QUIKMAN 2008 for the unexpanded VIC 20

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:06 am

I should toggle between title / attract mode ... good idea. I have to retain last and high scores, too, as of right now, they would be lost.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:08 pm

rhurst wrote:I should toggle between title / attract mode ... good idea.

Thanks

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:12 pm

Ah, the power of an assembler ...

Anyone interested in seeing a working preview of what can get packed into the same 8k expanded address space as before with Quikman 8k, please feel free to download this binary and give it a try. For those curious of its development files, download this archive.

Enjoy for now, more to come!

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 7:25 pm

The above links to the new Quikman+ have been updated for downloading. Here's a list of new features:

- new opening screen

- new menu to change gaming options:
+ 1 or 2 players
+ original (Pac-Man) or alternate mazes (Ms. Pac-Man: ALL FOUR)
+ starting fruit level

- STOP key during play returns to menu
- repeated STOP key at menu returns to BASIC

- cheat key has been removed

Please report any bugs to me here or PM, thanks!

As can be seen by its assembler map below, just about every byte has been used in the 8k memory expander. The opening SPLASH screen is re-used for the double-buffered VIC display, too.

Code: Select all

Name                  Start   End     Size
--------------------------------------------
BOOT                  0011FE  001362  000165
SPLASH                001400  0017FF  000400
SSSBUF                001800  001924  000125
MYDATA                001925  001BD9  0002B5
MYCHAR                001C00  001EFF  000300
CODE                  002000  002E7E  000E7F
SPRITE                002E7F  003644  0007C6
MAZEDATA              003645  003FF6  0009B2

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:58 pm

Brilliant!

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:41 am

rhurst wrote:Here's a list of new features

Very nice improved version, I like it

rhurst wrote:I should toggle between title / attract mode ... good idea.

Does not seems that this new version has this feature, I'm wrong ?

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:10 am

Very nice game and great implementations... looking at this I'm asking why does "old days" programmers never used (except SOME games) such optimized and smooth sprite routine...

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:00 am

rhurst wrote:I should toggle between title / attract mode ... good idea.
Does not seems that this new version has this feature, I'm wrong ?

Alas, it cannot be done... the memory used for the startup splash screen and its display routine are erased after initializing the playfield, double-buffered display, and sprite character pool (SSSINIT).

The binaries (program and source) are updated again at the time of this post... just an optimizing sweep, a fixed MAZEPAINT coloring bug when in 2-player mode, and a bug in the fruit display. Thanks for the feedback!

I would love to know how to SAVE/LOAD just 3-bytes to/from Mega-Cart NVRAM... I want my high score recorded!

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:24 am

So does this technically supplant the previous Quikman 8k version then?

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:32 am

Mayhem wrote:So does this technically supplant the previous Quikman 8k version then?

I would say, yes, if you are thinking about it in terms of your GB20 catalog. Internally and functionally, it is vastly different from the 8k Mega-Cart version.

I did keep the names "unique" for each project/upgrade:

Code: Select all

quikman.prg      ...original 1984 release, unexpanded
quikman-2k8.prg  ...2008 release, unexpanded
quikman-rom.a0   ...2008 release, 4k game cartridge
quikman-8k.a0    ...2009 release, 8k game cartridge
quikman-8k.prg   ...2009 release, 8k Mega-Cart version
quikman+8k.prg   ...this release, another 8k version

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:19 am

rhurst wrote:I did keep the names "unique" for each project/upgrade:
Code: Select all
quikman-8k.prg   ...2009 release, 8k Mega-Cart version
quikman+8k.prg   ...this release, another 8k version

I may update Mega-Cart roms with this version if you agree btw it this case hi-score saving is a must-have

rhurst wrote:I would love to know how to SAVE/LOAD just 3-bytes to/from Mega-Cart NVRAM... I want my high score recorded!

PM Sent.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:36 pm

nbla000 wrote:I may update Mega-Cart roms with this version if you agree btw it this case hi-score saving is a must-have

rhurst wrote:I would love to know how to SAVE/LOAD just 3-bytes to/from Mega-Cart NVRAM... I want my high score recorded!
PM Sent.

...but of course you may!

I sent back a PM with an explanation of the code ... and posted freshly-baked binaries that save Quikman's hi-score to Mega-Cart.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:07 am

rhurst wrote:I would say, yes, if you are thinking about it in terms of your GB20 catalog. Internally and functionally, it is vastly different from the 8k Mega-Cart version.

I was asking because I had the following already listed:

1984 version
2008 version
2008 cartridge version
8k version

I was figuring, should I really put in a FIFTH entry for technically almost the same game?

("technically" being in that they share a common base level with additions and fixes)

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:20 am

I've tested the new version with Hi-Score save on Mega-Cart, very nice !!!

The new version is bigger but I will try to fit it on Mega-Cart eproms anyway btw from disk works very nice even with Jiffy drives speedup.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:49 am

I was figuring, should I really put in a FIFTH entry for technically almost the same game?

I agree ... actually, it's quite annoying having "put out" five freakin' versions of the same game. I posted earlier about my propensity for tweaking and perfecting -- thanks for putting up with that!

The game play (objective and scoring) are exactly the same (although I know of a few "tricks" from each that can potentially jack up the scoring), so if only one of them made your list, I would be appreciative.

Here's the "technical" breakdown of each, and I leave it in your capable hands to discern whether any of them merit your itemization:

The two unexpanded versions: quikman and quikman-2k8. IMHO, I would not bother cataloging with the original 1984 quikman, as it only visibly demonstrates what could be accomplished by a modern assembler on a PC, as opposed to working with a stock VIC + VICMon + tape of the day. Quikman never got published, so consider it unfinished from 1984.

The 4k game cartridge was a result of playing out a fantasy: What if I were a Commodore employee using a SuperPET with an assembler, and was charged with making a Pac-Man cartridge for VIC to compete with Atari? Tramiel wants me to "become the Japanese" and to keep it costs down, so it must be made within the cheaper 4k ROM variety -- like Frye's charge from Atari. It's really not fair, though, I have 8k kernal and 8k BASIC and 4k character ROM to leverage my code against, but I am not getting a 10-cent royalty either!

Game play is near identical to the unexpanded tape version, but with the convenience of being in a game cartridge format -- there are minor enhancements to play with some visible differences.

The two 8k versions: quikman-8k.a0 and quikman-8k.prg were a result (or challenge?) from persons asking if flicker-free animation was possible. I don't think it would be possible on an unexpanded version, loading from tape, although there were a lot of observations and creative feedback on possibly accomplishing that. So, that discussion got me motivated to write VIC-SSS (software sprites?) and implement this 8k version. The opening screen are the only other visible differences, further demonstrating the flexibility and flicker-free animation possible with VIC-SSS.

This last 8k version (which I originally wrote for 3k+8k expansions, but found I could just squeeze it into 8k) was to take the new and improved VIC-SSS4 I wrote for Omega Fury and retrofit it into Quikman 8k -- which was done as part of that project. But when faced with "a lot of unused address space" (~2k) from that conversion, and a few pokes from persons requesting a Ms. Pac-Man version, I figured it was worth spending another 10+ hours of programming to complete.

If I were king of the forest, I would claim only three: quikman-2k8.prg, quikman-8k.prg, and quikman+8k.prg.