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Post by Peer on Mar 20, 2018 3:06:12 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, I am happy (and a bit proud) to be able to announce that the 2018 Vectrex Programming course at Pforzheim University has started. As suggested, I have created this new thread since the old one about the previous courses has already grown quite large. This is the 3rd installment, and I am glad that this could be realized again this year. The first meeting was held last Friday, on March 16th, and there have been 16 students attending. Here is the link to the 2018 course web page and here the one to the 2018 project gallery. The pages will be frequently updated, and I will try to report regularly on this thread. Cheers, Peer |
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Post by hcmffm on Mar 20, 2018 3:45:38 GMT -5
Really great that the Vectrex programming course will be held for a third time. Thank you very much for your effort in preparing and holding the programming course, and informing us via the excellent project gallery and postings, Peer! Good luck and fun to all 16 students!
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Post by Peer on Mar 24, 2018 6:03:49 GMT -5
Yesterday, the second class meeting took place, and here is a short update:
Of the 16 students who attended the first meeting last week, 3 have dropped out and there are now 13 students enrolled in the course. This was somehow to be expected as in the first week of the semester the students usually attend the first meetings of many of the elective courses to get an overview of what is planned and then later on decide in which courses to stay. Of the 3 students who dropped out, one decided to rather attend my Robot Programming course, and the other two quit because they either considered the workload of the course to be too high or feared that their programming abilities might not be good enough to follow the lecture. The remaining 13 students all seem to be very enthusiastic about the upcoming project and display a great deal of motivation. Most of them have already shown their motivation and their capabilities in the preceeding entry tests of the course. This time, the entry tests did not only consist of several hidden questions on the course web pages like last year, but also of a subsequent series of programming puzzles and programming tasks with increasing difficulty which proved to be a lot of fun for all those who participated. This also gave me a very good impression of the student's programming abilities. I really hope their enthusiasm will stay on the same level throught the whole course.
A lot of them have already developed the first ideas for their own Vectrex projects. The current status is reflected on the gallery page, but everything is still subject to change. There a some quite nice concept art drawings, and I am very curious about what other ideas will come up in the next days.
Cheers,
Peer
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Post by japjac on Mar 24, 2018 8:01:36 GMT -5
Looking forward to sampling the fruits of everyone's labour. Good luck one and all.
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Post by VECTREXER on Mar 24, 2018 11:16:28 GMT -5
Yesterday *** A lot of them have already developed the first ideas for their own Vectrex projects. The current status is reflected on the gallery page, but everything is still subject to change. There a some quite nice concept art drawings, and I am very curious about what other ideas will come up in the next days. Cheers, Peer Fantastic to be informed of the course updates Thank you. BTW, If you click the Image for the Vectrex console on the course page it still refers back to the 2018 Project Page. You may wish to update it to point to the 2018 project page. |
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Post by Peer on Mar 24, 2018 12:47:04 GMT -5
BTW, If you click the Image for the Vectrex console on the course page it still refers back to the 2018 Project Page. You may wish to update it to point to the 2018 project page. Link fixed, thanks a lot for pointing that out. Had completely forgotten that the console picture also had a link. Cheers, Peer |
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Post by VECTREXER on Mar 24, 2018 16:06:29 GMT -5
BTW, If you click the Image for the Vectrex console on the course page it still refers back to the 2018 Project Page. You may wish to update it to point to the 2018 project page. Link fixed, thanks a lot for pointing that out. Had completely forgotten that the console picture also had a link. Cheers, Peer Very welcome. Questions about the course. What is the language is the course is presented in for the class and lab sessions? For remote possibilities. Any chances for auditing via internet? |
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Post by hcmffm on Mar 25, 2018 5:39:57 GMT -5
I just clicked on 2018 project gallery and I was quite surprised to see all projects setup, already. And some of the projects have a story and/or concept papers. The concept papers are well done and quite interesting. Some feedback on some of the game concepts:
Super TankIntersting game play. To me, block graphics (obstacles) of "Super Tank" seem too complex for the Vectrex. This might be quite difficult to implement with a decent frame rate / performance. Split personalityGame title sounds like a psychological finding ("Befund"). Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - I'm nosey what the game play will be like. The two players could differ in brightness (filled areas are impossible on the Vectrex). Thirsty AstronautFunny game title and funny story.  Gameplay could be a bit like Frogger or chicken run, i.e. threats coming from left and right side. Shields + Oxygen + Time + Diamonds sound like a pretty sophisticated gameplay. Floor is lavaGame play might be a variation of last year's "Kingdoms of Heaven" - the ISO metric perspective will make this game different and special. "Lava run" might be a good title for this. Starting game development with rectangular platforms is good. Would be cool if the platforms had other varying (random or predefined) shapes which look like sheet of floating ice. Collision detection might be difficult, though. Again, thank you, Peer, for keeping us up-to-date and good luck and fun to the 13 students! Helmut |
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Post by Peer on Mar 27, 2018 13:07:15 GMT -5
