ORB

[winkdot]

Orb 0.8 update (see first post).

 

Some optimized code. Try this on a harmony cart. (wish I could).

[+SpiceWare]

Stable when on a screen, jitter during the transition to the next screen.

[winkdot]

Orb release 0.9 (see first topic post).

 

A ton of code shuffling in this one. The game no longer exceeds scan lines unless you do a Select/Reset on it. I felt this is acceptable.

 

Some graphic changes, some enemy logic changes, additional animation. The ground WILL now harm your ship so try and avoid it.

 

As always, let me know if you see problems.

[Mountain King]

Cool! I'll try it out on my Atari when I get home. You've worked really hard on your games and they get a lot of positive feed back. So it would be great to see them production ready.

[Mountain King]

I played the game for a bit and I am still getting jitter especially when there are multiple enemies on the screen.

[iesposta]

_{I don't know why I haven't seen this until now.}

_{Very intuitive, colorful, and great harmonized notes!}

_{I think this is your best yet.}

_{Great game ideas, and they are all different. A top down shooter, a pin ball, a maze shooter, and this side shooter.}

_{Can't wait to see what's next!}

 

_{I will try to show you all my code tricks.}

_{I started a shoot em up, death from above scroller like Xevious, and more like GTIA Blast, which is an Atari 800 game that has moved way beyond DFA shooter. (They have the GTIA, we have the TIA! ) I can show you my work. No enemies designed, but have the proof of concept of the Playfield scrolling up and or down, faster than the background horizontal lines scrolling which can be shaded like metallic bars, giving a two surfaces effect.}

 

Use button to change PlayField surface:

TIA20140806a.bas.bin

[winkdot]

I played the game for a bit and I am still getting jitter especially when there are multiple enemies on the screen.

Are you sure that's just not the standard flicker when two sprites are close by? I tested this a ton using the Stella debug command

breakif { _scan > $262 } and the break was only triggered when the player hit Select or Reset.

[winkdot]

_{I don't know why I haven't seen this until now.}

_{Very intuitive, colorful, and great harmonized notes!}

_{I think this is your best yet.}

_{Great game ideas, and they are all different. A top down shooter, a pin ball, a maze shooter, and this side shooter.}

_{Can't wait to see what's next!}

 

_{I will try to show you all my code tricks.}

_{I started a shoot em up, death from above scroller like Xevious, and more like GTIA Blast, which is an Atari 800 game that has moved way beyond DFA shooter. (They have the GTIA, we have the TIA! ) I can show you my work. No enemies designed, but have the proof of concept of the Playfield scrolling up and or down, faster than the background horizontal lines scrolling which can be shaded like metallic bars, giving a two surfaces effect.}

 

Use button to change PlayField surface:

TIA20140806a.bas.bin

Thanks Iesposta! I'm a bit fond of ORB also. The games are different because I'm trying to learn new stuff.

 

Very nice scrolling effect! A bit hypnotic. I happen to be working on a scroller game currently, but don't expect something as cool as your demo

Would be awesome to see your code and tricks on this one.

 

 

[Mountain King]

Are you sure that's just not the standard flicker when two sprites are close by? I tested this a ton using the Stella debug command

breakif { _scan > $262 } and the break was only triggered when the player hit Select or Reset.

I played the game on my 4 switch, on my Harmony Cart. You're right, I'm not getting anything on Stella. I'll double check again tonight. I may have played an earlier version.

[Mountain King]

Okay I got some good news and some bad news. Bad new I tried it again on my 4 switch, it was the right version and it still jittered like hell. The good news is that I tried it on my 7800 and it worked great. No Jitter. So it may just be my 4 switch. I did try some other games and they seemed to work fine.

[winkdot]

Okay I got some good news and some bad news. Bad new I tried it again on my 4 switch, it was the right version and it still jittered like hell. The good news is that I tried it on my 7800 and it worked great. No Jitter. So it may just be my 4 switch. I did try some other games and they seemed to work fine.

Thanks for trying it out!

 

I can't explain why it could be different on a 4 switch and a 7800. Someone with deep knowledge of the hardware might chime in?

[winkdot]

Surprise update to Oid. Speeds ups for the most part.

[winkdot]

Oh.. forgot.. I tested this on Stella (PC) and the Flashback 9 with success.

[Arenafoot]

It is with a sad heart, I would like to let all of the Atari community know that I just found out Ed Riley "winkdot" passed away last October. Ed was a programmer who created at least 7 known Atari 2600 homebrew games: Cows (2015), Alien Pinball (2015), The Deep (2015), Orb (2015), Doom Patrol (2015), Shark Jaws + (2018), and The Goons (2019). Ed helped me to cover two of his titles, The Deep (volume 2) and Doom Patrol (volume 3) for my book series. When I reached out to him for the title Orb, was when I found out about his death from his daughter, Lindsay.

 

As we never met in person, we had several conversations thru the AtariAge forums and on Facebook. He had plans in 2018 to come to the Houston Arcade Expo and attend my book signing there but, medical issues came up and he had to cancel.

 

In honor of Ed, I have made a dedication ROM pack of his games and a document contained within the pack with information about him. I know Ed would want as many people to be able to play his games as possible. May you get a perfect score playing your games in Heaven.

Brian Matherne 
https://amazon.com/author/brianmatherne
https://tiny.cc/Atari2600Homebrew

 

Winkdot dedication .zip

Edited May 28, 2020 by Arenafoot