Fluid simulation for new 2600 game concept

[Thomas Jentzsch]

9 hours ago, Dionoid said:

[Edit: I think the same "two groups of 4 digits"-trick was also used for showing score+timer in Boulderdash 2600, programmed by @Thomas Jentzsch and @Andrew Davie. So I'm definitely not the first to come up with this.]

Yup. And we used self modifying code in RAM. Else it doesn't fit into the 76 cycles available.

[+Andrew Davie]

Just now, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Yup. And we used self modifying code in RAM. Else it doesn't fit into the 76 cycles available.

Thomas is too modest. The code and cleverness involved was all his.

[8bitPoet]

5 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

Thomas is too modest. The code and cleverness involved was all his.

We are coding on the shoulders of giants. 

[m.o.terra kaesi]

"mattress monkeys" sounds pretty cool, because it gets to the point on what to expect and it is an irritating word combination. and the double M word beginning is an alliteration which is generally a good use of rhetorical style. perfect!

Edited January 7 by m.o.terra kaesi

[Keatah]

My mistress is a mattress monkey!

[alfredtdk]

Monkey Things. 🐵

[8bitPoet]

 

I'm thinking that a combination of the existing game screen and a 48-pixel sprite routine to create the launch screen. (Limitations are meant to be pushed, right?)

 

Oh, and I may have decided on a name! In the spirit of Atari's proclivity for one-word game names, I declare this future game ... BEDLAM!

[+Andrew Davie]

55 minutes ago, 8bitPoet said:

 

Oh, and I may have decided on a name! In the spirit of Atari's proclivity for one-word game names, I declare this future game ... BEDLAM!

 

Yeah, nah.  "Bedlam" was a 1988 shoot-em-up for C64 from the company I worked for at that time.

Better to choose a unique title for your game, IMHO.

 

[glurk]

Any poll that includes "Mattress Monkeys" and I know the winner...  Let the people decide !!  😜

[8bitPoet]

32 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

Yeah, nah.  "Bedlam" was a 1988 shoot-em-up for C64 from the company I worked for at that time.

Better to choose a unique title for your game, IMHO.

Aw man! I knew that was too easy. I guess I could stick "Water" in front of it. A one-word title is going to be challenging, unless it's a made-up word.

 

 

4 minutes ago, glurk said:

Any poll that includes "Mattress Monkeys" and I know the winner...  Let the people decide !!  😜

This one is still a contender  

[Thomas Jentzsch]

55 minutes ago, 8bitPoet said:

Aw man! I knew that was too easy. I guess I could stick "Water" in front of it. A one-word title is going to be challenging, unless it's a made-up word.

 

This one is still a contender  

I found that it is usually a bad idea to give anything a name before it has been done.

[8bitPoet]

4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I found that it is usually a bad idea to give anything a name before it has been done.

Words of wisdom.

 

I'm going to keep my focus on actually producing this game and worry about the name at the end.

 

Like generating a sprite sheet, for example!

[+GoldLeader]

On 1/7/2023 at 12:32 AM, 8bitPoet said:

Thanks for the feedback! Naming a game is harder than I thought.

 

It seems like Atari games were typically reduced to one or two words. Just enough to describe the game and probably so they would fit on the label.

One-Word games: Adventure, Combat, Asteroids, Circus, Pitfall, Frogger, Qbert, Centipede, Pitfall, Kaboom, Pacman, DigDug, etc.

Two-Word games: Space Invaders, Missile Command, Pole Position, River Raid, Night Driver, Sky Diver, Haunted House, etc.

 

It's not even tomorrow and I'm already rethinking the name!

 

CHALLENGE TO ALL: Name this game using one or two words.

It's hard all right!

 

Remember when we thought Communist Mutants From Space was a ridiculously long name that would never catch on?

 

 

I don't know, ...Just thinking out loud really, but while reading this whole thread the name that came to mind (coalescing other names) was Monkeys & Mayhem.

 

 

I do like Mattress Monkeys or maybe Monkey Mischief, if it's not already a game haha...

 

 

FWIW,  I was trying to see if Monkeys & Mayhem already existed as a game name and (here's what I found):  There was a PBS Educational Flash game called Monkey Mayhem which no longer exists and evidently in the UK there is a wild mouse type steel roller coaster called Monkey Mayhem...And there is a game called Manic Monkey Mayhem for PSP (and WiiWare).

 

Good luck with the concept/game!  It already seems Amazing!

 

[8bitPoet]

41 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

Remember when we thought Communist Mutants From Space was a ridiculously long name that would never catch on?

Sometimes it's the long name that makes it memorable or stand out. I can't think of any off the top of my head in the game world, but in the music world there are some well-known bands with long names like Margot & the Nuclear So and So's or My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. It also reminds me of some of the old B-movie titles like Plan 9 From Outer Space. There's something quirky and nostalgic about it.

 

I'm going to take stock in what @Thomas Jentzsch said about naming something before it's done, and put off coming up with a name until I actually have a game. Who knows where this might go?! Did you initial game concept involve communist mutants or did that come later?

 

52 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

Good luck with the concept/game!  It already seems Amazing!

Thank you! I'm still looking for a programmer to join @ZackAttack and me. This is way beyond my programming level, so I'm focusing my effort on design and documentation, in the hope that the project resonates with someone and will want to play a role.

 

The coolest thing has been someone from the community sees a particular aspect of the game as a challenge and posts their results. Like @glurk with the animated fan blades and @Dionoid working out the 4-digit scores side by without flickering.

