Rob 'n' Banks: Weekly Development Log

[Indiana Quack]

Got my second phizer shot a month ago Same thing Just a sore arm for a couple days Good luck too you!

[+Ryan Witmer]

Alright, this shot has completely screwed me up.  Probably spending most of the day in bed.

[phuzaxeman]

43 minutes ago, Ryan Witmer said:

Alright, this shot has completely screwed me up.  Probably spending most of the day in bed.

Hang in there, it will pass. It's a good sign your body is building immunity. Hope you feel better soon. 

[BIGHMW]

Don't worry Ryan I had the same shit happen after the second Moderna dose, so hang in there, at least you don't have the same shit happening that KIRO-FM 97.3 radio host Dory Monson had after getting HIS second dose.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I ended up getting a little bit of work done yesterday.

 

 

Got the coins into the maze.  I was able to exactly reproduce the arcade layout.  Ended up writing a little helper program in C to generate all the different tiles I needed.

 

I feel much better today, not sure if I'll find time to work on this some more this weekend though.

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, Ryan Witmer said:

I ended up getting a little bit of work done yesterday.

 

 

Got the coins into the maze.  I was able to exactly reproduce the arcade layout.  Ended up writing a little helper program in C to generate all the different tiles I needed.

 

I feel much better today, not sure if I'll find time to work on this some more this weekend though.

Looks great Ryan and glad to hear that your feeling better.  Keep first things, first?

[jefffulton]

Looks beautiful so far, Ryan! 

[+Ryan Witmer]

I'm going to be playing Federation and Empire this Saturday, so instead of working on this I'll be leading the glorious Romulan Star Empire to victory against the disgusting Gorns.

 

On Sunday I'm planning to start working on getting the heroes(?) running around in the maze.  I have a basic plan for how this will work, and I might stream it on Twitch Sunday morning, haven't decided yet.

[MrTrust]

1 hour ago, Ryan Witmer said:

I'm going to be playing Federation and Empire this Saturday, so instead of working on this I'll be leading the glorious Romulan Star Empire to victory against the disgusting Gorns.

 

On Sunday I'm planning to start working on getting the heroes(?) running around in the maze.  I have a basic plan for how this will work, and I might stream it on Twitch Sunday morning, haven't decided yet.

 

No Starfleet Battles, huh?  Your 80s cred is in jeopardy.

[+Ryan Witmer]

32 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

No Starfleet Battles, huh?  Your 80s cred is in jeopardy.

They keep trying to drag me into that, but I've resisted so far.

[MrTrust]

15 minutes ago, Ryan Witmer said:

They keep trying to drag me into that, but I've resisted so far.

 

Don't blame ya'.  I've always like the idea of the game, but could never get into it.  I played a little Advanced Squad Leader a while back, which was supposed to be like the most complex game ever, but SFB seems way worse to me in that respect.  There are soooo many rules, and they're mostly not setting or scenario-specific like a lot of other monster games.

 

Always wanted to try Federation and Empire, but sadly I don't think I could ever find a group.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I'm in a wargame club that has a few ASL players.  Never got the chance to try it, but I definitely want to.

 

We also have a group of insane Starfleet Battles players.  A lot of these guys actually have design credits for certain parts of the game.  Seeing their games in action is pretty amazing.

[+Ryan Witmer]

After getting my poor battle stations blown up by the Gorns yesterday, I went ahead and got a little bit of work done on this.

 

Here's a video I made that shows off some of what I have, which isn't much:

 

 

[+sramirez2008]

22 minutes ago, Ryan Witmer said:

After getting my poor battle stations blown up by the Gorns yesterday, I went ahead and got a little bit of work done on this.

 

Here's a video I made that shows off some of what I have, which isn't much:

 

 

Rob looks great! Look forward to your progress. Work is really taking a lot of my waking hours these days, but I hope to find time to test this game, whenever your able to provide a ROM.

[+Ryan Witmer]

3 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

Rob looks great! Look forward to your progress. Work is really taking a lot of my waking hours these days, but I hope to find time to test this game, whenever your able to provide a ROM.

The first thing I post will probably just a be a movement test.  I did some of this work live on Twitch this morning and I was discussing the movement.  I'm going to spend a lot of time with Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man and Pac Man Arcade to try go get a good feel for how those handle movement.  I might spend some time with Super Pac Man and Blue Print as examples of how not to do it, because I find those two games unplayable with the stock 5200 sticks.

[MIKE5200]

16 hours ago, Ryan Witmer said:

The first thing I post will probably just a be a movement test.  I did some of this work live on Twitch this morning and I was discussing the movement.  I'm going to spend a lot of time with Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man and Pac Man Arcade to try go get a good feel for how those handle movement.  I might spend some time with Super Pac Man and Blue Print as examples of how not to do it, because I find those two games unplayable with the stock 5200 sticks.

