Atari 2600 Homebrew: WIP Bloxudoku v0.1 NTSC/PAL - 4K

[Lisboa2k6]

Hi,

 

Here is the first WIP version of my attempt for a blocks/sudoku puzzle game named Bloxudoku.

It is not an original idea, but yet another variant of the many and popular blocks/sudoku games out there for mobile devices and online.

 

Making games for the Atari 2600 in assembly was a challenge by itself, much harder than playing a puzzling sudoku or tetris; trying to squeeze in the correct operators on a single scanline while counting cycles up and down and checking for page boundaries. OMG what a time-consuming challenge...

 

There are still some issues in this early version; like flickering, jumping screen/lines and bugs, but the initial version is still fully playable. 

For the final version I plan to do improvements with score/bonus, sound, graphics, interactions and micro animations.

 

I have not yet tested the game on real HW, only simulated in Stella and Javatari.

I am interested in any observations and strange behavior from the real device and setup.

 

So, how to play?
Place the blocks/pieces on the board in order to complete sudokuish lines/squares for them to disappear and gain extra points. It should be rather intuitive to play this game. It is not yet detected when the game is over, but that should be pretty obvious when you are no longer able to place any new pieces onto the board. Note down your score and hit Game Reset to start a new game. Easy to play, hard to master?

 

See attached binaries for NTSC-60 and PAL-50.

 

Happy testing! (...and a happy new year!)

 

/Ola Lisboa

bloxudoku_v0_1_ntsc_60.bin bloxudoku_v0_1_pal_50.bin

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Bloxudoku on tonight's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Jan 3, 2023 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• ZPH Interview with James and Tanya O'Brien by Giovanna
• Bloxudoku (2022 WIP) by Ola Lisboa  @Lisboa2k6
• Sweep Shot (2022 WIP) by Mike Losh @Sohl
• Razor's Edge (2022 Retail | 2600 Full | Playthrough Attempt) by Red Button Games / Leonardo Santiago  @Leonardo Santiago (Design, Development, Graphics, Music, Sound Effects, Gameplay, Illustrations, Text, Final Art) / Claudia Maria (Illustrations)

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

[Ecernosoft]

I really thought this was a 7800 game on the stream.... WOW

Edited January 4, 2023 by Ecernosoft

[+MarcoJ]

I like the way the squares are evenly divided using the sprites and missiles in single width. I also like the subtle use of colour intensities to emboss the pieces when drawn on the board.

[bigmessowires]

This is very nice! It looks good *and* it's fun to play. I really prefer this kind of game to run-and-shoot games that demand fast reflexes. I hope you keep working on it. I haven't looked at the disassembly, but I think the game board is playfield blocks? Then you're switching the background color between black, dark gray, and light gray at fixed positions, and using an asynchronous playfield to draw the wooden pieces at the desired spots?

[+Philsan]

Nice! Could you please release PAL60 version too? European TVs support it.

[+Andrew Davie]

Nice work.

[glurk]

Best score at this difficult game:

 

 

[Bomberman94]

What a nice surprise - nice presentation and addictive gameplay. Very excited to see the planned updates you mentioned!

[DeafAtariFromKansas]

How did I miss this one?!? enjoy playing this, it's pretty rough game.. My score is...