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New Release : BLUE STAR
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:02 pm
by Kweepa
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
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:38 pm
by MacbthPSW
*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.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:59 pm
by Kweepa
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:18 am
by nbla000
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:33 am
by orion70
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?
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:40 am
by Mayhem
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!)
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:01 am
by Centallica
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"
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:29 am
by MacbthPSW
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:29 am
by Mayhem
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.
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:36 am
by Kweepa
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
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:17 pm
by Centallica
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
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:21 pm
by Kweepa
I was kidding about the hard sci-fi
It's 100% machine code... well 99.6% anyway thanks to the SYS 4109.
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:44 am
by nbla000
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.
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:32 am
by Kweepa
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!
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:49 pm
by nbla000
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...