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News
2024-03-28
Build 003392 - Lady Bug
I noticed that the changes to boot.bas has had an effect on reset.bas for some reason, when choosing the R option from the menu I saw that the screen kind of glitched a little so I have fixed this by changing the way the screen is cleared
Also in .enemySpawn (ladybug.asm) there were two loops to check if the enemy box was empty and if there was an available enemy to spawn into the box, I have combined these two loops into one saving 7 bytes.
2024-03-26
Build 003388 - Lady Bug
Added a test in boot.bas to check if the files named in _Maps actually exist on the disk, any files that are not found will have its filename in _Maps replaced with the default file name for that slot _Map1 _Map2 _Map3
This prevents the map editor going crazy if a map file was renamed or deleted from the disk but still referenced in the _Maps file.
2024-03-25
Build 003385 - Lady Bug
When I originally wrote ladybug it was a single maze game like the arcade game where the central enemy box had a single upwards facing exit
Later I added the maze editor to allow players to create/edit many mazes on disk and select any 3 to play in game, this led to the possibility of the enemy central box having exit(s) in other directions or even none at all !
The game was originally hard coded to assume that there was only the upward facing exit so in this build I have fixed the .enemyRelease function in ladybug.asm to check for available exits and chose one at random, if none exist then the enemy is left inside the box and isn't released.
2024-03-20
Build 003380 - Lady Bug
Fixed a tiny bug that was present in all previous builds which caused the hearts and letters to be cyan for a fraction of a second before changing red when a level first starts.
2024-02-10
Build 003375 - Lady Bug
Slight rewrite to the enemy release code.
2024-01-24
Build 003370 - Lady Bug
Fixed another enemy early release bug
Fixed the red skulls on the special bonus screen.
2023-09-18
Build 003365 - Lady Bug Fix for the finished at last build :P
Fixed a small mistake in build 003360 that could cause an enemy to be released early.
2023-07-28
Build 003360 - Lady Bug Finished at last
Rewrote the enemy release code to use a flag instead of the timer window and now its finally finished.
Click the projects button to download the final build.
2023-07-08
Build 003357 - Lady Bug FINAL final update (I hope)
Recent changes made to remove flicker had altered the game timing of various functions which I also fixed
However I missed one which can sometimes cause the enemy timer to make 2 full revolutions before releasing the enemy
This update is to fix that issue and hopefully there are no other problems.
2023-05-14
Build 003356 - Lady Bug final update
Fixed sprite flicker when they cross the boundary between lower and upper screen halves when they travel upwards.
2023-05-11
Build 003351 - Lady Bug update
Fixed a small mistake in the function that draws the 4 random enemies on the main menu screen
Optimized some code.
2023-04-20
Im sorry that my armagetron servers have been offline for so long, the raspberry pi micro sd card has been corrupted beyond repair when I had an electrician at work constantly shutting off the mains power without warning so eventually the os became corrupted.
I recently tried and rebuild everything from scratch but im getting many errors during compilation and have'nt had the time to go through it yet, hopefully it'll be back online soon.
2022-12-17
Build 003350 - Lady Bug update - Final build, see projects page.
2022-10-14
Build 003344 - Lady Bug update - Corrected some math errors introduced in previous builds caused by an erroneous 6502 datasheet I was using.
2022-08-14
I've updated my Lady Bug game to build 003330 as the previous build had an error (see projects page).
My Armagetron servers have been back online for a few days now and are running fine.
The pings in the servers are normal but the master server list is showing them as crazily high for some unknown reason ?.
Pressing 'R' when in the browser list will reload them and display the correct ping values.
I am investigating this issue.
2022-08-07
I've updated my Lady Bug game to build 003323 on the projects page and hopefully this is the final build.
My armagetron are currently offline as im in the process of rebuilding my workshop and the lan cables are not wired yet, servers will be back soon.
2022-07-22
My armagetron servers have a new home and are finally back online.
The pings in the server browser are showing crazy high for some reason but are normal once you enter the game.
Pressing R in the server browser to reload the list fixes the pings, I'm looking into the issue which is probably my lan switch getting old.
2022-05-02
The hosting issues have been sorted out and my site has been running great.
2022-04-20
My website has been attacked by someone running a script from google cloud servers in the netherlands, i've reported the issue to google but im not holding my breath. My hosting company is having some issues after a recent server upgrade which is currently being looked into, what a combination of bad luck !.
2022-03-20
New domain name for my website. https://lovebyte.eu.org
2022-03-19
Lady Bug Build 002977
Fixed wings on enemy 6 (wasp)
Game menu: enemy speed now has 6 settings
Game menu: enemy attack setting 6 to 9 now harder.
2022-02-19
Lady Bug Build 002970 - Fixed small bug that caused the game to skip 2 levels if the last collected object on screen is also a trigger to the bonus garden.
