free mini game: bexa64n

[LianneJaguar64]

Tiny playing window!

[sh3-rg]

Tiny playing window!

 

Tiny everything, it's the miniest minigame on jaguar*

 

*probably

[jericho_21]

I have a question. Will Bello BASIC be released to others on AA, or is it just going to be proprietary for Bello Games?

[sh3-rg]

I have a question. Will Bello BASIC be released to others on AA, or is it just going to be proprietary for Bello Games?

 

As far as Jaguar is concerned, Bello Basic is 99.999% Raptor Basic+. As for the Falcon support, I'll quote GGN from atari-forum (although the one week hackjob is now a 2 week hackjob and is presenting a lot more of the full version of Bexagon):

 

Its great news to me that youve extended it for F030.

 

Well, for now it was literally a one week hackjob to see if it's feasible to port bexagon to the Falcon. So far results have been encouraging but it also means there's tons of work to do yet.

 

I would be interested in seeing the speed differences between Falcon/Jag.

Would be amazing tool to have especially with some TT/ST/e support eventually!

 

Well, realistically speaking it'll be a massacre - the Jaguar has a couple of chips dedicated for drawing graphics around without programmer intervention, while the ST/Falcon has... just a frame buffer? Oh dear!

 

However, it doesn't mean I won't go down without a fight - there's a lot of tricks that could be employed depending on the use case. (that's actually another issue - the Jaguar's OP can give a lot of performance with even untuned generic code, while on ST/Falcon you might have to bleed). It's safe to say that I will be trying my luck integrating a certain toolkit by a certain Scottish fellow, plus other fun stuff!

[jericho_21]

OK, cool. So, is there a release timeline for Bello BASIC to AtariAge, or will it still take a while to release it? I am curious because I would love to learn this new version of BASIC, so I can produce my own programs. You may already have answered the question with the similarity comparison between this version and Raptor BASIC+. If I missed something, I apologize. I am excited, that is all, for seeing Bello BASIC in action with Jaguar and Atari 16/32 computers. It would open up a whole new world of homebrew games to the market, at least that is what I am excited about, anyway. From what I have seen already, it shows prowess. Thanks.

[sh3-rg]

There's no timeline and no promises, if it ends up workable and in a state where others would be able to make use of it, GGN isn't one to sit on things and keep them to himself. If you want to learn and be ready if/when it does arrive, best thing to do now is dive in to rb+ - that makes producing simple games trivial once you've got a basic understanding of how the jaguar works and what raptor does to hand a good chunk of that to you on a plate including automating all kinds of nuts & bolts stuff.

 

But as GGN said in the quote above, none of that is present on the Falcon, he's going to have to implement things rb+ offers on jaguar in software on the falcon, and in a way that suits the hardware rather than mimicking the jaguar. The main bexagon game is already in a good state running on the falcon, but it uses very little of the jaguar's hardware trickery to present the game (what goes on behind the curtain, it's all smoke and mirrors, etc. etc.), which is why it's an idea candidate for a port and why GGN had the ideal of automating as much of it as possible via "bello basic" rather than cut&pasting and hand-editing as you would with a regular port.

Edited April 9, 2018 by sh3-rg

[jericho_21]

Ok. That's cool. Just curious. Thanks.

[ggn]

There are a couple of reasons bello basic isn't released yet. First of all it's pretty much the same as raptor basic+ on the jaguar side with a few enhancements here and there but nothing earth shattering.

 

On the Falcon side for now it can:

 

- Set up the machine (resolution, etc)

- Read the keyboard, powerpads/rotaries (jagpad? pffft no such word for ST people ), keyboard

- Play a .mod file with optional sound effects

- Play a .mp2 file (because we're not jaguar peons with their lousy μlaw packed samples )

- Sync to the vertical retrace and set the screen

- Execute basic code

 

Notice something missing from that list? It doesn't mention "sprites" at all! And for a good reason - this is a complex subject and will need a lot of experimentation to get working at an acceptable speed. At the moment most of my time is consumed by bexagon which doesn't need that many things moving on screen. Eventually moving things support will be added but I might not necessarily follow the interface raptor uses. Anyway it's a bit early to say anything about this.

 

Another major reason for not releasing bello basic is support: the whole system is in flux right now; things break often and they are also fixed quickly. But this works fine because there are only two people involved. I can't really imagine what would happen if this was released to the public and everyone started sending in bug reports! I just can't handle something like this right now.

 

If I would take a stab at a timeline would be: Bexagon finished for Falcon -> ufly/BKWH finished on Jaguar -> ufly/BKWH -> probably around this point there would be enough stuff in there stable enough for a public release. No idea about time frame either, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

So there you go, I hope this clarifies things a bit!

[jericho_21]

It does. Thanks. No worries. No rush.

Edited April 10, 2018 by jericho_21