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2600 Mockups Wanted!


Cybergoth

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Hi there!

 

I'm looking for your mockups for a number of 1982 Arcades. How would these look on the VCS:

 

Domino Man					Bally Midway		   
Kozmik Kroozr				  Bally Midway		  
Lost Tomb (easy)				Stern				   
Pepper II					  Exidy					
Pioneer Balloon			  SNK					  
Radar Zone					Century Electronics	 
Radical Radial				Nichibutsu USA		   
Tazz-Mania (set 1)			Stern				 
Time Tunnel				  Taito Corporation	  
Wacko						  Bally Midway		  
Wiping						Nichibutsu			   
Zektor (revision B)		  Sega					
Zoar							Data East USA		   
Zzyzzyxx (set 1)				Cinematronics

 

I'm not saying that I'm going to program one of them, but you'll never know... ;)

 

Greetings,

Manuel

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Hi there!

 

I'm looking for your mockups for a number of 1982 Arcades. How would these look on the VCS:

 

Bubbles						Williams				
Dazzler					  Century Electronics	  
Domino Man					Bally Midway		   
Hard Hat						Exidy				   
Kozmik Kroozr				  Bally Midway		  
Kram (set 1)					Taito America Corporation
Lost Tomb (easy)				Stern				   
Pepper II					  Exidy					
Pioneer Balloon			  SNK					  
Radar Zone					Century Electronics	 
Radical Radial				Nichibutsu USA		   
Robotron (Solid Blue label)  Williams				
Splat!						Williams			   
Tazz-Mania (set 1)			Stern				 
Time Tunnel				  Taito Corporation	  
Wacko						  Bally Midway		  
Wiping						Nichibutsu			   
Zektor (revision B)		  Sega					
Zoar							Data East USA		   
Zoo Keeper (set 1)			Taito America Corporation
Zzyzzyxx (set 1)				Cinematronics

 

I'm not saying that I'm going to program one of them, but you'll never know... ;)

 

Greetings,

Manuel

 

Mwahahahaha! I <3 this list. :cool: We need a challenge.

 

post-12969-1197400371_thumb.png

 

Here's my stab at Robotron. All enemy types are mirrored in horizontal rows. The playfield scrolls vertically, in the sense that the enemies on screen appear to scroll up and down only in response to player actions. The player character is a missile. The idea is to try and rescue every human before the Robotrons in the same horizontal row walk into them, since the 2600 can't make the enemies all blitz you.

 

How did I do? I'm not afraid of honest criticism - it's the only way to learn.

Edited by A Sprite
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Here's my stab at Robotron. All enemy types are mirrored in horizontal rows. The idea is to try and rescue every human before the Robotrons in the same horizontal row walk into them, since the 2600 can't make the enemies all blitz you.

 

How did I do? I'm not afraid of honest criticism - it's the only way to learn.

It's not a bad re-imagining of Robotron for the 2600, but I think the 2600 can do better than that.

 

Well, maybe. :ponder:

 

If you use an intelligent-flicker routine combined with some movement restrictions then I think you could do a passable 2600 Robotron. You could probably get 10-20 enemies on the screen, depending on RAM. It would be a flickerfest but maybe not too bad.

 

Question: Do Robotron enemies die when they hit each other, like in Berzerk?

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If you use an intelligent-flicker routine combined with some movement restrictions then I think you could do a passable 2600 Robotron. You could probably get 10-20 enemies on the screen, depending on RAM. It would be a flickerfest but maybe not too bad.

 

Question: Do Robotron enemies die when they hit each other, like in Berzerk?

I don't think Robotron should be attempted on the 2600, as I really don't believe it's possible to do it justice. First, you'd have to use some oddball control scheme since you don't have a way of firing independently of movement (as the arcade uses two joysticks). Second, even with 20 enemies on-screen at once, that's a far cry from what the arcade game is capable of, and that is part of what MAKES the game. Being overwhelmed by the sheer number of robots attacking you. Especially in the waves that end in 9.

 

No, enemies do not die when they hit each other, in fact they often overlap one another in their pursuit of you. :)

 

..Al

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Here's a demo showing that intelligent flicker probably won't do it...

 

Press fire and allow a few seconds to stabilize.

DISCLAIMER: DONT TRY ON A TV! IT MAY EXPLODE OR ELSE!

