gmane.comp.systems.sam-coupe

Re: Wait for that game to load!

David Sanders — 2012-05-25T21:12:38

Haha. That's more like Mega Apocalypse actually - but as you might have
guessed I am a massive Rob Hubbard fan :-)

If you haven't heard Mega Apocalypse you need to get to HVSC now!

Cheers

D



On 25 May 2012 20:07, Stefan Drissen <stefan.drissen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

RE: Wait for that game to load!

Stefan Drissen — 2012-05-25T19:07:06

Just noticed all the other modules on the ‘sanxion.dsk’. Listening to the second one (electro) now… wow! It also has the sanxionish tune in it – or am I simply going mad?

From: owner-sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of David Sanders
Sent: vrijdag 25 mei 2012 14:33
To: sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org
Subject: Re: Wait for that game to load!

On 25 May 2012 12:42, Stefan Drissen <stefan.drissen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Sounds like a sanxionish remix? Wonderful instruments! And has a nice unique artist sound to it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1sQLxvTac

It's not my tune, and there's a wrong bit in the middle section - but it's not a terrible stab for the SAA1099.

Glad you like it! I actually did a version of Sanxion, which is here:

http://www.dsanders.co.uk/sanxion.dsk

It's a bit better than the one I posted a while ago.

Cheers

D

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Thomas Harte — 2012-05-25T15:37:50

I've gone with compiled sprites, and decided to ignore sub-byte
masking, at least for now. That gave me 18 or 19 sprites until I wrote
code to erase them afterwards, which cuts it to a measly 3. Suffice to
say, I'm going to look into other approaches for that step; it's
taking something like 6.5 times as long as drawing them in the first
place.

Anyway: http://www.clocksignal.com/dropbox/scroller-with-three-sprites.dsk

On 19/05/2012, david-sJ4WTMGdYkBEB+AuNFhg6PXRex20P6io< at >public.gmane.org <david-sJ4WTMGdYkBEB+AuNFhg6PXRex20P6io< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Wait for that game to load!

David Sanders — 2012-05-25T12:33:22

If you don't have it there's a free version (which is fine for playback) on
the Sam FTP site.

Cheers

D

Re: Wait for that game to load!

David Sanders — 2012-05-25T12:32:31



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1sQLxvTac

It's not my tune, and there's a wrong bit in the middle section - but it's
not a terrible stab for the SAA1099.

Glad you like it! I actually did a version of Sanxion, which is here:

http://www.dsanders.co.uk/sanxion.dsk

It's a bit better than the one I posted a while ago.

Cheers

D

Re: Wait for that game to load!

2012-05-25T12:21:01

Load it up into E-tracker - it's the uncompiled format.

------Original Message------
From: Thomas Harte
Sender: owner-sam-users< at >nvg.ntnu.no
To: sam-users< at >nvg.ntnu.no
ReplyTo: sam-users< at >nvg.ntnu.no
Subject: Re: Wait for that game to load!
Sent: 25 May 2012 13:18

I'll embarrass myself by asking, I'm sure... how does one play a .m155?

On 25/05/2012, Stefan Drissen <stefan.drissen< at >gmail.com> wrote:

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

Re: Wait for that game to load!

Thomas Harte — 2012-05-25T12:18:13

I'll embarrass myself by asking, I'm sure... how does one play a .m155?

On 25/05/2012, Stefan Drissen <stefan.drissen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

RE: Wait for that game to load!

Stefan Drissen — 2012-05-25T11:42:20

Sounds like a sanxionish remix? Wonderful instruments! And has a nice unique artist sound to it!

 

Regards,

 

 

Stefan

 

From: owner-sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of David Sanders
Sent: donderdag 24 mei 2012 12:08
To: sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org
Subject: Wait for that game to load!

 

I admit defeat slightly, but it was a valiant effort.

 

http://www.dsanders.co.uk/oceanloader.dsk

 

 

Cheers

 

David

New SAM Game: The Lost Disks of SAM

Andrew Gillen — 2012-05-25T11:02:59

Hi folks

I've been a busy little bee this past month. After playing the very excellent speccy game "The Lost Tapes of Albion" released by Dave Hughes for the 30th anniversary I just had to get some of that action into the SAM. Dave 2 was put back on the shelf temporarily and I began work. After one month it is complete and available at

http://www.blackjet.co.uk/index.php#lostdisks

The game simply involves collecting 40 disks per screen while avoiding the marauding enemies. Controls are QAOP, you can only move up or down when you're standing on a teleporter. You can get an idea of what they are on the title screen, but with play it should be reasonably straightforward. The screen wraps, if you walk off to the right you end up on the platform below, and go left and you end up on the platform above.

To quit back to the menu, pause the game with the space key, then press escape immediately after un-pausing (press any key).

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers
Andrew

Re: Wait for that game to load!

Andrew Gillen — 2012-05-24T18:51:55

This sounds excellent 

Keep em coming !

From: David Sanders 
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 11:08 AM
To: sam-users-w01uWLE43QoXWF+eFR7m5Q< at >public.gmane.org 
Subject: Wait for that game to load!

I admit defeat slightly, but it was a valiant effort. 

http://www.dsanders.co.uk/oceanloader.dsk

Cheers

David

Wait for that game to load!

