Tournament Arkanoid

[Andre Leao]

Released...





https://planetasinclair.blogspot.com/20 ... anoid.html

[patters]

Does anyone else find the controls on Arkanoid (and this mod) to be completely unusable? There seems to be no consistency whatsoever to when the paddle will move fast or slow, and it often moves faster more easily in one direction than another. Totally ruins the game.

[Andre Leao]

Can it be an emulator issue? Didn't try it yet

[redballoon]

Nah, I also find the Arkanoid and Tournament Arkanoid bat controlling a bit on the tricky side. Revenge of Doh, on the other hand, I have no problems with. It's the inertia that seems to be a bit iffy on A and TA, but there's non on RoD. I'm sure with a bit of practice I'd get used to it again.

[patters]

I thought it could be emulation at fault so I tried on my real Spectrums and it's the same. It's hard to believe it could have been released in this condition. Supposedly there is a Kempston mouse hack for it that turns it into a great version.

Interesting to learn that Revenge of Doh isn't affected. I didn't realise it was a separate game, I always thought that it was just the strap line from the game title.

EDIT - ah right, I've seen this RoD before, the graphics aren't as nice as the original since the bat is harder to see.

[Andre Leao]

To be honest, it seems fine, to me. Always a very enjoyable game...

[ianace]

Does it have joystick support? Could not find any options it.

[XTM]

The bat always moves faster whenever the ball is a certain horizontal distance away from it and slows down once it is below that distance threshold. It was a deliberate design choice to compensate for the lack of a paddle, otherwise there'd be an awful lot of horizontally fast moving balls that you'd have no chance of catching. I'm surprised so many people still haven't figured this out ...

[stupidget]

Does anyone else find the controls on Arkanoid (and this mod) to be completely unusable? There seems to be no consistency whatsoever to when the paddle will move fast or slow, and it often moves faster more easily in one direction than another. Totally ruins the game.

I get this when using ZXSP on my MAC, however if I use Fuse it's fine.

[Pobulous]

The bat always moves faster whenever the ball is a certain horizontal distance away from it and slows down once it is below that distance threshold. It was a deliberate design choice to compensate for the lack of a paddle, otherwise there'd be an awful lot of horizontally fast moving balls that you'd have no chance of catching. I'm surprised so many people still haven't figured this out ...

Yep it was like that back in the day. I always thought they should have used 2 or 3 keys for each direction for different speeds - or at least had the option.

Or you could use up/down as modifiers to move faster/slower - that would then also work with joysticks.

[merman]

Does it have joystick support? Could not find any options it.

They are planning to add Kempston and mouse support

[jpnz]

Does it have joystick support? Could not find any options it.

The top left keys - 1 for left, 2 for right and 5 for fire will map to an IF2 joystick in port 2

But the odd thing is, that support for the Kempston joystick is already present in the original code but the BASIC loader skips over it

Code: Select all

  10 CLEAR 24268: BORDER 0: PAPER 0: INK 0: POKE 23624,0: CLS : LOAD ""SCREEN$ : POKE 23739,111: LOAD ""CODE : RANDOMIZE USR 33111

If you change the very last statement in line 10 to the original entry point of RANDOMIZE USR 32768 you'll get this once the game has finished loading:



Selecting Y/N then displays the high score table and plays back the tune



Perhaps it's just a cosmetic thing with this new release - keep the new loading screen on display while playing back the tune

I have tested selecting Y for Kempston joystick (under emulation) and it seems to work well

Anyway, this version is ROCK hard and I may post some more about that

[BiNMaN]

just as a matter of interest, will this make it in to the archive?

[BiNMaN]

They are planning to add Kempston and mouse support

not really, there's a kempston mouse modded version of arkanoid, the plan may be to add the alterations to that but there's something a bit off about the ball placement on game start
if I can stop that from happening then maybe I'll mod that version with the changes

[BiNMaN]

The top left keys - 1 for left, 2 for right and 5 for fire will map to an IF2 joystick in port 2

But the odd thing is, that support for the Kempston joystick is already present in the original code but the BASIC loader skips over it

Code: Select all

  10 CLEAR 24268: BORDER 0: PAPER 0: INK 0: POKE 23624,0: CLS : LOAD ""SCREEN$ : POKE 23739,111: LOAD ""CODE : RANDOMIZE USR 33111

If you change the very last statement in line 10 to the original entry point of RANDOMIZE USR 32768 you'll get this once the game has finished loading:



Selecting Y/N then displays the high score table and plays back the tune



Perhaps it's just a cosmetic thing with this new release - keep the new loading screen on display while playing back the tune

I have tested selecting Y for Kempston joystick (under emulation) and it seems to work well

Anyway, this version is ROCK hard and I may post some more about that

Yes it was cosmetic, first I moved the kempston Y or N to the bottom of the screen to appear under the loading screen image. But it calls a routine to clear the screen first, I'm not a programmer and I've never done assembly before. I had to spend a couple of days learning to understand the rudiments of z80, disassembling a bit, dumping a log of z80 calls in specemu to see when routines were called and trying to work out what it was doing etc so I could make some small changes to change the cosmetics. Stopping the screen wipe and clearing the kempston y or n is a bit beyond me so I did the best I could in the few days I had. So I bypassed kempston and kicked in the tune so I could achieve the ascetic Martyn was looking for.

