[ASM-TI83] Volts : a very fast vertical scrolling game

I've worked on a totally new game called "volts".

Volts is a very fast scrolling game. Its graphics are very "old school".
This is a choice, for me, the most important thing is the playability.
The map is composed of 8 x 8 block.

There's currently 18 levels :
- 6 easy levels
- 6 medium levels
- 6 hard levels

Hard levels are very long and they use random routines to generate a different map each times :p

The game is already finished, but there's a lot of optimizations to do on the code.
And some little stuff to do (saving data).

Here some animated screenshot :






It would be cool to get your feedback abotu volts

[NanoWar]

I love the logo.
I dont understand why the menu flickers so much when you change the options (maybe use font-on-graph routines?).
I dont see the volty part in it, are you an electron trying to run through a dirty cable ?

[NanoWar]

I love the logo.

Thanks

I dont understand why the menu flickers so much when you change the options (maybe use font-on-graph routines?).

Yes... I have to correct this.
In fact labels and numbers use call _vputs and the the sprites (squares) use call _bufcopy (which erase all the screen even the labels and numbers...
I need to find a solution to write labels and number into the graphbuffer instead of screen. Do you know how to do this?

I dont see the volty part in it, are you an electron trying to run through a dirty cable ?

In fact, english names are often pretty cool as title for french games (that's curious I know) and volts is maybe inspired from "survolté" wich is a french words meaning "furious" or something like this.

About the levels, some hard levels use random routine (taken from ion) for shifting the block.
And if you pay attention at level 11 you will see a tetris like level
And the last level is simply all the level...

Here are all the levels :

Mode easy :
level 1 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l01.gif
level 2 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l02.gif
level 3 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l03.gif
level 4 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l04.gif
level 5 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l05.gif
level 6 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l06.gif

Mode medium :
level 7 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l07.gif
level 8 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l08.gif
level 9 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l09.gif
level 10 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l10.gif
level 11 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l11.gif
level 12 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l12.gif

Mode hard :
level 13 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l13.gif
level 14 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l14.gif
level 15 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l15.gif
level 16 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l16.gif
level 17 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l17.gif
level 18 : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc ... ts_l18.gif

[NanoWar]

In fact labels and numbers use call _vputs and the the sprites (squares) use call _bufcopy (which erase all the screen even the labels and numbers...
I need to find a solution to write labels and number into the graphbuffer instead of screen. Do you know how to do this?

Sure, just do this:

Code: Select all

; the definitions
sGrFlags = 20
textWrite = 7 ; 1 = Small font writes to buffer

; this is the instruction you need
set textWrite, (iy + sGrFlags)

and optionally reset afterwards (with the "res" directive).

Thank you !

But one little question. How do you know this? I will say : where do you find this tips?
I can't imagine finding how works flags just trying it one by one by myself...

Here's the result :




One more time : thanks

[chickendude]

It's in TI's SDK

UPDATE: Errr... TI's developer guide. Sorry about that. There's a whole section on system flags.

Oooh, cool! I'll love it when this comes out.

Here's (finished?) version :
http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc/SPEED.83p

WARNING : this is for ti83 regular or ti82stats but not for ti83+ or ti84+
(ti83+/84+ version is coming soon)

[NanoWar]

But one little question. How do you know this? I will say : where do you find this tips?
I can't imagine finding how works flags just trying it one by one by myself...

Mostly by reading other people's code and asking questions in forums.
Oh and this: http://wikiti.brandonw.net/index.php?ti ... gs:By_Name is really great!

[chickendude]

Also, i don't know about you, NanoWar, but i have a feeling you too may have grown up on AsmGuru, which talked a bit about the flags and how to play with TI's text routines. Now i can't even get the .hlp file to run I'll be sure to check it out, contra. Ah! And i just noticed the new screenshot, it does look a lot nicer

[NanoWar]

How do you know that? I just looked up my backups from 2005 and found asmguru. I used winhlp32 from the wine package to run it.

Tutorial 53: Movax’s Sprite Routine Explained! - I never understood that, haha!

This looks like a cool little game. Simplistic but fun. Reminds me of tunnel or the falldown games. Maybe I'll toss it on my TI-83 later and give it a go. =)

[chickendude]

@NanoWar: Back in the day, everyone used AsmGuru! It was THE tutorial for learning asm. When someone asked "How do i learn asm?" the response was always "AsmGuru!" There was also IonGuru and a couple others that came out with ion, but didn't cover as much stuff as AsmGuru, basically just the new ion routines (which was really helpful back then, too). I also never understood that lesson, but honestly never really paid much attention to it as by the time i started trying to write programs with sprites i just used the ion sprite routines Later, a few folks (and eventually, everyone else) criticized AsmGuru for focusing too much on bcalls and fancy text things (the flags) and not so much on actual z80 coding/design. CoBB's tutorial as far as i know was the first (in the TI community) to try to really focus on that, on things like multiplication/division, tables, the structure of a program, and less TI-specific z80 stuff, and was a direct response (if i recall correctly) to all the praise AsmGuru got. That was in... like... 2003/2004. Now there's the 28 days tutorial, which seems to be the "AsmGuru" of today, though now also has its critics.

Sorry, contra, as none of this is really related to your project, sometimes i like to reminisce a little too much

I've made some modifications on the title screen.

I think, I will not do any modifications on this game.
I firsty started it to do an "easy to finish" assembly project.
Not impossible I will add some stuff one day. But for the moment, I think it's finished.

Here the last title screenshot :


I've added an effect when you loose (scrolling black the scrolling white) and another one when you win (scrollin gblack only).

Here's the binary SPEED.83p : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc/speed/SPEED.83p
Here's the entire code source, includes files, makefile : http://david.nathalie.perso.sfr.fr/calc/speed/

[NanoWar]

It's "you lose" not "you loose". Everything else looks very good!

[chickendude]

The new titlescreen looks much nicer i think, i like the arrows a lot. Congrats on finishing it on time!

Thanks nanowar and chickendude !

Congrats on finishing it on time

Thanks but...
In fact I have to finish another project for the zcontest... (oilcap)

[chickendude]

But with oilcap there's not too much left, is there? The main body of the program is done, it's just adding in some fancy features and whatnot, no? I'm sure you won't have any trouble finishing it on time.

Yes the most part is already done. In fact the difficult part is finished. Now I must do : menu, save state, probably a new mode to use randomly generated pipes, designing levels, and some other stuff.