Gosub

[+atari2600land]

You mean like this? There's still some work to be done on it, like: why is it that when you push the green sub here in this picture, the red sub freezes for about 20 seconds?

gosub033007a.bas.bin

gosub033007a.bas

[Dragnerok X]

You mean like this? There's still some work to be done on it, like: why is it that when you push the green sub here in this picture, the red sub freezes for about 20 seconds?

 

Yes, that's what I meant. I like that pushing sound you set up, too. After a quick glance my first guess for you and that "temporary freezing" problem looks like some sort of conflict (possibly variable - wise) between your playfield's collision detection and my routine. I've came to that because it seems to only happen when the player pushing the the other pushes them into the playfield and contacts it. My advice for you would be to look through your playfield collision code very thouroughly and see if you can come up with a link to the two. Also take into note that this, again, only happens when both players contact the playfield via their collision.

[Dragnerok X]

Chris, any chance you could post (or pm) me the "bankswitch_gosub.inc" file? I've got a few ideas I might want to try to fix your game.

[SeaGtGruff]

Chris, any chance you could post (or pm) me the "bankswitch_gosub.inc" file? I've got a few ideas I might want to try to fix your game.

Oh crud, that's my fault. When I added that to the program, I should have posted it. Here are the two files you'll need. You'll have to rename "bankswitch_gosub.txt" to have the ".inc" extension, and you'll have to rename "score_graphics_gosub.txt" to have the ".asm" extension.

 

Michael

bankswitch_gosub.txt

score_graphics_gosub.txt

Edited April 1, 2007 by SeaGtGruff

[Dragnerok X]

Chris, any chance you could post (or pm) me the "bankswitch_gosub.inc" file? I've got a few ideas I might want to try to fix your game.

Oh crud, that's my fault. When I added that to the program, I should have posted it. Here are the two files you'll need. You'll have to rename "bankswitch_gosub.txt" to have the ".inc" extension, and you'll have to rename "score_graphics_gosub.txt" to have the ".asm" extension.

 

Michael

 

Thanks for the files. This has definetly narrowed things down. As it seems, I was right as to guess the timers and my routine were conflicting. Now, time to get this to work!

 

[+atari2600land]

Just an important announcement about GoSub's profits. I've decided to give the money I make on the game to the Willamette Humane Society, one in my area (in fact, it's right down the street). You can read more about it in my blog.

[gambler172]

Just an important announcement about GoSub's profits. I've decided to give the money I make on the game to the Willamette Humane Society, one in my area (in fact, it's right down the street). You can read more about it in my blog.

Hi Chris

great idea.....

greetings Walter

[Dragnerok X]

Here's kind of an in-between fix. It works a lot better then it did, but for some reason its still glitching. You can compare your old code to this, and you'll see what I have done thus far, but as a quick question, what does "timer2/m" do anyway? I've come to suspect they are counters that slow the sub down, but am kind of puzzled as to why this still doesn't work...

 

 

gosub040207.bas

[+atari2600land]

Here's kind of an in-between fix. It works a lot better then it did, but for some reason its still glitching. You can compare your old code to this, and you'll see what I have done thus far, but as a quick question, what does "timer2/m" do anyway? I've come to suspect they are counters that slow the sub down, but am kind of puzzled as to why this still doesn't work...

Thank you for helping me. In response to your question, timer2 and m are used in the minigame to control the speed of the submarines. If timer2 and/or m is set at 2, it's the normal speed, and if timer2 and/or m is set at 6, that means they're at the center of the screen where it slows down.

[Dragnerok X]

Thank you for helping me.

 

You're welcome!

 

In response to your question, timer2 and m are used in the minigame to control the speed of the submarines. If timer2 and/or m is set at 2, it's the normal speed, and if timer2 and/or m is set at 6, that means they're at the center of the screen where it slows down.

 

That's what I thought, thanks for verifying that. I better get back to work!

[+atari2600land]

Here's an 8k version without GoSub 500 or the sound test, just in case. It was a tight squeeze (181 bytes left in bank 1 and 351 bytes left in bank 2), but I managed to get it all in there. I figured I didn't want to be a bother to Dragnerok X since he's working on his own game (Combat DX) and Mike, who has his hands full with other various things (hopefully one of which is the Sudoku game). So here. What do you think? Release candidate? Bugs? Work on GoSub 500 minigame some more and try to make this a 16k game?

gosub040507.bas.bin

gosub040507.bas

[Dragnerok X]

Here's an 8k version without GoSub 500 or the sound test, just in case. It was a tight squeeze (181 bytes left in bank 1 and 351 bytes left in bank 2), but I managed to get it all in there. I figured I didn't want to be a bother to Dragnerok X since he's working on his own game (Combat DX) and Mike, who has his hands full with other various things (hopefully one of which is the Sudoku game). So here. What do you think? Release candidate? Bugs? Work on GoSub 500 minigame some more and try to make this a 16k game?

 

Oh no, it's fine, you haven't bothered me (that much ).

 

As for your decision to (possibly) release this as an 8k game; from experiance, all I can tell you is think about this some more. Though I think this partially has to do with impatience on your part (ok... I have taken a while...), unless you find substancial evidence that in doing so it will benefit the user, I think you should keep this (and the sound test) in too.

 

As for my current progress, I can't say much about that, either. It seems I have been able to nail down the problem to the point (basically, the subs can't detect when one sub bumps another into a new type of terrain and update the collision fast enough to keep things working, thus causing the "aggresive" sub to freeze), but this problem seems a bit too complicated even for me to handle.

 

So, to be fair, I have a few suggestions for you.

 

1. Try a few things yourself. You were the one who designed this engine, and most likely understand it better than I do. Why not re-work the engine to suit the routine's needs, or better yet, try writing your own similar routine, one which is more compatible with your current code.

