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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : New game to CMM: Gauntlet port

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MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 08:19pm 07 May 2019
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To challenge me to force the full potential of a Colour Maximite and the PSGLib, dealing with the eight color limitation, pure basic and limited sprite architecture, I'm porting one of my favorite games: Gauntlet.

I'm starting making all things based on the NES version, which is the one i had the most contact in adolescence and still think it is the most fun and with better maps, wherever, I began to see in more depth the graphics of the version of the Master System and some screens of other versions and so I decided to make a nice mix in this port, where it will have:

- Master System version based sprites
- Title screen, maps and NES musics (converted to PSG)
- Some arcade voices
- Good sound effects, voices and openning music even without a sound card (the new PSGLib supports PWM Sound emulating a PSG)
- Sprites and screens making the most of the 8 colors, all done in pixel art without rough conversions
- Map editor

Well, obviously some technical limitations was found, and by now it's too hard to work around, and MAYBE it stays as a "limited features" from this port:

- All moves and scroll are in 8x8 pixels blocks
- Main character moves in 8 directions but sprites are for only 4 directions (to save RAM). At least the shots have all the 8 directions sprites glory.
- Some enemies have all sprites and some are cut in the same way of the main character, based in the NES Gauntlet II port.
- Only two frames per angle, instead 3 like the SMS version
- Unstable frame rate around 20 fps. Note: It's may seen little, but gives a good result due to the movements every 8 pixels.
- FPS can drop severely when the screen fills with enemies
- When turn on the music, the performance can be hurt (waiting to the MMBasic 5 and C Functions in the CMM)
- Digital sounds directly from SD card, but only in 8 bits, 4Khz. It's almost acceptable, since the arcade voices contribute to the retro atmosphere
- After I finish everything... Will I be able to allow at least 2 players without hurting the game speed a lot??

Of course there are many bugs to be fixed and optimizations need to be done, but now the main engine I consider almost ready.

Finally, soon the Colour Maximite will have a Gauntlet port (or not too soon enough).

Next week I will upload a video in YouTube and publish the alpha source code.
 
Turbo46

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Joined: 24/12/2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 1584
Posted: 02:24am 08 May 2019
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Another impressive job Mauro!

By the way - you were going to post a schematic of your sound card. A hand drawn sketch would be fine.

Bill
Keep safe. Live long and prosper.
 
Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 813
Posted: 07:25am 08 May 2019
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Very impressive! I can't wait for your release!

 
WhiteWizzard
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Joined: 05/04/2013
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2794
Posted: 10:45am 08 May 2019
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BRILLIANT Edited by WhiteWizzard 2019-05-09
For everything Micromite visit micromite.org

Direct Email: whitewizzard@micromite.o
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 11:14am 08 May 2019
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  Turbo46 said   Another impressive job Mauro!

By the way - you were going to post a schematic of your sound card. A hand drawn sketch would be fine.

Bill


It's not drawed by me, but I believe it's correct:




Anyway, inside the PSGLib / Shadow of The Beast Demo has the specifications of the soundcard:
https://www.casadosnerds.com.br/maximite/PSGLIB.zip

With it you can have some options:

- Only one SN76489 (all my softwares support this mode)
- 2 SN76489 for stereo
- 1 AY-3-8190 or YM2149 (with clock divide support in MStudio software, which I must release soon)

You can build it inside the CMM using the Arduino connector in a little board. The bus I made is not necessary (that board that appears in some photos I've posted), I built it just to make my prototypes easier to implement and test.
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 02:01pm 18 May 2019
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New map editor (inside the CdN Media Studio):



The loading screen was remade with manual dithering and some pixel art changes to better details in low resolution (ex.: Faces, hands etc).Edited by MauroXavier 2019-05-20
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 01:30am 29 May 2019
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One more update!

Game panel like the arcade version, with the advantage of a better scroll speed up using a smaller tile grid.






This weekend I will publish the source of CdN Media Studio (to edit maps) and the current alpha development version of Gauntlet.

Stay tuned!
 
cosmic frog
Senior Member

Joined: 09/02/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 277
Posted: 03:38pm 29 May 2019
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This is so cool!
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 02:36am 30 May 2019
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This is the last alpha source:
2019-05-30_123458_GAUNTLET_ALPHA_001.zip

Obviously, have a tons of bugs, bad voice quality, slow performance, debug mode on, only three maps etc.

Uncompress it in any folder, if don't work, put it in B:/GAMES/GAUNTLET.

To play use the gauntlet.bas, to edit a map, listen a music and other things, use the medit.bas, but before run it, make sure you are in mode 1 to clean memory, otherwise will crash your CMM.

PS.: To edit a map, use the same name to .map and .spr file.

Enjoy it and give me your oppinion.
Edited by MauroXavier 2019-05-31
 
cosmic frog
Senior Member

Joined: 09/02/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 277
Posted: 09:10am 05 Jun 2019
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Hi MauroXavier. Trying to get your game to work but getting this error.

