I let my blog fall off the main page. Bad TROGDOR. No peasants for you.

This update is the product of taking two steps backward, and three steps forward. The ROM image is now 8K, making it my first 8K bankswitching ROM! This required a lot of code reorganization, which is one of the least fun things to do when writing a game. The biggest problem was hunting down all the subroutines and data references that pointed to the wrong bank and caused the game to lock up. I've cleaned all those out and did thorough testing, so you shouldn't see any crashes.

This is also a step backward since I've gone from 90% use of a 4K ROM to 50% use of an 8K ROM. The Hunt the Wumpus progress bar has moved back accordingly.

This update doesn't have any graphics changes, so no screenshot this time. The source code is included, if anyone wants to check out my bankswitching strategy.

pescoman_x1.zip

Features:

htw16.asm 09/17/06

- The code has been dramatically altered to work in an 8k ROM footprint. It uses standard Atari F8 bankswitching. To simplify the code and save RAM, there is only one path for switching to bank2, and one path for switching back to bank1. Bank1 holds most of the Vblank processing, and all the Overscan. Bank2 holds some Vblank processing, and all the kernels. Functionally, the game is the same as version 0.15.

htw17.asm 09/24/06

- Modified the song playing routine to support multiple song pointers.

- Added Victory song and Death durge.

To Do:

- Expand Wumpus clues so they appear in all rooms that are within 1 or 2 rooms of the Wumpus.

- Add death music and victory music.

- Add cut scenes for Wumpus death, Pit death, arrow shooting, and victory.

- Add title screen and music. (started)

- Add in-game sound effects.

- Add difficulty levels and level selection.

- Add bank switching code to allow 8K ROM.

Known Issues:

- I've verified a bug when moving at the top of the screen. This is possibly the bug that Supercat was talking about. If you get close to the top of the screen, you will explore the room on the screen above, without moving into it. This can cause unexpected death, if the room above is a pit or Wumpus. The fix isn't simple. I'll probably have to revamp the room transition code to resolve this.

- Firing the arrow at the Wumpus is still quirky.

- There is still one scanline of unwanted black lines at the top of the screen that I haven't cleared out yet, but the rest of the lines are gone.

- Most of the scanline bounce has been cleaned up. There are still a couple frames in the death scene that are not 262 scanlines.

- There are artifacts in the teeth of the death scene that need to be cleaned up.

Development Notes:

I plan to work on level implementation and selection next.