Diamondz - a brand new Atari XL/XE game!

[pseudografx]

Let me proudly introduce our latest addition to the Atari game base.

The game Diamondz was written by Fandal and PG exclusively for the latest issue of Flop magazine #53, which was released few days ago at Atariada, an annual meeting of all Atari fans from the Czech Republic and other countries, held at April 10-11.

 

 

Diamondz were coded in only two months, starting at the end of January and finishing just a few days before the diskmag was released.

The gameplay and level design was taken from a Flash game (see the game Cyadonia). There are 45 levels available and a neat password-based level selection system.

The objective of the game is to collect all diamonds in every level and get to the exit in time. Your player can only stop at walls.

 

 

Upon decision to convert the game for little Atari, there was a discussion regarding the dimensions of the levels, which were quite big for an intended 2x2 char mode (allowing us to use just a limited number of levels from the original). Using just one character for each element would be too small to have a nice graphical representation of the elements, so we decided to use a unique size of the elements, which are 6x12 pixels in size.

 

 

The resulting compromise came out quite right, and we were able to use levels sized up to 26 x 17 elements (with the usual 2x2 elements the limit would be 20 x 13).

 

Features:

- 45 time-limited levels with increasing difficulty and introducing new elements every few levels.

- Various ingame elements like walls, bombs, glue, teleports, invisible blocks, bounce-backs, one-way walls, etc.

- Selectable ingame music/sfx (music converted from Amiga modules using Raster Music Tracker)

- Password-based level system with access to all finished levels using joystick in the level list

- The game works on any unexpanded Atari XL/XE machine with 64 kB of memory

 

 

Credits:

Code: Fandal

Graphics & Music: PG

Used tools: MADS 1.7.9, CodeGenie 3.0, Atari800WinPLus 4.0, Raster Music Tracker 1.28, Paint Shop Pro Photo XI, G2F 3.8.8.4

 

This week, you can only download this game exclusively with the latest issue of Flop diskmag at http://flop.atari.org (direct link is here). Fandal's archive will be updated with the game by the end of this week.

 

We look forward to your feedback, have fun playing!

Edited April 12, 2010 by pseudografx

[Rybags]

Nice stuff. That title shot looks like VBXE at first.

 

 

Another one of those hair-pullers I see... this might involve some hours lost.

[Tezz]

Excellent work guys. It's a very professional production with a nice title screen. Logical games are very addictive.

Great stuff.

[matosimi]

Nice work

 

A bit better than my Titus The Fox

[Rybags]

A slight complaint... the time it gives you is nowhere near enough.

 

OK... learning curve being ascended - up to Level 5.

Edited April 12, 2010 by Rybags

[Rybags]

Up to 17 now.

[pseudografx]

One more point to mention:

The game should work fine on NTSC machines (works well in emulator), but hasn't been tested on real NTSC hardware. Can anyone test it for us, please?

[MaPa]

Just completed the game

[mimo]

Tested on NTSC 1200xl (with ApeWarp+ OS) and works fine. I agree with Rybags, a bit more time would be useful! other than that a great brain teasing game.

[Rybags]

How many levels? I'm just onto 19.

 

Another thing - it doesn't seem to take advantage of a 5th colour... the stuff you're supposed to pick up doesn't stand out from the crowd.

[mimo]

How many levels? I'm just onto 19.

only level 5

 

Another thing - it doesn't seem to take advantage of a 5th colour... the stuff you're supposed to pick up doesn't stand out from the crowd.

agreed, another colour for the diamonds would be good

[Rybags]

I meant - how many levels in the game? On 20 here, looks like there's at least 22.

[mimo]

45

[pseudografx]

How many levels? I'm just onto 19.

 

Another thing - it doesn't seem to take advantage of a 5th colour... the stuff you're supposed to pick up doesn't stand out from the crowd.

If you read the original post carefully, you must have found out that the tiles are 1.5 by 1.5 chars big, which means 5-color mode cannot be used. It's just not possible since there would be many situations where the 5th color on a diamond next to some other object would impact the colour of that object.

Edited April 13, 2010 by pseudografx

[pseudografx]

Tested on NTSC 1200xl (with ApeWarp+ OS) and works fine. I agree with Rybags, a bit more time would be useful! other than that a great brain teasing game.

Thanks for checking :-)

[Rybags]

Gotta admit, I'm just playing it in the emulator now and pausing manually at the start.

 

It's just a pain in the arse constantly getting fried because you're 2 seconds too slow.

 

IMO it'd be much better if you just had the option to play with unlimited or much more time, and you got a score addition based on how quickly you finished each level.

[Rybags]

Ahh... it uses Antic E for the screen.

 

I'm seriously going to hack myself a time cheat.

[pseudografx]

Ahh... it uses Antic E for the screen.

 

I'm seriously going to hack myself a time cheat.

In fact, the cheat is already implemented :-)

[tjlazer]

I'm a pretty impatient person. I spend like 5 minutes trying to get the game to start and I don't speak the language that pops up on the screen. How do you start it?

 

Never mind got it, it needed disk 2 to be inserted. LOL

 

Very cool game! Nice concept. Would like to try it on my NTSC machine.

Edited April 14, 2010 by tjlazer

[Rybags]

Boot the disk FLOP53B

 

Type DIA*.C* from the DOS prompt, and that's it.

[pseudografx]

You can even just type * at the prompt after booting side B, since Diamondz is the first file on that disk image.

[Rybags]

So... any chance of getting that time-cheat code?

[patjomki]

So... any chance of getting that time-cheat code?

 

Not necessary. I just finished the game a few seconds ago. So it is possible to get to the final screen without a cheat (guess MaPa didn't cheat as well).

 

Just give it another try! BTW, time running up so fast is part of the fun.

 

Regards,

 

patjomki

[drac030]

There is one weird thing about the VTOC of the disk with FLOP magazine: it says its MyDOS format, but it is not. So SpartaDOS X (and probably MyDOS too, but I didn't check that) has a problem extracting files from the ATR with an ordinary copy. To fix that, get a disk editor (<commercial>Eddy is ideal</commercial>), go to sector $0168, change the value of the first byte to $02, and write the sector back. After that, the DOS will be able to read the disk so you can copy the game (and other files) to your harddisk for example.

 

DOS-es which do not check the format type (because they cannot handle extended MyDOS format) probably won't have any problem here.

[raster/c.p.u.]

There is one weird thing about the VTOC of the disk with FLOP magazine: it says its MyDOS format, but it is not. So SpartaDOS X (and probably MyDOS too, but I didn't check that) has a problem extracting files from the ATR with an ordinary copy. To fix that, get a disk editor (<commercial>Eddy is ideal</commercial>), go to sector $0168, change the value of the first byte to $02, and write the sector back. After that, the DOS will be able to read the disk so you can copy the game (and other files) to your harddisk for example.

 

Hi.

Hmm, I think it is "standard" DOS II+ behaviour.

When I format disk to single (FS#), then there is $02 value in VTOC.

If format is medium (FM#), there is $03 value.

I check it in all the Flop magazines (28 to 53) and all of them has $03 there (for medium size).

Greetz, raster/c.p.u.