Allas Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 (edited) Well, I played a little with this (Metagalactic Llamas). Nice intro and music. I guess is a porting of VIC20 version, maybe I'd prefer a new version, because of the simplicity of the game. Quickly Metagalactic Llamas make me remember one of the first games I typed from a magazine : WEBSTER DINES OUT. (in Atari Standard Basic) In this game you are a spider and try to capture little insects down, but you take care of the giant insect or you'll lose a life. Boot hte diskette with BASIC, after appearing the Blue screen with cursor, press the space bar or any key. webster.zip Why I show this program?... I think sprites used on spider and insect makes this BASIC game addictive. And I think Metagalactic Llamas could enhance his playability with sprites (without changing the original aspect). Only an idea Edited February 11, 2008 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STcomp Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Webster Dines Out is awesome! Isn't it amazing in 2008 that something as simple as Webster Dines Out actually has more style and content than 98% of the mainstream games available at your local chain video game store! I actually spent more time playing it and interested in it (about 10 minutes), than I did with Halo 3 (about 1 minute). No kidding either! Down with mainstream crap, up with anything creative. Well, I played a little with this. Nice intro and music. I guess is a porting of VIC20 version, maybe I'd prefer a new version, because of the simplicity of the game. Quickly this game make me remember on of my first games in BASIC on Atari: WEBSTER DINES OUT. In this game you are a spider and try to capture little insects down, but you take care of the giant insect or you'll lose a life. Boot hte diskette with BASIC, after appearing the Blue screen with cursor, press the space bar or any key. webster.zip Why I show this program?... I think sprites used on spider and insect makes this BASIC game addictive. And I think Metagalactic Llamas could enhance his playability with sprites (without changing the original aspect). Only an idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 Kaz...I ment simply not to put in your "official" archive as it is not the final release... so nothing special here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 MK... well... it's kind of walking on the edge...being as true as the original or use the "full featureset" of new machine... For that. Die you take a look at the LLama? Compared to other versions it is too long. Believe it or not, it is essential for the "original" gameplay to have it at the correct size. I didn't know the Vic20 game, so I thought it overall is the "same", but it looks really different. Really, the game is good, but isn't it possible to make the LLama a bit more like the original? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 (edited) emkay...du meinst "zu breit"? if so... well...on vic you have bigger border... so that might giving the impression the atari version is "larger". and look at the other versions... esp. the ones with 40x chars screens... i personally don't find them "true to the original". My intension was to have the original gameplay and this imho requiered to stay to 22x23 somehow and use the same code base. Edited February 11, 2008 by Heaven/TQA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 emkay...du meinst "zu breit"? if so... well...on vic you have bigger border... so that might giving the impression the atari version is "larger". and look at the other versions... esp. the ones with 40x chars screens... i personally don't find them "true to the original". My intension was to have the original gameplay and this imho requiered to stay to 22x23 somehow and use the same code base. I understand. But, at least, isn't it possible to have a better "aspect ratio" on the LLama, by making it higher and/or the head bigger, probably? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Jason... can you post a news on oldschool gaming regarding this "beta test"? please make sure that this is not the "final" but i would need people to test the game... [shakes head] Sorry, the news at OSG is purely for products that are considered released. You can post to the forum there about it, but i won't add a news item until it's declared finished. i'm not sure what it is about Atari Age and people doing public betas... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 yup. will do. Jason. I forgot that i can post there as well... my fault... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 (edited) Quickly this game make me remember on of my first games in BASIC on Atari: WEBSTER DINES OUT. You're the author of Webster Dines Out? 20 years ago I've typed it from Compute! and translated the text in Italian! Very nice basic program. Edited February 11, 2008 by Philsan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 (edited) Quickly this game make me remember on of my first games in BASIC on Atari: WEBSTER DINES OUT. You're the author of Webster Dines Out? 20 years ago I've typed it from Compute! and translated the text in Italian! Very nice basic program. oh my english always very poor, I tried to say: "Quickly, this game make me remember one of my first BASIC games I typed from a magazine: WEBSTER DINES OUT." Sorry for the confusion. Otherwise was published on COMPUTE magazine! and were published VIC20, C64, AppleII and IBM versions. If I don't remember bad, the Atari version is the only version that works on 100% BASIC program. Rest of versions are BASIC listings with a lot of DATA lines, 100% assembler. Edited February 11, 2008 