Day 6 - Sunrise!

It's been longer than I'd prefer, but I just grabbed another hour on the Vectrex. If you recall the next step was to add multiple lasers. Thankfully everything was implemented in structures, so I just added list wrappers around the structures and all seems in order. The pic shows two parallel lasers. I need to check out the memory constraints and extend the segment lengths, but I'm hoping we'll be good for up to 12 ideally. (Day time pics get background reflections, so I've blacked parts out to avoid distraction.)

Now it's time to start adding some context and game play. I tend to find sprites help with this, so it's time to do a little drawing. Since the game is called Solar Wars what better start than the sun! Of course this is a Vectrex so Vectors are the order of the day. It's not easy shading with Vectors, so I had to be a little cunning. I had thought I would need a lot of frames for this, but it turned out only 4 gave a nice effect. Bonus! Currently the sun in rendered in RAM, but when I have a moment, I'll run the data through my PC to get the ROM trails (to conserve precious RAM)
You can see the cycle line and the 033 look positively dull in comparison to the Sun! Oh by the way the sun also orbits the screen, but for this photo I froze it. Maybe I'll take a pic or two tonight when it's darker, and easier to take the shots.

At the last moment I think I discovered a bug with the second laser collision detection, so maybe it's time to evolve the CD a little more. I'll improve the resolution and iron out any bugs in that area.