roland p Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) I now made a ball! I tried to color it by using the ball sprite of the VCS, and used timed COLUPF updates to make the playfield pixels black, and the ball colored. This works for the left side, and partly for the right side. You can see this when the ball moves to the right and disappears off screen. Adding a ball caused 2 more pseudo-3d calculations which took too many cycles so I lowered the update of the goals and the ball to 30fps. The controls are rotated too, so no inverted controls anymore. You can use fire to rotate. rom_20150908.bin Edited August 9, 2015 by roland p 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+D Train Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I am so glad you are still working on this! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Autorotation! Both rotofoils are looking always at the ball. I believe this is the default behavior. Once you grab the ball (yet to be implemented) you will autorotate towards the goal. rom_20150820.bin 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Very cool to see this is still being worked on! It's a good concept, not really well executed. I think the problem is the ball, too fast, the gameplay overall is not good. I think this concept was more suited for a game Snes F-Zero like, with visible rotofoils and rotating background using shoulders buttons to align the ball with goal beams. Then you could have a power bar to thrust against the opponent, but taking care to not blow up your rotofoil if power is low and so on. There's an SNES game called Space Football which is basically a Ballblazer remake, but reviews are very poor (I haven't played it myself). The Ballblazer-like 3DO game BattleSport, however, is quite good. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 (edited) Autorotation! Both rotofoils are looking always at the ball. I believe this is the default behavior. Once you grab the ball (yet to be implemented) you will autorotate towards the goal. That feels correct! Dont forget LS_Dracon and I found color $02 to be the best skip line color. Gray $02 really looks best on all display types and emulation from my tests! See post 942. On a CRT the gray $02 actually becomes dark brown, brown, and dark green! Click and look close up at that picture attached. (Note: I'm not smart enough to do mid-line color changes and this is not photoshopped. It is really the color $02 build. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/130990-anyone-think-ballblazer-is-possible-on-the-2600/?p=3150723 Edited August 24, 2015 by iesposta 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Maybe it could be possible to make it a game # variant. What with all the different ways of playing and different display techs..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Ok, I'll set the color to $02 Maybe it could be possible to make it a game # variant. What with all the different ways of playing and different display techs..? That could be interesting, the kernel is capable of displaying any of the 128 colors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Maybe it could be possible to make it a game # variant. Or he could be sensible and assign that toggle to the Color/BW switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 You could have a menu option like space rocks does. And you could start with a few 4 or 5 basic colors that look good on a CRT, LCD, Emulator, and whatever else, even component, or s-vid mods. Have them listed first so you don't have to cycle through a hundred choices. Then after those, give the choice for all other colors. In either the same or different menu item. This way you cover all bases and satisfy everyone. No more hemming & hawwing. I'd suggest making the CRT look best, first, by default, then the LCD tv next, then the emulator last - if you're implementing it in counter/digit display way. Or have the options clearly labled CRT, LCD, EMU, CRTa, LCDa, EMUa, CRTb, LCDb, EMUb.. And each one represents a "pre-determined by playtesting" value. If this is going to be made in a cart, perhaps it could be made non-volatile. Don't worry about emulators though, we have savestates! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Or he could be sensible and assign that toggle to the Color/BW switch. As long as there's a choice, somehow, the game will be all that much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Well, making anything besides the basics is very low on my priority list. A toggle for the background color seems to be possible since is a possibility to free one cycle in the kernel, which is needed to change the background color setting from a constant to a variable (LDA Immediate vs Zero Page). I'm now splitting everything up into 2 frames. During the first frame, the gameplay logic (movement, bouncing, shooting etc.) is running. During the other frame, all onscreen object positions are calculated. I've made the overscan (black area at the bottom of the screen) really huge (as you can see in the screenshot from post #951) so I use that space (besides the vblank) for CPU stuff (gameplay logic and object positions. I hope I can make this smaller so I can display some scores/timer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I didn't realize this $02 color thing would generate so much discussion! Thank you for being open to suggestions, roland p. /rant on/ I know most people, if asked, would want a choice, BUT 2600 game development should be targeted to CRT. Color $02 is the best and I tested many different machines and CRT displays. Color black $00 is good also, but $02 is better as it blends the overall image and doesn't give that odd skip a scan line look. Also, as I said, $02 is good on ALL types of displays and emulation. ALSO any other color choice messes up sections of the checkered grid really, really bad. It is your project, but if it were mine it would be $02 and not able to change due to the fact it may be set to some color that displays terrible and the user doesn't realize it can be changed which leads to the impression that game displays poorly. If anyone thinks another value besides $00 or $02 is better (most displays show $02 as black anyway), have you tried it on a CRT or LCD TV? /rant off/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinroh Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Man this keeps getting better. Blows my mind still seeing Ball Blazer on the VCS in its glory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Man this keeps getting better. Blows my mind still seeing Ball Blazer on the VCS in its glory. At 4k none the less. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Color $02 is the best and I tested many different machines and CRT displays. Color black $00 is good also, but $02 is better as it blends the overall image and doesn't give that odd skip a scan line look. $02 looked great! Heroes!: 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinroh Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Oh killer man! Wish I could've been there to see in person! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Hehe... I was there talking with them, as well. Btw, Roland, I did play what you sent to PRGE. Fantastic work so far! Please keep going -Thom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Hehe... I was there talking with them, as well. Btw, Roland, I did play what you sent to PRGE. Fantastic work so far! Please keep going Cool, Thanks!, Yes, I worked a lot on that version, and I still am. It's doing really well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 It's now a game! I made a lot of improvements for PRGE. Some gameplay elements are now in it, ball catching, bouncing with a ball, ball stealing and a scoring system! The first player who reaches 5 points has won! rom_20151025.bin 30 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerSpaceFan Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 I just made a video showing the PRGE version. And I must say WOW! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VNyZApacRM 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Nice video! Thanks for taking the time to make it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 I also will say great video! You say (and I say) that this version is nicer than the Commodore version. Amazing also is the music can be very close to the Atari orignal POKEY chip. TheGoldenBand showed it and Random Terrain improved it: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/130990-anyone-think-ballblazer-is-possible-on-the-2600/?p=2691322 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdie3 Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Abso-bloody-lutely astounding!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King of the Mountain Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 It 's pretty amazing for the Atari 2600 It 's pretty amazing for the Atari 2600It 's pretty amazing for the Atari 2600 It 's pretty amazing for the Atari 2600 It is pretty amazing for the Atari 2600. You plan to add music or make a PAL version? Sorry for my english, i am from southamerica. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted November 9, 2015 Share Posted November 9, 2015 (edited) It is pretty amazing for the Atari 2600. You plan to add music or make a PAL version? Sorry for my english, i am from southamerica.Thanks, I'm now optimizing the code so it will be smaller and I'll be able to add more features. I'll add music if there is enough rom space left. Sound effects are a must-have I guess, so those should be added first. I've not thought about PAL yet, but if I can make a PAL-version by just changing some parameters in the assembler, then that should be no problem. Edited November 9, 2015 by roland p 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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