MakeCode Arcade demoscene?

[Vegz78]

Are hacks for more colors in MCA appearing soon and could be used in the demoscene as well?:

216 COLORS IN MAKECODE?! ...sort of

The other day, somebody suggested mapping the palette to red, green and blue colors and making colors from those three colors. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I tried anyway (spoiler alert - it didn’t work.) I wrote this script for creating a pixel, with three subpixels - red, green, and blue. Each subpixel has 6 shades, from 0 (off) to 5 (brightest). This produces 6 ^ 3 combinations or 216 combinations total. In the following example, you can see a pixel on screen having its subpixels random…

[Jedi]

hate to randomly revive an old topic but we NEED to do this!

[Vegz78]

I could not agree more! Just don’t know how to proceed, since demos are still in the realm of magic to me?…

There’s enough good stuff on this forum already to put something together that would qualify at many events already as a fantasy console entry, and still a first for MakeCode Arcade AFAIK.

Doesn’t have to be perfect and would introduce MakeCode to a new audience, be fun and archived in the demo archives.

You’re not really reviving and old thread; it is updated now and then with new achievements and discoveries, and new initiatives and contributions, stumbled across and deemed relevant to demos.

Some people following and positive, too. I guess it is just a matter of time and chance inspiration…

[Vegz78]

Apropos:

I have Officially made a website for makecode arcade!

this website i made Does loads of things and im open for sugestions!! this is a website that was made over 5days during the march break i wanted to make a website like this for a while now but i finaly made it! here are some plosebilities! converting images into a dithered form with a custom color palette! you can copt the image as a string by clicking the [image] button! freely disable and enable colors from the selected list! add, remove and change colors as you wish. custom color filter…

[Brohann]

I also want to continue this. It would be cool if someone made some super cool demoscene music for us.

[Astronomicality22]

wireframe demo

This is my wireframe demo, with music. Up is “Jailhouse Rock”, down is “Ode to Joy”, and Right is “Blue Suede Shoes”, because us memphians worship Presley more than God.

[ThatUruguayanGuy]

Now that I think of it, Arcade hardware DOES support full RGB! I think the limitations are just set by the editor, which is just lame. An “Advanced Mode” or something by the lines of that would be an amazing option to have which would allow you to use much more specific sound settings, any RGB colour you wish (More than the lame 16 colour palette!) to use, and more customizable options, settings, and blocks. What do you think?

[Vegz78]

I think this is valid and constructive input from your side, and I personally don’t necessarily disagree!

But since the demoscene really is about the challenge of maximizing output from a system “as is” at any time, with all its limitations(real, by design, artificial, lame or otherwise…) in compatible hardware and its simulator, maybe it’s more suited for topics like these?:
https://forum.makecode.com/t/216-colors-in-makecode-sort-of/25616/27
https://forum.makecode.com/t/idea-for-makecode-s-limits/21659
https://forum.makecode.com/t/speech-about-makecodes-limitations/27867

Some people also argue that it is the limitations themselves that spur extra creativity and motivation for breaking boundaries.

While we are at it, I will also have that audacity(though scared of the repercussions…) to dare to challenge @Sarge’s claim:

@Sarge

It’s not a fantasy console though, real hardware supports makecode

I would contend(and support @Jedi) that MCA is also a fantasy console even with its real hardware support, due mainly to its simulator, and I am pretty certain that it would be accepted as such in real demo parties, at least some. Actually, I believe that you would have the choice between either submitting a MCA demo running on specific hardware in one category, or in the fantasy console category in the simulator.

[Brohann]

The color limit is not an editor limit, it IS actually a hardware limit. The makecode arcade screen itself takes up around 20kb of ram, and most arcade devices only have 98kb or something, so they are limited to 16 colors because if there was more there would be no room for the game to run

[richard]

@ThatUruguayanGuy you are correct that the hardware supports full RGB, but as @Brohann mentioned most of these devices don’t have enough memory to both hold the screen in memory and run a game at the same time. The screen is 160*120 pixels with 4 bits per pixel, which ends up being roughly 10kb. We hold two screens in memory at any given time (double buffering) so it ends up taking up 20kb or so.

[thegreatone]

would it be possible to decrease the resolution in exchange for more colors? like 80x60 resolution for 16 bit color?

[Brohann]

I think it would be cool and somewhat practical to add the feature to be able to control what pallet certain scan lines use, it would only take 120 2 bit or 4 bit numbers depending on if you want 4 or 16 available palettes

[Astronomicality22]

TBH, the colors they chose are absolutely god awful, I want a dark yellow (That’s right), instead of another shade of purple. But, if they could expand the musical capabilities (perhaps things i whine about), I think some demos would look like amiga demos.

[richard]

@Brohann would that be particularly useful though? I feel like most games don’t have UI that neatly divides the screen into horizontal rectangles

[richard]

@Astronomicality22 you can swap the pallet in the “Asset” tab of the editor

[Brohann]

@richard

would that be particularly useful though? I feel like most games don’t have UI that neatly divides the screen into horizontal rectangles

Not really , but there are lots of cool effects you can do with pallete-swapping that I would like to try to make.

Mickey Mania's "Impossible" 3D Chase - How Was It Done?

[richard]

@Brohann that’s neat! I was just reading about Amiga copperlists

I know the megaman games on the NES did something similar for water effects

[Vegz78]

Fascinating!!!

[Astronomicality22]

Imma cook some real mischievious stuff now, with this acquired ega palette.

[Astronomicality22]

Can you possibly use different color palettes for different sprites?