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 wow ! this is a great job ! thanks for porting this ! very addictive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 Guys... i tried to load the ATR with my sio2usb and my 130xe pal equipped with turbo freezer xe... and it does not start the intro... did someone tried to run the ATR on real machine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 ok... it was my computer...well played last week Atlantis and my turbo freezer xe was still in atari800 mode...realised that when booting and suddenly atari-memo pad appeared... don't ask my why the game does not work on 800... but here is RC2. fixed: - "ghostpixel" fixed in title screen - Emkay's G2F now appears correct - start/fire/ESC for exit to the game - any other key to switch through the pages - Miker is in the credits in the archive I have 3 files: - unpacked exe put as selfbooting ATR - packed exe put as selfbooting ATR - game packed as COM file please report if you have any problems. f.e. in my sio2usb the ATR hangs (the sio) but when i am pressing break it continues to load... or the packed one stops loading somewhere in the middle (but does not depack... so its like it crashed) but after few seconds it continues... etc... for RC3 I have following on my to do list: - LLama loading screen - sound scheduler in main game does not work correct on real machine - clear sound channels after quiting the credits part - "new level"-jingle played little but too long so artefacts can be heard metalla.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 (edited) Some details: - The screen have 22 columns, and 2 of them make scroll, is very confusing. Even, Hiscore or score is lost whe the screen scroll. - When you press button to skip intro, you easy lose the instructions, give a little pause to read again the joystick button. - On the bottom panel of game at the both sides, appear a cursor? - As the result of scroll effect GAME OVER message sometimes shows not in the center. - When you lose a life, the background flash, and you can see a false bonus on the panel (sometime 0, sometimes the last bonus you win). Edited February 11, 2008 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 Thans Allas - The screen have 22 columns, and 2 of them make scroll, is very confusing. Even, Hiscore or score is lost whe the screen scroll. yes and no. yes it has 22 columns and visible are 20. so the game scrolls. I still do not find it too confusing. when I enable overscan people say...you can not see collum 1 and 22... again? what to do. Maybe i will do patch the gameplay for 20 chars. the scrolling is a very unusal approach but imho it works. please more thoughts on the scrolling issue? - When you press button to skip intro, you easy lose the instructions, give a little pause to read again the joystick button. yes. on the list. spotted that yesterday as well while playing. - On the bottom panel of game at the both sides, appear a cursor? it's the mentioned indicators for the overscan area. more info in the supplied readme. when a spider is there while you are on the opposite it will appear. and yes... i know...it stays as long as the "sprite" is on screen which means the bonus as well as it is counted - As the result of scroll effect GAME OVER message sometimes shows not in the center. the scroll window is reset to collum #0 so it can not be in the center of the screen but it is in screen ram. - When you lose a life, the background flash, and you can see a false bonus on the panel (sometime 0, sometimes the last bonus you win). yes. and it is attend to be so... as it is doing on VIC as well... as far as I remember. Atari has no colour ram so i reserved one colour for the bonus. So. Please don't forget what the aim was... use the original code...it is NOT a rewrite of the game... I am using the original VIC-20 code without major modifications except for some colours, sound and joystick. but still fun. so just send me more comments... I can stand it... "Heaven: 1983...When I got my first computer, I played Jeff's games and one of my all time favourites was the VIC 20 version of Metagalactic Llamas. I was suprised that this little 3.5KB game had never appeared on my second love, the Atari 800. Years passed by and then one day I had a mad idea to port the game to the Atari. During 2007 and 2008, "emulated" games started appearing frequently on the Atari, these ports used a conversion of the core engine from another platform, for example Jetpac from the Spectrum or Knight Lore from the BBC Micro, that was then modified to run natively on the Atari. The advantage of this method is that the core gameplay still remains the same even when there are slight improvements to the graphics or sound. And so the project started... In late 2007, I had discussions with T.M.R of Cosine regarding a Metagalactic Llamas port and how this could be achieved; a few ideas were kicked around and I delved into VIC coding again, my last look at it having been somewhere around 1984/85. I started to print out a disassembly of the original VIC code and realised that it was written in a very "Atari friendly fashion, meaning that there was no VIC-specific stuff used except for colour RAM, 22 by 23 character screen layout and the sound routines. So after studying it over Christmas 2007, I simply loaded the VIC code into the Atari's memory and let it run. And, since VIC hardware registers start at $9000 and the Atari has nothing there apart from RAM, the code couldn't accidentally do any harm to the Atari's operating system. The next step would be using the same screen layout which, thanks to Jay Miner (designer of the Atari Chipset), I could reproduce by defining a custom