In library PSGMINI.LIB
[17] Pin(D8)=1: Port(D0,8)=Num: Pin(D8)=0: Pin(D8)=1
Error: Invalid output pin

Thanks. Dave.
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 04:31pm 05 Jun 2019
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  cosmic frog said   Hi MauroXavier. Trying to get your game to work but getting this error.

In library PSGMINI.LIB
[17] Pin(D8)=1: Port(D0,8)=Num: Pin(D8)=0: Pin(D8)=1
Error: Invalid output pin

Thanks. Dave.

Hi, Dave!

Are you using the last firmware for CMM (4.5c)? This error occurs in previous firmwares.

PS.: This reminds me that I must put a firmware verification code.Edited by MauroXavier 2019-06-07
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 01:02am 07 Jun 2019
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Here is a alpha 2 version:
2019-06-07_105759_GAUNTLET_ALPHA_002.zip

Various bugs fixed, better playability, new tiles and 6 levels.

I recommend to use the numeric pad to allow diagonal movement.

Please, test it and put some comments, I don't care about criticism, feel free to say something bad about my code or game ;)
 
Cyber

Senior Member

Joined: 13/01/2019
Location: Ukraine
Posts: 161
Posted: 06:25pm 30 Jun 2019
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  MauroXavier said  It's not drawed by me, but I believe it's correct:


It's drawed by me. Under careful guidance of MauroXavier. :)
I'm glad it turned out to be useful for others.

By the way it is schematic for only one SN76489 (not stereo).
And in place of speaker you should put amplifier+speaker or headphones, bacause output signal of SN76489 is very low.

Yesterday I assembled this schematic on protoboard, and I confirm it works!

Edited by Cyber 2019-07-02
 
MauroXavier
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Joined: 06/03/2016
Location: Brazil
Posts: 303
Posted: 07:43pm 01 Jul 2019
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What a beautifull piece of protoboard ;)

Here I'm mixing the sound out from Colour Maximite directly in a amplifier.

I'm very glad that you are using it, I have so many things to show but was a little dissapointed because doesn't had some feedback from users, with this appears that nobody is interessed in this.

But with your perseverance, I'm happy again to continue the project!

I will publish soon other videos and more recent codes with heavy optimizations and with a ton of good PSG musics.

Thanks a lot by your feedback!
 
matherp
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Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8517
Posted: 09:53pm 01 Jul 2019
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  Quote  I have so many things to show but was a little dissapointed because doesn't had some feedback from users, with this appears that nobody is interessed in this.


I don't think we have a game playing/programming audience

I spent quite a lot of time developing a pretty comprehensive sprite capability on the MMX and ported it to the Pi-cromite and Armmite but AFAIK no-one has ever used it. Lot's of feedback when I was developing with ideas that I tried to incorporate but no sign of any actual usage.

You are doing amazing things with the CMM but even there I think you are only the second or third developer to use the capabilities Geoff built in.

Don't be discouraged but don't expect too much.

The last game I played was Chuckie Egg
 
Cyber

Senior Member

Joined: 13/01/2019
Location: Ukraine
Posts: 161
Posted: 02:44am 02 Jul 2019
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  matherp said  I don't think we have a game playing/programming audience
May be they are just silent or haven't heard about things happening.
I noticed quiete an increasing interest in vintage gaming lately here and there.

  matherp said  The last game I played was Chuckie Egg
Spectrum?
 
Chopperp

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Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1028
Posted: 07:12am 02 Jul 2019
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  MauroXavier said   What a beautiful piece of protoboard ;)

I totally agree. Nice & neat.

My one & only CMM is tied up full time doing a heap of monitoring so I can't really try out some of the gaming stuff unfortunately. But thinking about it, I may learn a a thing or two if I did delve into some of the games programming done here.

Still waiting for any word of updates for the CMM firmware from Geoff.
ChopperP
 
Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 813
Posted: 07:23am 02 Jul 2019
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@MauroXavier:

Please keep on!
I'm still waiting for having the time to reflash my CMM to try out your programs!
Unfortunately it doesn't work with my current CMM firmware!

Frank
 
Cyber

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Joined: 13/01/2019
Location: Ukraine
Posts: 161
Posted: 09:46am 02 Jul 2019
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  Chopperp said  My one & only CMM is tied up full time doing a heap of monitoring so I can't really try out some of the gaming stuff unfortunately.
I plan to obtain one ore two MiniMM or CGMMSTICK for such tasks.
You can do the same.
And let ColourMM be your desktop device.
 
Chopperp

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Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1028
Posted: 10:15am 02 Jul 2019
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@Cyber

Good suggestions.

There are a number of options available. I like the VGA in some respects display. Nice & big.

I have put a lot of time & effort into my current setup though but it is due for an upgrade.

BTW, welcome to the Forums.

ChopperP
 
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