forum.defence-force.org

It was 18 months in the making... but finally I am pleased to announce the release of 8bit-Slicks for the Apple//e, Atari XL, and C64, just in time for the Xmas holiday!

The game supports up-to 4 players, local or online (using the Uthernet, DragonCart or RR-Net). 13 games servers are available, and results are recorded for competitive Ranking. So make sure to download the game and join us for some racing fun this holiday season!

As for the ATMOS... I have already started porting the game, including development of an Arduino based ethernet card plugging into the printer port. Watch this space!!!

Cheers, Tony (aka 8bit-Dude)

P.S: Feel free to repost this news and spread the word, the more players online the merrrier!!!

Well done! Waiting for the Oric version with anticipation.

Congrats!

For the Oric graphics, have you decided on which method to use to display things:
- DuoChrome
- Colored with attributes fighting
- AIC
- Other
?

From what I read here (http://osdk.org/index.php?page=articles ... T9#title17), AIC sounds like the best approach to achieve a colourful display.
The one thing that worries me is the lack of hardware sprites. Do you know if someone has written some well optimized code for sprites with background redrawing?

Generally speaking, there are no such thing as generic drawing routines on the Oric, at least not optimized ones, the reason being that the way you decide to draw things is highly dependent on the type of game, the size and number of sprites, if the background moves or not, if there is actually a background or just black stuff, if it's masked or not.

A common method is to use a secondary buffer used for compositing (don't forget there's also no double buffering on the Oric: Every you draw happens on the physical screen), and then blitt that to the screen (using optimized rectangles) while reinitializing the buffer ready for the next frame.

If all you have is four sprites over a static background, that should not be very difficult to have a relatively smooth animation, after all both Chema and Twilighte has been showing that you could have dozens of sprites moving all around with colorful backgrounds without much problems... with scrolling!

Last question, were you planning to make a game for tape or disk systems?

If you go the tape way, you lose 16 kilobytes that could have been used for additional buffers or fast display routines with unrolled code.

Thanks for this information, it is good to know that others managed to get loads of sprites on screen with a background.
To shorcut development time, it would help to have the ASM code from such example...

I plan to release the game on DISK, to load the race map information on demand.

I have created a small video showing my new "Arduinet" module for the Oric in action:
The module supports ethernet connections (UDP/TCP), and 4 joysticks!!!

With this latest progress, I might have the port of 8bit-Slicks ready in something like 2-3 months.
So I am starting to look at packaging this solution. Here is the item list I have come up with:

Arduino Ethernet (~15GBP) (See here)
Case with integrated LCD (~15GBP) (See here)
4 x 9 pins connectors for 4 Joysticks (~2GBP)
1 x 20 pins IDC connector (~1GBP)
1 x 20 pin IDC cable (~3GBP)
Misc. resistors (~peanuts)

The above does not include various shipping costs assosiated with getting the items from various vendors, and the time I will spend making each unit. It would make sense to produce several units in a first batch, so I have a small team of testers before releasing the game.

Would some people be interested in supporting this initial effort? (note that at this stage, I cannot offer any guarantees on the product)

Nice!
I sure would if needed. Depends on the profiles you're looking for
Got a lot of hardware (Atmos, Oric-1), but to be honest, little time to focus on complicated tests.
What kind of hardware/system would be useful to you at the other end of the ethernet cable? (mainly got PCs with Windows here)

8bit-Dude wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 6:43 am The above does not include various shipping costs assosiated with getting the items from various vendors, and the time I will spend making each unit. It would make sense to produce several units in a first batch, so I have a small team of testers before releasing the game.

Would some people be interested in supporting this initial effort? (note that at this stage, I cannot offer any guarantees on the product)

I would be interested, specially if you can managed to shove in some usable mouse support (see other post - Atari / Amiga style)

I wonder if it would be difficult with a 3d printer to design a case that could get both the Cumulus and the Arduinet device as one single device connected to the back of the oric, instead of a bunch of dangling cables

Symoon wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:49 am Nice!
I sure would if needed. Depends on the profiles you're looking for
Got a lot of hardware (Atmos, Oric-1), but to be honest, little time to focus on complicated tests.
What kind of hardware/system would be useful to you at the other end of the ethernet cable? (mainly got PCs with Windows here)

You don't need anything else at the other end, just an internet router.
This is going to be a box with one side to connect ethernet cable/power, and other side to connect joysticks/atmos.
It is meant for testing online play of 8bit-slicks (at least at first, I have more games coming in future).

Dbug wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:57 am I would be interested, specially if you can managed to shove in some usable mouse support (see other post - Atari / Amiga style)

That would be possible if I upgrade the UNO to a Leonardo.
I could then integrate this functionality as well into my 8bit-unity API.
Something to think about...

Dbug wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:57 am I wonder if it would be difficult with a 3d printer to design a case that could get both the Cumulus and the Arduinet device as one single device connected to the back of the oric, instead of a bunch of dangling cables

Sky's the limit! I am only trying to make a proof of concept to start with.
If there is demand for this, we can think how to make it smarter.

I'm not saying you should make the 3d printed case yourself

Just think about that when designing your final prototype, so it's possible to do it:
- Connectors on the left side of your device would be causing problems
- Too much height would also make that difficult

Take that as a "nice to have". If it does not make your own design more complicated, it's benefit to everybody

I imagine a case you can just 'clip' onto the back of an Oric/Atmos, which sort of closes the legacy ports off and exposes only the now-gen stuff ..