Prologue: I don't think we'll be able to write the new "Solaris" this year.
We must take all the steps from the simplest games to the more advanced
ones. But we can do this much faster than the original programmers because
we've all the code that have already been written ready to be analyzed (and
good developement tools, and emulators, and the Internet).
This process might be even faster if we can figure out together some
more-or-less "standard" routines to be used in our games.
I think that many 2600 games can be included in this category:
- player controls a sprite that has complete freedom of movement in both X
and Y axis
- enemies, obstacles have some kind of restriction, usually there can't be
more that one sprite in the same vertical zone.
As soon as there is need for more freedom in objects positions, some
flickering is likely to happen.
Example: the second screen of Imagic Dragonfire.
- player can be moved anywhere (probably it's the first sprite)
- you never see two treasures in the same vertical zone (second sprite,
re-positioned for each object)
- the dragon is alone in the bottom of the screen (second sprite re-positioned)
- when the dragon spits fireballs, they're drawn using the first sprite
alternating them with the player (-> flickering)
See also Telesys' Fastfood: player can be anywhere (first sprite), food has
only one-directional movement and there aren't two pieces of food in the
same vertical zone (second sprite repositioned).
There can be many variations of this concept, for example in vertical
shooters the player loses one degree of freedom and is always alone at the
bottom so that the two sprites can be used for more aliens in the space
above. "Demon Attack" is very interesting from this point of view...
Conclusion: the next step from simple Combat/Adventure/Pong :-) games could
be to write games falling in this wide category:
first sprite=player, second sprite (recycled)=many enemies.
Now we need a clear, well commented code for drawing this kind of screens.
Any idea?
Ciao,
P.
P.S.: what do you think of my english? Is it clear enough for you? :-))
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