Kindercomp for the Atari 2600

[+atari2600land]

Hi. I'm making a port of the children's game Kindercomp for the Atari 2600 using batari Basic. Below is what I have so far. And since it's a children's game, I don't know whether to use the children's controller or a regular joystick. AFAIK, Batari Basic isn't set up to use a children's controller, so if I choose to use it, I may as well have to wait until it is. Otherwise, I will make it using the joystick. It'd be a lot easier to draw with, anyway. Also below is some pictures showing the differences between the Commodore 64 version and the Atari 2600 version. All I have done so far is the title screen, so it's not much.

(NOTE: If you have an older version of Stella, I'm using an 8k Superchip, so you might need to set it up to use it.)

 

Commodore 64 version:

 

Atari 2600 version:

kindercomp.bas

kindercomp.bas.bin

[+SpiceWare]

I think you could make the Spinnaker correctly colored by using SCORE mode.

[+atari2600land]

I think you could make the Spinnaker correctly colored by using SCORE mode.

One of the things I'm having trouble with. In the C64 version, as the sailboat passes the word "Spinnaker", it colors the lettering from green to red letter by letter. Is there a way to do this using bB? What is SCORE mode?

[+SpiceWare]

Is that what's going on - I thought it was a static image with the sailboat as the A As such, SCORE mode won't help, but I'll explain it anyway.

 

Scores were originally intended to be drawn using the playfield(this was before the 6 digit trick was figured out), so they came up with a setting that causes the playfield to be colored the same colors as the sprites (the left with sprite 0's color, the right with sprite 1). You can see this in all the early games, such as Combat, Space War and even Space Invaders.

 

I used SCORE mode in Medieval Mayhem to make the kings, drawn with the playfield, show in the proper colors.

 

To set SCORE mode you have to use the playfield control register, CTRLPF. The bits used in this register are:

0 - Reflect Playfield

1 - SCORE mode

2 - Playfield has Priority

3 - n/a

4 - Ball Size

5 - Ball Size

6 - n/a

7 - n/a

 

the bits are arranged in the byte as 76543210, so to turn on just SCORE mode you'd do the following:

 

lda #00010

sta CTRLPF

Edited October 7, 2007 by SpiceWare

[mos6507]

Scores were originally intended to be drawn using the playfield(this was before the 6 digit trick was figured out), so they came up with a setting that causes the playfield to be colored the same colors as the sprites (the left with sprite 0's color, the right with sprite 1).

 

BTW, has anyone noticed that the color transition doesn't align exactly on the edge of a playfield block? It actually cuts a block off a little bit which is kind of lame.

[+atari2600land]

Minor update: Man on title screen bows before the music plays. If you'll notice in the code, in the third frame, I had to use "missile1height=0" in order to have a missile height of 1. WTF? Anyway, missile 1 is the guy's right arm.

kindercomp.bas

kindercomp.bas.bin

[+atari2600land]

Drawing is now an option. On the menu screen, press fire to select it when the arrow is pointing to it. BTW, the other options are just a silly test to see whether the arrows work or not and definitely will not be in the final version. The "Names" and "scribble" games won't be on here because the 2600 does not have a built-in font/text function.

 

In the "draw" game, move the cursor with the joystick, and press fire while using the joystick to put the pen to the paper. Believe it or not, the other versions I've played (A800 & C64) drawing game do not have a cursor and you just draw like an Etch-A-Sketch, so this is a little bit better than the others because you can draw wherever you want without making a line.

kindercomp2.bas.bin

kindercomp2.bas

[+atari2600land]

Addition is now added. It's listed in the menu under "ADD." Basically, it's like Fun With Numbers where you scroll through the available answer numbers using the joystick and putting in your answer with the fire button. If you respond correctly, it goes to a new math problem. If you answer incorrectly, it still has the same problem for you to answer until you get it right. The code still refers to this game as "Math" because I didn't know whether to call it Math or Add. Oh, and I bumped the size up from 8k to 16k. I think I'll call it quits for today.

kindercomp3.bas.bin

kindercomp3.bas

[+atari2600land]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give to you Subtraction! Choose between addition and subtraction with the left difficulty switch. I did see the problem that popped up about the number 7 and fixed it. Any comments about the game so far would be appreciated.

(By the way, you can skip the intro and go directly to the game I'm working on at the moment by pressing FIRE at the Spinnaker screen.)

kindercomp5.bas.bin

kindercomp5.bas

[gambler172]

Hi Chris

Nice;i like it.

greetings Walter