Late last night I noticed a new compo on CSDb called the 'Tiny
PETSCII Compo 2020' with the quite simple rules of producing a PETSCII
no bigger than 8x8 chars (or smaller than 2x2 chars) and 2 colours (1
main colour and a background colour). Rules and various entries can be
found on the compo page here.
After
noticing the compo, I decided to enter with a couple of images that
were started last night and finished this morning. The first 2 below
are mine and the final is from my grandson, who I roped into doing one
too!
The
first above is called "That's No Moon" for, hopefully, obvious
reasons? The second, hopefully just as obvious, is called "Yodascii".
The final is called "PETendo", a portamento of PETSCII and Nintendo -
it's a GameBoy if you can't tell!
The images were
pixelled in my (still unreleased) screen editor, 'ChillED' and I wrote
some quick and dirty code to display them.
If you want to download them as a bundle, click here.
Alternatively, you can download them individually on their respective CSDb pages using the following linkies:
T.M.R has been really busy with quite a few entries for the 'Intro Creation Compo 2019'! His latest is called 'F15 D'Gamma Clone' and has been released using his C64CD label. For this entry, I provided the SID music.
If you stalk follow T.M.R around the interwebs, you may have seen something similar to this before. This intro is a 'conversion' of a crack intro that T.M.R coded for the Apple II, here.
On the C64CD site, T.M.R writes...
"The code and graphics are based on what was created for that original,
Apple-flavoured release but with some reworking for the extra resolution
of the C64 and converted to characters at the same time. The music was
originally composed by Ben Daglish for the Amiga and Atari ST game 3D Galax, with the slick C64 conversion being used here being handled by aNdy.
The extra colour data and soundtrack for this C64 version mean that, if
it were handled in the same way as the Apple II code did things, the
final intro would have exceeded the competition’s 16K memory limit, but
it’s worth noting dear reader that both machines are running at around
the same speed so the C64 could have handled a more direct port."
As T.M.R mentions, the Goattracker written SID is a cover of 3D Galax by Ben Daglish, more specifically, the Amiga version of the tune. I originally starting covering this tune towards the end of 2018, not long after the death of Ben and intended to use it in a dedication release, but unfortunately I just didn't have the time to complete it.
You can also download it from this blog, which also includes the music as a stand-alone SID file, as well as in it's original Goattracker SNG file. Click here.
You can read more about the intro on T.M.R's blogs here and here.
Alternatively, you can watch the intro in the YouTube video below! If it doesn't appear, click here...
The 'Intro Creation
Competition' over at CSDb is now in full swing and hot on the heels of my last entry, 'Funky Stars', comes another 16k entry from me that I've rather unimaginatively titled 'ICC Anon' which is designed with old 'Compunet' demos in mind.
This intro is thus called because of the simple PETSCII rendition of the 'Guy Fawkes' mask as used by the 'hactivist' group Anonymous. The PETSCII was pixelled about 6 months ago when testing my screen editor 'ChillED' and ended up being repurposed for this intro.
The music is called 'tiny BONER' because it is a reworked and slightly remixed excerpt of a larger mod called 'Boner' composed by Marx Marvelous/TPPI. This SID is 'rare' in that is was composed with a 6581 in mind, rather than my usual 8580 choice, but should sound fine on either chip.
This intro includes my first use of sprites in the top/bottom borders and while there is absolutely nothing amazing going on code wise, it was an interesting exercise in finding out about the limitations of border use.
If you would like to see the intro in action on an emulator or real
hardware, it can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here. The download also contains the ACME source code and all work files, including the SID tune in it's Goattracker .sng format.
T.M.R has also written short pieces on his own blog here and on the main C64CD blog here, as well as recording a video of the intro in action. The video should appear below, but if not can be found on YouTube here.
There is an event on CSDb that has become almost annual now called the 'Intro Creation Competition'. In this compo, entries must be created that could be an intro to something (such as a game crack) and must conform to a certain set of rules which I won't explain here, but if you're interested can be read here.
This competition is one of T.M.R's favourites and, since I've taken to coding on the C64 this past year, he suggested I take part. I agreed but, not wanting to blacken the Cosine or Arkanix Labs names (C64 groups I'm a member of) in case I came last, I requested that it be released using T.M.R's other 'label', Commodore Crap Debunk (C64CD); as a result, T.M.R has now made me a C64CD member!
Thus, after a few weeks of coding, pixelling and composing (yes, I did the lot!), C64CD has today released 'Funky Stars'.
This intro is so called because the music within it is a SID cover of an Impulse Tracker tune called 'Funky Stars' (but also know as 'Hybrid Song') by Quazar of Sanxion.
This little project has been quite interesting in the fact that one of the compo rules says that the intro must be 16K or under in the same block of memory. This is not something I'm used to, so was an interesting challenge, particularly since my Goattracker SID ended up being over 3.5K in size. Whoops! To squeeze everything in to the same block, I ended up doing little tricks such as assembling the screen data straight to $0400, amongst other things. Thanks to T.M.R for his guidance on this!
There was also some new learning here for me. I've always been fascinated by the use of 'raster bars' on the C64 and although I knew it was something to do with writing colours values to each scanline, I've never previously attempted it until now!
Anyway, enough of the waffle! If you would like to see the intro in action on an emulator or real hardware, it can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here. The download also contains the ACME source code and all work files, including the SID tune in it's Goattracker .sng format.
T.M.R has also written short pieces on his own blog here and on the main C64CD blog here, as well as recording a video of the intro in action. The video should appear below, but if not can be found on YouTube here.
