Arcade Game Designer

[R-Tape]

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I should mention in advance that I will be on holiday when this happens.

[ZXDunny]

Recently discovered that Blimpgeddon & OctuKitty when played on ULAplus hardware has incorrect colours. When making these games the first thing I did was change ULAplus palette to look like standard palette, but the emulator (ZXSpin) I used wasn't really showing me correct colours.

So if you've made a game in AGD and want it to look correct for players using ULAplus use this tool to fix the palette.
https://xor-rox.itch.io/nuagcf

Just to be clear - is this an issue with ZXSpin or with AGD games in general?

[R-Tape]

Just to be clear - is this an issue with ZXSpin or with AGD games in general?

It's the latter. AGD automatically OUTs a ULA+ palette whether the author chose one or not. I've seen the same thing happen on the Vega nonplus - unusually coloured AGD games.

Another good reason to choose SPIN 0.666 though.

[Alessandro]

Dear god—you mean you're going to correct every version, of every AGD game you've done?

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stay calm, I won't do that anytime soon, neither will all of my games be corrected at once. Like I wrote, it will take a lot of time, moreover I have other priorities at this time.

[Einar Saukas]

Stay calm, I won't do that anytime soon, neither will all of my games be corrected at once.

Even if you update only one of your games, it still means hundreds of files!!!

[R-Tape]

Hope Einar doesn't mind my sharing, but he sent me this selfie after the third update of Sophia...

[Alessandro]

Stay calm, I won't do that anytime soon, neither will all of my games be corrected at once.

Even if you update only one of your games, it still means hundreds of files!!!

Heh. Think about what does it mean to depack, patch, repack and test each one of them. And all because of a hidden feature that it was not possible to disable and that is actually used by 20 titles or so.

[R-Tape]

Heh. Think about what does it mean to depack, patch, repack and test each one of them. And all because of a hidden feature that it was not possible to disable and that is actually used by 20 titles or so.

I initially thought you could streamline this using ZX-Blockeditor to avoid having to rebuild things, but where you have compressed the data blocks it might not work—and I think that's most of your games.

The POKE is not the same for different versions of AGD btw.

AGD 4.6 games: POKE 32667,201
AGD 4.7 games: POKE 32698,201

For info, if you can use ZX-Blockeditor as a shortcut, you need to find these bytes: 1,59,191, 62,64,237,121, and then replace the first '1' with '201.

Good luck

[Alessandro]

I initially thought you could streamline this using ZX-Blockeditor to avoid having to rebuild things, but where you have compressed the data blocks it might not work—and I think that's most of your games.

That's the case with all of them unfortunately, at least the tape versions. Disk versions usually host the uncompressed files, therefore I can change the relevant first byte with a RET in the ZX-Blockeditor editor (I did that myself for other reasons during the development of later titles).

The POKE is not the same for different versions of AGD btw.

AGD 4.6 games: POKE 32667,201
AGD 4.7 games: POKE 32698,201

For info, if you can use ZX-Blockeditor as a shortcut, you need to find these bytes: 1,59,191, 62,64,237,121, and then replace the first '1' with '201.

Good luck

Thanks. Most if not all of my games, due to more recent revisions, have been authored with either AGD 4.7 or AGDx 4.7, which share the same source basically. I already found the ULA Plus routine starting from that address and in the AGD source code, which is included with MPAGD. For future releases, in order to enhance the compression ratio, the whole space from 32699 to 32733 will be set to 0.

Coming to think of that, I found a new use for .POK files, which some people here probably don't even know what they are Since I have been using custom sound and/or color effects from Lost In My Spectrum 2.0 on, I need to alter the AGD code sometimes. The .POK file allows you to alter several values in memory at once, without having to manually change them in the emulator's debugger window. For example, you can substitute a routine inside the standard AGD code with a custom one, by inserting a JP [address] instruction at the start of such routine.

[XoRRoX]

you need to find these bytes: 1,59,191, 62,64,237,121, and then replace the first '1' with '201

That's basically what I do with my patcher but on a binary-file level. After the 201 I put a value though to compensate for the checksum byte so that doesn't have to be recalculated.

The situation is unfortunate as it creates the impression that ULAplus is a nuisance which it itself is obviously not, the AGD approach actually is.

It would be better if an appropriate default palette would be set and an option to switch it on/off, also in the games' menu.

[Daveysloan]

Recently discovered that Blimpgeddon & OctuKitty when played on ULAplus hardware has incorrect colours. When making these games the first thing I did was change ULAplus palette to look like standard palette, but the emulator (ZXSpin) I used wasn't really showing me correct colours.

So if you've made a game in AGD and want it to look correct for players using ULAplus use this tool to fix the palette.
https://xor-rox.itch.io/nuagcf

This is superb! Thanks for this, wish I'd spotted it months ago, would've saved watching all those online playthroughs on a MiSTer with weird AF colours.

All our wee games have now been updated on itch.

https://sloanysoft.itch.io/