the official Channel F thread!

[+atari2600land]

The one tree level happened again, exactly the same on exactly the same level (8). Did you attempt to fix this?

[Arlasoft]

41 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

The one tree level happened again, exactly the same on exactly the same level (8). Did you attempt to fix this?

No haven't had a chance yet. Did you download the rom again from my last post, if so you must have just got unlucky. I'll put in a lookup based on the grid size for a minimum number of tents that should be placed.

[Mikebloke]

34 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

The one tree level happened again, exactly the same on exactly the same level (8). Did you attempt to fix this?

I've also just tried it on the online emulator and the difficulty seems to reset on level 8. The online emulator also couldn't seem to handle the score numbers but did work fine with the level number.

 

However playing it in mess0210b the score works absolutely fine. I've only tried it once, level 5 resulted in a difficulty reset and it got harder again from there.

 

So yes, might be some adjustments required generally for the difficulty curve but a very impressive display. Well done, you are now one of the few people (single digit number?) of people to make a homebrew game for the channel F! (And dare I say, not many more in its entire history!) Jealous, wish I had the skills and time to develop something myself, I do have an idea for a game with what I can currently handle but need to spend some time on it... maybe next week (he says).

[Mikebloke]

1 minute ago, Arlasoft said:

No haven't had a chance yet. Did you download the rom again from my last post, if so you must have just got unlucky. I'll put in a lookup based on the grid size for a minimum number of tents that should be placed.

This might be helpful to ensure a closer difficulty representation, but as per my last post... its still impressive! It would have fit nicely in its existing library.

[Arlasoft]

New version here with minimum tents per level to try and help the difficulty curve, also fixed the scores which weren't falling fast enough.

 

 

tents_v100.bin

[Arlasoft]

38 minutes ago, Mikebloke said:

I've also just tried it on the online emulator and the difficulty seems to reset on level 8. The online emulator also couldn't seem to handle the score numbers but did work fine with the level number.

 

 

I also saw that with the online one, can't really be sure if that's my fault or the emulator, I can only assume MESS is more accurate...?

[Mikebloke]

2 hours ago, Arlasoft said:

New version here with minimum tents per level to try and help the difficulty curve, also fixed the scores which weren't falling fast enough.

 

 

tents_v100.bin 3.71 kB · 1 download

Got to level 20, I'm not sure whether it "broke" or got into an infinite loop regarding level creation, but it seemed to take about a second or two to make a level on 19 as it had to rehash until it had a completable level. Cool stuff, would love a physical version once complete!

 

edit, soft reset keeps my score but resets the level!

Edited May 25, 2021 by Mikebloke

[e5frog]

Unless the playfield uses the entire left area, could things be moved closer to the middle?
I thought I'd try it on a real machine and the TV crops a little around the edges, MESS view is close to the maximum view you can get on a TV (depending on TV).

 

Also got stuck at level 20, running the crappy 0.228 (LLP64) - it's crappy because it doesn't show all registers. 

Also tried it in MESSUI 0.133b, if you manipulate the level in RAM you can get to level 20 without the hang - so I guess it depends on something else.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by e5frog

[Arlasoft]

4 hours ago, e5frog said:

Unless the playfield uses the entire left area, could things be moved closer to the middle?
I thought I'd try it on a real machine and the TV crops a little around the edges, MESS view is close to the maximum view you can get on a TV (depending on TV).

 

Also got stuck at level 20, running the crappy 0.228 (LLP64) - it's crappy because it doesn't show all registers. 

Also tried it in MESSUI 0.133b, if you manipulate the level in RAM you can get to level 20 without the hang - so I guess it depends on something else.

 

 

Thanks for trying it, so basically I need to make sure everything fits inside a 96 x 58 area in the middle? Not lucky enough to have a real machine yet but have got my eye out for one. Have you got some sort of flash cart for it?

 

I'll have a go at tracking down that bug later!

[+atari2600land]

e5frog is currently right now the only person in the entire world who can try stuff on real Channel F's. I don't know what type of setup he's got, but until interest rises enough for making flashcarts, it's going to be that way.

[Mikebloke]

16 minutes ago, Arlasoft said:

Thanks for trying it, so basically I need to make sure everything fits inside a 96 x 58 area in the middle? Not lucky enough to have a real machine yet but have got my eye out for one. Have you got some sort of flash cart for it?

 

I'll have a go at tracking down that bug later!

Yes the observable field is smaller than the amount available in code, though I think it may depend on TV and console region too. 

 

Would one day love to see an sd card solution at some point, but I imagine e5frog flashes a rom for things like this (still a bit jealous, even though I don't know the first thing about it!) 

 

Despite the bug it's still an impressive game. Love it. My 4yo had some fun with it too, he quite enjoys channel f homebrew. 

[Arlasoft]

Wrote another quick game last night and this lunchtime, a port of 2048. Rom is attached. Now to attack the Tents & Trees bug!

 

https://arlagames.itch.io/2048-for-fairchild-channel-f

 

 

2048_F8.bin

[Mikebloke]

17 minutes ago, Arlasoft said:

Wrote another quick game last night and this lunchtime, a port of 2048. Rom is attached. Now to attack the Tents & Trees bug!

 

https://arlagames.itch.io/2048-for-fairchild-channel-f

 

 

2048_F8.bin 4.59 kB · 1 download

Wow! Have to admit I was going to attempt tackling this, the 2048 game is a staple of any homebrew on a device. And you go and smash it in a day! Will give it a go later. 

