Re: [stella] Collaboration

[Glenn Saunders <cybpunks2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:13 AM 1/14/2003 +0100, you wrote:
> Should they be able to move (slowly) through the safe zones?

No, they'll bump off it similar to the tanks in Combat.

> > Maybe if the tombstones had just 1 extra scanline (that would normally 
> be a
> > tombstone line--lots of CPU available) between them we could get the ball
> > positioned in there?   That way I could have the gremlins drop grenades
> > when they are within the vertical range of the grenade line, and they'd be
> > able to drop it anywhere horizontally on that line.
>
> I think we would need 2 extra scanlines for that and with multiple 
> grenades we would have to reposition them inside the kernel too. Or they 
> had to flicker.

2 scanlines might still be narrow enough between tombstones to look 
okay.  It might actually be a good way to separate the tombstones 
vertically.  The way it is now two tombstones on top of eachother look like 
one continuous stripe.  Could you try experimenting with this please?

> I think I need to play the original game to understand every detail your 
> are talking about. AFAIK DD isn't emulated by M.A.M.E, any other chance to 
> play it?

The only place it's up for public viewing is California Extreme, which is a 
coinop convention every September.  I've been wanting to go for two years 
straight to do research but never could break away.

I could get Rob Mitchell to send you a copy of his VHS screen footage, but 
it's pretty brief and really bad quality video.  The guy shot the screen 
rather than tapping the composite video line.

My website has about as much information you could find on it without 
playing the game, I think.  The manual that comes with it explains the 
gameplay pretty well.

http://www.homebrewgames.net/deathderby/index.cfm?action=service_manual

The collision behavior:

"When you crash your car into anything, whether it be a Gremlin, cross, or 
a boundary (line), your car will pause briefly before moving again, unless 
you immediately shift it into reverse to back away from the scene of the 
crash. Even if you do not back away, your car will begin to move again. It 
is thus possible to crash into and pass through, after a pause, any boundary."

It doesn't really explain what happens if you manage to hit a gremlin 
within a safe zone.  But I suspect you'd just pass through them or you'd 
crash and they would not turn into tombstones.


It would be nice to extract the graphics from the ROM data.  I think it 
uses ROM chips for the sprites like Tank does.  Here is the link to the manual:

http://www.spies.com/~arcade/manuals/DeathRace.pdf

here is the state of emulation:

http://unmamed.mame.net/no_cpu.html#DeathRace

You will notice in this screenshot that there appears to be two gremlins on 
screen at once.  The in-game footage I have doesn't feature this.  It might 
only happen if you coin up both players because I believe the in-game 
footage only had one car moving, the other was stationary.  That would 
explain it.

> Utilizing the ball won't be easy. And doing this only for the challeng IMO 
> doesnt make too much sense.

I think the best kinds of classic games are ones in which there are 
multiple competing objectives where the player is forced into snap 
judgement.  In chess that would be the mid-game where you often have 
opposing pieces locked on the verge of an exchange or mutual checks.  In 
videogames, that's how you get into the "zone".  All of Eugene Jarvis' 
Williams games feature that aspect.  It's hard to do that without getting 
more objects on the screen, something the 2600 has trouble with.  Having 
friendly/hostile zombies does satisfy that criteria, but adding one extra 
wildcard as a powerup or an obstacle I think will help, something beyond 
the ghost that will happen during the main gameplay mode.

> That will only be possible by doubling the kernel(s) for each additional 
> zombie.

Scratch that then.  I doubt it will be that important.  As the tombstones 
fill up the screen it will be too hard for clusters of zombies to navigate 
around them anyway.

> That shouldn't be a big problem. Should the cars or zombies be able to 
> move over that border?

Only the zombies.


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