Miniature Golf - game in development

[sometimes99er]

I'm working on several different TI-99/4A related projects at any time (there's a Top 10 out of 146). Surely giving it more thought than actual coding. Most certainly less than an hour of coding per week. Much is design and decisions anyway. Committing is perhaps crucial but then again. Real life is a bitch. Lately I've got this headache. Right now the plan is; get away from the computer, get away from screens - tv and gaming, get some exercise, go for a walk and get some fresh air, be positive and enjoy, be serious, commit and take responsibility, take action and stick to it, navigate and listen, and be there for the family. Your input is appreciated.

 
 

Edited January 28, 2020 by sometimes99er

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Try... Drinking tomato juice!

[sometimes99er]

47 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said:

Try... Drinking tomato juice!

Will do. We've been trying cold tomato soup here more often (one ingredient is tomato juice) (called Gazpacho (Portuguese version)). Tomato juice is going on the grocery list (will try almost anything). Thanks. 

[jrhodes]

If you like Gazpacho, you may want to check out cold Borscht soups. "kali orexi"

[+Vorticon]

If the headaches are waking you up at night or you have them as soon as you wake up in the morning, please see your doctor asap.

[Opry99er]

Ice fishing and miniature golf.... sometimes at the same time.  That golf ball rolls really well across the ice into the hole you've drilled for fishing.  

[sometimes99er]

6 hours ago, Vorticon said:

If the headaches are waking you up at night or you have them as soon as you wake up in the morning, please see your doctor asap.

Thanks. Luckily it's different. When I wake up there's absolutely nothing. An hour later with hard physical work or leaning forward with my head downward, the headache arrives. It can go away after some minutes or more. And then late at night, when I lay down, I have to lay down slowly. Sleep is fine. Consulted 2 doctors and they gave slightly different advices. Fresh air, clear my head, watch the caffeine etc. It's been 2 months now and yesterday I even felt a bit dizzy, maybe because I recently stopped drinking coffee and I got a nasal spray. If it's not better by Monday, I'll consult a 3. doctor (there’s 4 to choose from at the “house” I’m assigned to).

Edited December 12, 2019 by sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

8 hours ago, jrhodes said:

If you like Gazpacho, you may want to check out cold Borscht soups. "kali orexi"

Looks good. I’ll avoid the sausage though (won’t say more). We’ll definitely look into it.

[sometimes99er]

We need 4 sprites. That's all.

[GDMike]

I was having dizziness and they did a cat scan, found a discoloration on the patuitary and later dizziness quit all at once. But I had it for like three months. I think it has something to do with with my program not running the way I wanted. Lol

[sometimes99er]

1 minute ago, GDMike said:

I was having dizziness and they did a cat scan, found a discoloration on the patuitary and later dizziness quit all at once. But I had it for like three months. I think it has something to do with with my program not running the way I wanted. Lol

Yeah, I've got my share of real life stuff not running the way I want. A few times it has kept me awake half the night, which surely doesn't help. As a rule, I'm trying to get 7 hours straight.

[+Vorticon]

3 hours ago, sometimes99er said:

Thanks. Luckily it's different. When I wake up there's absolutely nothing. An hour later with hard physical work or leaning forward with my head downward, the headache arrives. It can go away after some minutes or more. And then late at night, when I lay down, I have to lay down slowly. Sleep is fine. Consulted 2 doctors and they gave slightly different advices. Fresh air, clear my head, watch the caffeine etc. It's been 2 months now and yesterday I even felt a bit dizzy, maybe because I recently stopped drinking coffee and I got a nasal spray. If it's not better by Monday, I'll consult a 3. doctor (there’s 4 to choose from at the “house” I’m assigned to).

I assume your blood pressure is ok? Also glaucoma can be a cause of the symptoms you describe. Perhaps a visit to your neighborhood ophthalmologist might shed some light. I hope they figure it out for you. 

