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1 vs 1 Pro Tennis FINAL


easmith

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After much trial and error, I have a somewhat decent graphics kernel for this game .  Not sure if there is a need for another 2600 tennis game, but why not.

I would like to have better animations than existing games  for player movements and shots/serve, but also plan on having more shot control programmed into the game .  That is the ability to place your shots ( with some error of course )  with joystick direction, and to have different speeds for lobs , etc.  

 

The main challenge so far has been that I am needing to use 30hz flicker to achieve the graphics elements I want.  It turns out that green and white is a bad combination for flicker , so I have had to experiment with colors to get a screen that is not seizure inducing on a CRT.  I think this is decent.

 

Ideally the sidelines would be white, but the flicker is just to annoying with the $D0 green background.  Also, this would make the racquets white which looks weird .

Screen shots / screen capture look crappy, so unfortunately if anyone wants to look you will have to download .  

 

No gameplay yet , and I am having a bit of trouble  conceptualizing how to execute realistic ball movement, but usually something will come to me eventually .  Activision tennis looks like it has it pretty close so I will study that .  Wish me luck !

 

 

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I can see it now, Edward is going to start his own programming company.... "EASports 2600" :rolling::rolling: (Edward A. Smith Sports 2600) - with previous released titles: Kung Fu Combat, 1vs1 Basketball, Pro Golf, Pro Bowling, Beer Pong, and now Pro Tennis!

 

I want to request from EASports 2600:

Ice Hockey

Curling

Arena (Indoor) Football

Pro NFL Football

College Football

CFL Football

Darts

Ping Pong

Raquetball/Handball

 

Ones that probably would not need improvements would be BMX Master, Boxing, RS Volleyball, Karate, Bass Fishing Tournament, Billiards/Trick Shot, Horse Racing/Steeplechase, etc.

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Very kind words ?.  

I am very limited as a programmer when it comes to 2600 specifics , especially when it comes to having multiple objects on screen . I have had to lean on help from others in this area and design my games around my limitations and doing everything in assembly. 

As much as I would like to do a football game ( 10 yard fight for example ) , I just don’t have the chops to pull it off to a level that would be worthy . There are too many players / objects that need to be drawn .  Same for a full baseball game with fielders /runners . Same goes for hockey I think maybe champ games has a hockey in the works maybe ?    

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by easmith
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21 hours ago, easmith said:

Very kind words ?.  

Same goes for hockey I think maybe champ games has a hockey in the works maybe?

Yes they have one in the works, but you could still do your version. Doesn't have to be 6 on 6.... Activision's is 2 on 2. Would be nice to have 3 periods instead of only 3 mins! Maybe team color choices, time outs (pause with TV type switch?), etc.

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Not sure if you'll have room for this, but what about having 3 different surfaces for clay, grass, hard?  The ball and player could react a little different for each surface.

 

Hard - standard that we're used to

Grass - faster ball with some random movements due to uneven surface

Clay - slower ball and player has momentum to take into account

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I have made a lot of progress on this game . Still  a lot needs to be done. Also fine tuning of shots . 

What I have done in order to distinguish the game from existing 2600 tennis games  (other than hopefully improved graphics) , is to increase the control and variety of shots, beyond the usual mechanic that simply chooses a shot angle based on where the ball  hits the racquet .    So as usual the controls are complicated  !!!  I have two different shot speeds and the ability to control the shot placement based on the joystick . So read the info below about shot controls .

 

Here is what  you can do in this update :

 

1. Play one rally  against the computer opponent. 

You control the BLUE player at bottom. Press button to have the AI serve to you .

 

2. Switching from color to B&W will  put you as the top player.

 

  After the rally ends, must press reset to start another . 

 

 Right now the AI player is a bit too good.

 

So no scoring yet, and no out/ in detection yet.

That is still to come , as is switching sides ( left /right and top /bottom), and hopefully eventually 2 player mode. Everything is being designed as 1 player for now since I think it is easier to go in the other direction.

Also want to add a lob shot that can go over player without being hit while high . 

 

 

CONTROLS.

 

-- Press button to serve ball.

 

-- To hit ball, you just need to move player to contact the ball

 

IF the button is pressed at the moment of contact , you will hit a fast shot .

IF the button is not pressed at the moment of contact , you will hit a slow shot.

Immediately AFTER contact ( within 4 frames so does not have to be before since this will cause player to change direction) , joystick movement will control placement of shot :

 SO if you are bottom player

  no movement will place ball in middle of opposite court .

  up right will place ball at back right of opposite court 

  down right will place ball at lower right of opposite court 

  down left will place ball at lower left of opposing court 

etc . 

 

  Pressing up will back the opponent up to baseline since your shot will go to baseline .

 

Opposite if you are top player of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by easmith
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2 hours ago, TwentySixHundred said:

Nice work the ball physics off the racket look to be coming alone nicely ? Is it just me or is there some screen jitter in Stella?

There is jitter if the ball goes off the screen . I need to fix the ball to stop at edge of screen and it will fix it. I don’t see any jitter otherwise . 

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3 hours ago, TwentySixHundred said:

Nice work the ball physics off the racket look to be coming alone nicely ? Is it just me or is there some screen jitter in Stella?

 

 

I fixed the jitter if ball goes offscreen, also improved collision detection .  There is flicker , so you might be referring to the 30 hz flicker which seems to cause a periodic jitter in Stella ?  I don't think the flicker is too annoying .....

 

Probably will restrain myself from further updates until I have a playable game with scoring. 

 

Instructions again :

14 hours ago, easmith said:

I have made a lot of progress on this game . Still  a lot needs to be done. Also fine tuning of shots . 

What I have done in order to distinguish the game from existing 2600 tennis games  (other than hopefully improved graphics) , is to increase the control and variety of shots, beyond the usual mechanic that simply chooses a shot angle based on where the ball  hits the racquet .    So as usual the controls are complicated  !!!  I have two different shot speeds and the ability to control the shot placement based on the joystick . So read the info below about shot controls .

 

Here is what  you can do in this update :

 

1. Play one rally  against the computer opponent. 

You control the BLUE player at bottom. Press button to have the AI serve to you .

 

2. Switching from color to B&W will  put you as the top player.

 

  After the rally ends, must press reset to start another . 

 

 Right now the AI player is a bit too good.

 

So no scoring yet, and no out/ in detection yet.

That is still to come , as is switching sides ( left /right and top /bottom), and hopefully eventually 2 player mode. Everything is being designed as 1 player for now since I think it is easier to go in the other direction.

Also want to add a lob shot that can go over player without being hit while high . 

 

 

CONTROLS.

 

-- Press button to serve ball.

 

-- To hit ball, you just need to move player to contact the ball

 

IF the button is pressed at the moment of contact , you will hit a fast shot .

IF the button is not pressed at the moment of contact , you will hit a slow shot.

Immediately AFTER contact ( within 4 frames so does not have to be before since this will cause player to change direction) , joystick movement will control placement of shot :

 SO if you are bottom player

  no movement will place ball in middle of opposite court .

  up right will place ball at back right of opposite court 

  down right will place ball at lower right of opposite court 

  down left will place ball at lower left of opposing court 

etc . 

 

  Pressing up will back the opponent up to baseline since your shot will go to baseline .

 

Opposite if you are top player of course.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by easmith
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23 minutes ago, easmith said:

 

 

 

I fixed the jitter if ball goes offscreen, also improved collision detection .  There is flicker , so you might be referring to the 30 hz flicker which seems to cause a periodic jitter in Stella ?  I don't think the flicker is too annoying .....

 

Probably will restrain myself from further updates until I have a playable game with scoring. 

 

Instructions again :

 

ProTennis11-15-20.bin 16 kB · 1 download

Yeah the jitter was only when the ball was off screen, seems to be fixed now. I noticed the flicker aswell but didn't really bother me i was assuming that was the 30hz you confirmed ?

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On 1/15/2020 at 9:06 AM, devwebcl said:

It looks very interesting. I love tennis games. I actually tried to do one in batari including those features (taking ideas from modern tennis games).

 

I'll test it tonight. Keep up the good work 

 

Thanks.  One more update :)   . I have the lob shot working ( pull down ( or up if top player)  immediately after contact ) . Ball gets larger and cannot be hit when large since it is over your head) .

 

ProTennis1-16-20.bin

Edited by easmith
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Ok , I now have a playable 1 player game !  Posted in previous post .

 

This update includes scoring , game count and set scoring, and change of sides / serve location, etc.

 

There are a few bugs I am aware of in terms of scoring/ in vs out detection. No sounds yet. But the game play elements are pretty much there.

 

Right now the AI opponent is very tough .

 

Please read the  instructions regarding shot controls in the previous post  . There are three different types of shots :  lob, regular speed , fast speed.  And you can control the placement of the shot.

 

Feedback is appreciated . Haven't heard much .

I would post video but my computer that can run screen capture   does not have Stella and vice versa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If i sacrifice the yellow ball and use white, and if I sacrifice the center service stripe, the flicker is reduced quite a bit . 

Curious to know which looks better. Maybe for cartridge I would use this option .........  Flicker is more tolerable in emulator.

 

Edited by easmith
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Alright I think I have a complete one player game at this point , short of Title screen which is to come later.

 

Updates/ Improvements:

 

-- Game ends at first to win 2 sets out of 3 .  Set is won by first to 6 games ( do not have to win by 2 ) 

 

--   In/out detection is pretty much solid ( this was hard !)

 

-- shot placement refined 

 

-- basic sounds added 

 

-- " In"  or " Out"  called after each point .

 

Again, for max experience , controls are important:

 

 

 

 

 

CONTROLS.

You control Blue Player

-- Press button to serve ball.

 

-- To hit ball, you just need to move player to contact the ball

 

IF the button is pressed at the moment of / immediately after  contact , you will hit a fast shot .

IF the button is not pressed at the moment of contact , you will hit a slow shot.

Immediately AFTER contact ( within 4 frames so does not have to be before since this will cause player to change direction) , joystick movement will control placement of shot :

 SO if you are bottom player

  no movement will place ball in middle of opposite court .

  up right will place ball at back right of opposite court 

  down right will place ball at lower right of opposite court 

  down left will place ball at lower left of opposing court 

etc . 

 

  Pressing up will back the opponent up to baseline since your shot will go to baseline .

 Pressing down will  do a lob shot  which can go over opponent.

 

 

Controls are opposite if you are top player. 

 

 

Edited by easmith
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On 1/8/2020 at 10:12 AM, Atari_Warlord said:

Not sure if you'll have room for this, but what about having 3 different surfaces for clay, grass, hard?  The ball and player could react a little different for each surface.

 

Hard - standard that we're used to

Grass - faster ball with some random movements due to uneven surface

Clay - slower ball and player has momentum to take into account

I will see what I can do . 

Can do green court for grass, blue for hard , and tan for clay . 

 

Can have ball occasionally bounce erratically on grass .

Can have ball not bounce as far on clay . 

Don’t think I will do player momentum / inertia at least for now . Running out Ram ....

 

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updates:

 

 

-- basic title screen 

--   hold down select will change game option :

   game 1  :  1 player / clay court

  game 2 :   1 player / grass

  game 3:  2 player / clay  (  2 PLAYER NOT YET ACTIVE)

  game 4 :   2 player grass

 

On grass, ball will occasionally bounce in a random direction .

 

  -- fixed a bug where fast shot would not always register 

 

Other than adding 2 player mode I am pretty happy with the results so far .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by easmith
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