Eternal Light project

[Morri]

Also I thought I would mention that I had time to play around with Eternal Light while flying between holiday destinations  and managed to tweak a few things that had been bugging me about the game.
First I sped up the main guy by making him move 2 pixels at a time instead of 1 and changed his starting position.
I also figured out how to drop the loading time by saving the levels data as a binary file and loading the file directly into the extra memory. Saves heaps of time and is much tidier.
This had already been done when the game was first made by whoever "cracked" my game but I was so happy that I did it all by myself. 

The DSK is at home on my laptop so I'll see if I can apply the new patch and post it later on tonight.

[AMSDOS]

WOW!!! Thanks AMSDOS for all your work in getting my game going on a real CPC. Who would have known how much grief I would give poor Mr Lou in trying to get this thing going. I hope it isn't a big let down after all this anticipation   

Thanks. 

With my limited knowledge on interrupts,  am I right in thinking that using starkos was causing the conflict and crash?

No the music player and tune seems to be all good on my Amstrad.
The crash was happening where the screen was being drawn (line 290) with "OUT &7F00,&C4" causing the crash. So I just disassembled Sprites Alive and found KL NEW FRAME FLY after KL LOG EXT.
I don't know a great deal about KL NEW FRAME FLY, though the firmware manual was able to tell me it sets up an event block whenever a frame flyback occurs. Specifically I don't think this was the problem, but the routine it was pointing to, might of been causing the Real Hardware to crash if it was in the extra 64k.
So what @arnoldemu said earlier is on the money. 
Fortunately removing the Event Block is the easiest solution, it maybe a component Sprites Alive uses to determine the Speed of the game, I was playing "Space Froggy" and even though it's a Compiled game, the various Rooms seem to have their own individual Speed Settings, I'm not sure specifically if that is what KL NEW FRAME FLY is about, though once I removed KL NEW FRAME FLY, the Eternal Light runs a little bit faster, fortunately it's not a critical component for it. 

Was this because of memory or because you couldn't work it out?  I know I designed 2 of them to be event related in order to get them. (Clue - They both have to do with the boy / girl characters in the game helping you). I would have loved to have made more event based collections but I just ran out of memory.

I did complete the game once (ages ago though), but initially it was the version which had one of the lanterns repositioned behind the Girl, usually I go to the Girl when I have 1 or 2 lanterns and while I went to the boy after that to get him to say I'm scared of the dark (or something), I thought I went back to him when I had 8 Lanterns and got no response, it might be the bugged version I had, but I'd done various things along the way, so it might be that which might be doing something.

But I've applied the patch to your ETERNAL102.DSK, I haven't been able to get to that amount, so hopefully it'll work.

[Morri]

The crash was happening where the screen was being drawn (line 290) with "OUT &7F00,&C4" causing the crash. So I just disassembled Sprites Alive and found KL NEW FRAME FLY after KL LOG EXT.
I don't know a great deal about KL NEW FRAME FLY, though the firmware manual was able to tell me it sets up an event block whenever a frame flyback occurs. Specifically I don't think this was the problem, but the routine it was pointing to, might of been causing the Real Hardware to crash if it was in the extra 64k.

Ah OK, I'm glad that means sprites alive and starkos can co-exist on real software. If I ever use SA again, I'll be sure to use the patched driver.

I've attached the revised version I've been working on lately in case anyone might prefer it. It loads / plays way faster and feels better paced to me. I should mention it does the odd strange thing (dodgy collision detection sometimes) but nothing game breaking that I found. I tried to finish it to make sure everything works beginning to end but I died after 9 lanterns with the 10th in sight.  Can't even beat my own game. 
Should work on real CPCs as I've used the patched driver but confirmation would be cool.

EDIT: The modified files are "-story2" and "eternal2"

[jbaudrand]

:? Is it possible to change that in the rsx? I mean create the sprite alive RSX so every one can benfit fom it, or is it specific to eternal light game?
Sorry, maybe it's a stupid question...

Mr Lou: I've printed the basic listing of eternal light (by pressing esc during intro) and, I'm impressed by the maths that generates the levels.

[mr_lou]

Who would have known how much grief I would give poor Mr Lou in trying to get this thing going. I hope it isn't a big let down after all this anticipation 

hehe, well, "grief" is kind of a strong word.
But I admit I was a bit sad when I discovered the game didn't run on a real CPC. 

