> > I love text as the base setting and can understand why you'd want to stay > true to the pure text spirit. Would you object if someone made a mod that > allowed for both text and graphics? Would it help if it was named something > else to avoid confusion with TSWEEP?
If someone wants to branch my repo and mod it to add graphics, I suppose they could. However, I would advise against it. I plan to do continuous development on Text Sweeper for a while, and will be releasing updates more frequently. Additionally, I can't guarantee that my changes to how things are done behind the scenes will work with those modifications. In fact, I suspect that as I make changes to how the screen gets drawn, it will not work with ASCII PIXELS as it did before. Is there a version of the more efficient algorithm done in BASIC? I don't > have a Model 100. My Tandy 200 ran TSWEEP 2.0 just fine, but 2.3 repeatedly > draws the black background one row at a time, clears the screen, and starts > again. I'm guessing the machine language isn't portable. > I don't think the ML subroutine is the issue. I have a new feature(implemented in BASIC) that detects if the screen isn't drawn properly, and I do it by checking the LCD RAM location for specific characters. If they aren't there, it redraws the screen. This is to try and prevent a situation where someone presses LABEL. and eliminates the bottom row of the screen. I'm guessing either the RAM layout is different for the T200. Is there any quick way to detect T200 ROM vs M100/T102 ROM? If that's the case, I could detect the model at startup, and check the correct memory location. I currently also redraw the minefield the same way when switching between the Game screen and the Help screen. This is relatively slow, as I need to calculate the display value of every tile, concatenate into a string to represent a row, since it isn't stored. This is mostly so that I minimize the amount of times I call PRINT. My plans here are to Copy LCD to ALTLCD when switching, and then print ALTLCD back to the screen when switching back. Then I will update my redraw routine to just populate ALTLCD via POKE, and invoke the ML subroutine the draws prints ALTLCD. Still a work in progress however. Do you know the keys from the "vi" text editor? While not laid out in a > physically intuitive way, personally I'd be happier with those keys plus > the nethack extensions for diagonal movement: > On the cursor controls, I will take a look. Diagonal movement would be nice, but I think it'd probably lower on the feature backlog. I think as of right now, based on your feedback, and my general user experience. 1. Restore compatibility with T200. 2. Improve speed when switching between Game and Help. 3. Improve speed of mine revealing algorithm. 4. Decrease memory footprint of program, both program size, and memory usage. 5. More control options. 6. Support larger displays of both T200 and DVI (might be a stretch). In my mind, I would have the Help screen permanently displayed beneath the game screen. Alternatively, I could make a larger minefield and option, but that would break a lot of assumptions in the code today, and require a ton of rework. Just note, I already put together a 2.3.1 release, which significantly increases cursor responsiveness. Try it out if you have time. Best, George On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 11:40 PM B 9 <hacke...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 2:16 PM grima...@gmail.com <grima...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> 1. I am still alive and well, not that anyone seemed overly concerned >> there :D >> > > Yay! > > >> Updates coming soon. >> >> - I started managing the codebase through a Private git repository. I >> will opt to just make this Public for posterity's sake when I release the >> next updated version. >> >> That's awesome. I found your repository at > https://github.com/Grimakis/TextSweeper. > > >> >> - I have removed the AsciiPixels integration. While it was nifty, I >> think it went against the spirit of the game, which was intended to be an >> entirely text-based Minesweeper clone. >> >> I love text as the base setting and can understand why you'd want to stay > true to the pure text spirit. Would you object if someone made a mod that > allowed for both text and graphics? Would it help if it was named something > else to avoid confusion with TSWEEP? > > >> >> - This has a theoretically infinite upper bound, as RND could >> generate invalid spaces forever. This is noticeably slow when running >> denser minefields >> >> Yup! Mine generation was the biggest problem with the 2.0 version of > TSWEEP. > > >> >> - I replaced it with an algorithm that will always select a space >> that is valid. >> >> >> - Accomplished by generating the array of all spaces upfront.(done in >> ML for performance reasons) And then removing the 4-9 invalid spaces >> around >> X,Y >> >> Is there a version of the more efficient algorithm done in BASIC? I don't > have a Model 100. My Tandy 200 ran TSWEEP 2.0 just fine, but 2.3 repeatedly > draws the black background one row at a time, clears the screen, and starts > again. I'm guessing the machine language isn't portable. > > >> >> - Other features I want to add: >> >> >> - Selecting a space where the Number in the cell == Flags in >> surrounding cells will open all adjacent cells. This is a common >> feature in >> other versions. >> >> Yes! That will improve playability quite a bit for me. > > >> - Additional controls for L/R/U/D. I developed this mostly using >> VirtualT to test. The arrow keys kind of stink as the interface on an >> actual M100. >> >> > The traditional M100 TEXT editor keys are: > > Up > ^E > Left ^S ^D Right > ^X > Down > > That gives you a nice diamond on the keyboard, but you have to hold down > the CTRL key. If you don't require CTRL, then it'd conflict with the PC's > "WASD" key layout. > > Do you know the keys from the "vi" text editor? While not laid out in a > physically intuitive way, personally I'd be happier with those keys plus > the nethack extensions for diagonal movement: > > y k u > h l > b j n > > (For even more happiness, SHIFTed or CTRL versions of the keys might move > the cursor by a larger amount.) > > Please let me know your feedback on any of the above, and if you have any >> suggestions. Please bear with me, I just taught myself assembly over the >> weekend so it's been a bit of a trial by fire. :D >> > > Looks like you did a good job, George! > > —b9 > >
