Arkanoid [WIP]

[Greg2600]

PS: I think you got what I was saying, but to clarify, with the larger sprites the "playfield is reduced" quite a bit vs. the arcade, C64, even NES iterations.  So if you speed the ball up much more, even with a paddle, it maybe way too crazy.  I assume any adjustments would be mathematical though, and easy to make.  Great work so far regardless.

[+mksmith]

41 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

PS: I think you got what I was saying, but to clarify, with the larger sprites the "playfield is reduced" quite a bit vs. the arcade, C64, even NES iterations.  So if you speed the ball up much more, even with a paddle, it maybe way too crazy.  I assume any adjustments would be mathematical though, and easy to make.  Great work so far regardless.

Yeah definitely - now I've got the collision and movement sorted I will review my lookup table to ensure we get the appropriate speeds. I may look at the arcade timings and scale those accordingly if I can.

[CPUWIZ]

12 hours ago, the_hawk said:

I don't post here often, but I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the work that has gone in to this, it looks incredible., 

 

I'm a huge fan of paddle games & always thought that there was a real missed opportunity to do classic paddle games some real justice on the 7800.

 

Arkanoid is one of my favourite games of all time & I'm really keen to play it on a real 7800 with the paddles.

 

As I live in the UK, importing stuff from the US, with the postage & tariffs makes it become quite extortionate (not to mention the pound being at a 35 year low...thanks Brexit!).  This however, if it is released on a cart, like Medieval Mayhem, it will be an instant purchase & I just know it will be worth every penny!!

 

Just wanted to add a note to say how sorry I was to read about Drac, although I never knew him, his enthusiasm was clear to see. RIP

 

 

I am trying to figure out right now, how to secretly give you hundreds of likes for this post. This is what all of this is about.

 

You caught me in a moment, I will make sure you get a copy, without a thousand tarrifs and extreme postage.  Remind Al, I said that!

[the_hawk]

Wow, that's an amazing gesture! I'm just extremely grateful this is being made & some things are worth paying extra for.

 

I should visit this forum more often, there's a lot of very talented folk on here doing great things with the old tech that I love! 

[+mksmith]

Hi everyone, a new build is now available with the following changes:

• All new ball movement/collision code (which looks to work perfectly and as expected)
• Speed changes (starts at 2x for easy and 3x for hard).  Increases 1x when ball hits top and decreases down 1x (no lower than 1x easy, 2x hard) when S capsule collected
• More accurate ball/vaus collisions
• Almost complete DOH level (just the mouth animations to add now)
• Lots of little internal tidy-ups

 

Ball speed is still to be finalised but gives a very good challenge now. The guys have recommended this as a definite paddles game with the faster ball speeds! Enjoy.

 

[+mksmith]

Got the second pass in my ball tester for multiple balls - the first didn't work quite as I expected in game.  Will continue over the weekend.  In the meantime picked up this distraction earlier today ?

[RevEng]

Ok, who lives close enough to Melbourne to confiscate this distraction?

[+mksmith]

29 minutes ago, RevEng said:

Ok, who lives close enough to Melbourne to confiscate this distraction?

???

[Trebor]

13 hours ago, mksmith said:

Got the second pass in my ball tester for multiple balls - the first didn't work quite as I expected in game.  Will continue over the weekend.  In the meantime picked up this distraction earlier today ?

My first home computer.  Well, not the exact one in your pics; but, you know what I mean.  Though, I wasn't fortunate enough to have a disk drive. For the Vic-20, it was mostly carts and a few data cassettes in my collection...

 

-Scott Adams Text Adventures: The Count, Voodoo Castle, Mission Impossible, Adventureland, Pirate's Cove

-Clowns

-Moon Patrol

-Alien

-Cosmic Cruncher

 

...good times. 

[+mksmith]

4 hours ago, Trebor said:

My first home computer.  Well, not the exact one in your pics; but, you know what I mean.  Though, I wasn't fortunate enough to have a disk drive. For the Vic-20, it was mostly carts and a few data cassettes in my collection...

 

-Scott Adams Text Adventures: The Count, Voodoo Castle, Mission Impossible, Adventureland, Pirate's Cove

-Clowns

-Moon Patrol

-Alien

-Cosmic Cruncher

 

...good times. 

Yeah we didn't have a drive back then mainly a few carts. Clowns and Pirates Cove were the other ones I can remember. Not even sure if we has a tape drive before we progressed to the 64. 

 

Definitely great times - always loved typing in code from C&VG and the various Compute mags. Funny looking through them online and having memories.

 

My oldest daughter is now griefing me over my Atari and Commodore stuff - love it!!

[+mksmith]

Still working through it but here is a sample of the multi-ball speed and collision detection:

 

 

Will get this into the game later today and see how it performs - there are a couple of more checks around the vaus which are not done here but this seems to be working quite well. Once I go above 4 we get some jerkiness but I do need to work with the ball distance on each movement to see if I can squeeze in another - it's probably very close to max regardless as with a joystick you would not have much chance at this speed.

[The Usotsuki]

Isn't there only ever going to be 1-3 balls with Arkanoid 1?

