Lee Hurley Productions

[Ze Emulatron]

Lee Hurley Productions has almost finished coding Manhole in Amiga Basic. Manhole is to be 1 of the 4 games of the Game and Watch Gallery, based on Game and Watch Gallery Gameboy game, which I am coding in Amiga Basic.



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We are looking for people who would like to test the game.

I think the minimum requirements are
Kickstart 1.1 or higher
512KB RAM

Please reply here if you would like to be a tester.

[Minuous]

Yes, I'm willing to test it for you.

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Yes, I'm willing to test it for you.

PM sent

Edit : it is just basic testing to check if it works properly and whether it is too easy / hard, the last game I released (puzzle slide) had a 5 minute time limit to solve but it didn't finish and ask if you wanted to play again when the time was up, it just kept on counting until the game was solved.

[Minuous]

How do I switch between games "A" and "B"?

When first loading, various graphics tiles flash briefly at the top left corner of the screen.

Things which might be limitations of AmigaBASIC or your compiler: It's possible to "rub out" the prompt messages, eg. the "input name" prompt. Window should relayout when it is resized, otherwise not much point having a resize gadget. Amiga-. or Ctrl-C gives an error message. "Quit" menu item should have an Amiga-Q shortcut. Menus are hard to read, maybe redefine the yellow pen as grey.

Various things are different to original, eg. font, colours, "miss" display, "game over" message, missing "man falling" animation, sound, etc. but you would already know that, I assume.

Suggestion: Not much point having "Play again (Y/N)", better to just have "press any key or press fire on joystick to play again". User can use window close gadget if they want to quit.

[Retro1234]

If the only "bugs" are cosmetic id like to have a play

[Minuous]

Yes, only cosmetic, no serious bugs.

If you PM him he will probably send you a copy.

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by Minuous

How do I switch between games "A" and "B"?

It only has the one difficulty level at the moment

Originally Posted by Minuous

When first loading, various graphics tiles flash briefly at the top left corner of the screen.

That is it opening the images from the disk with the OBJECT command, capturing the image with the GET and putting it into an array closing the OBJECT and clearing the screen. When testing it with just the OBJECT command the images appeared to flicker a lot.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Things which might be limitations of AmigaBASIC or your compiler: It's possible to "rub out" the prompt messages, eg. the "input name" prompt.

I noticed that I think it is because of AmigaBASIC and the Code I used. I think I have an idea on how to fix it.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Window should relayout when it is resized, otherwise not much point having a resize gadget.

I didn't know it could be resized. I set the screen to 320X260 when the program opens. I don't think I can do anything about that, but I'll check.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Amiga-. or Ctrl-C gives an error message.

I hadn't tried that, I think I can turn it off

Originally Posted by Minuous

"Quit" menu item should have an Amiga-Q shortcut.

I'll See what I can do about that.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Menus are hard to read, maybe redefine the yellow pen as grey.

That was my fault I was going to have the game be able to change to the colours, like what a Gameboy Colour can do, when the game was loading but I didn't implement it or remove the code for the colours.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Various things are different to original, eg. font, colours, "miss" display, "game over" message, missing "man falling" animation, sound, etc. but you would already know that, I assume.

I was having trouble Amiga Basic kept saying it was out of memory when I was trying to run the program and would take me back to the code so I skipped adding some stuff. I'll see if I can add the proper stuff in.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Suggestion: Not much point having "Play again (Y/N)", better to just have "press any key or press fire on joystick to play again". User can use window close gadget if they want to quit.

I think I had it like that because the if the user had beaten the highscore they have just used the keyboard to say (Y/N) to saving the and entering their name. I think I can change this to use the joystick instead of the keyboard.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll get to work on it right away and try and make some changes.

[Minuous]

>That is it opening the images from the disk with the OBJECT command, capturing the image with the GET and putting it into an array closing the OBJECT and clearing the screen. When testing it with just the OBJECT command the images appeared to flicker a lot.

Maybe you could change the palette temporarily (eg. black and white -> background colour) while doing this so that it's not visible to the user.

>I noticed that I think it is because of AmigaBASIC and the Code I used. I think I have an idea on how to fix it.

One way would be to write your own input routine using INKEY$.

>I was having trouble Amiga Basic kept saying it was out of memory when I was trying to run the program and would take me back to the code so I skipped adding some stuff. I'll see if I can add the proper stuff in.

IIRC you can use the CLEAR command to increase the maximum size of programs. Eg. CLEAR ,50000. The comma is needed. The default is 25000 which isn't much.

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Maybe you could change the palette temporarily (eg. black and white -> background colour) while doing this so that it's not visible to the user.

I can do that that will be a simple change

Originally Posted by Minuous

>I noticed that I think it is because of AmigaBASIC and the Code I used. I think I have an idea on how to fix it.

One way would be to write your own input routine using INKEY$.

my original idea didn't work but it has been changed to use the joystick

Originally Posted by Minuous

IIRC you can use the CLEAR command to increase the maximum size of programs. Eg. CLEAR ,50000. The comma is needed. The default is 25000 which isn't much.

