New Release : BLUE STAR

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:02 pm

BLUE STAR
A game for the unexpanded Vic 20.

Infiltrate the alien base and take out the CPU!
Find equipment to help you on your quest!

Keys
X, V, N, < ... left
C, B, M, > ... right
A - L ... jump
Q - P ... ???

Joystick
Button ... jump
Up ... ???

See if you can succeed in less than 100 space-jiffies!

http://www.kweepa.com/step/games/BlueStar.zip

Enjoy!

Kweepa

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:38 pm

*Very* nice so far! Found the item that let me get into a few new screens, but then a new creature got me

(trying to not spoil things here).

Anyway, great work. Any chance of joystick control? My real VIC-20 setup isn't too conducive to playing games on keyboard at the moment.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:59 pm

I could probably squeeze in joystick control (I'm tight on memory though - more inlining of functions required)... the problem is that I need two "action" buttons, for jump and ???. Presumably up on the joystick doesn't work very well as a jump action.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:18 am

Yes very nice platform game, i don't know why but it remember me the C64 Mission impossible, maybe for the atmosphere.

I think that with the joystick support is better....

If you want i may include it on the Mega-Cart by reorganizing some stuff.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:33 am

Excellent job Kweepa! Funny and addictive. Very well done.

My boss just caught me playing with it in VICE - now I have to deem you responsible for this. Can I leave you his e-mail?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:40 am

Nice work... what's your real name so I can enter it into GB20?

(if you don't want to say publically, then PM me!)

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:01 am

nbla000 wrote:Yes very nice platform game, i don't know why but it remember me the C64 Mission impossible, maybe for the atmosphere.

I think that with the joystick support is better....

If you want i may include it on the Mega-Cart by reorganizing some stuff.

Yes! The Mega-cart just got more "mega"

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:29 am

Kweepa wrote:I could probably squeeze in joystick control (I'm tight on memory though - more inlining of functions required)... the problem is that I need two "action" buttons, for jump and ???. Presumably up on the joystick doesn't work very well as a jump action.

Many games on the large family of Atari 2600-compatible-joystick systems use up for jump since the one button was required for other functions. But I think this fell out of fashion especially once the NES and Super Mario Bros. became so successful.

I don't know what ??? is yet (no spoilers please!) but maybe it would map nicely to up or down on the joystick? Impossible Mission on the C-64 does this for the search function, keeping the button reserved for jump.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:29 am

If things were mapped to the stick, given how the game operates (what I've seen so far) then I'd want jump on the fire button.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:36 am

I think you'll change your mind when you've gotten a little further...

Has anyone tried playing this on a real Vic20 yet? If so, any problems?

It would be awesome to get on the Mega-Cart! I don't know how that works - does it just load to RAM? There is some self-modifying code in the game.

PS "Funny and addictive"?? It's supposed to be hard sci-fi

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:17 pm

Kweepa wrote:I think you'll change your mind when you've gotten a little further...

Has anyone tried playing this on a real Vic20 yet? If so, any problems?

It would be awesome to get on the Mega-Cart! I don't know how that works - does it just load to RAM? There is some self-modifying code in the game.

PS "Funny and addictive"?? It's supposed to be hard sci-fi

Funny, addictive and hard sci-fi...sounds like a game that I'd enjoy

I'm too lazy to lug out the xe-1541 cables and remember how I transferred to a floppy to get playin this game so I hope it makes it to the mega-cart

What was it programmed in (Basic? ML? Basic with ML?) btw?

Thanks for the 2008 Vic-20 addition to the community

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:21 pm

I was kidding about the hard sci-fi

It's 100% machine code... well 99.6% anyway thanks to the SYS 4109.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:44 am

Kweepa wrote:Has anyone tried playing this on a real Vic20 yet? If so, any problems?

Not yet, but i think to test it on real hardware this evening.

It would be awesome to get on the Mega-Cart!

It's a plesure for me and i think for all future Mega-Cart buyers to include your game on Mega-Cart and i'm happy that you agree.

I don't know how that works - does it just load to RAM? There is some self-modifying code in the game.

I don't need to modify any row of your code, maybe i just crunch the file to preserve space, i simply store your program on Mega-Cart eproms like a big disk-drive and using my Mega-Cart loader routine, i move the program to ram and i start it automatically according with the SYS start point, in your case SYS4109.

Btw before to add it on Mega-Cart do you think to release a Joy version ? in this case i prefer to add a joy version.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:32 am

nbla000 wrote:Btw before to add it on Mega-Cart do you think to release a Joy version ? in this case i prefer to add a joy version.

Yes, I'd like to do a joystick version and an NTSC version. The architecture changes required for the NTSC version (I'll have to drop from 50Hz to 30Hz since I blew my sprite rendering budget) should open up some space for the joystick routines hopefully!

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:49 pm

Kweepa wrote:I'd like to do a joystick version and an NTSC version.

I suggest you to do just one version for both PAL and NTSC machines with Joy support too.

Has anyone tried playing this on a real Vic20 yet? If so, any problems?

Ok, i've tested it on real PAL machines and it works great, very attractive background music too.

btw there is a little load problem that you may reproduce in vice too.

If you attach the d64 image without start it automatically and try to load the program normally:
LOAD"*",8

It does not work, you need to start it using only this command:
LOAD"*",8,1

I've hacked a bit your file to fix the problem but is better that you fix your sources.
Assuming that you use a text file and DASM simply change the ORG $1000 with ORG $1001 or ORG 4096 with ORG 4097 and remove the first 0 byte

the initial code must be:

Code: Select all

	org 4097
	byte 11,16,216,7,158,"4109",0,0,0     ; 2008 SYS4109

or

Code: Select all

	org $1001
	byte $0b,$10,$d8,$07,$9e,"4109",0,0,0     ; 2008 SYS4109

This because an unexpanded basic program starts from 4097/$1001 not from 4096/$1000.

Please note i've used 216,7 / $d8,$07 for 2008 SYS4109 in your code there is 215,7 / $d7,$07 for 2007 SYS4109, i think that 2008 is better for a game made on 2008

PS: I've tested it fastloading the game using my EasyLoad+ from the Mega-Cart too and it works great of course...