I have to admit that this game is one of the best Basic games I have ever scene for the calcs, and SiCoDe has one of the best websites I've seen, but (you know it was coming), I still favor ASM for all the stuff it can do. I'll give you guys credit for those other things though. Keep up the great work, cya...

Jason_K

I just got ticked by Nick saying that it is /incredibly/ slow. Thats a croc of bull. In no regards is it slow(im not referring to the AI variation of play, that part IS slow). It might be slow for an asm game(STILL NOT INCREDIBLY SLOW), but for a BASIC game(which it is!!!) it is blazingly fast!!! how can anyone say it is slow for basic? I think he was just bashing the game because it is a basic game[hes probably in a giant anti basic cult or something], and thats messed up!!!! And it dang sure competes with asm games in every way!! It is as fast as some asm games that are on the easy or slow level. So how can anyone say my game is incredibly slow?????????
AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
there, i feel much better now.

Yes, I have seen basic been slower than this. I was working on a game, and really only done the sprite routine, but by that time it was SOOOO slow that putting anything else in it would have made it have a >3 second delay in the movement. So, no, Nibbles is not as fast as your beginner's "look! I made the X move on the screen!", but it could have DEFINATELY been slower, you are lucky it is that fast.

But the begineer's X moving across the screen does not grow longer when you run into the food pieces. What do you mean lucky? I MADE it go that fast, no luck involved.

True, but my point was that it DID take work to make it like it is. If I tried to make a nibbles clone like your game right now.....well, lets just say the word slow again shall we? My point was that you did a good job at keeping it fast, to the point of playability. As I said before...I've made stuff that is INCREDIBLY slow, so I know what slow can really be..and Nibbles isn't that, but, granted, we have all seen faster before, but like I said (before as well), most of the incredibly fast TIBASIC progs are beginner's GetKey loops.

Yes, I have gotten so bored at times I even optimise those...

I warn you now. This will annoy those misguided BASMIC fools. This will probably start another huge debate (like the one that was on acz).

This game is slow. This game is extremely slow. For a BASIC game it is very well written. It is completely unplayable. With a delay of nearly a second on key presses it is not worth playing.

The only way a nibbles game can be any good is if it is fast. The ideas in this are OK but the rest of it isn't. The best nibbles-style game out there is peaworm for the ti86. It is quite fast (I'd prefer it to be faster, the code isn't optimised for speed) and it is the only program I always have on my calculator. It is about 850 bytes in size and was written over a weekend.

OK, that's a ti86 program. It could be re-written for the ti83 very easily (although the smaller screen is a bit tricky). The point is, unless a nibles game is fast it is lousy, how ever good the ideas are.

Maybe BASMIC should stick to writing things where speed isn't imortant. Unless they release something (anything) that runs at a vaguely sensible speed I will tell everyone I meet to stick to asm for games.

The speed of this game is just about passable for the first level of a nibbles game. After that it needs to be twenty to thirty times faster.

This game may be well written (it is extremely well written...) but it is still nowhere near a badly-written asm game.

Ciaran

this looks alot like your asking for flames.. listen the game is not super slow, the game only slows down when your playing against the calc, whcih you should expect that, it is more indept code to that the calc think for itself, if you played it in regular mode it does go faster, from what i see you are being prejudicied (sp?). The game IS playable, it IS fun. A game doesnt count all on speed, a gmae counts on skill. You see all these other posts in thie forum, your the only one that says the game is lousy and crappy, beacuse you dont like the speed, i dont see anyone else having serious problems with the speed of the game, they have been a few remarks, but only you have a serious problem, also did you read what david said, he said we were gonna try to speed the game up some with optimization, now you can go play your 86 nibbles game, the only one you have on your calc, and stop being just plain rude.

thats my 2 cents

Ken Ritzert
-Sicode Member

If the game is too slow then there is little skill required. The point is _if_ the game was five times faster it would be good, at the moment it isn't. And I doubt you'll get a 5x speed increase with optimisation, the code is pretty optimised at the moment.

There is nothing wrong with the program, it would be excellent on a 30MHz calculator but the processor burns out at around 12MHz.

I have the same problem with Windoze over Linux. I'm stuck using IE at the moment and it's so slow I have to wait several seconds for my key presses to do anything. Now where have I seen that before?

Ciaran
Oh yeah, I always get flamed by people at school that I've been winding up (penguins don't exist, etc).

If it was 5 times as fast it would be totally uncontrolable. It would hit the other wall in under 2 seconds. Have you even played the game?? It sounds like you only played the AI part(which is the sooryiest part).

I played it all. The AI part is the only thing that's new and the only thing that I'm interested in. And I can play it at five times faster using an emulator and it's much more fun.

Ciaran

> It is completely unplayable. With a delay of nearly a second on key presses it is not worth playing.

It may be the case that with a delay of nearly a second it wouldn't be playable, but thankfully Nibbles Arcade doesn't have this problem.

> Maybe BASMIC should stick to writing things where speed isn't imortant

This quote emphasises how much this guy DOESN'T know what he's talking about. Basmic, for a start, does not make ANY programs. Period. SiCoDe, on the other hand, does.

