Retrospectiva 2012

[Daniel Kruszyna]

Retrospectiva 2012: http://rsp.retrocomputacion.com/

I saw a post about this contest in another forum and thought that some folks
here may want to enter. They accept entries for any 8bit platform, including
the Apple II. The categories this year are BASIC Games, Graphics, and Music.

-- Daniel

[BLuRry]

Cool! Too bad they only allow Basic and no native machine code. I wonder... if your basic program were to call the mini-assembler in ROM (you can call rom routines) then would that count? ;-) I know that the core mini-assembler would wipe out the basic program but you could always set up its pointers and call the internal parsers directly. Then all you'd have to do is creatively copy each line into the text buffer at $200 (which could be done with some really clever peeks/pokes and using the memmove rom routine) and call the parser routine for miniasm.

-B

[Michael J. Mahon]

If POKEs are allowed, then anything is possible. ;-)

-michael

NadaNet 3.1 for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."

[Brian]

Was looking for an excuse to write a new basic game. I'll have time
during memorial day weekend coming up.

[BLuRry]

Poking is allowed. Poking in a machine language subroutine is not.

Z-Basic IS ALLOWED!!! So you don't need to stretch too far for better functionality. I also inquired about Apex, which had some awesome capabilities for its day. I'll keep you folks posted.

I was discussing this with my son and he inquired if a graphic adventure game could be written in basic. I thought about it, and really if you could do something like Graphics Magician for drawing then it could actually be feasible. I came up with a simple data format. Commands are single letters followed by zero or more numbers delimited by commas. Commands have no termination, so spaces are ok and commands can just butt up against each other also. Absence of numbers are analogous to zero values.

c# - Set solid/primary color (disables dithering, uses solid fill mode)
C# - Set secondary color (enables dithering fill mode)
e - Erase screen using current color fill mode
m#,# - Move pointer relative by x, y coordinates
M#,# - Set pointer to absolute x,y coordinates
r#,# - Draw rectangle (just the outline) using current pointer and relative coordinates for width/height
R#,# - Draw rectangle using current pointer as one corner and absolute coordinates provided for the other corner
b#,# and B#,# - Same as the rectangle commands only draws filled shapes
l#,# - Line from current pointer to relative coordinates provided, also updates pointer to wherever line ending is.
L#,# - Line from current pointer to absolute coordinates (also updates pointer)
f - Flood fill at the current position

I might expand this to support circles and ovals. Only problem is that zbasic doesn't do color dithering but Apex does. We'll see if they allow Apex. :-D

-B

[BLuRry]

On Friday, May 18, 2012 7:13:53 AM UTC-5, Daniel Kruszyna wrote:

Great news!!!!

APEX IS OPEN SEASON! HACK AWAY!

------------quote------------
Hello Brendan, we have discussed it and decided that the differences
in expression evaluation and conditional statements are not too
radical departures from BASIC.
Therefore, Apex is allowed too.

Thank you again for asking. You brought Apex to our attention, we
didn't know it existed.
Regards,
Pablo.

[Kevin Dady]

Thanks for sharing, this seems interested and I am always willing to
do something graphical with the the ole II... though a 11 month
deadline is, um well, long. That poses a couple issues, 1 it means I
wont be motivated as if I was pressed to actually do and finish
something, 2 even if I make the best thing ever (haha) I would have
forgotten about the contest as results roll in

I guess I better register, maybe some emails will roll in to remind me

[Daniel Kruszyna]

Kevin Dady <ke...@hackaday.com> wrote:
> Thanks for sharing, this seems interested and I am always willing to
> do something graphical with the the ole II... though a 11 month
> deadline is, um well, long. That poses a couple issues, 1 it means I
> wont be motivated as if I was pressed to actually do and finish
> something, 2 even if I make the best thing ever (haha) I would have
> forgotten about the contest as results roll in

I had the same thought. However, they do display entries as soon as they are
entered -- these show up on their RSS feed too.

-- Daniel

[Brian]

Submitted my first entry, woohoo! A crappy basic game involving
surfers and lasers :) (I wanted to do something quick and original).
Took about a week to code. I intend to write a much better and longer
game since the contest doesn't end for like a year. Crazy long
contest period for a basic program, but hey, I won't complain. More
time means more entries which means more chances of winning :)

http://rsp.retrocomputacion.com/

[Polymorph]

No matter how original or whacky an idea is, chances are someone has
already been there. ;-)

Look for "SurfBurgers" on Bret Victors IIgs software page:

http://worrydream.com/iigs/

The main protagonist bears a striking resemblance.

I haven't played your game yet, but if the premise of your game is to
shoot hamburgers with math problems on them, I call foul! hehe :-)

Nice to see the Apple II being represented in the competition though!
Well done.

Cheers,
Mike

[Brian]

> No matter how original or whacky an idea is, chances are someone has
> already been there.  ;-)
>
> Look for "SurfBurgers" on Bret Victors IIgs software page:
>
> http://worrydream.com/iigs/
>
> The main protagonist bears a striking resemblance.
>
> I haven't played your game yet, but if the premise of your game is to
> shoot hamburgers with math problems on them, I call foul! hehe  :-)
>
> Nice to see the Apple II being represented in the competition though!
> Well done.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike

Damn, there's already a surfing game with guns? Who would've thunk!
No hamburgers or math problems in mine though, just crazy birds,
piranhas, and territorial surfers! I was actually inspired by T&C
Surf Designs more than anything, but didn't think anything existed
remotely similar on the Apple II so thanks for the link.