16 replies to this topic

[Bruce Tomlin]

I got the basics of tile dropping and horizontal/vertical movement working this weekend.

There's also a title screen subroutine in there, but it's not hooked up to anything right now.

 tubes68_001.bin   10.29K   159 downloads

[haroldoop]

It's looking good so far.
Maybe you should also annouce it at Eidolon's Inn and Spritesmind.
BTW, there's some talk at Eidolon's Inn about making a Sega Genesis programming contest ( forum thread). Maybe you would be interested in participating!

[vdub_bobby]

Looks good! Glad you are working on this again.

[Bruce Tomlin]

I still need to get bombs and conneced groups working, but for that I need to add a state variable for each player.

In the meantime, I've finished the basic dropping mechanics and added the "bomb request". And I added a title screen with a way to select one or two players, something I never got around to in the 7800 version. (Hmm, player 2 can hit the start button with 1 Player selected... I should do something about that.)

Since I don't have game-over working (that needs the state variable too), there is currently no way to get back to the main menu other than by hitting reset.

 tubes68_002.bin   10.76K   200 downloads

[Bruce Tomlin]

New version with bomb tiles actually exploding stuff, and tiles falling down when they lose their support.

Now it's time for me to implement the most important routine, the path tracer. Then I'll probably switch back over to my RPG to get the ColecoVision sound routines ported over.

 tubes68_003.bin   10.99K   253 downloads

[Bruce Tomlin]

Tile path tracing finally works, so this version finally meets all my minimum requirements!

This is the first Genesis homebrew code I've written that has surpassed its previous version, and I'm glad to finally reach this point. I've got a long list of stuff I still want to tweak before even making it look pretty or supporting multiple levels, but I've got some other stuff (like the sound code for my RPG) that I need to shift over to now, so I'll probably take a break on this for a while.

Changes are:
* title screen shows version number and copyright message
* tracing for fully-capped tile groups now works
* scoring now works (loops = triangle number of tiles looped, bomb = number of tiles destroyed)
* edge caps are set to an interesting pattern which should be rather challenging (these will later change per-level)

 tubes68_004.bin   11.76K   199 downloads
The basic rules (for those who didn't know or have forgotten) are:

* make a completely capped group of pipes to score
* cross pipes don't affect pipe capping of the other pipe in the same tile
* the more tiles in your group, the higher your score (triangle number: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, etc.)
* use bombs to destroy unusable tiles
* game is over when your new tile gets stuck above the top row

Start button pauses the game
C button rotates a tile
D-pad left/right moves the falling tile sideways
D-pad down moves the falling tile down quickly
D-pad up requests a bomb for your next tile (or cancels the request)

[vdub_bobby]

Very nice! Does it get harder? I played for about 5 minutes.

EDIT: Why not use the A or C button for bombs?

Edited by vdub_bobby, Wed Mar 7, 2007 11:30 AM.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Geez, I've just barely got it working. The 7800 version never had varying speeds. Every level is going to have different speeds, colors, random tile distribution, and edge caps. When I get around to it. And probably background graphics, too. One of the nice things about the Genesis is that it has two full graphics planes.

And the reason it doesn't use a button for the bombs is because it was a port from the 7800 (where I didn't want to require a 2-button stick), and I hadn't actually thought about changing it to a button yet.

[vdub_bobby]

Bruce Tomlin, on Thu Mar 8, 2007 5:09 PM, said:

Geez, I've just barely got it working. The 7800 version never had varying speeds. Every level is going to have different speeds, colors, random tile distribution, and edge caps. When I get around to it. And probably background graphics, too. One of the nice things about the Genesis is that it has two full graphics planes.

And the reason it doesn't use a button for the bombs is because it was a port from the 7800 (where I didn't want to require a 2-button stick), and I hadn't actually thought about changing it to a button yet.

Hey, no problem; I was just asking, not demanding.

[wrenchien]

vdub_bobby, on Fri Mar 9, 2007 11:12 AM, said:

Bruce Tomlin, on Thu Mar 8, 2007 5:09 PM, said:

Geez, I've just barely got it working. The 7800 version never had varying speeds. Every level is going to have different speeds, colors, random tile distribution, and edge caps. When I get around to it. And probably background graphics, too. One of the nice things about the Genesis is that it has two full graphics planes.

And the reason it doesn't use a button for the bombs is because it was a port from the 7800 (where I didn't want to require a 2-button stick), and I hadn't actually thought about changing it to a button yet.

Hey, no problem; I was just asking, not demanding.

maybe we'll see this as a cart.... anyone design a label for it, etc?

[Shannon]

Just thought I'd throw out a screenshot for those who have not seen this..

Attached Thumbnails

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[Bruce Tomlin]

FWIW I haven't been working on this, but I reached a point in Genesis developement a while back where I decided I need to switch to gcc. Straight assembler was fun, but it got tedious after a while. So when I do start again, getting gcc working will be the first thing I do.

[Bruce Tomlin]

So anyhow, it's been a while. But I did get a GCC3 ported and working (with a script, so it's easy for me to rebuild it), and got things set up for making Genesis binaries with it. Then I ported this thing, and changed my recursive path tracer to a stack+loop tracer. The binary has quadrupled in size, but now it's ALL in C, so it should be a lot easier to add new features.

Since I felt I needed to add something, I've added a 120 second time limit and high score display. Hmm, maybe the high score should be shown while playing the game, but the screen is a bit crowded. I'll have to think about it.

 tubes_006.bin.zip   21.44K   98 downloads

[Shawn Sr.]

Seeing this come along on the Genny makes me sad it didn't meet your standards to get completed on the 7800 cause I loved what you had going on the 7800 version (and I still play it too)

[nonner242]

This looks great!
GREAT WORK!

[Jess Ragan]

There's supposed to be a Genesis BASIC, but I don't know how comprehensive or useful it is.

[Impaler_26]

Jess Ragan, on Thu May 28, 2009 5:30 AM, said:

There's supposed to be a Genesis BASIC, but I don't know how comprehensive or useful it is.

Apparently you can make great games like this with it.

Edited by Impaler_26, Wed May 27, 2009 10:14 PM.