Touchdown Challenge

[Arenafoot]

Speaking of football, now that we have the DPC+ kernel, maybe somebody can make a single-player version of M Network's Super Challenge Football for the Atari 2600.

 

I would love to see this too!!!!

[bigfriendly]

M-Network football was a great game, but being 2 player only I didn't play it much. I think it would be possible with bB, but there'd be lots of flicker. I hate flicker. Even with this simple little football game there was no way to avoid it with all the sprites on screen. With that said, I'd love to see a sports game attempted with bB and I don't think that's been done before. Sports games are what I play most often on modern consoles.

 

I realize that this is an old post but I was wondering if you could explain more about the flicker factor. Is it because of BB can't handle all of the moving sprites but regular Atari code can? Both M-Network and Super Challenge football were very fun but the lack of two player on Super Challenge did suck. Real sports 2 player was way to basic and easy to beat. If you made a football game for the Atari 2600 but used more RAM 8 or 16K would that help with flicker?

 

Thanks

[+Atarius Maximus]

I realize that this is an old post but I was wondering if you could explain more about the flicker factor. Is it because of BB can't handle all of the moving sprites but regular Atari code can? Both M-Network and Super Challenge football were very fun but the lack of two player on Super Challenge did suck. Real sports 2 player was way to basic and easy to beat. If you made a football game for the Atari 2600 but used more RAM 8 or 16K would that help with flicker?

 

Thanks

 

It's not a RAM issue. Sprites flicker when multiple sprites occupy the same horizontal plane, you'll notice that the flickering in this game occurs when you move your player up toward the goal, the players will flicker when they are on the same horizontal plane. There isn't any way to get around it unless you design a game that makes the sprites move only left and right horizontally and never cross paths vertically.

[bigfriendly]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. But even in M-Network Super Challenge football when two players move up and down on the same plane they keep their solid orange and blue colors. Is it because the football field itself scrolls from side to side when moving the ball downfield? Also, would it be hard to program a game like Super Challenge as a one player game vs the CPU where the computer opponent was a real challenge?

[+Atarius Maximus]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. But even in M-Network Super Challenge football when two players move up and down on the same plane they keep their solid orange and blue colors. Is it because the football field itself scrolls from side to side when moving the ball downfield? Also, would it be hard to program a game like Super Challenge as a one player game vs the CPU where the computer opponent was a real challenge?

 

My comments were made specifically to the limitations inherent with batari Basic and DPC+. There are many tricks that skilled assembly programmers can pull off with a custom kernel. That's likely the case with the M-Network game. To your other question regarding AI, well, put simply, yes it's hard.

[Arenafoot]

I still can't score more than 21 on this title..............

[+Atarius Maximus]

I still can't score more than 21 on this title..............

 

There are 15 patterns for the defenders in the game before it starts to repeat. The best way to avoid the one defender that chases you all the time is to immediately move to the left or right side of the screen staying as far back in the end zone as possible, pause for a second or two, then move to the opposite side of the screen and race up the sideline dodging the defenders that simply move left & right. Which direction you move at the beginning of the round is key to getting a higher score based on the pattern of the defenders, and it takes a bit of memorization to get a high score. Below is a list of the best way to start off to get up to a score of 42.

 

To score 7 - start moving to the left

to score 14 - start moving to the left

to score 21 - start moving to the right

to score 28 - start moving to the left

to score 35 - start moving to the left

to score 42 - start moving to the right

[Arenafoot]

will try the hints.....thanks!