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New Game - Pietro Bros [z88dk/Nirvana+]
PIETRO BROS
Pietro and Luizo were transported to pipe world after eating some rancid mushrooms on his pizza.
Help them to escape from this hell...
Download
Based on Mario Bros from the NES.
One or Two player Game
32 Levels of Fun.
Three modes of Play.
Nirvana+ Multicolour.
48 Sounds.
AY Music and Effects
Sinclair Joystick Only.
Spectrum 128kb Only.
More than a year of work.
This games was build on z88dk and using Nirvana+ for the multicolour graphic engine.
I really like to thanks Alvin Albrecht for his help, most of the magic come from his fingers. Also Einar Saukas for his marvelous Nirvana Library!
This is my christmas gift to all the Spectrum lovers!
Merry Christmas, Cheers!
2016 Cristian M. Gonzalez
Version 1.0
Pietro and Luizo were transported to pipe world after eating some rancid mushrooms on his pizza.
Help them to escape from this hell...
Download
Based on Mario Bros from the NES.
One or Two player Game
32 Levels of Fun.
Three modes of Play.
Nirvana+ Multicolour.
48 Sounds.
AY Music and Effects
Sinclair Joystick Only.
Spectrum 128kb Only.
More than a year of work.
This games was build on z88dk and using Nirvana+ for the multicolour graphic engine.
I really like to thanks Alvin Albrecht for his help, most of the magic come from his fingers. Also Einar Saukas for his marvelous Nirvana Library!
This is my christmas gift to all the Spectrum lovers!
Merry Christmas, Cheers!
2016 Cristian M. Gonzalez
Version 1.0
Comments
https://sinclairql.wordpress.com
(A very colourful platform game for Christmas. Great work.)
#GoogleTranslate
Merry Christmas,
Derek.
I noticed some occasional screen flicker - under emulation, didn't test it under real hardware yet - but nothing really serious. I am going to make a Turbo version of it soon ;)
Gracias y feliz Navidad a todos! :D
Not all emulators correctly support multicolor. Some need correct setting in config.
On Android only spectacol and spectaculator can accurately emulate multicolor effects.
Sure! On PAL machines only, I haven't have the chance of checking it, as all my hardware is NTSC. So if someone is willing to record a video I will really appreciate it.
There is an existing official Mario Bros on Zx Spectrum but it's total crap. Your game beats it totally.
If you did it 1983 people would go crazy and you would be rich :)
The are some problems with synchronisation, flicker etc. but nothing serious enough to take the pleasure from the player.
T H A N K S !
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1694367894143130/
Download - Pentagon
I'm not sure if the pokes will also work on this version because the compiler is a bit non-deterministic.
And thank you for the credit Cristian but it is overestimated :) The game is Cristian's work - my contribution is only on the periphery in the tools and ay effects.
There is also a zx7-compressed build that is half size and will load in half time. I'm not sure if Cristain wants to go with that since the plain taps are easier to port to real machines or disk systems.
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1
Some emulators reproduce real machines perfectly. Other emulators are just simplified versions, good enough for most games, but not good enough for more sophisticated features like multicolor.
Yes, it works on all real Spectrum official models (48K, 128K, +2, +2A, +2B, +3).
I created a build for you, ver 1.1 (just small fix on clearing pipes when an sprite dies)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw3Nat5zkP-Hc3pCSzc4YzdVdEU/view?usp=sharing
zx7 is great, we have it on the build script but takes a lot of time as it have compile the code twice.
My plan is to release the sources on GitHub after some tweaking, to allow another speccy developers to use as a base for future speccy games. Also I like start working on the next year on "Pietro Kong". I think it won't be so difficult by using pietro source as base.
So any help will be appreciated.
Regards
http://zx-pk.ru/
I didn't think it was that bad :P
The flickering is coming because the draws are occasionally taking too much time so that an interrupt occurs while the interrupts are disabled. If the ints are disabled, the nirvana engine misses a frame and regular attributes are shown for that one frame.
