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I wrote a simulation like game inspired by Conway's Game of Life, with puzzle elements from Sokoban for ZX Spectrum, but later I was able to port it Sega Masters System. SMS version turned out much prettier.

I wrote it using SDCC, that is why it was quite easy to port it.

title.png (1.4 KB)

Title screen

level.png (1.75 KB)

First level

grazers.zip (12.54 KB)

Game ROM

Nice work!

I played it for a short while and I was able to finish level 1 :). Interesting how level 2 is quite a different challenge, so i wonder what else is in store.

Btw. I noticed the game does not work on Emulicious. It works fine on Mekaw and Retroarch with Picodrive.

slogra wrote

Btw. I noticed the game does not work on Emulicious. It works fine on Mekaw and Retroarch with Picodrive.

Thanks for checking it out. User "le câble péritel" already wrote me privately that game does not work on certain real machines and Emulicious, and it turned out I had few uninitialized variables that was expected to be zero at startup. It is fixed now.

grazers-v0.2.zip (12.54 KB)

fixed variable initialization

Nice! I can't even pass level 1...
Emulicious still warns about reading from some uninitialized memory (with v0.2) but the game seems to run fine anyway.
Also it's not common to see a game written in C that doesn't use devkitSMS or GBDK-2020 - great work! :)

sverx wrote

Nice! I can't even pass level 1...
Emulicious still warns about reading from some uninitialized memory (with v0.2) but the game seems to run fine anyway.
Also it's not common to see a game written in C that doesn't use devkitSMS or GBDK-2020 - great work! :)

Well there are 12 levels in total. And thanks for the tip, Emulicious is a hell of a tool indeed, I fixed one more uninitialized read, but it should not affect game in any way as the variable is used only in last level and initialized before running that last level. BTW in case anyone is interested in source code for the game, it is available on github, user snauts and project name grazers.

Love seeing new games on the Master System. Well done 👍

So cool! I love these "demoscene" game designs. Any chance of us ever seeing Zlalox and Pulzar also on the SMS? Pulzar is my personal favorite.

mateusbond wrote

So cool! I love these "demoscene" game designs. Any chance of us ever seeing Zlalox and Pulzar also on the SMS? Pulzar is my personal favorite.

Unfortunately no, Zlalox and Pulzar relies on changing individual pixels via memory mapped framebuffer, so porting those to Sega Masters System would require complete rewrite, but I would rather make a whole new game.

snauts wrote

Zlalox and Pulzar relies on changing individual pixels via memory mapped framebuffer, so porting those to Sega Masters System would require complete rewrite

not exactly a memory mapped framebuffer, but the SMS background can be used as a 4-color bitmap if you arrange the BG tiles correctly and you define the palettes in a certain way. See this demo or this homebrew game.

Nice!

Author	Message
snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	ported Grazers to Sega Masters System Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2024 5:36 pm
snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	I wrote a simulation like game inspired by Conway's Game of Life, with puzzle elements from Sokoban for ZX Spectrum, but later I was able to port it Sega Masters System. SMS version turned out much prettier. I wrote it using SDCC, that is why it was quite easy to port it. title.png (1.4 KB) Title screen level.png (1.75 KB) First level grazers.zip (12.54 KB) Game ROM

slogra Joined: 09 Jun 2014 Posts: 405	Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2024 8:13 am
slogra Joined: 09 Jun 2014 Posts: 405	Nice work! I played it for a short while and I was able to finish level 1 :). Interesting how level 2 is quite a different challenge, so i wonder what else is in store. Btw. I noticed the game does not work on Emulicious. It works fine on Mekaw and Retroarch with Picodrive.

snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2024 8:38 am
snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	slogra wrote Btw. I noticed the game does not work on Emulicious. It works fine on Mekaw and Retroarch with Picodrive. Thanks for checking it out. User "le câble péritel" already wrote me privately that game does not work on certain real machines and Emulicious, and it turned out I had few uninitialized variables that was expected to be zero at startup. It is fixed now. grazers-v0.2.zip (12.54 KB) fixed variable initialization

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3913 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2024 8:59 am
	Nice! I can't even pass level 1... Emulicious still warns about reading from some uninitialized memory (with v0.2) but the game seems to run fine anyway. Also it's not common to see a game written in C that doesn't use devkitSMS or GBDK-2020 - great work! :)

snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2024 9:50 am
snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	sverx wrote Nice! I can't even pass level 1... Emulicious still warns about reading from some uninitialized memory (with v0.2) but the game seems to run fine anyway. Also it's not common to see a game written in C that doesn't use devkitSMS or GBDK-2020 - great work! :) Well there are 12 levels in total. And thanks for the tip, Emulicious is a hell of a tool indeed, I fixed one more uninitialized read, but it should not affect game in any way as the variable is used only in last level and initialized before running that last level. BTW in case anyone is interested in source code for the game, it is available on github, user snauts and project name grazers.

8BitBoy Joined: 15 Aug 2019 Posts: 288 Location: Lancashire UK	Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2024 6:54 pm
	Love seeing new games on the Master System. Well done 👍

mateusbond Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 107 Location: Brazil	Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2024 2:27 pm
	So cool! I love these "demoscene" game designs. Any chance of us ever seeing Zlalox and Pulzar also on the SMS? Pulzar is my personal favorite.

snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2024 5:44 am
snauts Joined: 08 Jul 2024 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia	mateusbond wrote So cool! I love these "demoscene" game designs. Any chance of us ever seeing Zlalox and Pulzar also on the SMS? Pulzar is my personal favorite. Unfortunately no, Zlalox and Pulzar relies on changing individual pixels via memory mapped framebuffer, so porting those to Sega Masters System would require complete rewrite, but I would rather make a whole new game.

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3913 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2024 8:19 am
	snauts wrote Zlalox and Pulzar relies on changing individual pixels via memory mapped framebuffer, so porting those to Sega Masters System would require complete rewrite not exactly a memory mapped framebuffer, but the SMS background can be used as a 4-color bitmap if you arrange the BG tiles correctly and you define the palettes in a certain way. See this demo or this homebrew game.

haroldoop Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 897 Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil	Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:49 pm
	Nice!

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