>Aren't the missiles too narrow to be anything but undetailed? You can
>snazz up the color but they are only what, 1 or 2 bits wide? The only way
>to get around this is to alter their horizontal as well as color down the
>screen so they can become diagonal slashes and animate the changes so
>although they are a line, they are a COLORFUL line that seems to dance
>back and forth. If it's possible to alter the missile width register on
>the fly as well maybe you can get shapes like:
The missiles can be 1, 2, 4, or 8 bits wide. Check the references
again.. bits 4 and 5 of NUSIZx control missile width. By altering the
width and HMOVEing the missile every line, you can do tricks like:
......XX
.....XX.
....XX..
..XXXX..
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
..XXXX..
and with color changes, the tank can be even more detailed.
The NUSIZ multiple-copy settings affect the missiles as well, but the
NUSIZ double- and quad-width do not affect the missiles; they have
their own width settings.
Or, you could combine the 8 bits of player gfx with the missile to
create wider objects. Such as a 16-pixel wide tank:
.............X..
............XXXX
............XX..
X..........XX...
X.........XX....
X...XXXXXX......
X..XXXXXXXXX....
X.XX........XX..
XXX.X.XXXXXX....
XX.X.........X..
..X.X.XX..XX....
...X.........X..
.....XXX.XXXX...
It looks better onscreen than here, but you get the idea. The
right half of the tank is done solely with the missile.
>Anyway, it was assumed that since the only way to get 4-player
>simultaneous play was via the paddles, that you'd only have to pull off
>pongish games, hence no need for the missiles to be 8-bit width.
Ah, but doing what the system wasn't designed to do is the essence of
programming the 2600 ;)
>Despite that, there were, of course, 4-player games that got around this
>by just not having four player-controlled objects on the same diagonal.
>Party Mix and Warlords are perfect examples.
Well, why can't I have four on the same line if I want to? <pout> :)
BTW, speaking of Warlords, I suspect that the warlord graphics are
done with the missiles as well.. notice each line is either 1, 2, 4,
or 8 pixels in width?
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