Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

VCS Game Maker

Download Now

This online tool is a no-code environment designed to allow someone to create a game for Atari 2600 without knowing much about programming and without installing anything on their computer.

It usesBlockly to allow the user to implement the logic using blocks and then, behind the scenes, generate aBatari Basic source code, that is then be compiled usingbatari-basic-js in order to generate an Atari 2600 ROM, which is emulated usingJavatari.

Github:https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker

Updated 7 days ago
StatusIn development
CategoryTool
PlatformsHTML5,Windows
Rating
Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars
(15 total ratings)
Authorharoldo-ok
Tags8-Bit,atari,blocks,Game Design,Game engine,GameMaker,no-code,Retro,tool,tools

Download

Download NowName your own price

Click download now to get access to the following files:

vcs-game-maker-0.47.2-win32-x64.7z79 MB
vcs-game-maker-0.47.1-win32-x64.7z76 MB
vcs-game-maker-0.39.0-win32-x64.7z79 MB

Development log

View all posts

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Viewing most recent comments1 to40 of 139 ·Next page ·Last page

Hey Haroldo! 

I have many ideas for VCS Game Maker!

1: The ability to create many SEPARATE sprites with the same texture but different colors.

2: The ability to draw lines from one sprite to another or from one coordinate to another.

3: The ability to create games ranging in size from 4 KB to the maximum for the Atari 2600.

4: The ability to perform actions over several frames, for example, we take an action that can only be performed once and perform two such actions in a row (or more actions).

5: Ability to use multiple colors per sprite (maximum 8 colors on screen) along a line, as well as for backgrounds.

6: Ability to create music or special effects in a special place (already available in VCS Game Maker).

I forgot to add that can also add a menu to VCS Game Maker (like in Minecraft) where you can change the project settings, its name, and auto-saves (do not delete saves that are less than a month old or the time specified in the VCS Game Maker settings) and, most importantly, the ability to change the project code without running the emulator. 

Hello! Thanks for the ideas!

1: The ability to create many SEPARATE sprites with the same texture but different colors.

For now, I'm focusing on the standard kernel, but multisprite support would be one of the first things to do, once that was done.

2: The ability to draw lines from one sprite to another or from one coordinate to another.

OK, I opened an issue in order to look at this later:

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/190

3: The ability to create games ranging in size from 4 KB to the maximum for the Atari 2600.

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/168

4: The ability to perform actions over several frames, for example, we take an action that can only be performed once and perform two such actions in a row (or more actions).

That could techinically be done by using variables and conditionals.

5: Ability to use multiple colors per sprite (maximum 8 colors on screen) along a line, as well as for backgrounds.

- Sprite: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/166

- Background: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/166

6: Ability to create music or special effects in a special place (already available in VCS Game Maker).

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/46

I forgot to add that can also add a menu to VCS Game Maker (like in Minecraft) where you can change the project settings, its name, and auto-saves (do not delete saves that are less than a month old or the time specified in the VCS Game Maker settings)

Do you mean some form of version control?


the ability to change the project code without running the emulator. 

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/133

The menu in VCS Game Maker will be used to configure VCS Game Maker itself, to configure the project, and for other purposes.

tem uma verção mais nova disso?

Hey Haroldo! I have an idea. What if you add a reset button, which sets everything into the default settings?

Hello! Do you mean, clearing the actions, returning the options to their defaults and clearing the player 0, player 1 and backgrounds, returning them to their default values?

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/142

Yes, exactly. It would be way much faster than deleting everything, changing the BGs and player art.

OK, version 0.47.0 adds that functionality.

Nice! Thanks for adding it :D

When using background blocks they dont list any backgrounds and could u add an option for performance to reset the emulator by a button, its kinda laggy when it resets everytime you do something

Hi! I want to publish my game, made on your engine, this month. This is very important to me; I feel like I've managed to create something incredibly fun. Yesterday, I made a cool, authentic trailer in a 70s style. All that's left is to finish writing the manual and draw the cover art.

Can you tell me if you could help me embed an emulator on theItch.io page? I'd like players to be able to try my game directly in their browser. Do you know how to do that?

Cool! I would recommend https://emulatorjs.org/

I used it for the "Export to HTML" feature on the "CVBasic online compiler".

It's pretty easy to use for embedding; please take a look at this part of their documentation: https://emulatorjs.org/docs/systems/atari-2600

I started playing around with this very recently so I'm super happy to see that you are still updating it. This is an amazing project that got me into theAtari 2600.

Asmall bug I noticed while using it (browser version) is that the something the changes made in thePlayer 0 tab don't get saved when I move back to theActions tab (images I have imported into frames, and theDurationI've set for said frames) In order for those changes to be saved I need to do something else like creating or deleting a new frame.

And a couple ofsuggestions: Would it be possible to add a block that allows you to mirror player sprites? 
And would it be possible to add some sort of blocks, folders ortabsthat allow you togroup different sections of the code? I'm not very familiar withBlocklybut the project I'm currently working on has turned quite big and it's starting to be difficult to keep track of everything and have everything organized.

Thanks in advance, and again, amazing work on this!

Thanks! I am glad to know that people are being inspired by it!

> sometimes the changes made in thePlayer 0 tab don't get saved when I move back to theActions tab;

Okay, I opened an issue so I won't forget: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/174

> Would it be possible to add a block that allows you to mirror player sprites? 

This one would be tricky, as the Atari 2600 hardware can't do that, but it might be possible to create ways to automate the generation of flipped sprites, though they might probably use double the ROM space: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/176

As@NickR-Git suggested, theREFP0, REFP1 hardware registers can flip the respective player horizontally (I must have missed that part of the documentation).

I opened an issue to create the necessary blocks: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/176

> And would it be possible to add some sort of blocks, folders ortabsthat allow you togroup different sections of the code?

Okay, I opened an issue to look on that: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/175

Good news: the option to flip a player has been added on version 0.43.0:

https://haroldo-ok.itch.io/vcs-game-maker/devlog/1081376/v0430-allow-flipping-pl...

yeaaah, new updates :D

James Tall60 days ago(1 edit)(+1)(-1)

YOUR WELCOME

Is there a way to make the screen PAL and code the AI?

And I'm talking making it move with collisions at random wether it be X or Y. The player can be constantly moving, I just wanna make the up and down random.

You could use the "random " block to choose the direction to move.

Also a way to make the enemy move slower?

One possible way to do that would be to use the "Every N frames " block. 

Good to know! Hope it comes soon as I'd love to play this on real hardware when I get an actual 2600 but I'm from the UK which uses PAL. Is there a way to make the game start when you hit Game Reset?

Yes, you could use the "Examples-> Event  -> Title Screen " block as a starting point, just adjusting the "On title screen update " event to use the reset switch instead of the fire button. 

Thanks for all of the continued hard work. 

part 4 of my video series is now up. 

Great video, as always!

How does the difficulty A and B work

There's a pair of switches on the back of the console (or on the front on earlier models) that allow to switch between easy and hard difficulty for player one and player two separately.

In the emulator, those switches are located here:

We need some background music

Just wanted to let everyone know that part 3 of my tutorial series is up. 

The new update looks exciting. Can't wait to play around with it today. Can we expect a win executable of the new version soon? Thanks

Thanks! Yes, eventually, there will be a Windows version. I'm working on the console switches, at the moment:

NIIIICE!. thats awesome. Thanks for doing all of this. Can't wait to play around with it. You are genuinely changing the homebrew coding community or the better. If there is ever anything I can assist with, i'm at your service.

 

Glad to see you're updating the engine. By the way, I made a game on it, but I'll share it a little later.

thanks for following me for one years

You're welcome! 😃

haroldo-ok
I wanted to let you know that part 1 of our series on this fantastic tool is uploading right now. It will end up being a 4 or 5 part series.

Awesome video, many thanks! 😃

Can you add more buttons into the input feature like the turbo fire, reset game, and game select

Yes, support for the console switches is planned for the future:

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/8

do you have a date for the add ins? this gives no information at all

Sorry, no deadlines predicted. 😁

also do you have plans for variables being able to be a visible score? i thought of a solution but the score breaks when a score is set to a variables amount

Currently, it's using Batari Basic's own built-in score feature. 

One thing that would be very cool and helpful would be to be able to add text labels to the workspace in actions so one can label blocks of code. 

How easy would it be to have a random number? I'd like to set up random movement for Player 1. I want to try and have him move and shoot at random.

Ah. never mind. I found the random number under Input. Time to experiment. 

Hello, dude! I was curious to make Atari games like this!

It will be so cool if this is available on MacOS too!

Thanks! The browser-based version should work on MacOS, though I haven't tested that.

Try clicking on the "Run tool" button, to see how it goes:

https://haroldo-ok.itch.io/vcs-game-maker

Hello there. It's been awhile. Anyway,  thanks for favoriting my game. It is quite a start. Anyway, I came by to see you'll come back to this project again after a while. I've been following this project on-and-off and I think it could be possible to see through it to the end.

By the way, have you checked out Dasher on the AtariAge forums?If not, then here. Enjoy. <3

Yeah, but I'm here to talk about your VCS Game Maker project. It's been a couple weeks since the last update


My car game is mediocre compared to Maximus' "Dasher" anyway.

I seem to be having an issue where the Background blocks wont let me select a different background. Am I missing something?

Sometimes, there are some pending bugs where updating something in one screen do not always immediately update on another:

This bug is similar, but not the same: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/17

I opened an issue for this specific bug: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/143


As a temporary workaround, refreshing the page (generally the F5 key) should force the components to update their internal state, but that's not ideal.

This is amazing. I'm enjoying playing with it. I do some retro game dev. I'd love to do a video of this for our youtube if you'd be ok with that. 

Yes, that would be awesome! 😁

haroldo how do you put music sounds into the maker and make it a music, there’s no wait button :(

(btw I’m not in github)

Hello, for now there's no support for music,  but it should be implemented in the future:

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/46

Hi, is there any possibility in this engine to make player 1 chase player 0? I have some good ideas for the game, but I don't know how to implement them without this feature.

Hello.

Yes, it's possible with the existing blocks:

  • If player 1's x position is smaller than player 0's x coordinate, increase player 1's x position;
  • If player 1's x position is greater than player 0's x coordinate, decrease player 1's x position;
  • If player 1's y position is smaller than player 0's x coordinate, increase player 1's y position;
  • If player 1's y position is greater than player 0's y coordinate, decrease player 1's y position;

Thank you so much! It seems I managed to do it—the character now follows the player. I think I’ll slowly learn your engine to make some weird little game in my free time. I believe working on an Atari-style game will help me take a break from my main project, which I’m working on daily to meet the release deadline. So this’ll be my small hobby for the next few weeks.

Nice! I hope the tool proves useful. 

You know what would be cool? That the second player doesn't have to be there automatically and a button to make a new project.

Good Ideas! I opened issues on the project page to remind me later:

But do keep in mind, that on the Atari 2600, the second player is often used as an enemy.


Thanks!

The download version is only 0.30.0 Can you please make the 0.32.1 version downloadable?

Okay, I will generate a new downloadable distribution later. 

Love this so much, I do GB/C development so seeing Atari get some love is so nice. I wanted to check, is there a Discord or forum where people have gathered around this?

It's always cool to meet other retrodev enthusiasts!  😉

Well, the closest thing would be the AtariAge forums:

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/323059-vcs-game-maker-generate-bbasic-code-with-a-visual-tool/page/5/

Gotcha gotcha! I wanted to check, a lot of the gb  studios community is built around it so it might not be a bad idea as development gets further along!

keep on crushing it <3

What if you add TIA Tracker for the music to give a background music for it.

We need a music for it!

Will there be a way to shift the pixels of a sprite off by a certain amount. As I'd like to further multiplex the way sprites can be manipulated on a horizontal scanline. And with the ability to increase the height. The possibilities could be astounding if pushed further.

Of course take your time and thank you for everything you have done. Once I'm finished with Eternal Memory I'll begin to use this next and create something to showcase the power of this awesome software. 

Hello again! Well, at the moment, it's only capable of doing what bBasic's standard kernel can do, so, unfortunately, it probably won't be capable of shifting the pixels per scanline. It doesn't seem that the DPC+ kernel isn't capable of each, either.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what awesome game you will do next. 😉
Please, keep us updated!

Will do and hey even if we don't have the ability to shift the sprites. The increased sprites height is more than enough for me to do some crazy stuff. 

Sorry for snail salt comment i made a few months back

Can I publish games that will be made with this engine?

Yes, it's royalty-free! 🙂

i can publish game?

Yes, you can, it's royalty-free. 🙂

i have idea, make it so you can switch from block editing to text editing, and why dosent the background editor take up the whole screen?

Hello,

Converting arbitrary source code back into blocks would be notoriously difficult, but creating full screen modes for the background editor would be doable.

https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/136

pretty dang good 2600 game maker, I wish there was a hexadecimal like famitracker music maker.

Thanks; that's kinda planned for future implementation:
https://github.com/haroldo-ok/vcs-game-maker/issues/65

Suggestion: Multicolored sprites. I've noticed a lot of home-brew and some Atari 2600 games that have multicolored sprites. Like each line of the character is a different color. Example:

Notice how each line is a different color in the sprite. Maybe to import this function, there could be:


Yeah, when DPC+ support gets implemented, it will have support for multicolored sprites

Nice, thanks! Also found another issue. I was trying to make my new game (GD2600, essentially a port of GD for the VCS) and sometimes when I just moved around the <div> placing block board, the sprites' frames were reset to default and the backgrounds auto-deleted themselves, only remaining the default background. But the code (thankfully) didn't get deleted along with everything else. But I think you should also fix this issue.

Thanks for the bug report. 

Okay, one more bug squashed.

Version 0.32.1 fixes a bug where sprite/background edits where being lost if the user changed pages a fraction of a second after editing a sprite or a background.

So this is essentially like Scratch?

Its not the same thing, but it has similarities

Hello Haroldo.

I am writing some texts about Blockly coding and i am taking your work as one of the examples. If you like i will share the text with you. The text speak about how the blockly appears to boost the development. The text are made for a course for App Inventor and describe how the blockly works. I have here my own account. Please write me if you can.

Seems like an interesting idea! Please, go ahead! 😉

Thank you Haroldo-ok for the quick reply.

When i end the texts I promise to send you a copy. In this texts i am trying to develop the idea of coding with blocks in ANY SYSTEM. There are blockly for Java, Python, Lua, Flutter, Micropython, also there are a lot of game engines using this "technique" as Stencil, GameMaker, Godot, etc... And YOU are in this groups. The idea of using blocks it's a great idea, giving the posibility to the people TO THINK in the code, more than (if i make a mistake in the sintaxis? where is the error... i cannot find the error!.

That's the idea.

When i end the text, I promise to send you the pdf and the ppt of the class. (I am Teacher/Developer and.... Geologist too, and many other things too like 8bit computer collector) --->a little bit of everything.

By the way, i am ZX Spectrum programmer, and i have the dream to see the blockly mode into an engine for create ZX Spectrum games.

Again, Thank you for replying so soon.

Many thanks! Sounds like a cool idea! 😉

BTW, there are a few block-based programming languages that generate C code; they could be adapted to support the ZX Spectrum 

HAROLDO! I AM YOUR FAN NOW!.

IF YOU CAN.... THIS COULD BE A GREAT IDEA FOR MAKE A NEW ENGINE FOR DEVELOPING GAMES FOR ZX SPECTRUM. Write me if i can collaborate with the project. (i have several ZX Spectrums) CZ Spectrum 48k, Sinclair Spectrum 2000, TK85 (Microdigital). ----> I have many other 8bits computers too, but is not important. Again. Thank you for replying and let me know IF YOU REALLY PLAN TO DO IT, I PROMISE TO HELP IN ANY OF MY POSIBILITIES. (Sorry for my english, i am Spanish talker).

Thanks! I'll take the offer into consideration! 👍

Viewing most recent comments1 to40 of 139 ·Next page ·Last page
itch.io·View all by haroldo-ok·Report·Embed·
Updated 7 days ago
Tools ›Free
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2025 Movatter.jp