WIP: Jumping Cube

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carlsson
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WIP: Jumping Cube

Post by carlsson » Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:19 am

Hehe... need some unique name as Q*Bert most definitely is a registered trademark and in the tradition of Creativision games, almost all of them were clones but with different names than the original arcade etc. If anyone has a more clever play on name than Q*Curt, I'm all up to ears! Not sure how Kurt would relate to it... ;)

Anyway, I had a brief look at the Colecovision graphics. Kurt mentioned it might use the bitmap mode instead of the text/graphics mode. After studying the screenshot he might be correct. I have resized the screenshot by a factor of 8 and drawn red squares around each 8x8 cell. As you see, in a number of places there are three colours, e.g. yellow, white, grey or blue, white, black.
q-curt.gif
Even if I adjust the red grid around to compensate for offsets in the graphics, I can't find a location where it'd all even out nicely to two colours per 8x8 cell. In hires mode, the resolution is better and I suppose it isn't an awful lot of work to plot each square in a different colour as the player jumps on it.

Instead I redrew the graphics in several stages to come up with something that is more aligned to 8x8 patterns:
q-curt4.gif
It rather resembles the C64 or TI-99 versions rather than the Colecovision one. Strangely both TI-99 and Colecovision have the same VDP, but the screenshots on Mobygames look very different.

Update: Q*Curt is no more, I like Jumping Cube better
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Last edited by carlsson on Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Kurt_Woloch
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by Kurt_Woloch » Thu Mar 28, 2013 8:00 am

Yes, that's true... the TI-99 version has the same layout as you drew, and in fact, the arcade version does as well. So at that point you might as well take over the arcade graphics. Yes, the TI-99 and Colecovision versions look quite different from one another, although both versions were done by Parker Brothers. I guess they were by two different programmers, and they didn't see a need to share their graphics with each other, although both versions share the same sounds (in fact, the C-64 version has the same sounds as well). I think the sprites of the TI-99 version look better because they're multicolored, while the Coleco ones are only monochrome. Only the green ball seems to be a bit too big... I think it's smaller in the arcade version.

The TI-99 version also has a nasty bug... if you're on the second row of cubes from the top where the red balls land, a red ball may appear from out of nowhere and kill you instantly. In the arcade, you can see it falling down from the top before it hits you, so you have a split-second to dodge it... which, granted, isn't long, but at least it's not an instant death without warning.

As for the name... I have no objection against Q*Curt. In fact, I did a TI-99 version in Extended Basic back in 1984 (before the official one by Parker Brothers hit the TI-99), and I called it "KU-BERT".
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carlsson
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by carlsson » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:52 am

Tsukuda Original ported it to the Othello Multivision, later on ported to the Sega SG-1000: http://www.segaretro.org/Q*bert
I haven't studied the height and width of the cubes, if they align to 8x8 as well.

Konami's Q*Bert for the MSX looks very weird: http://www.generation-msx.nl/software/k ... lease/739/
Eurosoft's Quebert (also MSX) looks more traditional: http://www.generation-msx.nl/software/e ... ease/2990/

I doubt there is a Sord version, possibly some 3rd party MTX versions as well as other 3rd party MSX versions of course.
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MADrigal
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by MADrigal » Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:35 pm

I really love this thread, and I suppose Carlsson's approach to the graphics pattern is correct. That's what I would also do, personally.

As for the name "in the tradition of the CreatiVision", it would be something like Crazy Cube, or Space Cube, or Jumping Cube. Not Q*somewhat. And the main character would NOT be Q*Bert, but some other character.

I think C64 "Pogo Joe" would give you a good idea for a rip-off of Q*Bert for CreatiVision :-)

PS: question: how could they use the "bitmap mode" on the Colecovision version, and simultaneously put text/characters on screen, that's a feature of the text/graphics mode only?
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by Kurt_Woloch » Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:38 pm

That's interesting, I didn't know that SG-1000 version. They didn't stick to the arcade version as closely as Parker Brothers did, it seems... especially concerning the level structures, which levels contain which enemies and so on. And they ditched all the music in favor of some strange sound effects. But I like the animation which is smoother than in all of Parker's versions.

