we will. At least LX.NET will be there, which in all my years of homebrewing since I started with Pier Solar will be the very first time I meet anyone I have worked with! It's a real miracle how I managed to miss every appearance of the people I worked with, yet met other homebrewers I had no involvement with. I did meet Lynxman though, but I was never directly working with him, it was matashen who handled the PCB stuff with him. Looking sweet! Not sure how I am going to deal with the palette issues as the icons use palette obviously, and different text etc. Might be a problem because I've got next to no RAM left. Will have a go at adding the new images in soon. Not got time ATM as I am in the middle of a few other projects =\ Hmh, I was preparing the icons in game palette. No different palette there, just the one used on the decks etc. So you should not need to worry about that. Only one mandatory palette change, between the Alien screen and everything else according to my plan. And one for the explosion if possible. BTW, you talking about another project while nothing is announced yet makes me uneasy. I hope you are not giving up on the Lynx? Honestly, I think the C64 conversion route could be a goldmine for new life in the Lynx scene and allow a large array of great classics to be ported. I can send you a list. XD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 When is eJagFest? I can take a look this weekend if that helps, just too busy with work this week and by the time i've finished work I am vegetablized... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 (edited) Hmh, I was preparing the icons in game palette. No different palette there, just the one used on the decks etc. So you should not need to worry about that. Only one mandatory palette change, between the Alien screen and everything else according to my plan. And one for the explosion if possible. BTW, you talking about another project while nothing is announced yet makes me uneasy. I hope you are not giving up on the Lynx? Honestly, I think the C64 conversion route could be a goldmine for new life in the Lynx scene and allow a large array of great classics to be ported. I can send you a list. XD It's not a huge huge problem, it's just regards text colour and the icons for items and the icons that go bottom right - when the Alien is onscreen it's going to mean handling text colour differently and i've not got very many bytes to do it with. That was my main concern from the start really, that I can easily use a different palette but it needs to remain the same throughout or I would end up having to have code to handle text on one screen different from another. Now there's also the issue of palette related to items and icons, meaning they all need to use the same colours as the character images I think. Regards other projects, I've been doing a lot of repairs and restorations to other systems etc - the Neo Geo has my attention at the moment lol. You can see some of my videos here:- https://www.youtube.com/user/GadgetUK164/videos I plan on finishing Alien ASAP and JackAttack. Haven't decided whether to go back and complete LynxOps (will need large portions rewritting following what i've learnt since then). I sort of want to do Kung Fu Master as well for the Lynx. I am also looking at an SD based flash card for the Lynx as a side project. Edited November 19, 2013 by GadgetUK 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 But both palettes are mostly the same. All the colors for the colors for the portraits are in both Alien- and deck palettes. The Alien palette just adds some extra brown and leaves away som gray. So maybe if I arrange the colors in a way that the portrait colors appear always as the same number color in both palettes it should eliminate the problem. Like Iarrange the light skin tone to be color #12 in both palettes, dark skin is color #13 in both, white is #14... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 I spent some time on this yesterday to see if I could fudge something together for the Sunday of eJagFest but it raised some problems (i've PM'd you). Basically the new images are so much more detailed that they take a lot more space up in RAM. For example, the buffer I used for the level images was sized in such a way it worked with all three levels, but now the enhanced level 2 you sent me uses up 40 / 50% more RAM. It's due to the RLE type compression used to store the images in RAM - if an image is really detailed and doesnt have repeating sections of the same colours etc it can use a lot more RAM up. I also hit a problem with the avatar images due to the fact they are all in one segment at the moment, each with a different size in bytes due to RLE compression again. But the complication here is that the pointers to the images versus the pointers to the enhanced images in their own segment are different (obviously) - something I didnt plan for. So what I need to do is put all 7 avatars into their own segments - for both normal and enhanced images. Hopefully I should have enough segments. The benefit is that only 1 image will be loaded at a time for the avatars, which makes sense, and will free up some RAM for the level images. Bottom line is once ive done a load of work to move some segments around and created 14 new segments for the avatars, then it should all fit into RAM OK.Regards the palette, I will need to edit the icons and items to use the constant part of the palette - I dont think we should do two lots of items and icon images because I am going to start running out of segments, and i've got next to no RAM left to use pointers in the code instead. I will then need to stick the new palettes in there and some code to select font colour based on the palette selected. It's quite a bit of work so it could be weeks if not months before I get time to do all of this yet =/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLynx Lover Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 Sounds like the game's nearly finished! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Luchs Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 Go Gadget! Go Gadget! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Ok UK, time for a little bumpity bump... Your Alien fanbase is awaiting you. How is this little baby going? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Hi, sorry I've just been having a tough time recently and not been able to find energy or motivation. I will get around to finishing this soon though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 No problem man. I know life can get. I'm sure you'll pick it up again sooner or later. More important, I hope everything is OK. We'll just be patient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoltan Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 About the motivation side, just want to let you know that there are meny of us who are eagerly waiting for the finished game 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 Say Gadget, any chance this could be the completed game we might get for the Lynx's 25th Anniversary? That would be awesome! I hope you are doing well. I know you kind of lost interest on this for a time, just wanted to check in. When is the official date of the Lynx 25th anniversay? Wiki says Sept/Oct 1989. Does that sound about right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted May 5, 2014 Share Posted May 5, 2014 When the Lynx became 20 we celebrated it on October 11th. I believe the proto was already made at the beginning of the year with some kind of info leaking out before October. But on October 11th you could actually get your hands on a real Lynx so we chose this date 5 years ago. -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted May 5, 2014 Share Posted May 5, 2014 Sounds good to me... I still think its October when I got mine back in 89... so yeah close enough... lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted May 7, 2014 Author Share Posted May 7, 2014 It certainly should be complete before October (famous last words...). I am just waiting for 108 stars to finish chopping up the images. I did start trying to chop them up myself but had problems with the palette then being swapped out. I would have finished it by now but I've just not had time to do the work on the graphics cutting etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 So what's the plans for this? Will it end up on a card or just be available via ROM? Would be some tricky licensing I'd think. Anyway, great job. Love the Lynx and ALIEN! Always wanted to play the C64 *game* but never had the desire to get a Commodore! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted May 7, 2014 Author Share Posted May 7, 2014 Will just be the ROM. Wouldn't want to sell it for obvious reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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