DaveM

I'm going to stick with reducing the Bird_VMax constant for now. I've tried each of the other solutions, and they've all caused glitches in the game's rather ugly title screen logo which I've since added. So I'll stick with what works for now while I re-design that logo, and if I have problems later, I'll revisit these solutions and see what works. Thanks!

I don't think I did, but I'll check again later after work (which reminds me, I should actually be working right about now) Anyway, the good news is that it works now, and I made more progress last night. Nothing good enough or substantial enough to post yet, but definite progress.

Yes, the results should be the same, but they weren't, that's the strange part. The first bit of code output garbage graphics when the bird reached his final position. The second bit of code worked perfectly. It should be the same result, but that wasn't what I was getting. In the end, I used Karl's suggestion of reducing the constant Bird_VMax by 1, kept the rest of the original code, and then things worked.

Thank you Karl! I don't feel so bad for posting a question when a more experienced programmer isn't sure what's going on either. Thanks! That worked. I was playing around with it and noticed that when I broke apart the little mathematical equation I'm doing, it worked too. So instead of this: lda #<(Birdie - Bird_Ht) clc adc Bird_VPos clc adc Bird_Ani_Ptr sta BirdPointer I changed it to this, and it worked: lda Bird_VPos clc adc Bird_Ani_Ptr sta Temp lda #<(Birdie - Bird_Ht) clc adc Temp sta BirdPointer As soon as I added that 2nd clc instruction, it didn't went all screwy. But your solution is much simpler, so I'm going with that. Nice! Don't know what was going on there. When I started typing in the bird's code, a glitch showed up in the blue "Game Over", then by the time I was done typing in the code, the glitch jumped to the red section. Hmmph. Anyway, thanks again! So the bird is now done. He's just going to fly back and forth across the top there, going up and down off the top of the screen. Thrilled that I came up with a working kernel for him. It may not be the best possible solution, but it works. OK, I can't move him all the way to the left side without glitches, but he's not going over that far anyway. I can always improve on it later.

Got some strange stuff going on here. I've got the bird lowering in from above the screen, and I've got his wings animated. But, when he gets into position, everything goes haywire. A bunch of junk replaces the player objects. I can't figure out why it looks good when he's moving, and when he hits his mark and stops, things go weird. Also, in the red section, the "GAME OVER" text is now a bit glitchy. There's extra pixels between the E and the O, as well as between the V and E. I didn't even touch that section, so I don't know why that's showing up now. KickIce.a KickIce.bin KickIce.a-vcs.zip

Yes, I thought the comparisons to the Phoenix birds would be inevitable, so I'm trying to do as much as I can to make sure they don't look like clones. One thing I did was that I wanted the bird to have a distinct vertical center. Obviously, I'm using both player objects, with P1 a reflection of P0, but when you put them back-to-back, that gives the bird a big fat group of pixels in the middle. So I'm breaking that up by sliding the Missile0 object in there to create the beak. Now I can move his eyes to the edge of the player object bitmaps because the Missile separates them, and also give the claws just a bit more detail as well.

Not yet, but it will! ?

Things are going MUCH slower than I had hoped. Just not enough time right now to devote to working on the game. BUT... progress is being made!

Thank you! That did the trick! I'm going to move onto character design now. I hope to have a working title screen within the next couple weeks, outside life permitting. I'm really trying to learn kernel timing, and just good kernel design with this game. With just the scoreboard alone, I'm doing stuff that I didn't know how to do when working on Mr. Yo-Yo. My plan is to try out a lot of new stuff with this one.

