scorecolor changes player colour too...?

[Loccy]

I have this at game end (it's quick and dirty, it's solely so I know the game has finished - I will be putting something fancier there longer term)

 

256 rem ######################### game ended

257 scorecolor = rand

258 drawscreen: goto 257

 

However the player changes colour as well. Not that it's a big deal, but I'd like to know WHY. Can anyone who knows more about this explain it?

 

(incidentally, if anyone is thinking of taking the plunge, I thoroughly recommend Batari Basic. I picked it up approximately two hours ago. I now have a Scramble-esque scrolling playing field-based landscape, and a plane bombing it. No targets to bomb as of yet, but they'll come Given how much of a headf**k the 2600 is supposed to be to develop for, Batari definitely gives you a BIG leg up)

Edited December 29, 2006 by Loccy

[+batari]

I have this at game end (it's quick and dirty, it's solely so I know the game has finished - I will be putting something fancier there longer term)

 

256 rem ######################### game ended

257 scorecolor = rand

258 drawscreen: goto 257

 

However the player changes colour as well. Not that it's a big deal, but I'd like to know WHY. Can anyone who knows more about this explain it?

 

(incidentally, if anyone is thinking of taking the plunge, I thoroughly recommend Batari Basic. I picked it up approximately two hours ago. I now have a Scramble-esque scrolling playing field-based landscape, and a plane bombing it. No targets to bomb as of yet, but they'll come Given how much of a headf**k the 2600 is supposed to be to develop for, Batari definitely gives you a BIG leg up)

The score digits are actually reused player sprites, and scorecolor is a byte of RAM that is copied to COLUP0 and COLUP1 just before the digits are displayed. Therefore if you want a different player color, you need to set COLUP0 and COLUP1 before every drawscreen.

[supercat]

The score digits are actually reused player sprites, and scorecolor is a byte of RAM that is copied to COLUP0 and COLUP1 just before the digits are displayed. Therefore if you want a different player color, you need to set COLUP0 and COLUP1 before every drawscreen.

 

Indeed. Although having to reset COLUP0 and COLUP1 every frame may be a nuisance, and you may (depending upon the game) have to spend a couple bytes to hold their values, for bB to have eliminated such a requirement would have been requiring that he spend two bytes to hold the COLUP0/COLUP1 values even in games where such values either never change or can be easliy determined by other means.

[Loccy]

I'm just doodling at the moment more than anything - calling what I have a "game" is giving it a title it doesn't deserve! I was just curious why I was seeing that behaviour. As Batari (the man himself!) said, setting COLUP0 on line 257 did the trick. (Now it's fixed, I think I actually preferred it the way it was - although maybe I should stop tinkering with a game end sequence I have no intention of keeping!)

Edited December 30, 2006 by Loccy