Also I thought I would mention that I had time to play around with Eternal Light while flying between holiday destinations  and managed to tweak a few things that had been bugging me about the game.
First I sped up the main guy by making him move 2 pixels at a time instead of 1 and changed his starting position.
I also figured out how to drop the loading time by saving the levels data as a binary file and loading the file directly into the extra memory. Saves heaps of time and is much tidier.
This had already been done when the game was first made by whoever "cracked" my game but I was so happy that I did it all by myself. 

It's really awesome to hear that you've been working on improving the game.
I think it's a very good idea to have the main character move faster. 
Looking forward to play this version!

EDIT: Any room for in-game music now? 

[Morri]

It's really awesome to hear that you've been working on improving the game.
I think it's a very good idea to have the main character move faster. 
Looking forward to play this version!

EDIT: Any room for in-game music now? 

Check post # 77 for new DSK file. 
Re in-game music, that would be so cool. Currently the music is loading into the extra memory along with the levels data and I couldn't figure out how to reference both at the same time as well as the SA commands. Not sure if I'm just missing something easy and it is possible with a few tweaks?

Mr Lou: I've printed the basic listing of eternal light (by pressing esc during intro) and, I'm impressed by the maths that generates the levels.

hehe, Mr Lou is the brilliant mind behind the "forge" intro music. TBH the maths I used was just a lot of hit and miss until it worked stuff. Sprites alive looks after everything to do with graphics. You just have to follow the manuals instructions on setting it up and it nearly runs itself. For drawing each level it is as simple as placing tiles at spaced intervals with the |scenery command. Very easy and I would recommend any non-asm coders to use it to produce great projects for the CPC.

[AMSDOS]

Ah OK, I'm glad that means sprites alive and starkos can co-exist on real software. If I ever use SA again, I'll be sure to use the patched driver.

I've attached the revised version I've been working on lately in case anyone might prefer it. It loads / plays way faster and feels better paced to me. I should mention it does the odd strange thing (dodgy collision detection sometimes) but nothing game breaking that I found. I tried to finish it to make sure everything works beginning to end but I died after 9 lanterns with the 10th in sight.  Can't even beat my own game. 
Should work on real CPCs as I've used the patched driver but confirmation would be cool.

EDIT: The modified files are "-story2" and "eternal2"

Yes, this is working on my 6128. Your Wizard can literally Run away from those Black Blobs, I didn't feel like Shooting much, where's earlier I felt like I was waggling the Star Cursor more frantically! 


I got to the end of the game and I was prompted with a Question Mark "?" Pressing Enter I got a shock horror Syntax error, i don't know if this is a glitch when I was transferring the files from my PC to my CPC, or if the file is at fault on your Disk Image. I loaded endgame.bas on my machine and got a Syntax Error when I tried Listing it.

[AMSDOS]

:? Is it possible to change that in the rsx? I mean create the sprite alive RSX so every one can benfit fom it, or is it specific to eternal light game?
Sorry, maybe it's a stupid question...

Not quite sure I follow. The patch I made was done to Sprites Alive. If anyone were to make an 128Kb game using Sprites Alive, then that patch can be used to make games work on the real hardware.

[Morri]

I got to the end of the game and I was prompted with a Question Mark "?" Pressing Enter I got a shock horror Syntax error, i don't know if this is a glitch when I was transferring the files from my PC to my CPC, or if the file is at fault on your Disk Image. I loaded endgame.bas on my machine and got a Syntax Error when I tried Listing it.

Hmm, not sure either. I have attached a snapshot of endgame.bas running. Maybe you could transfer that file to disk?

[AMSDOS]

Hmm, not sure either. I have attached a snapshot of endgame.bas running. Maybe you could transfer that file to disk?

It appears to have happened when I downloaded your eternlig.dsk file, but the game was ok up till it loaded endgame.bas.


I was having some problems on this forum uploading some of my attachments, so I'm thinking my web browser is the culprit because I was having the same problem with the endgame.bas file in Winape. I can download it through Chrome.


It's just been annoying that things have been working just fine up till recently.

[jbaudrand]

  I will try with XMEM and sprites alives could be fun

[AMSDOS]

I will try with XMEM and sprites alives could be fun

It should work, though I maybe struggling to test on my Amstrad if something is created, my limited imagination usually dictates extra memory can be set aside for Music & Level Data, which is what the extra 64k can handle. I guess with 512K you can have it all sorted in one load, might need something bigger than a 3" Disc.