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TI Scramble - Scramble clone


Asmusr

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This is just my horizontal demo applied to the Scramble graphics. The graphics transfer nicely to the TI. I had to move a few ground items to allow for the color transitions. I expect to replace the rockets by sprites is the game, but I have kept them as tiles for the demo.

 

attachicon.gifscramdemo.dsk.zip

 

The file on the disk is an E/A3 object file called SCRAMO

 

Very nice, but for some reason the disappearing stars bother me much more here than in Titanium. Maybe if you let them twinkle, it won't be so apparent that they disappear on character boundaries? But as I said, once again excellent work!

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As a Scramble aficionado, I would be fine with one button firing and bombing at the same time. One the arcade, I treat the two buttons as one, mashing away the whole time, only stopping when I really need to time a bomb. Not very sophisticated, I know, but it is good enough to "complete my duties" two or three times on a quarter. It know I have played one version of a game (and it may not have necessarily been Scramble) that alternated between bombs and shots every button press and that was horrible. Maybe 2600 Super Cobra? Looking forward to this, good luck!

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I don't know if you are scrolling the whole screen (changing a video start address pointer and fine scrolling) or re-drawing everything (No idea how the TI does things!)

 

If it's the later you can get significant CPU time back by noting that the arcade game is vertical and therefore only 224 pixels wide, meaning you have to plot significantly less pixels ;)

 

In either case, looks great.

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I don't know if you are scrolling the whole screen (changing a video start address pointer and fine scrolling) or re-drawing everything (No idea how the TI does things!)

 

If it's the later you can get significant CPU time back by noting that the arcade game is vertical and therefore only 224 pixels wide, meaning you have to plot significantly less pixels ;)

 

In either case, looks great.

The TI does not have hardware scroll registers, so it's all done by changing tiles. The map must be transformed into one that represents the unique tile transitions rather than the tiles themselves. The transition tiles are scrolled 0-7 pixels, and then the tiles are reset and the whole screen (32x24 tiles) is scrolled one tile (8 pixels). For the latter operation the screen size matters, but the screen is only 256 pixels wide in the first instance, and my algorithm is dividing the updating of the screen evenly between frames using a double buffer approach.

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Rasmus, you are my new man-crush. I long have desired to be able to program the TI like this. I have a couple of game port ideas that always seemed pretty difficult with the TI and my skill (more the latter,) and your work gives me great inspiration and hope.

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I've been struggling with how to fit the info panel (score, lives, levels) onto the TI screen, since the scrolling part must be at least 24 rows high to include all the tiles (not apparent from level 1). I even thought about turning the screen sideways as in the original (and ask users to do the same!). Now I have decided to free up two rows at the top by changing the maps slightly. This space is enough to fit in all the information while still maintaining some aspects of the original display, like the fuel bar.

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Yes I think fire + down will have to do it. Pressing space bar while holding a TI joystick seems impossible, unless you use you feet.

 

I never playedSuper Cobra myself. How is it different from Scramble, except for the graphics?

 

Parker Bros made a version of Super Cobra for the ColecoVision:

 

 

That proves it can be done, but I was hoping to be able to improve the graphics somewhat.

 

I happened to be watching the ColecoVision play and noticed that it seems forward shooting only occurs when an object can be shot, such as the ship is in line with the object. Otherwise, a bomb is dropped. Perhaps that is an option to investigate??

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  • 2 weeks later...

This video shows my progress so far. This is all working on the old TI - no F18A is required, only the 32K expansion.

 

 

There's a slight delay when switching between maps/levels while the next map is unpacked, but no loading is required - everything is kept in memory. To prove my point I have included the demo as a cartridge file made with Tursi's makecart utility, but please try the disk instead on a real console.

 

I have tried to keep the graphics as close as possible to the original, but if you really know your Scramble you will notice some differences where I had to move ground objects in order to cater for the TI's color set model. I also had to squeeze a few levels vertically in order to fit them on the TI screen, but I don't think this will affect gameplay.

 

The rockets are tiles until they decide to launch, at which point they turn into sprites. The shot is made with tiles in order to prevent flickering, since the ship is already 2 sprites. It looks like they did the same in the original. The next thing is to work on the bombs...

 

I really hope I can pull this off. I still have about half the clock cycles left running as 60 FPS, and about 8K RAM left for the program. But there is still all the collision detection and explosions to take care of. Like in the original the explosions will be done using a mixture of tiles and sprites.

 

I'm planning to show the original 4 color sprites if an F18A is present.

 

Enjoy!

 

Rasmus

scrambleg.bin

scramble.zip

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Wow! This is really impressive. I can't believe how quickly you are managing to put these games together!

Are you taking requests by any chance? :D

It really puts me to shame given how slowly I work on projects, although I try to chuck that to every excuse under the sun :P

Between Titanium, Mr. Chin and now Scramble, it's like manna from heaven. We have not had such an abundance of new machine language titles for the TI in a long time.

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I'm glad you enjoy it, Mr. Chin is Tursi's work, however.

 

Scramble is a lot easier than Titanium because I don't have to come up with any ideas or graphics of my own, but it's still very challenging and interesting, and more rewarding because normal graphics mode leaves you with a lot of resources compared to half-bitmap mode.

 

At the moment I just enjoy making these games so much that I will find the time. The great thing about working on retro computer games is that the target computer will never become out-of-date since it already is.

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Really damned good work! I especially dig the font you used for your name.

 

As an aside, I was thinking about professional-like packaging for forth-coming home-brew releases, and I think like the MBX games had information on the MBX we could have indications of "F18A-Enhanced" software.

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This video shows my progress so far. This is all working on the old TI - no F18A is required, only the 32K expansion.

 

 

 

I appreciate that you are writing software that will run on the real iron while also incorporating optional improvements to make use of newer or replacement hardware such as the F18a.

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This is falling-off-chair level awesomeness! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

I repeat what I said about your earlier demo: Why, in the name of all that is holy, did we not have games of this calibre back in the day! Your work *proves* that the hardware is capable of it; it just needs the applied talents of an inspired programmer. We could have kicked the C64s ass!

 

DAMMIT!

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I repeat what I said about your earlier demo: Why, in the name of all that is holy, did we not have games of this calibre back in the day! Your work *proves* that the hardware is capable of it; it just needs the applied talents of an inspired programmer. We could have kicked the C64s ass!

Without the assistance of Magellan to keep track of the character transition this would be extremely difficult. And without the debugger in Classic99 it would take much longer to get the code to work. Developing in a emulation environment is so much easier and faster than on the real console, but given enough time it could have been done, of course.

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