Rally X

[sandmountainslim]

Did anyone ever port or make an attempt to port Rally X to the 2600? I have always liked the game but dont recall ever seeing it for the Atari.

[Mindfield]

Not that I've ever seen. It probably wouldn't be that hard to do though. You'd have to do a little footwork for omnidirectional scrolling, 4 sprites (your car plus 3 chasers) and various other things (flags, smoke screen clouds, oil slicks) but I'm sure it could be done.

[holygrailvideogames.com]

If someone makes one I will buy one. Rally X is one of my favorite old arcade games.

[Atariboy]

Or you could just get rid of the scrolling and shrink stuff down, but I guess then it loses some of it's charm and challenge.

Edited December 4, 2005 by Atariboy

[Mindfield]

Or you could just get rid of the scrolling and shrink stuff down, but I guess then it loses some of it's charm and challenge.

976169[/snapback]

 

Yeah. Part of the fun was keeping an eye on the radar (another possible issue with the game) looking for flags and avoiding the other cars.

[Feralstorm]

I don't think scrolling would be a big issue, if a display kernel can be made to handle it. the C64 Rally-X clone Radar Rat Race did pretty much everything with character graphics, scrolling in great chunks, and seemed pretty acceptable. the 2600 playfield scrolling should be fine if it moves quick enough.

 

another possible approach might be to do something like Jr. Pac-Man, and only allow vertical scrolling, with the maze itself only as wide as the screen. the radar might be handled on a different horizontal band, with a different display kernel.

[Mindfield]

Flick scrolling (ala one of Andrew Davie's Boulderdash kernels) might also work. I'd want to keep the omnidirectional scrolling in any event -- restricting it to one plane would be cheating and would diminish gameplay integrity. The radar beign a problem however is more to do with its size and placement. In the original arcade it was at the side of the screen -- problematic for the 2600's architecture. You could move it to the top so you can craft the score, radar and fuel meter out of whole cloth as it were, but being that Rally X's levels were about twice as tall as they were wide, you would either have to eat too much vertical real-estate to make the game playable (not to mention leaving giant swaths of dead space to either side), or shrink the radar down to a point where it's almost meaningless.

 

You could, on the other hand, display only a vertical strip of the radar, flick-scrolling as necessary to display higher or lower portions depending on player location. This would up the difficulty a little as portions of the map would be concealed at any given time. The 2600 is no stranger to compromise however, so it seems like the most acceptable avenue to take.

 

I would also think you'd have to make it at least an 8k game to accomodate the resolution you would need to make the radar granular enough to be meaningful to the player.

 

Flags, oil slicks and smoke clouds could be playfield objects (though would that allow a car to be concealed by the smoke?). You would also have to change the scoring to eliminate the need for a six-digit score routine. Apart from that you just have to concern yourself with the four main player sprites and you're good.

[supercat]

In the original arcade it was at the side of the screen -- problematic for the 2600's architecture.  You could move it to the top so you can craft the score, radar and fuel meter out of whole cloth as it were, but being that Rally X's levels were about twice as tall as they were wide, you would either have to eat too much vertical real-estate to make the game playable (not to mention leaving giant swaths of dead space to either side), or shrink the radar down to a point where it's almost meaningless.

976257[/snapback]

 

What about rotating everything 90 degrees? I know it damages the aesthetic, but that would allow things to be shown in closer-to-proper proportions.

 

You could even add an option to rotate the lettering in case anyone wants to play "Merlin's Walls" style.

[yuppicide]

What about doing it as a Supercharger game?! I know this limits the amount of people who would purchase it, but then again it's not all about that. I'd still want one.

[Mindfield]

Turning the levels on their side is certainly a consideration and would give it a bit of that Defender dynamic, but would subtly change the game aspect. I could probably live with it, but the purist in me would still wish it was vertical. Turning the TV on its side is probably not going to be an option. Cumbersomeness aside, you're still left with the score and radar on the right hand side (appearing as the top on a sideways TV), and you can't exactly rotate Stella...

 

The bottom line is that the score and radar would have to be on top. You get whole scanlines to draw everything you need in that section and you get enough horizontal real-estate to draw a proper five digit score, plus the radar and other informational bits.

 

So, it's either flick-scroll the radar vertically to keep everything in proper aspect, or you rotate the levels on their side so you can display everything on the radar at once, but change the aspecto f the game. Par for the 2600 course.

 

As for doing it as a Supercharger game -- it really wouldn't make a difference. The only advantage making it a SC game would give you is an extra 6k to play with. If you make an 8k cart you can pretty well eliminate the need for the SC altogether, and be able to cram an extra few level designs or some extra music in there as well.

Edited December 4, 2005 by Mindfield

[pkblack]

Lotsa games have thing like 4 way scrolling and radar screens dont they?

[sandmountainslim]

I believe a homebrew of Rally X would be the next best thing to Fonz Cybergoth, you got yer ears on homie?

[supercat]

As for doing it as a Supercharger game -- it really wouldn't make a difference.  The only advantage making it a SC game would give you is an extra 6k to play with.  If you make an 8k cart you can pretty well eliminate the need for the SC altogether, and be able to cram an extra few level designs or some extra music in there as well.

976390[/snapback]

 

Another interesting possibility, if one were using expansion RAM, might be to use the left 36 pixels of playfield, using striped-color playfield graphics for everything, and then having the right side of the screen show the radar and score. I think this might barely be doable within raster scanning time constraints (seven load/store pairs for the playfield (two 'immediate mode') and two for the right-side bitmap stuff (16 pixels' worth). If the loads are four cycles each except for the immediate-mode ones, that's 7x4 + 2x2 + 9x3 = 28+4+27 = 69 cycles. If one dropped the left four playfield pixels, that would ease things quite a bit (12 cycles/line). In that case, one might want to drop another four from the right hand side leaving the playfield 28 pixels wide; one might then want to increase the width of the high-resolution portion at a cost of 7 or 14 cycles.

