Trance Sector - Continues

15th May 2012 

This week I decided to work more on the game graphics for Trance Sector I wasn't too sure what to draw the game levels with as I didn't want to experience another crash with MSCK. Funnily enough, I found that Charpad was unsuitable to build the levels, because putting the level objects (as single screens) was more difficult. Plus the type of tiles would have been too limited. So instead, I worked on MSCK V2.0 and hoping this time the program won't crash. I managed to rebuild the objects, opened my mind, and built 20 levels. That was Yesterday of course.I even did a new title screen, according to what was written on my little note pad, when I attended RetroVision 2012 Saturday, last week.

Today I worked on installing the new game graphics library into the game's source code, and updated the amount of pods for the player to collect. I even tested the whole game, hoping the library source wouldn't crash. Thankfully it didn't crash. After the 20 levels were fitted in to the code, nicely (Apart from some shield tiles which haven't been programmed yet) I tested through the whole game and found no problems. After I was happy with this, I worked on an ending tune using GoatTracker. Then I ported the music data to the game again. I tried to do some in game sound effects for Trance Sector using GoatTracker, but there were delays before a sound effect played. I think I should program my own sound effects instead, like I did with Sub Hunter and Sheepoid instead. It might be more helpful ;)

The last part of the day was programming the new title screen for the game. In which looks completely different to how I normally program a front end. I usually program a front end using a plain black screen with a logo on the top of the screen, with flashing text, and a scroll text at the bottom. That's nothing unusual. Instead, I decided to work on a more epic title screen, in which displays 1x1 char bricks forming the name Trance Sector on the screen, an upward scrolling ticker tape routine (Like Monty on the Run) inside the window, and also a sprite scrolling message at the bottom of the screen. I was unable to open the borders because for some reason, it kept flickering and delaying when the sprite was there ... So I left it out for the time being. The new title screen looks retro and hopefully the gamers will like it as well. :) 

More work on the game tomorrow or Wednesday. Well I have another 44 levels to build up, and probably add some brand new tiles as well, such as seeker switches. Also to get the shield working as well  ;)

Trashing time.

Sunday 3rd May 2009

I have been a bit busy today preparing some stuff for Trash Course, now that Thorsten (Sledgie) has showed me the final BETA of the game. It was time for me to do some sideways SEUCK enhancements. Well, not quite. I booted up DMC V5.0+ to make the in-game and title screen music a bit longer first, and sound better. Seems to have worked fine. Now that I was happy with the music, I decided to use the DMC V5.0 packer and relocate the music to $9000. How lucky I was that although 4 or 5 tunes were in the same music file that the compressed music file did not go over $2000. Brilliant.

The next thing I done was loaded in Thorsten's snap shot of the SEUCK game, and then I saved the SEUCK game as a finished game from the SEUCK menu. Then I loaded the finished game from BASIC and did the usual SEUCK cleaning and hacking technique (So that the menu was completely wiped away and that there was more room for spare memory. Especially when I get round to working on the new front end for the game.)

As soon as memory was filled with zeroes, I took a look at the Gold Quest 4 waterfall animation hack that I did, and used the same technique to get the game's waterfall animated. Then I saved bits of the 2 SEUCK data (Memory $0900-$6600 and also memory $b6c0 - $ffff as those were compulsory for the game, especially that at $6580 I added the background animation routine).

Now that was done, I needed to sort out a new char set and also D-Flame/Blazon/Crypt's logo. So first of all, I took my font from my old Square Pit 64 game, which I wrote in 2007 for the Forever party. Then I used GangED to convert D-Flame's picture into 3 files (Bitmap, colour RAM and Video RAM). Then I painted sprites for the game options section for my new front end.

After the graphics were sorted out. I created a folder on the PC and converted the C64 files (SEUCK, music, graphics data, etc) into the new folder. After that was done, I copied the cross-assembly and compression .exe files into the project file and got started with programming.

The first thing I had done was a simple test file. Basically, test SEUCK to see if it will decompress and run with a hacked routine that adds the in music to the game. First, this did not work because the first half of the SEUCK game data file was at $0800 instead of $0900. Doh, very silly of me! After correcting this, and crunching again the game started fine with music in the background and also animated background. Brilliant. I am glad that worked.

Now it was time for me to program the main front end. First of all I did the text data (Presentation lines, scroll text and high scores) and then worked on with the main code for the new front end. I imported all C64 files into the source files, then I programmed routines to display the colours of the logo. I also programmed 3 different splits. The first split was for the bitmap logo, which is about 6 or 7 chars high. Then another split for the still text and the last split for the scroll text. Once that was done, I worked on routines that will do the usual Richard Bayliss colour washing technique and also I programmed a routine that will change page after a certain amount of time. One page for the main credits and the other page for the high score table. Colour washing routines change per page as well. I was very happy with this result although still unfinished, because I have a Get Ready, Game Over, High Score entry and also end screen to do.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday, but I wont be doing any programming tomorrow. I'm thinking about digging out some old C64 tapes and playing those. Like, Armalyte, Blazing Thunder, etc.

Enter the choppers

Saturday 11th April 2009

Yesterday I mentioned about the Ultimate Stunt Boat Challenge game. Well, today I have been doing a little bit more on the project. Before I could do any more to the project I converted the test run file on to a C64 tape using the WAV/PRG program and loaded the test file in to my Commodore 64. Damn, there was a major problem. The player's boat (when expanded MSB for the sprites) screwed up the scrolling engine. So now I have to work out what was causing the problem. Fortunately I figured out what was causing such a disturbance to the scrolling engine. It appeared that I used an insufficient area for the artificial sprite positions. So I altered the OBJPOS label to a different memory location. Crunched it all with the Exomizer and tested it on my real C64. RESULT!

Now that I was happy with everything, It was time for me to add some data tables and program some additional routines. I created some data tables for the sprites, and programmed a sprite animation routine. After that I worked on a small, but very easy routine, where the player can now shoot bullets. Then I started working on getting the enemies to move. At the moment they are the same enemies moving across the screen in the same place. However I can work more on making better movements and behaviour of the enemies next time I go on to this project. Which probably might be tomorrow morning.

So far, so good. Player can move and shoot, scroller is working fine (It uses DMA delay routines) and also the enemies can move - but more work is needed on this part of the project.