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About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

Game Boy

Frank dries off

Today is the big day: I'm supposed to get my 5200 RF switch. After a couple weeks of my 5200 console sitting on the floor, I can finally hook it up and see if it works. I have an AC adapter, I have a console, I have a controller, I have a couple of games (Galaxian should be great for testing the "refurbished" controller I bought) So I should be all set for when it comes. In the meantime, I worked on Frank the Fruit Fly again. Level 4 has been completed and work began on level 5. I composed
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Frank underwater

I've been working on Frank the Fruit Fly again. I've got three screens done since October 1, my last blog entry. Also, I got my 5200 in the mail yesterday but I can't test it because I need the special rf switchbox and a controller. I spent big, getting a refurbished 5200 controller instead of all those UNTESTED ones on eBay. Question: If you're selling controllers for a console, why not just take the time to actually test them? Because if you don't have the console, how did you get a
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Game Boy dolphin

So it's a unusually hot October day. It got to be 85 here today for some reason. So this got me thinking about tropics. And how they're as hot as deserts. So in the last screen of level 3, I merged the two. I put palm trees and a dolphin jumping in and out of one of three random ponds. How a dolphin can fit in that tiny pond, I don't know. I was having trouble trying to draw a dolphin. Attempt #1 looked good, but I forgot that white=transparent so it couldn't work. So I changed the white parts t
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Frank in the desert.

Last time we left Frank the Fruit Fly, he was wandering in the desert. I've been working on the game these past few days. I aded a couple of screens to the game. For some reason, the game broke so I had to fix it again. Everything seems to be working again...for now.   I'm almost done with level 3. I'd like to add an oasis with a fish jumping out of a pond that Frank must avoid. That will serve as a prelude to level 4: the ocean. It's like the Pokemon Mini version, where instead o
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Atari 2600

Potato Chips are fun

Yesterday and today I have been working on my Atari 2600 game "Potato Chips En Masse." I made some lovely changes to the title screen and added a new level in. I have room for one more level, so this will be a 4k cartridge with 6 levels. I could put more in, but that would require bankswitching, which I would be new to since I'm using assembly. Potato chips on the moon? Well, one, anyway. The title screen does a color cycle. I have also been working on Frank the Fruit Fly. I added
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Gamegearguy in Atari 2600

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Game Boy

Time and Frank: Flies

It seems like only yesterday I posted that blog entry. Oh well, it's 4 days later. I had to give up on the Odyssey 2 program I was working on. I went back to Frank the Fruit Fly. I finally fixed all the major problems that has been plaguing this game. Save sound now works no matter what level you start on. Game now fades out after passing every screen. I changed Frank's sprites, I added two more frames so his flight looks more fluid (at least it does to me.) Health now
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Odyssey 2

Battlewizard

The TV on the 11 o'clock news and the occasional hoots of a nearby owl keep me company as I work on a new game. I am working on a new Odyssey 2 game. It is a port of Wizard of Wor. So as not to get in trouble with CBS, I have changed the name of it. What would a game about a wizard in a war be called? Why of course: Battlewizard! I made sure to put my custom sound making code in the game so I don't have to work it in with horrid results later. The only sound in the game now is a thud in case you
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Gamegearguy in Odyssey 2

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Game Boy

I know now what I want to do.

Working on Frank the Fruit Fly for Game Boy again. It had been a few days I took off. Even still I forgot what I wanted to do next. I went ahead and made a screen for level 3. I made a better saving game noise. After much trial and error, I finally made the beginning to level 3. While it's not a screen you can lose health on, it's still a big step since I needed to continue the work on the beginning of level 3. I found that the game did not save health properly, so I think I fixed
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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personal stuff.

update on the sad news.

Thanks for the support. I didn't think I'd cry as I watched my dog die, but as a matter of fact, I shed some tears. As it turns out, I was not in the affected area of power shutoff. I blame the local news media. They kept showing this map of the whole area and said "These are the places where the power will be shut off." Of course, none of the places were shaded yet because it was too early. And the fears really got cemented when the TV did its Emergency Alert System thing and told us our p
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Gamegearguy in personal stuff.

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personal stuff.

Sad news

Our dog is dead. We had her put to sleep. The power company may shut off our power for a few days because they have decided we live in a place that's a high risk of wildfires. Seems really dumb since I'm in a CITY and not out in some country wilderness. So I'm going to stop working on Frank the Fruit Fly or anything else for a couple of days in case they actually do shut off my power. Woke up to find the Queen died. I can't watch our US news networks any more since they can't seem to s
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Gamegearguy in personal stuff.

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Game Boy

Fixing things.

So I had to give up on my Frank the Fruit Fly game. But I had an idea about maybe fixing it while I was trying to go to sleep last night. So I got up and a couple of hours later it was working again. Although it automatically saved when you got to a new level for some reason even though I didn't tell it to. The problem was it was saving automatically after all screens, something I didn't want it to do. I want players to decide when they save by pressing Select. Oh well. I guess it's good it
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Reducing compilation time

So I didn't make anything new for Frank the Fruit Fly today. I was sick of waiting forever for it to compile, so I decided to take today and see if I could reduce the time it spent compiling the game. It took two minutes to compile the game. I had to sit there and wait for it being awfully slow. I wondered what I could do. I noticed in my code I had some very long switch statements in the main part of the code. So I changed them into voids and then pointed the correct void to the correct sc
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

A frog.

