Graze Suit Alpha

[Mord]

Not everyone hangs out in the homebrew forum, so just linking the little game project I've been working on (slooowly since mid-summer) over there. Gameplay/info/current roms are in the first post.

 

While the Alpha is technically part of it's name now, it's also still in alpha but playable.

[Stun Runner 87]

Will this be available on cart?

[Mord]

Will this be available on cart?

 

No idea yet, although I am trying to keep it to 48k for various reasons. From what I understand it's bankswitched games that are a pain to get on carts right now.

[CPUWIZ]

 

From what I understand it's bankswitched games that are a pain to get on carts right now.

 

Not at all, I fixed this problem over a year ago, Albert has access to most of my PCB's. He has MegaCart and VersaBoard's in stock, in large quantities and I can order infinite more. The MegaCart can do up to 1MB and it also has the ability to do schemes that do not exist currently, like 256K + 16K, or 512K + 16K.

 

EDIT: What I mean by the non-existing bankswitching methods, is an expansion on 128K + 16K (which is what BBCQ uses), basically 7 banks at $8000, 1 bank at $C000 and 1 bank at $4000.

[gambler172]

hi

If it eher will be released....i want a CART

Greetings Walter

[+GoldenWheels]

Any gameplay vids for me to peruse? Didn't see anything but screenshots in the homebrew forum thread.

[+Trebor]

Any gameplay vids for me to peruse? Didn't see anything but screenshots in the homebrew forum thread.

 

Apologies in advance for not being very good at GSA; regardless, here is a relatively short video of a few waves from the Dec 31 WIP:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIvs_179FhE

[Jinks]

Very nice graphics and interesting game. I wonder if each level had different crashing sounds to mix it up a bit also make a more intense feeling like many atari games would by doing that.

[Mord]

The sounds in the game right now are mostly placeholders anyway until I take some time learning the TIA/Pokey stuff a bit better, so things like that are going to change/improve later on before the game's done.

[78001987]

Can I ask a stupid question? What the hell does this game's name even mean?

 

Since the PS1 generation of video gaming there seems to be an influx of games with badly translated/Engrish names that make no sense, with completely made up words that have no meaning.

 

"Gundam Girls Gravure for the Parties Fire!"

 

"Sek Sek Kubyo on the War Puddle"

 

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I just don't get it.

[Mord]

Graze - to touch or rub something lightly, or so as to produce slight abrasion, in passing.

 

The suit the player wears in the game charges power by grazing against objects. It's an experimental alpha version of the suit being tested.

 

Or something.

[78001987]

Graze - to touch or rub something lightly, or so as to produce slight abrasion, in passing.

 

The suit the player wears in the game charges power by grazing against objects. It's an experimental alpha version of the suit being tested.

 

Or something.

well, there you go. That makes total sense!

[Stun Runner 87]

Looks like a fun fastpaced game. And decent graphics so far.

[FireTiger]

*watches*

[Mord]

Updated the rom again. Mostly bug fixes and tweaks. Of course I seem to have managed to add a random game freeze bug in the process, unless that's been there longer and just unnoticed til now.

 

Still pondering about bankswitching it in the near future. I might just spend this weekend playing around with bankswitching in general in between some normal 7800 game playing.

[+Propane13]

Of course I seem to have managed to add a random game freeze bug in the process

 

 

Heh, sounds oddly familiar. I hope you solve it.

 

-John

[DracIsBack]

 

Heh, sounds oddly familiar. I hope you solve it.

 

-John

 

Say - that reminds me, how is Arkanoid?

[+Propane13]

Oh, yeah, almost forgot all about that one, sadly.

 

Typically, programming-wise, I get really active for anywhere between 3-12 months, and then burn out and disappear. For me, it's really hard to remain focused and excited when hitting a constant and innumerable number of technical problems. For Arkanoid, there was something in the ball math that didn't make any sense. I think I took like a full week on it, mapping out the numbers and I still couldn't figure out why it behaved in a strange way. For Get Lost, it was the random freeze that got me. I spent a LONG time on that one, and the only solution I could determine was to purchase a logic analyzer and generate a backtrace. I really feel badly about that one; it was so close to completion and just needed some polish. During those technical issues, I was burning out at work, which ended up with me leaving a job and moving halfway across the country. And, after all of that stress and nonsense, resetting seemingly takes forever.

 

The good news is that I've started lurking on atariage again these last couple of months, so who knows what could happen?

