enthusi Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Dear BoulderDash folks, received my package and plugged it in in a hurry this morning. Whoa, I did not expect that. Even knowing how much (and whose) time went into it and knowing 6507/VCS myself somewhat, I must say Im quite impressed by the playability and smoothness of it all. No obvious restrictions at all. The full BoulderDash experience (Im used to tons of C64-clones + its original) on the Atari 2600. Splendid work and nice manual <3 You did it all right guys! Cheers, Martin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonsunnyboy Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Before I order a copy from the shop, is the cartridge NTSC or PAL, or does it support both versions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 All three! NTSC, PAL50 and PAL60. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LidLikesIntellivision Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 What about a Boulder Dash contest? 2 weeks or a month long? Since its rom isn't avaible, I don't expect to play BD in the normal Atari HSC but if there's enough interest, we could run a contest ourselves. I really enjoy playing the HSCs but I miss the homebrews. In fact, I would like to see a contest after each homebrew release... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Good idea. Maybe some collectors will eventually really play the game then. Alternatively we could use the public available demo version for the contest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Good idea. Maybe some collectors will eventually really play the game then. It seems absurd to me that even a collector wouldn't play a game that's not shrinkwrapped. I'm sure those ppl exist, but perhaps we could host an intervention and slap them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emehr Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Alternatively we could use the public available demo version for the contest. You mean that impossible funnel level? I never did make it through that one. I either run out of time or get hopelessly crushed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 You mean that impossible funnel level? I never did make it through that one. I either run out of time or get hopelessly crushed. I love it. Look at YouTube to see how it works. This one shows an interesting solution I never saw before (I go down through the middle) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 That's a really cool solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emehr Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 *smacks forehead* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Oh there was/is a playable demo binary available (officially?) ? Could anyone link me to it? Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 How big is this game? 32k? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 How big is this game? 32k? Nope. Amazingly, it's only 2k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Since there is far too little feedback, here are some pictures of Boulder Dash in action. First one shows the 'ordered' stars on the 2600 junior - so I guess I can deduce info on the chips from that, eh? The other shows my not-yet-two-year old daughter identifying and laughing at Rockfort's foot tipping and eye-blink :-) I also have a question. In the manual you guys mention a dedicated new routine to deal with falling boulders and alike (rather than 'scanning' the map/ram). Would you share some info on that? Im interessted I once coded a similar game on C64 (a clone/port of Heartlight PC): http://csdb.dk/release/?id=87696 There I used 1-page-tables for each object, i.e. 'heavy' objects. The 6502 adressing allowed for super-fast accessing of the surrounding elements. Do you trace each object-in-action? I.e. only checking cells next to the one that just was changed? Cheers and thanks again for that great game of yours, Martin /enthusi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 First one shows the 'ordered' stars on the 2600 junior - so I guess I can deduce info on the chips from that, eh? The auto detection must have failed. Looks like there are more different Jrs than I thought. The other shows my not-yet-two-year old daughter identifying and laughing at Rockfort's foot tipping and eye-blink :-) Cute! Both, Rockford and your daughter. In the manual you guys mention a dedicated new routine to deal with falling boulders and alike (rather than 'scanning' the map/ram).Would you share some info on that? Im interessted I'll leave that to Andrew, since this was his idea and coding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Thanks for the great picture of your daughter enjoying Boulder Dash. In the manual you guys mention a dedicated new routine to deal with falling boulders and alike (rather than 'scanning' the map/ram). Would you share some info on that? Im interessted We have a stack of active objects. Most objects are inactive, and are only activated by the action of other objects. For example, boulders will not fall unless a space becomes available for them to fall into. How does a space become available? Well, an already-active object has just vacated it, or in some other way caused it to become blank. So we deal with active object only, and understand that newly-blank squares can cause other objects to become active. That's the gist of it. A stack of active objects, and a stack of blank squares which might cause new objects to be activated. Due to the memory organisation, we did not benefit from efficient addressing for square lookups; in fact a ginormous amount of cycles are used in every lookup. It's well into the hundreds and hundreds of cycles to process each active object. Cheers A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambouis de l'Atari Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 The auto detection must have failed. Looks like there are more different Jrs than I thought. Hi, Do you mean there is some detection to avoid this kind of alignment ? Well, just for you to know, this alignment happens too on my old woody 6 switches (not heavy) pal 50hz :-) I didn't even know that these "stars" were supposed to be different ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Do you mean there is some detection to avoid this kind of alignment ? The code is moving right down into the "quantum properties" of the chipset. As such, there is no standardised behaviour across all variants of the TIA. We did our very best to detect and adjust for all of the various machines we had (some 13 different units here at my place). Some had this problem, some didn't. We adjusted the code so they didn't, and all 13 passed. It was also tested on several machines by Al and Thomas. In the end, this is an unfortunate consequence of really pushing the machine way further than it was meant to be, and inconsistencies in the hardware itself. Remember on that screen we're also playing amazing digitised music, and an asymmetric playfiled with sprites on top. It's the best we can do; obviously we haven't covered all variants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 How do those two consoles behave in Cosmic Ark? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambouis de l'Atari Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Remember on that screen we're also playing amazing digitised music, and an asymmetric playfiled with sprites on top. It's the best we can do; obviously we haven't covered all variants. You know, my post was everything but criticism ! The whole games plays great, and just that is a miracle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Thank you Andrew, I expected something like that. Nice one. About the 'stars' - I did make that picture since I knew this has a delicate indepth technical background (followed the list about it some time ago). I can check for Cosmic Ark as well of course. It looks nice and impressive (considering the music) any way. The Heartlight game for c64 posted above uses permanent sample-playing interrupts 'as well'. Considerably simpler with the NMIs on C64 though Cheers, Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhod Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 I want to publicly thank Albert for his help, and all his efforts. I finally got my Boulder Dash JC/rhod 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambouis de l'Atari Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 I finally got my Boulder Dash JC/rhod Champagne alors ! Ca a mis combien de temps ? Une idée de pourquoi le premier envoi n'est jamais arrivé ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Champagne alors ! Ca a mis combien de temps ? Une idée de pourquoi le premier envoi n'est jamais arrivé ? Ma compréhension est que Rhod a déménagé à une nouvelle adresse à partir du moment où il a commandé le jeu, et quand il a finalement été livré. Bien sûr, le jeu est allé à son ancienne adresse et disparut. Nous avons ensuite envoyé un remplaçant. Le jeu de remplacement est allé à son ancienne adresse et disparut. Nous avons finalement réalisé ce qui se passait. C'est en partie pourquoi il a fallu si longtemps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhod Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 oui, héhé. heureusement le second est revenu aux USA, mais le 1er, on ne s'est pas où il est effectivement il y a eu un soucis avec ma nouvelle adresse que j'avais bien changé, mais il y a eu un soucis. tout fini bien !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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