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Post by Peer on Nov 12, 2023 3:43:41 GMT -5
Greetings Vector Warriors, I am preparing the full and final version of Count Vecula today, and I am planning to send out the final binary to Sean for production by tomorrow evening. Is there any last-minute feedback from your side?
I am particularly interested in crashes and bugs, but also in levels which seem extraordinarily hard or out-of-sequence regarding their difficulty. Of course, any other comments are also welcome.
Due to popular demand, I have already added a skip-on-button-press for the cut-scenes.
Thanks a lot for playing, hope you had fun! Many Cheers, Peer |
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 12, 2023 11:04:55 GMT -5
Really great that you're about finalizing Count Vecula which I think is a great game: Lots of details and variety and hours of fun and playing exploring rooms with new challenges. After your great Gyrostronomy/Gyrostrology the new Count Vecula is your second excellent game - my congratulations!
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Post by Peer on Nov 12, 2023 14:12:44 GMT -5
Thanks a lot for your kind words, hcmffm, they are highly appreciated. It was great fun to dive into the code and into the world of the Count again. But I am also really glad that this now finally comes to an end, as I need a change and have several other Vectrex related ideas I want to explore. At this point let me add that I think that there are truly a lot of really great Vectrex homebrew games and homebrew developers out there. I had the pleasure to have had some email exchange with some of them. It is always great to meet others who also share a passion for programming and for the Vectrex. |
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Post by fruktodlaren on Nov 14, 2023 1:36:53 GMT -5
Thanks again to Helmut for hosting Vector War XIII! The real winner is Jay Smith... To be fair, Jay have nothing to do with Vector War. It's like saying thanks to the nobel prize in literature organizers, but the real winner is Johannes Gutenberg as without him there wouldn't be books. Yes, it is true in a sense, but it is also skewing focus on the subject at hand. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 14, 2023 1:50:04 GMT -5
Thanks again to Helmut for hosting Vector War XIII! The real winner is Jay Smith... To be fair, Jay have nothing to do with Vector War. It's like saying thanks to the nobel prize in literature organizers, but the real winner is Johannes Gutenberg as without him there wouldn't be books. Yes, it is true in a sense, but it is also skewing focus on the subject at hand. Haha, you must be an old-school dinosaur like myself. I guess only very few of the young generation know who Johannes Gutenberg was. If they read at all, they will likely pray thanks to Adobe and the magic god who created the smartphone. And that was neither Alexander Graham Bell nor Philipp Reis  |
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 14, 2023 18:45:39 GMT -5
Vector War is over for more than a week, now, time to prepare the prize lottery. Random Prizes drawn in the prize lottery will be: Prize R1: A copy of Count Vecula - a game developed and donated by Peer Johannsen and published by Sean Kelly. Prize R2: A copy of Vyrzon developed and donated by Steve (minsoft). Prize R3: A coupon for one Vectrex game (max. $50) offered by Packrat Video GamesPrizes R4 and R5: A Wet Cat overlay designed and crafted by Steven Kray All participants of Vector War XIII who have qualified can win a random prize - except the three winners (they have won other prizes). Peer: You've indicated that you want to be excluded from the prize lottery, already. ATM, preparations have only just started and it looks as if prize lottery will take place on 26th November. |
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Post by playvectrex on Nov 15, 2023 12:12:25 GMT -5
Thanks again to Helmut for hosting Vector War XIII! The real winner is Jay Smith... To be fair, Jay have nothing to do with Vector War. It's like saying thanks to the nobel prize in literature organizers, but the real winner is Johannes Gutenberg as without him there wouldn't be books. Yes, it is true in a sense, but it is also skewing focus on the subject at hand. I thanked Helmut for VW, and previously congratulated the winners and players. I guess some things get lost in translation... when I say "the real winner", it is more of a "nice thought" to include Jay Smith in our friendly competition. I hope he is well. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 15, 2023 13:06:59 GMT -5
... when I say "the real winner", it is more of a "nice thought" to include Jay Smith in our friendly competition. I hope he is well. I think you definitely have a point there. Winning is not always about first places or prizes. Someone who created such an outstanding piece of technology, which, after 40 years, is still being used and enjoyed by so many people, should be considered a winner. Not to forget that so many consoles are still in working condition after such a long time. I wonder how many of today's modern devices will still operate in 2060? |
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Post by playvectrex on Nov 15, 2023 13:21:21 GMT -5
... when I say "the real winner", it is more of a "nice thought" to include Jay Smith in our friendly competition. I hope he is well. I think you definitely have a point there. Winning is not always about first places or prizes. Someone who created such an outstanding piece of technology, which, after 40 years, is still being used and enjoyed by so many people, should be considered a winner. Not to forget that so many consoles are still in working condition after such a long time. I wonder how many of today's modern devices will still operate in 2060? Exactly, a rare piece of technology that is surprisingly still used 40 years after they stopped making them. Not wheels in a bike race.... or shoes in a marathon..  |
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Post by Sketcz on Nov 16, 2023 12:23:48 GMT -5
As said earlier, I am currently analyzing and going through the code of Spinball. Nothing spectacular so far (the Easter egg has been discovered earlier and is already known), but it is still interesting. I will post some of the details later in the Spinball thread. Have you noticed that Spinball does not display well in ParaJVE? The ball is off to the right. This is due to the fact that Spinball draws the ball as a string, using the Print_Str() BIOS function and the 0x65 character (filled circle). I have long since suspected that ParaJVE has some inaccuracy when emulating Print_Str(). Large texts are displayed being too much offset to the right. Spinball now confirms this. Another fun fact: Spinball also draws the spring of the plunger as a string by means of Print_Str(). Here it uses the 0x6F character (filled square), and the extending-spring effect when pulling the plunger is achieved by modifying the height of the displayed string, stretching the raster lines of the square in y direction. I think this is a pretty neat and clever idea the programmers had here. The plunger is, of course, also displayed too much to the right in ParaJVE, due to the same flaw. I find this fascinating!! How do you get to the code? Can the roms be decompiled easily? Or did GCE release the source? Have you done this for other games? If so I'd like to read the results. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 16, 2023 13:41:42 GMT -5
As said earlier, I am currently analyzing and going through the code of Spinball. Nothing spectacular so far (the Easter egg has been discovered earlier and is already known), but it is still interesting. I will post some of the details later in the Spinball thread. Have you noticed that Spinball does not display well in ParaJVE? The ball is off to the right. This is due to the fact that Spinball draws the ball as a string, using the Print_Str() BIOS function and the 0x65 character (filled circle). I have long since suspected that ParaJVE has some inaccuracy when emulating Print_Str(). Large texts are displayed being too much offset to the right. Spinball now confirms this. Another fun fact: Spinball also draws the spring of the plunger as a string by means of Print_Str(). Here it uses the 0x6F character (filled square), and the extending-spring effect when pulling the plunger is achieved by modifying the height of the displayed string, stretching the raster lines of the square in y direction. I think this is a pretty neat and clever idea the programmers had here. The plunger is, of course, also displayed too much to the right in ParaJVE, due to the same flaw. I find this fascinating!! How do you get to the code? Can the roms be decompiled easily? Or did GCE release the source? Have you done this for other games? If so I'd like to read the results. I use Vide to disassemble the binaries. The difficulty here is figuring out which parts of the assembly code are instructions, and which are data. The result is an undocumented piece of machine code. From there on it's detective work and digging and solving brain teasers. Actually, a lot of fun 
You might want to check out my Weird Science web page. Go to the "Digital Archeology" section and start reading.
Many Cheers, Peer
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Post by jbrodack on Nov 16, 2023 13:52:47 GMT -5
I've been wanting to do a post tournament write up but have been busy and hard to do quoting and formatting on the mobile version of the board. Still, I want to make sure I get something out so here goes.
First off, thanks to Helmut for again organizing the tournament and running it so well despite the increase in players. Makes me happy to see the tournament grow. Thanks to Peer for giving an early version of count Vecula for the tournament and teaching the class which brought us several other games for the tournament. Thanks to everyone who donated a prize or played in the tournament.
With the increase in players maybe we could have a tip jar to thank Helmut for his time and go towards shipping of prizes.
I believe Helmut mentioned my Fortress of Narzod score and that it's tough to do well in that game with the birds. It's definitely one of my favorite original vectrex releases with the graphics and line of sight being very forward thinking for a shooter of the time. With the birds it's hard to really have a strategy but at times I get a better feel for how they attack and get in the zone. It's just hard when you have ricochets and other enemies to worry about too. But I've noticed stuff like they don't appear to shoot backwards and the ability to use them as shields can help.
Here's my thoughts on the other games:
STAR CASTLE
I never understood how to beat the enemy in this. Do people just keep chipping away at it for a high score or actually defeat it? Those quick missiles always hit me
SPINBALL
Could be a great game if the physics weren't so goofy. I'd love to see a modern programmer try a vectrex pinball game.
CAVERN RESCUE
Wow this one was a lot of fun. Such a great design and not directly based on an existing game. Generally I try to take out as many enemies as I can without staying still and letting energy go down. Gets tougher in later levels cause you might get energy drained and a lower bonus. I wish there were more levels but understand the dev wanted to keep the project manageable and gameplay polished. I'll definitely look out for any future projects from the dev.
HAPPY BIRD
Didn't expect much from another flappy bird clone but I appreciate the relatively tight controls for this kind of game and the addition of power ups that slow things down like canabalt. Get sometimes those power ups are really hard to get though. Well done student project.
VRYZON
I reset my cart for the tournament and enjoyed getting some time to focus on the game especially after having a lot of trouble buying the game since it sold out so quickly several times. Top notch Galaga style shooter with many ways to optimize your score. Good to see the full version here after the minigame.
WET CAT
another impressive student game. I love the animation on the cat and a blue overlay goes great with this. Feels great the knock back projectiles and it gives extra points. The springs can be useful but really have to watch where you land.
VECDRIFT
The icons being different from the manual threw me off for a while. This one needs full concentration with the controls able to reverse at any moment there isn't already an effect. I noticed sometimes you can slip between two cars but it's hard to do.
TEE TIME
My nephew ended up better at this than me. Was cool to see a mini golf game cause that's definitely not common on the vectrex. I'd like to see a video of a good score being played cause I couldn't map out my shots well. The only criticism is that the game doesn't calculate your total strokes or score under or over par and it was tedious trying to calculate it looking at the vectrex screen.
COUNT VECULA
Really interesting game I've seen teased for a while. For some reason I thought it was a puzzle game before I played and that's not entirely off as you have to figure out the best way to get your shots through. Was very difficult at first but I started to get better towards the end of the competition. The only thing I'd change is adding a way to see exactly what room you're in or what path you're on. Which would help avoiding particularly tough rooms.
Again, thanks to everyone who participated in the tournament in any way. It's something I really look forward to every year along with Halloween season. I'm happy we had such a great turnout this year and hope we keep getting more people involved.
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Post by VectorX on Nov 16, 2023 14:00:59 GMT -5
STAR CASTLE I never understood how to beat the enemy in this. Do people just keep chipping away at it for a high score or actually defeat it? Those quick missiles always hit me I don't know about the Vectrex version but I do know on the arcade original there's a pattern where you fly through the edges of the screen, causing your ship to wrap around and fire at a certain spot. This causes you, if you time it right, to chip through the shields and you wrap your ship back to another side of the screen before the bombs can come after you. You can just repeat it endlessly if you can master it. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 16, 2023 15:03:01 GMT -5
SPINBALL Could be a great game if the physics weren't so goofy. I'd love to see a modern programmer try a vectrex pinball game. I have made some pretty good progress by now analyzing the Spinball code, but I have not yet fully understood the physics engine. I am beginning to understand parts of it (it uses 16-bit precision computations, of which 8 bits are for the fractional part), but I have not yet found the part which is responsible for the bounciness of the ball, and I doubt that something like an easy fix will be possible.
I do have patched version which draws the ball as a regular vector lists and not by means of Print_Str(). This actually looks quite nice, and also allows the game to be properly (dis)played in ParaJVE.
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Post by D-Type on Nov 16, 2023 18:38:56 GMT -5
I use Vide to disassemble the binaries. The difficulty here is figuring out which parts of the assembly code are instructions, and which are data. The result is an undocumented piece of machine code. You can use MAME to separate code and data for a binary, ~98% accurate and should take maybe 1 hour to complete. YouTube Vic-20 MAME DebuggerTwo minute video shows 6502 code, but works equally well for Vectrex 6809, I've tried it. For my disassembler, you end up with a file like this (Vic-20 + 8k expansion): data 2000-3fff
; ----------------
code 201c-20ad
code 2079-20f2
code 20f7-216a
code 2173-2204
code 220f-22e8
code 22ed-22f7
...
etc.
To get a VECTREX binary (vectrex.bin) to run in MAME, here's the Windows command line I used (paths might need tweaking, you need to provide .\vectrex\exec_rom.bin, you don't need -natural, I use it as I have a Dvorak keyboard): mame vectrex vectrex -swpath .\vectrex.bin -rompath . -debug -debugger_font_size 9 -natural -nomax |
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