[Outline of levels]

The 2600 can't do that many thin vertical lines as shown without excessive flicker. I assume you'd want to use the playfield for the maze, which can do thin horizontal lines but vertical lines must be 4 pixels wide.

 

As a guide, start with the 2600's "resolution" of 160x192, except that 160 is divided in chunks 4 pixels wide. ("Resolution" is in quotes to avoid any inference that the 2600 can do a full-screen bitmap - it can't.)

 

If you revise your mazes to fit this criteria and only use the two player objects as you've shown, the game will be quite doable.

 

Thanks for the help!

 

I wasnt planning to do them that thin, it was just the way the program generated the maze, i was planning im makeing them more chunky. hopefully the resolution wont be that much of a issue. (like you said at least 4 pixles i have messed around in tiapaint with the 8 pixle chunks.

 

I will have a play with the 4 pixel one and see what happens. hopefully with so few objects it will be ok.

[Update on my progress and my first game outline...]

Right straight off the bat i can see this project would kill me at my current ability, the colision dectection with even the maze element will be chalange enough.

 

there will be no monsters, no tokens.

 

the p0 character will have to navigate through a series of mazes of increaseing complexity.

 

I found with a google search a number of maze generators (and a dungeon on i will save for the future).

 

with this simplication of the inital spec i can concentrate on a smaller number of task that hopefully will not present the masive challange of the orignal spec.

 

All i have to do now is...

 

• a. generate the 4 maze levels in some utility- DONE
  
  
• b. plan the playfield - Pending
  
  
• c. create a screen with the playfield for the levels. - Pending
  
  
• d. create a p0 - just a block at first - Pending.
  
  
• e. get p0 moveing - Pending.
  
  
• f. create collision detection for the playfield and P0 - Pending.
  
  
• g. set the start and end points of the level - Pending.
  
  
• h. check the level progression works - Pending.
  
  
• i. create a decent player sprite - Pending.

  
  

 

 

Possible problems.

 

With the maze a large player will present some collision movement issues, if the sprite is to big then it will make fitting the maze on the screen thats chalangeing difficult without obsureing part of the playfield. As i imagned that the maze would be contained within the boundaries of the tv screen therefore this presents a problem with a large character - So i would imagine that the character sprite will be very basic.

[First demo on the z26!]

Thanks,

 

Pressure is on i prommised the wife i would finish my first playfield by the end of the week.

 

But then its not so difficult now, now with emulators i would hate to think what the learning curve was before the advent of powerfull development platforms for the 2600 - Dammm I have nothing but respect for the guys that did it that way, so many waisted eproms! It must have been heartbreaking when it didnt work after all that effort.

 

One thing i was thinking was, did the first wave of programers have to work everything out for themselves or was there easy acess to the stella documentation? or was it just the support of the other coders? or maby a combination of both hmmmm.....

 

I noticed there are a few brazilian atari carts availble on ebay... hummm that would be intesting to take a look at.... ah well theres still 4 days...

 

I have some german ones on the way also and one from Oz. I have been looking for some french carts to study but they seem to be very hard to come by on ebay I will have a hunt for some roms on the net. someone must have a archive somewhere. However i rember reading that very few secam carts were produced. So it may be a hunt in vain.

 

Finaly after reading about the eastern block knock off of the atari i wondered if there were any programs developed there? or was it purely a pirate consumer market?

[First demo on the z26!]

Thank you thats very usefull.