17 replies to this topic

[batari]

This is a detour from other projects. Anyway, it's just like Adventure with one new feature - the right joystick can control one of the dragons.

The game starts out normally. If you press the right joystick button once, the right joystick will take over control of Grundle. Press again and you take over Yorgle, again and you control Rhindle. Again and the game goes back to normal and the cycle repeats.

I wish more games let you play the bad guy

Attached Files

•  adv_2player.bin   4K   263 downloads

Edited by batari, Sun Feb 26, 2006 1:28 AM.

[SeaGtGruff]

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:30 AM, said:

This is a detour from other projects.  Anyway, it's just like Adventure with one new feature - the right joystick can control one of the dragons.

Sounds like fun!

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:30 AM, said:

The game starts out normally.  If you press the right joystick button once, the right joystick will take over control of Grundle.  Press again and you take over Yorgle, again and you control Rhindle.  Again and the game goes back to normal and the cycle repeats.

What, you can't control the bat, too?!?

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:30 AM, said:

I wish more games let you play the bad guy

What was that game where you got to play Godzilla or some other monster?

Michael Rideout

[batari]

SeaGtGruff, on Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:56 PM, said:

What, you can't control the bat, too?!?

That would be fairly easy to change, but since you can only see what's going on when you're on the player's screen, your ability to steal things would be a little limited. Besides, it's more fun to eat the player than to swipe objects...

[PacManPlus]

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:30 AM, said:

I wish more games let you play the bad guy

http://www.atariage....showtopic=74780







That's a very cool idea of letting the player control one of the dragons

Bob

Edited by PacManPlus, Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:43 AM.

[Atari Dogs]

So, the second player waits for a dragon to come on the screen, and then he can take control of it?

[supercat]

I think this game needs a two player linky option.

[batari]

Atari Dogs said:

So, the second player waits for a dragon to come on the screen, and then he can take control of it?

Basically, yes. You can control the dragons while offscreen too, but you can't see where they are going.

supercat, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:09 PM, said:

I think this game needs a two player linky option.

I may be leading up to that. I first need to figure out what data needs to be shared. Since the game relies on hardware collision registers, controller data is not enough. At the very least, one byte per frame?

Slave needs joystick, collision data and console switch data from master, and maybe other things.
Joystick=4 bits, button=1 bit, collision data=3 bits minimum (?)

Although all 8 bits seem to be used, the joystick only represents 9 of 16 possible states (if we assume up+down and/or left+right at the same time are prohibited) and console switches (select and reset) may override the joystick, so they could be encoded in.

Then master only needs joystick data from slave - 4 bits. Again, since there are available states here, a 0000 could be used to signal a NAK.

To begin games in the correct state, a reset occuring from screen zero (the number screen) could first jump to a special routine that syncs up all of RAM. Should be possible with a few moments of screen blanking.

I could be wrong - these are just ideas. Of course this all requires real hardware so the development time is much slower...

[supercat]

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:57 PM, said:

I may be leading up to that.  I first need to figure out what data needs to be shared.  Since the game relies on hardware collision registers, controller data is not enough.  At the very least, one byte per frame?

Hardware collision registers should be entirely deterministic provided reasonable care is used in accessing them. If the game is synced at startup, controller data should be sufficient to keep it that way.

[batari]

supercat, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:19 PM, said:

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:57 PM, said:

I may be leading up to that.  I first need to figure out what data needs to be shared.  Since the game relies on hardware collision registers, controller data is not enough.  At the very least, one byte per frame?

Hardware collision registers should be entirely deterministic provided reasonable care is used in accessing them. If the game is synced at startup, controller data should be sufficient to keep it that way.

Only if the same screen is rendered on both systems. In the case of a networked Adventure, one screen would display the player's screen and one a dragon's screen, and so the registers could differ. The only hardware collisions that really matter are those on the player's screen, so sending those bits to the other system along with controller data should be enough.

[supercat]

batari, on Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:22 PM, said:

Only if the same screen is rendered on both systems.  In the case of a networked Adventure, one screen would display the player's screen and one a dragon's screen, and so the registers could differ.  The only hardware collisions that really matter are those on the player's screen, so sending those bits to the other system along with controller data should be enough.

(bonking head) Yeah, you're right. Since the dragon/bat don't use collision detection except in relation to the player (I would expect that the dragon can safely run into the sword when not on the player's screen?) one-way passing of collision information would probably suffice. Good thing, since I think the dragon player's screen would probably have to lag behind the other player's by a frame.

[atwwong]

I can't believe I missed this all weekend! This is great! Imagine if Warren Robinett had time to figure this out back in '78. We might have had a slew of multiplayer good vs. evil games earlier on. Head-to-head Atari!!!

[kisrael]

Batari...I mean this sincerely...you are way cool.

[Random Terrain]

I totally missed this before. Thanks for the hack.

[Ferret75]

Now if only this was in cartridge form...

[Random Terrain]

Ferret75, on Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:45 PM, said:

Now if only this was in cartridge form...

We'll hopefully have the Chimera cartridge one of these days that just about everyone will be able to afford and you can throw this hack and more on a microSD card and play your brains out on a real Atari.

[batari]

Ferret75, on Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:45 PM, said:

Now if only this was in cartridge form...

After some improvements, maybe...

[batari]

There is a slight update to this binary, posted in my blog.

[yuppicide]

Wow awesome! I'd loooooooooove to see a version you could play linked.