I'll have to try that, I was compiling it after every change and running the compiled program to check if it was working properly because it wasn't running in AmigaBASIC.

I think I have changed most of the things you have suggested but I am only about 1/8 through making the falling animations.

[andreas]

Nice stuff.
Got some nice C=64 (or Speccy) flavor in there, hehe

IIRC you can use the CLEAR command to increase the maximum size of programs. Eg. CLEAR ,50000. The comma is needed. The default is 25000 which isn't much.

Yes, BUT...for one of my programs back then, even a

CLEAR 100000&,16384&

gave me an "Out Of Memory".
But according to the CLI, there was still LOTS of memory available! (both chip + bogo)
The solution?
You need a CLEAR *before* loading the big'un.
Once the memory reserved by AmigaBASIC itself to LOAD the program is insufficient, you can CLEAR as much as you want in your code, it won't work.

What DOES work is to use a loader-mainmodule mechanism.
So use myprogram-loader.bas to do your CLEAR stuff and then, in there, use another line to CHAIN into the main program, "myprogram.bas".
This worked for me, and I could make the main program really big without ever running into problems. Of course you should not attempt to run "main" directly, this won't work - using the loader is a must.

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by andreas

You need a CLEAR *before* loading the big'un.
Once the memory reserved by AmigaBASIC itself to LOAD the program is insufficient, you can CLEAR as much as you want in your code, it won't work.

What DOES work is to use a loader-mainmodule mechanism.
So use myprogram-loader.bas to do your CLEAR stuff and then, in there, use another line to CHAIN into the main program, "myprogram.bas".
This worked for me, and I could make the main program really big without ever running into problems. Of course you should not attempt to run "main" directly, this won't work - using the loader is a must.

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't think I need to use myprogram-loader.bas and CHAIN into the main program, I was only having the problem in AmigaBASIC and it is working now I use CLEAR ,100000 before I load my program, AmigaBASIC wouldn't run it before but it compiled with AC-Basic Compiler v1.2 (1987)(AbSoft) and worked perfectly fine as an executable.

[andreas]

Yet you're doing something MANUALLY (by typing in CLEAR ,100000) whilst you could get things done automatically.
As I can get from your post by reading it thoroughly, I figure you "use CLEAR... before loading your program" so you already got aware of the fact that the CLEAR *in* your program code won't have any effect. (Which is a proven fact. )

I was only having the problem in AmigaBASIC

Yes, my post was solely for the case that you're trying to run stuff directly in AmigaBASIC interpreter, i. e. without any compiler
Maybe it was just me again, as I couldn't afford ANY of these compilers back in '89, hence I did run everything *in* AmigaBASIC (and thus had to find solutions for problems myself, with no compiler coming to my "rescue")

[Ze Emulatron]

I have finished the coding for Manhole and the zipped adf can be found on the Lee Hurley Productions website
http://www.leehurleyproductions.free...s/manhole.html
and in the zone at EAB.





A big thanks to the testers lifeschool and Minuous.

Manhole ADF System Requirements
Kickstart 1.1 or higher, Note on Kickstart 1.1 if you try to save to a write protected disk the game will freeze
512KB RAM
It uses a joystick in port 2 or the arrow keys and the spacebar.

[1time]

[Retro1234]

This game is simple and annoyingly addictive worth checking out

[rkauer]

Me wants to check out!

[Ze Emulatron]

Lee Hurley Productions has finished coding Minesweeper in Amiga BASIC.



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The game can be found on

http://www.leehurleyproductions.free...nesweeper.html

or in the Zone.


I have also updated Puzzle Slide so it should be solvable everytime.

Updated Puzzle Slide available from

http://www.leehurleyproductions.free.../puzzlesl.html

[s2325]

In Manhole I can die while second man is still on my platform, how fair is that? I like title screen made with Amiga Basic and with speech synthesis. Pink may not be the best color as background.

[Minuous]

Originally Posted by Ze Emulatron

Manhole is to be 1 of the 4 games of the Game and Watch Gallery, based on Game and Watch Gallery Gameboy game, which I am coding in Amiga Basic.

Are you still planning on doing the other 3?

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by s2325

In Manhole I can die while second man is still on my platform, how fair is that? I like title screen made with Amiga Basic and with speech synthesis. Pink may not be the best color as background.

I based it off how the gameboy version worked, it might be that you got up to a point where the game speed is very fast, you only need the platform under the player when they go to move there. When the sound has played you can move the platform to another spot. It was supposed to have a gameboy image or the original G+W image for the background but I didn't get around to doing it.

Originally Posted by Ze Emulatron

Manhole is to be 1 of the 4 games of the Game and Watch Gallery, based on Game and Watch Gallery Gameboy game, which I am coding in Amiga Basic.

I could I do, but not at the moment. I have another game I was working on that I would like to finish first, but it got delayed because I had to study. I finish my course on Wednesday (hopefully I don't have to do the last course again) and I should get my degree. I don't think it would be written in Amiga Basic, it would probably be in Blitz Basic.