I've also noticed there may be more flicker on some models, or at least I noticed there seems to be more flicker on the Pentagon. The Pentagon has a longer frame (I think) so this is a bit surprising and may indicate that there should be a nirvana_halt inserted someplace to sync up. Inserting a conservative nirvana_halt at a strategic location may also eliminate the flicker entirely at the expense of the game being one frame slower. Maybe that's something to have a look at.
There has been code improvement done on the compiler in conjunction with this project (making the code faster) but the latest changes haven't had much impact on the flicker frequency.
It may be a bit harder to wedge a custom loader in there but maybe some info will help.
The first 32 bytes is the mini-loader loaded into the screen:
di ld bc,$1ffd ld a,$04 out (c),a ; +2A/+3 : disk motor off, 48k rom selected, normal paging ld b,$7f ld a,$10 out (c),a ; 48k rom selected, bank 00 at top of ram ; Load main loader over basic area ld ix,__LOADER_head ld de,__LOADER_CODE_tail - __LOADER_head ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp c, __LOADER_head rst 0 ; if tape loading errorwhich you probably don't have to change.
Next the main loader is loaded to 23296 just after the display file. There is only 256 bytes available here, including the stack (the stack is moved to the top of this 256 byte page).
The zx7 compressed loader only leaves about 30 bytes for the stack while loading. There are about 800-900 bytes available just before the nirvana engine at 56323 but that is space for the program to grow. There are also about 150 bytes at the top of memory available. The last byte segment is AY music and effects which are loaded into another memory bank (and would hide that high memory while loading).
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1
Regular loader (not zx7 compressed), occupies 116 bytes out of 256 available (stack is in there too) at 23296
jp pietro_loader pietro_loader: ; 1. SCREEN$ ld ix,16384 ld de,6912 ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ; 2. Nirvana+ ld ix,56323 ld de,9055 ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ; 3. Pietro Bros ld sp,__CODE_head ; move stack underneath program ld iy,128 ; move IY into ROM in case an im1 interrupt occurs ld ix,__CODE_head ; start of binary ld de,__CODE_END_tail - __CODE_head ; length of binary ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ; 4. AY Sound for 128k Spectrum ; check for 128k spectrum ld bc,$7ffd ld de,$1016 ld hl,0xc000 ld a,(hl) ; a = byte at 0xc000 out (c),e ; enable BANK_06 cpl ld (hl),a ; write complemented byte to 0xc000 cpl out (c),d ; restore BANK_00 cp (hl) ; did the byte change? ld (hl),a ; restore byte at 0xc000 jp nz, __CODE_head ; if the byte changed this is a 48k machine ; load extra bank for 128k machines out (c),e ; enable BANK_06 push bc push de ld ix,0xc000 ld de,__BANK_06_size ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di pop de pop bc out (c),d ; restore BANK_00 jp nc, __CODE_head ; if tape loading error forget about sound effects ld a,$ff ld (_spec128),a ; indicate 128k spectrum jp __CODE_head ;; program start at 23552zx7-compressed loader occupies 226 bytes out of 256 available (stack is in there too) at 23296