[Nick99]

6 hours ago, sometimes99er said:

Thanks. Luckily it's different. When I wake up there's absolutely nothing. An hour later with hard physical work or leaning forward with my head downward, the headache arrives. It can go away after some minutes or more. And then late at night, when I lay down, I have to lay down slowly. Sleep is fine. Consulted 2 doctors and they gave slightly different advices. Fresh air, clear my head, watch the caffeine etc. It's been 2 months now and yesterday I even felt a bit dizzy, maybe because I recently stopped drinking coffee and I got a nasal spray. If it's not better by Monday, I'll consult a 3. doctor (there’s 4 to choose from at the “house” I’m assigned to).

 

To bad your not in Sweden, to solve problems like this is my profession. Do you have neck pain och tensed shoulders? 

You might have tensions around the blood veins that goes from the neck and up in the back of your head. 

The other thing I would look at are the muscles and nerves around the throat.

The vagus nerv can cause some trouble like this when it´s stuck, you could also have a slightly twisted neck (atlas)vertebra due to tensions in the muscles.

With a physical examination it would be easier to give a more correct diagnosis.

I do hope you´ll get help to solve this!

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Nick99

[sometimes99er]

9 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I assume your blood pressure is ok?

Thanks for pointing it out. Previously it was a bit high, so I got it down to a steady level around 115/80. I'll start checking again at more regular intervals.
 

9 hours ago, Vorticon said:

Also glaucoma can be a cause of the symptoms you describe. Perhaps a visit to your neighborhood ophthalmologist might shed some light.

Wow. I am much more about doing something about causes than getting stuff for the symptoms. The only thing I'm on is a drug for getting eye pressure down. It was up at 31, and now it's at 17. And I've just been to the ophthalmologist (regular checkup). I mentioned the headache, and he said that "water" could be in the sinus (forehead). There's probably (definitely) no inflammation, but I decided to try out some nasal spray. Been on it for 7 days, 3 times a day, and I have to stop after 10 days. Not really doing anything for me (I think).
 
3 years ago I was rushed to eye surgery and had 800 laser "welds", to prevent damage as the vitreous had started to separate from the retina (4 rips identified). The small symptoms I experienced, Google Search and a bit of determination luckily got me there. Knew nothing about it beforehand.
 

9 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I hope they figure it out for you. 

Thanks for everything. I will not forget.
 

Edited December 13, 2019 by sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

6 hours ago, Nick99 said:

To bad your not in Sweden, to solve problems like this is my profession. Do you have neck pain och tensed shoulders? 

You might have tensions around the blood veins that goes from the neck and up in the back of your head. 

The other thing I would look at are the muscles and nerves around the throat.

The vagus nerv can cause some trouble like this when it´s stuck, you could also have a slightly twisted neck (atlas)vertebra due to tensions in the muscles.

With a physical examination it would be easier to give a more correct diagnosis.

I do hope you´ll get help to solve this!

I guess typically a headache will disappear over time, as the doctors (in the first stages) basically assigned it to stress (tension). Of course I'll go visit the doctors again, if it's not really "disappearing" - it's been improving somewhat in the last couple of days. I can only say that it's down to a more positive approach and deciding to have more fun (children love me for it, while many adults take a step back (a few love me for it)).
 
My profession is computers, so I sit on a chair a lot - and stare into this "blue light" - and "off duty", we, the family is doing "much of the same" (gaming, casting, info and social media). A new and supposed better office chair for me has probably just changed (moved) the smaller muscular problems/tension. Right side of the back is sore. Wife has been giving me a few back massages, and I've got this cheap back massage apparatus. It helps.
 
I'm aware of not holding me head forward to stare into that damn smart phone. I'm moving away from it.
 
I think you're on to what this is all about. And that the cause is something I can do something about.
 
Thanks so much for your input. I will not forget.

 

[sometimes99er]

Just got a new physical RetroGamer delivered by the mailman at the door. I must be getting old, since I love it, and now most things appear better back in the good old days. When the kids were smaller etc.

And doing a bit of Atari 2600, TI-99/4A, Commodore 64 and Amiga, is so - intoxicating - relaxing. Time travel here I come.

