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Post by Peer on Sept 27, 2020 4:20:42 GMT -5
Latest modifications Game Project "Number Cruncher" added on 09/27/2020 at 11:00 Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Peer on Oct 2, 2020 12:33:59 GMT -5
Vectrex Academy LabLatest modifications Unfinished Game Project "Cave Racer" added on 10/02/2020 at 19:35 Cheers, Peer
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Post by TrekMD on Oct 2, 2020 19:02:23 GMT -5
Lots of action going on!
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Post by Peer on Oct 3, 2020 1:11:53 GMT -5
Hehe, just let me copy my last post from the "Cave Racer" thread, as my answer over there also perfectly fits here: "Yes and no. And yes.  This is all stuff I have been experimenting with during the past two years, and I eventually stopped working on it when things got too busy. In the past weeks, things got less busy, so I started preserving and documenting the state of each project. Coming Monday, the new semester will start, and things will again get very busy.
I want to continue working on one of these projects whenever I will find some spare time, and right now I am trying to find out which project that should be. And that is, why some feedback and everyone’s thought on all this stuff are greatly appreciated." Cheers, Peer
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Post by Peer on Oct 18, 2020 6:20:38 GMT -5
… I found some time to continue working on bringing "Project X" to alpha prototype status, but now I just ran into the 32K barrier.
This is unfortunate, as there are still several things missing which must be implemented, and as there are no present features I am willing to sacrifice.
My bad certainly, but darn, I’d really love to make this work in 32K, without reverting to low level assembly routines, using high level C and BIOS routines only…
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Post by VectorX on Oct 18, 2020 10:32:58 GMT -5
Sounds intriguing!
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Post by Peer on Oct 20, 2020 1:40:48 GMT -5
Thanks! That keeps me being motivated  I should have added in my last post that, of course, I also want that thing to run within 50Hz. So, while programming, I often sacrificed ROM space for getting better runtime performance (the usual trade-off). That is one of the main reasons why the binary is already at 32K. I will probably go to 48K max now, to see how much additional ROM is needed for the still-to-be-implemented parts. Maybe I can get this down to 32K again later by whatever optimization might be possible… Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Peer on Nov 22, 2020 2:27:39 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, here are some news regarding "Project X" (still haven’t decided on the final name of them game): In the aftermath of this year's Vector War I was somehow carried by the great motivation and enthusiasm displayed by all the participating players, so in the past weeks following the end of the Vector War I continued working on this project whenever I found some spare time to do so. I managed to reduce the ROM memory footprint of the program by about 2K, by optimizing some code parts and by sacrificing some other parts. Of course those free 2K were immediately used up again for implementing (many of) the features that had still been missing. Now I am again hitting the 32K barrier. These are the things that are still to be done: - Define all the details of the levels of the game (the action, the objective, the enemy AI). But this is mostly just (tedious) work and will not require any additional ROM space.
- The game does not yet have a proper ending. This I still do have to implement, and for this I will need some more ROM space, estimate: about 0.5 to 1K.
- More sounds need to be added, and the current sounds (mainly just placeholders) need to be reworked. Again, for this most likely also some more ROM space is needed, estimate: about 0.5K.
- Some performance optimization to always stay within a 50Hz framerate, as long as this does not require additional ROM space. But such optimizations might also free some ROM space, so no estimate here.
- Probably some more minor things to be implemented which I forgot here.
- Definitely lots of testing and bug fixing.
But the good news is, I am rather optimistic that all this can be achieved while staying inside the 32K. If all works really well, then a release candidate could probably be ready just for Christmas this year. Please note all the conditionals in this sentence, so no promises yet... I also did some work on the game manual, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Not finished yet, but another big step forwards. I have not yet updated the project web page, but I might do so in the near future.
Many Cheers, Peer
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Post by Peer on Dec 4, 2020 7:51:33 GMT -5
"32K, who could ever want more than that?"
(fabled quotation from the early eighties, well, almost…)
"32K is fine, I just need more than 2^15 Byte to fit into it!"
(me, while working on Project X yesterday…)
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Post by VectorX on Dec 4, 2020 10:09:14 GMT -5
"32K is fine, I just need more than 2^15 Byte to fit into it!" (me, while working on Project X yesterday…) Yes, it's always the dilemma now, isn't it?  |
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Post by Peer on Dec 4, 2020 11:01:13 GMT -5
Yes, it's always the dilemma now, isn't it? Imagine what the world could be like if there were 9 Bits per Byte?
But I guess they had their reasons why they gave us only 8 ...
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Post by VectorX on Dec 4, 2020 12:55:09 GMT -5
"...and then, on the seventh day, God people at what would be later called Silicon Valley (or wherever this started) gave us 8 Bits per Byte..."
Bummer.
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Post by Peer on Dec 4, 2020 13:13:53 GMT -5
"...and then, on the seventh day, God people at what would be later called Silicon Valley (or wherever this started) gave us 8 Bits per Byte..."
Bummer.
I believe what She said was:
"Let there be Byte!ﹰ"
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Post by D-Type on Dec 4, 2020 13:24:18 GMT -5
Wouldn't it be great if we didn't use decimal in real life, octal would be much better. You could still count on you hands easily and you could use your thumbs as check bits/parity. Hex would be even better but finger counting is a bit harder.
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Post by Peer on Dec 4, 2020 13:33:24 GMT -5
Wouldn't it be great if we didn't use decimal in real life, octal would be much better. You could still count on you hands easily and you could use your thumbs as check bits/parity. Hex would be even better but finger counting is a bit harder. Nay, binary in real life!!!
With each finger being one Bit you can count exactly all Bytes in 1K |
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