Thanks! That takes care of the timer bar, it works perfectly now. I was careful to leave 24 cycles between HMOVE and HMCLR, but forgot about HMBL. I'm still having an issue with the two scanlines that aren't being blacked out on the left side though. Can't figure out how to get rid of those. KickIce_20211024a.bin KickIce_20211024a.a

I've started work on a new game called "Kick Ice", and I'm having a few problems with HMOVE. I decided to start with the scoreboard. It's a 2-player co-op game, so I wanted to display two scoreboards at the bottom of the screen. I'm using the 8-bit Workshop tool to write the code, and when using its emulator, everything works perfectly. That's the first screenshot, below. I'm using the PF1 and Ball objects for my timer bars. The background is white, so I'm cutting a hole in the red playfield to let the white background show through. Then I'm covering up the right side of the bar with the ball so it counts down nice and smooth. I'm also using HMOVE to create the vertical line of black at the left side of the screen, although in the code, you'll notice I have an HMOVE commented out at line 209, since putting that one in there caused issues with the timing, so I changed the background to black, and used PF0 there as a workaround. To test out the timer bar, when you press the button on Joystick 0, the timer bar will reset, and then count down to zero. It works smoothly in the 8-bit workshop tool. However, when I dump the ROM and try it on Stella, I'm having issues. As you can see, there's one scanline in each scoreboard that's not being blacked out, and when you test out the timer bar, the timer does not smoothly count down. The ball object will count the first few ticks smoothly, then it pauses, takes out a couple chunks, then starts moving again. For the life of me, I can't figure out why there's a difference between the two, and obviously, I want it to work on Stella. Could someone please take a look at the code, and advise me on how to correct this problem? Since the blue scoreboard is pretty much just a copy of the red, I'm sure if the problem is solved on the red one, I can copy the solution to the blue one. As for the game itself, here's the basic idea - the two players will run back and forth on an ice floe that'll be positioned just on top of the scoreboard. An enemy (perhaps a giant bird) will fly back and forth across the top, dropping large ice blocks. The players must dodge the falling ice blocks, then kick them off the side of the ice floe before too many accumulate. If too many of them pile up, the ice floe will sink. But as one player kicks a block off to the side, the other will have to jump over the block, or else he'll get swept off the side as well. There will be power ups and at least one other enemy, as well as a one-player option by the time all's said and done. Sort of a Kaboom meets Pengo. KickIce_20211024.bin KickIce_20211024.a

Here you go, Al. 28 clean Atari shells ready for repurposing!

Cool. I'll stop by there again over the weekend and stock up! I stopped by the other nearby store, and the carts there were dirty and overpriced. $4 for Combat? Really? Anyway, that first store had a bunch of cheap, clean ones, so I'll see what I can get.

Al - I'm at one of the stores, and they have price stickers on the bottom side of the carts. Would these be too tough to remove?

Ok, will do. If you don't hear from me by the end of next week, give me a nudge.

It's not much to look at yet, but I have officially started work on my next game! I'll start a thread for the new game once I have something more substantial.

Just saw this thread. Hey Al, if you're still in need of carts, there's a few shops in my part of the world that may be a good source. I could stop by sometime next week on my lunch break and see what they have.

In anticipation of Mr. Yo-Yo's upcoming debut in the Atari Age Store, I decided to create a couple gameplay videos. One with text commentary, one without. Each video starts with a normal game, followed by a run at completing Level 9. Same gameplay on each video, just one has text commentary added to it. I wanted to do audio commentary, but I had a couple pipes burst in the house, and had some industrial-sized fans drying stuff out, and the noise from that ruined any audio recording I tried to do. I think the text turned out better than the audio would have anyway. I tried to include some info in the text commentary that I haven't talked about on this board before, so if you enjoy the game, I'm hoping you pick up some new info that might help you get further into the game. Anyway, here's the links: With text commentary... ...and without text commentary... As I mentioned earlier, we should have this available in the Atari Age Store relatively soon. I know Albert's a busy guy, and I'm not sure where he is on the whole process of getting the next batch of games ready, but last I heard, we're still on target. What I do need though, is an artist for the box, label, and manual art. If anyone's interested in doing the artwork for this game, please message me! All my other projects are now complete, so next week I anticipate starting on my next game. Hopefully it won't be too long before I have something worth posting!

