This is for Dave, testing the compact version ...

I'll add the disk images, naming them with the changes,

thanks Dave, Neil

This one has a couple of fixes in the collision logic plus a big tidy up -

Please test, thanks - Neil

I think there's something up with that 1412 version ... if I hold down Fire, it automatically advances me to the next level after a few seconds!

Dam ME and MY TEST code - LOL
I'll upload another version ... sigh!! That's the trouble when developing while being sick!

Sorry for that,
Thanks Neil

Ok, just tried the latest build on the Master Compact ...

... and I'm very sorry to report that the sound is still screwed! (I'll capture an audio recording with my phone soon, so you can hear what it's like for yourself).

However, the good news is that I didn't see any sign of the weird character behaviour that afflicted v1.0, when played on a Compact (N.B. even though I only had one go, I played it quite extensively; to Level 36, in fact! Very enjoyable it was too - an absolutely cracking implementation).

However, it did go a bit mental on Level 16, when my score was approaching the 4000-mark: the game slowed right down and it became very difficult to control (I ended up losing most of the lives I'd built up on this screen ). Oh, and the score counter went nuts, too (it reset itself, then began cycling from 1 to 10 over and over again).

Eventually however the gameplay returned to normal and the score counter started behaving itself again (it picked up where it should have done, around the 4200-4400 mark, I think).

I haven't yet determined whether this bug only affects the Compact, or whether it's even repeatable.

As for adding a fifth digit to the score counter, I think that might be a smart thing to do (as I scored 9295, and would have clocked the thing had it not been for the Level 16 shennanigans! ).

Now that the game loops after Level 9, I actually think that the difficulty level is probably too low. However, rather than make it loop after Level 10, I think it might be better to restrict the frequency of bonus lives instead e.g. award one extra base per, say, 5000 points?! Also, I would probably set a limit on the max number of bases you can have at any one time (five?).

Btw, seeing as you're still tinkering with code, here are a couple more requests (feel free to tell me to naff off if you want!!).

- can we lose the requirement to press FIRE between levels, and replace it with a Pause/Resume facility?

- I still don't think that the mothership is "sparse" enough ... any chance we can have her all-green (with animated, black eyes)?

K - here's a WAV.

Ecouter!!

Thanks Dave! Well, firstly brill news that the character collision issue didn't show it's self ... I was pretty sure my foo-bar was the cause so good news indeed!

As for the sound, the sound wave says it all, it's a bit Pete-Tong isn't it.
So, that's the next focus... I really need to read up and see where it's going wrong, Pitfall did a grand job - just need to dot the T's and cross the I's (some where LOL! ).

Your feedback on the level increment is fantastic Dave, I'll have to make a list of the chances and incorperate them into the main next release. As for the mother ship - considerate it done, I like the sound of green with manic black eyes!
The pause/resume action on the next level screens - is that delay for a second or two before continuing with the option to pause - or do you want it removed completely and a pause added in?

Once again thanks for your wonderful help, I'll try and get on the case asap,

Thanks Neil

What I meant was, can a generic Pause/Resume facility be added to the game, so at any point you can press P to freeze/restart the action.

I think, say, a five second gap between levels (i.e. whilst the LEVEL text is displayed) would be ample.

Glad you like the sound of mean green motherships!

Anyway, cheers for all that!

Edit: another request - can you make ESC end the current game?

Edit #2: just tried playing it again, and I've noticed that the Aliens aren't dropping any bombs on the first "third" of the screen (did I really play through 36 levels and not notice this?!).

Awww you noticed the fire pattern of the invaders, currently I search from right to left, so the lowest three invaders on the right will fire. It seemed to look good'ish when I wrote that section of the code, especially for testing. I'll have to add a small skip to spread the fire out.

Def need that list ..

* Pause is a good option.
* ESC - I'll add an 'are you sure' message, just to be ... err sure.


thanks, Neil

Limiting the number of lives seems harsh - I think if you reduce the frequency of bonus lives as you suggest that should be adequate. I seem to recall Arcadians being particularly stingy - was it every 7000 points?

Sam.

I experienced two occurences of the random slowdown/counter bug (during the same game) whilst playing Sparse in BeebEm under MODEL B MODE (so that effectively confirms that it /isn't/ a Master Compact compatibility issue).

