Flicker Question

[StanJr]

Does flicker affect collision detection?

 

The reason I ask is Buck Rogers. That game is an absolute flicker fest (makes Pac-man and Crystal Castles look like Activision games), and during play I often fly through enemy ships, my missiles often miss the ships they should dead hit, and sometimes I hit things I should clearly miss.

 

I'm just wondering if this is due to all that flicker, or something else (like I suck at Buck Rogers or something).

 

Anybody?

[+Cafeman]

Yes, it's affected.

 

here's why: the flickering is because an image is drawn in frame 1, but not drawn in frame 2, or perhaps not frame 3. You can't collide with something that is not there in the "off" frames.

[StanJr]

what I thought. cursed flicker!!!!!!!!

 

thanks Cafeman

[Lost Monkey]

Does flicker affect collision detection?

 

Anybody?

 

C'mon Stan! Haven't you played Defender yet?

[StanJr]

yeah, I thought about that, but I just wanted to be sure.

[Big Player]

Does flicker affect collision detection?

 

Anybody?

 

C'mon Stan! Haven't you played Defender yet?

 

I had always thought of that feature as the Inviso option, activated at the same time you fire.

[Chris++]

Sometimes, flicker can lead to enhanced game-play strategies or even quirks that make the game more appealing. For instance, Adventure!

 

 

CF

[DanBoris]

Yes, it's affected.  

 

here's why: the flickering is because an image is drawn in frame 1, but not drawn in frame 2, or perhaps not frame 3.  You can't collide with something that is not there in the "off" frames.

 

Although this is true, the real cause of the problems you mention is just poor programming. The flicker is something that would have been known about when the game was developed so the game software should have been written to compensate for it with respect to collision detection. So the authors either didn't notice these glitches or just chose to ignore them.

 

Dan

[Cybergoth]

Does flicker affect collision detection?

 

That depends solely on how it is programmed. Gunfight isn't using the hardware collission detection between player & missile at all for example.

 

Any collision is calculated based on the cowboy / bullet position. Determining wether a cowboy is hit or not is rock-hard doing it that way, no matter wether the bullet is visible or not at the very moment.

 

I'm just wondering if this is due to all that flicker, or something else (like I suck at Buck Rogers or something).

 

When relying on the hardware collision detection only, failures may in fact happen due to the flicker of the sprites. To know for certain, one'd need to reverse-engineer the suspicious part of the ROM.

 

Greeetings,

Manuel

[Snider-man]

Hey, if it wasn't for flicker, you'd never see the Easter Egg in Adventure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not just the "magic dot" that gets you into the hidden room. It's also the massive flicker caused when you stack up all the other items in the next rrom.

[Room 34]

Sometimes, flicker can lead to enhanced game-play strategies or even quirks that make the game more appealing. For instance, Adventure!

I think with Adventure it was mainly a case of positive "spin" in the instruction manual about the flicker effect.

 

"If there are four or more objects (including the Castle Gates) in your area of the Kingdom, your magic may or may not work. Sometimes you can slay a Dragon, sometimes you can't. However, it is easier to avoid being swallowed by a Dragon."

 

My ass!

 

True, the flicker can be nice if a slain dragon is blocking your path. But I highly doubt that the quirky effects of the flicker were intentionally designed into the program. It's possible that W.R. decided not to try to compensate for them once he saw the effects and how they could be used.

 

As for the magic dot, yes, I believe that it is usually flicker that lets you pass through the barrier. But if you have the dot in the room, along with a yellow object (IIRC), the barrier actually becomes clear or essentially disappears, because you pass across it without being slowed down, the way you are when it's flickering.

[+Cafeman]

To add more -- if you only have every-other-frame flicker, that's not too bad. After all, 1 frame is 1/60th of a second. If you collide with something but in frame 1 it's flickered off, chances are good that it'll register in frame 2.

 

The flicker in Adventure looks like 'every other 10' frames. Really bad!

[Room 34]

The flicker in Adventure looks like 'every other 10' frames. Really bad!

It all depends on how many objects are in the room... I am thinking only one of them displays at a time, so the more there are, the longer they are "off." Hence Russ Perry's "flickerfest" where you get EVERY object in the kingdom into the gold castle.

 

It's the same with Pac-Man. Only one of the 4 ghosts is on-screen at once, that's why they flicker so badly.

[Chris++]

Scott,

I didn't mean to convey the idea that I thought the flicker in Adventure was intentional from the start. If it could have been prevented while not compromising the depth of the game, I'm sure that Warren would've left it out altogether.

 

What I meant was that this is a rare case in which the 2600's limitations actually add tricks and strategies that wouldn't have existed without the flicker.

 

Warren realized after the fact that he could put this limitation to use and hide his name in the game, but I'm sure he would have left out this first of all Easter eggs if he could have done away with the flicker entirely. So we could say that Stella's limitations led to the first secret room in a video game, even though one would paradoxically think that having EXTRA memory would indicate hidden parts of a game!

 

CF