 

-John

[+RevEng]

[...]For Get Lost, it was the random freeze that got me. I spent a LONG time on that one, and the only solution I could determine was to purchase a logic analyzer and generate a backtrace. I really feel badly about that one; it was so close to completion and just needed some polish.[...]

If you can trigger the issue in emulation... in the MAME debugger you can "trace" the instructions the CPU is running to a file. Once the issue is triggered, stop the trace. The trace file will be massive, but you can just work your way backwards through it. Or if that winds up taking too long, typically the first BRK encountered will be fairly close to where the CPU started crashing, if it started executing data or misaligned code.

 

I used the trace facility a while back to semi-automatically determine which areas of a game contained executable code, so I could feed that to distella. Super handy.

[+Trebor]

Oh, yeah, almost forgot all about that one, sadly.

 

Typically, programming-wise, I get really active for anywhere between 3-12 months, and then burn out and disappear. For me, it's really hard to remain focused and excited when hitting a constant and innumerable number of technical problems. For Arkanoid, there was something in the ball math that didn't make any sense. I think I took like a full week on it, mapping out the numbers and I still couldn't figure out why it behaved in a strange way. For Get Lost, it was the random freeze that got me. I spent a LONG time on that one, and the only solution I could determine was to purchase a logic analyzer and generate a backtrace. I really feel badly about that one; it was so close to completion and just needed some polish. During those technical issues, I was burning out at work, which ended up with me leaving a job and moving halfway across the country. And, after all of that stress and nonsense, resetting seemingly takes forever.

 

The good news is that I've started lurking on atariage again these last couple of months, so who knows what could happen?

 

-John

 

What may be of assistance is MAME(MESS was 'absorbed'), which has matured greatly regarding its 7800 driver since those games were initially started. It is highly accurate in replicating console behavior and contains a debugger.

 

Edit: LOL...RevEng beat me to it.

[DracIsBack]

Oh, yeah, almost forgot all about that one, sadly.

 

Typically, programming-wise, I get really active for anywhere between 3-12 months, and then burn out and disappear. For me, it's really hard to remain focused and excited when hitting a constant and innumerable number of technical problems. For Arkanoid, there was something in the ball math that didn't make any sense. I think I took like a full week on it, mapping out the numbers and I still couldn't figure out why it behaved in a strange way. For Get Lost, it was the random freeze that got me. I spent a LONG time on that one, and the only solution I could determine was to purchase a logic analyzer and generate a backtrace. I really feel badly about that one; it was so close to completion and just needed some polish. During those technical issues, I was burning out at work, which ended up with me leaving a job and moving halfway across the country. And, after all of that stress and nonsense, resetting seemingly takes forever.

 

The good news is that I've started lurking on atariage again these last couple of months, so who knows what could happen?

 

-John

Totally understand. Only out of excitement for the games that I raz. :-)

[Lynxpro]

 

Not at all, I fixed this problem over a year ago, Albert has access to most of my PCB's. He has MegaCart and VersaBoard's in stock, in large quantities and I can order infinite more. The MegaCart can do up to 1MB and it also has the ability to do schemes that do not exist currently, like 256K + 16K, or 512K + 16K.

 

EDIT: What I mean by the non-existing bankswitching methods, is an expansion on 128K + 16K (which is what BBCQ uses), basically 7 banks at $8000, 1 bank at $C000 and 1 bank at $4000.

 

Am I misremembering or can those boards do a max combination of 1MB ROM and 1MB RAM cart-based RAM?

 

And on the 5200 side, you have a 348K ROM version, right? Someone else has a 512K ROM board but supposedly hasn't made enough of 'em to justify porting Tempest Xtreem over. And the lack of a 1MB ROM board at the moment precludes porting Space Harrier over. Didn't you also figure out a way to pack RAM into a 5200 cartridge board despite the lack of such lines in the cartridge slot too? Like 16K or 32K? Maybe I'm mixing things up between the 5200 and the 7800…it happens [to me].

[Lynxpro]

 

Apologies in advance for not being very good at GSA; regardless, here is a relatively short video of a few waves from the Dec 31 WIP:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIvs_179FhE

 

 

Reminds me of the Atari/GCC Nightmare.

[Mord]

 

 

Reminds me of the Atari/GCC Nightmare.

 

Checked out some videos of Nightmare on youtube just to see what it's about. Only thing that looks similar to me is the spiral thing that sucks up enemies at the end of the levels but in the builds for graze, the stationary gear on wave one is currently just a test enemy.

[funknflow5200]

I have not yet read the homebrew forum yet but has anyone pleaded for trak-ball support for this one?? Seems like it'd be a thing of beauty.