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About this blog

What I'm working on for the various consoles I can program for.

Entries in this blog

Odyssey 2

Jack and the beanstalk (part 7)

I've been having internet connection issues lately, to the point where I had to get a new modem. I'm hoping this will fix it, because I plugged in a phone in the phone jack I'm using internet for and got a dial tone. Between verious spurts of it working, I have worked on trying to fix bugs in the game. When the internet would come back on, I'd upload the game and my playtester would test it and report any bugs he'd seen back. Well, yesterday, he reported not seeing any bugs! So this means I need
Gamegearguy

Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Xybort

I have decided to make a new Odyssey 2 game. It will be called Xybort. I have been playing around with the title screen trying to get it just right. That's all I've done so far, though. Perhaps tomorrow I will actually work on the in-game stuff now that the title screen is completed. In case you're wondering, that white x above the big X is a sparkle. It switches between an multiply sign and a plus sign very fast, creating an illusion of a sparkle. In case you're wondering what Xybort
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Walking around

One thing I was wanting to do with the basketball game was make some animation on the guys. It looked like they were gliding around rather than walking. I knew how to do this, change the look of the sprites so it made it look like they were walking, but the main problem was fitting this into the game. I was trying to go to sleep when I thought of a workaround. Instead of attempting to change the sprite when the player was moving, instead change the sprite based on its y and x position when movin
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

X vs. O - the classic rivalry

From tic-tac-toe to the gridiron, x's and o's have always hated each other. Now you can step inside an X's shoes and experience what it's like to be an o hating x. Well, not NOW, I just started with the game. Yep, it's a new game I started work on for the Odyssey 2. I don't know what the game will be like, I just created this since I was really bored. What I want is an 8k game. In bank 3 (the first bank), I plan to put in an Easter egg - a tic-tac-toe game. In banks 2-0 will be the game its
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Jack and the beanstalk (part 6)

My internet was down for most of the day today. I worked on Jack and the Beanstalk for a little bit, trying to figure out how to redo things and make stuff work. I realized I had to redo the Jack sprite in the castle again for a bug to disappear. He now walks like this: Not a very good walk, but I fear it has to be this way, otherwise bugs creep in and ruin the game. While my internet was down, I cataloged my Odyssey² collection. As it turns out, I have 78 games for it. This includes a
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Jack and the beanstalk (part 3)

Work on this has been going good. I started work on the Giant's castle a week or so ago. Here are some screenshots of inside the castle. The triangles are stairs. If they lean right (like in the picture), they are stairs up. Leaning the other way means they're stairs going down. To use the stairs, all you need to do is touch them. Right now I have 3 floors of the castle in. I want to have a total of four floors and still have room in the code for the key hiding. I think I will. In
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Those Quirky Q's (part 2)

As it turned out, I can't add anything to this bank. It took a ridiculous amount of time just trying to get the game to pause upon a death so it doesn't go directly back to the title screen where the score isn't displayed. It took lots of time just trying to fit tiny additions in. So I've used up 1,400 bytes. I have plenty of room to add my "Cedar Games" intro...except it won't work right. So I guess this game won't have it. Oh well. At least now this minigame is done for the most part. Now
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Cruisin' down the Nile

I decided I was sick of Game Boy programming for now. I'll say this though: It's a lot EASIER to program something on the Game Boy than it is on the Odyssey². I returned to my canoeing game (still nameless). I added a new level. And then the next day (today) I sat there for four hours to come up with the beginnings of a couple more levels. It was hard, but I managed to put in the beginnings of four more levels. Right now, level 2 just repeats over and over again. But I got the screens in anyway.
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

The Golden Q Quest (part 2)

I worked all day on this yesterday and I have it now: The first bank of "The Golden Q Quest" is (almost) finished. I had to make a few changes, like not use the standing man character when the guy stops. This was causing him to get forever stuck inside the pyramid walls. Second, I added the inside of the other two rooms. This is the room where the Ruby r is in. The third room contains a Silver s. Right now when you get all three treasures and exit the last room, it goes back to the beginn
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Testing.

I spent most of last night finishing up my Robot Ron game. It's come to the point where I think it's finished. Now comes the testing/feedback part. I have a few testers to test the game for me and tell me how I did. The changes I made: each enemy is introduced in each wave until all four enemies are in. Then the game becomes a fight for survival as (with most Odyssey 2 games) you only have one life. added a game over screen. changed the numbered box enemies to more alien-look
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Xybort returns

After a two month hiatus, I recently began continuing work on this game. I added a few things, but I want to add a whole lot more. So I think this might end up being an 8k cartridge. Tonight I worked on adding a second enemy in that shoots at you. Oddly, I got finished at about 3 a.m., but the previous night was spent trying to make what I have work on a real Odyssey 2. I FINALLY got done at about 7 a.m. yesterday morning, even though I started work both times at about midnight. I love my Odysse
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Fighting with computers (part 3)

In the last blog entry I said I found a bug. I finally figured out what that bug was. And I think I fixed it. I did a few things to the game since the last time. I added the standard Cedar Games logo back in. I tried to fit it into a bank I already had that had room in it (bank 2), but it wasn't going to work. So I had to make this an 8k game and put in a new bank to use. I added the beginnings of the Whack-an-O game. I made the score red this time to differentia
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

X vs. O - the classic rivalry (part 2)

