qix (arcade) for 2600?

[dancero]

Does anyone plan to publish a version of this arcade game for the VCS? it would be great

[Gibstov]

I always liked Qix, would definitely try out an Atari 2600 version.  I can't think of any show stoppers as far as porting it to the 2600. (Especially after seeing Mappy ported, which I never thought I would see, and it was awesome BTW).

Edited September 10, 2019 by Gibstov

[Swami]

There is a Qix port homebrew for the ColecoVision called Cix by Phillip Kraus. That might give some idea what is possible.

 

 

 

[Trinity]

I like the NES port. It would be cool to have a port for the 2600!

[MemberAtarian]

It would require a lot of tricks with the pf, the only thing that came in my mind is making the pfheight 4 (since pf is made of lines of the width of 4 pixels) and using them as lines.

[bluswimmer]

Frankly, I'm not sure the stock hardware would be able to do Qix justice. The playfield would require the lines to be chunkier, as mentioned above. Qix also utilized a two-button control scheme, which wouldn't be possible on the 2600 (unless you had a Genesis controller).

 

I think the best bet would be to utilize a coprocessor to display a monochrome 96 pixel venetian blinds display (in order to have a higher resolution "playfield"), but even then I'm not certain on how well it would play/look.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Probably the closest you'd be able to get would be a similar look to Amidar but without the predefined pathways in the middle. It would be pretty chunky due to the minimum 4 pixel width of the playfield. Maybe a version like this would be fun?

 

 

[+Kaboomer]

On 9/15/2019 at 8:44 PM, bluswimmer said:

Frankly, I'm not sure the stock hardware would be able to do Qix justice. The playfield would require the lines to be chunkier, as mentioned above. Qix also utilized a two-button control scheme, which wouldn't be possible on the 2600 (unless you had a Genesis controller).

7800 then?

[carlsson]

I'm not sure two fire buttons really are required for a Qix clone, as it was featured on several systems with just one button. However the graphic resolution part as discussed above is relevant. Not sure what modern technologies like CDF can do in that area.

[bluswimmer]

10 hours ago, Kaboomer said:

7800 then?

A 7800 version would work, no doubt about that. The 5200 already has Qix on it, so I imagine it wouldn't be too demanding on the 7800.

[+SpiceWare]

On 9/15/2019 at 8:44 PM, bluswimmer said:

I think the best bet would be to utilize a coprocessor to display a monochrome 96 pixel venetian blinds display (in order to have a higher resolution "playfield"), but even then I'm not certain on how well it would play/look.

 

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

Not sure what modern technologies like CDF can do in that area.

 

CDFJ can do a 128 pixel display, would look the same as the 128 Pixel Bus Stuffing Demo.  

 

Works well for static or slow moving things, but for fast action the interlacing causes weird looking motion artifacts. When these blitter sprites move:

 

You end up with this:

 

Think it would work out OK for Qix though.  One of my SpiceC kernels will be the 128 pixel bitmap. I'll need a test project for it, so might as well be Qix. Not ETA though, the Harmony/Melody Club stuff has been on the back burner again due to RL. At the moment it looks like I'll be able to get back to work on it next week.

 

 

[BIGHMW]

It's been a couple of months since the last post, and even I myself would love to see Qix ported to the 2600, as for the two-button method, really the 8-bit version has a slow speed and a fast speed which both work depending on whether you use the button or notz (one speed would be default by not pushing it, while the other one be activated when you do push it, but as seen on the last post it's definitely worth trying, hey, I already downloaded all 4 variations of the rework of Carla Meninsky's Tempest prototype, at least there should be a version of Qix we should be able to play on the 2600/Flashback 9, even if it's not state of the art and flickers like a bat in sunlight, to me the flickering is moot point, just do it, because I want to play it, as I am sure many of you do too. Even a half-assed version in 4K or even 8K will do, we have been graced (and blessed) with great versions of Chaotic Grill!, Scramble, Space Rocks, Star Castle, etc, in which were all 32K and look and play great, so why not.

[BIGHMW]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:42 PM, Swami said:

There is a Qix port homebrew for the ColecoVision called Cix by Phillip Kraus. That might give some idea what is possible.

 

 

 

Just use this for inspiration to create a 2600 of Qix we can all be proud of.

[BIGHMW]

.....and use the Swirl (the Quotile from Yars' Revenge when it attacks Yar) as the Qix itself while you draw the lines to box it in, just like in the C-V Cix demo. And the Sparx and Fuse should be no problem as they kinda blink anyways to give their effect of movement withing the outer lines, however the drawn boxes have to somewhat be both a yellow for slow-drawn and blue for the fast-drawn boxes as well as include a scoreboard with the percentages and the overall score and lives (3-5 depending on settings) left.

[GreenmanGaming]

On 9/15/2019 at 8:44 PM, bluswimmer said:

Frankly, I'm not sure the stock hardware would be able to do Qix justice. The playfield would require the lines to be chunkier, as mentioned above. Qix also utilized a two-button control scheme, which wouldn't be possible on the 2600 (unless you had a Genesis controller).

You could make it automatically do fast speed like how it auto-fires in Sinistar, and slow for the button.

 

Or you could use the cbs booster grip that was used with omega race.

[christo930]

On 9/10/2019 at 4:32 PM, Gibstov said:

I always liked Qix, would definitely try out an Atari 2600 version.  I can't think of any show stoppers as far as porting it to the 2600. (Especially after seeing Mappy ported, which I never thought I would see, and it was awesome BTW).

Believe it or not, there's a fairly decent Vectrex version!  If the Vectrex can do it, you gotta think so can the 2600.  It's called number 9 or something (IX). I actually own a copy, it's just put away right now so I can't look and tell you the exact name.