I think it's okay to steal from yourself. I lifted the frog from the Pokemon Mini version and put him in the Game Boy version of "Frank the Fruit Fly." I got bored and so I decided if I had an idea I'd might as well just program it. And then I tried to go to sleep, and couldn't, so I got out of bed and made him face the other direction. I'm satisfied with the result. Don't touch the frog tongue! You'll lose health if you do. I don't remember who designed the frog, I just know it wasn't
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

A frosty snowman.

I was looking through my code and thought "What can I make talk?" If you go up to certain characters and press B, they will give you a short comment or hint. I worked yesterday on the snowman, so I decided to make him talk. If you go up to the snowman's face and press B, he'll say something. Well, not "say" something as in making the game talk (although that would be cool. Having Frank say "ouch!" in a tiny little fruit fly voice whenever he gets hurt. But that's not going to happen.)
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

The ultimate day of August, 2022

"Ultimate" here meaning "last." It was partly spent working on Frank the Fruit Fly. I looked through the guide I had made for the Pokemon Mini version. So I made a snowman on a screen. You cannot pass this screen until you make the snowman disappear. This was tough to solve how to do. I wanted an easy way to do it, but as it turned out, there isn't one. So I had to go my hard way I first thought of. And so another day, another screen added to Frank the Fruit Fly game for the Game Boy.
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Atari 2600

More potato chip fun

I thought of an idea for the later levels: Homing missiles that the onion rings can shoot. So I put them in as a test. Then I noticed the missiles ranged in thickness when new playfield data is introduced. I didn't want that to happen, so I spent the next few hours trying to make it stop. This meant redoing all three screens I had designed so far, as well as the sprites. The sprites are smaller because the way I changed the way I use the playfield data to make the missiles all one thickness all
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Gamegearguy in Atari 2600

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Atari 2600

Some potato chip fun

I was looking through my stuff on my computer a couple days ago. I went into the Atari 2600 folder. I found my flying burger game. I tried it. It was okay, except for that the missile for the burger changed color. I thought to fix it, I could make the burger not a burger, but instead be something that just used one color. A hamburger wasn't one color. But what is? I thought for a minute. Potato chips are one color. So I changed the burger into a potato chip. The missile is the same color now.
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Gamegearguy in Atari 2600

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Nintendo NES

The return of Stupidman again

Had it been that long? Last time I worked on my NES game was back in January. I figured I should work on it again. I'm trying to ease myself back into NES programming because I had forgotten a lot of what I had done and learned. The first thing I discovered was I had more tiles than I thought. So I used this to my advantage and used some more tiles to create a better title screen. The title is a pun. The "date" it's referring to is actually a raisin. And not just any ordinary raisin, b
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Gamegearguy in Nintendo NES

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Channel F

Celery level 5 beginning

I worked on this for about three hours. After designing and redesigning the fence, I finally got it working. Mr. Celery moves right across the fence, moving up and down along the way. Now what do I do? Well, the next thing to do is add something for Mr. Celery to avoid that goes across the screen. The way to avoid it is to put Mr. Celery below it. And to do that, you don't press down, you just keep moving right until he goes down. I think this is the best looking fence I could make.
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Gamegearguy in Channel F

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Channel F

Celery level 4 done

Here is a picture of level 4 in action. To make the platform where it is in the picture, for example, you press down+left on the joystick. I made it like the Game and Watch game Manhole like I said. Mr. Celery is automatically crossing the screen and you need to place the platform under him so he doesn't fall into a hole and lose a life. Next up, making level 5. But not today. I'm feeling really hot in here. I don't know. I don't feel very good.
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Gamegearguy in Channel F

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Channel F

Celery level 4

So I've began to come back to Adventures of the Stalk of Celery after getting a couple of ideas. Level 4 will be like the old Game and Watch game "Manhole", while level 5 will be like the Atari 2600 game based on Garfield. Here is the background for level 4. Mr. Celery will walk across the screen beginning at one of four places. Your job is to make sure Mr. Celery gets to the other side. To do that, you need to move a manhole (or in this case a little island) over the holes before Mr.
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Gamegearguy in Channel F

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Game Boy

Select your destiny.

So I tried once again to put in the option to save whenever the user wants to by pressing the Select button. I worked on it, went to sleep, woke up, worked on it some more and I think I finally have it so all the screens I have so far work. I had to change the igloo screen's goal since it wasn't working. You can just pass by the igloo without going in. But what's in the igloo? That is what I changed. Because originally I had it you had to go in the igloo and press a button to open up the rest of
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Blocks

So I made a screen with a fire flower coming out of a block with a giant question mark on it. In Super Mario Bros. this is a common occurrence, but I don't know ahout other games. When you fly in the screen, you are in a race with a moth to see who gets it first. If you get to the fire flower first, you can just press A to shoot a fireball to melt an ice block and continue on. There is only one shot you can make though. This is due to me programming for hours and not figuring out a way to see if
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Push the button, Frank!

(Yes, it's an MST3k reference.) So I was having a hard time with the game. I actually announced I was giving up on it. But today, I took a long hard look at the game and code, and worked on it and discovered a few things I didn't know in the process. And now the game works correctly. Frank needs to go into the igloo and press the button inside to be able to pass the igloo. Right now if you pass the igloo, it just goes back to the title screen since I haven't programmed what happens after the igl
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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Game Boy

Frank the Fruit Fly - 8/2/2022

I changed the font. I didn't like the one I had in there. I replaced the not working spider web screen with a couple of new ones. One has Frank dodging a bee. If the bee stings Frank, he'll lose health and another bee will come out of the  beehive and go after him. The other has two flowers. Frank must go on the ground between the two flowers and press A to unlock the way out of level 1. I don't know how hard it will be to figure out that's what you must do, though. I also fixed a
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Gamegearguy in Game Boy

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