Getting there !


'Erbert is mainly a proof of concept platformer for the ZX Spectrum Next.  I wanted to see how easy it would be to build a basic platformer in NextBasic utilizing the hardware sprites and sound chips of the Next.

Most of the game play has been developed, and it quite playable (well in my view),  bouncing around the screen collecting the gems.

I used NextDaw for the music and ayfx for the sound effects.  I'll get a proper video uploaded at some point as there is no sound and the wobble phone footage isn't great.

the most challenging part, finding the time to sit down and work on it.

I'll try and keep doing updates here and will release an MVP once I've done the intro and high score pages.

Its been developed on the KS2 Next.  I really must get CSpect setup again so I can better capture video and sound (although there are some driver issues with the emulator), but in some ways I prefer developing it on the Next, somehow it seems more authentic and reminds me of being a kid again :-) !

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Pulling together the (very basic) start screen for Joystick / Keyboard selection, I stumbled across some weird crash/hard reset but in the Next KS2.  I tried to reproduce it separately from the main game, but no luck.

It seemed to be when changing from Layer 2,1 to Layer 0 and clearing the screen / sprites, but it also seems to move around when I add and remove lines of code in the start screen.

Even more strange, it may do it once, and reset the machine, then when you re-load the .bas file and run it, its ok. Other times it may do it twice in a row.

Not sure what's going on but probably related to the memory banks for sprites, the music and the sound effects perhaps not playing nicely.

I just need to sort the high score table, and then I can release a v1 (hopefully without the crash bug, but once the game is running, it's stable).

More soon....