Whack 'Em Smack 'Em Byron, dev log

[+nanochess]

7 hours ago, carlsson said:

Apart from the Japanese model, I believe all systems are PAL?

I think the Japanese model (NTSC) is so rare that we effectively can think it doesn't exist.

 

I only could find pictures of the Vtech Creativision and the Dick Smith's Wizzard, so CVBasic is hard coded to PAL, and while checking this I noticed I never initialized the RAM memory (but fortunately the Creativision setups the first 256 bytes of RAM to zero).

 

I just added the code to clean the other 768 bytes of RAM.

 

Edit: BTW, I just noticed the Creativision has a "trick" to make it boot faster. It copies the cartridge startup vectors from $bffc-$bfff into $0200-$0203, and if it detects these are the same then it doesn't clear the VRAM on a reset.

 

[+nanochess]

17 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

And here's the Creativision version of Whack 'Em Smack 'Em Byrons. This game wouldn't have be possible without CVBasic, and its author Oscar Toledo was critically important in the development of this port. He tweaked the CVBasic engine three or four times to ensure that the game would compile!

 

(Note: If you're porting games to Creativision, know that the system uses 768 bytes of your allocated 32K for the font, regardless of whether or not you use a custom font.)

 

The port is playable from beginning to end, but I wouldn't call it finished... there are still timing issues, which stem from not only the system's lower clock speed but also the fact that the Dick Smith Wizzard uses the PAL video format. I'm not sure if I should adapt the game for PAL or NTSC, but I presume that the majority of these systems use PAL.

 

Also, Creativision emulators for Windows and DOS don't seem to like diagonals, which is a problem for a game that relies on them. I've been testing the game on the 3DS, using the ColecoDS emulator. That properly reads diagonal input!

whackem_vtech.bin 32 kB · 2 downloads

BTW, you should upload this ROM in the Creativision forum.

 

I'm sure they will like it!

 

http://www.madrigaldesign.it/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

[Jess Ragan]

I probably should. If Madrigal is around at the moment, I should ask him about diagonal movement in FunnyMU, because I can't seem to get any no matter what I do. It's there in ColecoDS, but it's a pain having to update the ROM, then install it on the SD card inside my R4, then put that in my 3DS several times until it finally reads. The cartridge pins must be bent or something.