Kinkey Dong Reconstruction

[AMSDOS]

This game was originally published in the 1984 book Sensational Games For The Amstrad CPC464 by Jim Gregory and publised through Collins & Granada Publishing, was previously discussed by @rk last in the Sensational Games For The Amstrad CPC464 thread, though now I have improved the game in the hope that I could remove the horrible blinking graphics from the original game and it's bugged collision detection system, which left you dead even if it wasn't the Barrels that Killed You!   


The main aim was to improve those aspects without changing the visual aspects, although I had to write other routines based on the PEN colours for the Graphics, the game still uses Text Coorinate orienated graphics as originally done, so a Text Coordinate orienated Sprite Driver would suit along with some 8x8 based graphics, if someone wants to create some graphics, I'll be happy to update a new version with Sprite Driver.


My version plays faster than the original, though it seems easier on account of me tightening up in the Collision Detection, so now if your character tries to move from the Ladder to the Platform, they won't move, forcing them to go up the Ladder. The original had 3 levels, which I have done here, Sensational Games For The Amstrad CPC464 also suggested having a Hi-score table, which I have not put in here as they tend to lead to Memory Full errors or issues when variables need to be Cleared.


About the only slow thing I have in my version is setting up the Screen for each level, I tried to speed up the process by Removing/Adding appropriate Objects for each level, but it doesn't seem to have worked well.


The game can be played with Cursor Keys & Space for Jumping.

[Gryzor]

SENSATIONAL!

I always find it very interesting to see stuff from the earlier days. 1984!!!

[AMSDOS]

SENSATIONAL!I always find it very interesting to see stuff from the earlier days. 1984!!!

Initially I started coding the areas which could be improved, though the futher I got into coding this early game, I realised it was going to be better to Reconstruct it to make it appear more structured, so the Listing will show a much differently laid out listing from the original.


Like a few Type-Ins I have come across, the original game has a TXT RD CHAR Machine Code routine for checking the Platforms and Collisions, on this occasion it doesn't seem to have been a problem for the 664/6128, though for these faster moving Arcade Style games, TXT RD CHAR slows the game. The Blinking from the original game occured when the graphics moved, though the main character would blink regardless of movement or not, which left me to conclude the game could vastly improve in those areas. Though the original game was using some Generic routines that the book provided, which was part of the problem, so they had to be recoded in order to improve playability. Replacing TXT RD CHAR with an Array was always going to improve performance and Collision checks as well as work on all systems (not that it was a problem here), it's only limitation being the time taken to setup the screen, coding of that could be resolved through Assembly routines, though decided to keep this one all BASIC .


Overall, the games from "Sensational Games For The Amstrad CPC464" look fine with the odd few that use the CHAR CHECK routine which holds that dreded TXT RD CHAR. All the Arcade Style Games use this unfortunately, though there's only 3 games to worry about, with the odd CHAR CHECK routine being used on the odd other game. The other 2 Arcade Style games being "Pick Man" and "Skippy" have been typed in and available. "Pick Man" suffers from a lack of speed which was acknowledged with some corrections were made to the other listings in the book, advising that it may improve with some Machine Code.

[dthrone]

Great work, it must have been a lot of fun analysing the routines and making it a bit more slick! 


I've still got the Sensational Games book (picked it up at the local library when they were selling it off for a few pence in the mid-90s, for ref they booked it in 25-01-85 and sold it off 13-08-96!).  I typed in most of them in my youth, just leafing through it now, lots of happy memories 


It sounds like you've analysed the games and listings in some detail, it would be a lot of fun if you could post a book review/analysis? 

[AMSDOS]

Great work, it must have been a lot of fun analysing the routines and making it a bit more slick!   

Reconstructing was done in phases in order to allow me to work on other projects and programmes, so I could return to this and work out what I needed to do next. For ages it operated as a Single Level game and then I recently added the Collision routines and the other Levels, which also presented new problems. The last things I recall working on were testing the Collision tests at various phases in the game and work out if the Graphics would retain their Colours. The 2nd Level was a problem because it introduced a new hazard and if my character jumped into it while the Barrels were coming down the Ladders, the Ladder would go from Blue to White. I think I could only fix this by Seperating the collision routine, so if I jumped into the White Hazard, that was restored back to White & while the Barrels would only ever pass through the Ladders or a Blank area, I could use Blue in case the Barrel was on a Ladder and have that restored correctly if my character jumped onto the White Hazard.

I've still got the Sensational Games book (picked it up at the local library when they were selling it off for a few pence in the mid-90s, for ref they booked it in 25-01-85 and sold it off 13-08-96!).  I typed in most of them in my youth, just leafing through it now, lots of happy memories 

I've known about this book for a long time, though found a PDF of it a few years ago, though I haven't Typed in much from it because others have been looking at the book as well.
I typed in Pick Man earlier just to see how slow it was and apart from it being slow, it looks like it's got some problems of it's own, I think I correctly typed it in and the Book makes it easy by setting the character print width to 40.
Yesterday I downloaded the Skippy game which had some little Glitches as well, so I typed that one in, which is giving me MEMORY FULL error, which is something the my downloaded version wasn't doing. The Downloaded version includes the Hiscore Table, which I didn't add in mine altering the relevant line so I wouldn't get a Line does not exist error, but it seems to have made it mad.

It sounds like you've analysed the games and listings in some detail, it would be a lot of fun if you could post a book review/analysis?

Have only analysed the games to a degree where there maybe some issues for 664/6128. After each listing the book lets you know which subroutines to add by merging them, CHAR CHECK is the alarm bells one which, in some strange manner i've become an authority for, after demonstrating how TXT RD CHAR works and why it fails with a small Demo in the BASIC Programming Tips, though it's also allowed me to convert other BASIC 1.1 games that use the COPYCHR$(#0) function, so they work on all computers, during that time I converted a game doing that and noticed an improvement in performance while playing.


The only other game I've typed in is Parrot. This was the game which was later published in Amstrad Action though for some reason I don't think I got around to typing it in. It was altered though so it plays in MODE 1 instead of MODE 0, though the original plays just fine.