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Cafeman

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http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/5200d...offiKopter.html

 

If you are interested in the recently resurrected Atari 5200 homebrew scene, and if you can possibly put Adventure 2 out of you mind for a second or two, please feel free to click on the link to see an update to my first Atari 5200 homebrew attempt called "Koffi: Yellow Kopter".

 

I estimate the game is 30% done. the screenshots there are for the first stage. You'll also see Dave G's FANTASTIC label for the game!

 

Feel free to post thoughts here!

 

(_)3

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Cafeman,

 

In your dev notes you say:

 

"I have not been able to get the 3rd color yet using VSS as an emulator. Any suggestions on how to overcome this would be appreciated. When I try to overlay Player0 yellow pixels and Player1 blue pixels, only the Player0 yellow pixels show up (again, I'm using VSS .80, not sure if it's my coding or the emulator). Koffi's douse water (still unimplemented) will also utilize Player1's blue pixels. "

 

In my experience the older versions of VSS do not emulate the GPRIOR settings correctly and therefore you can't get the 3rd color or the "black stencil" modes to work. I've not tried newer versions...

 

I know ATARIWIN and RAINBOW both handle the GRPIOR Ok - well in all the games I've run on them.

 

At the risk of repeating myself elsewhere you can get a program called ENVISION PC to do character set editing on the PC in all mono and multicolor character modes and complie the data into XE format.... Its a good program!!

 

sTeVE

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JetBoot -- thanks. I don't know why I procrastinate stuff so much, but I have never bothered to get AtariWin to work. I downloaded it over the summer, wasted a few hours failing to get it to run my 5200 roms, and quit. I wish I could try it out! Tell ya what, tonight I'll try it again and post a question or two here if it again fails to work. It can't be all that difficult, can it?!

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Game looks great! Too bad i got outta the 5200 system a few years ago. Darn I wish i didn't sell it!

Anyways I just wanted to say how much I loved the artwork on the Koffi: Yellow Kopter

cart!

It put a "BIG" smile on my face! It looks like the "real" thing....great job!

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quote:

Originally posted by Tempest:

Anyone got any ideas for the picture for my game? I'm picturing something like the MCP from Maze-A-Tron and missiles blowing up in the background.

 

Tempest

 

Sorry I'm not up on this topic (I'm not much into the 5200) but do you have screenshots? If you do, I could use that as a starting point and put something together for you.

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Hehe, it took me a while before I realised koffi was supposed to sound like Coffee. Is the copter yellow due to coffee stains?

Anyway, the game looks like it might turn out to be fun, but will the cloud remain rectangular, or will it get a slight graphic adjustment before the game's finished?

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I don't know. I drew the cloud originally on square graphpaper, however the Atari 5200's pixels are twice as wide as they are high, that's why everything looks a bit more stretched out across the screen than I had imagined.

 

The cloud actually animates a bit and moves.... to tell you the truth, all the visuals will continue to change over time.

 

(edited for numerous typos!)

 

[ 10-29-2001: Message edited by: Cafeman ]

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Ooo... Sounds cool.

 

I have some screenshots here: http://www.msu.edu/user/reicher6/cypher.htm

 

They're not much to look at now, but the MCP board is comming soon. Actually I've finally finialized my new webpage design so I'm going to update my Cypher page sometime this week.

 

Tempest

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You wrote:

 

...please feel free to click on the link to see an update to my first Atari 5200 homebrew attempt called "Koffi: Yellow Kopter".

 

I estimate the game is 30% done. the screenshots there are for the first stage. You'll also see Dave G's FANTASTIC label for the game!

 

Can you put in a Trak-Ball routine so we can have more fun than playing it with the scary joystick? If you need a Trak-Ball, let me know...

 

Dan Kramer, Father of the 5200 Trak-Ball

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Wow! Dan Kramer in our forum! Awesome!

 

Anyway, I was thinking that the trackball might be an interesting choice for my game. It might make the movement seem more natural.

 

You can see what I have done here: Cypher

 

I'm in the middle of updating my website so I'll have more info up soon.

 

The plot of the game (so far anyway), is to try and match the pattern the computer displays at the top of the screen a certain number of times (the computer hits counter in the corner) before the computer figures out the code.

