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Year 2015 Projects Start!
Jan. 19th, 2015 08:10 amOk, I've been out of the loop of doing most anything related to my game/art/music/whatever projects since probably 2010. At first minecraft was eating up a lot of time, and lately it is again admittedly as I work on The Industrial Complex on Pseudo World. (Formally known as the Guardian Farm)
But after noticing half of January has already slipped by, I'm going to try to step up my game for my projects.
I've tried coding on the 2600, and that's been... a mixed success. Certainly Maze Realms functions, but it's a far cry from what I wanted it to become, and the code has gotten to the point where if I attempt to change anything I just create bugs rather than fix any. So that's on the shelf still.
On the Atari 7800, I attempted working on some display building routines to help code out the confusing aspects of the MARIA chip (The gpu of the system so to speak) but I didn't really get as far as I wanted. I got it to the point of displaying a sprite on the screen, but whether a part of my code or an emulator bug distorted the graphic a bit - until I moved it around some. Attempts to fix that were like the 2600, resulted in more bugs. So I gave up on it again.
Now, lately there's been someone that's written "7800basic". Essentially a basic-like compiler for making 7800 games. It lets you code in a syntax close to Basic while including some 7800 specific things naturally and some helper routines. This has the benefit of also coding out all the confusing Display List and Display List List garbage of the gpu.
Sooo... I've decided to try to learn this 7800basic. I've browsed over the system commands and it looks like it'll mostly be easy to understand. And as a bonus I can do my sprite sets in paint programs like Paintshop Pro that I own - just have to save the files as pngs with a few conditions on palette size and x/y dimensions. And it'll encode them for the game's screen modes on it's own!
It even has a sound/music driver I can use, I just have to make the actual sound data to add to the game and do some organization to it. Overall this looks like it should free me up to concentrate more on the game itself than wrestling with the underlying hardware.
The 7800 is comparable to the NES in terms of power for those who don't know. It has different strengths and weaknesses however. There are games you can do on the 7800 that look like shit on the NES, or are simply not possible on the NES (without insane horrible flicker)
My goal is to try to make a simple old-school JRPG for the 7800, since it pretty much as none of those in it's library to date. It'll probably be comparable to some degree Dragon Warrior in complexity although I'm not going to be using it as a standard to design by. Basically I mean it'll probably end up as a one-hero adventure. No party members, etc. Possibly.
The first step and deadline I'm setting for myself is February 1st - iron out the basic game play. IE: How the battles will work, main stats, how the player will level up, maybe even the general story of it.
At this point it'll all be wish-list kind of stuff, but so long as the XM Module gets released this spring as promised, I'll probably aim the game to run on that. All the XM module does is add ram, sound chips, and high score saving to the 7800 - things that have been always possible to add to it's cartridges (It's not like a 32X adapter on the Sega Genesis that adds new CPUs etc) The module has been delayed and delayed for the last... 4 years. >_> But the latest delivery promise is spring 2015.
I'll also need to get a ram cart at some point so I can run my test builds on actual hardware. Maybe a better 7800 as well while I'm at it. Mine is kinda beat up, and I question the state of it's RF adapter at times.
Long story short (Too late!) I'm going to try to stay on track with this. Devote an hour or two a day at the very least working on it in some capacity. I'm tucking away some money out of every paycheck as well so I can invest in some new hardware and a ram cart. I've already paid for the XM back in 2010 so that's not an issue beyond it actually being completed.
Wish me luck, I'm likely going to need it. ^_^
But after noticing half of January has already slipped by, I'm going to try to step up my game for my projects.
I've tried coding on the 2600, and that's been... a mixed success. Certainly Maze Realms functions, but it's a far cry from what I wanted it to become, and the code has gotten to the point where if I attempt to change anything I just create bugs rather than fix any. So that's on the shelf still.
On the Atari 7800, I attempted working on some display building routines to help code out the confusing aspects of the MARIA chip (The gpu of the system so to speak) but I didn't really get as far as I wanted. I got it to the point of displaying a sprite on the screen, but whether a part of my code or an emulator bug distorted the graphic a bit - until I moved it around some. Attempts to fix that were like the 2600, resulted in more bugs. So I gave up on it again.
Now, lately there's been someone that's written "7800basic". Essentially a basic-like compiler for making 7800 games. It lets you code in a syntax close to Basic while including some 7800 specific things naturally and some helper routines. This has the benefit of also coding out all the confusing Display List and Display List List garbage of the gpu.
Sooo... I've decided to try to learn this 7800basic. I've browsed over the system commands and it looks like it'll mostly be easy to understand. And as a bonus I can do my sprite sets in paint programs like Paintshop Pro that I own - just have to save the files as pngs with a few conditions on palette size and x/y dimensions. And it'll encode them for the game's screen modes on it's own!
It even has a sound/music driver I can use, I just have to make the actual sound data to add to the game and do some organization to it. Overall this looks like it should free me up to concentrate more on the game itself than wrestling with the underlying hardware.
The 7800 is comparable to the NES in terms of power for those who don't know. It has different strengths and weaknesses however. There are games you can do on the 7800 that look like shit on the NES, or are simply not possible on the NES (without insane horrible flicker)
My goal is to try to make a simple old-school JRPG for the 7800, since it pretty much as none of those in it's library to date. It'll probably be comparable to some degree Dragon Warrior in complexity although I'm not going to be using it as a standard to design by. Basically I mean it'll probably end up as a one-hero adventure. No party members, etc. Possibly.
The first step and deadline I'm setting for myself is February 1st - iron out the basic game play. IE: How the battles will work, main stats, how the player will level up, maybe even the general story of it.
At this point it'll all be wish-list kind of stuff, but so long as the XM Module gets released this spring as promised, I'll probably aim the game to run on that. All the XM module does is add ram, sound chips, and high score saving to the 7800 - things that have been always possible to add to it's cartridges (It's not like a 32X adapter on the Sega Genesis that adds new CPUs etc) The module has been delayed and delayed for the last... 4 years. >_> But the latest delivery promise is spring 2015.
I'll also need to get a ram cart at some point so I can run my test builds on actual hardware. Maybe a better 7800 as well while I'm at it. Mine is kinda beat up, and I question the state of it's RF adapter at times.
Long story short (Too late!) I'm going to try to stay on track with this. Devote an hour or two a day at the very least working on it in some capacity. I'm tucking away some money out of every paycheck as well so I can invest in some new hardware and a ram cart. I've already paid for the XM back in 2010 so that's not an issue beyond it actually being completed.
Wish me luck, I'm likely going to need it. ^_^
