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BLiP Football Source


djmips

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Today, I'm posting up the source for BLiP Football.

 

About BLiP Football. Original name: LEDhead because of being based on LEDhead by Peter Hirschberg. Was released in a small quantity in a beta version at NWCGE 2K6 1.0

 

I had a lot of help. I was the lead programmer you could say. There is a big contribution from Peter Hirschberg who wrote the PC version LEDhead and was generous in sharing his source code. This gave me a design template and allowed me to shortcut and just focus on the 2600 implementation on the 2600. I originally used a playfield bitmap display (borrowed from bBasic) to get the game 90% up and running. I then contacted Bob Montgomery and he enthusiastically contributed the display kernel and graphics, music driver, title screen subroutines and converted the display elements in the game logic to use BCD.

 

We swapped the code back and forth. It was a little annoying because our styles are different but it worked out OK, we had cleanly divided areas of work. For me it really helped having the source code in a Perforce server at home (free) so that I was able to more easily integrate Bob's code.

 

I selected a tune and his brother did the title song. I did the art for the title based on a design by David Exton. Of course, I had to pound out the bugs, alone, shivering in my lonely dark garage.

 

Bob and Tommy were very quick and I was very impressed with their work.

 

Doing a sequel - Football II? Or other LED games?

 

The infrastructure of the game code is already designed to handle Football II without too much difficulty, that is, there is a move up field and move down field for instance. The display code would need some work because Football II uses a 10 yard wide screen and with the extra blip for the ball in the air.

 

On Football, I made the fire button the run button to get as authentic a feel for running as on the handheld where you would be madly tapping the <> button to go down field. On Football II it would have to be the joystick for the direction control and then the fire button to pass.

 

I'm probably not going to work on a Football II for the time being, just to get a change of pace. But I wouldn't mind doing it later.

 

My day job is actually making games but I'm usually the guy writing the 'display kernels' etc and this football project gave me a chance to focus more on the game side.

 

I'd say the biggest problem I had (besides stupid bugs) was issues with random #'s which I solved after some research and help from postings to the AtariAge homebrew forums.

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Thanks for sharing. The first thing I did is built it so I could play! I used to have one of those football games back in 1980 and I played the hell out of it.

 

I should mention, though, that the GPL is sort of controversial for 2600 programming. See the CiE thread for some discussion about it.

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I should mention, though, that the GPL is sort of controversial for 2600 programming. See the CiE thread for some discussion about it.

 

As much as I'm honored to see parts of my code used in this, I have to request that either the license is immediately removed or all of my code is replaced with whatever other code does a similar job.

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I knew this was going to foster some controversy. :)

 

Quoting Batari from the thread he linked.

The problem is the viral aspect that Bruce pointed out. This is troubling for 2600 coding

 

The problem I'm having is that the game was based partially on a GPL game and therefore I was required to add the same boilerplate.

 

It only covers the game code that was derived from LEDhead, with regard to sections of the code that are not derivative, these are not covered under the license.

 

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If

identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,

and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in

themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those

sections when you distribute them as separate works.

 

I'll modify the source if necessary I suppose... Is it really necessary?

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all of my code is replaced with whatever other code does a similar job.

 

I've removed all code that isn't covered by the GPL from the source.

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I'll modify the source if necessary I suppose... Is it really necessary?

 

I'm no expert on GPL nonsense, but if I got that quote right, it might be sufficient to shift my code into seprate include(s), just like vcs.h macro.h and music.s?

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all of my code is replaced with whatever other code does a similar job.
I've removed all code that isn't covered by the GPL from the source.

 

Thanks. That's an even better solution.

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There are other problems beside the infectious aspect of the GPL. The GPL does not allow just one section of code to be GPL'ed if it is combined with non-GPL'ed code and built into a single program. The GPL specifies that all code must be GPL'ed in this case. The only way that GPL'ed and non-GPL'ed code can be used together is if they are built into two separate programs. But this isn't possible on the 2600.

 

Maybe the best solution is to try to find a way to avoid the GPL. Personally, I don't think you need the GPL for this case, even if LEDHead is GPL'ed. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd think that this isn't a derivative work, but merely an adaption of an algorithm.

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