Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Double Koala Paint Demo / Loader Maker

A fun utility that displays two Koala Paint pictures and makes a demo/loader for it · By Richard of TND

Quick start guide

A topic by Richard of TND created 3 days ago Views: 18 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 4
Developer

Here is a quick start guide on how to use the Double Koala Paint Demo / Loader Maker:

You will need the following files:


  • 2 Koala paint multicolour bitmaps (Filenames do not matter)
  • A piece of SID music (Converted to C64 data/prg), located at $1000
  • A custom character set.
  • A packer/cruncher (optional)
  • Plenty of disk space.

1. Select option 1 and load in the music. (For example a tune saved in PRG from Goat Tracker, or any music editor like DMC V4.0, JCH, Voicetracker, etc). Enter as the file name MYMUSIC* for example.

2. After loading, enter the music init / play parameters. For general music players like Goat Tracker, DMC, JCH, etc. Init address is $1000 and play is $1003.

3. Select option 2 and load in your two Koala Paint images, there is no extension required. Simply enter for example ?PIC 1* ?PIC 2* if using the generic Koala Paint extension or PIC1* PIC2* if your pics are NOT using the koala paint extension.

4. Select option 3 and load in your custom made 1x1 font for the sprite scroll.

5. Select option 4 and write a scroll text, remember that @ should be set as the wrap marker to loop your scrolling message. Home your cursor and then press RETURN (Enter) to exit the scroll editor.

6. After Edit the colour flash table (40 chars). The colour table looks something like this:

@ = Black, A = White, B = Red, C = Cyan, D = Purple, E = Green, F = Blue, G = Yellow
H = Orange, I = Brown, J = Light Red (pink), K = Dark Grey, L = Medium Grey, M = Light Green, N = Light Blue, O = Light Grey

After you are happy with your table press Return (Enter) to exit.

7. Enter the delay rate of the colour flash (1-8). The lower the value the more faster the scroll text flashes.

8. Select if you would like your scrolling message to expand the Y axis to display enlarged sprites. (Note, due to the size of the screen on NTSC, the size of the sprite scroll is automatically set as no Y axis expansion).

9. Test your demo, to see if you are happy with it. Press spacebar or fire to flip to the second image, and then press spacebar or fire to exit back to the main menu.

10. Finally save your finished demo to disk as either a demo (which will reset the C64 after displaying) or as a loader (Enter the name of the program to load first end end file name with * e.g BLASTOPIA*. ).

11 (optional). Use a packer/cruncher to crunch the file further. Use $080D as jump address and $37 as $01 value.

I always get a disk error when trying to load the second image. any idea ? entering the same image name will work but will not replace the second vanilla picture. starting by second image name works but then moving on 1st image name for 2nd picture will always fail.

(+1)

I sorted out the issue, it was me not doing things proprely. Thanks a lot for this nice program :)

Developer (1 edit)

I just had a look for you and the program seems to work fine When you input the filename of the picture which you are trying to load there should be a * at the end of the filename. This is because the disk loading/saving uses full 16 characters as the filename. Loading can simply be solved by adding * at the end of your filename.

I tried loading in two example Koala paint images from a Demo Makers/Creators Disk using this:

Filename 1: ?PIC A *
Filename 2: ?PIC B *

Nothing failed to load and the two images displayed correctly in the demo.