Sunday 7 October 2018

RetroChallenge 2018/09: Final fixes on Atari Adventure in BASIC

Made a few further last minute (after contest) fixes. There was a bug in the Bat routine so that it wouldn't necessarily steal an item from a room that it found you in. Left out a NEXT in the item search subroutine so it would only find the sword (item 0) if you dropped it in the room with the Bat flying at you. While I was at it, I added a new death scene for Dragons, which I have been thinking about for a while. A dead dragon is now displayed upside down when you stab successfully. Here's what it looks like now. Skip to the end, if you just want to see the death scene:


Here is the link to the RetroChallenge to see the results of this year's challenge:
http://www.retrochallenge.org/p/entrants-list-201809.html

P.S.

Fixed a problem with moving objects. There are two unused rooms, 21 and 22. I send anything you are carrying, or dragons that are killed, to room 21. You could think of it as the Valhalla room. However, there is another room that does not appear, room 22. When randomly moving objects around the program should avoid sending anything to room 21 (Valhalla), room 5 (the secret room) and room 22. However, I hadn't included code to avoid sending things to room 22, so occasionally items and dragons would go missing, at least for a time, from the accessible spaces of the map.

In making these changes, I also changed the moving object routine to avoid moving objects placed in the micro dot room and the room where the chalice is initially placed. This means that both of these items stay put and don't get moved around. But now, once they are moved from their starting rooms, they are able to be moved by the bat like any other object. In other words, these objects themselves used to be off limits for moving, but now it's just the rooms they are placed in that don't allow movement of items from them.

I had also forgotten to prevent dragons from being selected when the bat was randomly moving things, so they could be brought back to life after being sent to Valhalla (room 21). Now items in room 21 are not allowed to be selected for random moving. This includes dead dragons, but it also includes the item being carried, so I was actually able to simplify the selection routine. It just excludes items in room 21, and things in the micro dot room and chalice room.

Finally, I also fixed the map in the White Castle. Now you have to pay close attention to the map in order to find a way into the hidden section... and out again!

Monday 1 October 2018

RetroChallenge 2018/09: Saved just before the Bell by Solar Penguin!

A big thank you to the Solar Penguin for noticing a spelling mistake on the final screen when you win (take a look at the end of the video in my last post). I fixed it and found a few more speedups. Also tweaked the game levels and fixed the bat movement timer so it didn't reset every time you moved from screen to screen. Now the bat's activities should occur on a more regular basis. Here's a new playthrough, in which the chalice turned out to be fairly easy to secure. But I still manage to get killed a few times.


Hope this fix makes it into the RetroChallenge. I also added a REMark to the code with a shout-out in honour of the contest (you can see it at the beginning of the video). Thanks to all for sharing in the fun!