Horizontal Scrolling

Hello all

not a tutorial request!

1 Difficulty

2 ASM level needed

3 A need .

I had a thought about the scrolling platformer module to get modified to only scroll horizontal. Please keep in mind I have not decided to look at to module so this is a table discussion only.




Question 1). What is the difficulty surrounding, change the module to scroll horizontal. Are we talking about changing a load of X, Y values?

Question 2). What is the range of ASM level to complete a module like this? Obviously somebody with 0 ASM knowledge could do this but at the same time somebody that has an understanding of how the program works could probably eventually worked his way through it correctly?

And finaly

Question 3). Is there a need for a module like this? For car, motorcycle racing games, games like 1942-1943 style, or a running gunning shooter .


Please lets discuss
 

jorotroid

Member
Here is the link to the horizontal scrolling focused core I am working on:
http://www.nesmakers.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1950


So to try to answer your questions:
1. For anyone relatively new to asm, very difficult. But for more experience people, I don't know. I went into it very ignorant. I didn't completely understand what was going on with the seam update code, so I ended up writing my own version while using the basic core's code as a guide. I now understand my code better than the basic core's scrolling code. There are some easy pitfalls to fall into while working on this. At a high level, it seems pretty obvious how it should work: just iterate through an array of data. The pseudo code for how it should work will probably look pretty simple, but due to the limitations of 8-bit numbers you have to put in a lot of checks to make sure you are addressing the data you really want to address. It can very easily lead to bloating your code.

2. I guess I started answering this in 1, but I think that if you are already accustomed to programming in general, then that is a good start. But it would be really helpful if you feel you have already been rockin' it with the ASM. Having a good understanding of the layout of the NESmaker code is also invaluable. Off the top of my head, there are at least 3 places in the code that affect scrolling. Also bear in mind that the job doesn't end with just getting scrolling done. You also have to figure out how to handle objects in relation to the scroll (an issue I am still dealing with).

3. Yes. I think there is a need for all sorts of modules. After I get this done, I want to see I can then use that knowledge to make a vertical scrolling module, then a module where you can switch between horizontal and vertical, then maybe even one day do simultaneous horizontal and vertical scrolling. But I have to be careful not to get ahead of myself. There are already enough problems in front of me as is.
 
Did you complete the module? I downloaded the link haven't tried it yet wanted to make sure it was updated and ready for Beta testing?
 

jorotroid

Member
For Witch City, sort of. I just need to copy over the fixes to the core code that I am planing to release. What's available right now is a bit buggy.

Also I recently discovered a potentially way more efficient way of doing one aspect of it, so I'm going to try to implement it this weekend. But I am finding that sometimes these elegant discoveries I make require some overhead that makes them less efficient. We'll see.
 
I guess you actually mean a vertical only scrolling module, so you could do a game like Ice Climber?
[media]https://youtu.be/0nzBivwWI4A[/media]
 
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