High Score Challenge S13 - R6 - Scramble

[Venger]

I'll have a look at downloading the latest version in the vain hope that it'll work. Meanwhile, this happened again on the old version. It's getting frustrating when you get to the 4th level with ships left and it just crashes, especially when people are overtaking my scores through no fault of my own . I could get much higher scores.

It seems to be mostly the 4th time around (although it has happened on the 3rd loop once and the 2nd loop once).

[Venger]

Nope, still corrupt

[JoolsH]

JoolsH, are you sure that this wasn't happening before as I only changed one line inside the score display code.

Not sure... while I don't recall seeing this before, it's possible I was only playing one game each boot, as the games can last quite a while.

Right, I was never resetting the looped counter, but resetting the difficulty, so after 12 loops without resetting, the game would stay on the simplest settings! [...] In my defence, I don't have a very large test department (just me) and people don't really get into a game without something like the High-Score Challenge to encourage them.

Thanks for the quick response! That's one thing the high score challenge is good for - having lots of people playtesting the game and ironing out the problems.

I tried the latest version. This time, when I pressed the enter key to start a second game, the screen went black and the game crashed with a continuous horrible noise Not sure if that's a one-off glitch, or whether it is happening to anyone else.

First game went really well here, got to the 12th time around. On (I think) the 7th time around, there was fast fuel depletion, but loops 8 to 12 (I think) had slow fuel depletion (albeit still with lots of UFOs on stage 2), making the game a bit too marathonable. Maybe once you get into fast fuel depletion, that behaviour should stay to keep the difficulty up?

262,820

[MartinH]

84250!

But then I encountered the crash reported by Venger - 4th loop start of the caves

I took a BeebEm save state right at the end of the 1st stage 4th loop. Would this help debug the issue?

scram_crash4.zip

(37.67 KiB) Downloaded 31 times

[Venger]

84250!

But then I encountered the crash reported by Venger - 4th loop start of the caves

scramble12.png

I took a BeebEm save state right at the end of the 1st stage 4th loop. Would this help debug the issue?

scram_crash4.zip

Yeah, I just crashed twice at the start of the 2nd stage on the 4th time around again. Another thing I noticed was that I wasn't getting any points for destroying the base at the end of the game.

I think I'll have to give up on this; a shame because the game is really enjoyable.

[virtvic]

Hi there, I don't come on here much, but I love Tricky's Scramble - I was the one who 'kill screened' it on level 4 (the yellow alien bug) at Revival a few weeks ago.
Nice to see he has fixed that now and the aliens go crazy on level 4 now! A welcome addition to an excellent port.

Here is a quick score - I beat my previous high.

[tricky]

Nice one Vic, and love the podcast.

[KarateEd]

High Score Tables Updated......

[virtvic]

Because of your arcade ports, I may have to do a special podcast episode on homebrew ports...

[sydney]

Venger: are you using a beeb or a master? I only ask because the corruption at the top of your screen look similar to some corruption reported in frogger,also by tricky, which was caused by the VLSI 6845.

Tricky, could this be the cause or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Venger]

Venger: are you using a beeb or a master? I only ask because the corruption at the top of your screen look similar to some corruption reported in frogger,also by tricky, which was caused by the VLSI 6845.

Tricky, could this be the cause or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I'm using the BeebEm emulator. I can't get any of the others to work for me. I don't have real hardware (I was an Electron user back in the day so never owned a BBC).

[tricky]

In this case, it is because some aspect of beebem's vsync timing is off by 1 scanline (64us).
The hack that I offered reduces the virtical sync pulse width to compensate, which isn't the actual bug, but does fix the timing for Scramble. To work on all platforms (including beebem with the hack) requires the timing to be correct to 1/2us or 1 cycle. Any other solution I have would require extra code (I have 6 bytes free) or more time to render and more code.
These games are hard enough to "finish" as it is without adding special code paths to workaround emulator inaccuracies.
The VLSI incompatibility in Frogger is annoying, but as I have (I think) 2 bytes free and no cycles I have had to leave it, it is ugly, but doesn't affect gameplay. For Scramble I allowed for VLSI from the start, it puts much more pressure on timing, but does hide the issue.

[tricky]

Venger: are you using a beeb or a master? I only ask because the corruption at the top of your screen look similar to some corruption reported in frogger,also by tricky, which was caused by the VLSI 6845.

Tricky, could this be the cause or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I'm using the BeebEm emulator. I can't get any of the others to work for me. I don't have real hardware (I was an Electron user back in the day so never owned a BBC).

Here is a special BeebEm version, it shouldn't work on anything else, but the game-play should be identical.

[chrisn]

Getting better... 47,090

[klintworth]

Ok, just started - a long way to catch up! What an amazing game, Tricky!

[MartinH]

Using Tricky's new BeebEm release - no more crashes on loop four!

99440

[MartinH]

And a big jump this time around!

152920

[Venger]

Here's my first go on the new version. Stupid mistakes killed me off so plenty of improvements to be made.

[MartinH]

Here's my first go on the new version. Stupid mistakes killed me off so plenty of improvements to be made.

I knew I should have kept quiet

My latest effort: 165620

The fuel vanishes sooo quickly, and my bombing ain't upto RAF standard!

[tricky]

Wow, wow and thrice wow!.

[Venger]

Here's my first go on the new version. Stupid mistakes killed me off so plenty of improvements to be made.

I knew I should have kept quiet

My latest effort: 165620

The fuel vanishes sooo quickly, and my bombing ain't upto RAF standard!

scramble15.png

I'm only going to have the one go tonight. There's only 2 levels where the fuel runs out really quickly but it is manic (especially when you're down to the very last drop of fuel when you complete the level). I think I was on loop 10 when I finally died.

[MartinH]

I don't think I'll do much better than this...

223940

I was completely in the zone... and then I woke up and smashed straight into a wall!

[tricky]

I wasn't 100% that it was loopable on the hardest fuel setting, but it is a direct copy of the map and on the stern version I'm told that you can't miss a single fuel.
I was half expecting 70-80% for this one, but

[Venger]

I think this is my last go as I lost the will to live somewhere after the 20th loop or so. My last life lasted around 200000 points and I died trying to shoot a totally pointless fuel pod just for the hell of it.

[MartinH]

Well I'm certainly not going to catch up with that!

I lost count of how many times I went round for this:

301090

When I close my eyes now, all I can see is Scramble!

[MartinH]

Well I'm certainly not going to catch up with that!

Or am I?

466420. I hurt in places I didn't know existed!

[tricky]

And some you did no doubt, I'll bet you have arcade hand that Vic used to mention. Still at least you have the beeb (emulator) world record
Are you enjoying the game?

[MartinH]

Are you enjoying the game?

Absolutely - a tremendous conversion, and props to you for being able to squeeze it on to the beeb!

[Venger]

This took me 2 hours and 7 minutes to get. 341000 on my first life and a few unforced errors around the 500000 mark. I made the last life stretch to around 250000 points. I don't fancy doing that again in a hurry.

[BigEd]

Wow! What happens if the score rolls over?