screen layout via ANTIC that matched the VIC 20 one. After doing that and running the VIC game code the title screen appeared. Great.... so, to make a long story short I patched more and more in the VIC code to make it more suitable for the Atari, for example the sound, Joystick and keyboard routines and voila, I could then play it. Several more "custom service routines" were inserted that didn't affect the gameplay but improved how the game looked on the Atari. In fact, the only difference compared to the VIC 20 version is that I had to avoid using the overscanned mode (a 24x23 character screen layout) since "real" televisions are prone to cropping off the columns at the edge of the screen and, since there could be enemies appearing there, it would definitely affect the game play. So I had to come up with a work-around which used scrolling when you reach the edge of the screen and blinking indicators that appear when enemies are coming down in areas of the screen that aren't visible. This solution seems to work pretty well..." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Thans Allas - The screen have 22 columns, and 2 of them make scroll, is very confusing. Even, Hiscore or score is lost whe the screen scroll. yes and no. yes it has 22 columns and visible are 20. so the game scrolls. I still do not find it too confusing. when I enable overscan people say...you can not see collum 1 and 22... again? what to do. Maybe i will do patch the gameplay for 20 chars. the scrolling is a very unusal approach but imho it works. Well, at least use fine scroll, just 5 chars before the llama reach the left or right side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 fine scrolling for 1 extra collum on each side??? no... because it does not work with the 8 pixelmovement of the llama... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happymonster Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 If you already have the 'pure' vic20 conversion done, why not fix the scrolling, colours and add a few more atari bits for an Atari version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 Happy... simply because I have added Atari bits already and want to finish it... its not a "fullprice" game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 (edited) here is a quick Mets 20x23 version.... play it... play it several times and let me know... (yes... no text patches made, no title screen, indicators still working) updated... mets2b.zip Edited February 12, 2008 by Heaven/TQA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Happy... simply because I have added Atari bits already and want to finish it... its not a "fullprice" game... Just, that's the more difficult part of programming a game. Well, I saw that on the llama take place at only 19 columns on the field. Never it can take the first 2 cells on the left and the last cell on the right. I don't know if VIC20 is in this way, but that's a little confusing, because you don't know where exactly you go at the other side. I tested on the NTSC, ok, you said NTSC version came later. But, I tested this version. The intro works with a little raster moving on top, nothing extraordinary, with 8 blank lines more on the DL should be fixed and the tittle fonts appears at 100% on TV. Instead the game crashed a lot, and I'm wondered with this, because is a simple game of char movement, and have problems with DL on a NTSC machine. And i'm sure only using emulator on NTSC could be repaired in the same time that was programming the PAL version. So I guess is the time to do a universal PAL/NTSC version. Don't bother for the music, sound more quickly, but still sounds good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 (edited) Allas... Thanks... will look into the NTSC as soon as the PAL is finished... and once again... Maybe I made it out not 100% clear enough... it's VIC-20 game code running 98%... and if you think that it is me doing things wrong... please please please load f.e. WinVice emulator, run the VIC part, set it to 3,5kb (no ram expansion) and go to the Llamasoft archive (the link is in the readme) download the original game...playit and then...please only then complain about game play issues... so Allas to answer your question... Yes... the Llama is not walking to collum #0 and #20 before it skips... ask Jeff Minter why... www.yakyak.org, register and send a mail to Yak... ps. the "quick done 20x23 version" is corrupted as sometimes i get the llama & spiders in the score panel... so... I need to take care little bit more if 20x mode can be done... [fixed...archive 2b was updated] pss. and before thinking about adding more colours etc... I know I might get little direct... but I hate to say... VIC-20 has COLOUR RAM which we had not and never get... (no...I will not add PM underlays and invert the font etc to made this happen...) thank Jeff that the whole game only uses few of the colours... Edited February 12, 2008 by Heaven/TQA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 (edited) At last! one game on Atari with peruvian animals. Thanks! Edited February 12, 2008 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 send the pics to Jeff...he would fully appreciate them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 so...after playing several rounds with the 20x23 version... i have to say my impression is that it is far easier...why? of course the shot needs less time to make a round on the screen and this can not be fixed as each game cylce the shot is moved.... that is one example why i said that reducing the screensize effects game play... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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