Brainstorming: 2600 Tiled Game Ideas

[vdub_bobby]

I wrote a demo that, similar to Andrew Davie's Boulder Dash WIP, supports a scrolling, tiled display.

 

What games would be good fits for this?

 

Right now my demo supports an 8x7 scrolling window on a 48x42 map, and scrolling at 30 Hz (scroll 30 tiles / second). I could most likely get the window bigger, 10x7 or 10x8 at the expense of some scrolling speed.

 

The main bottleneck is the number of different tiles - 6-7 is probably the maximum, though maybe more depending on the game, the map, and the tiles.

 

SCRPG20080102.bin

Other miscellaneous notes:

-Yes, this is for the Supercharger. It won't work without (a lot of) extra RAM.

-I originally wrote this as the basis for an RPG. It would work well for that, but I'm looking for other ideas.

-The current code supports up to 16 different tiles; they are stored two to a byte. The map could be any size that fits in ~1K, it could be 290x7 for a really long side-scrolling platformer or something.

-The current code supports two sprites per screen, one can be positioned anywhere, the other one has a bunch of weird restrictions (which I didn't completely follow; you can see them disappear at odd times if you scroll slowly in certain spots). The 2nd sprite would only really be useful for an RPG (maybe) and would have to be dropped in order to display 10 columns.

 

So. Any brilliant ideas?

[Ben_Larson]

So. Any brilliant ideas?

 

Maybe some kinda split-screen 2-player game w/ scrolling. Seems like your engine might be able to do that with some modifications. Maybe a split-screen 2-player racing game with scrolling?... or a split-screen sequel to combat (err...combat 3)?

 

The scrolling platformer idea might be cool too...

 

Ben

[Bakasama]

How about a game similar to Haunted House or Adventure with larger rooms to explore. The exit to the next room wouldn't be seen easily and would require exploring that room to found out where the door is or some item you need to win the game.

[Emehr]

I vote for an adventure game. Something a little more sophisticated than Secret Quest but not a turn-based-combat RPG. While I gotta admire the folks who put in an effort on some attempted RPGs, I think the whole RPG-on-a-2600 idea is a bit too ambitious. Something simpler like a Zelda-style game seems more doable.

 

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

[Bakasama]

I vote for an adventure game. Something a little more sophisticated than Secret Quest but not a turn-based-combat RPG. While I gotta admire the folks who put in an effort on some attempted RPGs, I think the whole RPG-on-a-2600 idea is a bit too ambitious. Something simpler like a Zelda-style game seems more doable.

 

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

 

I take it you have played Mysokoban.

[Emehr]

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

 

I take it you have played Mysokoban.

No but I got my feet wet with MacSokoban by Ingemar Ragnemalm back in the late 90's. It was for Classic Mac OS and was a nice piece of work. You could even use a text editor to create your own levels.

 

I just Googled Mysokoban. The graphics look a little busy but I'll try it out.

Edited February 6, 2008 by Emehr

[+Nathan Strum]

Golf!

[MayDay]

a certain non-infringing green guy who likes golden triangles and is a master of swords, boomerangs, and of course blue potions (but only if the Princess isn't watching).

 

PS- this would also be an excellent candidate for a custom homebrew controller, see my blog for details!

 

EDIT #2- Doh! Sorry Emehr, totally missed that first time around.

Edited February 6, 2008 by MayDay

[supercat]

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

 

That's funny--I was just pondering how best to do Sokoban on the 2600. Curiously, I was figuring on doing 3-wide playfield tiles without extra RAM. Four-wide is probably more practical, though the screen aspect ratio would be a little icky.

[Cybergoth]

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

 

That's funny--I was just pondering how best to do Sokoban on the 2600. Curiously, I was figuring on doing 3-wide playfield tiles without extra RAM. Four-wide is probably more practical, though the screen aspect ratio would be a little icky.

 

Don't remember the technical details, but there should be 2-3 Sokobanesque demos from Andrew Davie in the [stella] archive.

[TROGDOR]

1. Empire (capture cities to produce tanks, infantry, and ships.)

 

2. Utopia an Intellivision game.

 

I've always wanted to do both of these games. They could be implemented in a somewhat reduced capacity as SuperCharger games.

Edited February 6, 2008 by TROGDOR

[cd-w]

These games would be suitable for your engine:

• - an obscure top-down adventure game.
  
• - similar to Boulderdash, but much more focussed on puzzle solving.
  

Not sure how you would release the game on a cart though, unless you are waiting for the Chimera? I suppose you could release it on a CD or tape for the Supercharger.

 

Chris

[vdub_bobby]

CD release, baby! Or Chimera. I'm not planning on doing this immediately, though, I have something else in the works already...

 

Some good ideas here. Doing an Zelda-clone would be difficult, I think, since the current engine doesn't really support sprites.

 

But Utopia is a brilliant idea! I used to play that game on my Grandpa's Aquarius.

 

I've never been a big fan of Sokoban, though. Golf is another good idea - could include a course editor.

[128bytes]

How about a much improved )from the prototype) version of Xevious?

[vdub_bobby]

How about a much improved )from the prototype) version of Xevious?

A game like Xevious really needs a very robust sprite engine. You'd really want to start there and then build up the less-important things (backgrounds, terrain) around it, rather than taking a tile engine and trying to graft a bunch of sprites onto it.

 

But it's an interesting idea...I'll have to think about how that might be done.

