Anyone thirsty for some PoP?

[LS_Dracon]

Yes, in 3 frames. It's sad to waste 20 bytes (player height) because 2 dots.

I'm trying to avoid the missiles pixels to save rom btw. I think I can store all the sprites in 12 kb or less, leaving 18 kb for the game.

Edited October 2, 2011 by LS_Dracon

[Thomas Jentzsch]

To me it looks like that extra pixel might not be necessary and it still would look good.

[KevinMos3]

I concur.

[LS_Dracon]

Here's the animation without missile pixels. It's more than 2 pixels actually.

I think I can fit the anim in 8 pixels wide, if optimization needed.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Oh, it's 10 pixel wide, not 9 as I thought.

 

8 pixels suck.

[LS_Dracon]

Oh, it's 10 pixel wide, not 9 as I thought.

 

8 pixels suck.

 

Hehehe it's all we have

[+legeek]

Here's the animation without missile pixels. It's more than 2 pixels actually.

I think I can fit the anim in 8 pixels wide, if optimization needed.

 

 

You know, I think you could crop from the left instead of the right since the eye is drawn to the foot moving forward.

[LS_Dracon]

You know, I think you could crop from the left instead of the right since the eye is drawn to the foot moving forward.

 

Yes, good idea, but the rom is really not a problem. The prince uses 18 bytes for each frame and twice of it for each missile table (36 bytes, one for each facing) total of 54 bytes per animation frame.

Not using missiles (the step animation uses only in 3 of 7 frames) the total amout of frame data is reduced by 2/3. I want to fit all the prince animation in one bank (4kb), let's see if I can.

Some animation such climbing, drinking a potion and falling don't need missiles I gess.

 

I've finished the jump animation, the biggest anim so far, 18 frames! Here is one of the most difficult frame to do, still require some fixes. The dark yellow area is the missile data.

 

[LS_Dracon]

Hi, new demo!

 

 

It's an animation test demo, not really a gameplay, so the controllers are just functional, it's not my suggestion how it must plays.

 

Ok the keys if Prince is stopped :

 

hold forward = Run

Up = jump to climb

Down = crouch

back = turn (it's buggy because I'm not finish the left facing missile sprites, so the prince positions is reset to the left)

 

Hold button + Up = jump forward

Hold button + Down = step forward

 

Prince is running :

 

Release foward = stop to run

button = running jump

 

Again, it's an animation demo I did to test my sprites, most of the motion values will be changed to match the original game. The sprites as well is only 80% done.

Edited August 1, 2012 by LS_Dracon

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Very nice.

 

It looks a bit odd when his head looses its color, though. Maybe it would look better if his shirt gets the head color or both colors get mixed? Or we could use flicker here.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Thomas Jentzsch

[LS_Dracon]

Very nice.

 

It looks a bit odd when his head looses its color, though. Maybe it would look better if his shirt gets the head color or both colors get mixed? Or we could use flicker here.

 

Thanks. Some animations or even frames, if possible, will use their own color pallete to minimize this problem, don't worry I'm aware of that.

[roland p]

I can't wait to try it when I'm back from holiday!

[djmips]

This looks fantastic. Geek note - I was super excited at a Game Developer Conference cocktail gathering back in March because I was unexpectedly in a small group that included Jordan Mechner. We talked a bit about Karateka and Prince of Persia. I'd bet he'd be well impressed by this work you've done! They others in the group were the developers of Limbo which is another game everyone should try.

 

Keep up the great work.

Edited July 20, 2012 by djmips

[LS_Dracon]

Thanks Djmips. I really need the Jordan Mechner authorization to keep working on it. Tried to contact him several times through his site but never got a reply. Probably there is someone to reading his website emails and not reply this type of question.

Anyway I don't want to bother him, so me and Chris are waiting a better demo, perhaps a working first stage with these animations I did, to have a better product to show. We're giving a time to the time, Boulder Dash is out, an officially licenced, it is possible to happens with PoP also.

Anyway next time if you had a chance, talk to him about this project

[LS_Dracon]

New demo, left facing enabled (finally!).

I was thinking the best way to handle such massive number of sprites, my suggestion is place all sprites into own ROM banks and store them on RAM. It's what I'm doing here, the second bank contain all the sprite and missile data, go there, pick the sprite I want, store on RAM and return to the main bank that holds the game logic / screen draw. It requires more RAM also.

It's my first bankswitch program (F8) I think it's working fine. The controller layout is the same as previous demo :

Forward : Run
Backward : Turn (when running, too)
Up : Jump to climb
Down : Crouch

Button + up : Jump forward
Button + down : Step forward
Button + running : Running jump

If the player stuck looping an animation or other bug appears, press reset.

The color pallete now are independent for each animation frame. I can find better combinations just don't want to work more on it right now.

Edited April 25, 2014 by LS_Dracon

[+Nathan Strum]

That's excellent!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

This one looks much better than the last one.

[LS_Dracon]

That's excellent!

Thanks

 

This one looks much better than the last one.

Danke.

The color changes improve the sprite looking.

 

I was testing the difference between the original and the 2600 version, comparing the prince height, the perfect scale down is 80%.

 

The playfield must to be 2 pixels (4 scanlines) smaller on each floor. Here is an image for comparisson, 1 = Original pc version, 2 = Scaled down 80%, 3 = Atari 2600 version (fixed)

 

Edited August 2, 2012 by LS_Dracon

[+Philsan]

Awesome! What an animation!

[Orion_]

That's insane ! Awesome work !

I tried to code for the 2600 and I figured out it was really a pain,

now seeing your work and smooth animation, it really blow my mind, keep up the awesome work !!

[LS_Dracon]

Thanks and don't give up.

Atari 2600 is difficult to code but also is a simple hardware, wich is less difficult things to learn.

Edited August 4, 2012 by LS_Dracon

[TheAtarianGuy]

I wish I could have found this sooner. I've been waiting for PoP to come to the 2600 ever since I found out about it. I can't wait to see the finished result. Good luck!

[+thegoldenband]

That looks absolutely terrific!

[the.golden.ax]

That's excellent!

Thanks

 

This one looks much better than the last one.

Danke.

The color changes improve the sprite looking.

 

I was testing the difference between the original and the 2600 version, comparing the prince height, the perfect scale down is 80%.

 

The playfield must to be 2 pixels (4 scanlines) smaller on each floor. Here is an image for comparisson, 1 = Original pc version, 2 = Scaled down 80%, 3 = Atari 2600 version (fixed)

 

 

Just imagine the standard a production like this would have set in the early 80's had it been released then.

[Emehr]

Am I the only one that can't download the binary? I've tried it in Safari and Chrome. Safari stalls at 6.9KB and Chrome can't even seem to start the download. Weird. The posted screen shots look great, though!