After a little bit of work I started hammering out some of the foundations for each stage. While I already had the rain stage established with lightning and playfield changes, I wanted to start making other stages so that I can move onto the game logic some more. I made 2 more stages - a snow stage and a volcano stage.
Now I know what some may be thinking - why have a volcano stage in a shopping cart game. Part of the reasoning behind such a strange choice was that years ago when I worked for Albertsons I found an illustrated disaster preparedness guide in the offices. It covered everything from storms to riots, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions. I wish I could find that book again because it was truly amazing and it has been so long and so obscure that I am slowly questioning the validity of my memory.
Anyway, while I got these stages set up, I started on a transition playfield and this is where I got into a problem - cycle overrun.
The television screen would display the news forecast for each stage - rain, snow, lava, etc. This would be kind of reminiscent of Paper Boy and the newspapers. I also considered adding a fun easter egg using this as a game over screen...
I believe it stems from the previous game logic conflicting with the code for the transition screen. While I needed to reprogram some of those sections, now it is pretty much necessary to redo those portions of the game before proceeding.
Mainly, it is the movement code for the virtual sprites and the power up generation code. The latter should be easier but I am considering various other possibilities. My thoughts are moving most of the movement game logic to a different bank and utilize bitwise operations to select the various conditions and some skip codes for the transition or game over screens.
Overall, I am pretty satisfied with what I am coming up with. I want some more stages with varying elements but I think this next step will make everything else simpler.
Now I know what some may be thinking - why have a volcano stage in a shopping cart game. Part of the reasoning behind such a strange choice was that years ago when I worked for Albertsons I found an illustrated disaster preparedness guide in the offices. It covered everything from storms to riots, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions. I wish I could find that book again because it was truly amazing and it has been so long and so obscure that I am slowly questioning the validity of my memory.
Anyway, while I got these stages set up, I started on a transition playfield and this is where I got into a problem - cycle overrun.
The television screen would display the news forecast for each stage - rain, snow, lava, etc. This would be kind of reminiscent of Paper Boy and the newspapers. I also considered adding a fun easter egg using this as a game over screen...
I believe it stems from the previous game logic conflicting with the code for the transition screen. While I needed to reprogram some of those sections, now it is pretty much necessary to redo those portions of the game before proceeding.
Mainly, it is the movement code for the virtual sprites and the power up generation code. The latter should be easier but I am considering various other possibilities. My thoughts are moving most of the movement game logic to a different bank and utilize bitwise operations to select the various conditions and some skip codes for the transition or game over screens.
Overall, I am pretty satisfied with what I am coming up with. I want some more stages with varying elements but I think this next step will make everything else simpler.