[Arlasoft]

20 minutes ago, Mikebloke said:

Wow! Have to admit I was going to attempt tackling this, the 2048 game is a staple of any homebrew on a device. And you go and smash it in a day! Will give it a go later. 

Haha sorry! Once you get the hang of assembly and the common patterns it's not too bad, it's just moving numbers from one place to another. Like anything with practice you get faster. 18 months ago I'd never have believed I'd write so much as Hello World in assembly, it all clicked watching the Youtube series Let's Make A C64 Game.

 

I'm quite surprised I got a handle on the instruction set so quickly though, I'm no longer having to think how I'd do it on the C64 and convert line by line. It's definitely a fun machine to program for.

 

I want to try an action game next, I had 12 3 x 3 centipede sprites moving across the screen yesterday but the flickering in the absence of any game logic was a little scary!

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Arlasoft

[+atari2600land]

How did you get the light blue background?

[Arlasoft]

36 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

How did you get the light blue background?

li    %00000000     

lr    3, A     

pi   clrscrn

 

Full code here: https://github.com/1888games/2048_Fairchild

Edited May 26, 2021 by Arlasoft

[+atari2600land]

Thanks!

[Mikebloke]

45 minutes ago, Arlasoft said:

li    %00000000     

lr    3, A     

pi   clrscrn

 

Full code here: https://github.com/1888games/2048_Fairchild

Cool, appreciate you sharing code as well, I'm going to attempt making something next week! 

[Arlasoft]

3 minutes ago, Mikebloke said:

Cool, appreciate you sharing code as well, I'm going to attempt making something next week! 

Just realised that was for the title screen, for the light blue screen use:

 

li    %11000011

[+atari2600land]

I'm working on something. Perhaps a start of Trimerous 2?

This is all I have so far.

[+atari2600land]

This is a Zyx.

Its main goal in life is to eat blueberries. (well, it is usually bananas, but the Channel F can't display yellow.)

This particualr Zyx is seeing blueberries dropping down from the sky. Unfortunately, so are cauliflowers, which makes for a sick Zyx. So your job will be to eat the blueberries and avoid the cauliflower.

I worked on this today, the Zyx is animated, but there's no food falling yet.

zyx2.bin

Edited May 26, 2021 by atari2600land
To post binary file.

[lazzeri]

Channel F homebrew scene is on warp speed!

 

It’s getting hard to keep up! ?

[Arlasoft]

Well...once you've made 2048 it's a short hop, skip and a jump to turn it into Threes. So....

 

https://arlagames.itch.io/3rees-for-fairchild-channel-f

3rees.bin

[e5frog]

15 hours ago, Arlasoft said:

Thanks for trying it, so basically I need to make sure everything fits inside a 96 x 58 area in the middle? Not lucky enough to have a real machine yet but have got my eye out for one. Have you got some sort of flash cart for it?

I have put a few game carts together, I use flash/ee/eproms for testing. 

Not sure if me and Atari2600land came to a good conclusion about the safe area. It depends a lot on the TV and how well it is adjusted, there's almost always zoom and centering problems. The margins seem to have been large in the majority of TV manufacturers when adjusting the screen geometry.

I recall Atari2600land had a problem with Kevin vs Tomatoes not showing the entire score on his TV, I had it nicely at the edge of the screen on my TV (that I have adjusted myself) and it seemed to be placed fine in MESS. In the trimerous release he made it a bit smaller to avoid that. 
This would be a pretty much perfect alignment adjustment on an old TV, newer TV:s show more of the corners.

Most aren't this well adjusted, many TV sets show none of the checkered pattern and/or are off center, image zoomed in more or less.

Here's Pac-Man on some TV:s I have used, some show a lot, not all can be adjusted to show that much.
First one is adjusted to show all the screen of a PS2 through RGB - it shows A LOT of the screen. 
Next one is the old lab TV, shows even more of the right side but not as much on the top and left, best tune for Channel F.
Last one is the previous lab TV, it shows A LOT on the bottom - which wasn't possible to adjust on the other two, you also see we didn't plot the line on the bottom - as we assumed it would be outside viewable area (ha ha...).

The only thing you can be sure of is that most TV:s will show less and be more off center. On some TV:s the dot row up and/or down is outside the screen.
You also don't want to show too much as some sources may have white or color flicker at the edges. 

There's probably a "should be safe for any TV"-size but I guess you need to set the limit somewhere. 
 

If making snapshots of original games and putting them on top of each other you pretty much get the "very safe" area, they were good at keeping within the usable screen at the time. 
If using the entire 102x58 MESS screen it will most likely end up being outside some people's screens in some area.
As seen on Pac-Man above you will sometimes be able to view areas outside the 102x58 area that MESS/MAME displays. I have started to overlap the MESS full screen with two pixels width around it just to be sure, if there's enough time I'll paint from 0,0 to 110,63 (or sane width).

If you're writing for a real machine, make sure people will be able to play it. A modern TV (flat) should handle the entire MESS size, if playing a 1976 videogame on a pre 1976 TV - it won't. 


Cool to see some more software being made, programming is pretty much on hold when producing the carts. 
EDIT:
... much too difficult for me (for my attention span at least) - much like Sean Riddle's Lights Out
http://channelf.se/veswiki/index.php?title=Homebrew:Lights_Out
 

Edited May 26, 2021 by e5frog

[e5frog]

Here's one hiding a lot of image.