Great explanation Peter :) Paddles are awesome to use in games when possible :) Just a small tip (and I know this is demonstration code but..) a bit more elegant way to alter variable between two values is: p=1-p. You should get 1,0,1,0,1,0,... this eliminates if statement :) Cheers!
1-0=1, 1-1=0 that's brilliant. I plugged it into the two paddle code and set currentpaddle=p and got rid of the old code I used to set the current paddle. Not only does your suggestion give neater source code but it's 15 bytes smaller when compiled. If you've got any more tips Josip, send them my way. Thanks ;)
Paddles seem like a whole new world. I appreciate how each example builds on the last. I started playing "Bob" today-- discovered I had to remap Select and Reset in Stella since my Mac uses F1 and F2 for monitor brightness. I like the challenge of one life per round, and the sounds are good, too. Looking forward to the next video-- and learning about the mythical bank-switching! p.s. As a kid I had the same RETURN OF THE JEDI storybook behind you, but in English. "Had" because I cut out all the pictures!
That book, yeah, I picked it up in a thrift store for very little but I had two or three Star Wars books when I was 7 or 8 that I wish I had still (in good ol' English, you know, that easy to understand language that normal ppl speak, sorry my french friends ;)) including a Tron pop up book, that thing was the coolest book ever. But yeah, paddles are great for some game styles and I thought that as it's so easy to use them in bAtari why not make an episode about them, right? Thanks too for you kind words about the Bob game. I really can't wait to see how your game is coming on :)
Fred Quimby did a stellar job when he developed this language, and it's only now that I've taken my first tentative steps into 6809 Assembly that I realise. It has been said that programming the 2600 was a real pig's ear in many, many ways but thanks to bAtari basic it's fallen within the grasp of anybody. Imagine if the same was done for all systems from the ZX81 to the Amiga. What games we'd have. bAtari has done it's job though, it was made first and foremost as an aid to learn assembly and because of it that's what I've started to do, despite myself. I never thought that I'd enjoy programming but hey, turns out that it's a hell of a lot of fun ;)
I've been rewatching the series in preparation for a New Year's resolution to code my own bB game next year. Thanks for going step by step through the process as I'll probably need to rewatch this repeatedly after I take the plunge. So far, I've only been jotting down basic gameplay ideas/options based on the kernel options table and making sprite animations.
Best of luck to you with your game, I'd love to see it when you've managed to get something playable together ;) I'm delighted that you find the series helpful, it makes my making it worthwhile. If I can be so bold as to give a little advice, start one thing at a time, get a sprite on screen. Then get it moving like you want. Take each section in turn and combine each of them one by one (just makes things easier). Save often and save a master copy at each milestone. Best of luck with it.
Hi, Thank you for your videos! I wondered if you could talk about the NUSIZ0 command in your next tutorial? You talked about it in tutorial number 3. It allows you to multiply a player sprite. However, I don't know how to "kill" one of these sprite copies specifically when shooting them in a game Kind regards
Hey Arturius, I won't be touching on that command again in the next video I'm afraid, but I will be talking a little about the multi sprite kernel. NUSIZ0 and NUSIZ1 apply to the player 0 and 1 sprites when using the standard kernel in bAtari basic. It's a command to set a registry value to mirror multiple copies of a sprite (or stretch that sprite) on screen. It doesn't really give you the ability to make individual multiple sprites. You could maybe set the NUSZI command to display a number of copies of a player sprite on screen and write a little extra code to check if the space they occupy is touched by a missile (or another sprite). If it has been, then you could modify the NUSZI command so that it displays one less copy of said sprite, but I really don't know how effective this method would be. The multi sprite kernel on the other hand will let you put up to 6 sprites on screen that are effectively independent of each other and may suit your needs better. As always in programming, for each gain there is usually a price to pay. In this case, if you go with the multi sprite kernel you're stuck with a mirrored playfield and I think that you may loose a missile also (I'm not sure about that though). I'll try to get the next episode together soon (as well as the episode I'd like to make where I go through the Bob code) It's just a matter of finding the time at this time of year, things can get a little hectic. Thank you for the support and I'm really glad that you find the series useful ;)
@@8bitsinthebasement Hi, Thank you a lot for your answer and useful information! So far I made a little game where an enemy spawns on the left of the screen and you have to shoot him. Not very special but I have to start somewhere. I'm looking forward to your next video, and the multi sprite kernel looks very intresting Enjoy the winter period, Christmas and the new year!
Thanks Tron, it's great to know that what I'm doing is appreciated. The series is almost finished apart from covering in a very broad sense what bAtari is capable of and going through the Bob code. Have you started coding your game yet or are you still experimenting with code? I never thought that coding could be so much fun until I started :)
Great explanation Peter :) Paddles are awesome to use in games when possible :) Just a small tip (and I know this is demonstration code but..) a bit more elegant way to alter variable between two values is: p=1-p. You should get 1,0,1,0,1,0,... this eliminates if statement :)
Cheers!
