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Choplifter! (Atari 2600)


MemberAtarian

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Wasted 7 hours in assembly. :D I removed every single PF related stuff from the kernel and added a table based BK drawing, so there is no black border in the game. Unfortunately, this makes the "day to night" idea impossible, because that would turn the grass into some really weird color. The COLUPF is now free, so I could make the tank's ball white.

post-43241-0-00848900-1539240197_thumb.png

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I think these will be the final versions of noone would find any errors.

 

Looks and plays really nice; great job!

 

The title music I don't like however: it is off-key and basically belongs to another helicopter game (Airwolf).

What if - just like the title screen of the Sega port - you just play the helicopter rotor-sound and sometimes the sound of the cannons?

See https://youtu.be/cGCSzPMj_70?t=93

 

Anyway, you did an amazing job with this port. But I hope this isn't the final version yet :-)

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Looks and plays really nice; great job!

 

The title music I don't like however: it is off-key and basically belongs to another helicopter game (Airwolf).

What if - just like the title screen of the Sega port - you just play the helicopter rotor-sound and sometimes the sound of the cannons?

See https://youtu.be/cGCSzPMj_70?t=93

 

Anyway, you did an amazing job with this port. But I hope this isn't the final version yet :-)

What should I add? :D I got a suggestion about sky colors, but I had to change the kernel so there is no playfield, but background color rows and those are fixed. I don't have any space left in bank 8 either, maybe 90 bytes, that is not enought for a 3 frame animation.

 

I know that Airwolf had his own game, I played it a lot on the C64, but I was thinking of music that has a connection to helicopters, there was Medicopter 117, but I'm sure only EU people know it, and there's a finnish song by the childmetal band "Hevisaurus", called Hevicopteri, but I couldn't find any readable tabs for it.

And most people liked the Airwolf theme becaused they watched it as a child a lot.

 

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What should I add? :D I got a suggestion about sky colors, but I had to change the kernel so there is no playfield, but background color rows and those are fixed. I don't have any space left in bank 8 either, maybe 90 bytes, that is not enought for a 3 frame animation.

 

I know that Airwolf had his own game, I played it a lot on the C64, but I was thinking of music that has a connection to helicopters, there was Medicopter 117, but I'm sure only EU people know it, and there's a finnish song by the childmetal band "Hevisaurus", called Hevicopteri, but I couldn't find any readable tabs for it.

And most people liked the Airwolf theme becaused they watched it as a child a lot.

 

 

Not add, but remove ;)

 

I too played both Choplifter and Airwolf a lot on the C64, and both games mean a lot to me. And I'm very happy with your '2600-port of Choplifter..... except for the title music.

 

So don't get me wrong here; I'm just giving you feedback on what I think of the title music.

IMO using the title music from Airwolf in your port of Choplifter doesn't do it any good. And the tune is very off-key, which makes me want to skip it right away.

My suggestion is to do the same as Sega's port of the game: just play some rotor- and cannon sounds in the title screen.

 

Anyway, I'm happy that this game is finally available for the '2600!

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Not add, but remove ;)

 

I too played both Choplifter and Airwolf a lot on the C64, and both games mean a lot to me. And I'm very happy with your '2600-port of Choplifter..... except for the title music.

 

So don't get me wrong here; I'm just giving you feedback on what I think of the title music.

IMO using the title music from Airwolf in your port of Choplifter doesn't do it any good. And the tune is very off-key, which makes me want to skip it right away.

My suggestion is to do the same as Sega's port of the game: just play some rotor- and cannon sounds in the title screen.

 

Anyway, I'm happy that this game is finally available for the '2600!

Unfortunately, the TIA was not designed to make music on it, if you open the sound editor in Batari Basic, you will see that it really don't have most of the notes, so it's really hard to make it precise. And of course, the most annoying waveform, the "pure" is the only one that has 1,5 octaves that is precise, the cool Atari "bass" is leaked like a big roll of cheese.

Edited by MemberAtarian
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Unfortunately, the TIA was not designed to make music on it, if you open the sound editor in Batari Basic, you will see that it really don't have most of the notes, so it's really hard to make it precise. And of course, the most annoying waveform, the "pure" is the only one that has 1,5 octaves that is precise, the cool Atari "bass" is leaked like a big roll of cheese.

 

Let me rephrase my feedback: The music being off-key is not the main point. The main point is that the title music belongs to another - well known - game and TV series: Airwolf.

And those shouldn't be mixed IMO.

 

It's like creating a port of Sonic the Hedgehog and adding music from Mario in it. Or like creating a port of Pitstop with the music from Outrun.

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I like that you're bringing this game to the 2600. There are 2 things that stand out to me, one that you probably can't fix, but one that you probably can (not listed in that order).

 

1) The game looks like Choplifter, but doesn't feel like it because of the lack of momentum in the chopper's movement. Yes, there's a delay in liftoff, but everything else is so rigid, it doesn't feel like Choplifter. I had put off saying anything because I thought maybe it was just part of it being a work in progress, but it's definitely something I hope you can correct before it's truly final.

 

2) The way the buildings pop into the screen. I know you said in a previous post that you were pretty much out of rom space, and this would probably require drawing more sprites for progressive appearance of the buildings, so it's probably not an issue you can fix.

 

3) This one's not a complaint, but more of a what-if. You said you completely removed all playfield, and this would probably also require more rom space than you have left, but it would really be nice to see the playfield used for mountains in the background.

 

Anyway, the game is looking good and it's impressive to see it done in bB. (I do like the title music btw). I really hope you can add momentum to the movement though.

Edited by KevinMos3
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I like that you're bringing this game to the 2600. There are 2 things that stand out to me, one that you probably can't fix, but one that you probably can (not listed in that order).

 

1) The game looks like Choplifter, but doesn't feel like it because of the lack of momentum in the chopper's movement. Yes, there's a delay in liftoff, but everything else is so rigid, it doesn't feel like Choplifter. I had put off saying anything because I thought maybe it was just part of it being a work in progress, but it's definitely something I hope you can correct before it's truly final.

 

2) The way the buildings pop into the screen. I know you said in a previous post that you were pretty much out of rom space, and this would probably require drawing more sprites for progressive appearance of the buildings, so it's probably not an issue you can fix.

 

3) This one's not a complaint, but more of a what-if. You said you completely removed all playfield, and this would probably also require more rom space than you have left, but it would really be nice to see the playfield used for mountains in the background.

 

Anyway, the game is looking good and it's impressive to see it done in bB. (I do like the title music btw). I really hope you can add momentum to the movement though.

1. Maybe this one can be fixed, but sounds really hard. It would require complete rewrite of the movement, I don't know if I have any free variables for that.

2. It would require cutting down parts of the sprite and yeah, adding one sprite would make bank 8 go to minus.

3. I meant by removing the playfield that there is not a single line of code in the kernel that is about drawing the playfield. I erased it and put there the code for the background (in the multisprite kernel, the background is a fixed color). And you cannot scroll the playfield in the multisprite kernel, because it's mirrored, unlike the standard kernel.

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