 

The way it works right now is the computer figures out one digit every 20 seconds (this will change according to level). What I want to do is change the pattern you must match (at the top of the screen), and the actual gameboard itself every so many seconds (to keep the player on his toes). Obviously the pattern at the top will change when the player succesfully matches the pattern, but I also want to make it change every now and then so it screws the player up as he works at finding the pattern in the board (changing the board around every few seconds will help in that regard as well).

 

At the moment I was going to tie the pattern changing in with the digit solve counter to simplify things. So everytime the computer solves a digit of the code, the pattern will change at the top whether you've found it or not. Of course later on I'll want to make a seperate counter for it so it's not dependand on the digit timer and then I can tweak it so it doesn't change right away if it changed earlier because you found the pattern (never mind, it makes sense to me).

 

Oh, and don't bother trying to find the pattern in the current screen shot. It's not actually in the gameboard since I just made the mock up at random (I've had people straining to find it).

 

So to select the Group of squares you think match the pattern you press the fire button (which turns the square purple at the moment to show you've pressed the button). If it's right you score a computer hit, if it's wrong you loose a life. After you score 5 computer hits you will go to the second level which will involve the MCP in some way. I was also thinking about adding power-ups that will slowly drift across the screen at random intervals (you could catch them by pressing the other fire button). But those ideas are all in the future, I need to figure out how to randomize the pattern and the gameboard.

 

 

Anyway I'd love to hear what you think about it. Sorry to hijack your thread Cafeman, but I saw Dan's name and I just had to jump in with my game.

 

Tempest

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Hi Dan, how goes it? Thanks for the reply here!!

 

You know, for now I'm content with a digital control routine, since I have bigger fish to fry (like making the game work and be fun and not look like 4th grade art!).

 

BUT ... I have had the desire to add Trak-Ball support to Koffi. I love that 5200 Trak-ball! Who wouldn't, it's so heavy & sturdy, far better than the Atari 2600/8bit trak-ball, IMO. Especially since I have so much memory at 32k, there should be no reason why I couldn't have both options in the game. I think I already have an idea of how to use different POT values for analog sensitivity. I suppose if I included an analog routine option, it would work the same for Joystick or the Trak-ball, but obviously easier to use w/the ball.

 

I can be reached here Dan: ---- I wouldn't mind poking your brain with a question or two about this idea & the trak-ball, if you have the time.

 

Tempest -- you *are* allowed to post a "cypher" thread on the forum, you know!

(_)3

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About Assembly language -- I'm a programmer, but not primarily in ASM. I also had a 3 credit ASM course in college, and blast it, I got an "A" in the course but I can't remember a thing from it! I'm sure some of it stuck in my head.

 

I currently work primarily in COBOL and Natural and some other mainframe languages/environments. Our Systems guys are the ASM coders, but I've had to get into ASM a number of times. I've also worked with Fortran, ADA, C, and VB over the years, but I have to say -- I don't think ASM is any harder to understand / learn than any other language. If anything, it is simpler.

 

However, it is more tedious , with no shortcuts at all! I think that learning the Atari's (be it 2600, 5200, or 8bit) graphical chips / tricks is the hardest part.

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http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/5200dev

 

Hey guys, this link shows all the 5200 games in development now, at least the ones I am aware of. I updated this page with some .gifs, and I added minor updates to the Koffi and Adventure 2 pages. I also noticed that Old Guru's Castle Blast now has a nice pseudo-label on its page, and that the Airworld project has some new news as well. All can quickly be reached at this link above if you don't already have 'em bookmarked.

 

Tempest, I thought you were going to give us all an update to your CPU puzzler, Cypher?

 

Yes guys, I check out ALL your pages! I hope to add Debro's page once he decides to make one. Hey Dennis, if you want me to throw something up about your project, I will. But I imagine you have webspace and you'll do it yourself eventually.

 

I am very EXCITED over the 5200 scene. Think about it! Nearly 20 YEARS after the machine was introduced, and there are some fresh new homebrews; there are multicarts available; plus there are a variety of emulators to play these games. I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for the 5200 for some reason!

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quote:


Originally posted by Tempest:

My updated Cypher page is coming soon! I just got the webpage style down, so I'm going to update it tomorrow.


 

Let me know when you update the page (I assume you'll have new information and screenshots, right?) and I'll post a news article about it so people who might not read the msg boards can learn more about your upcoming game.

 

..Al

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