thursday83 Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Screw the HSC. Anyone can just write it down if you want to keep the high score, take a screenshot. Make the game better instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 7, 2011 Author Share Posted October 7, 2011 Hi Guys: My OCD won't let me do that I've supported the HSC with *every* game I've made. I can't skip one. That being said, I've actually found more variables to overwrite when doing the high score. The only drawback is that the 'stars' in the background now re-start every time you begin a game instead of only when you first turn on the cart. All I have left is the 'music'. The difficulty is as follows: Easy - The last alien never gets faster, and the alien's 'wrap around' under your ship never increases in size. Normal - Like the arcade, the last alien gets faster after round two, and with each round the alien's 'wrap around' under your ship increases with each round. Hard - The last alien gets faster after the first & second round, then the last *two* aliens get faster for the next two rounds, and so on - until four of the 8 aliens get faster. The alien's 'wrap around' starts off bigger and increases in size with every round. The 'wrap around' below the player's ship that I am talking abound is the amount of space the aliens have to turn around and come back up once they go off the bottom of the screen. In easy mode, as soon as they leave the screen (from all sides) they restart from the middle of the screen. As you clear each entire round (i.e. 10 waves) of aliens, they have more space below the bottom of the screen to possible turn around and come back up. From what I understand this is similar to what the arcade does. Enjoy! MoonCresta.A78 MoonCresta.bin MoonCrestaP.A78 MoonCrestaP.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Hi Guys: My OCD won't let me do that I've supported the HSC with *every* games I've made. I can't skip one. That being said, I've actually found more variables to overwrite when doing the high score. The only drawback is that the 'stars' in the background now re-start every time you begin a game instead of only when you first turn on the cart. All I have left is the 'music'. The difficulty is as follows: Easy - The last alien never gets faster, and the aliens 'wrap around' under your ship never increases in size. Normal - Like the arcade, the last alien gets faster after round two, and with each round the alien's 'wrap around' under your ship increases with each round. Hard - The last alien gets faster after the first & second round, then the last *two* aliens get faster for the next two rounds, and so on - until four of the 8 aliens get faster Enjoy! I was laughing to myself when you made the other post and thought 'there is no way Bob is going to stop until he figures out how to cram it all in there.' Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenfused Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 (edited) This sucks! I'm basically done except for sound. I'm currently trying to get HSC support added in, but I'm out of memory! I have 203 bytes free at the end of the $2200-$27FF range but I need 512 (it looks like the HSC needs $200 bytes for it's RAM). I can 'overwrite' 128 bytes of variables not used during the HSC routine so that leaves me with 181 bytes to scrounge up. I can't see moving to the added memory just for 181 bytes of RAM!!!! I've already compressed as much of the memory as I can... Are there any 'undocumented' RAM locations, aside from the standard $40-$FF, $1800-$203F, and $2200-$27FF? I was looking at the memory map in the documentation, and it doesn't look like anything that isn't 'shadowed' or available for program use... Bob In Beef Drop I use the game screens background RAM, but guessing Moon Cresta is mostly just sprites. In b*nQ it looks like I game it its own dedicated 512 bytes since I must not have been that low in RAM. Here is what i have in linker config file for b*nQ ZEROPAGE: start = $40, size = $C0; RAM1: start = $1800, size = $840; RAM2: start = $2200, size = $600; RAM3: start = $2100, size = $80; <-normally $40 bytes but $2140-$217F is shadow of stack $140-$17F so I use it here instead so I can have a bigger block RAM6532: start = $480, size = $80; STACK: start = $180, size = $80; <-using the shadow at $2140-$217F instead of $140-$17F I think $2100-$213F (64 bytes) is RAM that is the missing RAM from the beginning of the stack (TIA/MARIA mirror) just as $2000 to $203F is a the RAM missing from under TIA/MARIA but usually grouped with the RAM at $1800-$203F. Since $2140-$21FF is a shadow of the stack, it looks like I just set myself of with 128 bytes for the stack, which then gave me 128 bytes contiguous RAM at $2100. You may even be able to use more of the stack if you don't need all of it. So there is 64 bytes plus anything else you can steal from the stack. The 6532 RAM is slow RAM so you might be able to stuff there and restore too perhaps? Not sure if I have used it or not but could check. --ken Edited October 7, 2011 by kenfused 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Looks and plays great. HSC part worked great as well. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerf Herder73 Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Would returning to 48k give you all of the space that you need? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 7, 2011 Author Share Posted October 7, 2011 Thanks guys Thanks Ken - I may try to see if I can use that extra RAM in the stack and the 6532. @NerfHerder73 - That 32K/48K is ROM space, I was looking for RAM (but thank you anyway!) @Allan - So I guess you know me pretty well by now Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Hi Bob Great work.I love MC greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Yay! New bin! Something to play tonight! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lendorien Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 (edited) Hiya. Played this a bit today. Looks like it's shaping up great! Shame that the game is so simplistic on the sounds. I've always felt that arcade games needed some sort of memorable title screen theme. Many did. This one came out before that was common I guess. By the by, I totally agree that you should work on an original game. Arcade ports are great, but with your Mad Skillz, it'd be great to see something original from you. Edited October 7, 2011 by Lendorien Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Hi Guys: Here is RC1. Man, the music/sound effects were *HARD* in this one. I had to play with octaves/transposing so I wouldn't get any out-of-tune sounds (as much as possible with the TIA). Plus, it was very difficult deciphering the notes played as they were very fast and using an audio editor to slow it down resulted in mixed notes. Even so I still had to take a few liberties with the sound (for example) The intro tune is an octave lower than the arcade so I could get all of the notes without any sour ones. Some of the enemy explosion sounds I had to approximate as best I could. BTW, I looked at a video of the C64 version and the BBC version - the enemy movements and sounds hardly anything like the arcade game, so I feel good about this one. Let me know what you think! But at this point, unless someone finds any bugs, this will be the release version. Thanks, Bob MoonCresta.A78 MoonCresta.bin MoonCrestaP.A78 MoonCrestaP.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Graphically it looks great. I'm at work so I cannot listen to it. On the first two waves, the bad guys that stay grouped descend too quickly. You should be able to sit in the middle of the screen and kill off all the bad guys without moving. On the third wave, the bad guys should split from the center, arc upward before they descend allowing you to move left then right to kill a bunch of them off. But again, they break off from the group quickly and descend rapidly. I have yet to break 1000 after three plays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Oberhäuser Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 @ Bob Is it correct that I have to reset the game on the ProSystem emulator after each game? I can't leave the Game Over screen by pressing either X or Y (firebuttons). Other than that the game is a quite faithful port of the arcade game (unfortunately for me as hard as the arcade game as well). How about putting in a Phoenix-like shield for the second firebutton for the easy setting (just kidding:). Great job as always, Bob! @ All Regarding the box for Moon Cresta: Stay tuned, it will be available through the AA store soon:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 @ Marc: oops! I fixed that (it will be in the next release) @ rmaerz: Unfortunately, the screen ratio is different than the arcade, and the enemies don't have as far to travel. (I tried to make up for this as much as I could). On the first two waves, there are 7 sets of 'circles' before they break up and go after the player (unless you shoot four of them). I made sure that was equal to the arcade. If you are referring to the 'attack' flight pattern, I am very limited to the number of frames between each movement (I spent many nights on this one). I took the arcade tables and used them here. I did have to modify them, however, for the smaller screen and 16 position enemies instead of 24. If I reduce the 'frames-per-movement' by even 1 frame, it becomes too slow, as seen attached here: MoonCresta.A78 And if I make it something like .5 frames, it becomes too jerky. So unfortunately, it looks like the 7800 version will be a little more difficult than the arcade. Thanks for the feedback, and let me know if anything else pops up. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Dumb question: would there be any benefit in creating a vertical screen ala NES Galaga with the score data on the right hand side of the screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Dumb question: would there be any benefit in creating a vertical screen ala NES Galaga with the score data on the right hand side of the screen? It would only gain 1 zone. I would need 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Dumb question: would there be any benefit in creating a vertical screen ala NES Galaga with the score data on the right hand side of the screen? It would only gain 1 zone. I would need 5. I'll take your word for it, because I have no clue as to what that means! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 will this have HSC in PAL mode? is that even possible or do I need to get my NTSC 7800 out for when the XM arrives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 will this have HSC in PAL mode? is that even possible or do I need to get my NTSC 7800 out for when the XM arrives? The XM is both PAL and NTSC compatible. However, XM PAL has HSC disabled (can be overridden manually) due to PAL legacy game incompatibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Hi Bob Great work.I love MC.Yes,it is a little bit more difficult,than the arcade.It is nearly like the SNES version,which is also more difficult.But it plays very well and i was able to get through the first level and nearly beat the 2nd. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lendorien Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 (edited) Played this in Prosystem a bit tonight. I was a bit young to play in the arcades back in the day (and my family didn't have the money for it anyway), so I am not familiar with this game. Still, the port seems to be quite respectable. Playing it on actual hardware would be great. A thought, and I recognize that this involves extra work and space that might make it impossible, but if the TIA is making it hard to get the sound effects right, have you considered making the game a Dual one able to use TIA on stock 7800's and POKEY in the XM for more accurate music if one has it in? You've worked so hard to get the enemy movement as accurate as possible and then include HSC compatibility, it seems odd to then fudge the sound effects. But that just me. Edited October 10, 2011 by Lendorien Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 (edited) Played this in Prosystem a bit tonight. I was a bit young to play in the arcades back in the day (and my family didn't have the money for it anyway), so I am not familiar with this game. Still, the port seems to be quite respectable. Playing it on actual hardware would be great. A thought, and I recognize that this involves extra work and space that might make it impossible, but if the TIA is making it hard to get the sound effects right, have you considered making the game a Dual one able to use TIA on stock 7800's and POKEY in the XM for more accurate music if one has it in? You've worked so hard to get the enemy movement as accurate as possible and then include HSC compatibility, it seems odd to then fudge the sound effects. But that just me. Hi: I wouldn't say I *fudged* it, I was just trying to say that I did the best I could - I actually think they came out pretty good except for maybe the very last wave (the 'droppers', as I call them). Having said that, here is RC2. Things changed: - The game now goes back to the splash screen after the game ends (thanks, Marc) - The 'Easy' option now uses the slower aliens like in post #139. I thought that should reflect it actually being 'easier' - Shot collision detection should be slightly better. - Smoother transition from HSC to splash screen after entry. Thanks, Bob *EDIT* - The 'Enjoy Another Game' threshold was mistakenly left at 10,000 instead of 30,000 (I was testing it). This was fixed. Edited October 10, 2011 by PacManPlus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Oberhäuser Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Easy difficulty is now spot-on for me and I'm also happy with the sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 RC3 - Fixed the 'Enjoy Another Game' bug mentioned above (sorry) Obligatory cart pic (Thanks to Marc for the re-created artwork) MoonCresta.A78 MoonCresta.bin MoonCrestaP.A78 MoonCrestaP.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 (edited) The game looks and sounds great! Have you considered using the Space Invaders (arcade) sound effect for the ship's bullets? I think that would be cool if you could pull it off. I played this on the Easy level so I could progress through the game. The "flaming testicles" (as I call it) and the icicles waves are too easy compared to the previous waves. Sign me up for a CIB! Edited October 10, 2011 by rmaerz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.