Alien Killer : Time to Kick Some Alien Ass(TM) revisions


2005.XX.XX ... 2006.0X.XX

2005.XX.XX
  Work in Progress versions that have gone through several rewrites.
  I don't remember much about the first versions but I know that
  they didn't have anything except scrolling background and sound
  that doesn't work with real Sound Blasters.

2006.01.13
+ Added 80 bytes of ASM into code which enabled efficient use of
  the double buffer, transparent color, 50% increase in speed.
+ Added static-non-scrolling background.
+ Added lots of new graphics.
+ Added player that stays on one position on the screen and
  moves it's legs when you press keys.
+ Added frame skipping support to achieve speed on slower
  computers while reducing smoothness of scrolling 
+ Fixed some gamepad/joystick code. If it is in ASM then there
  would be no erratic movements in Windows environment because
  interrupts happening while Windows is running ruin the
  results and in ASM you can temporairly disable them.
+ Added multiple keys support (non interrupt based which means
  that some keypresses/releases might get missed and wierd
  things start to happen).
- Memory problems in the IDE.

2006.02.20
+ Sound started to work on a real Sound Blaster 16 (although
  some things go too fast for that card - my Yamaha YMF719's
  Sound Blaster PRO 2.0 part is 5 times faster than real
  Sound Blaster so I have to make sound code a bit slower).
+ Added preliminary sprite/ground colission support (very buggy
  and it looks like I have to rewrite the player/scrolling
  part again (done it 3 times already, after every rewrite
  things get smaller, more efficient and much faster) !!!).
+ Fixed some memory problems in the IDE.
- Sprite/ground colission stuff is filled with bugs that are
  really hard to kill, kill one and you get 2 more.

2006.02.25
+ Started to make small movies that you can see during the game.
+ Trying to come up with an better scrolling engine.
+ Trying to figure out solution for the Sound Blaster problem.

2006.0X.XX
- Hard Drive failure, Luckily I was able to recover most the data
  but unluckily Alien Killer recovered uncompletely so all code
  beyond text printing routines got lost (luckily all sound and
  player code remained without any damage).

2006.03.17
+ I found a old copy of Alien Killer from one of my 8 Hard drives.
  Copy was old but it eased the pain of rewriting a lot.

2006.03.20
+ Started to work on a interrupt based keyboard handler which
  should hopefully work under XP too.

2006.03.20 (evening)
+ Got interrupt based keyboard handler not to crash the system and
  almost work (what it should return goes into the wrong place).
+ Started to work on a ASM gamepad/joystick code.

2006.03.20 (night)
+ I got interrupt based keyboard handler to work !!!
+ Finished ASM gamepad/joystick code, and found out that for some
  reason it crashes the system.

2006.03.21
+ Got ASM gamepad/joystick code not to crash the system

2006.03.23
+ Rewrote all the image loading/storing/putting parts. Program got 
  30% smaller and probably (not playable yet) faster !!!

2006.03.24
+ Sound Blaster problem appears to be solved, no wierd things
  anymore. Damn this YAMAHA YMF719 sounds great, 8000Hz sound
  samples sound like 22050Hz through it.

2006.03.28
- Sound Blaster problem NOT solved...in Windows everything is OK
  but in pure DOS...holy shit what things you'll hear if you
  try to stress it a little bit more !!!
- I've been Mega Driving (I hope you got it - Mega Drive, Genesis
  for americans) a lot lately and almost finished my multipurpose
  computer peripheral which can be used as a cartridge copier, 
  LED flasher, code lock, 6 channel audio system, lots of other 
  things that I must come up with. Anyway these other interests 
  keep me away from QB when it comes to Alien Killer.
+ Got already 2 full motion movies !!! First one is the intro
  movie and other is player getting killed. Both are BLOODY and
  the first one is a bit violent too !!!
- Movies make this game so big, currently ~3MB !!! I guess that
  full version is available only on CD-ROMs !!!