David Sanders — 2012-05-24T10:08:18

I admit defeat slightly, but it was a valiant effort.

http://www.dsanders.co.uk/oceanloader.dsk


Cheers

David

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

2012-05-19T20:49:00

Quoting Balor Price <tobermory-9lc6n+nyeLEgpMukQH3Qe/XRex20P6io< at >public.gmane.org>:



Besides - if you needed to - it's always perhaps possible to load a  
few random ones from disk... :)

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Balor Price — 2012-05-19T13:47:02

Aha you flatter me I'm not /that/ old :)  (okay I'm 36)  Yes indeed it 
is Splitting Images - it's another puzzler without any huge technical 
challenges, so I know I'm working within my comfort zone.  I hadn't 
planned on making any changes with the personalities, but there are a 
couple of people who aren't immediately obvious, the speccy's version of 
Mick Jagger was terrible!

I'd agree with Si on this one - unless you totally optimise each sprite 
you aren't looking at many.  But there's masses of memory in the SAM so 
unless you're doing it to squash into memory-resident megademo, why not 
use that memory?  There's often a direct trade-off of memory-for-speed 
(eg unrolling loops, making several specialised copies of routines) so 
go for it.

Howard

On 18/05/2012 00:56, Tommo H wrote:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Thomas Harte — 2012-05-18T16:20:07

That's really encouraging; I'm now obsessed with getting a complete
game working at 50Hz and in that context I think even just two or
three sprites would do it. The arbitrary 40% came from what was left
over in the current demo but it strikes me it's also very close to the
amount of time between line 192 and the next line 1 so setting a firm
limit in that range resolves all potential concerns about sprite
flicker (well, until I end up having to display a different three of
the four sprites I really want each frame, or whatever).

And once I have something working along those lines I can start seeing
how well the scrolling holds up with more realistic map data. I've a
few more optimisation ideas either way.

On 18 May 2012 09:46, Simon Owen <simon.owen-cmSZVAwZacRg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Simon Owen — 2012-05-18T08:46:39

Maybe around 4-5 sprites of 16x16 pixels?  IIRC my Pac-Man emulator has about half a frame to draw 6 sprites of 12x12, plus a couple of background tiles, including save/mask/draw/restore.  For an extra boost perhaps generate the sprite drawing code with knowledge of the data (like Chris did in SAM Defender) — bonus points if you prepare that at runtime.

It's nice to have some fresh on-topic content to read, so keep posting!

Si

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Tommo H — 2012-05-17T23:56:53

I read your blog a few days ago I think; it's Splitting Images isn't
it? Are you going to update the images or are (slightly) younger
people like myself going to have to find out what people like David
Owen looked like?

I'm working on sprites at the minute. Mostly mentally as my schedule
requires, but I'm just not sure what's realistic to attempt. If I
have, say, 40% of a frame to spend on it, how many sprites, and how
large, is it realistic to expect to be able to draw and un-draw?

Open middleware is definitely the thing to aim for. Besides anything
else, it'll make the assumptions and limitations plainly visible.

On 17 May 2012, at 22:36, Balor Price <tobermory-9lc6n+nyeLEgpMukQH3Qe/XRex20P6io< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Balor Price — 2012-05-17T21:36:15

No apologies required, looks very good to me.  So if you're not in a 
position to turn it into a full game, would you consider turning it into 
a bit of middleware??  A bit cheeky I know but I'm sure it would find a 
good home somewhere, probably for many.  I made some experiments with 
'full screen' scrolling ages ago but tbh I didn't know what I was doing 
because the project was too large, here's a demo I found: 
http://scenedamage.com/cookingcircle/Random/AtomManBackup.dsk

I had a good time doing my last game and I'm halfway* through another 
one, having fun!  Developing with a cross-compiler/tools really makes a 
fantastic effect on productivity, and your tiles displayer/scroller 
sounds the business.  If you improve the algorithm, anyone using the 
routines would get a instant upgrade...

I believe I am rambling.
Howard


*OK, 20%

On 17/05/2012 00:23, Thomas Harte wrote:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Thomas Harte — 2012-05-16T23:23:34

Apologies to all; I don't mean to treat this list as my own personal
development blog. However, here's a rock steady 50Hz, full-screen
rendition:

http://www.clocksignal.com/dropbox/scroller-fullscreen-50Hz.dsk

There are two versions on there and some quick relevant notes. Takeaways:

• the border masking is overdraw and I'd rather fix the problem by
just not drawing incorrectly in the first place;
• that being the case, I've only properly profiled the unmasked
version, and found it takes no more than 60% of the available CPU time
per frame in its current state.


On 15 May 2012 12:39,  <warren-DId23kj0q5b10XsdtD+oqA< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

2012-05-15T11:39:16

It's very cool to see scrolling that quick and smooth. :-) We just  
need someone to use it in a game now!!

Quoting David Sanders <dsuzukisanders-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>:

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

David Sanders — 2012-05-15T11:05:53


That is indeed some of the smoothest, fastest full-screen scrolling I've
seen on the Coupé to date though :-)

Re: Quick attempt at a scroller

Thomas Harte — 2012-05-15T10:32:38

Or, more likely, the sad realisation that I can't scale the thing to a
proper game is fast approaching...

For the record, this is it mostly at 25fps, running (essentially) full
screen with black guttering to hide the edge jittering of yesterday:

http://www.clocksignal.com/dropbox/scroller-big.dsk

It occasionally — and very obviously — leaps up to 50fps, having no
frame rate compensation mechanisms whatsoever.

I'm about 80% confident I can boost the speed to a reasonably constant
50fps, to drop to a constant 25fps with sprites and logic, for a
simple enough game.

On 15 May 2012 08:02, David Sanders <dsuzukisanders-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> wrote: