Karoshi MSX Community

what about this one? http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/620676

Perfectly doable in MSX(1). But is it that interesting? I mean: I've played up to 7 keys and it's OK, but it seems to me a a "fast" game to play just once, finish and forget. It is a flash game with a retro feeling to it, but I don't know it if will work as an MSX production. Shouldn't be that difficult: plain graphics, simple mecanics, no 5-sprites-in-a-row problem so far, simple sound effects and just one piece of music. Why not?

Very interesting and addictive... but when I collected all keys, the game seems to go crazy and, even I reached the central room, I was unable to finish it.

well, i found this game at http://indiegames.com/2013/07/freeware_-_the_ruins_of_machi.html - i think that just the fact that game appears at http://indiegames.com is enough for considering porting! ;) (as well as i believe that some native z80 games should have visibility there as well!)

Really cool. I loved it! :griel:

Está muy chulo. Y la música acompaña. Lo quería probar y me he llevado un rato jugando  :joe:

English, English...

I finished the game in less than 30 minutes. Really fun!! :D

I remember when I was young and tried to design a platformer with no less than 1000 different rooms. Maybe it's time to think again on it :D

Simon Eriksen, the author, replied me with some stuff he used on the game, like the spritesheets and maps:

sprites, tiles and title:
- http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/559441ecdbc454a5c315b27a1284d45c
- http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/5c1b654343c9b0adf9be98ed7148d0d1

the map:
- http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/3ad745a52b7709c1705d9518442457ff
"The levels are stored as 2D arrays, of course they're all in flash syntax but the data is still the same. Objects like enemies and arrow-traps and keys are stored in there as well. Their id-numbers will have decimals after them (fx 4.000102) which specifies what pattern they move in or when they shoot and stuff."

About the credits, he want to be credited as "MNWS", the typeface used on the title were from http://www.dafont.com/indiana.font , and i think soon he is about to let us know who composed the chiptune and which title has. Simon is also open to reply questions and requests about probably missing information.

my idea for the tilemap/charactermap - http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/8901/gf4j.png - i think wouldn't be a further problem "transforming" that proportional typeface into fixed 8x8, and using screen1 (some tiles might need some arrangement, i can't remember if each group or 4 or 8 characters uses the same colour attribute) with a palette optimized for msx2 (a bit like some MojonTwins games using UlaPlus, or that orange colour used from Konami's Nemesis3)

Great to know you are working on it, nitro! Even with the help of the authors! Can't wait ;-)

well, i confess i were a bit lazy on that - trying to improve Boriel's ZX-Basic Compiler for being able to prototype it more easily (i still struggle on coding pure assembly games yet...), and in the meanwhile i lost some focus on trying to extend ZX-Basic Compiler also for Mattel Aquarius, VG5000, Colecovision, etc.! :D

btw, i started a small test on Boriel's ZX-Basic Compiler, for some idea of how it would look like (i'm about using screen1, and palettes when possible (2,2+ and turbo-r) ), i didn't try moving sprites yet and so on - since i can't add attachments here in this message, i'm uploading to https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B7Iw8X7IB4-nVi1vTnFOOWE0aG8

btw, this game has 81 rooms, and 24x18 with 1 nibble per pattern (character), each room seems to fit into 216 bytes, resulting in a bit more than 17kb for all of these 81 rooms - the weird part is that i don't know why 32kb .rom files created from Boriel's ZX-Basic Compiler doesn't work, only the 8kb and 16kb (probably i'm struggling on something?)

another doubt that i have is how platform games works, how can i have the object walking on the platforms, jumping, collisions, and so on - is there any kind of simple tutorial explaining?

updated https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B7Iw8X7IB4-nVi1vTnFOOWE0aG8 - the sprite now moves around rooms, but i think there is a bug somewhere that i can't find... :S

It's nice to see it already moving!

thanks! but i'm struggling to understand why i can't create 32kb .rom files... :S (for now, i'm needing around 17kb for all 81 rooms, now i'm only using 9 rooms) - (the .rom starts with 0x41 and 0x42 at 0x4000 (like most of those from Konami, i think), the code starts on 0x4010 just like those working 8kb and 16kb results, and so on...)

updated https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B7Iw8X7IB4-nVi1vTnFOOWE0aG8 again - 5x5 map has some more bugs to be fixed (probably i need to fix the correlation between nibbles and pattern bytes index), and the 9x9 (resulting a 32kb .rom) doesn't open on openmsx with cbios (and it opens fine those 32kb roms from games from the 80's... - weird... :S )

Don't know if this is problem, but in 32KB ROMs you need to select the right slot of the page 2 manually. More info (Spanish) in this thread (http://karoshi.auic.es/index.php?topic=628.msg8377#msg8377) or in Z80STSoftware blog (http://z80st.auic.es/2011/12/vueltas-con-las-paginas-de-los.html).
If you just want the code, grab SETPAGES from here (http://z80st.auic.es/p/codigo-code.html) or get asMSX and look for the .search macro definition (source of the macro is in the manual).

even that the other .rom files, those 16kb and 8kb (that actually works, as you probably tested and opened fine, i think?), are also allocated at 0x4000?

btw, the 32k version seems to take less than 50 bytes - you mean that it could be placed in a kind of template from the compiling script (not the game code, for avoiding confusions), placed somewhere between 0x4010 and 0x4040, for example? and so, c-bios would recognize this resulting .rom as taking, as rom, from 0x4000 and 0xBFFF, and starting from 0x4010 as well?

where can i find?

For 32 KB ROMs you need to

- Make sure that the resulting ROM is exactly 32 KB (32768 bytes)
- Add at the starting of the ROM some code so that the second page (last 16 KB) are also seen by the MSX

By default, the MSX system only loads the first ROM page (first 16 KB). Use the following code (taken from asMSX, refurbished from Konami disassembled ROMs).

thanks, it works fine! :) - updated https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B7Iw8X7IB4-nVi1vTnFOOWE0aG8 - it's the test01j - added this code you sent at ./library/msx32kslotcompatibilitytemplate.bas  (btw, how should i credit that code there? :) )

I'm glad it worked for you. It's the code that the .SEARCH macro uses in asMSX and it appears to be more or less an standard in any >16 KB ROM, even megaROMs do use it.

thanks! :)