In my spare time I'm working on a BBC Micro conversion of ClapTraps. It may well take me a couple of years, but I hope I'll get there in the end.

http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/wiki/index.php/ClapTraps

Looks fantastic Dave - great to have you back in the RS 'scene' and it's especially pleasing that you've decided to add yet another string to your bow in terms of picking up 6502 assembler!

I wouldn't worry about completion time - even if it does take you ~2 years, that'll still be quicker than the average project on here, LOL!

Thanks Dave - I had a break and thought about what I really wanted to do, and I thought I really need to write a game for the BBC while I can.

I went through Tom's sprite plotting routine for Jet Set Miner yesterday line by line to see if I could understand it - and amazingly, thanks to Tom's comments, I could.

However by the time I finished two things became clear - first Tom's a genius. The AND#6 to animate the frames based on the x-cord is beautiful.

Secondly, my sprite data is all in the wrong format. Tom's not storing the JSM sprites in BBC Micro screen memory format, but in horizontal slices, which makes them much easier to plot!

Looking good so far! Doing it in MODE 4 means that it might be playable on the Electron, too, though it could look really nice in MODE 1.

Many thanks - I make a lot of use of your ADFS utilities to get stuff between BeebASM and B-Em! The 256x192 monochrome play-area means it could be ported to an Atom too. The reason I did it in MODE 4 was because I needed the resolution to keep the cartoonish nature of the original graphics but I was certain I couldn't fit everything I want to into MODE 1 - particularly as I'm just learning.

Here's what I've done so far. I've taken the plot routine of Jet Set Miner, and tweaked it so it will plot at any x-location rather than using pre-shifted sprites, and use a calculated y-offset value rather than a look-up table. That noise will be Tom and Rich shaking their heads at my code.

I've added tricky's random number generator so I can print out some frogs at random locations. I'm using OR to put these sprites on the screen, so they are "see-through".

If everything goes well I might re-do the graphics in MODE1 for a version that uses a 16K Sideways RAM bank.

If I did an Electron port I wouldn't want to have screen memory on the screen - but I'm afraid I'd have to use the tape interrupt or something like that in order to hide the unused area of the screen memory to fit the game in and I don't know how to do that!

EDIT: I just had to write a quick program to convert my graphics data stored in Beeb character block format into row-by-row format - so the graphics look scrambled when you load them into screen memory. I noticed games did this before, but never knew why.

The past couple of days I've taken a crash course in PyQT. The reason is two-fold - firstly I need to write a level editor for my game as I've worked out each map square needs to be stored in 5 bits and it will be a real headache to design test levels without one. David Boddie's Castle Raider map editor impressed me hugely - and I thought PyQT works really nicely for these jobs. I also liked the way David used his Python UEF library to export data back to the Beeb.

The other complication is that although a level set always contain 5 levels, those five levels can be up to a total 16 screens between them - i.e. the levels can be different sizes rather than all the same size. e.g. level 1: 1 screen, level 2: 2 screens, level 3: 3 screens, level 4: 4 screens, level 5 6 screens.

Secondly, it means later I can convert Rich's BeebSpriter and Francis's Beeb Image Converter to Linux relatively rapidly as Python is (for me) about the most productive PC programming language there is.

So next week I'm hoping to have a level editor.

Looking forward to seeing it - no pressure.

Same here!

Hope the regular progress updates via the forum/wiki continue too ...

Keep it up, Kecske!

Same here!

Hope the regular progress updates via the forum/wiki continue too ...

Keep it up, Kecske!!!

Having a couple of problems with PyQt (the QScrollArea setWidget method doesn't seem to like my level editor widget) but I did a bit on the ClapTraps editor this week.

I've also written a script to turn a GIMP set of PNGs into EQUW statements I wrote using the Python Imaging Library so I can make changes in the GIMP and get them straight into BeebASM.

I've also belatedly been doing a bit on the HHH artwork too so there can be some physical copies of it made.

Feel free to send any questions my way and I can try to help with debugging and general advice.

If you're comfortable with IRC, the #pyqt channel on freenode.net can be a useful place to get PyQt advice. I try to be on there most weekdays. The other regulars are also very helpful.

Thanks to DavidB's help and patience, I'm getting there with the PyQt editor.

Thanks to help from DavidB I'm still working on this whenever I get the chance.

You've been quiet recently - busy making progress I see.

Looks ace fella - you can join the ranks of myself and Rich once you get over the 2 years pain barrier

I've spent the past week or so helping out DaveM with the website for Play Expo. But inbetween I've been drawing a high-vis vest - I'm determined that some physical copies of Hard Hat Harry 2 will be available at Play Expo with a nice cover and inlay etc.

I've also got the cover art to amend for Blurp.