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Black Onyx for ColecoVision


Bruce Tomlin

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I played it for a few hours and eventually died on the 4th level. Only thing I noticed is that I can't change the speed of the messages. I can bring up the dialog, but when I try to use the keypad to change the speed nothing happens?

You do realize that the SG-1000 doesn't have a keypad, right? Try the joystick up and down.

 

Doh! Yes that works fine. Setting the speed to 0 makes all the difference.

 

Thanks,

Jeff

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 years later...

I was on another SG-1000 kick and rediscovered this thread while browsing the Atariage archives. A few points that might be useful by way of closure:

 

- For Mac OS X users: the bug I mentioned above in Mugrat was fixed a while back. This game should thus be playable in that emulator now.

 

As a side note, if you speak Japanese and want to play the original SG-1000 game, you can use SMS Plus or CrabEmu, though there are potential issues in both cases. (The former uses the wrong color palette in many SG-1000 games, making everything too dark, while the most recent version of CrabEmu has problems with the sound. I'd probably suggest sticking with CrabEmu 0.1.8.)

 

- It's not totally clear from Bruce's last few posts above, but he notes here that he considers his work with Black Onyx done:

 

Huh? As far as I'm concerned, it's complete. Lack of enhancements beyond the original does not make something "incomplete". And I uploaded the source code, so it's not like someone else can't work on it.

So if I understand correctly, onyx_006.bin above should be the most recent version. From the context, I'm assuming that also means that the three bugs he mentions above are all native to the SG-1000 original, and weren't introduced in the port. My knowledge of Japanese isn't good enough to navigate the original, though I may try to see if I can reproduce the shop/cancel bug on the SG-1000 version. (Does the MSX version share the same quirky issues with the final puzzle, I wonder?)

 

Once again, thanks to Bruce for all his good work on this one!

 

(I know his sig says that there's a special place in hell for those who bump threads, but hopefully this bit of necromancy won't earn me a seat in the Inferno...)

Edited by thegoldenband
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As many of you know, I bought a large quantity of Motocross Racer and Tournament Tennis ColecoVision carts earlier this summer on eBay, and I'm pleased to say that progress on a new custom homebrew PCB to go with those Activision-style casings is progressing very well, thanks to Batari, 5-11under, and Albert. :)

 

This new PCB will accomodate not only regular 32K ROMs, but also 64K ROMS (bankswitched in a similar manner to Opcode Games' MegaCart) and will also support an EEPROM for savegame purposes.

 

There are several projects I envision that will take advantage of the EEPROM savegame chip, one of them being a modified version of Bruce's Black Onyx port. That's right: No more annoying passwords! Progress would be saved to (and loaded from) the EEPROM chip in a blink of an eye! :D

 

I contacted Bruce about this, to see if he would be interested in replacing the password routines with an EEPROM savegame routine, but he never replied. I certainly haven't given up on this though, so I can only hope that Bruce will not have any objections if I take the source code he posted here, and outsource it to someone else to add the EEPROM savegame functionality. I would also like to verify that bugs that were identified earlier in this thread have been fixed, and it would also be fun to add a feature to mute the music at the press of a keypad key, because the music does get annoying after a while...

 

Time will tell how this will all turn out. Keep your fingers crossed, people. :)

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Good luck Pixelboy - would be great for Bruce's hard work to make it to cartridge form.

 

I've not played the game much but looks like a similar, but simpler, concept to Lord of the Dungeon. Much easier to just pick up and go compared to LoD and so provides a great alternative.

Edited by Ikrananka
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Black Onyx is a great game. One of the few RPGs that I played all the way through the end. I got so far into it that I started creating maps and sort of got a little crazy and created a manual for it. Here is a copy in case anybody else would get some use from it.

Black Onyx Manual.zip

-Jeff

VERY nice work - makes me want to spend the time to play the game through. Let's hope that this manual accompanies a cart release in the not too distant future.

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Agreed -- that manual is great! It really helps to clarify things, which of course is exactly what a manual is for. Big thanks to you and Bruce for the maps you've made.

 

(One small proofreading issue, in case this does become the official manual: "cemetery" is misspelled on p. 2.)

 

I played today for a couple hours, exploring the town, the area under the cemetery, and the well. (I also got to meet the kraken, who dispatched me immediately.) I've seen a couple small quirks -- I was attacked by zombies in town once, shortly after leaving the cemetery -- but overall the port and translation seem very, very solid. The fact that the game removes your helms when you're in town is a nice touch, though it threw me for a loop at first since you have no other way of tracking which items you possess.

