On the Saturday of the Manchester event, a few people said I should work on the incomplete Jet Set Miner as my first project. Well, I've decided to go with that for now. See the wiki page.


Since I only started learning assembler today, I'm starting with the smaller changes. I'll move on to the big changes later on once I've got familiar with the language. Currently, I've fixed the bug that makes it crash when you die.

I'm now looking to add a Retro Software splash screen (if I'm allowed) - anyone got the source for that?



EDIT: Just made it wait for fire to be released on the title screen, so that you don't jump first thing.

Can't remember who coded the loader, I've a feeling TomW ? Perhaps !

Ah, DaveM got in touch with me. There's a different one for freeware apparently, he's going to send me that later on.

Great news! Good luck with it, looking forward to seeing how you progress with it.

I found out that sound is really easy, so I implemented sound for jumping and falling (similar to the one in JSW). My netbook isn't up to screen recording (and beebem on Linux has a problem where sound is delayed anyway), so I'll just attach the source along with a disk image for you to try out.


I've also used a much more efficient, and smaller, screen clear routine.

Of course, I've got the two fixes above.




I am thinking of braving some music. I haven't really composed any video game music before, so it might turn out quite rubbish. I obviously won't steal the music from JSW, so for JSM I'll have to make something from scratch. Are there any good tools to use for composing BBC music?

Wow.. good going!

I'd be interested in seeing some code for sound routines, since I have pretty much silence in my game at the moment

Lol, forgot attachment

EDIT: There's more files than you need in there, I just zipped everything I was using :p


Description of files:
Jet Set Miner.asm is the source

Jet Set Miner.out is the binary

JSM.SSD is the latest disk image

Jet Set Miner.$.!BOOT and Jet Set Miner.$.LOADER are the boot file and the loader respectively that should both be put on the disk

*.inf are the config files for use with bbcim and probably most other disk imagers.




To build and run (if you want to compile from source) (Linux instructions, Windows users can probably just use swift :p):

ophis Jet\ Set\ Miner.asm Jet\ Set\ Miner.out
bbcim -d JSM.SSD PLAT
bbcim -a JSM.SSD Jet\ Set\ Miner.out
beebem JSM.SSD

Woah, you've really hit the ground running with this BBC coding lark, haven't you? Can't believe you're already improving screen display techniques, adding sound etc!

Anyway, with reference to this thread, DaveJ recommends the THEME program which appeared on an old Acorn User coverdisc.

I'll email you a copy now ...

Will try the new JSM build out tonight ...

Congratulations Murray - it's coming along nicely so far.

As far as music is concerned, the Acorn User article that goes with THEME is very useful, as are the listings for music playback using Basic and assembler. The bad news is that DaveE has taken these articles down from Acorn Electron World, but the good news is that he's scanned the entire run of Acorn Users and put them all on three DVDs.

If you run to buying a copy of the Acorn User DVDs (or the complete set) from DaveE:

http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/c-dvd.html

I reckon you'll find it really helpful. Acorn User has carried numerous articles about programming games over the years, which I'm sure would help you as well.

IIRC THEME was used to compose the music for PipeMania and Repton Infinity.

I finally checked out the new build, and I think the sound is ... well ... sound!

Hehe. There isn't much to say about it really, I tried to emulate the Spectrum Jet Set Willy sound as close as possible (but obviously since I don't have the source code and couldn't be bothered to look for some kind of sound frequency analyser I doubt I've got the frequency or the duration exactly right).

I used the OSWORD routine with A=7, I assume that's the way to go to get maximum compatibility?

I downloaded the disk image and had a bit of play earlier. It's looking good


Yes, that's the OS legal way. You may also want to check out envelopes (OSWORD 8) which change the amplitude and pitch of a sound over time. They can be used to create complex sound effects without having to manually program the individual frequencies.

The BASIC keywords SOUND and ENVELOPE do the same thing as the two OSWORD calls and are useful for quickly testing ideas out.

Ah, I saw that too. I didn't use it for the jumping sound effect because it just wouldn't have worked (unless there's a way to stop sounds).

To stop an envelope sound just play another sound with 0 volume and duration.

For example, to play a 'falling' type sound for 3 seconds:

ENVELOPE 1,10,-1,0,0,255,0,0,127,0,0,0,126,0
SOUND 1,1,200,60:SOUND 1,0,0,0

To make the effect play for an arbitrary length of time just set the duration of the first sound to 1 and let it carry on as long as you want. Then play the second sound when you want it to stop.