Welcome to
BJARS.Com. This site is an
online repository of useful tools, resources, demos, source code and disassemblies related to the
Atari 2600. You'll also find original games,
hacks, and custom applications developed by myself
available here.
Creates Freeway source code that
randomly changes the traffic patterns of the cars, the number
of cars per lane, and how fast they move.
My Atari 2600 Hacks - Below
are all the
hacks I've done to date, and the links to the AtariAge
forum threads where they were originally posted. Ever
since I discovered
batariBasic, I pretty much stopped doing these type of
hacks in favor of making my own games. Some of
them are still pretty fun to play, though.
Supercharger Conversion Hacks:
A collection of Supercharger conversion hacks from
Nukey Shay, all have been modified to run on a standard
supercharger. All zip files contain source and
binaries.
AtariAge Hacks - The AtariAge 2600
Hacks page is
here, the AtariAge hacks forum is
here.
Hacking Adventure
- Here are some great resources on hacking Adventure,
posted on AtariAge from Nukey Shay. The threads on
which these binaries are posted give detailed
explanations of the code changes he made to make these
hacks:
[Thread
1 |
Thread 2 |
Thread 3 |
Thread 4]
Adventure Plus was my first real hack
(back in 2003!), and is what really got me interested in
modifying/creating my own Atari Games. It's a
great game to start on as your first hack, as it's well
commented and easy to understand. Nukey's hacks
greatly expand on my original hack, and are great fun to
play around with.
4k build includes the signature,
unshares all the screen GFX, and has 5 custom
screens, but I did share the castle GFX again. The
4k version still has half a page of memory free, but
more can be reclaimed by removing the signature
bitmap and sharing screens (or even upper/lower
lines of screens).
So you can get an idea of how all
these changes affect the game, here's a copy of it.
This last little step filled in all available rom
space in the 4k image...so I'm going to have to use
a new file for the examples anyway
7 dragons. One is orange (to make it harder to see
in the catacombs), and one is grey (to make it
invisible against the background).
7 gates...using 2 keys. The black key will only open
black gates...and the flashing key opens flashing
gates and secret wall panels There are 4 regular
black gates, 1 flashing gate, and 2 wall panels. The
gates are on castle bitmaps...so there's 5 castles
in all.
The magnet and the dot must be used together at one
of the panels to get the chalise...and when you do,
the dragons will ressurect themselves (so high-tail
it out of there!).
I'm not sure if game #3 is winnable (because I
didn't test all of the random variations)...but game
#2 definately is.
The timer idea just came to me...so I
figured I'd throw it out there. It does miscount by
4/60 seconds though...so it's not perfect as written
(since it's using bit 6 of the framecounter to
decide when to bump up the seconds counter).
Other ideas for using this new hit counter would be
to have it "heal" over time (by checking the HiCnt
and bumping UP the hit counter if it's less than
"healthy")...or having random values for the number
of hits...or moving the dragon slower (it's Y delta
number) if the hit counter is halfway dea
6 dragon version:
- 3 additional dragons.
- Erratic bat behavior added.
- 1 additional key/gate...added key looks like
glasses.
- The glasses also work as x-ray specs...turning all
dark rooms visible.
- Skeleton bitmaps when player uses the x-ray specs.
- Additional signature screen...accessed by using an
existing game object to open the LEFT panels.
- More added secret rooms.
- Up to 128 screens in regular 40x7 bitmap
resolution.
- A title bitmap for the game select screen.
- All game graphics can be unique.
- The player can become "cursed", which destroys all
castles.
4 dragon version:
- Additional dragon
- Additional bat
- 2 additional keys/gates (though only one currently
has a castle assigned to it...you'll find it above
the original Easter Egg screen on game 2/3). The
second added key looks like glasses...and will open
an additional gate.
- The glasses also work as x-ray specs...turning all
dark rooms visible.
- Additional signature screen...this is accessed by
using an existing game object to open the LEFT
panels. Careful not to get stuck!
- More added secret rooms.
- Up to 64 screens using 40x14 bitmaps
- A title bitmap for the game select screen.
- All game graphics can be unique.
- Skeleton bitmaps when player uses the x-ray specs
corrects the original game's
quirk of allowing the bat to be "trained" to fly in
a specific direction. A carried object is always
carried 1 pixel below the bat's vertical coordinate,
and when one is picked up the bat's flightpath is
also changed (via EOR). Little more challenging
since you can't keep the bat anywhere (unless you
lock him up
uses this also, and in addition
the bat will drop objects as soon as it's "fed up"
with them and fly at least a screen before choosing
another. So it will scramble up the object locations
pretty effectively if you aren't tending to them.
The bat can snatch your object and leave you with
nothing...for example.
Adventure Plus Stuff - Here are
some items related to my Adventure Plus Hack.
Applications
- Here is the download for my Create Your Own
Adventure Windows Application and my batari
Basic IDE, as well as a few
other miscellaneous items.
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