Thank you Kweepa. I'm honoured and actually somewhat surprised: quite a few of the 4k games were very high quality. In particular, The Keep was excellent and I'm delighted to see it recognized with a podium position.
Malcolm
New Game: "Fickle" for unexpanded Vic-20
Moderator: Moderators
Hi all.
As I had hoped, I managed to squeeze teleports into Fickle. Consequently, I've replaced some of the weaker levels with better ones (most of which use teleports). The new version can be found at:
https://sites.google.com/site/malcolmsp ... Fickle.zip
Since this is supposed to be the very final version, I've included the source code.
If you want to build Fickle.prg you'll need:
Malcolm
As I had hoped, I managed to squeeze teleports into Fickle. Consequently, I've replaced some of the weaker levels with better ones (most of which use teleports). The new version can be found at:
https://sites.google.com/site/malcolmsp ... Fickle.zip
Since this is supposed to be the very final version, I've included the source code.
If you want to build Fickle.prg you'll need:
- The programs ca65 and ld65 from the cc65 compiler suite
- a version of exomizer 2 (I've included a version for Linux)
- a version of make
- The program is built in two phases. The first phase produces blocks of machine code. The second phase compresses the blocks using exomizer and packs them into a final target program.
- Since I was working within severe memory constraints, I had to code for minimal size throughout. This definitely makes the code harder to read.
- Many things which would typically be implemented as general algorithms have instead been implemented using highly Fickle-specific look-up tables. Sadly, this means they are unlikely to be re-usable in another project.
Malcolm
> Does the game decompress chunks of code/data as needed??!
That would certainly be cool. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make a scheme like that work.
Exomizer 2 is excellent, but to get any value from the compression, I needed to give it chunks of nearly 500 bytes. Much less and the compressed block ended up bigger than the original. The decompression routine is also a reasonable chunk of code and you have to have a spare block of memory available for it to use as a buffer. All this means that I favoured getting the program decompressed into memory once and leaving it there.
The two chunks I refer to above are:
* one chunk which decompresses into the memory area just above the stack (which is possible because Fickle doesn't depend on any ROM routine).
* another chunk which decompresses into the usual memory area between $1000 and $2000.
The screen is put at $1000 and when it's drawn, it overwrites the basic stub and the decompression routine.
Malcolm
That would certainly be cool. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make a scheme like that work.
Exomizer 2 is excellent, but to get any value from the compression, I needed to give it chunks of nearly 500 bytes. Much less and the compressed block ended up bigger than the original. The decompression routine is also a reasonable chunk of code and you have to have a spare block of memory available for it to use as a buffer. All this means that I favoured getting the program decompressed into memory once and leaving it there.
The two chunks I refer to above are:
* one chunk which decompresses into the memory area just above the stack (which is possible because Fickle doesn't depend on any ROM routine).
* another chunk which decompresses into the usual memory area between $1000 and $2000.
The screen is put at $1000 and when it's drawn, it overwrites the basic stub and the decompression routine.
Malcolm
Very nice game, my compliments.
I've used it for a lot of works, lately for some Mega-Cart routines and sjload08 PAL/NTSC, it's a valid alternative to Pucrunch and could be integrated in your own project.
Yes I agree,Malcohol wrote:Exomizer 2 is excellent
I've used it for a lot of works, lately for some Mega-Cart routines and sjload08 PAL/NTSC, it's a valid alternative to Pucrunch and could be integrated in your own project.
Mega-Cart: the cartridge you plug in once and for all.
Thanks Jeff-20. It is indeed awesome to see something I've worked on mentioned in print. Even though most important news sites are web-based these days, it seems appropriate that 8-bit games be reviewed in magazines (just as they were back in the day).
With regard to how I publicized it, I can't say I put a lot of thought into its "marketing campaign". What I did do was:
* Enter it into the minigame competition itself
* Post an entry on this forum.
* E-mail oldschool-gaming.com (they posted an entry about it)
* Use the submission box at RGCD.co.uk (don't think they did anything).
* Post a comment on a blog entry about one-button games.
I discovered that Retrogamer magazine do have an e-mail address for informing them about new homebrew, but I didn't know about it at the time. I presume they found it through one of the above or a re-posting somewhere else.
With regard to how I publicized it, I can't say I put a lot of thought into its "marketing campaign". What I did do was:
* Enter it into the minigame competition itself
* Post an entry on this forum.
* E-mail oldschool-gaming.com (they posted an entry about it)
* Use the submission box at RGCD.co.uk (don't think they did anything).
* Post a comment on a blog entry about one-button games.
I discovered that Retrogamer magazine do have an e-mail address for informing them about new homebrew, but I didn't know about it at the time. I presume they found it through one of the above or a re-posting somewhere else.
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Mayhem
- High Bidder
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Jason Kelk (TMR), who does the homebrew section for Retro Gamer, is present on a fair few forums and the such, so he does get quite a bit of view over what's been released each month. If I'd had more time at the time Darran was looking for someone permanent for the section, it could have been me... c'est la vie heh.
Lie with passion and be forever damned...