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[Done] Astronomer development thread


Coolcrab

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About the sound in the game. I noticed that you have little routines with their own drawscreen that loop until the sound is completed, then go back to the program. Do you want me to change it so the sound plays as the main loop is running, like it is in most games?

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It took me a while to adapt the code, but I have 5 sounds working now. I think I just have 1 more to go.

 

It looks like you have "_slowdown = 5" when each sound is over:


   if !_sound_count then _slowdown = 5 : goto [WHEREVER]

Do you really want that variable to be equal to 5 at the end of every sound effect?

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Oh no, that's a very sloppy way to keep it moving after a sound. Because sometimes a sound started when slowdown was high and then it reset to high, so you had a second or so where the star just hung motionless. This was my quick fix :P

 

But if the sound plays in the main loop then that problem goes away

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Looks like you only gosub to "__Score" one time. If you don't think you'll be gosubing to it from any other spot, I'll move the code and get rid if the gosub.

You also have some code that looks odd:


   rem if score countdown reaches 0 then game over
   if score then goto __Game_Over_Setup



Although that seems to work for some strange reason, it's probably better if we use something like this: "if !_sc1 && !_sc2 && !_sc3 then goto __Game_Over_Setup"

 

Also, can we get rid of this code:


busy
   COLUP0 = $1E
   COLUP1 = $B4
   drawscreen
   goto busy
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I think I'm pretty much done unless there's something I forgot. More comments could be added or moved from where they are, but I need to get back to packing.

 

I tried to scrunch down code where I could and made some changes here and there.

 

astronomerv0.8_2017y_12m_22d_2108t.bin

 

astronomerv0.8_2017y_12m_22d_2108t.bas

 

Let me know if you like the changes or if I made it worse.

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This is great thanks!

 

It plays well and the menu looks much better. :) I've uploaded this version with some small tweaks to the main post.

 

I found and solved two glitches, both were already in my code I think. The star could move off screen on the top and if the score was low and the star went offscreen on the bottom then the score could flip to 999999 beause of the score=score-25 thing. Both seem to be fixed now.

 

Two more things id like to add are: a satellite. Use the bullet to zip past the screen at a random height at high speed when rand & 127 = 1 for example. But I don't know if there is enough space for that. (15 bytes)

 

And a pause function, but I assume that that wont fit.

 

I also added 100 to the score at the beginning of the game when the right difficulty switch is set to A.

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I changed "_State" to "_Jump_Pointer" and used this description:


   ;***************************************************************
   ;
   ;  Tells the program which label to jump to.
   ;
   _Jump_Pointer = 1

 

I can see why you might want so use something other than "state" but I don't think "jump pointer" is any improvement

 

call it "whats next" or "next action" or just "next"

 

then assign constants with meaningful names

 

so instead of

 

 

_jump_pointer = 1

 

it would be, like

_whats_next = _drawline
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I can see why you might want so use something other than "state" but I don't think "jump pointer" is any improvement

 

call it "whats next" or "next action" or just "next"

 

then assign constants with meaningful names

 

so instead of

_jump_pointer = 1

it would be, like

_whats_next = _drawline

 

 

I'm done working on it, so he can change it to anything he wants. I was just looking for an alias that told me what the variable did. It's used for pointing where the program should jump to, so "_Jump_Pointer" seemed like a better choice than "_On_Goto_Thingy" or "_Ham_Sandwich".

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I solved most problems but one error that refuses to go away is that a star can move off screen on the top when it starts too high. This is very strange because I have a stop at y=2. (see line 2)

 

Other then that I made it more playable and scaled the difficulty a bit more. My sister got to level 19 on her first try :D

   if player0y > 95 then  gosub __Star_Left_room : goto __Back_to_Main_Loop
   if player0y < 2 then player0y = 2 : goto __Skip_Move

   if player0x < 25 && player0y > 1 then player0y = player0y - 2 : goto __Skip_Move
   if player0x < 50 && player0y > 1 then player0y = player0y - 1 : goto __Skip_Move
   if player0x < 80 then goto __Skip_Move
   if player0x < 130 then player0y = player0y + 1 : goto __Skip_Move
   if player0x < 160 then player0y = player0y + 2  else  gosub __Star_Left_room : goto __Back_to_Main_Loop
   rem Add small punishment if player loses star on the right

__Skip_Move

astronomerv0.91.bas

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Have you checked the border coordinates for a sprite:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#find_border_coordinates

 

If I'm reading your code correctly, you're stopping player0y at 2 instead of 9 (or whatever works for the size of your sprite).

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just played it on my supercharger (and got to lvl 40.) One thing that I noticed is that beam is very jerky when in paddle mode. Is this a known problem or could it be my paddles?

 

I added the supercharger wave for those who want to try it that way.

a.wav

Edited by Coolcrab
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  • 2 weeks later...

I've played it a few more times and I think that it is stable. Maybe the curve should be sharper but I don't want to make it too hard.

I also messaged Al about possible publishing on AA. So let's hope that that works out. :)

 

Now I want a box and manual for the game. If anyone can/wants to help then that would be great!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Short update: the game will be published on PackRat. :D Thanks all for the help and feedback!

 

I'm currently working on a manual and tweaking the game difficulty and then I'll make a PAL version.

 

If anyone wants to help out with some play testing that would be great, I'll put you in the credits in the manual.

 

Once this is all done, I'll go back to work on climb the tree.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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For those fans here of the 2600 game Astronomer, would there be any interest in a boxed release of this game? It would be a limited run, with a cart-only option after the boxed version sold out. This would be via Packrat Video Games.

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