 

2. If you can wait a while, a more qualified person (Mike) might be able to help you.

 

Just remember, I can give you suggestions along the way if you aren't understanding something and need a little help, just ask.

 

...and to finish this post, I'll pick you up where I left off.

 

gosub040507.bas

[+atari2600land]

 

1. Try a few things yourself. You were the one who designed this engine, and most likely understand it better than I do. Why not re-work the engine to suit the routine's needs, or better yet, try writing your own similar routine, one which is more compatible with your current code.

I think I'll try re-writing the GoSub 500 minigame from scratch and see where that takes me. Thanks again for your help. Maybe if I make the walls not be able to go through might help. So what I'm saying is I'll try to keep GoSub 500 in. I myself have been working on this thing since around the beginning of December of last year and I would like to get it finished so I can move on to bigger and better things, like the Niagra Falls game. So it's been about 4 months total. OK, I am impatient, assuming it takes about half-a-year to get an Atari 2600 game finished. Either that or I have too many ideas. But it's getting closer to completion, and that's a good thing.

[+atari2600land]

OK, the GoSub mingame is re-coded. Only trouble is, the green sub isn't showing up! Does anyone have any reason why?

gosub040607.bas

[Dragnerok X]

OK, the GoSub mingame is re-coded. Only trouble is, the green sub isn't showing up! Does anyone have any reason why?

 

Merry christmas.

 

gosub040607a.bas

 

gosub040607a.bas.bin

 

I myself have been working on this thing since around the beginning of December of last year and I would like to get it finished so I can move on to bigger and better things, like the Niagra Falls game. So it's been about 4 months total. OK, I am impatient, assuming it takes about half-a-year to get an Atari 2600 game finished. Either that or I have too many ideas. But it's getting closer to completion, and that's a good thing.

 

Trust me, the feelings mutual. I've had tons of ideas I had (and still have to) put on hold due to Combat DX. Revamping Atari OS, creating a tank-based missile command clone and making my own basic-on-basic interpreter are just a few of them.

 

However, I have learnt every once in a while I can always postpone a project for a few minutes to test a concept or two.

 

tank.bas.bin

 

Best of luck with the mini-game!

 

Edited April 6, 2007 by Dragnerok X

[Dragnerok X]

I don't mean to bug you, but how is this going?

[+atari2600land]

New version. A new track has been added to the minigame. To use it, press select switch at the minigame. To start, player 2 presses fire. The starting method might change if people don't like it. The second track will probably most definitely change because I'm not good at designing Indy-500-style tracks.

gosub040907.bas

gosub040907.bin

Edited April 9, 2007 by atari2600land

[gambler172]

Hi Chris

i love Gosub

greetings Walter

[+atari2600land]

This latest version makes the subs face the right way in the mini-game. Am I anywhere close to being done? Suggestions/compliments/mini-game secondary tracks welcome. Thanks for the compliments thus far.

gosub041107.bin

[+atari2600land]

Question: Are there any more bugs/suggestions, or should I release it now as-is?

[Dragnerok X]

Question: Are there any more bugs/suggestions, or should I release it now as-is?

Everything is just about perfect, except for one easy-to-fix thing. It seems you have forgotten to add color/bw:ntsc/pal color switching while in your mini-game. Besides that, the game is absolutely perfect and (this is coming from a fellow obsessive-compulsive programmer) just about done.

 

Edited April 16, 2007 by Dragnerok X

[+thegoldenband]

Question: Are there any more bugs/suggestions, or should I release it now as-is?

 

I think I found a bug: after I beat the final (black) level and the celebration screen appears, if I hit the fire button, I begin a new game in which my sub forms inside a wall, causing me to lose three consecutive subs and get a "game over".

 

This is in Stella 2.2 on Mac OS X 10.4.8, for what it's worth.

 

Fun game, a bit on the easy side IMHO, but definitely a good candidate for kids and inexperienced gamers.

[Rom Hunter]

Excellent work Chris,

 

Some notes:

 

IMO the water is still way too sky-blue in the beginning of the game.

I have the feeling I'm flying in a zeppelin, instead of patrolling in a sub.

 

Also, why not give the octopus some animation?

It's very stiff now (and thus less creepy).

 

When the octopus eats my last sub, the Game Over screen immediately appears (instead of the sub's crash sprite).

 

Please slow down the sub when entering the black level.

It makes the sonar much more effective.

 

Edited April 16, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[+atari2600land]

I'll work on these suggestions. Thanks for the input.

[+atari2600land]

New version:

+ added b/w, pal and ntsc support for mini-game (up until you start the game)

+ on your last life, the sub crashes and then goes to the game over screen.

+ sub slowed down in last black level. (is it slowed down enough?)

I think I found a bug: after I beat the final (black) level and the celebration screen appears, if I hit the fire button, I begin a new game in which my sub forms inside a wall, causing me to lose three consecutive subs and get a "game over".

This bug appears to be fixed.

 

As for the octopus animation, I don't think I have a variable left for the timer for any animation. If there's a way to do this without a variable (or look through the code provided and figure out a way to), please tell me. And for the water color at the beginning, well, there's only 128 colors the Atari 2600 can support, so I don't know what to do about that. As for the game itself, Albert would like to release the game in June coinciding with the Midwest Gaming Expo thingee, so there's not much time left until the game gets released (and it's at the end of Q2, so my goal would be perfect if the game is finished by June. I don't know anything about classic video game expos, and I'm all the way here in Oregon, so I will be unable to attend it personally.) Thank you for the support and comments.

gosub041607.bas.bin

gosub041607.bas

Edited April 16, 2007 by atari2600land