Loony Jetman

So it looks like my first Beeb to A8 release will be Lunar Jetman. It's an easy one because the screen is only 256 wide, a mode which maps exactly to the A8 so there's been no need to hack drawing code (almost no need anyway) to make it display properly. The only bit of drawing code hacking has been the power/fuel/time whatever they are bars which draw with code but thanks to nice debuggers with "break on write" commands I found the code and converted it to A8 pixel format. There was a bit of multicolour graphic for my conversion routine to run over (the top display "panel") and now everything looks pretty spot on...

I've asked someone to attempt to convert the loading screen to A8 so while I'm waiting for that I decided to hack on something else for a while. I chose Cybernoid, for a couple of reasons, one being I'm contemplating a Beeb port while I'm at it (doing a port to A8 that is). Once again thanks to debuggers with break on write I stopped the code as it wrote the first byte of a new screen then traced it backwards down to the point it enters some code with a "screen" number. From there I found the screen pointer index, the screen tile maps and tile graphic data. Also worked out a simple runlength flag in the maps. So, I can now draw levels on any machine I fancy :)

I've messed around with a couple of Cybernoid screenshots in Gimp, recolouring and stippling them and I think a Beeb version is certainly possible graphically although it'll have to be 8 colour mode, something that's rather a memory hog and while there isn't a lot else to the game the screen maps alone take about 8k! I think a disk stream for each new screen might be the only way to go. afaik you can only ever go one way through Cybernoid?! so it's just a linear thing. Go to new screen, read some bytes (each screen would only be a maximum of 190 bytes) whilst that screen is flown through and have that new screens map ready for when you exit the current one.

Oh well, lots to think about, lots to do, lots of games being worked on or at least thought about.


Pete