[glurk]

5 hours ago, 8bitPoet said:

The coolest thing has been someone from the community sees a particular aspect of the game as a challenge and posts their results. Like @glurk with the animated fan blades and @Dionoid working out the 4-digit scores side by without flickering.

Let's combine them!  New mockup: MMMockup.bin

 

It really is just a mockup.  No facility for drawing player sprites or undulating PF or anything.  But it shows possibilities...

 

EDIT: New one that better matches the re-design: MMM2.bin

Edited January 9 by glurk
Added mockup #2

[8bitPoet]

3 hours ago, glurk said:

Let's combine them!  New mockup: MMMockup.bin

 

It really is just a mockup.  No facility for drawing player sprites or undulating PF or anything.  But it shows possibilities...

Cool! Game mockups are useful for proof-of-concept.

[8bitPoet]

Part of the strategy of this game will be predicting where your opponent will land while you're on the bed, so that you can position yourself to get the trajectory and lift you need to reach your target.

 

In the figure above, illustrates the zones for each trajectory based on the amplitude of the wave.

[+GoldLeader]

18 hours ago, 8bitPoet said:

Sometimes it's the long name that makes it memorable or stand out...

 

Did you initial game concept involve communist mutants or did that come later?

 

 

 

Oh, not my game,  but an 80's release for the Arcadia Supercharger.   The name doesn't seem long at all nowadays, but back then...

 

         

[8bitPoet]

 

The most critical part of this game will be the wavy waterbed mattress.

 

6 frames is all that's needed to animate the wave motion of the mattress.

 

This is how I was thinking we could avoid all the complexity of trying to use math to generate the wave. Instead, we could loop the 6 frames back and forth.

I'm guessing that the source code would contain the data for each frame, but I'm out of my depth here.

 

The other hurdle is that the mattress playfield shifts horizontally to align the trough of the wave with the landing player sprite. See figures below.

 

[+Andrew Davie]

With not too much effort you could also shift the frames left and right and have sideways rolling waves. Maybe for the harder levels.

 

[Keatah]

Like those cheap motels of the 70's where you'd put 50-cents in the bed and it'd vibrate?

[glurk]

On a more serious (programming) note, I'm pretty much certain this is going to require an ARM-assisted type cart, and not simply a large ROM with RAM.  Which I guess was the idea all along?  I don't know, as no one has talked about the technical aspects.

 

I was playing around with my mockup, and some things have become evident.  The bedposts are a problem.  Mid-scanline color changes are possible, but only every 3 pixels.  And the PF pixels are 4-wide, so the changes can't always line up.  If the monkeys were the same dark brown color as the bedposts, then maybe the missiles could work as the two bedpost edges or edge masks.

 

And all this with an asymmetric PF and two sprites combined with the mid-scanline color changes...  I dunno.  I guess with bus-stuffing, or fast fetch data stream stuff maybe it can be done.  Much of that stuff is above my pay grade.  I think it'll be more challenging than some might initially think...  Just my 2c...

[8bitPoet]

43 minutes ago, glurk said:

I was playing around with my mockup, and some things have become evident.  The bedposts are a problem.  Mid-scanline color changes are possible, but only every 3 pixels.  And the PF pixels are 4-wide, so the changes can't always line up.

@ZackAttack and I have discussed this briefly, and think it could be accomplished with a combination of mid-scanline color changes on the background and playfield. 
 

44 minutes ago, glurk said:

I guess with bus-stuffing, or fast fetch data stream stuff maybe it can be done.  Much of that stuff is above my pay grade.  I think it'll be more challenging than some might initially think...  Just my 2c...

All of it is above my pay grade. I’m the unpaid intern in this equation.  

 

I did a lot of research, reading, and digging around to make sure I had a decent grasp of the 2600’s limitations before designing the initial mock-up. Thanks to this thread and community, I’m learning more every day. Each time, I’ll update my mock-ups so there’s an accurate reference for whoever is available to help with the coding. 
 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

2 hours ago, glurk said:

And all this with an asymmetric PF and two sprites combined with the mid-scanline color changes...  I dunno.  I guess with bus-stuffing, or fast fetch data stream stuff maybe it can be done.  Much of that stuff is above my pay grade.  I think it'll be more challenging than some might initially think...  

I think it can be done, just not as easy as with an ARM. An asymmetric playfield, as suggested by @Andrew Davie would make things more complicated, but IMO still not impossible. Maybe with a few minor compromises.

[ZackAttack]

14 hours ago, glurk said:

The bedposts are a problem.  Mid-scanline color changes are possible, but only every 3 pixels.  And the PF pixels are 4-wide, so the changes can't always line up.

You don't have to line up the color change if you draw the bed posts with COLUBK and change COLUPF inside the bedpost. That means carpet and bed are PF and bedposts are background. Then you have a few cycles where the color change can happen without visual artifacts.

 

12 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I think it can be done, just not as easy as with an ARM. An asymmetric playfield, as suggested by @Andrew Davie would make things more complicated, but IMO still not impossible. Maybe with a few minor compromises.

I was also thinking it could probably be done without ARM, but I'm going to go the ARM route because it's quicker and makes it much easier to create a 7800 version later on.

 

I created a repository for it in github and put together the minimum code to draw an asymmetric PF. I'll continue to add more here and there until the display kernels are complete. You'll need arm-none-eabi toolset to build and Uno or Plus carts with UCA 2.3.14 or higher firmware to run it. You can also run it in Gopher2600 if you build Gopher2600 from the latest source.

 

ZacharyScolaro/waterbed-bouncers-2600: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/344323-fluid-simulation-for-new-2600-game-concept/ (github.com)