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Post by thanatos on Apr 11, 2022 23:17:57 GMT
P.S. I took some screenshots of the game in-play. I will post them soon.
, Nice!!
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Post by robertb on Apr 13, 2022 23:33:49 GMT
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Post by robertb on Apr 24, 2022 0:51:47 GMT
My only regret with cloneimals was I never got a copy into the hands of Bill Herd, one of the few people I respected besides Mr. Jarvis, I thought Bill would appreciate how I implemented the software sprites. It remains the ONLY color side scroller game for the C-128D.
I talked to Bil Herd today at the Vintage Computer Festival East. I told him about your game, the only color side scroller for the C128 in 80-column mode. He was willing to look at it!
I will e-mail him a .D64 of it.
Truly, Robert Bernardo P.S. Come to think of it... There were C128 exhibitors at the show. If I can run the game on their C128's, Bil would be able to see it at the show.
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Post by john-atlanta on Jan 29, 2024 20:08:02 GMT
Hi Robert,
I have actually finished a new version of the game that plays much better then even that version. Plus, I added in the digitized sound that was removed from the 5 floppy version so it would fit onto that single 1541.
There is just a slight problem that I have to solve regarding collisions on level 9 and 10 before I release it. Basically, I have to be able to freeze VICE and look at the memory in bank one when it happens and load a program to look at the VDC memory and see what is going wrong. I just do not know my way around VICE that well.
I am going to post a longer reply later regarding how the game actually works. There is no way it will ever run on a 16K VDC because it uses almost all the 64K of the VDC memory just for the scrolling playing screen and game values. When the screen scrolls it is actually using the VDC smooth scroll register/bit on a virtual screen. Except for the BASIC file loader, it is 100% assembly language that runs from RAM Bank 1.
Yours, JB (-:
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Post by robertb on Jan 30, 2024 7:19:08 GMT
Oh, a new version. That would be very nice to look at. Happy New Year! Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group - www.dickestel.com/fcug.htmSouthern California Commodore & Amiga Network - www.portcommodore.com/sccanP.S. Come to think of it... perhaps Cloneimals should be exhibited on the C128 at the April 13-14 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2024. Along with TRIANGULAR μOS!
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Post by john-atlanta on Feb 1, 2024 15:23:22 GMT
Hi Robert,
TLDR: Game will never run on anything other then a VDC with 64k. This game started out as the game RUR U2 which was advertised in RUN magazine for 1 month. The only reason it appeared there was you had to place 1/4 page ads 6 months in advance. It was supposed to be mostly a role playing game, using BASIC 8 graphics, 640x200 with 2x8 color cell screens, with digitized sound using the source code routines that Lou Wallace kindly gave to me. B8.Talk was based on those. It required a C-128D. You flew between underground bases, this was a minor one screen deal. Mainly canceled because my main artist, who I met through a friend, that I wanted to work on it, moved to Florida and got a job at Disney as an animator. He was that good, he drew everything on paper, I had to scan it to get it into BASIC 8 paint. So, I have a lot of unused graphics from the unreleased game from 3 different artists. Then it was going to be an on-line game on one network and on my own server. Screens would be sent over YMODEM as .arc files and unpacked directly to screen memory. I spent about $6000 putting up a WIN NT 3.51 (then 4.0 running dual P-133s!) server running on Mustang (later Wildcat) with a 32/64 node license, dial in 1-800 line, and 128K fractional T-1. Mustang's billing software which was to be used for the dial in 1-800 line, critical software, turned out to be vapor ware along with a couple of other critical packages. They basically went under and were bought by Santronics. So, I decided to just give it up. Early 90s after C= went under, I had business associates that I trusted and thought I knew, that supplied me with my cheap 5.25 floppies, we used to go to computer shows, end up in Federal prison for 20-30 years (husband 30 - wife 20) for pirating Microsoft software. They did get longer sentences then many murderers. Though I don't blame MS, what Bob and Maxine did was totally beyond my comprehension at that time. To me pirated software was a broken game passed around on a BBS for free (which I did not do and disliked). They pirated the whole package, as in boxes and manuals, and sold for profit! At that point with the new EULA for MS, compared to the Win NT 3.51, I started to hate MS and decided to use GEOWORKS/Ensemble, then after 2000 I went LINUX/UBUNTU. So, I completely gave up the RUR U2 game for many reasons, those were the main ones, plus, my mother died, which badly effected me. Then with a another child born in early 2000s and me being a full time stay at home Dad with a bunch of kids, with a new born, I decide to do the best game possible for the C-128D, just because, before I sold all my C= stuff. I named it cloneimals based on this reality using chickens, bats, doves, and cats as weapon systems in WWII, which I thought was ridiculous and evil. I thought cloning was fake. Turns out it is real and they are even using insects for weapon systems now. Who knew?
