767 replies to this topic

[Albert]

Wow, I just ran through all the binaries in succession. I was a huge fan of Ballblazer on the Atari 8-bit and played it all the time with friends. It's amazing to see this come to life on the 2600! The scrolling playfield may be lower resolution than the 5200/8-bit versions, but it "feels" just right! Once you have all the boundaries in place and can properly "bounce" off them, it'll feel even more like the original game. Can't wait to see two playfields in action!!

Keep up the great work!

..Al

[roland p]

Albert, on Wed Oct 1, 2008 4:36 PM, said:

Wow, I just ran through all the binaries in succession. I was a huge fan of Ballblazer on the Atari 8-bit and played it all the time with friends. It's amazing to see this come to life on the 2600! The scrolling playfield may lower resolution than the 5200/8-bit versions, but it "feels" just right! Once you have all the boundaries in place and can properly "bounce" off them, it'll feel even more like the original game. Can't wait to see two playfields in action!!

Keep up the great work!

..Al

Wow that's just great! I hope I can keep up to the expectations

[Allpaul]

I've been lurking in this thread since it started. This is too kick ass! You're on fire man! Keep it up!

[ElB]

roland p, on Wed Oct 1, 2008 3:24 PM, said:

Wow that's just great! I hope I can keep up to the expectations

You've done great so far - I registered here just to congratulate you!

[roland p]

ElB, on Fri Oct 3, 2008 6:04 AM, said:

roland p, on Wed Oct 1, 2008 3:24 PM, said:

Wow that's just great! I hope I can keep up to the expectations

You've done great so far - I registered here just to congratulate you!

That's cool! thank you!

[roland p]

I'm working on the drones right now. I managed to get them 16 pixels wide! So I can reasamble the original drones pretty close. I first though about really cool scaling routines, but then I realised that I first need to display something and than work further on . The sprite in the sky is displayed in a completely different way than the part in the checkerboard, but you won't notice.

So here it is, just a really huge drone:

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Attached Files

•  ballblazer.bin   4K   144 downloads

[Cafeman]

*falls out of chair*

[moderntimes99]

This is simply amazing, the animation is so smooth...

Regards,
Moderntimes99

[mos6507]

Is there any way to do some gradient stuff at the horizon line? This would really help the sky, for instance, but also to kind of "haze" out the checkerboard.

[Godzilla]

zomfg

[roland p]

mos6507, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 1:01 AM, said:

Is there any way to do some gradient stuff at the horizon line? This would really help the sky, for instance, but also to kind of "haze" out the checkerboard.

The previous versions had gradient in the sky, but I remove it, because I was mainly focused getting the sprites on screen, so when that's finished, I will put it back in (assuming I've enough cycles left). Gradient in the checkerboard is also possible, but I won't do it yet, because it costs precious cycles, setting up the colors for the tiles already takes 963 cycles, I first have to speed it up.

[remowilliams]

Holy crap! That is amazing!

That's one of the things I love about AA. People very often suggest what appear to be (or in many cases are) patently ludricrous ideas, and every once in a while - somebody brings them to life.

[Random Terrain]

remowilliams, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:23 AM, said:

Holy crap! That is amazing!

That's one of the things I love about AA. People very often suggest what appear to be (or in many cases are) patently ludricrous ideas, and every once in a while - somebody brings them to life.

Yeah, aren't you glad the creator of this thread wasn't sent to the To All Non-Programmer Idea Peddlers thread? "If you think Ballblazer might be is possible, make it yourself or shut up."

[Lord Thag]

Oh. My. God.

Now that is something I never thought I'd see on a VCS. Amazing!

[Rybags]

I've been following this - pretty impressive.

I take it doing it as dual window won't be any problem?

Also - what proportion horizontally does the viewport occupy? It's kinda hard to tell with Stella on my widescreen monitor what's screen and what would be invisible on a TV.

[roland p]

Rybags, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 10:26 AM, said:

I take it doing it as dual window won't be any problem?

I hope so

Rybags, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 10:26 AM, said:

Also - what proportion horizontally does the viewport occupy? It's kinda hard to tell with Stella on my widescreen monitor what's screen and what would be invisible on a TV.

There is a black border left and right consisting of 5 playfield pixels, so it's a bit smaller than other games. You can toggle it in Stella with alt-n.

Edited by roland p, Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:45 AM.

[potatohead]

Nicely done!

This remains one of my favorite games. Your efforts are brilliant. Hope you are feeling good, because you really should be.

[Allpaul]

Random Terrain, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 3:30 AM, said:

remowilliams, on Sat Oct 4, 2008 2:23 AM, said:

Holy crap! That is amazing!

That's one of the things I love about AA. People very often suggest what appear to be (or in many cases are) patently ludricrous ideas, and every once in a while - somebody brings them to life.

Yeah, aren't you glad the creator of this thread wasn't sent to the To All Non-Programmer Idea Peddlers thread? "If you think Ballblazer might be is possible, make it yourself or shut up."

I'll co-sign that!

[roland p]

Another update.

I've been optimizing the code. The routine for calculation of horizontal movement is now improved and inculded in the checkerboard kernel instead of in the VBLANK.

This means I am able to create 2 playfields!

You can use cursor to move upper ship and Y,G,H,J to move lower ship. Right now, both ships hover in parallel universums which means they can't see each other

There are still some optimisations to be done, between the upper and the lower ship, lot's of calculations are done, so no time to display scores yet.

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Attached Files

•  ballblazer.bin   4K   110 downloads

[Albert]

roland p, on Mon Oct 6, 2008 8:35 AM, said:

Another update.

I've been optimizing the code. The routine for calculation of horizontal movement is now improved and inculded in the checkerboard kernel instead of in the VBLANK.

This means I am able to create 2 playfields!

That's fantastic!

..Al

[Random Terrain]

I knew you could do it.

[Shawn Sr.]

All this and it's only 4k so far? Pretty cool! Can't wait to see what comes of this!

[roland p]

Shawn Sr., on Mon Oct 6, 2008 3:54 PM, said:

All this and it's only 4k so far? Pretty cool! Can't wait to see what comes of this!

Yep, 1004 bytes ROM and 17 bytes of RAM left so far.

[vdub_bobby]

Very impressive!

[Mayhem]

roland p, on Mon Oct 6, 2008 3:04 PM, said:

Shawn Sr., on Mon Oct 6, 2008 3:54 PM, said:

All this and it's only 4k so far? Pretty cool! Can't wait to see what comes of this!

Yep, 1004 bytes ROM and 17 bytes of RAM left so far.

That's not much RAM left for the actual game... the need to optimise somewhere or can I smell a superchip around the corner (I wouldn't blame ya here!)?