Up the Pineapples

[+atari2600land]

I thought of something I could do.

 

"You control Bob. He's an ant. His goal is to climb up as many pineapples as he can so he can get in the World Book of Ant Records. But it seems like the current record holder doesn't like his idea, as he's trying to stop Bob by throwing stuff down at him."

 

All I have so far is the standard Aegis Games intro and then, after that, a picture of an ant on the bottom of a pineapple. So basically what I'm having in mind is a version of Beauty and the Beast for the Intellivision, but on the Atari 2600 (or a reverse Kaboom!) Bob is player 0. The stuff he is going to avoid are player 1 and both missiles. Of course, missile 0 will be black, so think of it like a rock or something. Player and missile 1 would be peas. Thoughts?

 

[+atari2600land]

Ant can now move around the pineapple. He moves faster when he's going left or right so it'll be easier to dodge the falling obstacles. One thing I would like is a 2-frame animation of an ant climbing a pineapple.

 

Unfortunately, I had to embiggen the ant due to coding stuff. It was hard to face this realization, but I needed to do it if I wanted to work on it any more. I think I'll worry about scanline adjustments more towards the end of coding this because things are constantly changing now.

[+atari2600land]

I'm having some problems with the pea. It's not getting a random number (PlayerX+1) PlayerY+1 resets like it's supposed to, but PlayerX+1 is not getting that random number even though I tell it to.

	jsr Random
	lsr
	lsr
	adc #48
	sta PlayerX+1
		
	lda #88
	sta PlayerY+1

And here's the Random subroutine:

Random:
        lda Rand8
        lsr
 ifconst Rand16
        rol Rand16
 endif
        bcc noeor
        eor #$B4 
noeor 
        sta Rand8
 ifconst Rand16
        eor Rand16
 endif
        rts 	

What could be going on? It always is at this X position when it goes down.

 

pineapple4.asm

[alfredtdk]

I still don't know what challenges you intend to put on this pineapple, but if you accept suggestions, what do you think about putting drops of water running down the green leaves of the pineapple that would delay the ant's climb? I know that in this type of fruit, a lot of water accumulates in its bromeliad leaves.

[+atari2600land]

I'm trying to put in a pea that falls in various places, but I'm having trouble with the randomness of it. Perhaps it should be a water droplet instead?

[+atari2600land]

I figured it out! As it turns out I have to set Rand and Rand16 values to something. Apparently them being 0 does not work.

 

Here is a playable version of the game, although collision detection is not in the game yet so you can't die. Thoughts?

pineapple4a.bin

[alfredtdk]

It's great. I liked seeing how the drops fall along the edges of the leaves.

 

Edited 17 hours ago by alfredtdk

[alfredtdk]

I was reading the description of your game in more detail, you intend to create an ant, Bob's rival, using missile0, for me this is brilliant, as missile0 shares the same color as player0. His rival would be throwing drops of water from the foliage to knock down our climber who wants to break the record.
If I may make another suggestion, there could be a pause in the rival's attack so that another challenge could arise for our protagonist, a hummingbird, who sees Bob as part of his diet. The interesting thing is that hummingbirds are attracted to pineapple plants and their energy source comes mainly from the flowers' nectar, but flies, spiders and ants are also part of their diet.

[+atari2600land]

I don't think I could put in something that elaborate like a hummingbird. How would I draw it? I only have 2 sprites to work with. And the hummingbird would have to be awfully tiny. And I'd have to draw a hummingbird.

 

Changes:

+ FIxed the intro noise. I don't know why it went all wacko like that. I usually am working without hearing the game, so I was surprised I heard something that awful when I put it in my Harmony cart. There was something wrong with channel 0, but I couldn't figure it out, so I restarted with version 4.

+ Added collision detection to drop of water.

+ Added death and point gotten sound effects.

pineapple6a.bin

[alfredtdk]

You're right, it would have to be a miniature bird. I made a sketch of what this hummingbird would look like crossing the screen, I'm using the NUSIZX size to the maximum.
If I'm saying something wrong please correct me.
As there are only two sprites, the drop sprite would have to alternate with the bird sprite. There would have to be changes in the subroutines so that there could be a relay between the two sprites that share the same playerx.

By the way, I'm loving every update of this game, I can't wait for the next updates, great game.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by alfredtdk