- I got the basics of the scripting system working for cutscenes in Robo-Ninja. I reworked my original design slightly (to put the entire script in a single file, instead of a different script for each "puppet" in the scene). I still need to flesh out a number of the script commands, but I have a very ugly basic cutscene working, where Robo-Ninja stands there as Prof. Treeblot walks away from him, and then a buggy half-broken Dr Squidbrain shows up.
- On Atari Anguna, I did some thinking, and realized the way I had written 3 completely separate kernels was dumb. I managed to rework it so that the the smaller, simpler kernels were just subsets of the bigger more complicated kernel. They are a couple cycles slower, as I had to add a branch to possibly jump out of the kernel loop for the smaller kernels, but I managed to squeeze the branch into a spot where the timing wasn't as critical. So that saved me a good 500 bytes (1/8 of a bank, or 1/16 of my total rom space). If nothing else, that frees up space for at least 6 more room layouts. (to allow for more total number of rooms, I'll reuse the layout data across multiple rooms in the game)
- I also got my bankswitching scheme all set up, so that the main game logic happens in one bank, and the display kernel and graphics data lives in the other bank. This was a little messy because I originally divided my code into separate files, based on what sort of game element each file was about. So I had a file for enemies, a file for backgrounds, a file for the main player, etc. But by default, the assembler just lays out everything sequentially in memory. So I had to do a little bit of rearranging to make sure that everything was declared in the right bank. (There was one small set of data, used for positioning sprites, that I ended up having to include in both banks, so I hardcoded its location, so that it was in the same place in both banks). The fact that I mostly use macros to break up my code (instead of actual subroutines) make it a bit easier, as the macros get substituted inline where you call them, instead of existing where you declare them.
The big thing that annoyed me this weekend is realizing, once again, how slow development is, when you don't have much time to put into it. Often I've only got about 30-60 minutes of useful brain function left in my spare time in the evenings, before I get too tired to do anything useful. It's just hard to get anything done in that time. (which is partially why I like blogging about it -- it takes less brainpower, so I can do this during that weird gap of time where I'm not quite ready for bed, but my brain refuses to produce more code.) I guess if I only had 1 project instead of 2, it would move faster. Although I've really enjoying the fact that I have 2 options. If I get bored of one project, I just swap to the other.
Ok, my brain is fully shutting down now....
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