Draconian (2600)

[Andromeda Stardust]

Wow, just checked back in via the Kosmic Stardust's video, and I can't believe the progress on this WIP, or how closely it resembles the arcade game in nearly all respects! I wasted many quarters on the original BITD, so I'm not some chump that's easily impressed with a knock-off.

 

Darrell's tech voodoo powers appear to be turned up to 11, and Nathan and iesposta's contributions are clearly top notch too! Great job guys!

Voodoo on a cart indeed. It looks like I'm playing a 7800 game but it's entirely 2600 mode.

 

Alpha and Beta use the arcade stage order from Midway and Namco arcade machines respectively. Gamma and Delta are new stages entirely, I think. The Gamma and Delta stage orders aren't finalized yet.

[Keatah]

This one game seems to be "more Atari" and "more classic" than any of those classic gaming kickstarters. Doesn't it?

[+SpiceWare]

If each station shoots randomly, why is there the same firing pattern on the 256/delta/hard level? Maybe I didn't read something completely..?

 

What's random is when a station pod will shoot. On 256/hard the when is 85% of the time.

 

What's not random is:

• Which pods will shoot - only two pods on each station can shoot, the two that are closest to the Star Fighter. If those are both destroyed, the station will not shoot.
• The direction the pods will shoot - they always target the Star Fighter.
• a cool-down timer is associated with each pod. All pod timers are reset at the start of each round/new ship, and an individual pod's timer is reset whenever it shoots.

[+SpiceWare]

Alpha and Beta use the arcade stage order from Midway and Namco arcade machines respectively. Gamma and Delta are new stages entirely, I think. The Gamma and Delta stage orders aren't finalized yet.

Alpha = Midway arcade levels

 

Beta = Namco arcade levels. B-8's a favorite for stress testing parts of the game.

 

Gamma = tributes to contributors. I won't be doing a credits Easter egg as the space is needed for digitized samples.

 

Delta = reserved for forth coming level design contest. I believe they currently show a few A and B levels, hard to tell on my iPad

Gamma 1 = Albert:

 

Gamma 2 = Nathan:

 

etc. If you're puzzled, check the radar

 

Delta levels are just placeholders until I have time to write up something to allow others to create levels.

[Keatah]

What's random is when a station pod will shoot. On 256/hard the when is 85% of the time.

 

...

 

Ohh..

[Andromeda Stardust]

Gamma 1 = Albert:

draconian.png

 

Gamma 2 = Nathan:

draconian_1.png

 

etc. If you're puzzled, check the radar

 

Delta levels are just placeholders until I have time to write up something to allow others to create levels.

So the Delta levels I am seeing now are just repeats of select other stages? I've played the Gamma stages and notice a lot of repeats. And yes, I see the "N" and the "A" now!

 

Voting would be open, or perhaps only to contributors and select individuals? If public, maps of the entire stage could be generated somehow, showing details such as asteroids, mines, and whether the stations are oriented horizontal or vertical. An ingame level editor would be cool too. Perhaps they could be saved to flash or to an Atarivox, and be accessible in a special "Epsilon" quadrant?

 

Also, in your video it sounds like you're rapidly hitting fire? You can just hold the button down.

Yup, I was button mashing...

[+SpiceWare]

Looks like there's just 5 Delta levels, and I copy/pasted the level data so I don't know which ones they actually are.

 

Level data currently looks like this:

const unsigned short int delta_1[] =
{
    256, 512,        // ship starting X, Y location
    8,               // station count
    HS + 20, 8,      // station 1 X, Y location
    VS + 84, 72,     // station 2 X, Y location
    HS + 148, 136,   // station 3 X, Y location
    VS + 212, 200,   // station 4 X, Y location
    HS + 276, 264,   // station 5 X, Y location
    VS + 340, 328,   // station 6 X, Y location
    HS + 404, 392,   // station 7 X, Y location
    VS + 468, 460    // station 8 X, Y location
};

---

As discussed in the comments of blog entry Disperse Revision, I'll be revising that to save ROM space - currently that takes 38 bytes per level, new format would take 19. However, new format has the potential to break existing levels.

