E.X.O. [Done]

[Synthpopalooza]

Dragonfly is 2x POKEY, Yamaha,  and Covox.

 

On the Dragonfly, both POKEY are mapped at $440 and $450, while standard single POKEY is mapped at either $450 or $4000.  The standard POKEY registers on each chip are mapped as normal (e.g. AUDCTL @$448 or $458)

 

 I am still working out converting my code from single POKEY to double POKEY @$440. I have had to enlist some help from Poland.  ?  If this can be done, I was thinking placing one of my Metroid tunes in as a placeholder,  to test it out in the game.   The situation is, I have a fully functioning routine on the A8 (in MADS assembler) but it needs porting to A7800 Dragonfly. 

 

[+bhall408]

On 1/14/2021 at 8:21 AM, Synthpopalooza said:

Agreed ...

 

I will still do up two versions of each music tho.  Standard POKEY, and double POKEY.  I want to see what all I can accomplish.

 

Maybe a standard POKEY release, and a Dragonfly-only version?

 

I have been doing renditions of Metroid music in double POKEY and it's proving inspiring!

Cool -- when there is a WIP version we could test against, drop me a line and we can try and bring Dual POKEY up in Argon. I think that would be pretty awesome. And the fact that Dragonfly has it means more incentive for it to be supported by developers (including us), and the whole virtuous cycle thing

 

[+Muddyfunster]

Thanks for the nomination! 

 

[SlidellMan]

You have earned your nomination, Lewis. I would nominate you, @mksmith, and @SmittyB for being the most helpful 7800 Homebrew developers as well.

[+Muddyfunster]

Very kind of you @SlidellMan  thanks.

 

Personally, I feel quite humbled and happy to be nominated alongside some really awesome established developers for the 7800, both in the completed category and the WIP category.

 

 

[+mksmith]

@Muddyfunster Congrats Lewis - well deserved mate!!

 

@SlidellMan Thank you - that is so very kind.  I got so much help when I started that I want to always offer any help where I can but that's why we have such a great community here at AtariAge!

[+Pat Brady]

On 1/3/2021 at 12:30 PM, Muddyfunster said:

It's simple but it's also unfair because the ship isn't a perfect box and has zones that have no ship bits in them. The problem area is where you really notice it, on the scribble above. When things hit there and you die, that feels unfair. Solution is for more fidelity in the detection, which is what I did with Danger Zone to take that "zone of unfairness" out (pun not intended!). So yep, next major update will have that. 

 

How do you do that? You may remember that I worked on a routine for per-pixel collision detection between two arbitrary sprites but it consumed a lot of SALLY cycles.

[+Muddyfunster]

On 1/19/2021 at 11:24 PM, Pat Brady said:

 

How do you do that? You may remember that I worked on a routine for per-pixel collision detection between two arbitrary sprites but it consumed a lot of SALLY cycles.

In Danger Zone I added multiple collision boxes for each aircraft with a table of offsets depending on which frame was being drawn so the collision boxes for each frame were considered correctly. Each of the 3 aircraft had 16 possible directions and multiple collision boxes so it was *lots* of data - (3x16x5 entries, each having offsets + cords etc.) . I couldn't think of a better way to accomplish finer fidelity in the collisions between bullet and player but it worked quite well and seemed to have a low overhead in cycles. (edit - the bigger challenge was running out of rom space for the tables).

 

I have a similar plan for EXO to sharpen up player collisions, but I think compared to Danger Zone it will be simpler as the dynamics of ship sprite are not changing each frame like they did in Danger Zone.

 

 

[+Muddyfunster]

Small update for E.X.O. (Alpha 13a) (Alpha 13b)

 

@-^CrossBow^- suggested that the engine exhaust could be a bit more "flickery" or irregular. I thought this was a good idea and it's a nice cosmetic touch.

 

Also a couple of SFX tweaks.

 

[edit]wrong version!

 

 

 

EXO_Alpha_13B_Jan_2021.a78

[+sramirez2008]

11 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

Small update for E.X.O. (Alpha 13a) (Alpha 13b)

 

@-^CrossBow^- suggested that the engine exhaust could be a bit more "flickery" or irregular. I thought this was a good idea and it's a nice cosmetic touch.

 

Also a couple of SFX tweaks.

 

[edit]wrong version!

 

 

 

EXO_Alpha_13B_Jan_2021.a78 512.13 kB · 5 downloads

Excellent!  Great suggestion @-^CrossBow^- and thanks for implementing @Muddyfunster?

 

Btw, just noticed that the ships firing sound is off, as compared to the prior ROM (please see attached videos).

 

[+Muddyfunster]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

Excellent!  Great suggestion @-^CrossBow^- and thanks for implementing @Muddyfunster?

 

Btw, just noticed that the ships firing sound is off, as compared to the prior ROM (please see attached videos).

