Tank You Very Much!

Tail-gunner — I remember that one! I was pretty good at that. But it wasn’t very challenging.

I agree that the games would probably look better in polygons; but they still sell the arcade games like “Battlezone” in original vector graphics, for nostalgia sake. And if I’m playing it, I would rather play it as I’m used to it. Besides, the transparency is part of the game; you can see shells through the objects.

I was following the discussion on “Hyper Fighting”, converting the game over to VB; but was the game “converted”, or did it just use images applied to M.K.’s “fighting engine”? That’s the question — is most of the work for Battlezone already done? Or would it have to be programmed from scratch?

The “obstacles” were the best part of Battlezone; you could hide behind something tall enough to deflect shells, and nail the opponent when he backed up to go around. The only way to avoid the “buzz-bombs” was to go in full reverse; but eventually your tank would run into something, and “OH CRAP!” was as much a part of the game as the built-in sounds. If it could convert directly — Battlezone was of course a two dimensional game. So how hard would it be to make it 3D, of the quality of Red Alarm?

Battlezone as originally made was already monochromatic; it’s not much of a stretch to see it done in red, rather than green…

thunderstruck wrote:
Not that I have any insides but I’m pretty sure MK reprogrammed HF from the scratch using sprites from other games.

I highly doubt that there is a simple way to convert a compiled Atari game to run on the VirtualBoy. Maybe programming an emulator would be possible.

Well, a simple emulator (if one could be made to run on the hardware) would be 2D. I rather think Battlezone would be as spectacular depth-wise as RedAlarm.

I guess your best try would be to reprogram it. Taking into account how technically simple Battlezone is it wouldn’t be that complicated. You could take Greg’s wireframe library. I only had a brief look but it seem pretty simple to use. The Battlezone polygons are all pretty simple so you could rebuild them quite easily using Blender or so.

I wish I had the skills to do that; I did take a “C” class in college, but got kinda lost in the input/output section at the end. Other programming minimal; Fortran, of course Basic, and a little assembly/machine. Machine code is talking directly to the processor; “load accumulator immediate”, “branch on carry clear” and so on, and no TAGS — you have to tell it how many steps to go, and if you’re off one it lands in the middle of an instruction, shuts down crosses its arms and stares at you…

I’m even ashamed to admit I’ve not programmed the PIC series; they’re easy, but one has to have a programmer, development software, and it helps to have an evaluation kit.

So — is anyone here (who is more adept at programming) looking for a project? I’ve always liked BZ, to play it in 3D would be incredible. The original was not completely monochrome; the green field had a red radar, etcetera. On the VB we have all sorts of colors at our disposal. Red, crimson, blood-ochre, red, brick, black (is “black” a color?) and red. Oh — and did I mention “red”? ;-p

It was fun playing with the image in the OP — obviously I stole the image from the Tank description here, added the second tank (as I was placing it, moving the tank left and right was the same as pushing it or pulling it out-of/into the depth), and adding the shell coming out of the screen…

DogP wrote:
…of course we could do something like Asteroids, but it’d just be another Asteroids clone… not really immersive, nor really benefit from the 3D.

A lot of the games did not exploit the 3D. “Space Invaders” is one that struggles to be 3D (others are worse, like Lab); SI does have a “sorta 3D” mode. Many of the Homebrews are 2D, but I’m happy to have new things tried.

Battlezone did not have extensive sound; the “whoop-whoop” as something entered range, some “static bursts” for shots and explosions, and some steady low tones for the buzz-bombs. Other than that it was quiet.

It also would be fun to see the opponents’ tanks explode, pieces flying away in 3D. The original would only sequence through a dozen “destruct images”; no reason that could not translate into a STEREO-PAIR of three-dimensional flying shards…

I think it would be very easy to use Greg’s library to do it – if you want it done with wireframes. His library is very easy to use. You could also use sprites and affine mode. In that case, you might be able to reuse code from Deathchase.

Never thought of actually programming.

Programming the VB isn’t hard if you’ve programmed before, especially in C.

My “C” class was what, seventeen years ago? Not sure I even still have the book.

My friend and I tried programming a PIC once. I’m pretty sure that the official development kit is the worst piece of software I’ve ever used. The assembly language (but not the instruction set!) is horrible too, very unintuitive, and I’m familiar with multiple assembly languages.

I was assigned to write the code for a test fixture for a power supply; the power supply used a PIC, and it was desired to use another PIC to talk to the power supply. Some have built-in A/D converters, you can actually ask it to measure voltages and currents. But while I was struggling to learn it, the company got bought and everyone laid off. They did re-hire me for a short time before the full closure, different position (no PIC programming); I guess I made out like a bandit, got two severance packages, both based on my full employment time! 🙂

While it would be an interesting project, I have enough of them already, so get working! 🙂 Install VBDE and look at KR155E’s intro, then start asking questions.

Is the latest-and-greatest “vbde” still at this address?

http://www.planetvb.com/content/vbde_preview4.7z

I looked at the directory “development/tools”, and all I found was “vide” from February, Two Thousand Three. Wonder why the “VBDE” isn’t linked to the main tabs? Or is it, and I’m just blind??? 8-/

RE “Greg’s Wireframe”, I found the thread:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=5522

Thanx.

HorvatM wrote:

Yes, that’s it. Extract it into C:\VBDE.

VIDE is a program used primarily for converting graphics, although I recommend using my own VBIMGC because it’s more flexible.

I wonder why VBDE isn’t listed on that page yet. I think it’s mature enough by now.

I’ll have a look at it — no harm in looking, huh?

Thank you guys for your encouragements.

🙂