[sometimes99er]

The individual holes (screens) have a very minimalistic look and a very small footprint in terms of ROM usage.
 

 
Each hole (layout) has the screen divided vertically into 4 "chunks". Within a chunk the horizontal lines with characters simply repeat.
 

 
Within each chunk the layout is mirrored around the middle vertical axis.
 

 
Each character can either be on or off. So the 16 characters horizontally can be presented in 2 bytes (16 bits).
 
So, all in all, the background graphics for a hole can be held in 8 bytes (4 chunks times 2 bytes).

Edited December 15, 2019 by sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

On 12/12/2019 at 11:46 PM, Vorticon said:

I assume your blood pressure is ok?

On 12/13/2019 at 9:27 AM, sometimes99er said:

Thanks for pointing it out. Previously it was a bit high, so I got it down to a steady level around 115/80. I'll start checking again at more regular intervals.

It's A-Okay. 120/80. 

 

[Opry99er]

That hole looks like quite an... Adventure...  

[sometimes99er]

6 hours ago, Opry99er said:

That hole looks like quite an... Adventure...  

Yep, there's certainly similarities. Block graphics (maybe a castle), screen vertically mirrored, and the player looks like a cursor. Good old Atari 2600.
 
Merged somewhat (more of a castle) in the Miniature Golf Plus (actual cartridge for Atari 2600):
 

  

Edited December 15, 2019 by sometimes99er

[sometimes99er]

So each hole has it's own dataset, a list, an array or something. The image above has 8 chunks opposed to the original Atari 2600 Miniature Golf, which has 4 chunks. We'll get back to that later.
 
We've established the requirement for the background graphics (8 bytes). Now we need to place the 4 sprites (player, ball, hole and obstacle). Each need an x- and y-coordinate and that takes two bytes. We'll let the player start at the ball position (saving us two bytes). And we'll let the obstacle have two sets of coordinates - starting and ending points. We'll animated the obstacle between those two points.
 
Requirements for the sprites (per hole) is then 8 bytes. All in all, a hole needs 16 bytes (setting up background graphics and sprites). So far so good.
  

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by sometimes99er

[Firefly]

The game is looking good, Sometimes. 

 

Regarding the headache, you mentioned you get into bed slowly at night, and it can come on if you lean over ... you may benefit from checking with your doctor if there's no fluid build-up in the brain, this can cause all of what you mentioned.  The procedure to treat it isn't particularly nice though, it's called a Lumbar Puncture, (spinal tap) 

 

I really hope you're better soon.

[sometimes99er]

2 hours ago, Firefly said:

The game is looking good, Sometimes.

Thanks.

2 hours ago, Firefly said:

Regarding the headache, you mentioned you get into bed slowly at night, and it can come on if you lean over ... you may benefit from checking with your doctor if there's no fluid build-up in the brain, this can cause all of what you mentioned.  The procedure to treat it isn't particularly nice though, it's called a Lumbar Puncture, (spinal tap)

Holy macaroni, I hope it's not something like that.

2 hours ago, Firefly said:

I really hope you're better soon.

Thanks.

 

 

[sometimes99er]

For now things are broken down into these bits ...
 
Obstacle
✔ Make it move back and forth between control points.

Player (club)
✔ Make it move (user input).
✔ Make it move slow when close to the ball (precise putting).
✔ Make it hit the ball (user input).

Ball
✔ Make it move (after being hit).
✔ Make it react to friction (surface).
✔ Make it stop (allow next hit).
✘ Make it bounce off the walls.
✘ Make it bounce off the obstacle.
✘ Make it go into the hole.
 

[sometimes99er]

✘ Make it bounce off the walls.
 
I’m not quite sure how “game engines” have tackled this (low level and/or over time). The 6502 CPU (Atari 2600) could do it back in 1979, so of course it’s possible. I’ve given it some thought, and there are several paths to take. You can't have the ball "jump" a corner and miss a collision (perception) because of speed. I think I’ll go do some research.