 

 

December ROM.MOV 844.37 kB · 1 download Latest ROM.MOV 1.09 MB · 1 download

Well spotted  but the changes are intentional on the shooting. I wanted to try and make the main gun more "mechanical" and less "laser". The rocket sound I wanted to try and get more of a "pop" like a grenade launcher. Not sure how successful I've been yet  Sound design is not my strong suit.

 

[+sramirez2008]

11 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Well spotted  but the changes are intentional on the shooting. I wanted to try and make the main gun more "mechanical" and less "laser". The rocket sound I wanted to try and get more of a "pop" like a grenade launcher. Not sure how successful I've been yet  Sound design is not my strong suit.

 

No problem. Just thought I’d better mention it.

[+Muddyfunster]

56 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

No problem. Just thought I’d better mention it.

Thanks for flagging it, you never know when it's a glitch or something that's changed

 

Let me know which version of the SFX you prefer. I probably need to bribe Bobby to help me on those for E.X.O. as well as the music I think .

[+sramirez2008]

1 minute ago, Muddyfunster said:

Thanks for flagging it, you never know when it's a glitch or something that's changed

No problem.

 

2 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Let me know which version of the SFX you prefer. I probably need to bribe Bobby to help me on those for E.X.O. as well as the music I think .

I need to play through another game so I can really take it in. I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of the original sound, but it quickly grew on me. 

[Synthpopalooza]

Glad to help on the SFX too.  Should be working up single POKEY music in the next week or so

Edited January 28, 2021 by Synthpopalooza

[+Muddyfunster]

Thanks Bobby!

[SlidellMan]

One thing that I will say is that you did a great job programming the gravity in E.X.O. It almost makes me want to write a platforming engine.

[Trebor]

@Muddyfunster...Do the two switches under Kish actually do anything yet to that level?  I haven't been able to discern a difference after they are flipped green.  Not necessarily looking for what they do exactly, just if they do anything to the level once the switches are flipped to green.

[+Muddyfunster]

Just now, Trebor said:

@Muddyfunster...Do the two switches under Kish actually do anything yet to that level?  I haven't been able to discern a difference after they are flipped green.  Not necessarily looking for what they do exactly, just if they do anything to the level once the switches are flipped to green.

No, World 2 and 3 (Erus & Kish) are just placeholders right now to give a taster of what those worlds will look like. 

 

Those worlds will have switches that have functions just like those in W1 but right now they are placeholders / for show.

[Trebor]

8 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

No, World 2 and 3 (Erus & Kish) are just placeholders right now to give a taster of what those worlds will look like. 

 

Those worlds will have switches that have functions just like those in W1 but right now they are placeholders / for show.

Just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything.  Eager to see the rest of the respective worlds.

The game really pulls you in beautifully in more than one way and is really a treat to experience; once @Synthpopalooza works his usual magic with sounds, I can only imagine all the more so.

[+Muddyfunster]

Thanks Trebor, what is there now for World 2 and 3 is just the tip of the iceberg. World 4 mixes the theme up again with something completely different, as does World 5 for those souls brave enough to hunt down all of the artifacts to unlock it.

 

And yes, I'm quite excited to see what Bobby comes up with for the sounds. We have already started throwing a few ideas around on that.

 

The new collision code is also done and I'm testing that out with lots of video captures to make sure it's good, so no more "cheap" feeling deaths (per my comment on post#195).

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I was playing this lasted build last night through my DF and it really does add that extra touch on the flicker of the exhaust. I know it is just a small thing but I'm glad you thought to include that. 

 

I did have one odd bug occur on the previous build of the game. I captured it on video but it only happened once and I can describe what happened:

 

It was on the screen with the artifact on W1. I was just about to grab the artifact when the drone moving up and down in front of the gun clipped me on the bottom of the ship as it was moving down. In other words I moved too quickly and hit the top of that drone. However, when I was brought back at my last checkpoint (2 screens to the right and up from that room), I was shocked to see the artifact just floating in space on that screen in roughly the same place it would normally be? I went through the force fields and was able to touch it and pick it up as if it were on the other screen. It was like the artifact was brought over with me when I died, even though I hadn't actually picked it up yet from the previous screen. I completed the W1 demo and the game did acknowledge having found the artifact?

 

Does that make sense or do I need to find that in my long play capture and up it here?

 

[+Muddyfunster]

That makes perfect sense, the cleardown between screens didn't cleardown

 

I had something similar on another screen, but again, it was what I would call a cleardown issue where the previous control set from one of the new screens wasn't cleared fully when restarting.

 

In your example, the game engine was like, "sure, I'll put that artifact here again as you didn't tell me not to!".  It should be a simple fix and I appreciate you flagging it

 

 

[+Muddyfunster]

Also @-^CrossBow^-I want add the exhaust flicker, while a tiny change, really works nicely, thanks again for the suggestion  (and it was literally a line of code to implement!).

[Synthpopalooza]

So, currently I am working my way through compiling a few frequency tables for new POKEY modes ... one in particular makes some very resonant Yamaha style guitars.  I have an idea for one of the themes and it needs to get out of my head and into code.  ?