Fratzengeballer Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 I am back from the superb Silly venture party in Gdansk and the prototype of the game took part in the mixed gamecompo. Not sure about the final results, it should have become the second or third place. It even was shown for some seconds on the polish television A big thanks to xeen, adam and string (the makers of the superb Atari XE/XL version) for checking out the game on the party and signing the console. It was nice seeing you in person. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fratzengeballer Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 and finally some live-footage from the compo. Don't blame me for the lousy play, it was caused by too many tasty polish beers... and it was late already http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXp4hBA7AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Adam+ Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 I am back from the superb Silly venture party in Gdansk and the prototype of the game took part in the mixed gamecompo. Not sure about the final results, it should have become the second or third place. ( . . . ) A big thanks to xeen, adam and string (the makers of the superb Atari XE/XL version) for checking out the game on the party and signing the console. It was nice seeing you in person. "Assembloids 2600" came third in Silly Venture game compo, being the only game representing Atari 2600. http://atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?ct=nowinki&ucat=1&subaction=showfull&id=1384421551 The game is great and it was great meeting you, Fratzengeballer/Slator Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted December 3, 2013 Author Share Posted December 3, 2013 Huhu Albert? Are you around I have a hard time contacting you... I hope you're fine and all is good (without too much seasonal distress). Assembloids 2600 is ready to go - box artwork will be done by ptoing soonish and we intend to launch a charity auction (doctors without borders) for the prototype cart on atariage.com soon as well Best wishes, Martin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted December 12, 2013 Author Share Posted December 12, 2013 Hi everyone! As Assembloids2600 was presented at the Silly Venture 2013 Atari party I assembled a playable demo version (PAL only) with a few limitations. Find it attached to this post. Below is the description I sent along with the binary for the party Assembloids 2600The game is based on a flash game by Photonstorm (Quartet).I ported that to C64 with gfx from the original artist iLKkefor a 16KB competition by RGCD who later released the gameas a boxed version.For the Atari 2600 I needed a fully new approach.A single face of the C64 version would not even fitproperly into the 128 Byte of RAM there.Yet, the challenge was to stay within the limit of 4k to stayas original to the Atari 2600 as possible.During the process, Sven 'Ptoing' Ruthner stepped in and gave thesimplistic visuals of the game a general overhaul, requiring muchmuch more and new code and really changed the game to the better.I used to work with him before on other C64 related projects and itwas great fun discussing (pseudo)limitations of the Atari 2600 with him.The goal of the game is to score as high as you can Scoring is achieved by completing faces in the 4 windowsaround the central one. After each move a new face-tile isplaced in the center and can be moved to the fouradjacent windows in case that particular part of the faceis still free. Moving to occupied fields costs you a lifeand the game will slow down considerably to give you betterchances next time.There always is a valid solution to place the central tile, soyou are the only one to blame....Once you managed to complete a face it will be cleared and you scoreaccording to how how mixed it was.A complete face in a single color scores 300 points, with asingle mismatch in color you still score 100 points. 40 pointsif your face consists of 3 colors and a mere 10 points for afully mixed face.If you manage to clear the complete board, you gain additionalwhopping 500 points and an extra life (up to 9 lives in store arepossible).After every successfully set tile, the pace of the game increasesand it will be harder and harder to make a smart move beforethe timer runs out and you lose another life.While the timer counts down, the timer bar decreases and changes color.Furthermore 3 alarm beeps will ring before time is out.Every 1000 points you are awarded with a new face gfx(there are 8 different types + 1 additional special face if youreach particularly high scores .There are 8 game modes available. Select them via SELECT in the Title.Game 0 is considered for kids only (!), here the timer barreduces very slow and there is no speed up at during gameplay at all.For all the other modes 1-7 the speed up per set tile increases with gamemode.Note, that the full 8+1 faces are only available in mode 3-7.If you start a game in a new mode, the old highscore will reset.Otherwise the current highscore is displayed in the title screenand after game over.After a couple of seconds, the game will switch into attract modeand start to play a couple of automatic demo moves. This is indicatedby an A for automatic in the lives counter. The speed up per tilein demo mode is related to the selected game mode, though it does startfaster than interactive game play.For the DEMO (which you can identify in the title screen)the game is limited to a certain number of moves and you start withfewer lives without the option the gain additional lives by acleared board. Also only four out of the eight faces can beseen. To provide some additional motivationr, you reach a new faceevery 200 instead of 1000 points here!Enjoy and watch out for the game at Atariage.com Some technical details:The faces are realized as player-gfx set to 3 copies.Similar to common the 6 digit score trick, the 2nd playergfx is also set to 3 copies and positioned right next to it.So the left side of all faces correspond to player 1, whilethe right side is playe r2.There is just enough CPU time left to change the colors ofthe gfx inbetween the 3 faces of the central row every scanline.To allow for all of the 9 faces, only one half of them is stored,the other one is mirrored.The information on the color and type of tiles on the playfield areupdated every frame and in part use the same memory locations as thecurrent score display at the bottom as a consequence of the RAM limit.The lives counter gfx are actually holes in the playfield and thebackground color is set cycle exact around that hole so the otherplayfield gfx cover its start and end up.The same applies for the highlights on the windows which provide thesubtle 3d effect. You can easily spot that in the stella emulatoron the demo when you toggle the playfield or enter debug mode.For the smooth decrease of the timer bar I overlay colored backgroudn gfxwith a ball gfx which moves with single pixel resolution at the speedset by the current game pace.The offset playfield gfx which stands 'out' of the gfx are asymmetricand required some more careful timing. Their height varies betweenthe PAL and the