Jess Ragan Posted July 23, 2005 Author Share Posted July 23, 2005 The latest version of Solar Plexus is out... or should I say, versions! One's naughty, and one's nice... it'll take a clever hacker to discover the hidden code in the AO rated version. JR solplex.bin xsolplex.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted July 23, 2005 Share Posted July 23, 2005 haven't searched for the naughty bits yet...quick thought though, maybe you should check for the reset button in the main game loop... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 23, 2005 Author Share Posted July 23, 2005 I'll have to throw in that code later. Solar Plexus has devoured most of my free time and I really need to spend some of it on other projects. JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 24, 2005 Author Share Posted July 24, 2005 Newest versions of the game are available here. More information about them can be found in the 2600 section of the forum. Long story short... both games are nearly finished, and the AO version will not be updated further. JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 25, 2005 Author Share Posted July 25, 2005 I hereby announce the completion of Solar Plexus. The game's got a new title screen and a new surprise hidden inside. It's anyone's guess as to what that may be, but it's up to you to find it... no spoilers will be granted this time! I've thoroughly bug tested the game over the night and everything seems fine, but if you happen to find anything that seems amiss, let me know. No further changes to the gameplay or audiovisuals will be made, however... what you see here is what you get! JR solplex.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad5200 Posted July 25, 2005 Share Posted July 25, 2005 Excellent work! I have one small suggestion that you may want to implement. It needs some indication that the game is over (other than all your ships are gone) because someone with a quick trigger finger is going to miss their final score. Maybe you could have the title screen continue to display the score. Or change the color of the background when your last ship dies. Or display GAME OVER. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 25, 2005 Author Share Posted July 25, 2005 All right, one really cool game over screen coming up... if I can fit it into the bulging code. After that, I really, really gotta stop. This project is going to break me in half! JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 26, 2005 Author Share Posted July 26, 2005 See what you think of THIS, Chad! JR solplex.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jussts Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 All right, one really cool game over screen coming up... if I can fit it into the bulging code. After that, I really, really gotta stop. This project is going to break me in half! JR 898290[/snapback] Love the title and game over screens... they look great. I also dig that crazy game over music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 26, 2005 Author Share Posted July 26, 2005 Thanks! I'm especially proud of the game over screen... it really shows what you can do with the 2600's TIA registers. I only needed a single frame of animation for each player sprite... the flipping animation was created by cleverly stretching and moving the graphics around the screen. It took hours to complete, but it was ultimately worth the effort. I honestly had no idea what I was doing with the sound effects... basically, I just used the frame counters and the variables in FOR/NEXT statements to alter the volume, pitch, and tone of the 2600's two sound channels. A little experimentation was necessary to create the ship's explosion, the refueling sound, and of course, the weird flipping noise in the game over screen. I noticed that some of these sound effects were stunningly similar to those used in official 2600 releases by Activision and other third parties... apparently, they were doing the same thing twenty years ago that I'm doing now. It'd be extremely helpful to have a list of the notes the 2600 can generate for future projects, so I could actually create music rather than relying on random noises. Anyone know where I can find one? JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 Thanks! I'm especially proud of the game over screen... it really shows what you can do with the 2600's TIA registers. I only needed a single frame of animation for each player sprite... the flipping animation was created by cleverly stretching and moving the graphics around the screen. It took hours to complete, but it was ultimately worth the effort. Nice work! Definately the most polished thing we've seen. I've been talking with Al...pretty soon we hope to setup a bB gallery, much like the page of hacks we have, except it would include some "learning" code (ala Stella's "The Dig") too, and of course source doe right there in the page. (when available) I honestly had no idea what I was doing with the sound effects... basically, I just used the frame counters and the variables in FOR/NEXT statements to alter the volume, pitch, and tone of the 2600's two sound channels. A little experimentation was necessary to create the ship's explosion, the refueling sound, and of course, the weird flipping noise in the game over screen. I noticed that some of these sound effects were stunningly similar to those used in official 2600 releases by Activision and other third parties... apparently, they were doing the same thing twenty years ago that I'm doing now. It'd be extremely helpful to have a list of the notes the 2600 can generate for future projects, so I could actually create music rather than relying on random noises. Anyone know where I can find one? http://qotile.net/sequencer.html is the best bet, especially the 2600 Sound And Music Programming Guide . I've been meaning to write a simplified guide, along with recreating this program I *swear* I saw somewhere but can't find now that can input a meoldy and spit out the best fit notes and stuff. Re: the similarities...well there are a few patterns it's very easy to fall into with the 2600, some very distinctive patterns. But I'm sure a lot of the famous sounds we hear, like the victory sequence of Adventure, comes from coders just hacking around. (it's the amazing music like Gyruss that makes me wonder what automated method they mighta used...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 It'd be extremely helpful to have a list of the notes the 2600 can generate for future projects, so I could actually create music rather than relying on random noises. Anyone know where I can find one? http://qotile.net/sequencer.html is the best bet, especially the 2600 Sound And Music Programming Guide . Use that as your first reference; here is a complete note guide for when you're really feeling feisty: http://home.arcor.de/estolberg/texts/freqform.txt I've been meaning to write a simplified guide, along with recreating this program I *swear* I saw somewhere but can't find now that can input a meoldy and spit out the best fit notes and stuff. Drooooool... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 Hi there! I've been meaning to write a simplified guide, along with recreating this program I *swear* I saw somewhere but can't find now that can input a meoldy and spit out the best fit notes and stuff. TJ wrote it, ~2001 Greetings, Manuel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 I've been meaning to write a simplified guide, along with recreating this program I *swear* I saw somewhere but can't find now that can input a meoldy and spit out the best fit notes and stuff. TJ wrote it, ~2001 Of course he did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 I've been meaning to write a simplified guide, along with recreating this program I *swear* I saw somewhere but can't find now that can input a meoldy and spit out the best fit notes and stuff. TJ wrote it, ~2001 899110[/snapback] Would it be in the stella archives anywhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Can you have the game over thingy check the joystick button during the animation and restart the game if the button is pressed? Right now all the button does is mess up the sound and display. People who want to stare at the animation every time could do so, but people who just want to get on with it could do that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Hi there! Would it be in the stella archives anywhere? Sure Greetings, Manuel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Can you have the game over thingy check the joystick button during the animation and restart the game if the button is pressed? Right now all the button does is mess up the sound and display. People who want to stare at the animation every time could do so, but people who just want to get on with it could do that too. 899266[/snapback] Oy. Somehow, the final version of the game never ends up being the final version of the game. Between this and the recent complaints of incompatibility with the Mac version of Stella, I think I've got a couple hours of playtesting and bugchecking before I can close the book on Solar Plexus and keep it closed. I don't mean to take my frustrations out on you... it's just mildly aggravating to think you're finished with a project, only to be informed otherwise. That bug you stumbled upon was a line of code I used to test the animation in the game over screen. When the screen was finished, I forgot to remove the makeshift pause button. I've since removed the line, but there simply wasn't enough room left to make the fire button cleanly skip the game over animation, without skipping over too much. As a compromise, I've put in a single line of code that kills the animation when you press the reset button. It's not going to do you much good if you play the game on a real 2600... by the time you reach over to hit the reset switch, the animation will be finished, but it's the best I can do without stripping code from the rest of the game. I just don't think it's worth it... if given the choice between taking the secret content out of Solar Plexus, or making the player wait five seconds through a really cool game over screen, I'm going to go for the latter option. Five seconds isn't that long to wait... we're not talking about a Final Fantasy VII cut scene here! JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 By the way, if anyone would be willing to test the game out on a real 2600, I'd really appreciate it. Here's the latest (but probably not the last) version of Solar Plexus. JR solplex.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Here's what's new in the latest build of Solar Plexus: * Fire button interrupts the game over sequence * Improved fire button input... press and release fire to continue the game after a life has been lost or to advance through the game over screen If you find any bugs, let me know. JR solplex.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 That's better, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrocon Posted July 27, 2005 Share Posted July 27, 2005 Here's what's new in the latest build of Solar Plexus: * Fire button interrupts the game over sequence * Improved fire button input... press and release fire to continue the game after a life has been lost or to advance through the game over screen If you find any bugs, let me know. JR 899648[/snapback] This is a fun game. If you post this in the homebrew section it will probably get a lot more downloads and you may get more feedback. Don't mention it is a bB game and then those that haven't been following bB will try it and play it on its own terms compared to any asm game. I bet people will accept it and enjoy it without saying something to the effect that you aren't utilizing 100% of the 2600's resources Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted July 28, 2005 Author Share Posted July 28, 2005 Homebrew section, eh? I'll have to look into that... JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MausGames Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I'd LOVE to do an ASM title screen. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've taken this code from the title screen of the 2005 Minigame Multicart, and converted it to work with bB. The code doesn't look much like Basic, as it's almost entirely asm and data statements, but it will work by simply pasting at the end of a program. Of course, the GFX now say "Solar Plexus" which was created with Eckhard's PCX2GRP utility. I didn't create the text either, it's just a Windows font scaled to 48 pixels wide. Feel free to use this in your game, or others may modify the data statements with their own GFX data to create their own title screens. Note that this asm is its own mini-kernel. To call it, simply put "gosub titlescreen" in a loop somewhere without calling drawscreen in the loop. It should compile in Alpha 0.2. But it does screw up the "bytes free" and claims 5 bytes, which is bogus. It will actually just reduce your bytes free by around 350-400 bytes. Is there any way to make this work with bB 1.0? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impaler_26 Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I'd LOVE to do an ASM title screen. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've taken this code from the title screen of the 2005 Minigame Multicart, and converted it to work with bB. The code doesn't look much like Basic, as it's almost entirely asm and data statements, but it will work by simply pasting at the end of a program. Of course, the GFX now say "Solar Plexus" which was created with Eckhard's PCX2GRP utility. I didn't create the text either, it's just a Windows font scaled to 48 pixels wide. Feel free to use this in your game, or others may modify the data statements with their own GFX data to create their own title screens. Note that this asm is its own mini-kernel. To call it, simply put "gosub titlescreen" in a loop somewhere without calling drawscreen in the loop. It should compile in Alpha 0.2. But it does screw up the "bytes free" and claims 5 bytes, which is bogus. It will actually just reduce your bytes free by around 350-400 bytes. Is there any way to make this work with bB 1.0? This will work with bB 1.0: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121993 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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