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Entry 2018: Boot Hill


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I'm going to attempt to port my recent colecovision game "Boot Hill" to intybasic. I'm not sure if I can do it as i'm less familiar with intybasic than c++ but I'll give it a try. Here is some mockups. I'll probably have to go with the tiny characters due to need more room to roam around the screen.

 

mockup higher res

mockup V2  higher res

 

Edited by digress
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Ok I got some stuff working. I think I can get the majority of things working in intybasic. Had to figure my way to convert some functions into GOSUBS and the like but they seem to be working good so far.

 

here is a video of what I got on the go so far:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7kNWJecU_I&feature=youtu.be

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will do with the lower case letters and trunicated text. Nice programming language. I might even be able to then port the basic final program to atari 7800.

 

I get an occasional glitch with the mode seeming to change back to color stack mode without me doing it and the colors are messed up. . I temporarily added the foreground/background mode into the main loop to keep it from showing too often.

 

Now i need to finish getting the a.i. in there.

 

Nice graphics and music! :)

I would suggest to used Color Stack mode in options screen in order to be able to use lowercase letters. Also to abbreviate your menu items using other words.

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I get an occasional glitch with the mode seeming to change back to color stack mode without me doing it and the colors are messed up. . I temporarily added the foreground/background mode into the main loop to keep it from showing too often.

This is probably a bug in your code because IntyBASIC should remain in the mode you last set it to. Personally, I would try and track the bug down now instead of applying a sticking plaster that will come back to bite you down the line.

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I get an occasional glitch with the mode seeming to change back to color stack mode without me doing it and the colors are messed up. . I temporarily added the foreground/background mode into the main loop to keep it from showing too often.

This means some of your screen writing code is using trash as input and writing to address $0021, the result is the change of video mode.

 

I think you can trap writes to a certain address using jzintv integrated debugger.

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I tracked it down. It was caused by the psg playback call

ON FRAME GOSUB play_sound

 

When I disable it the problem goes away. So it might be my sound data needs fixing.

 

confirmed when I switched the sound data it went away also. So it doesn't like something in my song.

 

This is probably a bug in your code because IntyBASIC should remain in the mode you last set it to. Personally, I would try and track the bug down now instead of applying a sticking plaster that will come back to bite you down the line.

 

This means some of your screen writing code is using trash as input and writing to address $0021, the result is the change of video mode.

I think you can trap writes to a certain address using jzintv integrated debugger.

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I tracked it down. It was caused by the psg playback call

ON FRAME GOSUB play_sound

 

When I disable it the problem goes away. So it might be my sound data needs fixing.

 

confirmed when I switched the sound data it went away also. So it doesn't like something in my song.

:cool: I'm glad you took the time to track it down.

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The game is looking good. Nice work! :thumbsup:

 

Here are some suggestions for improvements:

  • Change to Color Stack mode in options screen to use lower-case letters. Or even better: define your own cowboy-themed custom fonts in GRAM and use that instead. (The Intellivision GROM fonts suck balls.)
  • If you intend to keep the options screen as part of the game (and not just for debugging), you may want to consider organizing and laying it out a bit to make it more pleasant. Try to use the space more effectively.
  • It looks like you are re-drawing the entire options screen on every input (all the text flashes with the sprites). You may want to avoid doing this and only update the necessary parts. Flicker can get distracting to the user.
  • You should highlight more the options that the player is changing. For example, "SPEED IS FAST" should perhaps have "FAST" in reverse video so that it catches the attention of the player as he changes it.
  • When the screen transitions from "options" to "game-play," there is a brief glitch as the colors are not set correctly. It is common to blank out the screen during transitions, then synchronise with the frame interrupt, and try to draw it all at once so as to avoid the glitch and flicker.
  • One of the strengths of the Intellivision (at least in its hey-day) was that it was easy to make colourful screens. Other platforms, in contrast, required painting the backgrounds systematically and so avoided it by sticking to a black screen. Unless you are trying to adhere to a specific style, I recommend using a more colourful background that fits your western theme. :)
  • I suppose that "SC:00" on each side of the HUD bar stands for the score. If so, I recommend just putting the numbers, not the "SC," which is superfluous and confusing.
  • There is something definitely flakey with the way you are drawing the screen: I see many glitches as the score is being updated, and even a yellow field flicker as the bullet ricochets (1:46 in the video). You may want to review your drawing techniques to see what's going on.

