Rob 'n' Banks: Weekly Development Log

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, Ryan Witmer said:

Today I went back and redid the code that detects where the locked doors should go.  I realized that I was doing it a bit wrong, and spent some more time studying the arcade game to get this right.  I'm pretty confident that it's correct now, and I also had to do a bunch of the work for the horizontal doors in order to get this working right.

 

I still haven't done the horizontal doors, but the foundation is there and I'm now at the point where I can start studying the arcade game to figure out how they should behave around the green gates.  This is probably where I stop for the weekend, I have some stuff going on tomorrow, but this is actually a really big step in getting this game working so I'm pretty happy with it.

Thanks for update. 

[BIGHMW]

Love the progress this has made, looking forward to the next update soon.

[+Ryan Witmer]

13 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

Love the progress this has made, looking forward to the next update soon.

Thanks, I'm trying to keep moving at a least a little bit every weekend.

 

I've run into the hard stuff.  At the beginning of any game project, things move quickly because you're doing all the easy stuff.  Once you get past that progress gets a lot slower.  I'm into the hard stuff now, just have to keep pushing forward.

[+Ryan Witmer]

So here's the player locking some horizontal doors:

 

 

These doors seem to be working fine.  I haven't worked on any of the potential clashes with the green gates, but I have done research into the arcade game and I'm starting to understand how they should work.

 

I probably won't get anything else done this weekend, just really busy.  I wanted to get at least a little bit done though.

[BIGHMW]

Nice!!! It's really coming along nicely, keep it up.

[phuzaxeman]

On 9/7/2021 at 2:01 PM, Ryan Witmer said:

Thanks, I'm trying to keep moving at a least a little bit every weekend.

 

I've run into the hard stuff.  At the beginning of any game project, things move quickly because you're doing all the easy stuff.  Once you get past that progress gets a lot slower.  I'm into the hard stuff now, just have to keep pushing forward.

Ryan, great progress.  Keep up the good work.  I just played Lock N Chase at my local arcade.  The game is growing on me.  I think its going to be great when you get the car dropping of Rob to the maze.

 

Have you thought about adding an intro scene where you see the characters and the names?  Maybe a batch of new enemy names?   

[+Ryan Witmer]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:33 AM, phuzaxeman said:

Have you thought about adding an intro scene where you see the characters and the names?  Maybe a batch of new enemy names?  

I've actually had something like that planned for a long time, before I even started working on this.  I've done similar things with Ratcatcher and Intellidiscs.

[BIGHMW]

Hey @Ryan Witmer, it's been about a week, how's Rob 'N' Banks comin' along, we would love to hear from you. I know it's the weekend but some of us are itchin' to try out yet another test ROM of that wonderful game, and, since you seem to like porting Intellivision games to Big Sexy, we were wondering if you have any plans for doing titles like either Thin Ice, Night Stalker or even the terrific (un)official sequel to Burgertime, Diner. I used to own an Intellivision II and when I came to Port Townsend from L.A. back in 1987, we discovered at that time that (the now-defunct) Toys 'R' Us down in Silverdale carried Intellivision/INTV cartridges and believe me I bought a whole bunch of them as well as mail ordered the last of the remaining 5200 carts I needed to fill my collection from a place down in Texas that I found out about in Atarian magazine back then. I played Thin Ice, Night Stalker and Diner (along with Burgertime, 5200 owners were graced by the late great Ken Siders and his 5200/8-bit version called Beef Drop years ago) heavily, I'd love to see Big Sexy have those for her too. That's up to you though, it's just a thought.

[BIGHMW]

25 minutes ago, BIGHMW said:

Hey @Ryan Witmer, it's been about a week, how's Rob 'N' Banks comin' along, we would love to hear from you. I know it's the weekend but some of us are itchin' to try out yet another test ROM of that wonderful game, and, since you seem to like porting Intellivision games to Big Sexy, we were wondering if you have any plans for doing titles like either Thin Ice, Night Stalker or even the terrific (un)official sequel to Burgertime, Diner. I used to own an Intellivision II and when I came to Port Townsend from L.A. back in 1987, we discovered at that time that (the now-defunct) Toys 'R' Us down in Silverdale carried Intellivision/INTV cartridges and believe me I bought a whole bunch of them as well as mail ordered the last of the remaining 5200 carts I needed to fill my collection from a place down in Texas that I found out about in Atarian magazine back then. I played Thin Ice, Night Stalker and Diner (along with Burgertime, 5200 owners were graced by the late great Ken Siders and his 5200/8-bit version called Beef Drop years ago) heavily, I'd love to see Big Sexy have those for her too. That's up to you though, it's just a thought.

 

Actually it was a place down in Fresno, CA named BRE Software, a.k.a. The A Exchange, The ad is below included in this post. I found a bunch of 5200 carts there that allowed me to fill the voids in my collection and then years later (the early 2000s), I discovered AtariAge and also the now-defunct videogames.org, in which I bought several N.O.S. 7800 controllers (CX24, also known then as the 'Deluxe' Joystick) as well as Redemption 5200 for both 2600/Sega and 7800 controllers in which I would love to see @Albert reissue someday since there are better parts available for them now as opposed to when he first came out with them back in the day. AA also sold carts on eBay which I was able to pick up both prototype repro carts and XL conversions before landing an Atarimax multicart a few years ago, in which I have an SD card with over 350 titles on her ready with an arsenal of controllers including ones from Wico, Atari (all best-modded) and Retro Game Boyz.

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by BIGHMW

[+Ryan Witmer]

This weekend I finally started digging into solving the clashes between the player's doors and the green gates.  After some research, I learned that the two center gates just delay their cycle if you block them with a door.  I also figured out that the gates delay if the player or a cop is standing in the way.

 

I think I have all of this working for the two center gates.  The other two gates, the ones that wander around the maze, are a bit more complicated.

 

When these gates are blocked, they seem to jump to another location, and then try to pick up where they left off, or something close to that.  I don't have them completely figured out yet, but I think I'm making progress in understanding them.

 

20 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

we were wondering if you have any plans for doing titles like either Thin Ice, Night Stalker or even the terrific (un)official sequel to Burgertime, Diner.

I love Thin Ice and Night Stalker, played a lot of those back in the day.  Never got the chance to play Diner, even though I really wanted to.

 

After this project is done, I'm actually playing to get away from ports and back to original stuff for a while.  However, if I were to do another Intellivision port, it would probably be Thunder Castle.

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, Ryan Witmer said:

However, if I were to do another Intellivision port, it would probably be Thunder Castle.

Yes!  I’m going to hold you to this.?

 

Thanks for the Rob ‘n’ Banks update.?

[+Ryan Witmer]

10 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

Yes!  I’m going to hold you to this.?

 

I said "if" and "probably" so I have a way out.

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, Ryan Witmer said:

I said "if" and "probably" so I have a way out.

Just teasing.  Thanks for your games.  Intellidiscs and Rob 'n' Banks will be excellent additions to the 5200 library.

[+Ryan Witmer]

@TIX graciously provided me with some sprites for the police, so I went ahead and dropped them in just to have something else on the screen.

 

They don't do anything yet, but there they are!

 

I've been working out the details around the moving green gates and they way they behave when they're blocked.  I think I'm finally starting to understand what the arcade game does, and I'm ready to try putting something in place.  The problem is... it's complicated.  I might not get much more done this weekend other than thinking, but sometimes I just need to spend some time thinking before I do something dumb.

[1980gamer]

"but sometimes I just need to spend some time thinking before I do something dumb"

 

That is a pearl of wisdom we should all harness.

 

[BIGHMW]

Any updates @Ryan Witmer???

[+Ryan Witmer]

I got something in place for handling blocked moving gates this weekend.  I'm not sure if it's exactly what the arcade game does, but it's pretty close and can probably fool most people.  I'll probably keep adjusting it as I spend more time with the arcade game.

 

I also starting putting together the bonus objects in the middle of the screen.  To start with, I made the hat that appears on the first stage.

 

 

You can't pick it up yet, it just appears and disappears on a timer.  Unfortunately, while doing all this work I somehow introduced a bug in the coin pickups, and I'm trying to work through that now.

[christo930]

2 minutes ago, Ryan Witmer said:

I got something in place for handling blocked moving gates this weekend.  I'm not sure if it's exactly what the arcade game does, but it's pretty close and can probably fool most people.  I'll probably keep adjusting it as I spend more time with the arcade game.

 

I also starting putting together the bonus objects in the middle of the screen.  To start with, I made the hat that appears on the first stage.

 

 

You can't pick it up yet, it just appears and disappears on a timer.  Unfortunately, while doing all this work I somehow introduced a bug in the coin pickups, and I'm trying to work through that now.

Are you not doing the updates on youtube anymore?

[+Ryan Witmer]

46 minutes ago, christo930 said:

Are you not doing the updates on youtube anymore?

I'm still going to do them, but not until I have something more to show.  The stuff I've been working on lately isn't very "visual" and would make for a pretty dull video.

[JumbleJag]

Looks great Ryan

Edited October 8, 2021 by JumbleJag

[Paul Westphal]

Nice work. Speaking of Intellidisks, I just played it and it's pretty fun, Ryan. Thanks!

[bikeguychicago]

@Ryan Witmer is the modern-day M-Network for the 5200

Of course, if you ever come out with carts for your games, you'll need to find a way to shove the PCB into an Intellivision shell and then have a big honkin' 5200 adapter at the other end. No re-using Atari shells!

Edited October 14, 2021 by bikeguychicago

[+Ryan Witmer]

On 10/14/2021 at 9:30 AM, bikeguychicago said:

Of course, if you ever come out with carts for your games, you'll need to find a way to shove the PCB into an Intellivision shell and then have a big honkin' 5200 adapter at the other end. No re-using Atari shells!

I only half-jokingly posted this cartridge concept for Intellidiscs:

 

 

I took a break from my PC projects to try to get some work done on this today.  I have this nasty bug with the green gates that I've been trying to fix for about a week.  I've been working at it all morning without any luck, but I did make some progress in understanding what's going on, I just don't have an answer for it yet.  I might need to rewrite a bunch of the green gate code, not sure yet.

 

I have a thing tomorrow so there won't be time to work on this, but I'll see what I can do on Sunday.  I need some time away from this bug to see if a solution pops into my head.

[BIGHMW]

Anything Ryan, it's been over 2 weeks.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I've been fighting with these stupid green gates for almost a month.  I was having all kinds of problems with the way they should behave when they're blocked by something, like the player or a cop, or a locked door, or whatever.

 

I ended up doing a complete rewrite of the green gate code and now I finally think it's working.  I made a short video talking about my problems and some other recent changes here:

 

 

Also, here's another test build if you want to goof around with it.  This one says Test build, 11/14/2021 256 bytes from the end, because I'm running out of clever build names.

 

It's still not a game yet, but you can run around and play with doors.  The stage also resets now when you exit the bank.  The bonus hat appears, but you can't pick it up yet.

 

Now that I think I finally have these stupid gates working, I'm going to start looking at getting the cops moving.  The first attempt at this will be very dumb, but it will give me something to work from.

robnbanks.bin