UT2600

[MLdB]

It's been a long time since I last worked on FLUT/UT2600. I got distracted working on a map editor and things happening in the real world .

 

I've picked up coding on UT2600 yesterday and added the sniper rifle. To give it a go, in the game's menu, press down twice to highlight the 'pickups type' setting and press right a couple of times until it says 'deltaforce'. Press fire to start the tournament. Press fire again for both players to accept the (randomly selected) map and start the match. Wait for a pickup to appear (a blinking box) and walk over it. It will give you a sniper rifle.

 

Now hold the fire button to begin aiming (a white reticle will appear) and (while keeping the fire button pressed) align your player either horizontally or vertically with your opponent. The reticle will 'snap onto' the opponent. Release the fire button to fire the sniper rifle.

 

The amount of damage done by the sniper rifle is based on how well you aligned your character with your opponent. The reticle's 'snap' behavior makes it harder for the shooter to judge how well his character is aligned, thus requiring some skill to perform a 'head shot'.

 

flut_20131121.bin

[MLdB]

Reached a little milestone this morning: all weapons are in! I still need to test the game with an opponent to balance the weapons, but the basics are done. Final additions are the Pulse Gun, the Ripper and the Bio Rifle. You need to select 'full set' under 'weapon set' in order to get these weapons.

 

I will now focus on the score board to show each player's score and an end screen showing the final scores and the winner of the tournament. Then I will implement team play (selectable in the menu, but not functioning now). Players will still play 1-on-1 matches, but their scores will be added to the total of their team. Teams will be: Red (red+green and yellow if 6 players compete) and Blue (blue+purple and white if 6 players compete).

 

flut_20131222_2.bin

Edited December 22, 2013 by MLdB

[+JAC!]

Just found this thred and have to see it's executed really nicely.

> I wasn't completely unhappy about the Unreal logo at first, but a feeling is growing that I should redo it with a 48-pixel sprite technique. This is simply unacceptable

In case saving memory is still on top of the list, you could improve the appearance by introducing alternating black lines to reduce blockiness.

 

Then maybe add some color bar/gradient and the logo will look better without requiring more space.

 

[MLdB]

I'm sorry I didn't reply earlier... I shelved the project early 2014, but have picked it up recently. I'm afraid the old title screen didn't make it through...

 

 

I don't know if I did already, but thanks a lot @JAC! for WUDSN, I've been using it since the start of the project!

 

UT2600 info and latest bin

[MLdB]

It's been almost a year and a half since my previous update on this. Progress has been a lot slower than I had hoped when I started, and I want to say I'm sorry it took so long to anyone who showed interest in this project, especially to igorski81. He must have spent countless hours composing a score for this, which I think, is the main reason anyone should play this game.

 

This time, I'm determined to see it through. The AtariAge community has been a tremendous help for me, as a resource of programming tricks and inspiration. I hope some of you are willing to test UT2600 with a couple of friends (and beers. You'll need at least one of each to enjoy the game, more is better) and post your findings. You can find the latest Beta version of Unreal Tournament 2600 here.

Edited April 15, 2018 by MLdB

[KevinMos3]

Glad to see you back. I've always thought this looked pretty cool, especially your latest update, but unfortunately I've been unable to play it with it being multiplayer only. Do you plan to add an AI for a single player option?

[MLdB]

Do you plan to add an AI for a single player option?

Thanks! I would really like to add AI/bots. And I did give it some thought over the past few weeks. But I haven't figured out a way of doing this yet.

 

Even the most simplistic (but competent, it must stand a fair chance against a human player, not just blindly run into walls) path finding is as far as I can conceive impossible on the Atari given the 'complex' (relatively speaking) maps that are in the game now and the resources I have left (RAM and cycles). I could add specially designed maps that are easy for bots to navigate or use the DPC (of which I know nothing besides that it's called DPC, and I may be wrong there.) or a combination of both. I will certainly look into this, but not until the multiplayer version is finished I think.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Check out our Let's Play of Unreal Tournament on ZeroPage Homebrew!

https://youtu.be/aCMq9tJLR9I?t=1h1m24s

 

We had a blast playing the game on our show and discovered how incredibly complex the gameplay can get with the varying maze options and weapons. We're really looking forward to further updates and of course a full cart release as this game definitely deserves one! Thanks for the great game MldB!

[MLdB]

Thanks for the support. I hope to release an updated version soon with:

• Telefragging
  You are instantly killed when your opponent happens to respawn on top of you.
  
• Better biorifle mines
  Blobs from the Biorifle will stick to walls and floors and explode after a few seconds, or when your opponent gets too close.
  
• Special pickup locations for all maps
  Every map can have predetermined locations for the Sniper Rifle, Redeemer, Super Health and Damage Amplifier pickups. A pickup box is a bit more likely to appear at one of these locations than any other random location on the map and will almost always contain the same weapon or power up. So just like UT99 (and I guess every other FPS), remembering the location of these 'special' pickups may give you a slight advantage.

[MLdB]

I am having issues with jitter on real hardware (as shown during ZeroPage Homebrew's live streamd). The problem is I cannot easily debug these with Stella. I am hoping an experienced developer is willing to help me with this. I can post details on my kernel (what events happen on which scanline) if needed or point to the right locations in the bin to speed things up.

 

I understand the difficulty of emulation analogue TV behavior in Stella, so I thought of a different approach: could Stella keep a record of the scanline cycle number of each instruction (games being small, this would take no memory all) and highlight those instructions that run on different cycles? Large proteins portions of the code would run 'out of sync' with itself, but kernels will generally be in sync every scanline and frame. Cycle count errors would be easier to spot.

[+stephena]

Some of this information is already in the disassembly in the debugger, but I agree that more work could be done in this area.

 

Please feel free to create an enhancement issue on the Stella Github page.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I am having issues with jitter on real hardware (as shown during ZeroPage Homebrew's live streamd). The problem is I cannot easily debug these with Stella.

Maybe not most easy, but I am sure you can track those down in Stella. E.g. enable the Time Machine (Interval = 1 frame), use a conditional breakpoint for a scanline overflow and when the breakpoint is hit, rewind one frame. Then you can step through the frame or make other checks.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I download BETA4 which was tested on Twitch, and at least in the map select screen the scanline count is perfectly stable in Stella.

 

I think the reason for the problem is your VSYNC code. It doesn't last full three scanlines.

Lf2e0
    lda     #$02                    ;2     
    sta     VSYNC                   ;3       
    sta     WSYNC                   ;3   =   8
;---------------------------------------
    sta     WSYNC                   ;3   =   3
;---------------------------------------
    lda     #$2b                    ;2       
    sta     TIM64T                  ;4       
    sta     WSYNC                   ;3   =   9
;---------------------------------------
    lda     #$00                    ;2       
    sta     VSYNC                   ;3

Add a WSYNC before the first VSYNC.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Thomas Jentzsch

[MLdB]

Thanks a lot! That makes perfect sense, but I would never have thought of this

 

It's implemented, I will update the binary soon. Thanks again!

[Flojomojo]

Wow, just stumbled onto this via a news story ....

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/theres-an-unreal-tournament-demake-for-atari-2600-you-can-play-in-your-browser/

 

You guys are crazy-bananas and that's great!!

[MLdB]

Someday, bananas may riot because of such overt fruitist remarks, but until then I'll say you're probably right! ?

[MattMan]

I started running a UT 99 server in 2004 and and still run it to this day. One of my all time favorite games. To me this Atari version is completely awesome. If a physical version ever comes around sign me up!