Confused.... Help Please!

[UKIkarus]

Hi,

I am kind of new to programming using PICBasic Pro, my dad who is the hardware guru around here has made me a board specifically for a little project I am working on but I have hit a hurdle and need some assistance.

Basically what I am trying to make is (if any of you are familiar with it) a clone of the good old Casio calculator game "Digital Invaders" found here Digi Invaders

The scoring system and all that will be fine as I have already planned that part out as a seperate Block, the problem I am having is getting the randomly generated numbers (which I have generated in an array of 30 Bytes on start) to scroll across the screen AND check to see if they are shot...

I can get numbers to scroll across the screen fine using the following example ignore the comments positions...

FOR T = 144 TO 131 STEP -1
  'LCDOUT $FE, 1
  LCDOUT $FE,T,#NOS[CURNO]          'OUTPUT TO LCD SLIDE
  PAUSE 1000
  CURNO = CURNO + 1
  'IF CURNO >= 31 THEN GOSUB ARRAY                                 'IN FROM LEFT LINE 1
  NEXT

Where T = Var Byte
NOS = Array or []
and CURNO = Var BYTE

This of course adds to the left of the line 1 by 1, which gives me the basic fundamentals for scrolling across the screen however... I need the number to be added behind the existing numbers whilst also checking to see if the first number has been "Shot" and removing it e.g.

"4: 4913827" needs to remove the number 4 on button press and continue adding numbers on the end and shifting left where 9 moves to where 4 was etc etc

how can i go about this? I was thinking of rebuilding the array everytime a number is shot and shifting them all down an index, but i am still stuck on how I continue from where the last number was removed since I need to also check to see if a number has hit the : mark (I have that bit working in a Block of its own)

p.s. by Module I mean blocks of code dedicated to each seperate area of the overall whole I.E. Array: Start: etc etc

Thanks

Edit: forgot to mention I am using a PIC16F627 for the first beta and plan on using 628 for the next 3-4 boards I replicate from this (with the required changes)

Edit2: I have read that PicBasic (non Pro) has STRING support such as Right$ Left$ Mid$ etc? is this the case? what are the differences between the normal version and PRO?

[cncmachineguy]

OMG, I remember playing that game on my friends watch. Lets see, peeling back lots of time the year was 1982/83. On the watch version, the "aim" was the left side of the calc keypad, and "fire" was the right half. If I remember correctly, you had to press aim, which incremented the choice to fire. so if you were aiming at 8 then wanted to shoot 7, you had to press aim 9 times. Are you doing it this way, or do you have a numeric keypad to directly choose the number?

As for you actual question, I think my approach would be to have an array representing the entire string. Starting the game would have that array filled with " ".Then shift the array for every number added, decreasing the delay between shifts as the player gets to a higher level. When the fire button is pressed ( or a number key), search the array for the first match. Shift the remaining parts of the array back 1 place. This will then just over write the match and fill in the last place with a " ".

Does this help any? This sounds like a fun project, I love the old stuff

[UKIkarus]

OMG, I remember playing that game on my friends watch. Lets see, peeling back lots of time the year was 1982/83. On the watch version, the "aim" was the left side of the calc keypad, and "fire" was the right half. If I remember correctly, you had to press aim, which incremented the choice to fire. so if you were aiming at 8 then wanted to shoot 7, you had to press aim 9 times. Are you doing it this way, or do you have a numeric keypad to directly choose the number?

As for you actual question, I think my approach would be to have an array representing the entire string. Starting the game would have that array filled with " ".Then shift the array for every number added, decreasing the delay between shifts as the player gets to a higher level. When the fire button is pressed ( or a number key), search the array for the first match. Shift the remaining parts of the array back 1 place. This will then just over write the match and fill in the last place with a " ".

Does this help any? This sounds like a fun project, I love the old stuff

Wait?! are you saying I can shift the text inside a string left or right from a set point? I thought PBP didnt support that?

I couldnt use a string to represent the numbers and remove the first shifting the remaining characters left to replace the empty space as you say, also using your method if i shot a number and it replaced the original first character in the array would that not move the number behind it to its position on the LCD? I want that space to remain blank until another number is added to the end or it would be quite difficult to play dont you think? =D

[cncmachineguy]

I don't know about playing with strings in PBP. I was more just using that as a referance.But if you have an array, say

target var byte(32)

then you could step through the array testing if the fired number matches any array values. If/when it comes to a match, you could replace the match with a " ", then update LCD, or shift them as I thought I remember and update the LCD.

[UKIkarus]

Well I am already doing that with the array, the problem lies somewhere in updating the array and continuing the scrolling of the numbers across the lcd from where i left off..

I'm not sure how to go about it since the numbers need to go from right to left with new 1's adding on the far right and removing on the far left without disrupting the current position of the other numbers while doing so

[cncmachineguy]

I have gone and played the game you linked, it is exactly as I remember it! great find, Thank you.

OK on to business here. What I understand of your description seems different then how the game works. heres what I think you are trying to do. You only want to allow the player to shoot the first (or last) number in the line? This will make it VERY hard to play. But maybe thats not what you mean.

Heres what I assumed you wanted to do, If here are 3 sevens in the display, every time i hit fire with my aim number being 7, it will remove the left most occurance of the 7. Then any numbers further to the left will move right. In that way, if the player has 3 sevens, and can press fire 3 times before a new number is added, the targets are now fewer. The orginal game had a preset number of targets to shoot for each level. When all were shot without letting them reach the : level was complete. next level, numbers appear faster.

so here is what I am trying to suggest:
assume we have only 5 elements in the array (make bigger to suit your game but the theory will be the same)

t(0) t(1) t(2) t(3) t(4) t(5) #t(5) is the : if t(5) <>" ", you lose

upon starting the game t(all) = " "
when a new number is added, it comes in at t(0). to do this, first shift everybody right, maybe like this:
t(5)=t(4)
t(4)=t(3)
t(3)=t(2)
t(2)=t(1)
t(1)=t(0)
t(0)=new target
if t(5)<>" " you lose

update LCD

now for the fire check:
scroll through the array checking for equal:

index=4
start check
if t(index)<>bullet
index=index-1
if index<0 then no hit
goto start check
else hit
now lets say t(2) = bullet

for shift = index to 4
t(shift)=t(shift+1)
next shift

now update LCD with new array!
wait in mainloop until either aim is pressed, fire is pressed or scroll timer says add a number

I purposely did not put use code tags because I am not sure this would be compilable code. I am new to PBP and don't have all the syntax in my head yet. I am really just trying to show you ONE way of approaching this. Of course a loop would be much better for the shift, and I'm sure I have left plenty of stuff out, but maybe this will help.

[Acetronics2]

Hi,

May be you could get some ideas here :

http://users.picbasic.org/projects/S...e_invaders.htm

no comments about the square wheel ... of course !!!

Alain