[stella] Hypnotic 0.04

Subject: [stella] Hypnotic 0.04
From: inkling <ps_inkling@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 18:44:09 -0500
Ever since 1996, when I first joined [stella], I've been playing with
a small program to cycle the playfield colors in a hypnotic fashion.
I'd work on it now and again, but never seriously enough to make it
(IMHO) worthy of attention on the list.

In the past two months, I worked on this program on weekends.  The
breakthrough (for myself, at least) was programming in responses to
the user controls.  Since then, it's become far more interesting.

So, I present to you Hypnotic 0.04.  There's no gameplay, just
2600-esque kaleidoscope displays, with a user-interface.  There's
plenty of room in the ROM for more displays, and there are many
features I'd like to incorporate into it.

There are four different screens.  The first two are similar
(except for the P0/P1 score coloring bit) in their color cycling.  The
third doesn't really respond as well to user-control, but the effect
does rely on some specific values.  The fourth is an early version of
the second screen.

While running, the difficult switches control whether the colors cycle
by themselves (position B), or under user control (position A).
Pressing left or right on the joystick changes the speed at which the
colors cycle (either difficulty).  While under user control, press up
or down on the joystick to move the colors, and press fire to reverse
the direction of the colors.  I did mention that one player controls
one set of colors, and the other player the other set, right?

If one toggles the BW/Color switch, the coloring cycling offset will
change.  The default is by 1; it can be changed to 2, -2, -1, and 0 by
more toggling.

If it's deemed worthy, it could be included in v2 of the Stella guide;
it illustrates how to read joystick controls and how to debounce
SWCHB.  I'm sure that everyone has written a 'cycle the playfield
colors' demonstration; I wanted to contribute my 0.02 to the cause.

I do have a game in mind which may use some of these color-cycling
routines -- some of the future screens for Hypnotic will include
sprites and missiles while I work out how to use them.

There's other improvements to be made to Hypnotic as well -- sound,
better palettes, more displays, idle detection 'screen saver' mode,
maybe paddle read mode, maybe a status screen with current parameters
displayed and changeable.

(OK, I'll admit it, I wanted to do something psychedelic like Yak (of
C=64 fame) would have done 'in the day.'  Suffice it to say I'm no
Yak.  But it is fun!  :)

Attachment: hypn_004.ASM
Description: Binary data

Attachment: hypn_004.BIN
Description: Binary data

Current Thread