[Mindfield]

Another interesting possibility, if one were using expansion RAM, might be to use the left 36 pixels of playfield, using striped-color playfield graphics for everything, and then having the right side of the screen show the radar and score.  I think this might barely be doable within raster scanning time constraints (seven load/store pairs for the playfield (two 'immediate mode') and two for the right-side bitmap stuff (16 pixels' worth).  If the loads are four cycles each except for the immediate-mode ones, that's 7x4 + 2x2 + 9x3 = 28+4+27 = 69 cycles.  If one dropped the left four playfield pixels, that would ease things quite a bit (12 cycles/line).  In that case, one might want to drop another four from the right hand side leaving the playfield 28 pixels wide; one might then want to increase the width of the high-resolution portion at a cost of 7 or 14 cycles.

976573[/snapback]

 

Sounds workable, but I think at that point you'd be making a few too many concessions for the sake of accuracy. While that may be appeal to one's sense of right with respect to keeping the game as true to the arcade layout as possible, I think more benefit would be gained by moving the radar, score, et al. to the top. Then you can forget about splitting the resolution horizontally, freeing up considerably more cycles for a higher resolution, wider playfield -- which, in the end, I think would provide for a more satisfying play. Sure, it's not quite the same as the arcade, but it would be close enough to still be fun -- which is the important part. From a code perspective, you can tone down the fancy footwork a little and concentrate more on gameplay and implementation since you won't be focusing so much on splitting your scanlines between playfield and information panel. Technically that would be pretty neat, and as much as it appeals to me I think I'd rather a fun game than a technically impressive one. This way you could make the entire screen higher resolution (making it look nicer overall and going a long way to forgiving the moving of the status area) and have whole scanlines to devote to each section, probably with enough cycles left over for a little music.

 

Now I wish I'd gotten off my arse and picked up 2600 coding a year or two ago. I could have some fun with this.

[supercat]

Sounds workable, but I think at that point you'd be making a few too many concessions for the sake of accuracy.  While that may be appeal to one's sense of right with respect to keeping the game as true to the arcade layout as possible, I think more benefit would be gained by moving the radar, score, et al. to the top. 

976589[/snapback]

 

Looking at Radar Rat Race screenshots, the player gets to see a 9x9 area. If playfield 'characters' are four pixels wide, that would imply that the playfield would be 36 pixels wide; if playfield characters are 22 lines tall (NTSC), that would yield a screen height of 198 pixels and an aspect ratio of about 1.2:1 (i.e. shapes would be a little squushed). Using playfield 'characters' that were three pixels wide would work better, but programming that would be a real bear.

 

Otherwise, my recommendation would probably be to make each 'cell' be two pf pixels wide by 14 scan lines high (16 for PAL) (total of 126 or 144 scan lines). On the remaining scan lines, I would include the radar on the right and playfield-based scoring digits on the left.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Interesting discussion. I also believe Rally X would make a good 2600 port. I think SpiceWare is/was even working on it.

 

(Maybe this thread should be moved into Homebrew discussion, before it drowns here )

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Lord Helmet]

I wonder how close a hack of Jr Pac man could come...It would only scroll 1 direction, but it might work pretty well for a hack.

[+SpiceWare]

Hi there!

 

Interesting discussion. I also believe Rally X would make a good 2600 port. I think SpiceWare is/was even working on it.

 

(Maybe this thread should be moved into Homebrew discussion, before it drowns here )

 

Greetings,

Manuel

976704[/snapback]

Good memory! Somebody else had started working on it before I did, so I sent them the map for level 1 that I'd found. They released a demo version where you could scroll around to see the map, but I haven't see anything since. Think I'll look into it again

[maximebeauvais]

Hi there!

 

Interesting discussion. I also believe Rally X would make a good 2600 port. I think SpiceWare is/was even working on it.

 

(Maybe this thread should be moved into Homebrew discussion, before it drowns here )

 

Greetings,

Manuel

976704[/snapback]

Good memory! Somebody else had started working on it before I did, so I sent them the map for level 1 that I'd found. They released a demo version where you could scroll around to see the map, but I haven't see anything since. Think I'll look into it again

976782[/snapback]

 

it is also one of my favorite arcade game. I have spend a lot of quarter

 

can we take a look at the demo.

 

you should really continue that project.

 

see you.

[+SpiceWare]

Demo by Anthony Davies here:

http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archiv...4/msg00428.html

 

Notes and map I sent him are here:

http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archiv...4/msg00089.html

 

As nothing's come of Anthony's efforts, I think I will look into it again

[+batari]

Here's a demo in batari Basic. It will never be as good as Rally X, as there will be no radar screen and the graphics will be minimal, but it should have the gameplay elements intact.

 

Of course an assembly version would look better, so I don't want to discourage that. This will be a Rally X "lite" called "Rally B" (if it ever gets finished, that is...)

 

Anyway, I wrote this over the course of two evenings. This is far from complete, but several gameplay elements are in place.

RallyB.bin

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Amazing!

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I like the clever use of flicker for shading the wheels.

[+bcombee]

I think that if you did a homebrew version that rotated the mazes by 90 degrees, the obvious title would have to be "Rally Y".

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

If someone makes one I will buy one.  Rally X is one of my favorite old arcade games.

976168[/snapback]

 

Just buy the Pac-Man PNP joystick. It has a very nice port of Rally-X on it!! I loved the arcade game, and trust me on this, it's a great port!! I remember getting up to 8th or 9th level on the arcade(Yeah, it cost me a lot of quarters to get that good), and I can't get past the 4th level on this one. Probably just me losing a step or two due to old age.