I is for Intellivision

[+atari2600land]

So I'm working on the lowercase I game for the Odyssey 2, thinking to myself, there's gotta be a better way to do this. Then I thought to myself "Hey! Intellivision starts with the letter I! Why not program this game for the Intellivision?" So here is the title screen to "lowercase I"...for the Intellivision. It's been a while since I have programmed for this machine, so I need to get back into it, but anyway, bonus points go to those who can identify the title screen song. Sprite 0 will be the I base, sprite 1 will be the dot, and I think the Hs can be freely moving Hs from the alphabet, right? I can, say, plant an H anywhere on the screen and have it move by 1 pixel instead of 8, right?

 

igame.bin

[+DZ-Jay]

So, if it is "lowercase I," wouldn't it be "i"?

 

I recognize the title song, but can't identify it...

[+DZ-Jay]

I can, say, plant an H anywhere on the screen and have it move by 1 pixel instead of 8, right?

 

 

Only if it is in a MOB. If you are planning on drawing it on the background, you cannot move it. You will have to pre-compute the various offset graphics and cycle them like animation. For this, you will need two cards (for movement along one axis) or four cards (for movement along two axes), since the image may straddle multiple cards at any given time.

 

-dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I've been programming it a little bit more. I am slowly trying to get back into knowing how to do stuff. I drew the I on the grass.

The song is...

 

 

 

[+DZ-Jay]

I drew the I on the grass.

 

 

You mean the "i"

 

 

 

The song is...

<spoiler>

 

 

Aha! Of course!!! That's great!

 

Let us know if you need help with anything.

[+atari2600land]

The i can now move around the screen. The screen will change like it does in Pitfall (once you get to the right, the screen changes and you get to the left side of the screen.) But for now, there's an intro. After the intro is done playing, you can move the I with the joypad and pressing Fire will make the i throw his dot like a boomerang. This nifty feature will be used to do various tasks, like kill enemy Hs, for one. I am actually worried though, that this might not be a very long game, though. The biggest game I can have is 32k, right? The binary file is already at 6k, and I just started!

 

igame.bin

[+atari2600land]

Fixed a bug with the i dot throwing.

igame.bin

[carlsson]

You mentioned boomerang. It'd be cool if the dot moves further away the longer you hold down the button, the retracts when the button is released.

 

While Pitfall! traditionally shifts one screen at a time, you might want to experiment with smooth horizontal scrolling, at least on some screens wider than the display. IntyBASIC is highly capable of such scrolling, at the small expensive that all background content (including any score display, unless implemented as valuable MOBs) will scroll along.

 

I think setup takes most of the code size, but there are examples how to get up to 42K so you might not reach the ceiling just yet.

 

Oh yes, you're aware it still is only April 2016, right? Perhaps that is kind of a funny way to say "this game will take time to finish" by stating copyright one year ahead.

[+5-11under]

I think setup takes most of the code size, but there are examples how to get up to 42K so you might not reach the ceiling just yet.

 

atari2600land is also counting bytes, via the file size... so... he can get 84K file size with a bit of work.

[+atari2600land]

Yes, I know. I put 2017 because I doubt I can get it finished this year. Or can I? If so, I can change it to say 2016. I put in carlsson's suggestion about the dot throwing. Health meter is also added. It starts at 99 and if it gets to 00, then the game ends.

igame.bin

[carlsson]

Cool! If it was my game, I'd make the dot go even further. See for example Frak! for the C64, BBC Micro and Electron (hm.. I thought it existed for Atari 8-bit computers too, but apparently not). While this is a rather different type of game, the idea with the yo-yo is a bit similar to your i-dot. At 1:22 into the video, the player extends the yo-yo far beyond the visible area to get rid of a monster otherwise not reachable.

 

Of course one side effect of having a dot very far away from the player is that if some enemy or obstacle appears inbetween the two, the dot might not be able to retract in time to remove the problem, so sometimes you might want to keep the dot close to you.

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by carlsson

[GroovyBee]

See for example Frak! for the C64, BBC Micro and Electron

Also available in a NSFW version on the Beeb (don't know about the others).

[+atari2600land]

Extended the reach of the dot.

igame.bin

[+DZ-Jay]

Extended the reach of the dot.