> It may be the case that with a delay of nearly a second it wouldn't be playable, but thankfully Nibbles Arcade doesn't have this problem.

He he. It does. Maybe I'm used to slightly better response times but I've seen faster stuff running under Windoze...

>This quote emphasises how much this guy DOESN'T know what he's talking about. Basmic, for a start, does not make ANY programs. Period. SiCoDe, on the other hand, does.

There you're being pedantic. That's like saying Firaxis don't make any games, EA do. Or that BTInternet aren't an ISP, whoever happened to write their server programs (can't remember who it was) are. You are fussing over little details. In fact, maybe SiCoDe don't make programs, maybe the _members_ of SiCoDe make programs. See, I can do that sort of thing as well. Trying to catch me out just shows how much this guy (etc).

CALM! LEARN ASM!

Ciaran

I know this may be a shock to you, but Basmic is nothing to do with SiCoDe (apart from the fact that SiCoDe supports it). We merely host it. I run Basmic, but not as a SiCoDe Member.

> CALM! LEARN ASM!

Some of us don't have time, and you can't program 83 ASM on-calc. If someone would make a hybrid language, fine, but as it is why bother learning ASM when I can do all this in BASIC?

Type into your calc this little program I wrote, ON MY CALC while I was watching TV last night. Then go to the home screen and type [2nd][catalog][S][down until you get to send][9][prgm][whatever you named it]. Press enter. Now try to clear your memory. Press [log]. Now try again. Don't actually do it, though. Now press [ln]. Try again. Kind of useful for those jerks at school, and WRITTEN ENTIRELY ON CALC!

:F3ED562100841101840100013682EDB0214E93
:118282010001EDB03E84ED47ED5E3E01326682
:C908D9
:FDCB1246207C
:3A0A80FE6A30103E74320A803E08D303
:3E01D303E1FB76
:3A6682B72850
:3EFFD3013EFDD301DB01FEFD200BFD
:CB125E28053E05326582
:3EFFD3013EF7D301DB01
:FEBF20053E01326582
:3A6582B7280A3D326582
:20053E0F320080
:3EFFD3013EFDD301DB01
:FEAB20143E00326682
:3EFDD301DB01FED520053E01326682
:C33A00
:End:0000:End

wow...that's just really impressive...and we're talking _impressive_ here...

how the hell did you come up with this anyways?!

Could you please be more specific?

P.S. I submitted a feature to ticalc yesterday about programming ASM on calc... if that's up soon, it may help.

To whom it may concern (i.e. whoever posts features):

I recently submitted a feature about programming ASM on the calculator. After comparing it to the feature about BASIC strings, it looks like it may need some improvements (i.e., it sucks). I would be willing to re-submit it, with slightly (i.e., about five times as much) information.
Thank you for considering my request (and maintaining ticalc...)

Evan

Actually, it is better than a poorly written ASM game.

It won't crash your calc and wipe the memory. I see this as an advantage.

Adam Norberg
A Very Angry SiCoDe Member

I personally think that the people who call this game crappy are pathetic! I own myself an 82, 83, 86 and 89. Yes i do have SMQ and Sonic Misadventures and all the other cool asm games the calcs have to offer. BuT this is the BEST basic game i have ever played and i WILL keep it on my 83 all the time because it is the best nibbles game for the 83. I like it better than peaworm for the damn 86 too. You people who dont appreciate all the work taht sicode is putting into these games, and the people that are flaming them, STOP IT!! I would personally LOVE to see your MORONS make a game yourself where you make a stupid little dot blink on and off. this game is a hell of alot better than more than half of the asm games i ever played. thatz wut i think. :Þ ~dusty

To tell the truth, SMQ NEVER worked on my calc....
Nor Penguins.....
Nor MegaMan

And these are all ASM games.....
I'm just saying that At least I can play it, which is something I can't say about all ASM games. (basic either, but that doesn't pose such a bad problem to the calc)

Basic games are what started the revolution for future ASM games! You cannot put down a Basic game, since they are the granddaddy of all! They have been around much longer and has enterained more people than ASM.
When is the last time you saw a actually fun statregy game (like SiCoDe's Ground Assult, Orion, Lords), or a fast paced game (Sicode's Nibbles), besides Turbo Breakout in ASM? Or a fun simulation game (Sim City Plus, in the works) that is graphical in ASM? YOU HAVEN'T EXCEPT IN A FEW CASES (Turbo Breakout, Penguins [ahhhhhhh...], and Tetris).
So Basic is in many ways more better than ASM.

The only reason Basic gets a bad rap is because people who just begin to program Basic, make a program (like String Edit), and think it's the best, and send it to TI-Calc without even looking at its functionality, graphics, etc... It's programs that are full of crap that make Basic look so bad. You won't see that in ASM, because you know if you do something wrong, it can cause your and the people who download your program calculator's to crash!

There is my sensible opinion.
-Sherman C. (Shermco TI)
-http://www.dragg.net/binky

Which is why people play well-written ASM games, not poorly-written ones.

Geez, some people.

--BlueCalx