gorf68

This thread talks like there is real money to be made from retro programs. Where on earth do you think this money is coming from? The vast majority, probably (easily 90% +) of ‘home-brew,’ is ether given away free or makes absolutely no profit whatsoever. If you are talking about programs delivered on hard-media e.g. cartridges then these are lucky to break even, given the cost of purchasing the bare materials and hardware to make the product... and that’s not including third-party ‘artwork’ or other extras, which some people seem to want a programmer (who will likely ether take a loss or make nothing from their efforts anyway) to pay out for!?!? This Home-Brew is all basically by and for hobbyists, thinking anything else isn’t going to get you anywhere. You may see a relatively high price tag on a home-brew, but the programmer, or cart maker, has generally paid for those materials out of their own pocket, and (in most cases) the costs are only there to reimburse this expense. There is no money; we program ‘retro’ as a hobby, because we want to, and mostly give it away free... There is no business and no business-model or dispersal of wealth for 99% of this. There is no wealth! Are you confusing Public Domain, Home-Brew, and Indie games here?

I’ve started some coding for a fly-through-the-rings game, but it isn’t going well, so instead I’ve been plating around with some ideas for a Gridrunner type game... I’ve got some things up an running, but nothing worth showing yet. It looks quite doable though! E.g.

I haven’t got much work done on VECWARS yet, but I have managed to add a few things to the VTWIST game, now ‘provisionally titled ‘Spike and the angry vortex bird.’ It’s got lives and a basic scoring and hit-routine now, as well as the ‘boss’ screen up and, almost, running. It still isn’t working right on a real Vectrex though. My blog-page should be updated with the new bin’s soon.

I was thinking of doing a homage version of Grid Runner on the Vectrex. This was one of my favourite VIC20 games, and I was wondering if ‘The Hairy-Yak One’ takes exception to people doing versions of his games?

I got an old BBC-B compleate with CUb monitor and Cumana double disk-drive from the college I used to work at. I also found a boxed vic 20! E.r... we also found a box of sweating blast-sticks... the bomb square had to come and destroy them! The blasting-sticks, that is, not the computers!

A brand sparkly new VIC-20... I did have a Telling Colourstars TV games system from a couple of years before that. Still have both!

I use uppercase assembly mnemonics for my homebrew stuff, apart from that I generally just follow the default rules at work... I do tend to write all variable names as one string with no underlines or non-alphanumeric characters etc, you don’t get problems with these characters if you don’t use them! I tend so separate words within a longer variable name by capitalising the first letter of each word giving: aVariableNameLikeThis

I’ve just had an idea! Instead of rotating the ship with the buttons, how about rotating the gun's fire position around the ship with two buttons, and having the button in the middle of them the fire? It would mean I would have to re-look at the hit routines; otherwise it would make it extremely easy to just sweep the laser around the ship and wipe out everything on the screen. I think a more concentrated fire approach would work better with this though. What does anyone else think? 4 directional shooting or complete 360% Also do you think it would work better if the simple clustered ‘swarm’ enemy types were much more spread out when they are generated?

Gliptitude is basically right, but it's always best to do it yourself.The following steps will compile and run a Vectrex program on a PC:1) First make a new folder on your computer, and call it VECTEMP.This is where you will put all the files you will be making and downloading.2) Next you need to put some assembly language code into a plain-text file using a text editor:To do this you can copy and past the following text into an editor and save it as VECTEST.ASM in your VECTEMP directory. ;***************************************************************************; DEFINE SECTION;***************************************************************************Intensity_5F EQU $F2A5 ; BIOS Intensity routinePrint_Str_d EQU $F37A ; BIOS print routineWait_Recal EQU $F192 ; BIOS recalibrationmusic1 EQU $FD0D ; address of a (BIOS ROM) ; music; start of vectrex memory with cartridge name... ORG 0;***************************************************************************; HEADER SECTION;*************************************************************************** DB "g GCE 1998", $80 ; 'g' is copyright sign DW music1 ; music from the rom DB $F8, $50, $20, -$56 ; height, width, rel y, rel x ; (from 0,0) DB "HELLO WORLD PROG 1",$80; some game information, ; ending with $80 DB 0 ; end of game header;***************************************************************************; CODE SECTION;***************************************************************************; here the cartridge program starts offmain: JSR Wait_Recal ; Vectrex BIOS recalibration JSR Intensity_5F ; Sets the intensity of the ; vector beam to $5f LDU #hello_world_string ; address of string LDA #$10 ; Text position relative Y LDB #-$50 ; Text position relative X JSR Print_Str_d ; Vectrex BIOS print routine BRA main ; and repeat forever;***************************************************************************; DATA SECTION;***************************************************************************hello_world_string: DB "HELLO WORLD" ; only capital letters DB $80 ; $80 is end of string;*************************************************************************** END main;*************************************************************************** (On windows you can use notepad to do this)3) You can optionally Download the VECTREX.I file: http://free.7host01....arryg/VECTREX.I and save it in your VECTEMP directory.This is another simple text file that holds all the Vectrex ROM memory locations. It is used with (included in) a Vectrex .ASM file to provide a ‘library reference’ of sorts for the ROM routines that are hard-burnt into the Vectrex system.The simple example program used here doesn’t use this library though.4) Then download an assembler program: http://free.7host01....garryg/AS09.EXE and put it in the VECTEMP directory.This takes the text in the VECTEST.ASM file and converts in to a binary ‘machine code’ file.5) The last download is the emulator program: http://free.7host01....arryg/VECTREX.I save this in the same place as the other files.You should now have a VECTEMP directory holding the following files:VECTEST.ASM – Your source assembly code file.VECTREX.I – The library routine addresses file. (if you want it)AS09.EXE – The assembler executable program.VECX.EXE – A Vectrex emulator program.Open a command prompt:6) Next you need to open a command prompt and point it at your VECTEMP directory. You are going to use this prompt to compile and run the assembly program.At the command prompt: Type: CD directory-path/ VECTEMP {and hut the return key} – Where directory-path is the folder location on your PC. Type: AS09 –i VECTEST.ASM {and hut the return key}– This will compile your code. You should now have a VECTEST.BIN file in the VECTEMP folder. Type: VECX –c VECTEST.BIN {and hut the return key}– This will run the compiled BIN file on the emulator. And that’s how you do it!