NTSC version, allowing both version to fill the screenproperly. Reappearing graphical features are put into individual routinesthat are then called on spot to save further ROM.Since 4k is a harsh limit, most routines were rewritten numerous timesto realize smaller code and/or more efficient data storage.As the Atari 2600 has no display buffer, all gfx have to be read andwritten in real time as they are being displayed.The digits of the live counter, i.e. are stored with maximum overlap tofree up more space.The effect of the title screen requires the data to be stored in rawformat.As one of the playfield registers is only 4 bit wide, the remainingnibbleswere used to store almost all of the sound-fx data and for example themovesof the attract mode.I hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed making it Martin 'enthusi' Wendt sv_assembloids2600_demo.bin 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted December 14, 2013 Author Share Posted December 14, 2013 Hi! An exclusive prototype of the full (PAL!) version is available on german ebay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/201004413867 100% of the price will be forwarded to doctors-without-borders as charity auction! Let me know if you have questions, i.e. about shipping outside of Europe. I hope this works out well 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karokoenig Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Great stuff, this auction. All the best for a good result. Quick question (maybe redundant, but I'm too lazy to read the whole thread): Will there be physical copies of the game available here in Germany? I always wanted to get my hands on a homebrew or two, but shipping over the pond and customs kills all the fun for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 17, 2014 Author Share Posted March 17, 2014 (edited) This is the final Assembloids2600 PAL binary represented as 64x64 pixel (=4096 Bytes Image, hehe. You can spot some repeating code and gfx patterns in there, also some smoother color-transitions i.e. from the game's logo color-table. And the reset-table. Edited March 17, 2014 by enthusi 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karokoenig Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Nice that you remind me of this... Now: will there be copies available in Germany? I.e. without paying flipping great wadges of cash for customs and shipping? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 17, 2014 Author Share Posted March 17, 2014 Hehe, that is not clear yet. Maybe I can arrange something with Albert to send in a bunch to me or such. Right now we are working on the box-art and manual 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 This is the final Assembloids2600 PAL binary represented as 64x64 pixel (=4096 Bytes Image, hehe. Hm, I suppose with little effort one could create a 1:1 ROM out of this. Or did you reduce color resolution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 17, 2014 Author Share Posted March 17, 2014 If I wasnt paranoid and had prevented that, you quite easily would have been able to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 I am not sure if it still exists, but there once was an annual Minigame Competition. They had categories like 1K or 4K. So maybe you want to join with your game. And if you really want some extra challenge, try something within 1K. Flappy Bird maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hermi69 Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 count me in for a cartcopy! I'd like to see it asap in the AAstore!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bcombee Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I just got to play this a bunch at the Classic Gaming Show here in Austin at the AtariAge booth, and it was a real surprise for me how fun it was! I can't wait for the official cart release; it's definitely on my Christmas list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XM05ES Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 I also played it in Austin a few weeks ago. It's very fun! There were some kids that were totally fascinated by it as well and kept coming back to it at the AA booth. This would be great on a cart! Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craftsman1234 Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Did the NTSC version ever get released for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Age-of-Atarius Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 Loved playing this game at the Classic Gaming Fest in Austin. There were many more complicated games but none held my attention more then this simple beauty. Probably should have tried it on a higher level as I hogged that station for 20 minutes. Other then those game tournament titles Fall Down and Space Rocks, this was the only game I came back to try again. The new cartridges got mixed around a bit as kids would grab and try whatever was laying about. But the Atari Age people were nearby to keep the people in line and helped with game play. A few games were tough to figure out as some controls were tricky. Sadly I saw a lot of clones that were just remakes of old standards with some new twists. Great to hear this is a charity cartridge as I have been attempting to get one started myself but don't have the skills or resources for such a big project. Put me on the mailing list for when it is available for sale. Good job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 Just an looong overdue update: we have not abandoned the game On the contrary, with other games in the making we now finish up Assembloids. Assembloids 2600 is ready, last touches to box art being applied right now (and for 3 years but this time for real! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 keep us posted, I'd like to see a NTSC release 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted August 4, 2016 Author Share Posted August 4, 2016 (edited) Oh, I made this for PAL and NTSC right from the start. No worries I chose a slightly different color scheme for NTSC. So if the Title-Logo has green tones in it, it is NTSC Since I crammed the game incl. AtariVox code (thanks Thomas!) into 4k, the game is either PAL _or_ NTSC, not both on the same cart. And via AtariAge.com, of course! Albert was and is most helpful with that Edited August 4, 2016 by enthusi 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted August 17, 2016 Author Share Posted August 17, 2016 Everything prepared for the Gamescom2016 in Cologne this week. A prototype cart of Assembloids2600 will be playable as well 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 Wow. I just returned from Gamescom 2016 in Cologne and it was so great to see people play Assembloids2600 for four days straight They loved the Atari 2600. Some returned several times to beat the Highscore Many (very repetitive) more pictures here: http://martinwendt.de/2016/assembloids/ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 Wow, that's some tremendous feedback! I am sure, that you have really enjoyed the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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