 

I think the triple copies solution might be a better option. Imagine 2600 Asteroids with thrice as many objects ;)

rob.zip

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Here's a demo showing that intelligent flicker probably won't do it...

 

Press fire and allow a few seconds to stabilize.

DISCLAIMER: DONT TRY ON A TV! IT MAY EXPLODE OR ELSE!

 

I think the triple copies solution might be a better option. Imagine 2600 Asteroids with thrice as many objects ;)

Eek, yeah, that's a pretty extreme flickerfest.

 

..Al

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First, you'd have to use some oddball control scheme since you don't have a way of firing independently of movement

 

What if the fire was constant, and the fire button was used to lock on to the nearest occupied coordinates until all enemies within x amount of space away from y were eliminated from the game? ( think Z-trigger in Ocarina of Time)

 

Releasing the button returns control to the player's stick.

 

Takes some getting used to, but it'd help the players get themselves out of most bad situations.

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First, you'd have to use some oddball control scheme since you don't have a way of firing independently of movement

 

I don't think that's a big deal, I mean almost every home port of Robotron has that same issue. You could try some variation on the truly odd NES Smash TV control scheme or try the Paradroid control scheme.

 

The big thing is the flicker.

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First, you'd have to use some oddball control scheme since you don't have a way of firing independently of movement

 

I don't think that's a big deal, I mean almost every home port of Robotron has that same issue. You could try some variation on the truly odd NES Smash TV control scheme or try the Paradroid control scheme.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I don't like most home ports of Robotron. It's just not the same without two joysticks (or two d-pads or something).

 

The big thing is the flicker.

That's why I think this is mostly a non-starter on the 2600.

 

..Al

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I know this wouldn't look very nice, but would it be that horrible to use the playfield for the robots? They move in 'steps' anyway, and if you change the color on each scanline of the robot to closely resemble the colors of the robots in the arcade game, it might not be that bad. Then you can use the players, missiles, ball, etc for the people (vertically separated) and other enemies on the screen...

 

Changing the colors on each scanline for the robots might be the hard part if you have a few robots on one line ... You would have to change the playfield color a few times on one scanline. :(

Edited by PacManPlus
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How fast can the Atari 2600 draw missiles? What if the Robotrons were represented as basically bricks, (red brick basic robotron. Big green brick is hulk robotron) and mirrored all over the map with basic movement goals preplanned while chasing humans (both human and nearby robotrons told to go to co-ordinate y), and a basic diagonal approach to chasing the player?

 

The humans could be basic 5-6 pixel high sprites, since there's less of them.

 

Would this limit the flicker to a reasonable amount?

 

Edit: If possible, I like the approach above me.

Edited by A Sprite
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I know this wouldn't look very nice, but would it be that horrible to use the playfield for the robots? They move in 'steps' anyway, and if you change the color on each scanline of the robot to closely resemble the colors of the robots in the arcade game, it might not be that bad. Then you can use the players, missiles, ball, etc for the people (vertically separated) and other enemies on the screen...

This is interesting, I wonder how it would look with many robots in motion..

 

..Al

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Ah, here it is.

 

robotron2600nm3.th.png

 

Playfield pixels for Grunts, missiles for humanoids, players for the player and whatever other non-Grunt AI are onscreen.

 

The nice thing about using the playfield for Grunts is that you'd theoretically be able to have as many Grunts onscreen as there are playfield pixels, since each Grunt would be represented by nothing more than a single bit in playfield RAM. The Grunt AI would essentially treat the playfield as a cellular automaton, with the rule for each cell being "move toward player".

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First, you'd have to use some oddball control scheme since you don't have a way of firing independently of movement

 

What if the fire was constant, and the fire button was used to lock on to the nearest occupied coordinates until all enemies within x amount of space away from y were eliminated from the game? ( think Z-trigger in Ocarina of Time)

 

Releasing the button returns control to the player's stick.

 

Takes some getting used to, but it'd help the players get themselves out of most bad situations.

 

Probably a simpler (but similar) solution (for only one stick with one button) is to use the scheme from many versions of Jeff Minter's "Llamatron". firing is constant, but holding the fire button down locks down the firing to the last direction you were moving, so you can fire in a different direction than movement. releasing the button unlocks it so the firing goes back to the direction you're moving.

 

Not aware of any reason to NOT shoot in Robotron anyway.

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