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Trying to write a Game in Fastbasic (JetPac)


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I caught a YouTube video about the 2024 10 liners basic comp a few weeks ago. And that sent me back down the rabbit hole of trying some programming again on the Atari 8 bit, back in the 80's I did a lot of playing in basic, mostly typing in listings from magazines books etc, modifying at listing, converting other computers listings.. Unfortunately I don't have any of my old sources code or games, I don't think I finished many, and eventually moved on to the ST and STos.  

 

Being inspired by @vitoco and his amazing 10 liner games.  I though I would give programming on the Atari 8 bit another go.. just for fun.. Also thanks @dmsc for making Fastbasic and @The Car making it possible for me to write code via my Mac. 

 

Anyway back in the day most of my friends had ZX Spectrum's and my favourite game I would play on that was Jetpac and always wanted to play this on my Atari, and tired many times to do this, but usually gave up as basic was way to slow etc.. But I'm trying again now.. So though I might share my journey on here. And maybe we can build it into some sort of learning tutorial  etc on how to code in Fastbasic. So let me know if anyone else is interested in this. 

 

So far I have a "sprite" flying around the screen, building off the PMtest.bas file provided with the FB build 

 

 

image.thumb.png.30049788a79c680cc452e7961d76a1fb.png

Edited by TheSPY
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56 minutes ago, TheSPY said:

Anyway back in the day most of my friends had ZX Spectrum's and my favourite game I would play on that was Jetpac and always wanted to play this on my Atari, and tired many times to do this, but usually gave up as basic was way to slow etc.. But I'm trying again now.. So though I might share my journey on here.

Just for the record (not trying to hold you back), but there is already a quite good "Jetpac"-port for the A8 called "Jetboy":

 

jetboy.png.329b2e065b3d5b66398d4a14597c9e28.png

 

http://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=5634

 

(Only in case you like to produce something more unique...)

 

Edit:

Discussion during development:

 

Edited by Irgendwer
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1 minute ago, Irgendwer said:

Just for the record (not trying to hold you back), but there is already a quite good "Jetpac"-port for the A8 called "Jetboy":

 

http://a8.fandal.cz/files/binaries/games/j/jetboy.png

 

http://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=5634

 

(Only in case you like to produce something more unique...)

Nice, I had not seen this, I thought someone must have done a port by now, but couldn't find one. this looks amazing, way better than anything I could code.   

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That looks interesting, I don't remember that from back in the day, but must have been the sequel to the original Jetpac.  I must figure out how they got their sprite to be smaller.   I had started with trying to make a 8x16 sprite, but it soon became a 16x22 and looks rather fat on screen compared to there conversions of the original.  I have found a YouTube video series of someone using Jetpac as learning experience into unity etc.  And that has a copy of the original sprite sheets..  might have to go have a closer look at that now. 

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2 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

Please don't feel discouraged. There are plenty of interesting games not available for the A8 you can work on.

Yeah, might head in a different direction.   I believe it would be good to get some sort of tutorial thread going for people that are keen to learn how to use Fastbasic etc.. There are so many talented people on here that could help out 

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45 minutes ago, TheSPY said:

I must figure out how they got their sprite to be smaller.

It's in hi-res mode, and the Jetpac spaceman is a softsprite, not PMG's. So you have twice the resolution to work with.

 

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2 minutes ago, MrFish said:

It's in hi-res mode, and the Jetpac spaceman is a softsprite, not PMG's. So you have twice the resolution to work with.

 

yes, I figured that was what was going on, with the lack of colours etc. Well beyond the my abilities in Fastbasic. I think I'd be happy if I could get something like Jetman working in Fastbasic as that looks to be working within the Standard Atari  graphics modes and player missile limitations. 

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4 minutes ago, TheSPY said:

I think I'd be happy if I could get something like Jetman working in Fastbasic

There's plenty room for improvement, since that version is pretty basic in what parts of the original game are replicated.

 

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