"wowww" me, as I ran your suggested code in my mind
1-0=1, 1-1=0 that's brilliant. I plugged it into the two paddle code and set currentpaddle=p and got rid of the old code I used to set the current paddle. Not only does your suggestion give neater source code but it's 15 bytes smaller when compiled. If you've got any more tips Josip, send them my way. Thanks ;)
Paddles seem like a whole new world. I appreciate how each example builds on the last. I started playing "Bob" today-- discovered I had to remap Select and Reset in Stella since my Mac uses F1 and F2 for monitor brightness. I like the challenge of one life per round, and the sounds are good, too. Looking forward to the next video-- and learning about the mythical bank-switching! p.s. As a kid I had the same RETURN OF THE JEDI storybook behind you, but in English. "Had" because I cut out all the pictures!
That book, yeah, I picked it up in a thrift store for very little but I had two or three Star Wars books when I was 7 or 8 that I wish I had still (in good ol' English, you know, that easy to understand language that normal ppl speak, sorry my french friends ;)) including a Tron pop up book, that thing was the coolest book ever. But yeah, paddles are great for some game styles and I thought that as it's so easy to use them in bAtari why not make an episode about them, right? Thanks too for you kind words about the Bob game. I really can't wait to see how your game is coming on :)
Constantly amazed by how accessible batari make development on a system that has been historically difficult to program for, nice video chap
Fred Quimby did a stellar job when he developed this language, and it's only now that I've taken my first tentative steps into 6809 Assembly that I realise. It has been said that programming the 2600 was a real pig's ear in many, many ways but thanks to bAtari basic it's fallen within the grasp of anybody. Imagine if the same was done for all systems from the ZX81 to the Amiga. What games we'd have. bAtari has done it's job though, it was made first and foremost as an aid to learn assembly and because of it that's what I've started to do, despite myself. I never thought that I'd enjoy programming but hey, turns out that it's a hell of a lot of fun ;)
You're a great teacher!! Thanks for sharing
Glad that you're enjoying the episodes, are you thinking of an idea for a game? :)
@8bitsinthebasement I won't have time but thought that making clone of a Channel F console game. Should be possible.
I've been rewatching the series in preparation for a New Year's resolution to code my own bB game next year. Thanks for going step by step through the process as I'll probably need to rewatch this repeatedly after I take the plunge. So far, I've only been jotting down basic gameplay ideas/options based on the kernel options table and making sprite animations.
Best of luck to you with your game, I'd love to see it when you've managed to get something playable together ;) I'm delighted that you find the series helpful, it makes my making it worthwhile. If I can be so bold as to give a little advice, start one thing at a time, get a sprite on screen. Then get it moving like you want. Take each section in turn and combine each of them one by one (just makes things easier). Save often and save a master copy at each milestone. Best of luck with it.
Good lesson as usual, Peter!
Thanks,Todd ;)
Vraiment excellent, tu explique très bien, c'est vraiment intéressant, très bonne vidéo.
je suis vraiment ravi qui tu trouve les vidéo intéressent ;)
Hi,
Thank you for your videos!
I wondered if you could talk about the NUSIZ0 command in your next tutorial? You talked about it in tutorial number 3. It allows you to multiply a player sprite. However, I don't know how to "kill" one of these sprite copies specifically when shooting them in a game
Kind regards
Hey Arturius, I won't be touching on that command again in the next video I'm afraid, but I will be talking a little about the multi sprite kernel. NUSIZ0 and NUSIZ1 apply to the player 0 and 1 sprites when using the standard kernel in bAtari basic. It's a command to set a registry value to mirror multiple copies of a sprite (or stretch that sprite) on screen. It doesn't really give you the ability to make individual multiple sprites. You could maybe set the NUSZI command to display a number of copies of a player sprite on screen and write a little extra code to check if the space they occupy is touched by a missile (or another sprite). If it has been, then you could modify the NUSZI command so that it displays one less copy of said sprite, but I really don't know how effective this method would be. The multi sprite kernel on the other hand will let you put up to 6 sprites on screen that are effectively independent of each other and may suit your needs better. As always in programming, for each gain there is usually a price to pay. In this case, if you go with the multi sprite kernel you're stuck with a mirrored playfield and I think that you may loose a missile also (I'm not sure about that though). I'll try to get the next episode together soon (as well as the episode I'd like to make where I go through the Bob code) It's just a matter of finding the time at this time of year, things can get a little hectic. Thank you for the support and I'm really glad that you find the series useful ;)
@@8bitsinthebasement Hi,
Thank you a lot for your answer and useful information! So far I made a little game where an enemy spawns on the left of the screen and you have to shoot him. Not very special but I have to start somewhere. I'm looking forward to your next video, and the multi sprite kernel looks very intresting
Enjoy the winter period, Christmas and the new year!
Great video. Your videos are great learning tools.
Thanks Tron, it's great to know that what I'm doing is appreciated. The series is almost finished apart from covering in a very broad sense what bAtari is capable of and going through the Bob code. Have you started coding your game yet or are you still experimenting with code? I never thought that coding could be so much fun until I started :)
I'm not smart enough to understand how you do this but i am amazed lol sharing this video for you 👀
Thanks for stopping by and for the support 🙏 happy new year to you ;)
Your be an expert at this Atari 2600 programming soon. It won’t be long till we have a doom clone from you 😂
It's in the works ;)