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 :: Sidetracked... again!

i'm rather good at sidetracking myself these days... i spent most of the day working on graphics but not for Ax 2189... and, after a little late night wandering around i returned invigorated (well, partially awake at least and that's better going than most days) and for reasons i might never be able to explain decided to convert the code for my first PET game Blok Copy to run on the C64. Actually, i can explain the reasoning... i think. i wanted to strip the code back to it's absolute basics (there were a lot of PET-specific hardware detections and work-arounds for frame sync or control in there because it runs on just about any 40 column machine) with the intention being to then convert it over to a number of other 6502-based platforms.

This has been on the cards for a while to be honest (and one day i'll retrofit the new title into the Atari 2600 version of the code and perhaps the music driver too) but there were issues that had previously prevented things from progressing from the theoretical stages (in particular the number of colours per line on some of the potential targets) which have now been pretty much sussed during that walk to Asda and back... i haven't decided yet if Blok Copy - C64 ROM Font Edition (snappy title... but accurate since it uses all the PET screen data) will "escape" yet, it depends on if the design work-arounds i came up with can be applied to a full-blown C64 version or not really.

A8 :: Blending into the picture

Whoops, forgot to update the dev blog... i've had a bit of a "coders block" as Kenz put it, so there hasn't been any progress on the remaining couple of levels for Co-Axis 2189 - i know a few people are "champing at the bit" to play the thing (and everybody who had a go at Fusion seemed to enjoy themselves) but i'm fairly adamant that i'll get the bugger right before releasing the final version... that will be this year and hopefully next month at the latest, but in the meantime i've taken a few steps away from it to try clearing my head; to that end, i've been doing an Atari 8-bit puzzle game.

At the moment, it doesn't have an official name but it's pretty much based on the old MSN game Blender where pictures are displayed, then shuffled around and the player is tasked with chosing pairs of blocks to swap in order to get the original image back; right now i have the core of the code running, so single games can be played and the game knows when a picture has been restored and, since i'm not using a common or garden resolution for the pictures (more on that later when i have examples) there was a day of writing a converter in Blitz Max that takes bitmap files that adhere to certain rules and converts them into something my code can display. The "to do" list right now is getting a couple of pictures arranged (preferably three, i'm not sure why but two seems too little but three is enough... odd that), working on some compression to get everything wedged into the Atari and then building the presentation code around what is already there so that games go from title page to main game and back.