+bfstats Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Now we need a TechnoVision box for Stone Age. Right, Marc?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Interesting info! I'm now convinced that it's the TechnoVision game. I can only wonder how these Brazilian pirates got their hands on unreleased titles like this one (or Donald Duck's Speedboat). Now we need a TechnoVision box for Stone Age. Someone needs to find the original CreatiVision box, and I don't know if it exists. It would be nice at least if someone hacked the ROM to replace the "CCE" logo with "TechnoVision", as it should be. At least we have some artwork for Locomotive, if it ever turns up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 It would be nice at least if someone hacked the ROM to replace the "CCE" logo with "TechnoVision", as it should be. Here you go: Stone Age logo hack.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Hacking a logo = 1.5 minutes of work. StoneAge(TechnoVisionLogo).zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Thank you, sirs. Is there any particular reason why this game uses the right joystick port? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Thank you, sirs. Is there any particular reason why this game uses the right joystick port? No idea. I've never played the game so I didn't even realize that. Those are always a pain, here's a version with the proper logo, and joystick: Stone Age logo joystick hack.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I did one too, so I might as well post it. StoneAge(fix).zip Perhaps they were using a pirate console which had the ports on the front, and reversed? Anyhow I switched the lives display so player 0 uses the left, and player 1 uses the right, which makes sense as the left joystick port is player 0. I reversed the joysticks, added a black logo, and fixed the scanline count to 262 lines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bfstats Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 This is fun. Dueling ROM hacks. Who's gonna win? (Oh, and nice work, gentlemen!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Ha! Looks like the NTSC version is done... now for the PAL version (perhaps Omega will beat me to it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Perhaps they were using a pirate console which had the ports on the front, and reversed? That's what I was thinking. I reversed the joysticks, added a black logo, and fixed the scanline count to 262 lines. How many scanlines was the original? The problem with this latest hack is that the lives counter is chopped off the bottom of the screen (at least on my TV). Wickey's version is better in that regard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 How many scanlines was the original? The problem with this latest hack is that the lives counter is chopped off the bottom of the screen (at least on my TV). Wickey's version is better in that regard. 246 scanlines. The playing screen is very tall. I will take a look after dinner. There are lots of opportunities to gain scanlines back between the score and first row of blocks, for example. If it's still bad the score and logo could be alternated in the same area. Logo at startup, score while playing, alternating score and logo when dead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 246 scanlines. The playing screen is very tall. That sort of makes sense now, it probably was a poor NTSC conversion of the original PAL TechnoVision game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 That sort of makes sense now, it probably was a poor NTSC conversion of the original PAL TechnoVision game. It smells like a PAL game. The screen is just so tall. I did another quick build. Decreased some of the unimportant parts of the screen. Can you see the lives now PBJ? StoneAge(fixv2).bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I did another quick build. Decreased some of the unimportant parts of the screen. Can you see the lives now PBJ? Yes, you can. Graphically, that's probably as good as it can be. Unfortunately, the scoring is now totally screwed up for some reason. It looks like you're supposed to get 100 points for squishing a dino and 10 points for smashing a rock, but you now only get 1 point per dino and 0 points per rock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I'll take a look. I didn't go through and find any of the labels in the rom, so something is probably off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Try this: StoneAge(fixv3).bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Okay, the scoring seems to be back to normal. This game is hard, and just completing the first screen is a challenge. You really need to trap the enemies and then squish them. Otherwise, the last one is moving around so fast you can't possibly get him before he gets you. This game really would've benefitted from smaller, higher resolution graphics and more room to move around. Those big, chunky sprites and choppy animation certainly don't help anything. A pretty poor Pengo clone...not a surprise it wasn't released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I never try trapping the dinosaurs. I just kick the block at them and squish them immediately. The last dinosaur is the tough one. Try to get in a good position when killing the third dinosaur to be able to kill the last one before he gets you. User42 translated the instructions for Stone Age here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/83572-items-for-atari-2600-manufactured-in-brazil/page-29?do=findComment&comment=1699033 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 User42 translated the instructions for Stone Age here... Well, that certainly helps a bit. The main problem was that I had the difficulty switches set to "B", which is the hard setting on this particular game. The "A" setting is much more manageable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serguei2 Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 This game is hard indeed. I managed to reach to level 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 That sort of makes sense now, it probably was a poor NTSC conversion of the original PAL TechnoVision game. I believe the colors are all currently PAL. If you tell Stella to use PAL60 colors then the caveman has a pinkish color instead of blue or purple (I'm colorblind). This is just further evidence that it was a PAL game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Current rom: StoneAge(ProperNTSC).zip I've switched around the difficulty switches so that A=Pro, and B=Novice, as it should be. The left difficulty controls P0, and the right controls P1 (also as it should be). Next I converted the colors back to NTSC. The colors now appear as they were designed to be. The caveman is a pinkish skin color, and not a strange blue. I also got rid of an HMOVE bar in the score. The current source is also included. I am still working on it, but I am running out of time today. I've added a marco which allows easy editing of the stone blocks, dinosaur and caveman starting positions. You can move the levels around to whatever order you like. Level_10: stones __________ stones _XXX____X_ stones __X_______ stones __X_______ stones _______X__ stones _______X__ stones _X____XXX_ stones __________ dino1PosXY 5,8 dino2PosXY 10,5 dino3PosXY 1,4 dino4PosXY 6,1 cavemanPosXY 7,4 Level_04: stones __________ stones _X_XXXXXX_ stones _X_X____X_ stones _X_X__X_X_ stones _X_XXXX_X_ stones _X______X_ stones _XXXXXXXX_ stones __________ dino1PosXY 5,6 dino2PosXY 3,3 dino3PosXY 1,1 dino4PosXY 10,1 cavemanPosXY 1,8 In the above code there are a few lines that say "stones". The X's are where the stones get placed. The top line is the top of the screen, and the bottom line the bottom of the screen. Following that are the starting positions for the caveman and dinosaur. The X column value can be 1-10, left to right. The Y Row value can be 1-8, bottom to top. The order the levels appear in is here: LevelConfigTab: .word Level_01 .word Level_02 .word Level_03 .word Level_04 .word Level_05 .word Level_06 .word Level_07 .word Level_08 .word Level_09 .word Level_10 .word Level_11 .word Level_12 .word Level_13 .word Level_14 .word Level_15 .word Level_16 To change levels around simply move the order of the table around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 Nice work, Omega. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 Very nice. It would be good if you would use conditional assembler directives (e.g. IF ORIGINAL... ELSE...ENDIF). So that one can assemble the original version from the same source too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 This game is hard indeed. I managed to reach to level 2. Stone Age (1983) (CCE).png The 1st level is almost the most difficulty. The gameplay is definitely not well balanced yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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