So it looks like we're still on target for a fall 2021 release in the Atari Age Store! I last talked to Albert a couple weeks ago, and he said he'd try to connect me to an artist that will take care of the box/manual/labels/etc. I think I'm going to forget about doing the high score patches that I had planned. It's a bit more than I'd like to spend on something like that, so I'll pass on that for now. Maybe we'll design a patch, print it up in the manual, and if you beat a certain score you earn the right to cut it out and staple it to your favorite jacket or something. As this is my first game that I'm trying to publish, I'm unfamiliar with this process. I'm anxious to get going on all this, but I also understand that things like this take time. I'm trying my best not to make a pest of myself. Can anyone fill me in on how this process works, and maybe pass along a little advice? As for everything else, my "non-Atari project" is moving along nicely, and now that the NBA Finals are over (dammit), I'm devoting more time to that and hope to wrap it up within the next couple weeks. As soon as that's done, I'll be starting my next game. I've got a lot of ideas for that written down, and I'm quite anxious to get started on it. Not sure how to get some of those ideas to work, but figuring that stuff out is part of the fun of this, isn't it? I'm just hoping it turns out to be a fun game. If not, I have another idea I came up with that I can work on instead, just in case.

Looks like this will be during my lunch hour, so I should be able to make it!

Yes, there's two patches, but it's 40 and 95 stars. There's an easter egg hidden in the game that gets you an additional 15 stars.

I was afraid someone was going to ask that. It's just a little graphic design thing I do for my own amusement. Nothing for public consumption.

OK, well, I think we're done! No one's come back to me with any other problems, and I've been testing the heck out of it, and it all seems good. So let's call the Apr 11 release above the final one. Naturally, since I "finished" with the game, I've had a whole bunch of ideas for stuff I'd like to add. But I'm pretty maxed out of the 8k I'm using already, and it's time I move onto something else. I'll save those ideas for a future sequel to the game. I've sent the release candidates (NTSC & PAL60) to Albert. These are the same as the above final digital releases, with the addition of 2 easter eggs. I understand that Albert's a busy guy, so I'm going to move onto a non-Atari project that's been sitting around for a year or so until we're ready to get started on artwork and whatnot for the physical release. I'm planning on doing a couple high score patches with the release. I have nothing definite set yet, but I'm thinking one will be your traditional high score patch (I'm thinking "Notely Rescue Squad Member"), and I think the score needed will be 150,000. That's about where you should be if you start from Level 1, and make it through to the end of Level 2. So, tough for someone new to the game, but quite attainable with some practice. Let me know if you think that's too easy (or too tough). The other patch will be a smaller supplemental one that you'll earn for completing Level 9. That will trigger one of the afore-mentioned easter eggs (as for the other easter egg, I'm keeping that a secret), and that'll get you the other patch. I won't be doing anything on this yet though until close to the actual release of the game, so I may change all this. Anyway, a huge thanks to those of you who have followed the development of this game and who have enjoyed it so far. I've been blown away by the support for the game and how many of you have said you liked it. I hope you consider purchasing a copy when it's available in the AtariAge Store, or if not, continue to enjoy the final digital release. And a nomination for the next ZPH Homebrew Awards would be nice too. ??? So, what's next for me.... As I mentioned, I'm going to work on a non-Atari project for a while, which I think should take me 3-4 months or so. After that, then I'll be starting on my next game. I'm sure I'll be posting about that when I have something playable (or more likely, when I need help). All I'm going to say about that game is... 2 player co-op. Oh, and it won't be another Mr. Yo-Yo game. Completely different idea for this one. THANKS EVERYONE!

Great! Thanks!

So it looks like we're just about ready! We've got one last little glitch to solve, and that's it. I was able to add a couple of easter eggs to the game, which will be in the cartridge version of the game. I've tested the heck out of it, and they're working as they should. More importantly, everything else is still working as it should after I added the easter eggs, so I didn't screw up anything in the process. Just curious - has anyone tried the 2-player co-op version? I'm wondering how it plays. I tested it out by mapping both controllers to the keyboard, so I could play as both players, so I know it works, but I haven't had a chance to try it out with someone else as it's intended. Very curious as to how the 2-player Co-op plays with two actual players.