Making an Atari game – Day 27

I decided not to simplify the random placement of enemies routine in Bank 5. I want to avoid that as much as possible because I would like each room to feel unpredictable when the player enters. I did manage to free just enough space in Bank 6 which controls the enemies AI to also add a function that sets the behaviour statistics for all of the enemies in the game. I did this without compromising anything. Mostly saving space with smart branching (Just removing goto commands when they were not really needed). Bank 6 is currently down to 2 Bytes however, but I think that should be fine. The only other thing I would want to add in Bank 6 is a sound effect call for when the enemy “shoots” throws a rock. At this moment it is silent and currently the bank is too full to allow for this. Not sure what I am going to do there.

I’ve added sound effects for the footsteps of the player as he enters the cave in the title screen. Kind of reminds me of Link going down steps in Zelda on the NES. Really, thats the main reason I added this 😛

Things I’ve also done today:

  • Used smart branching to clear up some space in banks 1 to 4.
  • Created a Game Over screen when the player dies, and after a few seconds it sends  player back to the title screen
  • Cleaned some code, still more to clean and go though
  • Removed some redundant code and simplified the sound driver.