Don't know about 'super vector bros' But is there a GRIDRUNNER type game for the vectrex?

Oh, by the way, gliptitude I‘d be happy to have a look at your graphics stuff. Maybe I could be of some help in getting them moving/interacting a bit

RetDev: I got what you were saying about the control method after I posted the reply. I actually tried the 'asteroids' (rotate right/left and thrust) type of ship control in a very early version of this, but it proved practically impossible to avoid being hit! I can smooth out the hit-box and movement issues, but it's the shooting that is the main problem here. I think I want to stick to the four fixed shooting positions, as anything else brakes away from my original idea a bit too much. I was thinking of maybe having a 'gun' revolve around your ship, maybe with it flashing as it goes past the top, right, bottom, and left. Then having the player press a single fire button at any of the 'flash points' to fire the gun. Hay... maybe I should call the game 'VecWars: Flash Point!' Vtwist: I was already thinking about adding the 'rotational jump – 180 spin' thing to go from bottom to top and back before you mentioned it! I also have to put some animation into the main character. I initially thought of this more as a collect-em-up rather than a shooter. The 2D rectangles are walls; they will kill you if you hit one. If it doesn't slow down the processing too much I intend to make them 3D rectangles! Running out of time, or hitting an enemy (wall or floating), three times will result in game over. There are 'egg-timers' on the latest version and collecting these will increase your remaining time – prolonging the game and increasing your score: as long as you don't get killed. I was just going to have scoring as a 'how long can you last' thing, but any suggestions are welcome. Shooting enemies could be added to increase the score, but I'm not sure if this would make it too easy? I'd be interested in people's reactions as to whether or not people would play this when these additions are made, and the problems smoothed out?

I like both ideas, and intended to try out both. What I ment was I'll start the one that appeals to me best based on any comments and or suggestions I get. The one your comments makes me want to do most... The tunnel game would probably be the easiest to get started, but both seem interesting.

Have you ever seen Electraglide... LOL Seriously though they are/were both good machines, and when all's said and done they are fairly evenly matched. it was sometimes hard to tell the difference with the good conversions that came out for both platforms. I think that says it all really! Move along there... Nothing to se here...

I’ve been working out two possible ideas for Vectrex games on paper, and would appreciate your input as to which I should try first and any suggestions you may have. The first game was based on a vague fly-through-the-rings idea I’ve had for a while, but when someone mentioned ‘Master of the Lamps’ I got a bit more of a clue with this one: As shown in this simple screen mock-up I would have maybe around six circles (or maybe squares for drawing speed) constantly ‘snaking’ out of the screen’s z-axis. With the X and Y axes being controlled level-by-level through a pre-defined set of data values that could be used to hold increasingly difficult patterns to stay inside. A life would be lost when the player strays outside the ‘tunnel’. Points are earned for collecting lamps, which also follow the route of the tunnel, but randomly float around inside the given constraints. I would keep a high score, and a current score. And probably three lives, with maybe around five levels. This should all move smooth enough with six tunnel parts (I’ve tested this on the vtwist code), the player, a lamp, and the score, lives text on screen. The second option is to make an Attic Attack type game, where the player has to collect keys to move through doors and traverse a maze made up of different rooms. Making all rooms look like the mock-up-pic would be easiest, but I think I could do three or fore different room styles. Doors with keys need the relevant key to be collected before they can be passed through. First-Aid kits would increase health. Health would decrees with contact to enemies. The player dies when the health reaches zero. A shoot/hit enemy option could be included, but is general it would be run-away based. The objective would be to find your way out, using all keys (maybe three or four) Key and health locations would have to be set, as would (locked and open) door locations, room type, and the map layout (possibly all held in a 2D array) Scoring could be done by enemy’s killed, or maybe collecting treasure... possibly with a bonus for time taken to complete!? The screen mock-ups are for illustration only... I’m not saying it will look exactly like this! So what do you think? I’ll start programming the idea that you think can be made into the best game.