[+mksmith]

5 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:

Isn't there only ever going to be 1-3 balls with Arkanoid 1?

Yes - when you collect the 'D' (disrupt) capsule the ball splits into 3 - so working on that now.  Created a separate little editor I can use to display every level and see how the 3 balls move and react - the base game whilst not too big it is hard to code into on the fly without remming out all the bits and pieces.  Makes it nice and easy to quickly iterate and test changes.  

[+mksmith]

Hey everyone,

 

Here is a new video of the multi-ball ball feature - activated by collecting the 'D' (disrupt) capsule and is using the new speed and collision detection code.  I've thrown it to our testing group for a quick review to see how it performs on real hardware.  I still need to finalise the direction of the split balls and then complete the review of the ball speed before calling the core game feature complete.  Will have a few more things to finalise particularly the intro/outro animations and enemies (will be a huge challenge to fit in spacewise and speedwise) but we're looking good for finishing the base game in the next 3-4 months (maybe Christmas) which I'm really looking forward too.

 

 

[+Karl G]

It is looking and sounding amazing! I can't wait to see the final release. ?

[the_hawk]

This looks phenomenal.  I can't begin to tell you how excited I am at the prospect of playing this on a real 7800 with paddles.  

[+mksmith]

Thanks guys - really hoping for a great game in the end! 

 

The testing of multi-ball has shown some considerable slowdown with the paddles (joystick appears ok) so we'll start working on some optimisations. - I have previously read this can happen when reading paddles but I'm sure we can sort it out. Got some ideas already so we'll work through those over the next week.

[funknflow5200]

Absolutely am in love with how this port is shaping up- I came across it through Albert’s post on facebook today- I cant believe I somehow missed this! We 7800 fans have been rewarded for our patience in life, the past few years have been an embarrassment of riches for homebrew. The attention to detail here is stunning. 
 

I tested on real hardware tonight through my my concerto cart and could feel the polish on this title already. 

 

I couldn’t hear pokey music as I believe on the concerto is gets addressed at $4000. Is it possible to make a version that addresses as that? 

 

thank you so much for an unbelievable effort here- please keep up the good work and i’m down for at minimum two cartridges of this final product.

[Giles N]

5 hours ago, mksmith said:

Thanks guys - really hoping for a great game in the end! 

 

The testing of multi-ball has shown some considerable slowdown with the paddles (joystick appears ok) so we'll start working on some optimisations. - I have previously read this can happen when reading paddles but I'm sure we can sort it out. Got some ideas already so we'll work through those over the next week.

Looks very promising from the videos!

 

(I’m no programmer; just have retro-gaming as hobby)!

 

Hope you get it polished ‘n finished and put on carts and up for sales!

 

??????☝???✌?✌?

[+mksmith]

1 hour ago, funknflow5200 said:

Absolutely am in love with how this port is shaping up- I came across it through Albert’s post on facebook today- I cant believe I somehow missed this! We 7800 fans have been rewarded for our patience in life, the past few years have been an embarrassment of riches for homebrew. The attention to detail here is stunning. 
 

I tested on real hardware tonight through my my concerto cart and could feel the polish on this title already. 

 

I couldn’t hear pokey music as I believe on the concerto is gets addressed at $4000. Is it possible to make a version that addresses as that? 

 

thank you so much for an unbelievable effort here- please keep up the good work and i’m down for at minimum two cartridges of this final product.

Thanks - glad you are enjoying it!  The team here at AtariAge has been awesome to work with - some amazingly talented people.  I want to keep building games for the 7800 so hopefully the first of many!

 

Due to how the cart will be laid out we needed to set the Pokey @ $450 so the Concerto is currently not compatible but I hope eventually we will be able to do something to fix this! We will also be looking to release a TIA version as well once we are game complete.

[+mksmith]

1 hour ago, Giles N said:

Looks very promising from the videos!

 

(I’m no programmer; just have retro-gaming as hobby)!

 

Hope you get it polished ‘n finished and put on carts and up for sales!

 

??????☝???✌?✌?

Thanks! We are getting closer - a few challenges left but things have progressed much further than I could have imagined when I started.  Hopefully one day soon we'll have it in the shop! 

[Atariboy2600]

Man I still have a dead Vic 20 computer as I cant not turn it on even if its a dead system I still keep it as someday Ill fine an other Vic-20 as I still have ton of Vic-20 games.

 

 

 

[+mksmith]

32 minutes ago, Atariboy2600 said:

Man I still have a dead Vic 20 computer as I cant not turn it on even if its a dead system I still keep it as someday Ill fine an other Vic-20 as I still have ton of Vic-20 games.

 

Hopefully you can get it going one day Atariboy - looks like one of early ones! I had to replace one of the Hex Inverter chips to get the floppy working - outside that i'd be in trouble.  Maybe check out some youtube repair videos at some stage - the carlsen link some some info about my issue. 

 

 

[+Karl G]

Will there be a preview version of the game shown at PRGE this year, perchance?

[Albert]

5 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Will there be a preview version of the game shown at PRGE this year, perchance?

Yes, indeed.