Moon Patrol for the beeb (New port, just starting)

[Arcadian]

b2 supports VideoNuLA as do the newer builds of B-Em.

Had a good go of the latest Moon Patrol earlier - the engine's certainly been nailed, can't wait to see the various enemy elements added. Would love to see an all singing/enhanced 16k sw/ram version (with sloping landscapes etc) as well as a slimmed down version for stock Model Bs ... !

[tricky]

So would I, but at the current rate that would add two years
I'm not saying that I'm not going to do it; and it would be nice to put the full height hills and mountains back.
The maps already have the data for everything, but the slope related tokens are ignored and the round boulders turned to stationary rocks iirc.
My biggest block of free memory is 142 bytes, so next job is a massive shuffle to try to fill all the gaps, which will need new slower larger sprite routines.
I also have to extend my music player to fit the last two tunes in and I don't currently have any sound effects.
On the subject of tunes, I've spent hours and hours in audacity trying to make sure that the tunes are as close as I can get them.

Are they ok?

[Iapetus]

b2 supports VideoNuLA as do the newer builds of B-Em.

Thanks a lot, I didn't know about b2

[Arcadian]

I've just compared the main theme with the mame emulated version ... sounds pretty good to me! The Beeb theme seems to run quicker, but I think I actually prefer it this way. The white noise/drum is perhaps a little more pronounced on the BBC - could you try reducing the volume by maybe a third?

[tricky]

Sure, does the intro also need adjusting?

[BigEd]

Just had a bit of a go, on jsbeeb. Surprising how diverting it is, even with an indestructible patrol vehicle. I notice there are some bits of graphics hanging about sometimes, for rocks and spaceships killed. I saw a flashing green bit in the yellow/green scrolling area too. And one of the score digits got drawn with entirely the wrong pixels at one point. And just at the end of one of the checkpoint levels there was a burst of noise: perhaps the music engine got stopped in a bad state? Hopefully these are all known, and obvious.

In the arcade version, I see the wheels fly off and bounce when you hit a rock - that's nice, if you can find the bytes to do it.

[fwibbler]

I noticed one small detail with Beebem....when you jump, the wheels tuck up on the vehicle. Surely they should drop down a bit when in the air.

[tricky]

Thanks for trying it, hopefully I can make enough progress and address these issues so I can pay an updated demo.
No code to clear Allen's yet.
Rocks get cleared as part of the explosion, so if you are in the air, it doesn't clear to the ground.
I know why the flashing but is flashing, but not, what caused it - although answering this has given me an idea
I don't know why the digit gets corrupt but had noticed it.
I've never had the of sound, so that is a little working.
The arcade tucks it's wheels in too, must be to reduce wind resistance or maybe just to help it clear the rocks.
Bouncing wheels are top of the list of nice to have features.

[EdwardianDuck]

I had a brief play (disclaimer: I don't have the hand to eye / reflexes for arcade style games, especially when using the keyboard, so I'm no use to you in terms of actual game play) and I also noticed some graphics glitches. As you can't die yet, I mostly just watched the game more or less play itself.

• During the second wave, the top pixel of the alien buildings(?) sometimes picks up the bottom pixel of the mountains, or just the colour value changes from yellow to blue. I didn't see this on wave 1/3, so possibly an off by one error or the graphic data is one pixel too tall?
• In the same band (also on wave 2) I saw yellow squares sometimes. These appeared and scrolled left along with the band, so perhaps data is getting overwritten?
• When the end of wave bonus text is dislayed, the background is not cleared, so bits of enemy are left on screen.

Disclaimer 2: I haven't played the arcade game or any other version either so I don't know if the above glitches exist there as well.

Sorry I can't be more help.

Jeremy

[tricky]

Thanks, I did notice the pixel that interacts with the palette change, but I may leave it although, it is technically "flicker".
Hopefully these replies will spur me on.

[tricky]

Well, they didn't, but with the freedom of extra memory on b-type, I might just make this require SWRAM or a ROM as otherwise, there will be quite a few missing bits in the game.

[cmorley]

Most people have swram nowadays so I don't think requiring SWRAM is a problem at all.

[lovebug]

oh how did i miss this thread ?

lovely work tricky well done

[tricky]

Thanks,
It was when I did it about two years ago, since then it has just been a large weight on my conscience

[tricky]

If you have an Integra-B, either original or the new version, what OSMODE do you use?
0 Standard BBC Model B
1 BBC Model B with Shadow RAM
2 BBC Model B+ 128 emulation
3 BBC Master 128 emulation
4 BBC Model B+ emulation
5 BBC Master Compact emulation

My current SWRAM loader can cope with 0, 1, 3 and 5 and with a small change 2 (swap priority from 12KB to SWRAM) but not 4.

I'm asking because beebem defaults to 4, B+ mode, but it seems that the 12KB of RAM in the SWROM area isn't controlled or doesn't behave in the same way as the B+, or it could well be bugs in beebem as I don't have a board to test with (Actually I might have one in one of my beebs in storage!). In the Integra-B docs, this bit is called MEMSEL and is described as "Shadow/Main RAM toggle".

On the B+, I think that setting any value with the top bit set in &FE30 maps in 12KB of RAM at &8000 regardless of the other bits.
Again I may have this wrong as my B+ has a RAM fault and I am relying on beebem/b-em.

This feature doesn't get much of a mention in the New Advanced User Guide and is documented in the very thorough Integra-B manual, but they don't seem to match.

[lovebug]

another weird thing about the b+ design i remember reading years ago was that any code running in the 12k swram between a000-afff that writes to screen memory 3000-7fff will always write to shadow ram bank and not main ram

i think im remembering that correctly

[tricky]

I did see something about that, but thought that it was the last 4Kof the current ROM, but I didn't look into it as I was just planning on sticking gfx in the 12K.

[tricky]

I haven't decided yet, just gauging interest, but would anyone be interested in finishing Moon Patrol for me!
I just can't seem to summon the enthusiasm and it has been sat on the shelf for some considerable time!
I'm hoping posting this will either spur me into finishing it or convince me that I won't ever get back to it!

[fizgog]

If I had your skill I would jump at the chance to finish it as it was looking like a very great conversion of Moon Patrol, so I hope you do decide to finish it

[fizgog]

Additional

I think it's a good idea of yours offering your code up for someone else to complete as there seems to be a lot of good unfinished games that end up lost to the mists of time.

Pooyan, Tazz-mania, Ant Attack, Bombjack are ones that spring to the front of my mind

[tricky]

I'm sure you and others here who don't think they have the skills necessary do, the most important being the finish the game skill which I barely have and polishing is a great one too that I don't have at all, unless you count fixing the odd thing when enough people complain!

You can see from my what should I write next thread that I am also weak in the starting the game skill! I can usually do a proof of concept as that is the interesting but for me.

I offered the code to the game Gil and I wrote back in the 80s, Jeltron years ago, but no takers yet.

[tricky]

Current TODO list, just in case anyone is interested!

Rocket car - trigger already in map (I think) - need sprites, then just sits there then accelorates crashing if you aren't jumping, shoot for bonus
sloped ground and rolling boulders - trigger already in map (I think) - could still be in current range of ground for buggy but a little higher to the right, within a char!
tanks shooting
alien movement - current animation system may not be enough, plus some aliens can't render straddling two char rows
aliend shooting (miss-aimed/aimed for second professional)
alien bombing ground to add hole - maybe just save up and drop 2 or 3 bombs together
shooting rocks/plants/mines/tanks/car/shots: explosions, sfx, plants->gaps/dead
timing and bonus at section ends - could be tweaked, but OK
Buggy death & explosion, lives and new game!

Currently free bytes: zero page 20, main memory 4,351 and GFX "ROM" 6,884 (of 12KB so it fits an unexpanded B+).

game.asm (in game.zip) is all of the game plus the GFX ROM.
INCLUDE "...equb" are the data file in EQUB format
There is a second pass after compressing the game and ROM that builds the .ssd with some init code.
The game.asm has lots of commented out code (;) that I replaced when speeding stuff up, trying to make things fit, or after moving to having a ROM/SWRAM bank. This is what most of my games look like behind the scenes, a big mostly uncommented mess! This is because having done the "tricky" bits, I lose all enthusiasm and even start to dislike working on them!