Leprechaun status update
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More of the same. I think I've got almost everything in one file, though I haven't worked up the courage to see how many bytes it assembles to. I think I'm going to try to put the enemy movement into this version too, though maybe I should turn off the collision detection if I do.Hmm, one item I rediscovered was the sprite color is handled on a per-sprite basis. I think my original plan was to use that to mark whether enemies were carrying gold or not. I've since abandoned that idea (or at least back-burned it) since I can't put gold back at any spot on the playfield.Anyway, I'm thinking that I can use the enemy color as a debugging tool to watch their hunt / chase status, and maybe as a collision detection indicator.Lesee, oh yeah. I had an idea of handling the "what if I'm over 4K" problem. In the previous version I had bank 1 ($1000-$17FF) dedicated to the RAM/ROM foreground & background bitmaps, and bank 3 ($1800-$1FFF) dedicated to the actual code, with bank 2 ($1000-$17FF) reserved for the load routines. Well, if I move the background bitmaps to bank 3, then I can use bank 2 for any code (like the player & enemy movement handlers) which doesn't need to access the forground bitmaps.Okay, to-dos for the next build:1. Enemy AI & movement. Could leave this out, but 75+% of the code is sitting in my head waiting to come out anyway.2. Initialization routines / static data. Probably not the final version, just something that works well enough to bootstrap the rest of the code.3. Re-banking & bankswitch routines + re-ORGing. I'm dreading this part, 'cause it won't be fun or pretty. Again, probably just enough to get things working. Gotta remember that $10xx is write-only in write mode, so be careful putting code there for bank 2. (foreground bitmap for bank 1)Plans for the build after that:1. Zap/Dig/Fill routine. I think I did some of the code for this.2. Sprite BLIT. I have a feeling this is going to either be very painful, or very easy. Might be able to make use of one of the SkipDraw variants rather than coming up with some god-awful code on my own.3. Hmm, might be a good idea to actually have some sprites to use. Anyone want to offer to draw some for me?That should get down 90+% of the gameplay. Also need to talk to Kirk Israel about the Leprechaun level editor he did way back when & get it revised for what I need now.
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