Krull - Recreation of Arcade Game

[saxmeister]

It's definitely a gosub gone wrong in the other levels. I know the issue, I just need to fix it.

 

I've been slammed with tons of stuff and haven't been able to get back to this. I'm hoping by May to be freed up again to work on Krull. Sorry for the delay. But I do have most of the artwork for the second and third levels ready. I just need to implement them. Then I'll get back to making the first level work properly.

 

And I'll get those glitches worked out. There is no double-buffering yet, but I will add that. It will need it if I get more than 10 boulders on that first screen.

 

Thanks for the interest and support!

[PlaidMouse]

This is looking great! I'm a big fan of the movie, the Atari 2600 game, and the arcade game. I use to play the arcade game most Saturday mornings when I was in my mid-20s. Very cool stuff. Thank you so much for doing this @saxmeister! 

[saxmeister]

Just a heads up that I am still working on this but have run into memory issues and have had to begin working with banking. This is where my lack of experience is causing a major hurdle.

 

The title screen itself will run but I start getting into the additional global graphics and I run out of room. And banking doesn't work the way I think it does.

 

[+Trebor]

Hopefully, the below references may help.

 

Threads:

Bank Switching Template?

 

Bankswitching and ROM sizes

 

Accessing alphadata tables when bankswitching

 

Trying to bankswitch ... having troubles

 

 

Documents:

Bankset Bankswitching - An overview of the homebrew bankswitching scheme created by Fred Quimby, in collaboration with Mike Saarna.

 

Atari 7800 Bankswitching Guide - Eckhard Stolberg's bank-switching bible for the 7800.

[+Muddyfunster]

5 hours ago, saxmeister said:

Just a heads up that I am still working on this but have run into memory issues and have had to begin working with banking. This is where my lack of experience is causing a major hurdle.

 

The title screen itself will run but I start getting into the additional global graphics and I run out of room. And banking doesn't work the way I think it does.

 

My approach with bank switching is to split my graphics between a) stuff I only need for this level / world and b) stuff I need everywhere (player, explosions, shared assets). 

 

Anything in a) goes in the executing bank and anything in b) goes in the last bank, which is visible to your program from anywhere.

 

So using EXO as the example, title page in bank1,  level code + tiles for level 1 go in bank 2, mapfiles in bank 3 and common assets go in the last bank. There is nothing stopping you jumping to other banks to do stuff, as long as the place you "drawscreen" or doublebuffer flip" is where the local graphics are. 

 

If you want to zip up your project and PM it to me, I'd be happy to take a look.

 

 

[Deteacher]

This is fantastic!  Krull has always been one of my all-time favorite games.  The sound effects and music are amazing!

[thegamezmaster]

Just found and looks promising. Anyone know what form or format this will be in? Physical or digital only? Interested.

[Ecernosoft]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:45 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Hopefully you'll be able to make it an option for those who have twin stick setups. ?

 

- James

Yes, that would be nice. ? 

As someone who owns a real atari 7800, and a modified 2600 (My 7800 is stock), I appreciate when people take advantages of people who aren't sacreligous (OK, OK, I use emulators too!!)

and have a real atari 7800, 2600, or 5200 (Those people exist BTW) that people take advantage of that.

By the way, my pause button on my 7800 doesn't work, so if anyone has a spare pause button (or compatible switch), please let me know!

[Traxx]

Any progress to report?

[saxmeister]

Yes, @Traxx, it's still on hold while I work out bankswitching and more performance tweaks to my video and game routines. This particular game was a pretty big bite for my beginning efforts in gaming logic. I'm wrapping up some other projects that will help me get there. Don't give up hope! It will happen - just not as soon as I would like.

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by saxmeister

[+x=usr(1536)]

Just curious: could this potentially provide an engine for other Reactor-hardware Gottlieb games?

 

(And, yep, I'm also looking forward to seeing how this progresses - I loved Krull when it hit the arcades, but only very rarely saw it.)

[saxmeister]

Hmmmm.... I never thought about that. I would need to look at the other games to see how similar they are and go from there.

[Ecernosoft]

On 3/18/2022 at 5:35 PM, saxmeister said:

I had posted some test work on this before, but I started getting a little more serious with this. A test started coming together rather nicely, so I'm going to attempt to recreate the arcade version of Krull on the 7800 as closely as possible.

 

This is my first "big" game, so it will take some time. I'm learning with each step, so it will come slowly. I'm learning how to properly structure the game and learning things such as collision detection and bank management. It's a lot to learn at once, but if I can do it, many of you can as well. The 7800basic environment is amazing! I can't thank the devs enough for this tool.

 

I don't have the original source code to work from, so I'm winging it here.

 

• Ripped the graphics from the arcade
• Ripped the font from the arcade
• Recreated the title screen with the limitations of the 7800
• Recreated the first level and I'm working on the AI of the rolling boulders
• Got the movement of the lead character "Colwyn" working with all frames of animation ripped from the arcade machine
• First collision detection of the shards of the glaive and added scoring for this

 

FIRST TESTS

Link to JS7800: https://raz0red.github.io/js7800/?cart=https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=919271

 

VERSION 0.4

Link to JS7800: https://raz0red.github.io/js7800/?cart=https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=926309

Nice job so far!

[Inky]

When this comes out, it's a mandatory buy from me!

[Ecernosoft]

VERY MUCH SO!

[saxmeister]

Work still continues... I'm going level by level, but as a huge fan of this game I had to add something that hardcore fans would appreciate. I'm adding a variation of the original game's Easter egg.

 

If you know, you know...

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

21 minutes ago, saxmeister said:

If you know, you know...

It complements the Atari ST well