 

Stationary objects (asteroids and mines) are randomly positioned at the start of each level. The number of objects (32, 64, 96, or 128) is determined by the difficulty level.

 

My plan at the moment is to finish preliminary support for E-Type missiles and the Spy-Ship, after which I'll revise the level storage layout. After that I plan to set up a page at my site where people can enter in values for a few levels, then click submit and download a ready to run ROM. If you like the results then post that ROM to AtariAge so the judges to try out.

 

Who the judges will be is yet to be determined - could be a select few, could be everybody at AtariAge, or some combination thereof (such as 4 programmer's choice, 4 artists' choice, 4 musician's choice, and 4 AtariAge popular vote).

[Andromeda Stardust]

And when I mentioned the stars (Draconian has stars), everyone initially thought it was using and reusing the missiles and ball so much, but Champ saw his kernel was already set up to place a star or two on any line! And if they flickered, well stars "twinkle" right? He made an original star pattern. I always thought the Arcade game looked like it had the Orion constellation, so I made a constellation pattern that appears later in the game.

 

 

First person to name the constellations wins a new car!

That last sentence is a joke.

Okay so was playing Draconian on stage 28 Kids (I forget what quadrant) and my mom swears she saw the Draco constellation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(constellation)

 

http://www.solarsystemquick.com/universe/draco-constellation.htm

 

This was even before she knew the name of the game. We went looking for it again but never found it. Sorry I don't have a photo to prove it. Draco is one cryptic looking constellation anyway (the two above line drawings don't even look the same) and the game is named Draconian, so did I win me a new car?

[+SpiceWare]

Starfield is randomly generated at the start of every sector.

[LS_Dracon]

Finally I was able to test it (installed the latest Stella).

It's unbelievable! The game looks like is running on a superior hardware.

[tschak909]

Only game I ever knew that plotted an accurate star field was the PDP-1 version of SpaceWar.

 

-Thom

[iesposta]

Wow, just checked back in via the Kosmic Stardust's video, and I can't believe the progress on this WIP, or how closely it resembles the arcade game in nearly all respects! I wasted many quarters on the original BITD, so I'm not some chump that's easily impressed with a knock-off.Darrell's tech voodoo powers appear to be turned up to 11, and Nathan and iesposta's contributions are clearly top notch too! Great job guys!

Thank you, RevEvg.

Oddly enough I never played or knew about Bosconian until recently!

I even missed it in MAME because if I didn't recognize it, I would launch it.

 

I've seen and or played many obscure games (Hailey's Comet anyone?) in the 70's, 80's (& even 90's when I often went to Arcade auctions in New Jersey), but there must not have been a Bosconian anywhere in central Pennsylvania's bowling lanes, mall arcades, arcade businesses, Laundromat's, or Hershey Park (Parks)

I probably played Reactor once, but it was too different to invest any more quarters.

There's an Atari Trak-Ball color vector game "Quantum" where you draw (or lasso) around enemies.

I'd never seen that, but had an idea for a game "drawing around enemies" since I bought an Atari Touch Tablet for drawing on my 800XL in the 80's.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Starfield is randomly generated at the start of every sector.

YEah wrong thread. I got confused by the fact that the beta build of Scramble didn't have stars in it but Draconian did.

[+Nathan Strum]

Finally I was able to test it (installed the latest Stella).

It's unbelievable! The game looks like is running on a superior hardware.

 

 

It is running on superior hardware. The 2600 was always superior.

[+Nathan Strum]

Thank you, RevEvg.

Oddly enough I never played or knew about Bosconian until recently!

I even missed it in MAME because if I didn't recognize it, I would launch it.

 

I've seen and or played many obscure games (Hailey's Comet anyone?) in the 70's, 80's (& even 90's when I often went to Arcade auctions in New Jersey), but there must not have been a Bosconian anywhere in central Pennsylvania's bowling lanes, mall arcades, arcade businesses, Laundromat's, or Hershey Park (Parks)

I probably played Reactor once, but it was too different to invest any more quarters.

