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Future of IntyBASIC...


Darkhog

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So I've been thinking. Due to the IntyBASIC compiler that's both capable and easy to code for (even without what I'm about to propose) is THE easiest retro console to make homebrew for.

 

But how about making it even easier, while keeping it powerful? First let's talk (a bit) about fantasy consoles. I won't be boring you with details, do a little research, but fantasy consoles are fun little game SDKs with arbitrary limits. Some of them such as TIC-80 and Pico-8 are very popular, as they include full gamedev suite, from a code editor to sprite maker, music/sfx tool and even a map/level editor, all in one app.

 

How about making a toolkit for IntyBASIC that feels like a fantasy console? Obviously it would be limited by Intellivision's own limits. But with tools to easily design your game's data (music, sfx, graphics, levels) and then ability to load/include them from within an IntyBASIC files, it would make the process of making a game even easier.

 

This will also help bring new game devs (and subsequently, players) to the system which would also be tangentially helpful for the new Intellivision system that's coming out. To do it, an all-in-one package that can subsequently compile and run the game would need to be developed. It would need to feel natural and easy (just like TIC-80 and PICO-8).

 

Any takers?

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Is that another way to say you are simply asking for an integrated development environment? There's the one from Brazil, plus that I think some people on the forum just a few weeks ago promised to whip together an IDE for IntyBASIC. I don't know how far development has advanced.

 

Or are you rather asking for library routines doing common tasks, something of a code framework that can be configured for different kinds of games and be the basis for one's own work instead of reinventing most of the wheel all the time, even in a powerful language?

 

Or are you even thinking of some sort of virtual machine, so you would develop games within the limitations of this machine and it would be compiled to run on the Intellivision? See also Decle's excellent RCA Studio II simulator called Studiovision IIRC, or his Unisonic Champion simulator.

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I look at myself to enforce the request from Darkhog..

 

I have learned and programmed myself assembly especially for intellivision, releasing simon4, tris and mastermind
I have tried to push to upper level with sprites and similar and started few more project that I dismissed after a while because... well it's not easy for a non experienced programmer. I'm back to intellivision programming thanks to intybasic working in spare time to a simple star trek simulation.... I do not know if and when I will progress on it, but Im sure that an IDE, including a sprite editor would convince me to spend time on that.... I believe many people is in the same situation

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I think the Intellivision is already an easy to learn platform.

 

From a start I wanted IntyBASIC to be widely available, not only Windows but Mac and Linux. That was a wise choice.

 

I know the difficulties of working with a multiplatform graphical interface, in particular there is need to integrated big libraries and I don't have the time to study its interfaces.

 

So instead of stopping and not doing anything I wrote the compiler as command-line. Why? because it's easy to be called from inside another program.

 

My objective in developing IntyBASIC was to make it easy to program, that's the cause you have the BITMAP statement in order to draw almost graphically your bitmaps, just put a X where you want a pixel and a point where you don't want a pixel.

 

On the other side if you want to edit bitmaps you can use your graphical editor of choice, myself I use Paint .net to build BMP files that I pass thru IntyColor to generate neeeded screens.

 

The music is entered using classical notation letters C, D, E, F, G, A and B.

 

My text editor is TextEdit in Mac and Notepad in Windows.

 

The easiest possible solution is this:

 

* A Windows program to draw sprites and tiled screens.

* A Windows program as a tracker for developing music.

* A Windows program to create sound effects graphically.

* Use Notepad++ to call all these programs.

* Use IntyBASIC INCLUDE to include the generated files.

 

The biggest solution is to include all this in an integrated environment, and I'm afraid this is a mammoth task that I cannot achieve at this time, if someday I need to do it, I think I would concentrate in Windows.

 

Even the easiest solution is hard to do but some people has tried to do it like the Brazilian guy that did the IDE and it's a good first step in the right direction.

 

Myself I need to choose carefully what I do because my time is very limited, so this pushes more to the bottom in the list the development of an IDE, but of course, I welcome any effort on this direction.

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I use notepad++ for all of my programming needs. I used window run command to compile Intybasic and then as1600.exe to produce a ROM. It remembers what you input so recompiling the program is extremely quick.

I used Tilestudio to build my tilesets to feed IntyCOLOR with. I made a palette that uses the Intellivision colors only, and 1 transparent color. The top 2 row of the map is going to be the tileset(to keep them in order for IntyCOLOR sometime with dummy tile for bg/sprites collision routine), then the bottom 12 rows is the screen.

MOBs are a bit harder since there's no tool I know that can do fat pixel art drawing to make half height 16x8 cards. So I do that in Paint shop pro, then type in the bitmap statement for each sprites. Sometimes, I'll do 2 color sprites 16x16 sprites, then resize them to 16x8 to see what it look like. If I need to sandwich 2 or more mob, then I have to make sure to type in the correct pixel for that color and comment it the color of the MOB I'm inputting.

The music player is straight forward so I'm happy with the music player. I'll boot up NES and CV Sequencer if I need to make a sequence. Maybe boot up Super Dezaemon for longer sequence and try to make my music on there and then input the data to the Intybasic source code.

Sound effect, I made my own data pointer based sound effect player and call it every frame. I sometime will program a sound test menu to play back the sound I made.

Edited by Kiwi
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No, I'm not asking for an IDE. This is IDE:

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And that's how a fantasy console-style interface looks like:

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One is more user-friendly than the other and I'm not talking just about programming languages involved.

 

And yes, IntyBASIC is already easy to use, but this thread is about making it so easy that even 8yo could use it. Then we advertise it as "Intellivision is just like fantasy consoles now", make a portal where users could share ROMs they'd make (we could use mod.io for that) and not before long we have thousands of homebrew to choose from. If done right, this has the potential to revitalize the platform. Sure, there will be crap games, but there would be also gems. Unfortunately has too much work lately to try doing it myself, hence the thread.

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Hm, I'm getting some STOS/AMOS vibes from your fantasy console, not to mention various game makers such as SEUCK and others. I suppose one would have to download the software you are referring to in order to understand what it does and how it does it differently from what already exists.

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Nope, I'm talking about improving IntyBASIC experience for the existing Inty. The new thing looks more and more like another Ouya to me - people behind it have good intentions and it doesn't seem to be a scam, but it will be DOA anyway.

 

//edit: And yes, STOS/AMOS would be a good comparison as well.

Edited by Darkhog
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Nope, I'm talking about improving IntyBASIC experience for the existing Inty. The new thing looks more and more like another Ouya to me - people behind it have good intentions and it doesn't seem to be a scam, but it will be DOA anyway.

 

//edit: And yes, STOS/AMOS would be a good comparison as well.

 

OK. I guess I'm just not familiar with what a "fantasy console" is. *shrug*

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