Planet Nubium : A game for the BBC Master

[Andrew_Waite]

***Please note that this thread concerns the original 'Planet Nubium' game released in 2018. A new game, 'Planet Nubium Two', has a separate thread.***

I have arrived at Version 1.0 of my new game, Planet Nubium!

Planet Nubium is a platform game where you control Rocketman and his rocket backpack. Fly around each of 32 levels collecting parts of a forgotten password to reboot a malfunctioning supercomputer. The computer controls everything on Planet Nubium, from the weather, economy, transport systems and a myriad of gadgets which have all gone haywire. A rocket will propel your character upwards, whilst gravity brings you back down. Avoid the guardians and keep an eye on the limited amount of fuel! After collecting all objects in each level return to the spaceship to advance to the next level.

I have always enjoyed the rich bitmap graphics used in ZX Spectrum games, and so many of my favourite sprites from Spectrum games by Matthew Smith and Stephen Crow have been borrowed, copied, stretched and colourised for the new game.

The game was written for the BBC MASTER as this machine supports video double buffering in MODE 1. The code and graphics take up all four banks of sideways RAM.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to run the game.

Technical details of the game are available here : viewtopic.php?f=54&t=13053

Source files are posted in Github : https://github.com/andrewwaite1/

Feedback is much appreciated!

**********************************************************************************************************************************

The .SSD file for the latest version of Planet Nubium is available here : viewtopic.php?f=57&t=15729#p229654

[CMcDougall]

this is quality

[lurkio]

Really good game (even if I personally am a bit rubbish at platformers in general)!



Ludicrous and unreasonable feature-requests:

• Optional background music
• A gun to shoot the monsters/aliens with!

[Multiwizard]

Oh, nice one...


Greetings, Wim...

[simonm]

This is really good! Love the graphics, and it's nice to play a game that's not teeth grindingly hard for a change!!
I only played the first five levels so far, but felt it was quite easy overall (but maybe the later levels get harder, I havent seen them yet)
Couple of suggestions if you fancy:
Game might have a touch more challenge to it if you could stop the player moving up through bricks (would have to dodge more of the baddies this way?)
Maybe its fair to say if you fall at high velocity to the ground, that's a you-died scenario
Would be good to have the bad guys getting in your way a little more - maybe put a few collectables in their path etc.?
I like how the level doesnt reset when you die. That's so refreshingly appreciated.

Overall though, great job!
Cheers
Simon

[tricky]

What a great game and I love the graphics.
If you weren't using all four colours (inc background) for the player, you could palette switch to give a little more colour, but it doesn't need it.
I was also thinking that you shouldn't be able to go up through the platforms, but then I got to the penguins and it makes it harder because you can
If you are loading into sideways RAM yourself, you could try one of the compressors to load the data a little quicker, but taking a little while to load is also a good thing as you have made a small investment that encourages you to play longer.

[Andrew_Waite]

Thank you for the feedback!

Here are a few points :

"Optional background music"

I would really need to know something about music to make this happen! I have experimented converting some pieces of sheet music to SOUND commands with the plan to issue one note every N times around the game loop. Unfortunately it all sounded like a cat being strangled.

"A gun to shoot the monsters/aliens with!"

Planet Nubium is a collect-em-up, but it would be great to eventually modify the game engine to make a the're-all-coming-at-you-at-once shoot-em-up game.

"I only played the first five levels so far, but felt it was quite easy overall"

Later levels are more challenging

"Maybe its fair to say if you fall at high velocity to the ground, that's a you-died scenario"

I do like the Chuckie Egg mechanic where the protagonist can fall from any height and survive. Adding the following line will kill Rocketman if he lands at too higher speed. The number '128' can be changed to make the highest survivable landing speed higher or lower. Can you give me feedback as to how this changes the 'feel' of the game?

285 IF A%>0 AND R%>128 B%=1

"Moving up through the bricks" / "I was also thinking that you shouldn't be able to go up through the platforms, but then I got to the penguins and it makes it harder because you can"

I like this mechanic, it adds a lot of flexibility to the design of the stages.



I hope to have an update to the game, increasing the number of stages from 24 to 32, soon.

[FourthStone]

Great game, well done for getting something to release stage

Made it to level 11, love the graphics, the sound is good, animation smooth, good variety in level design, very nice game!

[marcusjambler]

This is great

I love the graphics and the playability

Marcus

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium Version 1.1 is now complete! The .ssd file with the new version of the game is attached to the bottom of this post.

Planet Nubium is my 21st Century game for the BBC Master.

