WIP: Manic Miner port

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Ivanhoe76
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Ivanhoe76 »

I saw the video on YouTube and even if it's still at embryonal stage works flawlessly! Sprites move smoothly and without flickering!! It already looks much, much better than perils of Willy!!! Go on, We could finally have the port i always wanted!!
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone :)

I have it working on cart now (with music), but the development cycle is pretty crappy...
Is there a way to have vice start with a cartridge attached and symbols loaded? I couldn't get the command line options to show up, and I didn't find anything useful in the documentation.
miner_20180115.zip
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Mayhem »

Presuming it's meant to attach to $A0, then you should be able to fire it up via:

xvic -cartA miner.A0 -pal

But I get VICE up with no discernible display, although the game is running... the music plays when you hit a key.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Yeah, I get the same result (although just attaching it via the menu works fine).
It only plays the first bar of the music too...
The game is currently all in the first 4k of the cart, so it's not that...

I don't see any obvious errors in the vice source (34322).
I tried -cartgeneric but got the same result :(

[EDIT: thanks for the command line!]
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by pixel »

Kweepa wrote:Yeah, I get the same result (although just attaching it via the menu works fine).
It only plays the first bar of the music too...
The game is currently all in the first 4k of the cart, so it's not that...
Init the VIAs and stuff properly yourself first or everything will blow up uninitialised when you least expect it (keyboard, ints, timers).

Code: Select all

    sei
    lda #$7f
    sta $911d
    sta $911e

    cld
    ldx #$ff
    txs

    jsr $fd8d   ; Init memory.
    jsr $fd52   ; Init KERNAL.                                                                                 
    jsr $fdf9   ; Init VIAs.
    jsr $e518   ; Init VIC?
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Ah, thanks! That fixed it :)
Last edited by Kweepa on Mon Jan 15, 2018 6:00 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by pixel »

Kweepa wrote:Ah, thanks! That fixed it :)
My pleasure. :mrgreen: AFAIK it doesn't even take initialising the memory and KERNAL prior to the VIA so there'd be no delay with built-in expansions like the SuperVIC.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by merman »

Ola H wrote:I thought Perils of Willy was a very fine version when it came out, but I agree about the dreary music. Also that the levels are much less visually distinctive and not as well-designed. Overall, it lacks the pleasant atmosphere and almost mystical sense of wonder that Manic Miner provides.

And, wow, your version seems nigh on perfect :D Looks just as good as the Speccy and C64 version and plays almost exactly the same, just seems a little bit faster (might be an illusion caused by the wider pixels). I also notice that it is possible to land between the shrubbery and brick platform mid screen, that is not possible on the C64 version, I don't know about the Speccy one. Played great in any case! I didn't find it harder than the C64 version.

An 8 k cart with all the levels, sound and music would be like a dream come true! (But Speccy tune, please, just better sounding :mrgreen: I never understood the deal with the C64 tune - it sounds like someone took an abbreviated version of The Hall Of The Mountain King and shuffled the beats and bars at random... Very strange, yet I have some nostalgic affection for it :lol:
Actually it should sound off-key. The Speccy original does, and the C64 port is notorious because they forgot to re-initialise the sound registers on the title screen leading to some very odd warbles!

Look forward to seeing more of this port!
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Urgh, with all the bitmaps and just 5 levels, I have hit the 8k cart limit. (There's 28 unique enemies, each 4 16x16 sprites = 3.5k)
Looks like it'll have to be a 16k tape game :)
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by beamrider »

Kweepa wrote:Looks like it'll have to be a 16k tape game :)
just wondering - why the swing back to tape when carts can go up to 32K?
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by pixel »

Hit it! Optimise in the end only. Or you'll end up hopelessly pixelised. Cannot believe I'm telling this our VICdoom hero. :p
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

I only went to cart because 8k seems like the classic cart size.
16k carts are awkward to compile to, awkward to use in emulation, and I suspect awkward to make into a cart.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by pixel »

Kweepa wrote:I only went to cart because 8k seems like the classic cart size.
16k carts are awkward to compile to, awkward to use in emulation, and I suspect awkward to make into a cart.
Mustn't be too tedious. Am compiling into one 32K image and splitting it up with the "split" command-line tool (Unix) into 8K chunks. The rest is batch scripting. AFAIR cart builders get a bit puzzled if you want less than 32K. With that init sequence you won't notice much of a difference how the system behaves. Was a little scared as well but there's no need to. Spring will be back soon.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Getting closer...
DONE:
- levels 1-20
- vertical enemies
- level 5 (the first vertical enemy)
- level 9 (the first level with 6 enemies, to check the engine is fast enough to handle it)
- key scoring
- score and high score display
- pixel perfect collision detection
- all enemy, exit, block, and key graphics
- air display
- death on air running out
- death delay/sound/flash
- end game boot cutscene
- kong behavior
- switches
- proportional speccy font for room names
- title screen
- title screen music
- skylab behavior
- lightbeam (required some ugly optimizations!)
- final level graphics
- jump sound
- death on long fall
- death sound
- air discharge sound
- foot squash sound
TODO list:

I'm most likely not going to do NTSC because there is much less border time available and I'd have to optimize significantly.
Last edited by Kweepa on Sun Jan 28, 2018 8:08 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: WIP: Manic Miner port

Post by Kweepa »

Updated the WIP status above.
Now have levels 1-13, title screen with music, proportional fonts, air, scoring, pixel perfect collisions, generic vertical enemies, kong beast, switches.
The hardest remaining thing is the light beams (plus rescaling levels 14-20).
kongbeast.png
Last edited by Kweepa on Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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