SECTION LOADER jp pietro_loader ;; l_ret is a library function used as an easy exit with built-in pop. ;; asm_dzx7_standard jumps into it so we explicitly place it here in ;; the loader so that it is available during the entire load process. pop hl l_ret: ret ;;;; linker will insert zx7 decompressor here SECTION LOADER_CODE PUBLIC pietro_loader PUBLIC l_ret EXTERN asm_dzx7_standard EXTERN __CODE_head, __CODE_END_tail, _spec128 EXTERN LEN_SCREEN, LEN_NIRVANAP, LEN_PIETRO, LEN_BANK_06 pietro_loader: ; 1. SCREEN$ ld ix,32768 ; load compressed screen$ to convenient spot ld de,LEN_SCREEN ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ld hl,32768 ld de,16384 call asm_dzx7_standard ; decompress to 16384 ; 2. Nirvana+ ld ix,32768 ; load compressed nirvana+ to convenient spot ld de,LEN_NIRVANAP ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ld hl,32768 ld de,56323 call asm_dzx7_standard ; decompress to 56323 ; 3. Pietro Bros ld sp,__CODE_head ; move stack underneath program ld iy,128 ; move IY into ROM in case an im1 interrupt occurs ld ix,__CODE_END_tail + 20 - LEN_PIETRO ; load binary with really large & fixed 20 byte delta (see zx7 docs) ld de,LEN_PIETRO ; length of binary ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di jp nc, 0 ; if tape loading error ld hl,__CODE_END_tail + 20 - LEN_PIETRO ld de,__CODE_head call asm_dzx7_standard ; perform overlapped decompression ; 4. AY Sound for 128k Spectrum ; check for 128k spectrum ld bc,$7ffd ld de,$1016 ld hl,0xc000 ld a,(hl) ; a = byte at 0xc000 out (c),e ; enable BANK_06 cpl ld (hl),a ; write complemented byte to 0xc000 cpl out (c),d ; restore BANK_00 cp (hl) ; did the byte change? ld (hl),a ; restore byte at 0xc000 jp nz, __CODE_head ; if the byte changed this is a 48k machine ; load extra bank for 128k machines out (c),e ; enable BANK_06 push bc push de ld ix,0x10000 - LEN_BANK_06 ; load at top of bank to enable overlapped decompression ld de,LEN_BANK_06 ld a,$ff scf call 0x0556 di ld a,0 jr nc, set_mode ; if tape loading error stay in 48k mode ld hl,0x10000 - LEN_BANK_06 ld de,0xc000 call asm_dzx7_standard ; decompress to 0xc000 ld a,$ff set_mode: pop de pop bc out (c),d ; restore BANK_00 ld (_spec128),a ; indicate if 128k spectrum jp __CODE_head ;; program start at 23552In the zx7 version the l_ret subroutine has to be at that position because it will be called by the game code.
If you stick to it good luck :)
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1
The first is monochrome, but very well executed, almost like Super Mario Land on GameBoy.
The second is also quite good.
Does anyone know if there's a full versions of these two games?
http://zx-pk.ru/
The best way to avoid this problem is, never draw anything yourself in NIRVANA. Use sprites instead, thus everything will be automatically drawn for you. Sprites don't interfere with interrupts and they don't take any CPU time from your code.
NIRVANA gives you 8 sprites. If you reuse them for a different purpose every frame, you will be able to draw 50*8=400 multicolor tiles per second.
Also method "fill" (to erase previous sprite positions when moving them) can be done with sprites using an empty tile. In this case, it's still possible to move (erase and redraw) 200 multicolor tiles per second at no cost. Or constantly move 4 tiles at 50tps, or 8 tiles at 25tps, or 16 tiles at 12.5tps, etc. That's good enough for most games...
EDIT: In particular, SNAKE ESCAPE uses sprites instead of draw/fill for everything, except for drawing the screen at the beginning of each level when interrupts are disabled.
EDIT2: The NIRVANA+ demo is a good example on how to quickly move tiles on screen using sprites.
I will try to Branch and replace the paints routines with sprites, to see if we can fix it.
On another subject, I cannot edit posts, can someone tell me how to edit a post?
I want to edit the first post and add the new version and changelog, wen its done.
Yesterday I ran out of time and started getting these glitches. I reworked my flying saucer drawing code to use sprites, as you suggested to me a few weeks ago, and immediately reduced it from 6500 t-states to 130 t-states. LITERALLY 50x FASTER!!
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
NXtel • NXTP • ESP Update • ESP Reset • CSpect Plugins
You are welcome!
Unfortunately you cannot edit old posts...
Hurray!!! :)