Killer Snakes (Channel F)

[+atari2600land]

I am working on a game right now since I just got a Channel F and got interested in programming it, even though I'm not sure if what I want to do is even possible. I want the game to be a version of Surround (or Snafu for the Intellivision.) What I want are two different snakes, one red and one blue. I would also like collision detection for the snakes. Right now there is just one snake which you can move around. I also implemented border detection: If you touch the border, the game resets, although in a finished game the game would end with the winner flashing. I don't know much about Channel F, but what I do know is yellow is not an option. In fact, all it's capable of showing is red, green, and blue (and white and black.) I find it bizarre that people would choose this over the immensely greater Atari 2600 which is capable of 128 colors instead of just 5. Perhaps that's why we don't have a "Channel F 10" now. You can download what I have of the game so far here:

http://www.atari2600land.com/killersnakes/

[chavert]

Does it work on Atari 2600 ??

[ZackAttack]

I'd really like to see you make this for the 2600. You could use the play field for the bodies and the players for the heads. I think you're going to need a cart that supports extra memory in order to remember all the spots that have already been covered. Handling the two different colored snacks could be done by alternating the color of each scanline.

[+SpiceWare]

I find it bizarre that people would choose this over the immensely greater Atari 2600 which is capable of 128 colors instead of just 5.

Bizarre? The Channel F was the first to have cartridges, before it you could only buy consoles with a limited number of built in games. Get bored with the games you have and you have to buy a whole new console!

 

It was released in November '76, 10 months before the Atari. As such, if you were buying a video game system for Xmas of 1976 the Channel F was the one to get. Neighbors of my grandparents had gotten one, and I was jealous.

[+atari2600land]

 

 

It was released in November '76, 10 months before the Atari. As such, if you were buying a video game system for Xmas of 1976 the Channel F was the one to get. Neighbors of my grandparents had gotten one, and I was jealous.

OK, I didn't know that. I thought they were released at the same time.

[+atari2600land]

I think you're going to need a cart that supports extra memory in order to remember all the spots that have already been covered. Handling the two different colored snacks could be done by alternating the color of each scanline.

I take it there's no collision detection then?

 

This doesn't work on the Atari 2600, just the Channel F (and an emulator.)

[ZackAttack]

No collision detection would be easy since the head is the player object and the body is the playfield.

[+atari2600land]

I changed the look of the game, but it may be temporary. I also added eyes to the snake. The eyes will serve as the "feelers" of the snake, to test if the snake bumps into anything. As you can see from the picture though, the game does have a few snake displaying weirdness sometimes.

 

[carlsson]

Given the fact the 2600 probably has a ratio of 10:1 over the Channel F when it comes to existing games and 50:1 when it comes to homebrews, I think it is excellent that people try to broaden the spectrum. I briefly looked into F8 a couple of years ago, but didn't have the dedication to get anywhere, just like I looked into 1802 and came to a similar conclusion.

Edited March 4, 2016 by carlsson

[Blazing Lazers]

Always great to see the Channel F getting some love

 

Looking forward to seeing more from this!

[+atari2600land]

Made some boundaries visible instead of invisible. What I want to know is can I make a second snake and have him be blue? Nobody has answered that yet.

[carlsson]

I'm sure e5frog could give you a definite answer, but based on existing games, it doesn't seem like a problem to have pixels next to eachother of different colours, if that was your technical dilemma.

[fdr4prez]

I'm sure e5frog could give you a definite answer, but based on existing games, it doesn't seem like a problem to have pixels next to eachother of different colours, if that was your technical dilemma.

 

I agree with carlsson in that you should reach out (PM) to e5frog. He made the Pac-man homebrew for Channel F and he's a very nice guy, too.

 

There may be additional info here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/59248-channel-f/

http://channelf.se/veswiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://seanriddle.com/chanf.html

[Crimefighter]

If someone could do a version of Pac-man and Tetris on it...a Surround type game shouldn't be difficult.

[ls650]

Every old 8-bit system deserves some homebrew!!

[+atari2600land]

Coming back to this. How the hell did I do this? I need an assembler and a Channel F emulator. I got rid of my Channel F since it wasn't working right, but I still want to continue on this project. e5frog's post in the marketplace reminded me about the Channel F and I thought to myself "Hey, wasn't I making a Channel F game?" Of course, this was before the computer it was on died. So I need to find all this stuff again.

[fdr4prez]

Coming back to this. How the hell did I do this? I need an assembler and a Channel F emulator. I got rid of my Channel F since it wasn't working right, but I still want to continue on this project. e5frog's post in the marketplace reminded me about the Channel F and I thought to myself "Hey, wasn't I making a Channel F game?" Of course, this was before the computer it was on died. So I need to find all this stuff again.

 

I've you are able move forward in this project, then it looks like I'll need to get MESS up and running.

[+atari2600land]

So I spent all night working on this game. Instead of sleeping. I hate sleeping. So I decided to work on this game all night. I made some drastic changes, and the game now looks like this:

 

killersn7.bin

[+atari2600land]

Trimmed down the code from 1300 lines down to about 800. I also made the snake look like he's moving sideways left and right, making there be only one eye.

killersn8.bin

[chavert]

 

 

This doesn't work on the Atari 2600, just the Channel F (and an emulator.)

[carlsson]

Eh, the Channel F and the Atari 2600 are two entirely different consoles from roughly the same era of video games. As mentioned the Channel F predated the Atari by a number of months, and there also was the heavily delayed RCA Studio II inbetween the two others (the RCA supposedly was designed years earlier but it didn't get launched before it was entirely outdated).

 

You could download an emulator of the Channel F (in particular as so far there only seems to exist one multicart that is not easily field reprogrammable) and run the game from there. Trying to run the binary in an Atari 2600 environment will make just as much sense as parsing written Welsh as if it was French text.

Edited December 4, 2017 by carlsson

[+atari2600land]

Big announcement. The snake can eat fruit! I don't know if you know that I put a fruit on the screen. And if you didn't then you do now. And now I made him be able to EAT the fruit.

[Blazing Lazers]

Keep up the great work- I'm really looking forward to playing and adding Videocart #28: Killer Snakes to my collection!

[+atari2600land]

I got the score working, but an odd problem happens: When the score reaches 8, the snake stops appearing. I have no idea why this happens. I just e-mailed e5frog to see if he could help me.

[+atari2600land]

I fixed the score problem I was having. Thanks to e5frog! Oh, and the link to the game in the link on post #1 has been fixed.