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wogihao

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  2. wogihao
    Ok today will be reading through the PIA information and makeing a pretty list like i did with the TIA.
     
    more pondering of the playfield today - I think im getting closer to understanding it. funny how stuff like this leads on to tangents, I was sat there thinking "what if i wanted to do a multi level game with loads of screens - carts are avalible now with 64k of space.... " this lead onto looking at how to actualy write a game over 2k (fun but i wanted to save that till I had mastered the basics/fundementials).
     
    On another point, the design of levels (for things like maze layouts). How do you generate maze levels without them being rippoffs of another game? Is there a utility that can generate a maze that i can then take as a template for a playfield? I dont want to use other peoples level design as it seems cheating to me...
     
    I rember games like rogue and adom auto generate the dungeons, i guess there is a program out there that can do a similar thing (pity its beyond the 6507 chip to do this on the fly but then you cant have everyting i guess...)
     
    Anyway the first project will be a maze game where the P0 character (not a plumber or a italian food inspired creature) will run round colecting tokens (yet to decide what these are) and will be chased by P1 characters (not supernatural creatures).
     
    Ahh hell its a pac man clone. But im not hacking no existing roms, its all going to be my code from the ground up.
     
    Outline spec:
     
    Version 1:
     
    a. it will be 1 player
    b. there will be no sound (for the first version, i have enough to work out at the moment)
    c. there will be 4 levels (or as many as i can fit into 2k)
    d. it will be joystick controled.
    e. it will work in PAL/NTSC/SECAM/PAL+ (to be honest this is the easyest one to meet in the codeing just have a compiler option)
    f. it wont flicker like pac man on the atari
    g. it will be responsive (as good as i can make the controls)
    h. there will be monster vunrability tokens scattered around the level.
    i. monsters when comming into contact with the P0 will kill it.
    j. if the monsters are vunerable and P0 collison occurs then the monster will die.
    k. level is populated with a number of tokens, when the tokens are all taken (through collision with P0) then the level is finnished.
    l. the tokens on colision with P0 will be removed.
     
    Version 2:
     
    a. will have a high score
    b. will show the score on screen
    c. will have primitive sound (on obtaining a token, death, level sucess, game over, monster vunerability mode, monster death)
    d. will have more levels (thus takeing it into the 4k+ range)
     
    Its quite a complicated first program but i think i will learn alot doing it this way.
     
    On another unrealted note..
     
    I have been looking for Secam carts on ebay (the french one) and its a nightmare, the one auction i could find looked to be nothing more than a bunch of PAL carts miss labled when he started the auction. I guess because they run on the system they dont care
     
    never mind somthing will come up.
  3. wogihao

    First demo on the z26!

    By wogihao,

    I have spent the last 3 days reading up on the 2600 system and how its coded.
     
    I have done z80 assembly about 10 years ago however my understanding is quite rusty and to be fair alot of the spesifics i did rember dont aply (WHAT NO INTERUPTS!) haha.
     
    however the principles are the same so hopefully it will not be like starting from scratch again.
     
    Well they say the journey of a 1000 miles starts with but a single step and i feel i have taken such a step today!
     
    Spent the day reading through the files on the newbie 2600 programmers forum, also having a look at the commented files from the mini dig site.
     
    At first it was a bit daunting but when i pulled myself togeather with "come on its just assembly..." the panic subsided and was replaced with a fasination, the TIA gives you so much scope to mess with the user, once i learn more about the control of the playfield there will be some flashing demos the like of which even the japanese fit enduceing games of the early 80s could not match hahaha... only kidding.
     
    found a few other gems over at atariarchive, theres a nice presentation "Atari 2600: Stella Console Hardware & Combat Sample Game Software" that was realy usefull as i used the dissassembler and had a peak at combat, and bizarely the fog started to clear (alough i hasten to add i dont understand it completely).
     
    Currently im dissembling all the roms i can find under 4k, hopefully by studying a number of simple roms (the 2k fellas) i can pick up a few tricks.
     
    concreat progress was acheved today as i manged to get my first (copied demo) to load haha i was so happy i called my wife and she to was amazed i manged to get it first time without error lol. (admiditly copying a example into a editor isnt rocket science )
     
    anyway onwards and upwards, after the mindfield that was PAL/NTSC calculations it can only get better oh wait no theres still SECAM and that random brazilian standard.
     
    Hmmmmm i wonder how you code them.....
     
    next on the todo list it to finish off the tutorials, read the opp code manual and work through properly somthing like combat (but i might do tic tac toe instead...)
  4. wogihao
    I am suprised such a small document can contain so much usefull information.
     
    I went back to it after reading the tutorial in the newbie section and it made alot more sence the second time round.
     
    I also subscribed to the stella mailing list so hopefully i can pick up a few tips there as well (the 10 years of archived posts will help alot i think many of my questions are going to be answered in that archive.)
     
     
    On another point, today I receved Realsports soccer and fishing derby! muhaha the colection starts with 2 crappy carts but who knows where it will lead.
     
    Things to do:
     
    1. get a decent understanding of the TIA memory map. (i drew out a nice diagram this is helping quite a bit.)
    2. read the 6507 opp code list and explanation.
    3. look again at the commented dissasemblies.
    4. do some more work on playfield graphics and study the controler interface. (i never realised that a whole port was just for the switches on the atari!)
     
    poss... investigate how bank switching works but to be honest thats quite minor at the moment.
  5. wogihao

    Updates

    By wogihao,

    Well its been a fairly busy couple of days, been continueing to mess around with the various playfield settings.
     
    been reading through the stella archive again - theres some quality information on that list. many of the questions i had have been asked and answered already there.
     
    Been reading through the dissasembled game files again, alough i dont understand everything stuff like initilisation, screen setup are all going to be fairly standard (otherwise its not going to look nice lol).
     
    its intresting how diffrent the code is though, your have 2 guys solve the same problem (say a high score) in completely diffrent ways. Im adding these to my notes. hopefully when i get a full understanding (or as best i can) i can get a nice source book on how diffrent programmers handled common issues in the games.
     
    (add that to list of vaporware ideas).
     
    Have been ebaying again and managed to get some taiwan carts, and a few dactar multi carts.
     
    Hopefully my 2600 when it finaly turns up will be working, however it was one of thoes "untested" units i found on ebay. so i will probably be getting a replacement board.
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