[+thegoldenband]

Just tossing this idea out:

 

One of the things that's really missing on the Atari 2600 is a game -- I don't know the generic name for these -- where you have a set of three or four characters from which to choose, each of whom has their own distinctive ability. Think Lost Vikings, Legacy of the Wizard, Little Samson, and other games that don't start with L. (Each of those games has its own multi-character paradigm, too -- all at once vs. switching at a home base vs. switching on the fly.)

 

Obviously none of those particular games could be adapted, and they're all closer to arcade games than puzzle games. But I'd really like to see a game with that "multiple tools that interact in complex ways to solve a problem" feel, and there must be an early example of something like that out there. Given what your engine can do, I'm imagining something with an expansive playfield, comparatively simple building blocks...hmmm...

 

By the way:

 

- an obscure top-down adventure game.

 

I love finding out about games like these. What a funny little tune it has, repeating ad lib through three different keys! It sounds like the kind of thing I'd do when I was first learning how to write music -- you get stuck in a pattern and can't find your way out...

Edited February 6, 2008 by thegoldenband

[Impaler_26]

If I had a second choice: sokoban!

 

That's funny--I was just pondering how best to do Sokoban on the 2600. Curiously, I was figuring on doing 3-wide playfield tiles without extra RAM. Four-wide is probably more practical, though the screen aspect ratio would be a little icky.

 

Don't remember the technical details, but there should be 2-3 Sokobanesque demos from Andrew Davie in the [stella] archive.

Sokoban would be nice!

And someone else already had that idea a few years ago. I found this rom here, seems to be a very early wip though...

Sokoban__01_01_2003___Adam_Wozniak_.bin

Edited February 6, 2008 by Impaler_26

[vdub_bobby]

Here's a reworked binary with better (?) graphics:

Tiledemo20080206.bin

 

Smaller map for no special reason.

 

EDIT: Those weird round things are supposed to be trees...can anybody draw a tree in a 4x21 tile?

Edited February 6, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[joeybastard]

Here's a reworked binary with better (?) graphics:

Tiledemo20080206.bin

 

Smaller map for no special reason.

 

EDIT: Those weird round things are supposed to be trees...can anybody draw a tree in a 4x21 tile?

 

Well for CV stuff I use ICVGM303. I don't know if there's something similar for the VCS so that the colors/pixel ratio is correct. I took a shot at it anyway.

[+batari]

CD release, baby! Or Chimera. I'm not planning on doing this immediately, though, I have something else in the works already...

 

Some good ideas here. Doing an Zelda-clone would be difficult, I think, since the current engine doesn't really support sprites.

 

But Utopia is a brilliant idea! I used to play that game on my Grandpa's Aquarius.

 

I've never been a big fan of Sokoban, though. Golf is another good idea - could include a course editor.

You should do a cassette release as well. I was going to do that with Twisty Passages but I decided not to because I don't think the game is fun enough

[+Nathan Strum]

Well for CV stuff I use ICVGM303. I don't know if there's something similar for the VCS so that the colors/pixel ratio is correct. I took a shot at it anyway.

For Bob's tile engine there are some limitations: you have to use alternating lines of colors: red, green and blue. You can't use any other colors, nor can you have two lines of the same color adjacent to each other.

 

I worked on some tiles for Bob awhile back - but I don't recall what I came up with now.

Edited February 7, 2008 by Nathan Strum

[supercat]

So. Any brilliant ideas?

 

If you don't mind sprawling the data over a number of banks, one could probably do a decent tile engine without expansion RAM. Some estimates of possibilities:

 

-1- Six types of 21-line tiles, spread out over 3 banks, using middle 32 PF pixels along with one 1lk-resolution colored sprite and no gaps between rows.

 

-2- Seven types of 15-line tiles, spread out over 3 banks, likewise

 

-3- Eight types of 24-line tiles, spread out over 6 banks, likewise.

 

-4- Above combinations of tile number and height could probably fill the whole screen width if there was one blank line between rows.

 

-5- One could reduce the number of banks by increasing the size of tables within each bank (#1-#4 would require two 256 byte tables per bank; #5 could offer eight types of 24-line tiles with three banks of four pages each, or e.g. nine types of tiles 18-line tiles using three banks of four pages each. Those possibilities might require two blank lines between rows.

[+Random Terrain]

This probably isn't helpful, but one of the reasons why I like the Atari 2600 is because you usually get clear, sharp graphics. Game systems that followed often gave you fuzzy or mooshy graphics that weren't as clear. Both pics so far remind me of mooshy Nintendo NES graphics instead of crisp Atari 2600 graphics. Is there any way to fix that or is it unavoidable?

Edited February 7, 2008 by Random Terrain

[Thomas Jentzsch]

For Bob's tile engine there are some limitations: you have to use alternating lines of colors: red, green and blue.

Are the colors fixed? In BD Andrew and I use different colors to match the colors of the original level. I described that in more detail in the BD development blog.

 

I worked on some tiles for Bob awhile back - but I don't recall what I came up with now.

Maybe you want to work on some tiles for BD?

 

Especially the diamonds are tough. The butterflies too.

[joeybastard]

Well for CV stuff I use ICVGM303. I don't know if there's something similar for the VCS so that the colors/pixel ratio is correct. I took a shot at it anyway.

For Bob's tile engine there are some limitations: you have to use alternating lines of colors: red, green and blue. You can't use any other colors, nor can you have two lines of the same color adjacent to each other.

 

I worked on some tiles for Bob awhile back - but I don't recall what I came up with now.

 

Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks