Moon Ranger- AY

People are still making stuff for the Sinclair related machines. Tell us about new games and other software that runs on the Spectrum, ZX80/ZX81, Pentagon and Next.
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gabriele amore
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Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

It's jerky but colorful
MOON RANGER
Keys are P (forward) Q (jump) and M (fire)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4HYzLRYdH0

get it here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tfo83j5lzwmh ... Kkk7a?dl=0

BIG THANKS TO SEBASTIAN BRAUNERT who the patience to deal with it and put music on it!
This was done using AGDxMini (by Allan Turvey) a derivation of AGD4.7 (by Jonathan Cauldwell)

and... sorry but i have no idea from where Sebastian took the music...
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djnzx48
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by djnzx48 »

Nice looking game, but the music sounds a bit off. There are two sound routines running simultaneously, both trying to write to the AY registers, which causes it to sound stuttery. I found this POKE which appears to fix the problem:

‭POKE ‭33968‬, 195

By the way, the music is by AL and was taken from here.
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Lethargeek
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by Lethargeek »

this graphics looks like it's possible to scroll it in smaller steps almost without the attribute artifacts
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

djnzx48 wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:13 am Nice looking game, but the music sounds a bit off. There are two sound routines running simultaneously, both trying to write to the AY registers, which causes it to sound stuttery. I found this POKE which appears to fix the problem:

‭POKE ‭33968‬, 195

By the way, the music is by AL and was taken from here.
Thanks!
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by Ralf »

I like it! It has limitations due to AGD and character movement but still it creates a generally positive experience.

I agree that smooth scrolling of the mountains in the background is doable (not sure if with AGD) and would make everything
look better.
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R-Tape
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by R-Tape »

Neat. I've only managed checkpoint E so far, but it's going on my SD card for later!
djnzx48 wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:13 am ‭POKE ‭33968‬, 195
Nice one. I must be tone deaf; I didn't even notice!

Gab, I assume this happened because AY Sound was set to ON in the AGD options. If you're adding your own AY music then you need to set it to OFF. Also, is it okay if the version using djnzx's POKE is the one we add to the archive?
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

surely there is a way to get a nice scrolling even with AGD
Allan Turvey showed some very prominsing results in the past but i do not know how that is possible
Anyway i tried using blocks but since the whole game is based on blocks usage, I was out of bock and coul not create a nicer scrolling (the mountains actually scroll relying on two strings of blocks which are drawn to be 4 pixels away from each other)

This is an AGD mini game so each sprite is 8x8... however each sprite (which are left empty, not drawn) puts 8 or more blocks around itself to create the different things you see in the game (the tank, the enemies even the bullets are blocks so to avoid the typical grafix corruption you get when sprites and blocks collide)
Image
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

Rev_Stuart_Campbell wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:49 pm Really good fun, but no scoring at all?
for some reason when i tried to add scoring or even checkpoint messages (you know with all that stuff about timing etc ) everything crashed
I tried many times and in many different ways but i guess i wa asking too much to AGD... maybe
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Andre Leao
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by Andre Leao »

Completed the game. It´s enjoyable, but found several bugs. Anyway, well done!
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Lethargeek
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by Lethargeek »

gabriele amore wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:11 pm surely there is a way to get a nice scrolling even with AGD
i don't know if AGD allows running an efficient external code in a reserved area, this would be a best solution in this case
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by JasonUK »

Enjoyable game but would prefer to be able to redefine keys as 3 selected all over the keyboard. (I would have preferred directional keys together on a 3-key game but that's probably just me!)
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

R-Tape wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:21 am Neat. I've only managed checkpoint E so far, but it's going on my SD card for later!
djnzx48 wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:13 am ‭POKE ‭33968‬, 195
Nice one. I must be tone deaf; I didn't even notice!

Gab, I assume this happened because AY Sound was set to ON in the AGD options. If you're adding your own AY music then you need to set it to OFF. Also, is it okay if the version using djnzx's POKE is the one we add to the archive?
of course!! thanks
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

JasonUK wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 7:38 am Enjoyable game but would prefer to be able to redefine keys as 3 selected all over the keyboard. (I would have preferred directional keys together on a 3-key game but that's probably just me!)
whish i could help with that but as i mentioned, any change i tried to implement made everything crash... so i cannot help with this (not at the moment at least)
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ianace
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by ianace »

Hi

Nice little game, have put it on my Vega, the music does not play on this version, but that does not seem to matter.

I have only just found this thread so have only keymapped M for fire and Q for jump, I notice that “p” is for right, as the buggy is moving that way any way, do you need to use the right control? Any more keys we need to know about? I like this game, nice and simple.
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

ianace wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 9:14 am Hi

Nice little game, have put it on my Vega, the music does not play on this version, but that does not seem to matter.

I have only just found this thread so have only keymapped M for fire and Q for jump, I notice that “p” is for right, as the buggy is moving that way any way, do you need to use the right control? Any more keys we need to know about? I like this game, nice and simple.
True the buggy moves right anyway, but if you are trying to avoid bombs from the UFOs above you might want to move quicker ahead. No other controls are required. Glad you enjoy it😊
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ianace
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by ianace »

Cheers
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by RMartins »

Lethargeek wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:28 am this graphics looks like it's possible to scroll it in smaller steps almost without the attribute artifacts
I have the same feeling ...

Those mountains in the back, really need to scroll slower, than the track in front, or the parallax effect won't sell the 3D perception it is supposed to.

If there aren't enough graphics, maybe they can be overwriten with graphics that are somewhere else in memory, hence provide more graphics, which would allow at least a scroll by 4 pixels for example.
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gabriele amore
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by gabriele amore »

As I said: I don't have enough coding knowledge to take care of these issues but i am more than happy toprovide the GAD script and notes to abyonw willing to take on this

RMartins wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 6:13 pm
Lethargeek wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 1:28 am this graphics looks like it's possible to scroll it in smaller steps almost without the attribute artifacts
I have the same feeling ...

Those mountains in the back, really need to scroll slower, than the track in front, or the parallax effect won't sell the 3D perception it is supposed to.

If there aren't enough graphics, maybe they can be overwriten with graphics that are somewhere else in memory, hence provide more graphics, which would allow at least a scroll by 4 pixels for example.
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Lethargeek
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Re: Moon Ranger- AY

Post by Lethargeek »

[mention]RMartins[/mention], i will try to do something ;)
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