Questions about the course. What is the language is the course is presented in for the class and lab sessions? For remote possibilities. Any chances for auditing via internet? Usually, the official language of an elective course is either German or English. For the Vectrex course I have chosen a hybrid approach. In the classroom, we are (currently) talking in German. All documents, texts and email communication are in English. The rest is in C The reason for this is as follows: I think that foreign language competence is very important for today's students, and English is THE most relevant international language, especially in the field of computer science. That is why I offer several of my elective courses in English. In Germany, English is taught in school, so most of the students have average English language abilities. However, attending and following an English lecture still is quite a challenge for many of them. That is why I use German to introduce them to the fundamentals of Vectrex programming, because I want to make sure that they really understand the basics and can quickly focus on their projects and on the actual C programming. All text material we are using is in English, and the students have to read English texts as homework. Whenever they send me emails, they have to write their messages in English. Thus, over the course of time, they get more and more comfortable with the language, and at some point I start to also use English in the lectures. Towards the end of the course there will probably be one or two session which will be completely in English. But all that depends a bit on how things evolve. There is no special streaming technology in the lab, and we (i.e. Pforzheim University) have not yet adopted the virtual classroom concept. Skype sessions would surely work, but right now, the lectures are still completely in German. I will keep you posted on this. Last year I had a brief email exchange with Sean Kelly, and I learned that he is friends with Jay Smith. One idea I cannot get out of my mind is trying to arrange a video conference with (one or some of) the original creators and programmers of the Vectrex console and of the original cartridges. I think that would be a really great and cool experience for the students to listen to contemporary witnesses and learn about the origins of the console and about how software and games were developed in those days. I have read rumors that those guys are very hard to reach. I haven't found the time to do so yet, but I would definitly like to give this a try… Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Peer on Mar 27, 2018 13:08:54 GMT -5
I just clicked on 2018 project gallery and I was quite surprised to see all projects setup, already. And some of the projects have a story and/or concept papers. The concept papers are well done and quite interesting. Some feedback on some of the game concepts: ... Thanks a lot for the feedback. Yes, I have already set up some of the project pages, although it is still very early and all details are still subject to change. However, I needed to get at least some sort of head start, as the next weeks will be very busy. Also, I thought it would be fun so see the very first drafts of the game ideas. Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Malban on Mar 28, 2018 2:54:30 GMT -5
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Post by hcmffm on Mar 29, 2018 8:32:41 GMT -5
In case a student is still looking for a game idea: Many years ago I played the game Cosmic Ark on an Atari 2600. The game play of Cosmic Ark consists of two parts: Fighting against incoming asteroids and rescuing species. I guess the first part of the game shouldn't be hard to implement and might be an interesting reaction game. Not sure how suitable the joystick of the Vectrex is, though. In Review von Comsic Ark the complete game is explained. Classic Game Room's review of Comsic Ark is worth while watching just because of Marks funny comments. Just an idea... |
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Post by Peer on Mar 29, 2018 13:45:17 GMT -5
Thanks a lot for your encouragement and for the link, Malban. Actually, shortly after posting this idea, I got very nice email from Vectrexer who kindly offered his assistance in trying to get in touch with the creators and programmers |
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Post by Peer on Mar 29, 2018 13:47:58 GMT -5
In case a student is still looking for a game idea: Many years ago I played the game Cosmic Ark on an Atari 2600. The game play of Cosmic Ark consists of two parts: Fighting against incoming asteroids and rescuing species. I guess the first part of the game shouldn't be hard to implement and might be an interesting reaction game. Not sure how suitable the joystick of the Vectrex is, though. In Review von Comsic Ark the complete game is explained. Classic Game Room's review of Comsic Ark is worth while watching just because of Marks funny comments. Just an idea... I will relay your suggestion to the students, thank you very much for posting this idea, Helmut. There are still 3 students who have not yet made up their minds about what to realize in their projects. On the gallery page, projects which already focus on some specific idea appear colored. And just in case some of you should not yet have noticed: at the bottom of the gallery page, you can always see a short note on what have been the latest updates to the project pages. |
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Post by Peer on Mar 29, 2018 13:50:21 GMT -5
And here is another short update: Bad news first. Since Good Friday is a public holiday in Germany, there won’t be any lecture tomorrow  Good news, I had scheduled an unscheduled course meeting on Wednesday morning, and we all met yesterday The topics we touched were all related to C programming on the Vectrex. We talked about the Vectrex BIOS and how to access its routines from C. We also talked about the basic memory layout of the console, and about the effects of using global variables vs. local variables, constant vs. non-constant variables, functions with and without parameters, and how all this affects which parts and how much of the ROM and RAM will be used by the generated binary. We also had a look at how the integral C data types are mapped to bytes and words, and at the specifics of using gcc6809 as compiler. Finally, we did some first experiments together, drawing some simple vector lists and moving objects across the screen. Cheers, Peer |
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Gameplay could be a bit like Frogger or chicken run, i.e. threats coming from left and right side. Shields + Oxygen + Time + Diamonds sound like a pretty sophisticated gameplay.
