Why do so few Intellivision games display your score during gameplay?

[Intelligentleman]

I've always wondered. Some games will show you while you play, but many won't. What gives?

 

Is that a design choice or a hardware limitation?

[+cmadruga]

Never thought of that... but I'd say it's probably a combination of what you suggested.

For some games, showing a score just does not make sense. Think AD&D for instance.

From a technical standpoint: Intellivision's resolution means real estate is scarce.

Also games with scrolling require special attention so the score won't roll with the entire screen.

[Intelligentleman]

I noticed that when I play Utopia you can actually navigate the boat around the numbers at the bottom...

[+cmadruga]

Well, when something is printed on screen it literally becomes part of the background.

 

 

 

 

[mr_me]

Yeah, the intellivision has one background layer so every pixel there is used for object-background collision detection.  That's how it is in Utopia but it doesn't have to be.  You could add a y position condition and have objects move through the numbers at the bottom.  Or you can use tables and software and skip the hardware collision detection with the background.

 

That also means when the background scrolls, the text scrolls with it.  So games with background scrolling like auto racing, space hawk, football, soccer, skiing, mazeatron, space spartans don't show any stats while the background is scrolling.  Bumpnjump is an exception as they did some clever background animation to keep some characters stationary.  But that involved extra code.

Edited April 12, 2020 by mr_me

[carlsson]

You could waste a few sprites for a score display, but often you want to keep all 8 MOBs for actual content instead of acting like a small score display.

[+thegoldenband]

Super Cobra is one of several games where the score scrolls with the background, and the effect is a bit odd.

[Elektronite]

Numbers (score) cannot be displayed during fine scrolling. 

 

When we created Boulder Dash, we had to choose between fine scrolling or having the score display. We chose coarse scrolling. 

[Intelligentleman]

1 hour ago, Elektronite said:

Numbers (score) cannot be displayed during fine scrolling. 

 

When we created Boulder Dash, we had to choose between fine scrolling or having the score display. We chose coarse scrolling. 

Is coarse scrolling when the movement is more jerky? Kinda like Mazatron?

[Intelligentleman]

18 hours ago, mr_me said:

Yeah, the intellivision has one background layer so every pixel there is used for object-background collision detection.  That's how it is in Utopia but it doesn't have to be.  You could add a y position condition and have objects move through the numbers at the bottom.  Or you can use tables and software and skip the hardware collision detection with the background.

 

That also means when the background scrolls, the text scrolls with it.  So games with background scrolling like auto racing, space hawk, football, soccer, skiing, mazeatron, space spartans don't show any stats while the background is scrolling.  Bumpnjump is an exception as they did some clever background animation to keep some characters stationary.  But that involved extra code.

I kinda like how Space Hawk gives you a score screen when you reach certain thresholds.

[mr_me]

5 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

Is coarse scrolling when the movement is more jerky? Kinda like Mazatron?

Mazeatron uses hardware fine pixel scrolling.  With coarse scrolling you'd use software to point the background tiles to different gram cards.  The scrolling would therefore jump eight pixels at a time.  Colecovision for example doesn't have hardware scrolling so zaxxon scrolls in eight pixel increments.

Edited April 13, 2020 by mr_me