Changes since Version 1.0 :

Eight new levels, bringing the total number of levels to 32.
New loading experience with new loading screens.
Many new tiles.
'Fall from any height' can be toggled on or off from the main menu.
Routine to draw text characters on the screen now fully in assembler to improve rendering performance.

As always, feedback is much appreciated.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game!

[RobC]

Great game - really like how it looks as I've always loved mode 1 platformers on the Beeb.

"Optional background music"

I would really need to know something about music to make this happen! I have experimented converting some pieces of sheet music to SOUND commands with the plan to issue one note every N times around the game loop. Unfortunately it all sounded like a cat being strangled.

As I'm clueless when it comes to music, I was pleased to discover this. It can be configured to convert MIDI files into a BBC BASIC program that plays the tune using SOUND and ENVELOPE. It will mulitplex up to 9 channels from the original MIDI file into the Beeb's 3 channels but I've found it best to use simpler tunes or strip them down to 3 channels in a MIDI editor.

Might be worth considering as a quick way of generating the code for a background tune.

[kieranhj]

Great game - really like how it looks as I've always loved mode 1 platformers on the Beeb.

"Optional background music"

I would really need to know something about music to make this happen! I have experimented converting some pieces of sheet music to SOUND commands with the plan to issue one note every N times around the game loop. Unfortunately it all sounded like a cat being strangled.

As I'm clueless when it comes to music, I was pleased to discover this. It can be configured to convert MIDI files into a BBC BASIC program that plays the tune using SOUND and ENVELOPE. It will mulitplex up to 9 channels from the original MIDI file into the Beeb's 3 channels but I've found it best to use simpler tunes or strip them down to 3 channels in a MIDI editor.

Might be worth considering as a quick way of generating the code for a background tune.

If you're happy to "borrow" somebody else's music and can get hold of it in VGM format (e.g. a Sega Master System tune) then simonm and I can give you some code to play in the background on the 50Hz vsync event callback from either SWRAM, ANDY or HAZEL RAM (depending on your Master memory map.)

If you are comfortable with a modern tracker such as DefleMask then send me a PM and we can guide you through the somewhat convoluted pipeline of taking your own composition and wrangling it into a format suitable for the BBC tuning of the SN76489 sound chip.

[kppot]

Absolutely fantastic job done!
I love the fact Master games still in development and even more - they been released.
I love graphics and those sprites.
Too bad I cannot play it on my Micro B, but still I am quite pleased with its appearance.
Excellent job, cheers!

[tricky]

Nice job, I haven't looked, but are you double buffering?

[lurkio]

The .ssd file for the latest Version 1.1 of Planet Nubium is attached to my post of Sun Nov 18, 2018.

Would you be happy for Planet Nubium to be uploaded to bbmicro.co.uk at some point?

[Andrew_Waite]

Nice job, I haven't looked, but are you double buffering?

Double buffering is used.

After escaping, lines 1270 and 1290 contain the code for the CALLs that switch main and shadow memory between the 6512's memory map or the video circuit.

[Andrew_Waite]

The .ssd file for the latest Version 1.1 of Planet Nubium is attached to my post of Sun Nov 18, 2018.

Would you be happy for Planet Nubium to be uploaded to bbmicro.co.uk at some point?

Yes, please do upload V1.1 of Planet Nubium to bbcmicro.co.uk !

[lurkio]

Would you be happy for Planet Nubium to be uploaded to bbmicro.co.uk at some point?

Yes, please do upload V1.1 of Planet Nubium to bbcmicro.co.uk !

Done!

• http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2969

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium has now reached Version 1.2! The .ssd file with the new version of the game is attached to the bottom of this post.

Changes between Version 1.1 and Version 1.2 :

Guardians can move left/right at half speed to make animations clearer, and up/down at double speed to make the game harder.
New, improved loading screen.
Instructions now included in the main game rather than as part of the loader.
Typos corrected.

As always, feedback is much appreciated.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game!

Known Issue : The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Please ensure that Sideways RAM banks are not configured as ROM on machines fitted with a RetroClinic DataCentre.

[Andrew_Waite]

Version 1.3 of Planet Nubium is now complete!!! The .ssd file with the new version of the game is attached to the bottom of this post, or the game can be played online at http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2969

Changes between Version 1.2 and Version 1.3 :

Code optimization leaves space for four new guardians, including a guardian based on the saw from Jet Set Willy.
The loading screen now has a loading progress bar.
Keys changed from Z,X+Return to A,S+Return to make the game playable on a German QWERTZ keyboard.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game.

As always, feedback is very much appreciated.

Known Issue : The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Please ensure that Sideways RAM banks are not configured as ROM on machines fitted with a RetroClinic DataCentre.

[Andrew_Waite]

Version 1.4 of Planet Nubium is now available. The .ssd file with the new version of the game is attached to the bottom of this post, or the game can be played online at http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2969

Changes between Version 1.3 and Version 1.4 :
Based on a suggestion by Lurkio, I modified the loading screen.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game.

As always, feedback is very much appreciated.

Source files are available in Github : https://github.com/andrewwaite1

Known Issues :
The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Sideways RAM bank slots maybe configured as ROM in machines fitted with a RetroClinic DataCentre.
File 'Nubium 20181222 b.ssd' contains the bug fix to resolve the problem described by marcusjambler and lurkio in the two posts below!

[marcusjambler]

Hi Andrew

Great game

I'm struggling to get it to work on real hardware.
I've tried it on a stock Master( w/gotek) and also My tricked out Master ( GOTEK VNula RPI copro & SCSI mini ) and its running.
But, the instructions screen is overlaying the game field causing havoc.

Marcus

[lurkio]

I'm struggling to get it to work on real hardware.
I've tried it on a stock Master( w/gotek) and also My tricked out Master ( GOTEK VNula RPI copro & SCSI mini ) and its running.
But, the instructions screen is overlaying the game field causing havoc

Yes, I seem to be getting exactly the same results on my Master too:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi51Wp-9bmU

[Andrew_Waite]

Sorry that there is an issue running the game on real hardware, and thank you for the bug report and posting the video. Being based outside of the UK I have been testing the game on BeebEm and JSBeeb rather than a real machine.

The game uses video double buffering, flipping the video between main and shadow RAM every time it goes around the game loop, so clearing the screen has to clear both main and shadow RAM. This is done by 'PROCcls' line 920, and this line maybe failing on a real MASTER. Because the screen is not being cleared, there is text left on the screen which is repeatedly triggering the collision detection routine on level 1.

Line 920 moves main and shadow memory into the CPU's memory map, and then uses the BASIC 'CLS' command to clear the screen.

"920 DEFPROCcls:OSCLI("FX108,1"):CLS:OSCLI("FX108,0"):CLS:VDU19,0,0;0;19,1,0;0;19,2,0;0;19,3,0;0;:ENDPROC"

I will post a bug fix shortly, using a different method to clear the screen instead of the BASIC 'CLS' command.

Andrew.

[Andrew_Waite]

Please find below what is hopefully a bug fixed Version 1.4 of Planet Nubium.

The line that I believe was successfully clearing screen memory on BeebEm and JSBeeb, but leaving text on the screen on a real Master, has been replaced.

I guess using *FX108 to move main and shadow screen memory into the CPU's memory map, then the BASIC 'CLS' command to clear it was a kludgy way of doing things ! The code now copies the empty half of memory bank 4 into screen memory to clear it.

Can you test the code on your machines, and report bugs back to me?

Andrew.

[marcusjambler]

test the code

Yep now working correctly ( tested up to level 2 anyway ) on my Nula Master

Marcus

[Andrew_Waite]

That is good news. Thank you for checking.

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium has arrived at Version 1.5! The .ssd file with the new version of the game is attached to the bottom of this post.

Changes between Version 1.4 and Version 1.5 :
Based on a suggestion by KarateEd, the high score and number of levels completed is displayed at the end of every game.
The game can now be controlled with both the the A/S and Z/X keys to move left and right, and Return/Space for thrust.
Text can now be rendered in the game font with logic colour 3 as well as 1 and 2 in previous versions.
Numerous changes to tidy and improve the code.

Type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game.

As always, feedback and bug reports are very much appreciated!!!

Source files are available at Github : https://github.com/andrewwaite1

Known Issue :
The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Sideways RAM banks maybe configured for ROM in machines fitted with a RetroClinic DataCentre.

[Andrew_Waite]

Planet Nubium now has game music!!!

Through the genius of Kieran Connell the game can now play tunes ripped from the Sega Master System. The SMS has the same Texas Instruments SN76489 sound chip as the BBC Micro.

Version 1.6 of Planet Nubium is attached below. The .ssd disk is bootable, or type ' CHAIN"NUBIUM" ' to load and run the game.

The code has been tested on BeebEm V4.14 and a real Master. Feedback and bug reports are very much appreciated!

Source files are available at Github : https://github.com/andrewwaite1

Known Issue :
The game requires all four banks of Sideways RAM. Sideways RAM banks maybe configured for ROM in machines fitted with a RetroClinic DataCentre.

[RobC]

Well done - really enjoyed playing a few levels of this earlier