That's it for now. I know you are just starting, so some of the things above may not be as important right now as getting the game done. I like the music and the game-play so far. Nice job!

 

-dZ.

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More colourful menu

Both fighters can now shoot & kill each other

collision detection (you can bump into things & shoot holes in them

still playing with the music & fx

collision of bullets at wrong tile

and some weird glitch with 2 bullets. will check it out.

 

 

Looking good! The colourful menu looks much better. I'm not too fond of the music -- it's fine, it just doesn't fit as well as the other one. When I think of a "western" theme, bebop rock from the '50s does not spring to mind.

 

-dZ.

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The other music is only temporary as I needed to track down what was casusing the mode to revert to color stack in the middle of a game. It's actually still happening. I thought it was fixed but it's not.

 

You can use the jzIntv debugger with a read-watch on the mode register to see who's modifying it. You'll have to get your hands dirty, though.

 

We could help you if you post a binary and the assembly listing (".lst") file. If you do not feel comfortable posting it publicly, just send a private PM. Any of the judges would be very happy to help you.

 

Alternatively, you could post a snippet of the code you use to set the screen.

 

-dZ.

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good point.. it didn't actually show this time.. It had happended since in other tests. I thinks its the On gosub play_sound call that does it.

 

I might try the regular play_music and see if that works better for me but I want to concentrate on getting the additional features working first such as a moving stage coach & correct tile collision.

 

 

By the way, what makes you think that the problem is the mode being changed? If that were to happen in the middle of the game, it would screw up the colours badly, but I just don't see that.

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The other music is only temporary as I needed to track down what was casusing the mode to revert to color stack in the middle of a game. It's actually still happening. I thought it was fixed but it's not.

You can insert STACK_CHECK into your code to see if the stack is overflowing. It'll stop your game and display Stack overflow on the top. This is a good way to determine when there's strange thing happening in your game. This involve jumping out of a gosub via goto.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Premptive reload. perhaps. I love the idea of chasing him down trying to shoot him in the back as he runs for the reload and hoping he doesn't reach it just as you run out of bullets.

 

after round 5 he has unlimited bullets anyways just to make it harder. so he wouldn't ever pursue it then unless...he had a premptive ammo run just to play keep away.

 

 

He could go for bullets also if he has room for them and the bullets are within a given range

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Thanks for posting the ROM. It's fun to try out a game that's quite a ways along but is still a work in progress.

 

This is going to be fun. I already like shooting my opponent in the back, though I'm sure that says more about me than it does about the game.

 

– It's frustrating right now when bullets pass through without getting a kill. Do you have to get a head shot?

 

– The timer is really slow. It takes 2:18 to count down from 60.

 

– The menu is... OK. It's not clear to me why the two gunfighters are on the screen and why they react for some options and not others. Going back to saying "Normal Mode" and "Zombie Mode" would make that choice clearer. "Music On" and "Off" instead of "ON" and "OFF" would lessen the collision of letters with the line above.

 

– Should black (invisible) be a color choice for a player? Seems like the left player can't pick that color.

 

– I agree with DZ about the "SC" used to indicate the score. Using the player color for the number should make it obvious. If the player color is black, you'd need a background color for the digits.

 

– It's not apparent that pressing 1 starts the game. That should either be in the list or at the bottom instead of the second copyright notice.

 

– The Intellivision side buttons aren't normally referred to as Fire, and "Fire 2 Change Colour" just looks clunky. Better to just list it in the menu as "8 - Change Colour"

 

– On the subject of the side buttons, they should all work in this game, whether it's on the menu or shooting. Some players will prefer shooting with the top buttons, and right now they're not used.

 

I'm looking forward to playing this again. With a human opponent, it should be a lot of fun.

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