JoustPong

[kisrael]

In the theory that more people knowing about this work in progress, the less likely I'll be to let it drop for so long again....

 

After almost a year of hiatus I'm back in the saddle for my Atari 2600 project Flap: The JoustPong Experience.

 

I'm keeping a game journal at http://alienbill.com/joustpong/ , though I need to warn any would be programmers, I'm pretty bad. Still with this latest update I finally have something that seems like a game in the making rather than just a bad technical demo.

 

No hopefully I can deserve my "humble 2600 programmer" that I use as my tagline...

[StanJr]

thought maybe you were gone forever!

 

Glad you are back at it! Please keep us updated as to your progress! Sounds like a promising project!

[Albert]

Awesome, great to hear you are working on this project again! Think it would be safe to add it to our In Development section?

 

..Al

[kisrael]

Awesome, great to hear you are working on this project again!  Think it would be safe to add it to our In Development section?  

 

Doggone it, why not. First, I clearly need witnesses. Second, I've noticed a few projects there that seem to be languishing, so this isn't the first "not absolutely guaranteed to release" project on that page

 

Any interest porting 2600 101 on this site, or is the tutorial forum supplanting that? (I find the format a little hard to follow, actually, since all the lessons get ordered oddly)

[MegaManFan]

I had thought this project was dead too. In fact when I first heard about it, I believe it was on RGVC, not here. Glad to see it might make a comeback and eventually *fingers crossed* even make it to the finished end stage.

[kisrael]

I had thought this project was dead too.  In fact when I first heard about it, I believe it was on RGVC, not here.  Glad to see it might make a comeback and eventually *fingers crossed* even make it to the finished end stage.

My fingers are crossed too!

 

I just wanted to post an update here, since I've nagged the Stella list enough lately (and will in the future) and want to tell somebody (since I assume people aren't breathlessly poised on my site's URL, stabbing reload again and again to see when I made a bit of progress...)

 

Anyway, it actually plays like a game now! It doesn't stop when one player reaches 10 like it should, and a host of other problems (including I need to tweak the physics of the ball, right now it's very simple angled up or angled down) but its heart is in the right place:

 

http://alienbill.com/joustpong/

 

Amazing how quickly something can come together when you just sit down and do it (sitting down I guess is a good way of making your ass inaccesible for it too keep kicking )

 

 

By the way...changes in my latest source code provoked me into modifying my "status" tagline there on the left...it's a terrible pointless little pun that mostly only a 2600 programmer will understand, and even then it only makes sense if you've seen the non-pun version as my tagline all this year...

[kisrael]

Update:

 

Important milestone last night...although there are many things I'm still planning on adding and improving, last night it reached a point where it essentially is a complete game, with title screen, select/reset, and game end all handled well. And fun to play, IMO.

 

Read all about it at http://alienbill.com/joustpong/ ...