For...Next - Design Journal: "Armageddon Complex", Build 0.3

RSS Bot · October 4, 2008

Lots of progress made in this build. Ther was much heartache involved, given that programming an Atari cartridge often seems like trying to bail out the Titanic with a soup cup.

I virtually did a full rewrite of the engine, attempting to optimize the code the for speed, flexibility and economy of variables. I'll probably post a more detailed explanation of this build at a future date, but here's the overview and BIN:

Changes:

Flickering four sprites at 30hz (no visible flicker with phospor in Stella or x26)
Generalized room drawing function to build objects from the data set no matter what order they are written in (which is key for building my level editor, as well as saving tons of ROM)
Limited the max number of room objects to 5 (whilst fishing for extra variables, of course!
Included semi-natural gravity and a "Jump" function for joyfire0, thanks to more awesome help from the amazing Mr. SeaGtGruff.
Monsters now recognized floors and walls, turning around if they bump a wall or reach the edge of a platform.

Next Steps:

In general, I applied my first level of spit polish to the code, and I'm happy to say that the game speed is now purring along like a Ferrari, even with 4 sprites along for the ride. A few caviats:

The jump function is still a little buggy. I managed to hack around a problem that occurred when the player was touching both a platform and a wall, but it caused other headaches, which I'm sure people will discover if they fiddle with it long enough.
I've taken out the elevators for the time being, so I could focus on my 4-sprite flicker.
As usual, I have run out of variables.
I've also run out of ROM space in the first bank (again). The below BIN was compiled with 33 bytes of space left in bank1. Dang-blamed bankswitching, someday I will be your master!
My third non-player sprite is not like the other two. It doesn't have as many variables, for one thing: just an id, an x position, a y position and a map position variable. Unless I can figure out a way to greatly trim back other variables it will probably remain this way. I am thinking of using it as a general utility sprite to draw item pickups (guns, keys, shields, etc) special effects/missiles and special room objects (computer terminals, transporter pads, forcefields, etc). I may also be able to use it to create simple "enemies" like a fixed gun turret or a mindless sort of flying creature.

I shall perservere... if only I could break my line drawing function out of bank one, I think I'd be in business.

Attached File(s)

Armageddon_Complex_flicker4.bas.bin ( 32K )

Number of downloads: 0

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