[R-Tape]

just as a matter of interest, will this make it in to the archive?

I wasn't sure what to do when I first saw the game. Looking again now it looks like a substantial MOD of Arkanoid, and given the response here alone it's noteworthy, so yep I just created an ID and added the files. It'll appear after the next update.

Does anyone konw if the authors "Mart" and "Jed" already in ZXDB?

[BiNMaN]

I wasn't sure what to do when I first saw the game. Looking again now it looks like a substantial MOD of Arkanoid, and given the response here alone it's noteworthy, so yep I just created an ID and added the files. It'll appear after the next update.

Does anyone konw if the authors "Mart" and "Jed" already in ZXDB?

Martyn Carroll (the guy who started retro gamer magazine) and me (Jarrod Bentley)

Jed is my 'normal' nickname, I was surprised he didn't just put Jarrod in the text file. There again it was done for an article Martyn wrote for Crash issue no.12 and he did a full write up in that.

[jpnz]

Yes it was cosmetic, first I moved the kempston Y or N to the bottom of the screen to appear under the loading screen image. But it calls a routine to clear the screen first, I'm not a programmer and I've never done assembly before. I had to spend a couple of days learning to understand the rudiments of z80, disassembling a bit, dumping a log of z80 calls in specemu to see when routines were called and trying to work out what it was doing etc so I could make some small changes to change the cosmetics. Stopping the screen wipe and clearing the kempston y or n is a bit beyond me so I did the best I could in the few days I had. So I bypassed kempston and kicked in the tune so I could achieve the ascetic Martyn was looking for.

Woah, for a first dive into assembly that's a cracking start!

Taking a look, it's definitely do-able to have the tune play back (just the once) with the new loading screen still present and then prompt for the Kempston support - it's about a 12 byte remedy

Looks (and sounds) a bit like this - the clip below has been edited to skip over the 4x tune play back before the attract mode starts



More than happy to share the potential update!

[BiNMaN]

Woah, for a first dive into assembly that's a cracking start!

Taking a look, it's definitely do-able to have the tune play back (just the once) with the new loading screen still present and then prompt for the Kempston support - it's about a 12 byte remedy

Looks (and sounds) a bit like this - the clip below has been edited to skip over the 4x tune play back before the attract mode starts



More than happy to share the potential update!

That would be awesome, it can be added to the download and credited in the text file too...

Actually have you seen the kempston mouse modded version? I've been meaning to try to figure out why the ball travels in the opposite direction to the bat when you start a level.

[merman]

not really, there's a kempston mouse modded version of arkanoid, the plan may be to add the alterations to that but there's something a bit off about the ball placement on game start
if I can stop that from happening then maybe I'll mod that version with the changes

I was going on what Martyn had told me personally... anyway, I’m now working on C64 and Amstrad versions so your logo could well make more appearances...

[jpnz]

That would be awesome, it can be added to the download and credited in the text file too...

PM sent

Actually have you seen the kempston mouse modded version? I've been meaning to try to figure out why the ball travels in the opposite direction to the bat when you start a level.

I've not seen it - maybe just a little out of my league at the moment

[BiNMaN]

PM sent

that was a massive help, thank you

[jpnz]

Found a cheat - to enable a cheat - for Arkanoid

Spoiler

Leave the game alone and it will enter attract mode, let it play for a moment and accumulate some points



Then press any key

Depending on what key you've pressed will add a base score to the current score

Code: Select all

; C/S,1,Q,A - 770000 -   0,P,ENT,B/S
;   Z,2,W,S - 660000 - S/S,9,O,L
;   X,3,E,D - 440000 -   M,8,I,K
;   C,4,R,F - 000000 -   N,7,U,J
;   V,5,T,G - PP0000 -   B,6,Y,H

The high score table is now rendered with a ridiculous score (yes PP0000 will really be added to the score)




You can now enter the known cheat:

Get a high score (more than 25000), then enter your name as PBRAIN (no spaces). When you press any key to play a game you will be asked to 'press Space to cheat'. Waiting a few seconds starts you from the beginning, pressing Space returns you to the last screen you visited.

However you must complete the first level for the cheat to work

Note that in game the high score is different to that of the table




The key press code starts at 0x8e39 for the Kempston Y/N release of Arkanoid

This code is also present in the initial release (at 0x8dc5) but is disabled - having entered attract mode the game goes straight back to the high score table with no play through

This can be enabled by changing 0x8dcb from 0x28 (jr z,0x8ddd) to 0x20 (jr nz,0x8ddd)