There's an Atari Trak-Ball color vector game "Quantum" where you draw (or lasso) around enemies.

I'd never seen that, but had an idea for a game "drawing around enemies" since I bought an Atari Touch Tablet for drawing on my 800XL in the 80's.

 

Several arcades (and some convenience stores) had Bosconian in the Seattle area. While not common, it wasn't hard to find up there. Definitely one of my favorites.

 

Quantum is very cool - I'm pretty sure I played it in the arcade a few times, but I'm really surprised "Atari" hasn't released a version of it for touchscreen phones. It's a natural for that.

 

I played Reactor a few times and thought it was really cool - but I think I saw it in only one or two places. Mad Planets was another excellent Gottlieb game that I think I only ever saw once or twice. Awesome sound in both of those games.

[Keatah]

Okay so was playing Draconian on stage 28 Kids (I forget what quadrant) and my mom swears she saw the Draco constellation:

 

This was even before she knew the name of the game. We went looking for it again but never found it. Sorry I don't have a photo to prove it. Draco is one cryptic looking constellation anyway (the two above line drawings don't even look the same) and the game is named Draconian, so did I win me a new car?

 

Maybe there's something spooky in the programming. It does things.

 

 

[Keatah]

It is running on superior hardware. The 2600 was always superior.

 

..and emulation is even more superiorer! It's virtual and can never break. Woot!

Edited July 23, 2017 by Keatah

[Andromeda Stardust]

@Spiceware i was playing Bosconian on my Pacman 35th Plug N Play last night to compare the arcade game to the homebrew port. I noticed the space stations launch missiles from the hatch when it opens. This makes shotting lasers up into the station hatch much more dangerous. In Draconian, I can just sit and blast away until the door opens. Make blowing up stations a bit too easy without the missiles. I was just wondering if you planned on implementing the missile launchers.

[+Nathan Strum]

@Spiceware i was playing Bosconian on my Pacman 35th Plug N Play last night to compare the arcade game to the homebrew port. I noticed the space stations launch missiles from the hatch when it opens. This makes shotting lasers up into the station hatch much more dangerous. In Draconian, I can just sit and blast away until the door opens. Make blowing up stations a bit too easy without the missiles. I was just wondering if you planned on implementing the missile launchers.

 

 

Check this post in Darrell's blog - it shows what is implemented (in green) and what has yet to be implemented (in black). E-type missiles launching from stations are definitely on the list.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

Check this post in Darrell's blog - it shows what is implemented (in green) and what has yet to be implemented (in black). E-type missiles launching from stations are definitely on the list.

Gotcha.

 

 

• In later levels an open core will contain & launch an E-Type missile.
• The E-Type missile will face towards the side of the station the player was on when the core opened. It will not change direction.

[+SpiceWare]

Gotcha.

 

 

Yep, this is a work in progress - it takes time to implement everything.

 

I'd planned to get the E-Types in place last week; but, as noted in the comments of Disperse Revision, I was sidetracked with some optimizing that freed up 608 bytes in the ROM.

[Yosikuma]

Can I just say how floored I am by the speech? I always assumed the system had to come to a standstill in order for digitised sounds to play, but clearly I am mistaken!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Can I just say how floored I am by the speech? I always assumed the system had to come to a standstill in order for digitised sounds to play, but clearly I am mistaken!

Speech samples and/or multichannel music can be pumped from the cart directly to the TIA. Pitfall II was the first game to do this. Another great homebrew example is Chetiry. Several of Bob's 7800 games contain speech as well.

 

Wouldn't it be cool if the AtariVox became obsoleted?

[Keatah]

With some minor improvements and continued polishing, the work being done can be considered a replacement I think.

 

 

To fix a typo, this post was

Edited July 24, 2017 by Keatah

[vidak]

I hope to be as half as talented as the people working on this game!