MemberAtarian Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 (edited) 2018.09.09.: A little update: Changed colors of red swarms Optimized code, so it won't flicker with PF color on real hardware Added an endless mode. After you beat the boss, press fire or reset on the end screen, that will give you a stage like the 5th one, but you can only kill the people temporary. Although it seems right now impossible to cover Utopia for the Atari 2600 in Batari Basic, I found a way to learn using the multisprite kernel, so I'm gonna create my favorite Videopac game for my favorite console, so I can play with it without buying a Videopac again. Beeware will be much like the original, controlling a swarm of killing bees and killing people. You have to avoid swarm of enemy bees, but you can kill them with your charged laser. Of course, I will add some elements to the original. You can watch Killer Bees here, if you are not familiar with it: Beeware_NTSC_0.08.bas.bin Beeware_NTSC_0.24.bas.bin Beeware_PAL_0.24.bas.bin Beeware_PAL60_0.24.bas.bin Beeware_NTSC_0.25.bas.bin Beeware_PAL60_0.25.bas.bin Beeware_NTSC_0.28.bas.bin Beeware_PAL60_0.28.bas.bin Edited September 9, 2018 by MemberAtarian 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accousticguitar Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Killer Bees is one of my favorite games for the O2. I will be looking forward to a 2600 version of this great game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 2, 2018 Author Share Posted May 2, 2018 There will be a lot to do, but at least it starts to look like the game I want. The biggest problem is the collision, as you and the cannons are created from p0 sprite, the 3 enemy swarms are made by sprite5, a pseudo sprite of player1 in multisprite kernel of Batari Basic moved across the screen. The other hard part is optimizing, I end up with 263-267 circles as I touch something. I made my own rules, the enemy swarms respawns till there are people left. The people have the same AI as the scientist had in Apollyon, they try to avoid you as you got closer. There are two kind of swarms, red is just wandering around, blue is following you. What awaits you on stage 6? Let it remain a mystery. Beeware_NTSC_0.08.bas.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenfuzz Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 I'm not familiar with the O2 game so have no idea what is happening in the video. Do you have a manual planned? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 3, 2018 Author Share Posted May 3, 2018 I'm not familiar with the O2 game so have no idea what is happening in the video. Do you have a manual planned? I had not learned how to use Krita and Inkscape this year for nothing. You are a swarm of bees and killing people. In the original game they are more like aliens, but I think killing humans is more satisfying. There is a lazer cannon pair at the edges of the stage, they are charged after a short time. (in this case, the counter goes up to 255), they are following your y coordinate, so you can eliminate anyone who's on the same "scanline" as you. The enemy swarms can be only killed that way. I don't really remember if there were more behavior of the swarms, in my game, there are two kind, the red is easy to avoid, but the blue is following you. Interestingly, the Videopac is weaker in many aspects, than the VCS, but it can handle more sprites (4 unique, 12 prebuilt and 4 quad in a line) and have an additional 64 bytes in the CPU, added to the 128 bytes video/audio RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Nice. I'll be checking this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 15, 2018 Author Share Posted May 15, 2018 I fixed some bugs (LOL) with placement and collsisions (the collisions are not using the rutine of the VCS, but cheching difference of variables), but more important, I created a logic to reduce flicker of enemy swarms, basically if an enemy swarm is at the same position as a person or grave, their y coordinate becomes 160, so they disappear and the TIA can draw the swarm. So I can draw 7 sprites by placing p1 sprite. I will start developing the last stage, it will be epic. End of course, I have another homebrew idea in my had, inspired by an anime I saw 10 years ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 I fixed some bugs (LOL) with placement and collsisions (the collisions are not using the rutine of the VCS, but cheching difference of variables), but more important, I created a logic to reduce flicker of enemy swarms, basically if an enemy swarm is at the same position as a person or grave, their y coordinate becomes 160, so they disappear and the TIA can draw the swarm. So I can draw 7 sprites by placing p1 sprite. I will start developing the last stage, it will be epic. End of course, I have another homebrew idea in my had, inspired by an anime I saw 10 years ago. You may want to enable phosphor mode in stella before uploading to Youtube. Youtube downsamples the framerate to 30Hz and makes games that use flicker routines borderline unwatchable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 16, 2018 Author Share Posted May 16, 2018 Wow. I was not aware of this mode! Thank you! I will use it for recording the NTSC version from now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 21, 2018 Author Share Posted May 21, 2018 The development is nearly finished, but we require to find all the bugs we could. Can you help me? Sorry, youtube drops the FPS to 30. :/ Beeware_NTSC_0.22.bas.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easmith Posted May 21, 2018 Share Posted May 21, 2018 I played this a bit on Harmony cart. This has potential to bee very fun game. I enjoyed playing it , so this is not negative criticism just might make it better. 