bluswimmer

Thanks for the kind words. Make no mistake, I'm still really proud of the game and the fact that so many people enjoy it. I'm just pointing out a couple of things that I want to work on/address for my next game, even if they aren't necessarily issues in the eyes of most people.

For some reason I tried to do a video where I play the game and talk about some of my experiences developing it. I kinda ramble on a lot during the video, so watch it at your own risk here.

There's two things going with the playfield. First, the Playfield registers are still set to non-zero values when the next frame shows up. Try setting the playfield registers to zero in the overscan. Secondly, while you have 192 values in each PlayfieldData list, when the Y register is set to 192 it's actually looking for the 193rd value when you load PF0Data,y into the A register, so it loads in some funky values. Not entirely sure what's going on with the background. Have you tried it without the constant to see if anything changes?

No offense taken! Dionoid's Amoeba Jump is a great homebrew, people SHOULD be looking forward to a cartridge release of it.

Yeah, this game is HARD. I came pretty close to the top score this morning, though...

Currently your code only updates the playfield if PlayerY is equal to whatever's in the Y register. Every other time, it skips over the playfield update. I'd move the playfield updates to just after you store PlayerBuffer into GRP0.

Just an FYI, I don't think I made the "poodle jump" you're thinking of. I never actually posted my doodle jump here, in fact. I was completely unaware of the other version at the time. My doodle jump can be seen in action here, but compared to my more recent stuff it's honestly an embarrassment. Thanks for picking up Balloon Trip!

Hi everyone, As stated above, Balloon Trip is now available in the AtariAge store! To commemorate the occasion, I figured I'd make a short post expressing my gratitude. Balloon Trip was the third 2600 homebrew that I had posted online. My first uploaded homebrew, a crummy version of Doodle Jump, honestly surprised me with the amount of attention it got, considering I had only shared it with a few friends. While it wasn't my best work, I decided that I should take the positive reception of that project and continue making more homebrews. I'm really happy that so many people enjoyed Balloon Trip, and I'm just as happy to know that my work will potentially reach a wider audience than before now that it's in the AtariAge store. So, to keep things brief, I just wanted to say thank you for this amazing opportunity. I hope that I can continue to create more games, homebrew or otherwise, that people enjoy, much like they have with Balloon Trip. Enjoy the crummy pencil doodle I've attached below.

A lot of odd choices... it feels like many of the more iconic titles are missing. Granted, I assume some titles are wrapped up in tons of legal stuff right now, but in my opinion Nintendo's mini consoles had game lineups that better represented their respective consoles.

This project's looking great so far! I haven't beaten either of the games yet, but I like how the game expands on the stealth-based gameplay of the first with new challenges. I do have one complaint, though, and it regards the electric floor rooms. These are by far the hardest challenges in the game, and I have yet to pass one without wasting a good portion of the game's clock. The momentary flash makes it very difficult to memorize everything in one go, so you're essentially forced into tip-toeing your way around until the next flash happens. Personally I think that the flash should be longer so that it's easier to memorize. All in all, I'm excited to see the rest of this project, especially the randomly generated tower!

I'm already seeing a lot of people using the same old "why buy this when you can just emulate with a Raspberry Pi" argument. Nevermind the fact that Nintendo's mini consoles faced the same criticism and sold well regardless, and that most people don't have the technical know-how to even set up emulation on a Raspberry Pi... Personally I'm not particularly interested in this since I've never owned a Playstation console, but I can see the appeal.

This idea is great! Would be a good opportunity to look at homebrews I haven't looked at originally.

Well, this is embarrassing... turns out I didn't even check if the sound when the meter fills up played properly! I've uploaded an update that corrects this issue.

There's some potential here, though it's quite buggy. Definitely far from a finished product. Also, I'd like to note that the scanline count is too high for NTSC systems (current count is 272, games on NTSC systems should have a count of 262.) The scanline count also seems to jump upward when clearing a wave or starting the game.

Yeah, getting the meter filled is pretty tricky! I can usually only fill it once during a single game. EDIT: Oh, and since cimmerian brought it up, I've uploaded a quick patch that holds the death screen half a second longer.

It's been a while hasn't it? Apologies for being a bit inactive, I've been juggling a number of projects as of late. Anywho, a new version has been released. This one is comparatively minor since the gameplay is almost unchanged, but I've added a few noteworthy things... + Added a title screen that is navigated with the controller + Added a new sound for when the Balloon Meter has been filled + Added a dumb easter egg that I doubt will be worth finding in the slightest + Fixed a bug that tried to spawn multiple bubbles on one scanline, even though it shouldn't have been possible

Hi everyone, Version 2 is out! This one adds a couple of things that I hope will make the game less repetitive. + Added higher difficulty levels. As you progress further, more sparks are able to spawn on a single scanline, instead of the old hard limit of one. + Added a Balloon Meter. As you collect balloons, this goes up, but if you miss balloons it goes down. Fill it up all the way, a huge wave of balloons spawns! + Added bubbles. While these don't come out of the ocean like the NES game, they serve the same purpose and stop the scrolling for a few seconds. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for taking a look at the game! I'm unfortunately unable to tune in since I have work that day, but I'll watch it as soon as the stream gets uploaded. I'll keep your suggestions in mind!

Over the past week I've been working on a port of the "Balloon Trip" mode of the NES game Balloon Fight. The game is pretty simple, just avoid the electric sparks and pop the balloons. Oh, and don't get too close to the water- the fish are pretty hungry, after all. Currently there's three difficulties that can be chosen with the select button. Scoring works by popping balloons, which scores 30 points, and simply surviving. Here is it in action. Hope you enjoy! balloontrip.bin balloontripV2.bin balloontripV3.bin balloontripV3.1.bin balloontripV3.2.bin balloontripPAL60.bin balloontripSECAM60.bin

Eight playfield lines will create a square. Generally, a single pixel on the 2600 is about twice as wide as it is tall. And yes, using an HMOVE every other line will create a 45 degree angle.

I'll admit, my curiosity was piqued when I saw the first teaser for the VCS, but as more information came out I slowly became less and less interested. The fact that they're trying to crowdfund a console when they're already a multimillion dollar company raised some red flags for me. The fact that they've avoided addressing many of the concerns regarding the console is even worse. Honestly, this just seems like another cynical attempt to cash in on a brand that's been coasting on nostalgia for nearly thirty years now.

Just added a minor update. This one just adds a few graphical changes, and adjusts the pacing of the second gamemode.

Hi everyone, Version 2 is out! Here's a few of the changes.... In addition to spawning more beans, reaching higher score values now speeds up the beans' descent Added five difficulty levels that can be selected with the Select button Added the secondary gamemode, which can be accessed by setting the left difficulty switch to Advanced. This mode has the bird spitting seeds at the beans. Shooting more beans at once yields more points. Added a blue background to the score Fixed a bug where platforms would sometimes repair in the wrong position Fixed a bug where eating the blue bean scored more points than it should have Here's the update in action. Enjoy!

I quite like this game! I like the large variety of enemies and powerups. However, I feel there should be some brief invincibility when you respawn. I've had a few occasions were I die less than a second after I respawn. Can't wait to see the finished version!

The beans are all drawn using the Player1 Sprite. There's about four scanlines in between each bean, and during those four scanlines I change Player1's color and position. Code wise the game is built 100% using 6502 Assembly. Thanks to everyone who's tried the game so far! I'm working on an updated version, so stay tuned!