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Anyone thirsty for some PoP?


salstadt

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Hereby I repeat my offer to help with level generation tools :)

Noticed.

 

I suppose it's still too early to do much in that direction, though.

Yup. But maybe you could start counting the screens and the number of independently moveable objects for each screen (e.g. collapsing platforms, gates, switches, potions etc.). Especially the maximum numbers are interesting.

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So how about using the unused bit of the player colors?
  lda (ptrC0),y

 sta COLUP0

 asl

 sta ENAM0  ;+5!

That might (if the sword is not directly linked 1:1 to an animation) require some extra color tables, but saves a lot of cycles. And if you use adc #$fc instead of asl you can keep the carry set of you need that.

That is very interesting...that just might work. :) Thanks!

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This is really exciting! I played the Amiga version over and over and a 2600 port could be awesome. The amiga version played pretty well with a single atari joystick, except you needed to use one of the keyboard keys to switch between run and walk-creep.

 

Do you think the color/B+W switch could be used, or perhaps a second joystick button?

 

Cheers,

Ben

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This is really exciting!  I played the Amiga version over and over and a 2600 port could be awesome.  The amiga version played pretty well with a single atari joystick, except you needed to use one of the keyboard keys to switch between run and walk-creep.

 

Do you think the color/B+W switch could be used, or perhaps a second joystick button?

 

Cheers,

Ben

What if you used the joystick button to run (like SMB series); walk when button isn't pressed, press up with stick to jump or climb.

When sword is pulled out, use button to swing sword.

 

Would that work?

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Yes...that would work pretty much the same as the original game. The only differences would be that you don't have seperate buttons on the controller itself to "creep" or to put away the sword (but the console itself has 3...the 2 difficulties and the color/B&W switch). If "creeping" is not going to be in the game, I'd suggest the color/B&W switch to be used as the option of putting away the sword. So the control scheme could go something like:

 

Non-battle:

U/D/R/L = run

button+L/R = jump

button+U/D = climb/hang

B&W = draw sword

 

Battle:

L/R = move (player always facing enemy)

button+U/D = parry

button+L/R or alone = thrust

B&W = withdraw from battle

 

That leaves the 2 difficulty switches to be used for something else.

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Oops...correction:

 

Non-battle:  

L/R = run  

D = drink potion

U = creep

button+L/R = jump  

button+U/D = climb/hang  

B&W = draw sword  

 

Battle:  

L/R = move (player always facing enemy)  

button+U/D = parry  

button+L/R or alone = thrust  

B&W = withdraw from battle

How about this:

Non-battle:

L/R: walk

L/R + button: run

U: climb/hang

L/R + U: jump

D: drink potion/crouch (can you crouch/duck? I thought you could)

 

Can't take sword out manually unless you are in a battle (i.e., if there is an enemy on the screen).

 

Battle: same as you said, except maybe use D for parry and U for putting away/taking out the sword rather than the console switch?

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yep. the same button is also used for climbing down a ledge, but keep hanging, and for hanging onto ledges while jumping in the original.

 

i looked at the princed stuff, btw. i found some neat document describing the different data files, and can probably use code from pv3 to extract the needed information. i'll look closer into it next weekend.

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i looked at the princed stuff, btw. i found some neat document describing the different data files, and can probably use code from pv3 to extract the needed information. i'll look closer into it next weekend.

While you are at it, maybe you can check for redundancy (identical screens or floors) too.

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IMO it should be:

L/R: run

L/R+button: walk

 

That's closer to the original controls, where you have to press a button for walking too.

 

I prefer the above as well.

 

One thing to note is that in the original design there are times when you need to do a running jump, so you would need to be running, then press a button to jump.

 

Perhaps tapping the button could be jump and holding the button could be creep?

 

Otherwise some of the levels would need to be modified slightly...

 

Cheers,

Ben

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Nah, in the original pressing up was jumping, and right/left without button was running. So, to do a running jump you'd press left (or right), then press up while keeping left pressed, and during the jump you'd press the button to hang onto ledges. This needed sometimes careful timing, especially when you had to do several running jumps in sequence, but that was part of the fun.

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Nah, in the original pressing up was jumping, and right/left without button was running. So, to do a running jump you'd press left (or right), then press up while keeping left pressed, and during the jump you'd press the button to hang onto ledges. This needed sometimes careful timing, especially when you had to do several running jumps in sequence, but that was part of the fun.

 

Which version are you refering to? I've played and beaten the Amiga and PC versions. Perhaps both types of control were in the game?

 

Cheers,

Ben

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Okay, so to tweak what Nukey and Bobby wrote...

 

Non-battle:

L/R = run

L/R+button held = creep

U = climb up/tap loose ceiling

D = croutch/climb down/drink potion

D+button held = climb down and hang

L/R+U = jump

hold L/R+U = running jump

 

Battle (sword drawn automatically):

L/R = move (player always facing enemy)

U = parry

button = thrust

D = withdraw from battle

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On a slightly different note, I rewrote my kernel slightly, using Thomas' wonderful [unnamed?] code to replace SkipDraw, plus using his nice suggestion for using the unused bits in the color data to draw the missile.

 

The end result is this. Both players, a ball, and 1 missile all properly aligned on screen with no flicker. :) Plus 8 free cycles.

 

Of course, this is at a cost of more RAM, while saving no ROM - so I'm still at around a page of data per screen, but up to 41 bytes of RAM - including all X and Y variables and all pointers. 12 of those RAM bytes are for the Prince's data, which saves some data duplication in ROM - but could be eliminated with no change to my kernel.

 

I'll attach the .bin also. You can move players around with the joysticks.

pop2lk.zip

post-6060-1109290709_thumb.png

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On a slightly different note, I rewrote my kernel slightly, using Thomas' wonderful [unnamed?] code to replace SkipDraw, plus using his nice suggestion for using the unused bits in the color data to draw the missile.

Cool! :thumbsup:

 

Maybe I should call it "SwitchDraw"?

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On a slightly different note, I rewrote my kernel slightly, using Thomas' wonderful [unnamed?] code to replace SkipDraw, plus using his nice suggestion for using the unused bits in the color data to draw the missile.

Cool! :thumbsup:

A problem with this is that the ball and the missile can't be (vertically) positioned separately from the players. So I don't know how well this kernel would work apart from the battle screens.

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A problem with this is that the ball and the missile can't be (vertically) positioned separately from the players.  So I don't know how well this kernel would work apart from the battle screens.

I suppose my kernel will use both missiles just for horizontally extending the player graphics. At least that's how it looks like now. So this won't be any restriction anymore.

 

Then I have the ball (and ~18 cycles :)) left, which I will use for the (flickering) sword. If I manage to reposition one player, this one will be used for gates and eyecandy.

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