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Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 8:10 pm
by dougeff
Here's my late entry...
Flappy Jack. I wrote most of this last year, and never finished it. I've been touching up a few things, adding a few new features. All that's left is to redo the music and do some play testing.
You have to catch the pancakes as they fall from the top of the screen. As your stack gets higher, it's harder to catch them. As the levels progress, it gets faster and faster.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:30 am
by dougeff
My very humble music 'studio'. Time to write some songs.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 5:27 am
by dougeff
I tried to edit the source code of (famitone) text2data, to allow lower notes, which worked fine for everything except DPCM channel. The table of DMC offsets was wrong, had to manually edit
Then I was getting a weird bug with Noise channel sound effects, that I've managed to fix, but somehow related to the fact that famitone only once writes to $400f, and assumes always a constant note to be playing (sometimes with a volume of zero). Somehow my sound effect (or something) turned off the constant note, after which no noise channel played. Took me an hour to debug and solve. =(
Anyway, it's 99% done, just need to fine tune a few things.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:41 am
by dougeff
And, I'm done.
I thought I would share a tiny bit of code. To play the same famitracker/famitone2 song at different speeds...
Code: Select all
lda level
cmp #$10
bcs +
lda #9
sta FT_SONG_SPEED ; levels 1-9 slow music
jmp Game_Music
+
cmp #$20
bcs +
lda #8
sta FT_SONG_SPEED ; levels 11-19 medium music
jmp Game_Music
+
lda #7
sta FT_SONG_SPEED ; levels 20+ fast music
Game_Music:
jsr FamiToneUpdate ;MusicEngine
And, yes, level $10 is level 10 in my numbering system.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 6:22 pm
by Jedi QuestMaster
Cool! Can't wait to play it.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 7:07 am
by dougeff
I've been doing endless testing and rebalancing. Now I have a weird issue. The word "Flappy's" in the background looks weird on a CRT. It is clearly not dithered on its edges, yet I get this...
See the dithering on the letters? Also the pancakes (color 17) look like nearly the same color as the sign (color 16).
Compare to a random other game, and it has no dithering issues on the same TV.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 7:19 am
by tepples
Any color boundary with diagonal lines of slope 2 (26 degrees clockwise of vertical) has a potential for such artifacts on NTSC NES or Super NES because of how pixels line up with the color subcarrier. Unfortunately, this is the common amount of slant for cursive.
No yellow
bird? No yellow
mole?
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 8:17 am
by dougeff
Any color boundary with diagonal lines of slope 2 (26 degrees clockwise of vertical) has a potential for such artifacts on NTSC NES or Super NES because of how pixels line up with the color subcarrier. Unfortunately, this is the common amount of slant for cursive.
That's a very good explanation. Did you know that using a non-round number in an explanation makes it 26% more believable. I just made that number up, but I'm betting that you researched your answer. Maybe I should try a non-slanted sign.
No yellow bird? No yellow mole?
For legal reasons, I'm claiming that any similarly to popular games with similar names are purely coincidental.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 11:54 am
by dougeff
It looks like 30° angle to me (angle of phosphor dots on CRT).
https://www.google.com/search?q=crt+tri ... c61880M%3A
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 1:19 pm
by tepples
If pixels were square, it would be arctan(.5) = 26.6 degrees. When corrected for the 8:7 pixel aspect ratio, it becomes arctan(.5*8/7) = 29.7 degrees, which I admit is easier to confuse with shadow mask artifacts. But I'm pretty sure this is an NTSC encoding artifact, not a shadow mask artifact, and would appear the same way on an LCD TV (which otherwise has a more Trinitron-like mask pattern). The easiest way to demonstrate that this is an NTSC artifact is to reset the game a few times until you get a different alignment between the pixel clock and the color subcarrier.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 8:03 pm
by dougeff
Which is better? (16 wasn't working...too close to pancake color.)
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:50 pm
by dougeff
Or, maybe this...16 mixed with 06. (Nestopia with NTSC filter). Dark enough that the pancakes show up fine.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:54 pm
by FrankenGraphics
Flappy11 looks less monochromatic, which is a nice touch. Although i like the details on the last one, it may still be too close to the pancakes?
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 5:17 pm
by dougeff
Here's (probably) the final cut...the full game, Flappy Jack.
(link removed, old)
Instructions -
Mostly L + R to move
Holding A or B will boost your speed
Catch Everything
Start to Pause
The game is considered 'won' if you score above 100,000 pts and see the 'good' ending.
You can cheat and press A and B and Start at the Title Screen to see the 'good' ending.
It is technically possible to reach level 99, but not very likely.
Let me know if you think it is much too hard or much too easy. Thanks.
Re: Progress Thread - Flappy Jack
Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:54 pm
by dougeff
Actually, I forgot, I wanted to add a final score on the Game Over screen...here's that version.
(Link removed, see page 3 for newer version)