So I finally got it working after 6 hours. You can now input letters in the tic-tac-toe minigame. I have about 300 bytes left to check for wins. I had to move an awful lot of codes all over the place. I think I must have spent 4 hours moving around code in desparation trying to make the thing work. The left controller enters the X's and the right one does O's. Since the controlers have 8 directions to move the joystick and a button, that makes 9 possible inputs, which works perfectly
Gamegearguy

Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

wave 999

So work resumes on Robot Ron. People said I should drop the "in 2084" part of the title. So I did. It's now just called Robot Ron. But it was hard today. I may fear I will run out of room trying to put a Game over message. I only have about 300 bytes left in the bank where I would put it and about 900 bytes left in the other. But an odd thing happened while I was trying to put more code in. The game got slower. I have no idea why it would do such a thing, so I had to backtrack and rework it a co
Gamegearguy

Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Q version 16

So I added a few more screens to Q. I think what I want to do is have a password to enter when the player enters a new area. I have about 400 bytes left in the first bank I've been working on. So what I will do is start work on the second bank so I can have the password code in the rest of the area in the first bank. I wanted to have a tree AND a P on the same screen at the same time. This caused the game to go crazy and I had to work for several hours to try to counteract its craziness. It
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Scrolling where there is none

I'm having a bit of a problem here. I want the lines to get the visual effect that the game is moving forwards. Right now I have this: I need some more eyes to look at this. What do you think? I have three grids rapidly changing to create this effect. I was thinking along the lines of an ever-moving Battlezone type game where the Xs shoot at Os on the ground. If this is good enough I'll add some trees to move along with this.  
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Left left

Or rather, the way to move it left. So I worked all yesterday and part of today on the game. I had it working fine, but the display crapped out on a real Odyssey 2, plus I couldn't move left. So today was spent restoring left movement, which is tough when you don't know why. I also got rid of the tree. Someone pointed out that the tree should be getting larger as it nears. Since I couldn't, I just decided to get rid of it. I have some more room for more stuff now. Once left movement was res
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Two flies.

So I was going to put three flies in the game. But that was impossible since I couldn't make the third fly swattable even though the code I wrote should have made it do. So I decided to attempt two flies in the game. That worked. So I have an idea for the game. It seems pretty simple, but I don't know if it will work. I spent all morning and part of the afternoon on it. I got it working, but I don't know if it will be fun enough. I sent my idea ROM to the publisher of the game and we'l
Gamegearguy

Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

There.

More work. I'm at a good stopping point for now. Everything works good. I'd be happy with just this as a game, but I'd like to add more stuff in the main game. And I have the room to do it too. Not so much in the tic-tac-toe bank. Apparently "clearchar" does not clear the quads (score), so the score of the main game was showing during the tic-tac-toe game. I had a real hard time trying to put in score clearing code. I was just going to omit the word "tie" when a tie happened, but then I noticed
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Robot Ron in 2084: February 22, 2023 update

So the game is beginning to take a better shape. I added a new type of enemy which goes really fast (pictured.) This enemy moves straight and when it reaches the other side, a new enemy comes. The enemy that chases you will not disappear until you shoot it. I changed Ron's missile to be more of a ring shape. My plan: four enemy types total. each wave between waves 1-4 will be introducing the enemies (with the zoomer being in wave 4 because it's really hard to hit.)
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Q!

So I was looking through my website that has tons of stuff I worked on and backed up in case my computer dies, which it did in 2016. There was stuff in there pre-2016. Like this interesting project entitled Q. It was interesting and I wondered why I gave up on it. So I made a few changes to it, adding and changing some stuff. I don't know what I'll do to it next though, probably start a new bank of stuff because I left off with only 500 bytes left in it. It looks to be like a game where you
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Fighting with computers (part 2)

So I woke up this morning to discover another bug. So I moved a little bit of code around and then played the game for like 30 minutes and didn't run into it any more. Seems really odd though. I should mention that I wanted the score to reset when it does. Because I told it to do so. It seems like the only thing I could do. I couldn't use the same score for both. Since one game is a one-player game and the other is a two-player game. I don't think there's enough room for a player vs. comput
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Robot Ron in 2084

So someone made a controller "coupler" for the Odyssey 2. What this does is puts both controllers together with a piece of plastic. I guess so you can hold both of them like you would, say, an NES controller. So now a game like, say, Robotron 2084 would be a cinch for games that would benefit from such a thing. And that's what I'm doing. I'm making one of my "semi-ports". This won't be like the original Robotron 2084 because my plan is needing to shoot a certain number of enemies that pop u
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Scrolling where there is none (part 2)

I just spent three hours on this: Fortunately, I had the scrolling all done from a previous project I gave up on, I just needed to add a tree and the X. I need to change the colors of the ground (x's can't walk on water and trees don't grow from the top of the water neither). Since I'm sleepy I'll go to sleep now and come back and read any feedback in the morning.
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Odyssey 2

Flies

Yesterday I decided to make a new Odyssey 2 game. I attempted to put three sprites on the screen moving randomly. In the end, I could only put one. So I decided to make it like my Atari 2600 game Fruit Fly Fun. This is what it looks like so far. I decided on white as the background color so the black fly would be easily visible. That and I can't think of another Odyssey 2 game with a white background. I've always wanted to make a game with a white background.
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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