LadyLady Graphics Demo

[R_Leo_1]

Finally made some time to work on this more, and decided it should be in it's own topic so I can post any updates to here, instead of on the old-unrelated topic.

I managed to get some screen transitions and nice fade in/out, however keep in mind this is unfinished so things may not always be perfect lol.

 

The demo will consist of the title screen, and an introduction that tells the plot of the hypothetical game, with lots of nice art and text to read

 

Always open to suggestions and feedback, thanks!

 

Here's the ROM

 

LadyLady.a78

[RevEng]

So... damn... cool!

[+Sauron]

Looking very nice so far!

[Mord]

Something's wrong.  I keep throwing money at the monitor but nothing's happening. :/

[R_Leo_1]

Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm happy everyone is liking it so far

[+Karl G]

Impressive!

[+Karl G]

Here's a YouTube Link for anyone who can't easily see it in an emulator:

 

 

[PacManPlus]

That looks AWESOME!

[TailChao]

Nice to see this is still being worked on, curious to see how you'll stylize the in-game content

 

In the second intro screen ("THE SURFACE OF MARS...") - you might be able to get a little more impact with the parallax mountains by darkening the color of the ones further back, then nudging the closer ones upward to slightly overlap with them. Just the peaks would be enough (and wouldn't eat too much bandwidth).

[Jaden (JRH)]

I'm not sure who this LadyLady is, but she's adorable and I hope she gets her own game.

[R_Leo_1]

6 hours ago, Karl G said:

Impressive!

 

3 hours ago, PacManPlus said:

That looks AWESOME!

 

2 hours ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

I'm not sure who this LadyLady is, but she's adorable and I hope she gets her own game.

Thanks again guys! I appreciate it very much!

3 hours ago, TailChao said:

Nice to see this is still being worked on, curious to see how you'll stylize the in-game content

 

In the second intro screen ("THE SURFACE OF MARS...") - you might be able to get a little more impact with the parallax mountains by darkening the color of the ones further back, then nudging the closer ones upward to slightly overlap with them. Just the peaks would be enough (and wouldn't eat too much bandwidth).

Thank you! That is a good idea, I actually plan to change the mountains from 320A to 320B, so giving more color to add depth is a great idea! Unfortunately, Kangaroo mode is on for this screen, so I couldn't overlap the peaks, unless I was to change the mode mid-frame, which I'm not sure exactly how to go about doing that lol. However, if I can learn how, I'd be a great addition

[SlidellMan]

Just how did you do the parallax scrolling, and what kind of game is this going to be?

[R_Leo_1]

59 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

Just how did you do the parallax scrolling, and what kind of game is this going to be?

Since Maria just splits the screen into horizontal zones, you can scroll specific zones of the screen to simulate parallax (Or all of them for just regular scrolling), it's actually way easier than any other console I've heard of, with other systems you usually have to use horizontal interrupts to segment the screen.

 

Oh, and the game would be a 2d Arcade style action-platformer, think Shinobi or Rolling Thunder

But this is always subject to change of course lol.

[+SmittyB]

15 hours ago, R_Leo_1 said:

unless I was to change the mode mid-frame, which I'm not sure exactly how to go about doing that

In 7800BASIC you can create a subroutine called 'topscreen' that starts at the top of the visible screen (hence the name, very clever) and from there you can wait by writing to 'WSYNC' for as many lines as you need, make the change you want, then return.

 

The splitmode demo shows how to do this, or I can post a small example later.

 

It's a good idea to return from the subroutine as soon as you can because your program will essentially be doing nothing while it waits, and that's time that could be used for other things.

[BydoEmpire]

That looks incredible, great work!

[R_Leo_1]

39 minutes ago, SmittyB said:

In 7800BASIC you can create a subroutine called 'topscreen' that starts at the top of the visible screen (hence the name, very clever) and from there you can wait by writing to 'WSYNC' for as many lines as you need, make the change you want, then return.

 

The splitmode demo shows how to do this, or I can post a small example later.

 

It's a good idea to return from the subroutine as soon as you can because your program will essentially be doing nothing while it waits, and that's time that could be used for other things.

Oh wow this is perfect! I was wondering if basic had a way of doing this, guess I needed to read up on it more lol. I'll give this a try for sure

[R_Leo_1]

I wanted to post a quick update. I know it's been quite some time since I've shown anything but trust me I have been working on this project, there's just been many set-backs due to programming flubs and school. I wanted to discuss exactly what issues I've run into, and what has actually been updated since last time.

 

Firstly, not long after posting the first update I decided to rewrite the code almost completely from scratch since it was very unorganized, inefficient, and all-around hard to work with. This ended up taking a lot longer than expected, roughly 2 weeks of working each night after school. 

 

I then decided I would create routines for fading the screen in and out, to save space and have more efficient code. While not perfect, I got it working in about 5 days.

 

In between coding everything, I was also creating/updating graphics for new and previously made screens. I updated the LadyLady character and logo on the title screen to better utilize the 160B palette, used the topscreen routine to change the display mode on the parallax screen and added a new screen afterwards.

 

After all of these changes and interruptions due to school and the like, I was finally gonna post a new update ROM, however I ran into a new problem... space. I had hit my 48k limit after 4 full screens of graphics, and unless I was to utilize compression to fit more into less. To top it off, I had encountered some kind of graphical glitch that I was unable to resolve, I had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with my space being so dangerously low, to somehow corrupt graphics in earlier banks.

 

I then realized I was going to need to learn how to work with bankswitching in 7800Basic, and I would need to rewrite my code again, to work with a 128k bankswitching method. It has been a rough transition, and I have been unable to get even one of my created screens to display, to at least get my foot in the door.

 

So here we are, I am finally on a week-long break and have the opportunity to code some more on this, however due to having to basically start over again, it may be some time before another update is available. To give people something to chew on until then, I'm gonna post the unfinished 48k version ROM and code, complete with updated screens, a brand new screen, and a minor graphical glitch I was unable to fix. If anyone is able to help explain what is causing the graphical glitch, then please give me a holler, I would love to know what's going on with this. 

 

Also, special thanks to Mord for assisting me so far through the project, this wouldn't have been possible without his help.

 

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing okay and if anyone has any feedback I'd love to hear it.

 

Files:

LadyLadyNewStruct.bas.a78 LLZIP.zip

Edited August 11, 2020 by R_Leo_1
Forgot to thank Mord for his assistance.

[SlidellMan]

Leo, I know how that feels. I had to rewrite Heofonfīr, not once, twice, thrice, but four times. However, I keep getting nothing.

[R_Leo_1]

4 minutes ago, SlidellMan said:

Leo, I know how that feels. I had to rewrite Heofonfīr, not once, twice, thrice, but four times. However, I keep getting nothing.

Yeah, it isn't so bad to rewrite early on, fail fast and all that, but once you're super far into something it becomes a MUCH bigger issue. However, just persist man, with enough practice and clever problem solving, something will come together.

[SlidellMan]

Thanks, and feel free to critique the sprites I made for it. (Truth be told, I'm not the best artist despite numerous Loomis, Bridgman, and Hogarth studies. Not helped by the fact that almost no one bothered with what I posted on ConceptArt.org before it went under.)

[R_Leo_1]

I'll be sure to give them a look