It first occured towards the end of Level 23, though only the score counter was affected; the game speed seemed unchanged. When I began Level 24, everything was back to normal. Vid here:

It then kicked in again around Level 32 (slowdown AND wacky counter) and I played through three more levels and it didn't show any sign of going away. Brief clip here:

So good luck sussing out whatever is causing these problems ... they seem REALLY weird!!

Well, surprisingly - as soon as I saw the movie clips I know what the problem is.

And I have to say, it's all your faults - - I just didn't imagine people would be playing this game so damn well, going over eleven lifes causes a slight mis-calculation in the blanking functionality. OK, it clears a few more blocks then needed, about 255 more to be precise!
This meant that while you had eleven lifes there was considerable over drawing, thus the slowdown and score blanking and flicking and general badness.

That's good, very good, Dave - taking the time to do the little clips has really helped! Get again more thanks for the time and effort you have put into getting Sparse Invaders fully finished.

My only real concern is the sound problem. I've had a brief look at the source, read the advanced bbc b book - well 3 pages (hmm! LOL) and it all seems very simple and the few functions from Pitfall look fine. My only question is in the sound init function there's the following, is this needed? I've had a quick look as to seeing what it is doing, but haven't found it in the manual yet, I'll still look.

Sigh - I'll continue this in another reply as problems with IE and this edit box.

Part two...

That's better, I can see what I'm writting now!

Dave, this sound issue, when you first mentioned it (at the show maybe) - was that on your Compact? I really need to get my BBC's out and have a play. This is the trouble with having no really experience of the sound on the Beeps I'm sort of stabbing in the dark. There are a few questions that come to mind;

* Do you have to stop a sound or envelope before starting another (i.e start another sound with zero duration etc) ?

* Do you need any pause before setting off the next sound?

* Do you need to let the sound play for a certain min duration before stoping or starting another?

* I've a timer to handle vblank and other misc stuff, would this affect the sound in any way?

* Are there any restrictions once a sound has started, i.e. don't switch interrupts off for example?

* EDIT - Do I need to disable interrupts when starting a sound?

Anyway depending on the outcome of the VDU_MODE oswrch call in the prior reply, I might make another version for you to try on the Compact Dave.

many thanks, Neil

As long as the timer 1 interrupts happen normally (and are passed to the OS interrupt handler) it should be fine.



Disabling interrupts will kill the envelope handling, so don't do it!

Are you using Rich's keyboard code? It might help to disable interrupts around that.

Thanks for your input Tom, and yes I am using Rich's keyboard code - also I do disable the interrupts so that's good.

Also timer 1 does return to the OS handler, so that's another 'good'.

New guess - you need to turn the keyboard input _off_ once you're done reading keys, otherwise both the keyboard and sound chip get accessed at the same time and the result is junk. Put

LDA #&0B:STA &FE40 \ set bit 3 to 1

after you read the keyboard (and before you re-enable interrupts).

I was trying out Treasure Island on my model B earlier today and thought I'd have a go on Sparse Invaders while I was at it.

The sound issue was present with your latest build but I can confirm that Tom's suggestion does indeed fix it.

I downloaded the source and put this change into Keyboard.txt:


Now it makes sweet sounds again

I think I may have uncovered another bug though. Several times it seemed to go straight to 'game over' after dying once (perhaps it loses all 3 lives in quick succession). When it first happened I just thought 'WTF, I suck at this!', but it did happen several times which makes me think it's a bug and not just my crappy gaming skills

Tom and Paul, fantastic news!

I haven't yet tried the fix, as only just read the posts. Hmmm I had basically gone throught the sound with a fine tooth pick and was then going to focus on the interrupt and keyboard handler as the sounds on all channels seemed to work fine with no input from user. However I don't have to now. This is cool news indeed!

Paul, the player death functionality is on the list, it's untidy as the player isn't redrawn after death, I'll put five second invincibility after losing a life to stop the several deaths at once.

Right, better get to it, thanks Tom and Paul for your help on this,
Neil

OK, added the fix to the keyboard - and it seems to work.

However I've noticed an issue with BeebEm and my machine, in that after level 4 the sound does seem to get slightly interrupted, I did wonder if it had fixed the issue, so loaded in v4.05 of BeebEm and that worked. I tried a few other emulators and they worked fine, I have to assume a conflick that happens on my laptop. I haven't really looked further into this, as I have a heap of change control and feature requests to take care of .. Just thought I'd mention it here. I will delve more into the sound problem after the next release as BeebEm is, in my opinion, the Damn Bee's Knee's!

Anyway back to it for me, thanks
Neil