176 replies to this topic

[seanhq]

This game looks awesome! Have you made some cartridge artwork for it yet? I've love to put this on a cartridge.

[atari2600land]

If Al agrees to sell it in his store, I was going to have an art label contest. He has yet to look at the game, I sent him a PM but got no response yet. Glad you like the game, it seems to be near the finish.

EDIT: Al, i just got your PM.

Edited by atari2600land, Sat Jan 9, 2010 6:25 PM.

[Albert]

I just spent some time playing 2600tris on a real 2600 thanks to my Harmony cart. I played several rounds.

Here's some comments I wrote up after playing:

- Are there "levels" in this game? Most versions of Tetris I've played have levels that make the game more difficult (generally faster) after completing 'x' rows.

- A rows completed counter somewhere would be nice.

- The pieces flash when they drop to the next position. This shoal deb eliminated. The pieces do not flash on the title screen.

- If you move a piece left and right, a noise is made. If you reach the edge of the screen and continue to press left or right (depending on what side you are), the noise is still made even though you can no longer move your piece. The game should check to see if the piece can be moved before playing the sound and attempting to move the piece.

- When you clear multiple rows, they should all disappear at the same time.

- When you clear a row, I would drop all the rows above the removed row faster than they presently fall. It's a bit slow right now.

- When the game ends, it quickly goes back to the title screen. Please display a brief "Game Over" image and perhaps a game over jingle as well. Then wait a few seconds and go back to the title screen. A joystick button press should also take you back to the title screen if you do not want to wait.

- The piece turning sounds is a bit harsh. Can you choose a more pleasing sound and perhaps make it a bit lower in volume?

- The inclusion of a demo mode is a nice touch. During the demo mode could you display "Demo" somewhere on the screen?

- Is it possible to use a 2600 sprite to draw the current piece in a different color? The screen is a bit bland with everything except the score in the same color. In a two player game, these could each be a different color.

- In the same vein, if the next piece could also be drawn in another color that would be great.

- The "Game Select" switch should be used to switch between a single player and two player game. Right now the "Right Difficulty" switch is used.

- Use one of the difficulty switches to toggle the display of the next piece. Show this somewhere on the title screen.

- For a two player game, use slightly different sounds for the left and right players. Just changing the pitch of the sounds would be fine.

- I saw a bug in the two player game where I had an "I" piece falling vertically. I hit the fire button to rotate it and when it turned horizontally one of the blocks was missing from the piece (the second block from the left). It continued to fall this way until it hit the bottom. I was able to reproduce this repeatedly by quickly rotating an "I" piece while it was falling against other pieces on the left. I was able to deform the piece until it was outside of the gameplay area. This only seems to happen in a two player game in the right column.

- When playing a two player game, when one person dies it would be nice to display a game over graphic or something in that player's column. And also maybe some audio cue, like a short jingle that plays.

- The game seems more sluggish in two player mode. Especially hitting the fire button to rotate the pieces--I found I had to do this several times in a row sometimes in order to get a piece to rotate.

- You cannot rotate the "I" piece when it is vertical and within three blocks of the right of the screen. I was also unable to rotate the "I" back to vertical when it was falling horizontally and wedged between other pieces and the wall. I've seen this with other pieces as well. You should always be able to rotate the pieces when they are in free fall and not locked in by other pieces.

That should keep you busy for a bit.

..Al

[atari2600land]

Albert, on Thu Jan 14, 2010 6:47 PM, said:

I just spent some time playing 2600tris on a real 2600 thanks to my Harmony cart. I played several rounds.

Here's some comments I wrote up after playing:

- Are there "levels" in this game? Most versions of Tetris I've played have levels that make the game more difficult (generally faster) after completing 'x' rows.

- A rows completed counter somewhere would be nice.

In answer to your first few question, yes there are levels. The pieces fall faster as the game progresses. Maybe I should make it less subtle? Also, the numbers to the left and right are rows completed counters. I'll work on the other things.

[Albert]

atari2600land, on Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:26 PM, said:

In answer to your first few question, yes there are levels. The pieces fall faster as the game progresses. Maybe I should make it less subtle? Also, the numbers to the left and right are rows completed counters. I'll work on the other things.

Duhhr, I was thinking that was a score and I wasn't paying attention to it. That makes me feel smart! A level indicator of some sort would be nice, perhaps the level counter could change colors as you progress through the levels?

..Al

[atari2600land]

New version. Most of these were easy fixes.

Things I've changed:
+SFX for player 2
+Added "demo" to demo screen
+made 2-player game faster
+corrected SFX for bumping into walls

things I cannot change due to lack of programming skills:
+making more than one line disappear at the same time.
+making block flash once it hits bottom.
+the speed at which the blocks disappear.

If I were to change the blocks to player0 and player1, the block for player0 would be player2's level color and player1 would be player1's (player0's in the code) level color. The blocks change colors every 10 lines cleared. Do you still want me to do this?

