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Frostbite 400 (for Christmas)


glurk

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Pele’s Soccer is about the only sports game that I ever really liked….it was not even close to football (as the game has should been called) but it was FUN…….and those fireworks….woohoo !

 

not an Activision title though….not is Cosmic Ark but if there’s one 2600 game I’d love to see ported to the A8 it IS that one.

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I'll cast a vote for Chopper Command. The difficulty ramps up rather quickly, but maybe that could be slowed down (possibly as a game mode/option) in the Atari 8-bit conversion.

 

Pressure Cooker looks pretty cool too. I've never really played it, but I think it's rated pretty high.

 

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Back to "Frostbite 400" for a minute...  So, people asked for XEX versions.  I really like the cartridge format, and I usually convert XEX files INTO cart format.  So I didn't want to do it, but I did.  I know some people have devices that can't run CAR images.

 

I did not want the extra effort of converting my source to do it 'properly' so, in the laziest way possible, I made NTSC and PAL XEX versions.  They just dump the cart data into memory and run it, so they will both require 48K.  These are barely even tested, but they seem to work OK:

 

EDIT: Scratch that, they don't work correctly.  I'll have to do more work.

EDIT: Previous versions did not clear memory properly, so I fixed that.  New uploads:

 

Frostbite 400 (FINAL) [NTSC].xex

Frostbite 400 (FINAL) [PAL].xex

 

I was trying to work too quickly, sorry.  These should be OK, I think(?)

 

 

 

Edited by glurk
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6 minutes ago, Thelen said:

Thanks for the xex! for some strange reason my sio2sd loader loads it and ends with a BASIC 'Ready' prompt...Probably my own faulty config... ?

Maybe you have to hold down 'OPTION' to disable BASIC?  I honestly put these together really quickly, I kind of hate the fecking XEX format.  With the Cart format, the A8 always powers up in a known state...

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19 minutes ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Isn‘t there an chopper command conversion by Avery.

No

 

13 minutes ago, glurk said:

Did he already?  I don't have it...  I think he only did Activision 'Seaquest' and 'Stampede.'  I could be wrong, though...

@phaeron

Sequest

Stampede

Adventure

Combat

Midnight Magic

Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

@playsoft

Miniature Golf

 

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Incidentally, 'Chopper Command' is one I think I could do.  I've thought about a method that would probably work.

 

BUT - There does not seem to be ANY commented disassemblies of the 2600 version.  So I'd first have to start on that major job, before I could even hope to start on porting it, major job number two.  So two major efforts would be needed, sigh...

 

So, if anyone knows of / has seen that one already dis-assembled and commented, maybe.  Otherwise I probably won't bother.  I also like 'Sky Jinks' but it's the same situation.  And it's kind of a "meh" game, and I don't want to spend my time on a project and get a "blah" reaction.

 

Still undecided...

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Looking at 'Cosmic Ark' - just thinking it over - I think it could be ported EXCEPT I just don't know about that darned starfield effect!!

 

AFAIK, ANTIC can't do that, so it would have to be simulated anyways.  But jeez...  People have done in-depth analysis on that effect, scoping it out on the hardware, etc...  I just don't know about all that!  How "important" is that part anyways?  I know it's a nice effect.

 

Thinking of a way to simulate, ANTIC mode 4 lines as background, redefining the "starfield characters" in RAM during VBLANK might work.  But it seems like a nightmare...  I'm just pondering the idea.

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2 hours ago, glurk said:

Looking at 'Cosmic Ark' - just thinking it over - I think it could be ported EXCEPT I just don't know about that darned starfield effect!!

 

AFAIK, ANTIC can't do that, so it would have to be simulated anyways.  But jeez...  People have done in-depth analysis on that effect, scoping it out on the hardware, etc...  I just don't know about all that!  How "important" is that part anyways?  I know it's a nice effect.

 

Thinking of a way to simulate, ANTIC mode 4 lines as background, redefining the "starfield characters" in RAM during VBLANK might work.  But it seems like a nightmare...  I'm just pondering the idea.

I also think it can be done in mode 4. With after each two rows of mode 4 a DLI to change the colors. Probably it will look 'a bit' different, and only hardcore Comic Ark gamers will see that... ?

 

 

 11 hours ago, glurk said:

Maybe you have to hold down 'OPTION' to disable BASIC?  I honestly put these together really quickly, I kind of hate the fecking XEX format.  With the Cart format, the A8 always powers up in a known state...

Thanks, but despitefully it's not the basic problem ? 

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Yeah, I've been seriously thinking about 'Cosmic Ark' as my next effort, as even though I don't especially like the game very much, I know it's popular.

 

But that star field!  You're right, it's iconic, and it has to be in there, and it has to look correct.  It's a weird thing when doing the background effect is harder than the game itself.  Gameplay is just lots of P/M graphics, and I think the A8 can handle it with a few DLI's as needed.  I have Thomas Jentzch's 2600 disassembly of it already, it looks do-able to me...

 

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On 12/27/2021 at 11:19 PM, glurk said:

I don't want to start a new topic for this, but I'm open for ideas on what I should port next.

First, thanks for Frostbite.....very nicely done!

 

As for next game, I'd vote for Chopper Command and Spider Fighter. Both have great (for 2600) graphics and fast gameplay.  

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17 hours ago, eegad said:

First, thanks for Frostbite.....very nicely done!

 

As for next game, I'd vote for Chopper Command and Spider Fighter. Both have great (for 2600) graphics and fast gameplay.  

Thanks!  'Frostbite' was a lot of work, but also very fun to do.  Not to brag, but I thought it came out really well.

 

I'd like to do 'Chopper Command' but I'd have to totally disassemble the whole 2600 game from scratch, just to work out what all the RAM values do.  I think 'Spider Fighter' has been disassembled and annotated already, I forget...  That in itself is a major job.  And that game confuses me, I've never really ever played it before, haha.....

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