Cafeman

I played a whole bunch of 5200 games last night, and I'm still wondering what Antic modes and techniques were used to some things. For example, Pac-Man vs Ms. Pac-Man. Pac man probably uses all 5 Players for Pac & 4 ghosts, with bg graphics for dots and fruit. Pac and the ghosts are all 1-color -- a perfect fit for using a player. I think Pac uses Antic 4, I got this from the VSS debug. ANtic 4 is a redefined character mode. Now, lets talk about Ms. Pac-Man. To me, the movement is a bit less fluid than that in Pac-Man. Ms. Pac-Man, I believe, also is in Antic 4. However, the ghosts have white eyes; the fruit bounces around this time; Ms. Pac-Man has a bow of a different color than her body. Looking at it, I almost suspect the coder didn't use players but redefined characters for the ghosts. How many colors can a redefined character be, without any kind of DLI hocus pocus going on? I have not dabbled with character modes yet, only with the pixel modes such as Antic E. But then again, there is more ghost-flicker in Ms Pac-Man, although I think Pac-Man has no flicker at all. Flicker means that the Players are being used & switched very quickly. Perhaps the coder use missiles for the eyes? Another game is Galaxians. It is extremely colorful, and I doubt that it is a simple case of changing color registers on a scanline DLI, because as the Galaxians descend, their colors do not change. Is this another example of using redefined characters to get more colors per "sprite"? Or could the coder have used bg graphics as software sprites? Any guesses or ideas? [ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Cafeman ]

Good think you have that "@Activision" thing after your name, to get their attention & replies!

And, it's going to take TIME. Go to these supplied links, read up on the topics, print them out on paper, get your mind familiar with the concepts and terms used. When you get your first pixel on-screen, consider it a major accomplishment! Just like the expression goes, 'you must walk before you can run'. There are no shortcuts!

Good suggestions, Ress. I already have an idea of how the gameplay will allow you to turn the tables on the villain cloud (and you'll have to, in order to beat each level), but I'm not going to tell what it is. If the gameplay changes, I'll keep your suggestions in mind though .. who knows?

quote: Originally posted by Ze_ro: It took me forever to figure out how to play Raiders of the Lost Ark on the emulator... --Zero Me too!!!! I couldn't get it to start, then I realized that on Stella, you need to use the JKL etc keys for movement, and SDF etc keys for switching inventory and stuff. I still cannot get far in the game. It'd be more fun with a joystik (erm, well 2 of 'em) and an actual Atari. I keep falling and getting robbed!

Hmm... The Genesis can't even handle Outrun, but how it handles the animated terrain is by color cycling -- which is one thing that the atari can do just fine! I think a clever programmer could do a decent Outrun homage! After all, look at Enduro! Really, not much difference in concept. However, Outrun is a huge memory hog, there is a problem -- half the fun is seeing all the wonderfun scaling sprites and roadside objects, and different vehicles. That would be a good project, me thinks. But then again, and this is just my opinion, since there are better ports of arcade games like Outrun on other systems, I feel like I'd rather see new ideas.

If somebody is going to make new 2600 games, I'd like a new racer ala Enduro and Pole Position. But not a ripoff! Something with a fresh idea. Enduro is one of my top 5 Atari 2600 games, for good reason. With more memory that is available for 2600 homebrews, plenty of good adventure games could still be written. I personally wouldn't mind making film license games like ET, or Jaws. But my console of choice is 5200... hint ..

At my most politically incorrectness, I must say I am officially CREEPED OUT!

Ah, okay then! It's nice to know the difference. No interrupts? No wonder 2600 coders must count cycles and stuff.

Maybe you should be checking the shadow for Trig0? And not the register itself? this is a guess, but you know in my move routine I check the shadows of POT0 and POT1, not POT0/1 themselves. Try that.

I'm pretty sure you have to write to the shadow. The only time I write to the actual color registers is in a DLI; the color register is reset on each frame by the value in its shadow register. Right?!

Actually DEBRO, I thought Atari 2600 coders used 6507 ASM. Which is not too much different from 6502, I believe, but there is a few differences (and DASM handles them both). I stress the fact that I am NOT a 2600 programmer but I have read about it and have talked to those who program games for it.

Well, that's good to hear. I didn't think he was dead, myself. Reading the topic, I thought for a moment he was in NYC this past week and missing or something, then found, but it seems he's been presumed dead a while, eh?

That's odd that several 80's game designers all had 'the change'. Who is fenton?

It's always nice to hear someone else started to develop homebrew Atari games. You're braver than I am; 2600 coding intimidates me! Good luck!

Glenn -- tell us you are JOKING.

I've only tried the Stella roms of these games. Got 'em here at AtariAge. I can't really get into any of them -- they baffle me! Take Earthworld for example. You have this great looking sword on the title screen, something that would look at home on the 5200. Then the game starts and you are this stick figure walking forever through squarish rooms. When you press your button, you go to another room and must maneuver thru ascending and descending walls, thru the hole. Playing with a keyboard, I've never made it. So I stopped trying. I expected more from the games, I suppose. I mean, Adventure seems pretty fun still. So does Haunted House and Raiders, and Riddle of the Sphinx is okay too. But these Swordquests baffle me!

Glenn, There are several games that use the analog sensitivity -- Centipede, Missile Command, Realsports Soccer are just three I can think of. Besides, what I really meant was the way you have to read the 5200's analog stick -- it's basically like reading two paddle inputs (Pot0 and Pot1) on the Atari 8bit, so there would need to be code changes regardless. For example, even if any value pressed left on a 5200 game's code results in the same amount of movement to the left, the code STILL is different from what you'd do with the 8bit. Actually, the 8bit is more simple.

My next project will use both firebuttons and many of the keypad buttons. That is, if I get Koffi done first and actually get to start a 'next' project. I originally wanted to use the 2nd firebutton too, just because it was there. But there may really be no need for a game like Koffi. The different actions he must pull off, I think I'd like to make them happen due to the gamers skill rather than just a button press. For example, the lower firebutton will dump water on a fire. But how will he 'douse' the villain cloud? I keep thinking and thinking of the best way, and I think it will some clever use of his regular 'douse water' power combined with clever timing. But we'll see, I should shut up now.

The only problem is that Koffi just might use both firebuttons. I'm trying to prevent that though. I wonder, once this game is done, if I release the source code (and I plan to once its done), if somebody else would like to perform the 8bit translation? If you knew your stuff, you could do it in under a week I bet. Maybe in 1 night!

Hmmm.. I think the 5200 needs more exclusives! Actually, to make it compatible with 8-bit, would I just need to change some address around and replace the analog stick routine with digital stick routine?

I used it like that and it works. It will skip from $FF to $00 and set that Z flag thing, so be careful. I've been using INC in particular for variables like ScanLine. After Vblank I move zero to Scanline and in my DLI I have the stmt "INC Scanline", followed by some checks which change colors based on which scanline its on. Here's another question tacked on to Tempest's thread -- is there a limit to the length (# chars) of Labels and Variable names in 6502 ASM? What is it?

Oh, and thanks for the support guys. I knew 6502 ASM programming was no walk in the park, but I really never thought that it'd take THIS long...! Now if we can just get the Dutchman to show us a pic of Swordquest!

Huh? Are you joking about the unfinished prototype idea then? (bad idea!) You mean you never originally intended to finish it? I am confused, as usual.