I'll be working on this some more.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_011410.bas   34.55K   69 downloads
•  2600tris_011410.bas.bin   32K   80 downloads

[seanhq]

Nice work. This version plays a lot better.

[atari2600land]

I just thought of something: I can't make the next block a different color because if player 1 and 2 are on the same level, it wouldn't be a different color. I could change the color of the next block on the one player game though to whatever color I want, though. Do you want me to do this?

[atari2600land]

A few more changes:
+In a 2-player game, when a game is over, "GAME OVER" will be displayed in the place of the next piece.
+Made the right option toggle next piece. Shown at title screen as the 2x2 block under the joystick(s).

Attached Files

•  2600tris_011510.bas.bin   32K   82 downloads
•  2600tris_011510.bas   35K   71 downloads

[seanhq]

Just checked out your latest version. Looks good, however it seems to lock up when it goes into demo mode. I'm using Stella 3.0.

[atari2600land]

Fixed it.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_011510.bas   35.02K   72 downloads
•  2600tris_011510.bas.bin   32K   57 downloads

[atari2600land]

It's amazing what three letters can accomplish. I changed the gotos in going left, right and fire into gosubs, and it made the game considerably faster, even the two-player mode is faster. Take a look for yourself.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_012910.bas   34.98K   97 downloads
•  2600tris_012910.bas.bin   32K   109 downloads

Edited by atari2600land, Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:05 AM.

[atari2600land]

OK, maybe that was a little *too* fast. Here, I slowed it down a little, but it's still better than the other versions.

Attached Files

•  2600tris_013010.bas   34.98K   72 downloads
•  2600tris_013010.bas.bin   32K   89 downloads

[Yurkie]

atari2600land, on Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:20 AM, said:

OK, maybe that was a little *too* fast. Here, I slowed it down a little, but it's still better than the other versions.

Holy Shit your a genius...tetris on the 2600...WOW

I am a ColecoVision guy, but had a 2600 as a kid and would have gladly paid $40 for this. Too bad you didn't have a chance to make your millions in ths 80's

Super nice work.

[atari2600land]

I couldn't have made this in the '80s...batari Basic wasn't around back then, that, and I was a preteen in 1989. Anyway, thanks for the compliments.

[Yurkie]

atari2600land, on Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:55 AM, said:

I couldn't have made this in the '80s...batari Basic wasn't around back then, that, and I was a preteen in 1989. Anyway, thanks for the compliments.

none the less nice work.

[atari2600land]

minor update.
+When you try to rotate a piece and it can't rotate, the rotating sound is gone.
+Added a little music to the secret scene (you'll see it if you get 100 lines or more.)

Attached Files

•  2600tris_013110.bas.bin   32K   92 downloads
•  2600tris_013110.bas   35.38K   61 downloads

[jwierer]

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:27 AM, said:

minor update.
+When you try to rotate a piece and it can't rotate, the rotating sound is gone.
+Added a little music to the secret scene (you'll see it if you get 100 lines or more.)

The source uses score33.asm. Is that something you created because I don't have it with my default bB install and it won't compile without it.

-Jeff

[atari2600land]

jwierer, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 1:48 PM, said:

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:27 AM, said:

minor update.
+When you try to rotate a piece and it can't rotate, the rotating sound is gone.
+Added a little music to the secret scene (you'll see it if you get 100 lines or more.)

The source uses score33.asm. Is that something you created because I don't have it with my default bB install and it won't compile without it.

-Jeff

I found it in the bB forums. I tried searching for it but couldn't find the thread, so I'll just post the file here if that's OK. You'll have to change it to an asm file, it says I'm not allowed to upload asm files for some reason.

Attached Files

•  score33.txt   1.52K   69 downloads

[lost child]

Nice... this gets better all the time. It took me a second to figure out the title screen. Clever.

[jwierer]

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:15 PM, said:

I found it in the bB forums. I tried searching for it but couldn't find the thread, so I'll just post the file here if that's OK. You'll have to change it to an asm file, it says I'm not allowed to upload asm files for some reason.

Thanks! What version of the bB compiler are you using? I moved to this one because I now have Windows 7 64-bit and this code crashes the compiler. I haven't found anything else that does this?

-Jeff

[atari2600land]

I don't know, how do I check?

[jwierer]

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:40 PM, said:

I don't know, how do I check?

What's the modified date of 2600basic.exe?

[atari2600land]

jwierer, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:00 PM, said:

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:40 PM, said:

I don't know, how do I check?

What's the modified date of 2600basic.exe?

Wednesday, ‎February ‎14, ‎2007.

[jwierer]

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:06 PM, said:

jwierer, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:00 PM, said:

atari2600land, on Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:40 PM, said:

I don't know, how do I check?

What's the modified date of 2600basic.exe?

Wednesday, ‎February ‎14, ‎2007.

That's the original release if I recall? I'll have to try on a different machine. Might be a bug...

-Jeff