I might be able to...Agree Super Pac Man is unplayable.

[+Cafeman]

1 hour ago, MIKE5200 said:

I might be able to...Agree Super Pac Man is unplayable.

Agreed, the 5200 version has bad control.  I didn't realize how bad until a few years ago I played the coin-op version and marveled at how fun it was and how great its control was. 

 

I have had ideas to make a Pac-Man style maze game at times, but I still don't really understand the best way to program the maze paths for the player and enemies. Until I sit down and tediously try to get it to work, it will be a mystery to me. Maybe I'm over thinking it. 

[MIKE5200]

On 6/7/2021 at 3:00 PM, Cafeman said:

Agreed, the 5200 version has bad control.  I didn't realize how bad until a few years ago I played the coin-op version and marveled at how fun it was and how great its control was. 

 

I have had ideas to make a Pac-Man style maze game at times, but I still don't really understand the best way to program the maze paths for the player and enemies. Until I sit down and tediously try to get it to work, it will be a mystery to me. Maybe I'm over thinking it. 

After trying all of 5200 version. He need to look at MS-PACMAN and PACMAN Arcade code the 5200 controller is alot better. Maybe he can fix 3 games!

[phuzaxeman]

On 6/6/2021 at 4:41 PM, sramirez2008 said:

Rob looks great! Look forward to your progress. Work is really taking a lot of my waking hours these days, but I hope to find time to test this game, whenever your able to provide a ROM.

Ryan, really like how the maze is turning out.  It looks better than the intellivision.  Are you going to be able to get "Rob" to have the eyeballs like the arcade in the future?  Thanks. 

[+Ryan Witmer]

14 minutes ago, phuzaxeman said:

Ryan, really like how the maze is turning out.  It looks better than the intellivision.  Are you going to be able to get "Rob" to have the eyeballs like the arcade in the future?  Thanks. 

I haven't put too much thought into the animation yet, but I was goofing around with the arcade game the other day and I just happened to pay attention to how the arcade game does it.  I think I can do something similar.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I had a thing this morning, so I didn't get to work on this until the afternoon.  I decided to knock out something relatively simple so I could say I got something done today, so I got the left and right screen-wrap tunnels working.

 

There are still a lot of problems with the wall detection.  I think my overall idea for doing it is fine, but there are some kinks that need to be worked out.  I'm going to spend some time trying to do that tomorrow.

[BIGHMW]

Hey @Ryan Witmer, how's things going with the port? We haven't heard anything since back last Saturday so we were wondering how Rob 'N' Banks is going, I hope you're OK after getting that COVID shot, it won't be long before Washington becomes open for business again (finally!). Things are going fine at my work except we might get slammed with work tonight (being Father's Day Weekend I would expect it), I wondered how you are doing also. Thanks!

 

Your neighbor here on the Olympic Peninsula,

 

Ray Jackson

[+Ryan Witmer]

Haven't had as much time to work on this lately, mostly because I've been spending Saturdays at my game club mismanaging the Romulan Star Empire.

 

 

I'm terrible at this game, but I love it.  Just over the halfway point for this scenario.

 

Anyway, I finished the collision detection for the maze walls, and that's all happy.  The code I had for movement was always intended be temporary, just enough to get the wall detection done.  I've been working today on tearing it all down and doing it right.  It won't get done today, but I might poke at it throughout the week.  Once I finish it up, I need to do some testing on a real 5200 stick to see how it feels.  I'll probably post a movement test build for feedback on how it feels on other types of joysticks.

[+Ryan Witmer]

Working through the insane heat wave we're having right now, I did manage to get some stuff done.

 

Today I focused on getting the player movement right, and by right I mean Pac-Man style, where once you start moving you don't stop until you hit a wall.  I got it mostly working, I have one little issue to work out still.

 

Once I iron out the kinks, I'm going to do some testing on a real 5200.  I'm pretty I sure I did the movement in a way that should work well with the stock 5200 joysticks, but I won't know until I try.  I might do this work tomorrow, and if I like it I'll probably post a movement test build so people can see how it feels.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I spent some time fixing up the movement code and playing around with it on my 5200.  It seems pretty good to me, might need a few adjustments here and there.

 

Here's a movement test build for anyone that wants to try it out.  As is the custom, there's a build ID string 256 bytes from the end of the ROM that says Movement test, 6/30/2021.

 

You can wander around the maze.  The side tunnels work so you can play with those too.  I take no responsibility for anyone that goes out the top or bottom doors.  There be dragons.

robnbanks.bin