C64 :: More menu manipulation

Yup, i've been asked to do some more disk menu coding for Psytronik, this time for the release of (wait for it...) Armalyte! How could i refuse, it's one of my all-time favourite games f'crying out loud...! Anyway, the brief was to produce something similar to the original disk menu and Kenz sent over a lovely mock-up with the text nicely placed (i changed the position of two words so that one of the raster effects was closer to the original) and this is a fully-functioning menu that just lacks the loaders for when something is selected.

Oh, before some smart-arse says anything, the code was written from scratch without once looking at the original, even the colour tables for the bars were worked out by grabbing screenshots and squinting - i even had to create half the numerals in the font since they weren't there on the original and even managed to get a couple of sprite overlays onto the raster bars in order to enhance the Psytronik logos that took over from Mr. Thalamus in the top corners (it's been ages since i did anything even approaching timing-specific demo code, that took a bit of remembering on it's own...)



There's been a little progress on Co-Axis 2189 an' all (the code itself changed a few weeks back but the tile re-colouring happened just a few days ago) - it now has a full colour-per-character scroller as opposed to the colour-per-tile one it was running previously and the fourth level's backgrounds are in but for the moment are running with attack wave data from the third as test. Here's the "before and after" images and pause for just a moment to consider how bloody hard it must have been to pause the game on exactly the same frame twice like that!!

C64DTV :: Blok Copy DTV released!

Further to my previous post, Blok Copy for the C64DTV has "officially" been classed as done and dusted; i've literally just written it up for the main Cosine website, added a news item to Oldschool Gaming and uploaded an entry over at the CSDb. Phew!

Thinking about it a little bit, i'm not sure if this counts as the first DTV-specific game - there's a mod of Boulder Dash using 8BPP graphics, but in this case i wrote the game code as well as did the visuals so it's some kind of first! Anyway, it's got a superb tune in by Sean "Odie" Connolly called "Sporting Chance", some 8BPP graphics i'm quite pleased with and plays pretty nicely too (i hope). Here's a screenshot and enjoy!

C64DTV :: Blok Copy just about done!

Just a quick update really, i've just removed the loader and included the two 16K 8 bits per pixel fonts into the main file (the beta version is still under 17K when compressed) and a couple of days ago Sean talked me through a work around to get the music playing correctly after compilation, so Blok Copy is ready apart from the final beta testing. Yay!

C64 :: copy of more blockage

Well, as promised here is the video footage of Blok Copy... and the cryptic nature of my previous post might be explained since it actually runs on the C64DTV version 2 upwards, using an 8 bits per pixel display mode. i didn't quite get all the cosmetic glitches out and the music (by Sean Connolly and to date unreleased) has a small hiccup when it starts because the EMS compiler seems to have an issue but... well, it goes at least!

C64 :: still copying bloks

i've almost got what amounts to a complete game going! It plays all the way through from titles to completion screen and back (i've got it dialled down to only play two stages during testing), all the cosmetics have been rewritten from the PET code so that they work in their new environment and i spent some of the night before last and most of yesterday morning drawing presentation graphics. There are some cosmetic glitches still, although i'm pretty sure i know where they're coming from and plan to flatten them over the next couple of days. The game won't be released just yet because there are a few variations on the theme to complete first (and the music isn't settled on) and yes, i know that's needlessly cryptic, but i'll post some screenshots or a video when i get the flickers repaired.

C64 :: Blok Copy

i've spent a couple of days beavering away at Blok Copy (since i've finally got myself into a state of mind where coding is possible now) and the game itself is functioning perfectly. A little too well in fact, in the way that i start expecting it to crash and burn hideously at any moment! The presentation is still assuming there's a PETSCII font and isn't doing what it's supposed to but i'll get around to that next.

Thinking about it a bit more, i want to try converting it to the BBC Micro as well; that could put up a bit more of a fight to be honest, there's only 32K of RAM on a stock BBC and the best bitmap mode to use needs 20K just for the display (and a character set in memory will need 4K as well) but there are other options and i need to read up on the hardware a bit more before i make a decision as to which mode to go for. It might end up in four colours if things get desperate! All told, the various versions will need at least four different graphics sets (all laid out in a similar way) and somehow i've got to find a musician willing to do tunes for at least five platforms...!

C64 :: Mayhem 15th intros

After Kenz spotted a couple of small cosmetic bugs and i went delving around, the final menus for Mayhem In Monsterland 15th Anniversary with their loaders in place have (hopefully at least) been sent off for mastering; here's a video of the code written for the B side, which contains the two MC Mayhem music demos: