Dancing Player Select

A couple of weeks ago, I was playing around with the title screen for the game looking for a way to add more movement and/or break up all the text a little.  I added some some extra sprites to the bottom part of the title screen by recycling another 3 sprites in the second raster split.

At the time, I made both the boy and girl player sprites dance in time to the music.  After adding this, I thought it might be a nice idea at a later date to make only the player you select (boy or girl) dance, while the unselected option stood still.

Today was that 'later date' and it's finally in!  On the title title screen, pushing left on the joystick selects the boy to play in the game, while pushing right selects the girl.  Further highlighting the selection is the text next to the boy or girl which is coloured white or dark grey depending on the choice made.

I'll be honest, at the moment pressing fire to enter the first level results in the boy sprite being displayed, even if the girl is selected.  I still need to write the code to copy the right sprites into place.  However, in the background, variables are being copied into place that changes the way the player behaves or is affected by other sprites.  Currently, playing as the boy means that less energy is taken away on contact with a meanie than with the girl, but on the other hand, the girl can move a little quicker than the boy.  These attributes will probably change as more progress is made on the game!

However, here is a screen dump of a small part of the title screen of the the boy/girl select in action:

And the code that switches between the two players...

 ; title screen player select subroutine ------------------------  
             
 boy_select  
           ldx #$d8  
           stx t_sprite_def+$01  
           stx t_sprite_anims+$01  
           ldx #$dc  
           stx t_sprite_anime+$01  
             
           ldx #$dc  
           stx t_sprite_def+$02  
           stx t_sprite_anims+$02  
           ldx #$dd  
           stx t_sprite_anime+$02  
             
           ldx #$00                         ; zero x register  
 boy_sel_loop                                
           lda #$01                         ; load white  
           sta $db51,x                    ; write 'boy' in white  
           lda #$0b                         ; load dark grey  
           sta $db5d,x                    ; write 'girl' in dk grey  
           inx  
           cpx #$05                         ; done 5 writes?  
           bne boy_sel_loop               ; all written? no? loop back!  
             
           lda #$00                         ; make player store 0  
           sta ply_type                    ; so boy is selected  
             
           rts  
             
 girl_select  
           ldx #$d8  
           stx t_sprite_def+$01  
           stx t_sprite_anims+$01  
           ldx #$d9  
           stx t_sprite_anime+$01  
             
           ldx #$dc  
           stx t_sprite_def+$02  
           stx t_sprite_anims+$02  
           ldx #$e0  
           stx t_sprite_anime+$02  
             
           ldx #$00                         ; zero x register  
 girl_sel_loop                                
           lda #$0b                         ; load white  
           sta $db51,x                    ; write 'boy' in white  
           lda #$01                         ; load dark grey  
           sta $db5d,x                    ; write 'girl' in dk grey  
           inx  
           cpx #$05                         ; done 5 writes?  
           bne girl_sel_loop               ; all written? no? loop back!                 
             
           lda #$01                         ; make player store 1  
           sta ply_type                    ; so girl is selected  
             
           rts       

Next diary entry...