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M E T A L W A R R I O R 4
by Covert BitOps
Lasse Oorni
Excellent software is still being
written for the C-64. Here is a huge
action adventure game that uses both
sides of a 1541 disk. Fortunately,
with a 1581, you will not have to do
any disk flipping.
I checked with Lasse and got his
permission to share this free-ware
program with LOADSTARites. Below are
some notes from Covert BitOps web page
-- www.student. oulu.fi/^loorni/
covert/ main.htm
At the bottom of this text are a
couple of clues from Robin Harbron for
getting out of the agent's compound.
Of course, you won't want to look
until you are stuck, right?
DMM
LASSE OORNI WRITES
Here are some statistics for Metal
Warrior 4:
- 22 weapons + unarmed combat (fists)
- 24 different enemies + variations
in uniform color, weapon etc.
- 16 characters you can talk to
- 34 songs/subtunes + 37 sound
effects
- About 1000 screens divided over 26
levels
- 1021 frames of sprite animation
Some other interesting game
features/techniques:
- 360KB of total game data,
compressed to about 200KB
- Realtime sprite depacking for all
small objects
- Freedirectional 21 row scrolling
- NTSC/PAL compatible
- 1541/1571 fastloader, or use of
Kernal routines for compatibility
with any mass-storage device
- Uses REU/SuperRAM for buffering if
available
- Uses SCPU for advantage (eliminate
slowdown)
- Save/Load game anywhere
- Variable endings (about 4 main
variations)
Development statistics:
- About 9 months of active
development, many more of
hesitation & laziness :)
- About 2.5MB of source code files
(total project size)
- Programs used: Goattracker,
Ninjatracker, DASM, GraFX2, Deluxe
Paint, StarCommander, several
selfmade utilities
ABOUT CROSS DEVELOPING
for the C64
by Lassi Oorni
BACKGROUND
Some of the opinions in this rant
are quite radical. To have some
background to them I'll first give my
short C64 history:
- 1986 Got hands on a C64
- 1987 BASIC experiments
- 1988-1991 Assembly language
experiments. Not much achieved,
all bigger projects are
unfinished. (part of it can be
blamed on primitive tools: SEUCK
and Mikro Assembler)
- 1992- Mostly only playing on C64
from this point onwards
- 1995 Discovered C64 emulation
- 1996 or 1997 C64 stops working
- 1998 Got idea of cross development
by researching the internet; work
on Metal Warrior game started;
unforeseen levels of C64
productivity
- 1999-2000 Cross development, cross
development, cross development
- 2001-2002 Acquired working C64
hardware again, cross development
continues :)
So, basically I have cross
development to thank for all my C64
achievements worth mentioning.
WHAT IS CROSS DEVELOPMENT
Cross development is using a
different (usually, more powerful)
platform than the target platform for
running some or all of the programs
used in development. (assembler, text
editor, possibly graphics/music
editor).
Advantages of C64 cross
development:
- Shorter compile times because of
CPU power
- Batch files or makefiles can
automatize compiling process
- Editing can be easier or faster on
modern utilities (for example a PC
based text editor for writing
source code)
- Files on a hard disk are easier to
manage, as well as more reliably
stored than on floppy disk
(though, some people have hard
disk-equipped C64s.) In any case,
remember the importance of
backups!
Disadvantages of C64 cross
development:
- If testing on an emulator,
remember that graphics (TV image
blurriness!) & sound emulation are
not 100% accurate yet, and
probably will never be. Processor-
& chip-emulation are very accurate
nowadays in good emulators (for
example CCS64, VICE). If your
program runs in both CCS64 & VICE
you can be 99% sure that it will
also on real C64.
- If testing on a real C64, some
effort is required to transfer the
program over (for example, with
Star Commander and an X1541
cable). But I strongly recommend
testing on real C64, whenever
possible!
- Making small test changes to code
& data (for example with a freezer
cartridge) during run-time can be
more convenient than recompiling
the project within the cross
development-system.
Cross development can also be
"mixed": for example a C64 emulator
is run to see C64 based graphics &
music editors. The resulting data
files are then extracted from a D64
disk-image as needed. (VICE has also
the possibility to "mount" a hard disk
directory directly; no need for disk
images.)
MY PRINCIPLES AND TOOLS
My cross development principle is
very extreme but it is the most
efficient for me personally. Simply
put, it is:
- No C64-based utilities are used in
development.
At first glance this seems extremely
crazy, when one is developing a C64
program it would seem logical to use
the tried & true utilities, at least
for some tasks. But over the years I
have solved things (and I haven't
always obeyed this rule 100% :))
Lasse Oorni
loorni@student.oulu.fi
DAVE'S NOTE: Check the above web
site (or Google for "Covert BitOps"
as I did) to read the rest of Lasse's
notes. These involve using PC and
Amiga based utilities, so might not
be your particular cup of tea.
NOW -- for the NEWS YOU CAN USE!
Robin Harbron graciously gave me
some tips on how to get out of the
first area:
Okay, I played back to this point.
Once you find the two agents in their
"control room" and have the little
conversation, one will go back to the
armory.
Go there after him, and he'll give
you your agent gear. Crouch down on it
to pick it up. Hold fire for a second
to bring up the menu, and move the
cursor up/down to the agent gear, hit
fire. Now you're "holding" the gear -
press fire+down to put it on.
You should now be dressed in a
black trench coat, and can now exit
the compound by pressing (fire+up) the
button at the far left of the second
hallway. Don't forget to take
everything out of the lockers in the
armory.
Go back to the clinic whenever
your health is low - you can get
healed by a machine in there. The
agent left in the control room has
some other interesting things to say
if you go back to him, and hold
fire+up.
RH