 

Looking good so far. How is the game-play supposed to be? I've never seen this game before. Also, I would recommend making the dot travel faster, or at least accelerate and decelerate at a faster rate.

 

-dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I've added some game play. Screen 2 has a river to cross. Lowercase i's are afraid of water and can't go in. Luckily for you there's a raft, but it's on the other side of the river. After you cross the river, an uppercase H comes along. Touching it loses a little bit of your health, so it's best to defeat the H as fast as possible with your dot.

I've discovered some things while programming this, like you can't name a variable "screen". I had to name it "numberscreen" instead. I was having some weird problems with some sprites once the H gets defeated, so I nulled their visibility and put them up high where you can't reach them.

 

 

 

igame.bin

[+atari2600land]

Made the dot faster. I also added some music for the intro. I'm wondering if I should have music play during the game or not.

igame3intv.zip

[carlsson]

GroovyBee: Yes, there was a F*CK version of the same game on the C64 too. I suppose it was too tempting to not modify the graphics, in particular as I suppose Frak! already is an euphemism for the other word.

 

atari2600land: I think it is shaping up nicely. As for ingame music, perhaps jingles on particular levels?

 

I took the liberty of making an alternative version, with the more yo-yo like behavior, but since it is your game, you decide how it should play. Perhaps once the dot is retracting, it should not respond to fire button until it has fully returned back home again. I noticed I broke the raft on level 2...

 

igame-alt.bas

igame-alt.bin

Edited April 6, 2016 by carlsson

[+DZ-Jay]

Made the dot faster. I also added some music for the intro. I'm wondering if I should have music play during the game or not.

 

I like the intro music, and I like the new speed of motion. It's looking good.

 

I still don't know what I am supposed to do in the game, but I like how it's coming along.

 

I do suggest one thing: the dot of the "i" should not loop while the button is pressed: it should only do one round trip. If the player wants to "shoot" it multiple times, he should just press it more than once.

Edited April 7, 2016 by DZ-Jay

[carlsson]

It strikes me that the number pad could be used to choose "dot type". Perhaps even that the player would pick up different types of dots over time so at the beginning you get a limited dot that just makes one short round trip, neither stays extended or keeps going when the button is pressed. Then you get a power-up that gives you the extended yo-yo, another power-up that gets a dot which will circulate around the player when you hold the button. On some levels, a certain type of dot might be preferrable over the other ones.

[+atari2600land]

The dot of the i doesn't loop any more. I also added another screen with a wall. I hadn't run into the bug on screen 2 with the raft until just now. I know the wall won't work on screen 5. It's only supposed to work for screen 4 because screen 5 will have something different.

@DZ-Jay: The object of the game is to keep going until you see the Master H. You'd know him if you saw him. But he's not in the game yet, this is just starting.

igame4intv.zip

[+DZ-Jay]

The dot of the i doesn't loop any more. I also added another screen with a wall. I hadn't run into the bug on screen 2 with the raft until just now. I know the wall won't work on screen 5. It's only supposed to work for screen 4 because screen 5 will have something different.

@DZ-Jay: The object of the game is to keep going until you see the Master H. You'd know him if you saw him. But he's not in the game yet, this is just starting.

 

 

I took the raft and then the "H" killed me (I think, I couldn't move any more). I tried shooting at it, but nothing happened. Is there something missing?

 

-dZ.

[+atari2600land]

Did you successfully get across the river?

[carlsson]

The version I tried late last night (post #16) seemed to have a bit rough collision detection regarding fighting the H, but sometimes I managed to get rid of it. A typical thing that will be improved over time.

 

Really fun, I must say. Apart of Pitfall!, it also reminds me of this C64 homebrew Smurf game (which is different from the commercial Smurf games), a little bit of Hunchback and all sorts of other side moving arcade games in the pre-SMB era. I think it has some potential.

[+atari2600land]

Thanks. I changed the way the wall works on screen 4. If the H sees the i, he'll charge it, so once you press the button to lift the wall, be sure to move up so you're not in his line of sight

 

igame4a.bin

[+atari2600land]

I want to work on this, but I have no ideas on screens I can do.