#163089 - Armored-Rah - Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:37 am
First off, this is my first post, I made this account just so I could find the answers I need, so if I'm posting these questions in the wrong part of the forum, Mods, feel free to move this to the proper place, Thanks.
My first question is-
Has anyone here made a game similar to "Combat" (old game for the Atari 2600) for the GBA?
I mean graphics and gameplay. Just a simple tank battle game, as close to the Atari game as possible.
Second question-
If not, does anyone here know whereI might find something along those lines?
Last question-
What's the difficulty on a scale from 1 to 10, for making a game like this?
The reason behind my questions is this-
I have loved the game Combat since I was a kid and I'm now 30 years old. I'm all about the simple games like that and since I haven't been able to find anything that fit what I was looking for, I'm now considering making it myself and this seemed to be the forum to come to with my questions. I haven't done any programming in years, but I'm sure I can pick it back up, I just don't want to waste time making the game if it's already been done, since my main goal is just to be able to play it.
I loved that game because of it's simplicity, so that's what I want to see reproduced. No nice scenery or details, just 2600 style graphics.
I've heard someone started an emulator that would run Atari 2600 games, but all my efforts to locate that have brought back nothing. So, if anyone can answer these questions or has any info that might help me out, please reply. Thanks for your time.
*Edited for spelling.*
#163091 - silent_code - Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:03 am
If you're a beginner? 20.
But we all had to start somehow. :^)
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#163116 - Armored-Rah - Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:39 pm
Thanks for the reply. I had a feeling it might be harder than I thought, but I did coding years ago in elementary school, high school and some in college, but never anything for the GBA. While emulation would be the easier route for me, I can't find souce code or anything for the stella emu built for GBA. From what I've found, I understand the emulator was never fully functional, but it was close and the odds of it being able to play that one game were pretty good in my opinion.
I have thought of another question now, was there ever a homebrew game for the NES that was like "Combat"?
My searches bring up nothing, but maybe someone here knows something.
I apreciate any replies, answers, or even recomendations to other homebrew games that might be similar to what I'm looking for.
#163455 - Miked0801 - Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:29 pm
#163469 - Armored-Rah - Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:19 pm
Thanks so much, that link is a great help.
#163553 - Kayvon - Sat Oct 04, 2008 10:02 pm
I can't speak to writing a 2600 emulator, but if you're completely new to programming you might just rewrite the game yourself. It will likely be easier to write the game than to learn both the C++ and assembly you will need to port it over.
Incidentally, I loved Combat. My favorite mode was with the tanks. But Combat was strictly 2-player, which seems considerably less than convenient on a handheld console.
#173180 - Armored-Rah - Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:22 am
Yeah, Difficult was an understatement. LOL I never got anywhere with this game. As mentioned it was a 2 player game, but it also had a "robot" tank mode, which was a simple AI so that one person could play alone, this was the only thing I was interested in recreating. Wow, two years and no progress. I'm still interested in working on it though, I just haven't managed to develope anything other than a headache from my efforts so far. I am trying to get some hlp for another project, which looks much more promising. If you are a fan of FLCL, be sure to track down my Firestarter post.
#173212 - keldon - Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:43 am
Wow look at that code, straight to the point!
#173221 - sajiimori - Sun Mar 28, 2010 12:29 am
So wait... all you wanted was to play Combat? Highly accurate emulators have existed for over a decade. I don't know why nobody mentioned that after your original post. :/
But yeah, coding games is really hard. It took me many years to figure it out, though it could've gone much quicker if I read the right books and had someone to talk to about it.
#173224 - Armored-Rah - Sun Mar 28, 2010 8:40 am
I'm aware of the many emulators, what I wanted was to be able to play Combat on my GBA, against an A.I. opponent. While I've been able to play the Atari version for some time on my PCs, I haven't had a version that was one player and portable. There is a version out there that had a 1 player version. In the game selection it was called Robot Tanks. From what I've seen, this mode was only on the Coleco Telstar Combat system.
I'd still like to try my hand at creating my own Combat game, with a decent A.I., but for now I feel like I'm closer to being able to port a small Windows game called Firestarter over to the GBA, since I have all the documentation, source code and such. It's a small game, only takes about 1Mb on Windows. I made a thread asking for help with it, but no one has replied to it. As I said in that thread, I'll share everything I have for Firestarter and I do have permission from the author to use it.
I'm just no good at coding and stuff, not to mention the fact that I can't seem to find a lot of the information I need on porting something from Windows to GBA. I'm sure that with the right help, it would be very possibe to for me to do. I know for years fans of the FLCL Anime wanted a real Firestarter game, now two programmers have given us versions that work on Windows, but no handheld version, which is what the game was meant to be. I'd gladly put this in the hands of someone more experienced if they would be willing to share the finished copy with everyone, just like I want to do. I know that porting this game will likely be time consuming and maybe difficult, if I could afford to pay for some help, I would, but I can't that's why I'm just asking to be pointed in the right direction.