Konami's MSX version is actually based on the sequel, Q*Bert's Qubes which was also ported by Parker Brothers to some consoles... I think I've seen an Atari 2600 and a Coleco version of that.
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by Kurt_Woloch » Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:55 pm

MADrigal wrote:As for the name "in the tradition of the CreatiVision", it would be something like Crazy Cube, or Space Cube, or Jumping Cube. Not Q*somewhat. And the main character would NOT be Q*Bert, but some other character.
The question is... how much should be changed compared to the original? I think the Creativision is already known for having bad knock-offs of arcade games, not the original ones. And the knock-offs generally don't play as well as the originals. But if only the main character and the name gets changed, and it plays like the original in every other aspect, I'm fine with that. There's an Atari 7800 homebrew of Q*Bert, by the way, named B*nQ, which, apart of its name, looks and plays pretty exactly like Q*Bert (within the system's limitations).
MADrigal wrote:PS: question: how could they use the "bitmap mode" on the Colecovision version, and simultaneously put text/characters on screen, that's a feature of the text/graphics mode only?
First, you can put text/characters on screen by writing the correct patterns to the bitmap. The PC's we all use today create their display the same way and display text (for instance, the text you can read here) although they have no text mode. In fact, they do have a text mode (you can see it briefly on booting the PC), but Windows runs in graphics mode.

Second, the bitmap mode on the Creativision is still tiled. That is, it still has a pattern name table. If you fill that with 00-FF in every third of the screen as recommended by TI, you get the tiles in the order they appear in the pattern table and the color table. But you can jumble around the tiles of each screen by writing different values to the pattern name table. In fact, the bitmap mode is still character based, only each character consists of 8 bytes of pattern and 8 bytes of color data, and each third of the screen uses its own pattern and color table. You can also tell the VDP to use the same pattern and color table for two or all of the thirds, but I heard that in this case, the sprites act up somewhat since this mode wasn't officially supported.

Anyway, if you've got a rather repetitive display, not a full bitmap, you can define your numbers, characters and graphics individually for each third of the screen and then use each 8x8 block freely on every position that belongs to that third of the screen.
Last edited by Kurt_Woloch on Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MADrigal
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by MADrigal » Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:27 pm

Thanks for the full explanation Kurt. Not sure I understand everything, I need to re-read it all again. :)
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carlsson
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by carlsson » Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:34 pm

Frankly I haven't looked into how the bitmap mode works yet, but I figured if I can have the text/graphics mode function the way I want, it is closer to how I'm used to programming and it would mean a little less data shifting, at least on setup.

Pogo Joe by the way is one of the better clones that improves the original game. Flip 'n Flop (First Star) and Rainbow Walker (Synapse) also go +1 on Q*Bert. Actually the latter is so much different that it might be hard to recognize as a Q*Bert clone, rather heavily inspired by the gameplay.

Jumping Cube is actually a rather good name, and adds to the confusion as it won't be the cubes themselves that are jumping... :D
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MADrigal
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by MADrigal » Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:47 pm

> Frankly I haven't looked into how the bitmap mode works yet, but I figured if I
> can have the text/graphics mode function the way I want, it is closer to how
> I'm used to programming and it would mean a little less data shifting, at least
> on setup.

I totally agree!

> Jumping Cube is actually a rather good name, and adds to the confusion as
> it won't be the cubes themselves that are jumping... :D

Well that's that I actually meant! ;) The name got inspired by nonsense names as "Sonic Invader".... SONIC???? Is there anything SONIC in that game? LOL!
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Re: WIP: Q*Curt

Post by Kurt_Woloch » Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:29 pm

Well, while we're at "indirect" Q*Bert clones, I can think of two more on the Commodore 64: Slinky (by Cosmi / Paul Norman) and Juice (Tronix).
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