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Post by parabellum on Oct 4, 2013 14:58:15 GMT -5
Hi there,
It's a nice and active Vectrex forum around here, well done!
Can't believe I did not register earlier! :)
Back on topic : I'm currently working on enhancing ParaJVD, and I've started debugging ArmorAttack as a target exercise.
There are quite a few bugs actually, below is the list I've spotted so far.
Is anyone aware of any other bugs/flaws I've missed?
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(1) Invisible horizontal wall that blocks the player and shots (4 symmetrical occurences, one near each corner) - FIXED
(2) Flawed hit detection (shots vs vehicles) that results in vehicles being hit across the screen (kind of hidden "portal") - FIXED
(3) When beginning a round (at startup or after player's death), the Jeep will not move forward as long as it did not turn at least once - FIXED
(4) Awkward player positioning/orientation at beginning of a round - FIXED (jeep centered and facing north in single player mode, one jeep top/north and one down/south in 2 players mode)
(5) In 2 players mode, when the 2nd player is dead, tanks would still collide with him when they ride over its death location - FIXED.
(6) Cheap player's death animation - FIXED (well sort of, it looks a bit less "static" now)
(7) In 2 players mode, enemies are aiming at a dead jeep (they seem to peek the nearest Jeep location, no matter whether it's alive or not) - NOT fixed
(8) When you stand against the wall on the city's north bound, you seem nearly immune to tanks shots. I've seen bullets exploding on the wall right under my location without dying... Not sure whether it's a bug or not... - NOT fixed
(9) Not sure about this one either, as it is quite hard to reproduce : In 2 players mode (only?), the 2nd (?) player can sometime go halfway through a tank but will not trigger a collision (seems to happen when turning and colliding with the tank at about 45°) - NOT fixed
(10) Add a "Pause" feature - NOT fixed
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Do you see any other points I forgot?
There seem to have more bugs in 2 players mode, but they're quite hard to spot/reproduce with only two hands! ;)
Thanks in advance!
Franck.
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Post by VectorX on Oct 4, 2013 15:50:16 GMT -5
It's a nice and active Vectrex forum around here, well done! Thank you! But it's the users on here that also help!  Can't believe I did not register earlier! I would've also bugged you a while back to see about setting up a page for you and/or ParaJVE on the Vectrex wiki (by the way), but not being a tech person I didn't really know what to ask. Anyway, can't help with the bugs or anything, I'm not much into playing games I don't have yet. I'd rather have Armor Attack or a multicart and play around with it for a while, then see how it stacks up against emulation  And welcome aboard, and good to hear you're working on an update! |
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Post by Rapetou33 on Oct 4, 2013 17:26:55 GMT -5
Welcome F. ! You are right, it's quite nice to have such a place to share our passion. Thanks for debugging AA. I don't see right now any other bugs (except the funny helicopter explosion sound from time to time but I suppose nothing to do with PARAJV E-D ). Olivier
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Post by gliptitude on Oct 5, 2013 12:33:18 GMT -5
Thanks for joining the Vector Gaming forums! I never noticed any really irritating bugs in Armor Attack, but it's never been one of my favorites so I don't play it often. Fortress of Narzod is the game that is really screaming for a bug fix, in my opinion. Can you do that one next? It is simultaneously a cool and unique but also very frustrating game. It is claimed in the instruction manual that it is supposed to take multiple hits to kill enemies when they are deep in the playing field, but we have speculated here that that really was an after thought and a justification for buggy hit detection in the program. ... At any rate it would be a much more fluid and fun game if the enemies simply died every time they were hit with a bullet. ... Alternatively, if there was some sort of audio or visual confirmation that an enemy had taken a hit, it would be a lot easier to trust that the game was a fair one. |
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Post by parabellum on Oct 5, 2013 15:52:10 GMT -5
Thank you for your warm welcome! Here is a first version of the debugged ROM for you to enjoy : ArmorAttack2-preview1.bin (4.16 KB) Initially, I wanted to keep the size of the binary to 4Kb (for the fun of it) ; but on a second thought I found it much more easy to add features without having such a constraint that doesn't really matter anymore nowadays... @gliptitude : I've picked ArmorAttack because it was one of my favorite Vectrex game back in the days, and also because I remember being truly annoyed by the various bugs, especially in two players mode. I might have a go at Fortress of Narzod afterwards, but I really can't promise anything for sure. Debugging a 'third party' binary is a quite intricate and time-consuming task, and this one is 8Kb (double the size of ArmorAttack), which won't help ;) But about the hit bug, if I remember well, an enemy that has been hit has its brightness decreased, hasn't it? @Rapetou33 : Sound programming on the Vectrex is one field I'm not at ease with, unfortunately :) Well, to be honest, I've never really tried it. I'd like to add a sound for the player's explosion if possible. @VectorX : If I can help with some content regarding ParaJVE/JVD on your wiki pages, no problem. Just tell me what kind of information/data you would need... |
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Post by VectorX on Oct 5, 2013 16:59:31 GMT -5
@VectorX : If I can help with some content regarding ParaJVE/JVD on your wiki pages, no problem. Just tell me what kind of information/data you would need... I don't even have a stub page for that or anything, but if you'd like to write one yourself, even though you had created the program, it'd have to be written in the third person, since it doesn't make much sense to do anything other than a review, strategy guide or "Vectrex story" when others can edit it and change, add and/or correct things if they had to. |
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Post by vectrexmad on Oct 6, 2013 14:19:09 GMT -5
Hello Franck!
Nice that you are fixing the old games.
One thing I noticed about the original Armour Attack is that the AI for the tanks is not smart. When sitting with your truck in the middle, if you are higher or lower than the centre the tanks move round the buildings that obstruct their paths to get you. If you stay exactly in the centre, the tanks just move up and down, but they do not go round the buildings. When playing the game by staying in the centre, you don't have to worry about the tanks getting you, and you can shoot down the helicopters forever and get a very high score!
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Post by parabellum on Oct 6, 2013 14:43:38 GMT -5
If you stay exactly in the centre, the tanks just move up and down, but they do not go round the buildings. Hi Ian, I haven't fiddled with the AI routines yet, so I can't tell how easy/hard it would be to fix such a behaviour at the moment. Will look at this part soon, however. Another thing that would be cool too (regarding the tanks movement), would be to add the possibility for the tanks to enter the playfied through the 4 top/bottoms areas as well. |
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Post by 50tbrd on Oct 6, 2013 15:42:14 GMT -5
For me, this just got interesting.
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Post by TrekMD on Oct 6, 2013 18:15:52 GMT -5
Hi there and welcome! Cool that you've chosen to work on AA. Looking forward to your improvements to the game! |
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Post by hcmffm on Oct 6, 2013 18:16:25 GMT -5
Welcome to the VGF, Franck! It's a honour to have the developer of the excellent ParaJVE, here. ;-) Very good to read that you intend to pick up work on ParaJVD, again. I'll see whether I'll download the alpha version and provide some feedback. Hello Franck! ... When playing the game by staying in the centre, you don't have to worry about the tanks getting you, and you can shoot down the helicopters forever and get a very high score! Ah, that's the way you did the 106k highscore! ;-) |
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Post by parabellum on Oct 7, 2013 3:39:21 GMT -5
Welcome to the VGF, Franck! It's a honour to have the developer of the excellent ParaJVE, here. ;-) Very good to read that you intend to pick up work on ParaJVD, again. I'll see whether I'll download the alpha version and provide some feedback. Thanks Helmut ;) I think I will upload the current build of paraJVD when the new "Back-Tracing" view is completed (the download area still contains the old 2010 version ATM). The current version is much more stable (does not freeze anymore when using the embedded emulator menu) and more user-friendly (views positions & sizes are automatically restored at startup, selectable fonts size, etc.) - I will update JVD's blog soon BTW. Regarding the fixed ArmorAttack, what do you think about the new player's explosion animation? It was done in a rush, so is it OK, or should I go for something completely different? |
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Post by gauze on Oct 9, 2013 7:50:27 GMT -5
I have a question, what do you use to disassemble ROMs and get the data portions in a readable format? I have used a couple 6809 disassemblers and the output is always a jumbled mess for fcc/fcb sections.
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Post by Rapetou33 on Oct 9, 2013 11:35:41 GMT -5
Franck, The new "spinning" explosion is quite good and gives an impress of move (less static than the original one in my opinion). What kind of explosion could you create ? Debris, desintegration with blinding aura ... ?
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Post by parabellum on Oct 9, 2013 16:49:43 GMT -5
I have a question, what do you use to disassemble ROMs and get the data portions in a readable format? I have used a couple 6809 disassemblers and the output is always a jumbled mess for fcc/fcb sections. I'm using a disassembler/tool I've coded from scratch, since all the available alternatives have the problem you're pointing out. It works in an iterative fashion : it accepts a metadata file as an optional input (containing disassembly directives). With these directives, one can define labels & constants, specify that an area contains code/data/pointers, that a register is set to a specific value over an area (very useful for automatic constants resolution in direct addressing mode when DP is set), etc. The very first disassembly emits the usual mess you've described, but with each iteration I can refine the metadatas to produce a better source. Franck, The new "spinning" explosion is quite good and gives an impress of move (less static than the original one in my opinion). What kind of explosion could you create ? Debris, desintegration with blinding aura ... ? Well theoretically it should be possible to replace it with anything since I'm not limited by the binary size anymore (the original coder was definitely hindered by the 4Kb limit), but I'm short on ideas... ;) |
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