When people complained about the cost in 2006, $30, most of that media, USPS, E-Bay and PayPal fees, I took the game from 5 disks to well under 1. This I guess introduced undocumented features, but, the game played well for me on my C-128D/C-512. I even tried it on a flat C-128 with 64k using various VDC versions back to 7.#? I only tried it once or twice on an emulator under MS-DOS/Windows. Though the original code was compiled using the ARC 6502 cross compiler running under MS-DOS on Intel PCs. So, I would take the IBM 3.5 720k floppy to the C-128, copy the files to a 1581 disk using usually BBR128, then test the changes. At 12,000-16,000 lines of assembly code it compiled much quicker on the PC then on the C-128D. Then I ditched Aztec C and decided I needed a better 6502 compiler because of label length. Up to your version you have now, it was designed to be a 2 player Defender type game to be played on-line or head to head. I took a look at doing it under VICE and Ubuntu, but, I just could not figure out how to connect with VICE to another C-128 over the web or another instant running in a VM. So, on this most current version, I took out the last of the routines/JSR related to on-line play because I needed more room for more features. The main feature I added were smarter opponents that can fly backwards and move in greater and random ways. Plus, they now regenerate every 3rd screen or so because they are out of range of being hit or seen. So, the 20-30 turn into more of a swarm now, though some are allowed to travel the whole length of the screen backwards, though they usually hit something.
To explain application design, almost everything except the BASIC loader, loads into and runs from RAM Bank 1. Hardly any IRQ is used because the IRQ/NMI was the most important thing for the terminal.
The other reason for this being important is because I had to design a paint program for 80 columns for a virtual 800x200 screen BEFORE I could even make the game. It runs in 40 column mode using the 40 column split screen. I design looking at the 40 column screen, if it looks okay, I then hit a button to transfer and see the results on the 80 column screen, it is how I draw the characters based on fonts. I added some features that allow me to import graphics directly into the fonts and use them as bit map art. The version you have has Chuck Peddle added as a test of this feature, after he died, in one of the later screens.
When making the editor paint program I was surprised to see nothing in the 2nd VDC font-character set, I thought at least a little Easter egg would be there.
I use the MMU to good effect by running 6502 code from RAM1 the whole game. I only switch out to BANK 15 to load game screens from BASIC and to save the high score.
When you see the screen scroll, it is using the smooth scroll and bit, to smoothly scroll the screen. The maximum width of a screen is 255 characters, but, because of certain things, a scroll-able playing screen ends up being a bit less. You have 10 screens of 80x25 characters divided into 4 sections.
As an example, because the addresses are different, but, if you are on the top line and fire a missile at space #10, if it does not hit anything, it will go to #11, to #20, to #799, and then wrap around to #0 and come from behind and hit you if you have not moved.
The virtual screen is 800 characters by 25 characters = 20,000. The same goes for the attributes. The character set is another 8k. That means each level has a screen that needs a minimum (more because of boundaries) of 48K. To make recovery possible after a crash, you also have the default boot up screen first in VDC memory 80x25 plus attributes, and 8K character set.
So, this game uses almost all the 64K of the VDC for each level, so, it will never run on 16k. I do not even waste the space checking for this. I removed any code for checking for different versions of the VDC because some changes made it unneeded ... as far as I know.
Because disk space is no longer a concern, I added digital sound back in, but, it sounded horrible under UBUNTU/VICE so I redid the Lou Wallace routines. I have no idea how it sounds on a real C-128D. I did not bother adding in the sound effects for the 2nd SID that I killed, nor did I add the music back in since I had completely deleted it. I did find some of my early hand written music on paper, but, for unstated reasons I decided to skip it.
I will try to release this latest version before the end of March. Before I do , I need to pay some shareware fees for the tools I am using, and to play it more to get rid of an annoying bug on levels 9 and 10 where laid mines do not show up.
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Post by john-atlanta on Feb 1, 2024 15:32:22 GMT
As a side note of interest, in trying various routines and sounds I came across something weird, I was going to include it as a bonus for finishing level 10. But, because of various concerns (copyright and I guess they are Satan worshipers) I decided not to include the audio. In the Eisen Funk video Space Invaders, at the beginning of the video the sound effects are actually Robin Williams as Mork saying "danger danger". I found out by accident when converting the audio to 44k, lowering it to 8k hertz, and converting it to a PMM file, single bit, and then playing it at various speeds to test my sound routines. I knew they were 6502 fans, I guess this was their own Easter egg.
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Post by robertb on Feb 1, 2024 18:28:09 GMT
TLDR: Game will never run on anything other then a VDC with 64k. That's what we use in the club... a flat C128 with 64K VDC, and at home I use a C128DCR. Thanks for details on the game! I will announce on the CLASS website that we will have Cloneimals (whether it is an older version or a new version) for anyone to play at the show. Truly, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group - www.dickestel.com/fcug.htmSouthern California Commodore & Amiga Network - www.portcommodore.com/sccanApril 13-14 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2024 - www.portcommodore.com/class
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