atari2600land's Blog

On the Channel F, consider if you can utilize some of the unique elements of the controller: the twist to the left and right and the pull. Perhaps if you're having a strength meter, make it increase by pulling the joystick and then push down the button when you're at the desired strength. Many golf games for other systems would let you hold down the fire button and release it at a desired point, but I think the Channel F controller would let you do things even more realistic. The twist could be used for possibly slicing shots.

Good ideas! wonder if I can figure out how to make the strength meter increase by pulling it up. I've never programmed pulling up on the Channel F controller before. Right now I have it so that firing and holding fire would increase the strength and letting go would hit the ball. Or at least I was planning on it. I haven't gotten that far yet. I made a website for the game, which you can find here. You can download the latest version, which like I said, will be the latest version for a few days while I rest and think about the game.

No idea, I thought you'd read the controller port and masking the desired bits but I didn't look into the technical details so perhaps it is more complex.

And then there's the whole emulation aspect. Does MAME have a key to press that makes the ROM pull up?

It seems to be configurable. I'm using an ancient version 0.80.1 with the Channel F driver. Under Options -> Joystick -> Joystick 1 and 2 you can configure the following controls, with my default bindings described:

 

Player 1

Up, down, left, right = cursor keys

Button 1 (Push down) = Z

Button 2 (Pull up) = X

Button 3 (Twist right) = C

Button 4 (Twist left) = V

Start (Channel F Button 1) = 1

Button 5 (Channel F Button 2) = B

Button 6 (Channel F Button 3) = N

Button 7 (Channel F Button 4) = M

 

Player 2

Up, down, left, right = R, F, D, G

Button 1 (Push down) = A

Button 2 (Pull up) = S

Button 3 (Twist right) = Q

Button 4 (Twist left) = W

 

Player 2 obviously doesn't have its own set of Channel F console buttons so Buttons 5-7 are not defined.