1. The collision detection is still off it seems with enemy swarms I don;t know how you are doing the detection, but I know a routine that is very effective. You make a rectangle around the object using leftx, rightx, topy, bottomy, then the routine logic is: if enemy left x > player right x then no collision else if enemy right x < player left x then no collsion else if enemy bottom y > player top y then no collision else if enemy top y < player bottom y then no collision else collision occurred 2. The flicker gave me a headache after a very short time playing. I don't know if there is a way to fix this . It is not so much the enemy swarms as the humans and tombstones and laser cannons. 3. It seems you could make the play area a little larger. It gets pretty crowded and hard to avoid the enemies, especially in the boss level ( which is very cool by the way). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 22, 2018 Author Share Posted May 22, 2018 1. I do it with this rutin: if player0x>player1x then temp1=player0x-player1x else temp1=player1x-player0x if temp1<10 then "collision" I will try to do it with your ideas, I have a lot of time for that right now. 2. The problem is that this is not assembly, so I have p1-p5 for all the enemies. p1-p4 are the people and the tombstones, while the 3 swarms share p5. n{0} and n{1} creates a three turn based drawning, as with !n{0} p0 is your swarm, with n{0} and !n{1} it's the left cannon and with n{1} it's the right cannon. So with this, you would NEVER collide with swarm 2 or 3, so I used the rutine I mentioned above. And because you can see every swarm in every third turn, and p1, p2, p3, p4 and p5 are basically all p1, mostly the swarms disappeared for sight, so if p1, p2, p3 or p4 shares the same line as p5, p5 is always above, so the person player go to y position 160 if they met. 3. That is the only part that is not included in the original game. I will see if I could make the space bigger, I really hated creating the pf in multisprite kernel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 24, 2018 Author Share Posted May 24, 2018 Just some visual material. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 25, 2018 Author Share Posted May 25, 2018 I think these will be the finals. Beeware_NTSC_0.24.bas.bin Beeware_PAL_0.24.bas.bin Beeware_PAL60_0.24.bas.bin 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KaeruYojimbo Posted May 26, 2018 Share Posted May 26, 2018 Very cool! I love the original game and this improves on it it nearly every way. My only complaint is that is is so short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 Very cool! I love the original game and this improves on it it nearly every way. My only complaint is that is is so short. Yeah, games back in the day worked like every level is the same, but faster. I was thinking as well that maybe after that you have beaten the big bee, you can go an infinite round with a level like the fifht. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Just some visual material. I would so love for this to be the cart art! Just put Beeware on the end label! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 This will be a standalone poster. I already sent three games plans to Dudek for release, but he fears a bit that the spicy price of the molding form for the cartridge won't come back, so I have to do a lot more games before releasing them. I would so love for this to be the cart art! Just put Beeware on the end label! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Cool! Will be giving this a spin! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Big Odyssey 2 fan here... Excited about this project, but will it play with a trackball? The Odyssey 2 game actually worked with the super rare O2 trackball... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Also, the voice added something to this game; I guess you could create comparable sounds with the Atarivox... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 Big Odyssey 2 fan here... Excited about this project, but will it play with a trackball? The Odyssey 2 game actually worked with the super rare O2 trackball... Really? I always played it with the joystick. Odyssey has really bad joystick though. I don't know if there is a way to make Batari Basic use the trackball. I know there is an asm include for keypads and paddle, but to be hones, most people only own the joysticks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Yes really... http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/odyssey2/trackball/ I think the O2 joystick, with its range of motion, is far superior to the CX40 for open field games like killer bees (though you could argue the CX40 was better for left right shooters). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemberAtarian Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 Yes really... http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/odyssey2/trackball/ I think the O2 joystick, with its range of motion, is far superior to the CX40 for open field games like killer bees (though you could argue the CX40 was better for left right shooters). There are some games that are better with CX40, like Hero, Thrust+, Super Cobra Arcade, but as you said, I mostly use a Sega Master System controller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 30, 2018 Share Posted May 30, 2018 Really? I always played it with the joystick. Odyssey has really bad joystick though. I don't know if there is a way to make Batari Basic use the trackball. I know there is an asm include for keypads and paddle, but to be hones, most people only own the joysticks. You can simply focus on making the game to work with a joystick and one of our enterprising hackers will add trackball support. It worked for Colony 7 I now exclusively play Centipede and Millipede with Trackball controllers... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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