Thanks for looking and taking the time to reply so fully, gliptitude... I thought there may be some problems with the vtwist one on a real Vectrex. This is why I need to get myself a programmable cartridge! I’m not using the standard drawing routines with this. I’m simply drawing the lines and scaling them up on every Z-axis cycle. There’s some arithmetic function in there that the Vectrex may not like. Do you think it would be best if the player character were animated and smooth scrolled around the grid under joystick control? I think there’s also a slightly more worked-on version of this somewhere, so I will try to look that out before having a look at the real-Vectrex problems. Would you possibly be able to post something to let me see how bad it is on the real hardware? No problem if you can’t! The quad-directional shooting in ‘VecWars Retro-Devolved’ was meant to allow you to shoot in any direction, whilst moving completely independently in another direction. (Sort of like 'Smash-TV' or 'Robotron') So do you think this didn’t work, or is to confusing? Or is it simply down to the button layout? What did you think of the collision detection? The ‘laser’ gun effect is quite powerful, but the hit-box of the enemy’s is quite small (as is the player’s). I’m not sure where to go in improving this, while keeping my original idea. I see what you mean about the shooting though, although I’m not sure the ‘shoot in the direction you are facing,' or the 'hold down a button and strafe,' options will work better. Of the two I’d lean towards the ‘strafe’ option... Although this may make it too difficult to actually hit anything, and would mean your ship is ether standing still whilst shooting, or it would be mooving in the closest (Up, Down, Left, Right) direction to that in which you are shooting! What do you think? Anybody else have an opinion on this?

I've mostly used mine with XBMC lately and it works ok, if a little sluggish on the menues. I'll have to try some programming at some point.

Hopefully these bin file will run ok... For running the .BIN files: http://free.7host01....garryg/vecx.exe http://free.7host01....rryg/retdev.bin http://free.7host01....rryg/vtwist.bin For compiling the .ASM files: http://free.7host01....garryg/AS09.EXE http://free.7host01....arryg/VECTREX.I

Are there any tutorials on how to user-define the character set on the Vectrex? I’d like to use a hybrid of redefined characters as well as the standard vector lines in an idea for a new game I’m playing around with.

Yup, I also instantly thought ‘Oh, that looks like a decent version of Atic Atac!’ I was tinkering with the idea of doing an Atic Atac type game for the Vectrex. The game looks good though!

Maybe didn’t make it clear that I’d be happy to donate most of these (for free) to a good home rather than chuck them in the round filing cabinet! I'll put up a list ASAP...

I’ve had a quick Google of CMB PRG Studio and it sounds like an ideal candidate for getting me started, thanks!

I’m cleaning out the loft, and will have some old programmingbooks ready to be thrown if anybody is interested. Probably mostly ZX Spectrum MC based, at lest one ATARI Reference, and maybe some VIC-20 stuff. Probably also a few old application and computing manuals as well. So if anybody is looking for anything I’ll gladly have a look to see if I have it, or I can put a list of what I find up here.

I think it may depend on the type of game they are writing, if it’s a modern 3D perspective game your reasoning sounds sane enough to me. If it’s a retro or top-down maze based game however, there may be another option... How about doing what was done on good old Dandy way back in the eighties- E.g. use a 'game of life' style system to 'move' a set of on-screen (or off screen) enemies based on a set of rules rather than keeping individual positions for each. This lets you have a lot of very fast on-screen action without having to individually x/y position-track anything apart from your player controlled character. It also means that all the off-screen action can be just as 'inteligent' as the on-screen ones.

I've heard of the 'Quetzalcoatl' C Cross assembler for the VIC-20, but I assume any 6502 assembler will do if I'm going to program directly in assembly. Will VICE work with the file generated from any 6502 asembler? Or do I need something else to convert these to a recognisable format first? Has anybody used Quetzalcoatl, or is there a better alternative?