2022-02-13
Sorry, my Armgetron servers are offline but will return asap.
2022-01-19
Lady Bug Build 002969 - Fixed small mistake in sideways ram detection, updated in-game instructions.
2021-08-03
Lady Bug - Added some basic death animation to ladybug so the game is fully functional now and anything else I add is just extras.
2021-08-02
LadyBug is virtually finished and all that remains is to program the ladybug's death animation code and sprites but the game is fully functional, check out the projects page for more details.
2021-05-23
I added a gallery to this site so now the Art button at the top takes you there.
I added a few things here and there to the ladybug code but mostly i've been taking a break.
2021-04-25
I've just started painting again after a break of over 20 years and im enjoying it a lot.
I've uploaded a few experiments (mostly trace work) and will continue to upload when completed (and possibly before completion).
I'll upload some original pieces too when I can think of something.
Eventually there will be a gallery page but for now you can click the art button in the top menu to visit the directory.
.psd files are full resolution multilayer that you can open in gimp, photoshop or other compatible editors.
.png files are full resolution single layer.
.png files with bbc in the filename are low resolution / low color versions for the bbc micro computer.
2021-04-21
Wrote some code to do a sound test in ladybug and have uploaded to youtube here.
2021-04-15
Added some code to handle the turnstile wall rotation in ladybug. Video on youtube here
2021-04-05
I've just added some AI aiming code to my Lady Bug game for the Acorn BBC Micro Computer and im uploading videos on my youtube channel here.
2021-03-09
Added a new armagetron server called Magnetron Accelerator, its a basic respawn arena with 2 points per kill and 30 points to win the match. Physics are a little different as there is only acceleration, no deceleration and no brakes.
2021-02-19
I've changed my plans for the lady bug game I was writing for nintendo and have decided to write it for the Acorn BBC Computer first as I have programmed this machine many years ago and know the hardware plus the machine needs a good port of lady bug.
The BBC Computer uses the same 6502 cpu as the nintendo so once the game is complete I will learn the hardware of the nintendo and port it across.
2021-02-13
Added a new server called Compactor, I was thinking of the trash compactor scene from star wars which gave me an idea to make a game where the arena size shrinks with every round.
2021-02-12
Ive added player stats (won matches and won rounds) to the servers page, click on a server name to display the stats. Been busy with various things including some mods to the armagetron AI's , nothing complete as yet.
2021-01-24
Just activated Cloudflare so within 48 hours i'll have a secure connection at https://lovebug.ml.
Quick update, it looks like cloudflare is already active. That was fast.
2021-01-22
Made some changes to the website html and css which may require clearing of your browser cache if things look a little off, I've also updated the Z80 disassembler to v1.04 with an improved assembly / trace output.
2021-01-16
Spectrum Computing is a great site dedicated to preserving Sinclair ZX Spectrum information, programs and hardware. They have a friendly and helpful community of electronics and programming experts with an active homebrew section too, they helped me with some useful opcode information that allowed me to correct some errors in my Z80 disassembler project. Thanks guys.
2021-01-14
Made a new game for my armagetron server called King of The Classic Respawn, its a king of the hill game with a randomly moving zone, classic submarine style settings and no deathzone. I've shut down the zone test server as it's no longer needed.
2021-01-13
I have finished all the opcode decoding in my Z80 disassembler and have generated my first clean output which can be seen on the projects page.
2021-01-10
I've put another 5 hours of work into the Z80 disassembler project, its almost done.
2021-01-07
The Z80 disassembler project is moving forward slowly but surely.
2021-01-03
lovebug.ml - Registered domain name, I've decided to give a domain name a try. A .cf .ga .gq .ml .tk name can be free for 12 months Freenom so that'll be interesting. It'll take a while to work its way around the worlds dns servers but hopefully it'll be done within 72 hours.
2021-01-02
Hosting issues seem to be fixed, I've been using the free web hosting service from Infinity Free for a few years now and this is the first time i've had any major issue. It turns out that a database went a little screwy during a server upgrade, everything is working fine now.
2021-01-01
Happy New Year
I've just put a new server online called WILDTIGER, it's a clone of WILDCAT but i'm not sure the settings are 100% correct but should be fairly close. If you were a regular player of WILDCAT back in the day and ever visit my clone and notice that something is wrong with the settings then please if you could use the in game /report command to send me a note I'll fix it lickety-split. Cheers.
2020-12-30
Slowly moving forward, I've started on my Z80 disassembler project but theres still some work to do.
My web host has been having issues for the past few days, Multiple sites including this one keep flipping between working, suspended domain and various error messages. I just have to sit back and forget about it until the problem is resolved as there's nothing I can do to fix it. Oh well.