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Sokoban-2022-03-11


AdamWozniak

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5 hours ago, Pat Brady said:

Very nice! How many levels?

i forget, my workflow has a script that just fills empty ROM with levels.

Each level is a 256 bytes, so MAX on a 4K cart (no code!) would be 16.

"GAME SELECT" will cycle through the levels.

i'm currently working on a larger bankswitched version...

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8 hours ago, AdamWozniak said:

it's been a sort of lifelong dream to code for this box.

what a chore.

at least this effort works / is playable.

be gentle, it's my first time.

soko-2022-03-11.bin 4 kB · 8 downloads

Very nice!

 

I played the first three levels, but there are some scanline issues when moving around. You should use the developer settings in Stella or Gopher2600 when you are developing on emulators.

 

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1 hour ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Very nice!

 

I played the first three levels, but there are some scanline issues when moving around. You should use the developer settings in Stella or Gopher2600 when you are developing on emulators.

 

i'm certain i violate frame timing when you move.  it doesn't really show in the emulator.  is it that noticeable on a TV?

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1 hour ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Very nice!

 

I played the first three levels, but there are some scanline issues when moving around. You should use the developer settings in Stella or Gopher2600 when you are developing on emulators.

 

try this one, i think it will be more stable.  Also, F6 bankswitching, and 40 levels.

soko-2022-03-12.bin

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6 hours ago, AdamWozniak said:

i'm certain i violate frame timing when you move.  it doesn't really show in the emulator.  is it that noticeable on a TV?

It depends on the TV and on the settings of your emulator. But it was extremely noticeable on my CRT TV.

 

5 hours ago, AdamWozniak said:

try this one, i think it will be more stable.

?

Yes, line count seems to be much more stable on this version! I had no issues on my CRT TV when moving around, only when I restarted a game or select a level with the select switch the screen jumps (mostly)

 

5 hours ago, AdamWozniak said:

  Also, F6 bankswitching, and 40 levels.

I like that the levels can be selected with the select switch!
 

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This is great! 40 is a good number of levels, and I like the new rolling color effect on the title text.

 

Looks like there is still a brief scanline instability between levels, causing an unsightly flash on my digital rig. During gameplay it seems rock-solid. Haven't tried it on CRT yet but I believe those are more forgiving than digital setups.

 

I have a few minor suggestions — which you may have thought of, but I want to say them just in case:

  1. It might be nice to change the colors every 8 (or some other number) levels.
  2. If possible, make the boxes taller. 3 lines (drawn across 6 scanlines), aligned one scanline higher than the targets, could represent the boxes going on top of the target. 4 lines drawn across 7 scanlines would also look good.
  3. I assume the title text is pushed over to the left to minimize writes to playfield registers. But if possible, horizontally centering it would look a lot better. Moving it down to slightly above the play area (which varies from level to level) might also help.
  4. A move counter would be nice, more useful IMO than the title text.

Regardless of those quibbles: you've done a very, very nice job here.

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9 hours ago, Pat Brady said:

This is great! 40 is a good number of levels, and I like the new rolling color effect on the title text.

 

Looks like there is still a brief scanline instability between levels, causing an unsightly flash on my digital rig. During gameplay it seems rock-solid. Haven't tried it on CRT yet but I believe those are more forgiving than digital setups.

 

I have a few minor suggestions — which you may have thought of, but I want to say them just in case:

  1. It might be nice to change the colors every 8 (or some other number) levels.
  2. If possible, make the boxes taller. 3 lines (drawn across 6 scanlines), aligned one scanline higher than the targets, could represent the boxes going on top of the target. 4 lines drawn across 7 scanlines would also look good.
  3. I assume the title text is pushed over to the left to minimize writes to playfield registers. But if possible, horizontally centering it would look a lot better. Moving it down to slightly above the play area (which varies from level to level) might also help.
  4. A move counter would be nice, more useful IMO than the title text.

Regardless of those quibbles: you've done a very, very nice job here.

This is a 4K version with a small number of levels (9? 10? i forget), but i think it will fix the scanline instability between levels.  can you confirm?

(there are also some color changes...)

pusher0.bin

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16 minutes ago, AdamWozniak said:

If possible, make the boxes taller. 3 lines (drawn across 6 scanlines), aligned one scanline higher than the targets, could represent the boxes going on top of the target. 4 lines drawn across 7 scanlines would also look good.

it is possible, although using extra scanlines for boxes means sacrificing puzzle height.  so there are some trade offs there.

i'm actually looking forward to the PAL port for this reason; i think it will look better without sacrificing puzzle height.

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12 hours ago, AdamWozniak said:

i would very much like a move counter.  i think i'm out of memory and cycles though (not just to hold the counter, but also to render the sprite)

hehehe, i tried it.  not only out of memory and cycles, but a typical game will go over 100 moves, even if i only count block moves, which would require a 3 digit display, which would cost even more.

 

tl;dr ain't gonna happen.

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On 3/14/2022 at 10:11 PM, AdamWozniak said:

This is a 4K version with a small number of levels (9? 10? i forget), but i think it will fix the scanline instability between levels.  can you confirm?

(there are also some color changes...)

 

Sorry for the slow response — I didn't have a chance to get back on the big rig until just now.

 

With this one I did see some instability during gameplay, especially on level 2 after all but one box was in place, but no flashing between levels.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/19/2022 at 2:32 PM, Pat Brady said:

 

Sorry for the slow response — I didn't have a chance to get back on the big rig until just now.

 

With this one I did see some instability during gameplay, especially on level 2 after all but one box was in place, but no flashing between levels.

can you post a screenshot of the configuration where you noticed the flickering screen for that level?

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  • 1 month later...

@AdamWozniak neat!  I've always been a Sokoban fan.

 

I got around to playing levels 1 and 2 today.  I didn't notice any glitches, but I only played in an old version of Stella.

 

I have a feature suggestion-- if a player pushes the joystick in a direction and holds it (say, left) for maybe 1 or 1.5 seconds, it'd be nice if it would automatically start moving in that direction at a quick pace, but then it automatically stops if you hit a wall / another box.  It can be a bit tedious to push a box along a corridor by tapping the joystick repeatedly, especially for a stream of boxes.  I agree with not having everything use that sort of method-- Sokoban needs precision.  So, holding in a direction to trigger "fast move" may be a nice compromise.

 

I'm also trying to think about a few things as far as how distracting they are.  The sound of movement without boxes is fine, and the press against a wall sound is good as well.  The ding of putting a box in its final place is fine, but the high pitch of pushing a box for a long distance is a little grating to me.  I have a feeling I'd turn down the volume a little, so maybe pick a slightly lower pitch tone?  Similarly, I don't mind the scrolling color effect for the boxes, but the heading at the top is a bit distracting-- maybe experiment with having the heading color change a bit more slowly?  The box color change rate is fine; it's just the heading keeps drawing my eye to it, so making it a little more muted / subtle could be beneficial.

 

Good job on this; it looks really good, especially considering it's running on a 2600.

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