Andromeda Stardust Posted May 19, 2018 Share Posted May 19, 2018 For those of you who are interested I just did a complete playthrough of all the levels of Draconian (minus repeats) on last night's ZeroPage Homebrew Livestream on Twitch! It was definitely extremely challenging and a ton of fun. Enjoy! Draconian Complete Playthrough (Alpha, Beta, Gamma & Delta) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC7ov4mzYzo Haha nice, 3 hours... Great footage for weekend "lying in bed slightly drunk but can't sleep" watching! okaymy brain is prepared for 3 hr data upload... if you don't believe me check out my previous post on Atariage where I impersonate a robot. Sober people don't make up stuff like this:http://atariage.com/forums/topic/278165-baby-pac-man/?p=4030372 100mg dyphenyl hydramine 50mg doxylamine succonate Roughly 6 oz of Sailor Jerry's (94 proof spiced rum) EDIT: At some point, turned the tablet off and rolled over. Need to rewatch... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted May 19, 2018 Author Share Posted May 19, 2018 For those of you who are interested I just did a complete playthrough of all the levels of Draconian (minus repeats) on last night's ZeroPage Homebrew Livestream on Twitch! Comments after watching the Beta Quadrant playthrough. Original games were 2K. Largest game released back in the day was Fatal Run at 32K. It was a PAL only game, though an NTSC conversion was made by Thomas Jentzsch. Addressable space for the 6507 is 8K, not 4K. The lower 4K is used for internal hardware (RIOT, TIA) while upper 4K is used for cartridge. Address Line 12 determines if the 6507 is communicating with internal hardware or the cartridge port. The DPC+, BUS, and CDF coprocessors don't actually exist. When the Harmony cart was created, drivers were written to emulate the various hardware that implemented bankswitching. One of those drivers emulated the DPC coprocessor used in Pitfall II. Back in 2010 I experimented with DPC on my new Harmony cart. DPC was limited to 8K of game code and 2K of graphic data, so I asked about expanding the abilities of DPC to utilize the additional resources available in the Harmony. That eventually became DPC+. After more experience (ie: having written Space Rocks, Stay Frosty 2, and WIP projects Frantic & Timmy!) we came up with the specs for new coprocessors, BUS and CDF. One of the biggest changes was we streamlined the driver to use less ROM and RAM, which freed up 2K of each for the game (the drivers must be copied into RAM for performance reasons as code running in RAM is 4 times faster than ROM). Harmony Cart/Melody board has 32K ROM, 8K RAM. For CDF that's divvied up as: For comparison, here's the DPC+ layout: For Draconian only bank 6 was used for 6507 code, 0-5 are merged into the C code & data space. From the ARM's point of view the 32K is one contiguous address space, so no bankswitching needed for it. I also moved 1344 bytes from Display Data into the C Variables & Stack pool. Key thing to remember on the higher levels when the enemy missiles become faster than your ship is you can immediately change direction à la TRON while the missiles must bank to turn. Once you get a handle on that you can get behind the enemy missiles and take them out. I find it significantly easier to make quick direction changes with the joystick rather than gamepad. The Spy Ship makes a number of passes, determined by difficulty level, before triggering a red alert: Kids - 4 passes Easy - 3 passes Normal - 2 passes Hard - 1 pass Sync Pop should work for testing for dropped frames. Oh no - you missed a couple sectors! Beta has 22 sectors not 20. May not be a big issue though: B21 = A17 B22 = A16, but with a different starting position. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted May 19, 2018 Author Share Posted May 19, 2018 Comments after watching Gamma Quadrant playthrough.You started at sector 4! You did end up playing them all, just on the harder repeats.The stations in these 9 sectors use the radar to display the initials of key people in the project: A = Albert Yarusso N = Nathan Strum C = Chris Walton D = Don Switzer J = Jeff Johnson T = Thomas Jentzsch M = Michael Haas F = Fred Quimby D = Darrell Spice 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted May 19, 2018 Author Share Posted May 19, 2018 Comments after watching Delta Quadrant playthrough. There are 128 stars that are given a random X position of 0-255 and a random color. Random does mean they can end up in a line, just like you can flip a coin and get heads a large number of times in a row. The Y position is not random - it's star # times 2 so star 0's y=0, star 1's y=2, star 2's y=4, ..., star 127's y = 254. As such, the stars define a field that's 256x256 in size. The display is 160x160, so not all positions are initially onscreen. The starfield wraps around, so if you keep flying in 1 direction in a sector you'll eventually see the same stars again. Most of the sectors had names: Even in the arcade game it's unclear if it's saying Alert! Alert! or Alarm! Alarm! The samples in Draconian are from the arcade, so the ambiguity remains. Tune was actually fixed in the hotel room. I'd get a bad case of motion sickness if I'd tried to have fixed it in the car Correct, pixels are not 1:1. The Atari's pixel ratio is 12:7. Originally I treated them as 1:1 due to motion judder, but eventually changed that. You can learn more about it in these blog entries: TV Type option The Return of the Judder The missiles are normally pixels that are 1x, 2x, 4x or 8x in size. So you can easily draw a shot going left/right or up/down, but to draw diagonal shots requires the missile's position to be shifted left/right over subsequent scanlines. Enjoyed the show! Wish I'd caught it live. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 (edited) Wow Darrell, thank you for all the additional information about the game and also the how the ARM processor handles the emulation of DPC+, BUS and CDF, it's all incredibly insightful. I've tried to wrap my head around some of that for a while but having all the basics in one spot it what I've been looking for. Thank you for addressing all the mysteries that we were wondering about as we were playing the game, I think you addressed them all, including the mysterious synchronicity of the starfield's vertical lineup on that one level! Love it! Also THANK YOU so much for Sync Pop, that's EXACTLY what I was looking for to test out the video encoding and streaming!! This way I can go through frame by frame and see if there are any frame drops and how frequent they are! This is perfect! :-) Enjoyed the show! Wish I'd caught it live. Edited May 21, 2018 by cimmerian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 Darrell, where did you get that ratio of 12:7 (~1.71)? My sources say ~1.82, and this is currently used as NTSC default (/2) for Stella. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 (edited) <[clip]> Comments after watching the Beta Quadrant playthrough. Addressable space for the 6507 is 8K, not 4K. The lower 4K is used for internal hardware (RIOT, TIA) while upper 4K is used for cartridge. Address Line 12 determines if the 6507 is communicating with internal hardware or the cartridge port. This is hard for beginners and intermediate to remember. First because of the incorrect statement that only 4K game code can be accessed by the CPU. Second, because it is easy to assume 8-bit can access 8K, and the cheaper 6507 CPU can access 4K. Harmony Cart/Melody board has 32K ROM, 8K RAM. [clip] I didn't realize CDF can use the entire 40K, but now it makes sense. 40K is still smaller than most .jpg pictures! Edited May 21, 2018 by iesposta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 I didn't realize CDF can use the entire 40K, but now it makes sense. 40K is still smaller than most .jpg pictures! Yeah even the 32k games are tiny. Amazing that developers crammed as much as thry did into 4k bitd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted May 21, 2018 Author Share Posted May 21, 2018 Darrell, where did you get that ratio of 12:7 (~1.71)? My sources say ~1.82, and this is currently used as NTSC default (/2) for Stella. The footnote on 12:7 in The Return of the Judder refers to the following by EricBall, found in the comments on the Space Rocks blog entry Engage: The Atari 160 res pixel aspect ratio is 12:7. Square pixel NTSC (interlaced) has a pixel clock of 12.272727MHz or 780 pixels per line (640 active). For non-interlaced (like the Atari) the square pixel clock would be 6.136364MHz or 390 pixels per line. The Atari pixel clock is the same as colorburst, which is 3.579545MHz or 227.5 pixels per line (actually 228 but the Atari line is longer than a standard TV line). 390:227.5 = 780:455 = 12:7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmervine Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 Been meaning to get to this since PRGE last year: https://retrogameguy.com/2018/08/19/draconian-for-the-atari-2600/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 20, 2018 Author Share Posted August 20, 2018 Awesome, thanks! I see Nathan just posted his review of Draconian & Super Cobra Arcade as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Draconian is now available without the awesome box for $35. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted August 27, 2018 Share Posted August 27, 2018 Draconian is now available without the awesome box for $35. That is good news!! As I don't have enough space in my room to store boxes, I only buy/collect loose cartridges :-) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted August 28, 2018 Share Posted August 28, 2018 That is good news!! As I don't have enough space in my room to store boxes, I only buy/collect loose cartridges :-) Enjoy it, is worth every penny. I enjoy getting the earlybird cart releases. I do not enjoy paying extra for cardboard. Later... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 I’m glad Nathan wanted the arcade sound effects and shot down my suggestion to use explosion sounds. It would have sounded like this ColecoVision variation version. Draconian plays way better than this ColecoVision variation. I’m still amazed Draconian has TIA music better than the 800XL/XE using Pokey, and the computer version has 64K and 128K versions. Draconian is 32K. https://youtu.be/Wp13GBoXZi0?=6m27s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Just wanted to say draconian is STILL the best 2600 homebrew in this gamers humble opinion 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+HatNJ Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Just wanted to say draconian is STILL the best 2600 homebrew in this gamers humble opinion Agreed we have come so far with homebrews and many others that I feel are best also hard to make which the #1 but this is a game I always enjoyed and never thought the 2600 could do Glad I was wrong 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 Just wanted to say draconian is STILL the best 2600 homebrew in this gamers humble opinion I just ordered my first set of homebrew games from the AtariAge store: a copy of Draconian (the "no box" version) together with Star Castle Arcade, Wall Jump Ninja and Fall Down. Can't wait to play these games! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 Definitely an amazing set of games to start with!! :-) I just ordered my first set of homebrew games from the AtariAge store: a copy of Draconian (the "no box" version) together with Star Castle Arcade, Wall Jump Ninja and Fall Down. Can't wait to play these games! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 Just wanted to say draconian is STILL the best 2600 homebrew in this gamers humble opinionScramble and it's sequel, Super Cobra Arcade are close seconds. One thing I think adds much replay value is the Epsilon sector with randomized playfields everytime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 I love the artwork for the manual! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 Superb game !!! Played it yesterday for some hours again on my PAL-console !!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted November 22, 2018 Share Posted November 22, 2018 DOG I JUST GOT MY H. CART AND I SWEAR TO GOD I DONT HAVE THE 60 DOLLAR ATARVOX ADD-ON, BUT YOUR GAME HAS VOICE ON MY LIGHT 6'ER AND IT LOOKS VERY 3D, IT ALMOST LOOKS LIKE SEGA GENESIS OR SOMETHING Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted November 22, 2018 Share Posted November 22, 2018 wait wait wait wait wait, you put a menu option that cycles between pal, ntsc, and secam?? WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted November 22, 2018 Share Posted November 22, 2018 whoa ive never experenced secam before the colours dont look bad on my american rca........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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