 

Is it me, or is a lot of the game kind of...empty? We have a pub, an inn, a jail, and other places where you'd expect to see people, but there's nobody to talk to, nothing to see, and no hints or messages. Similarly, the area under the cemetery seems to be nothing but a bunch of rooms, with no real payoff -- you just wander in, fight enemies as you bump into them, and then wander out. This isn't intended as criticism, and I understand what an early example of its kind Black Onyx is; I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing, or something that's going awry in emulation. Perhaps later levels will be different? I'm hoping the tailor gets a chance to shine at some point.

 

It's great to hear that progress is being made towards a CV cart release. The CV controller could really make the UI for this game a bit more elegant, say by using the keypad to select which enemy you'll be attacking. And the idea of a "GPS", or at least a compass, would be very helpful -- but let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Edited by thegoldenband
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Agreed -- that manual is great! It really helps to clarify things, which of course is exactly what a manual is for. Big thanks to you and Bruce for the maps you've made.

 

(One small proofreading issue, in case this does become the official manual: "cemetery" is misspelled on p. 2.)

 

I played today for a couple hours, exploring the town, the area under the cemetery, and the well. (I also got to meet the kraken, who dispatched me immediately.) I've seen a couple small quirks -- I was attacked by zombies in town once, shortly after leaving the cemetery -- but overall the port and translation seem very, very solid. The fact that the game removes your helms when you're in town is a nice touch, though it threw me for a loop at first since you have no other way of tracking which items you possess.

 

Is it me, or is a lot of the game kind of...empty? We have a pub, an inn, a jail, and other places where you'd expect to see people, but there's nobody to talk to, nothing to see, and no hints or messages. Similarly, the area under the cemetery seems to be nothing but a bunch of rooms, with no real payoff -- you just wander in, fight enemies as you bump into them, and then wander out. This isn't intended as criticism, and I understand what an early example of its kind Black Onyx is; I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing, or something that's going awry in emulation. Perhaps later levels will be different? I'm hoping the tailor gets a chance to shine at some point.

You're not missing anything via emulation, as far as I can tell. The maze of corridors and rooms really is that bland, with almost no visible landmarks. All the characters you meet are displayed under the maze display, and for the most part, you just need to make a map to figure out where you are. :)

 

 

It's great to hear that progress is being made towards a CV cart release. The CV controller could really make the UI for this game a bit more elegant, say by using the keypad to select which enemy you'll be attacking. And the idea of a "GPS", or at least a compass, would be very helpful -- but let's not get ahead of ourselves...

I wouldn't get my hopes up about extra features, if I were you. I'm just looking to release something playable, with as few bugs as possible, and I do not concern myself too much with adding new in-game features (aside for the music mute, which shouldn't be too hard to implement). Just finding someone who will agree to dive into Bruce's source code, remove the password system and replace it with some read/write-to-EEPROM routines (and the on-screen interface that goes with it) will be hard enough, especially if Bruce isn't interested in doing it himself.

 

I haven't checked out that manual yet, but I will soon. :)

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Great work! I very much appreciate your generosity and kindness in sharing the binary files to utilize via emulation. I have a great love for many of the classic systems, but just not the space to have them all out. Emulation is the way to go for me.

 

Thanks again. This is very much appreciated!

 

-Trebor

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Another project that may see a cart release on the CV!? Wonderful news! Thanks Bruce... I recall you working on this project a couple years ago. I honestly lost track of the project (personal issues kept me off AtariAge for the most part) but I never did lose interest! I'll support this with a purchase if it becomes available in the future!

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I finally finished this one, but in order to do so, I ended up having to resort to savestates and luck manipulation -- in other words, avoiding encounters by repeatedly taking a few steps, then saving. All of my characters were fully armed with the most expensive equipment (and full potion bottles), including battle axes, and all were maxed out on gold besides.

 

But once I reached experience level 6, it didn't seem as if I was making any progress gaining levels. Typically I would climb down the well, and try to grind, but nothing seemed to be happening -- fighting weaker monsters wasn't gaining me any experience points as far as I could see. But if I tried to take on stronger monsters, they would land heavy blows that could easily kill one of my characters, especially since you can't heal while in battle. Encountering a set of five hobgoblins was in the "sweet spot" for grinding -- i.e. where the damage you take is attritional -- but just about everything else was either meaningless, or too dangerous.

 

Did I play myself into a cul-de-sac by buying the two-handed battle axes? Should I have held off, and stuck with the less powerful broadswords (so that I could still use a shield) until my characters had more agility? And am I correct that the game awards you no experience for beating substantially weaker monsters? I tried to make sense of the source code that Bruce kindly posted, but it's basically over my head.

 

The color thing still doesn't make 100% sense to me, though I was able to get it to work. I guess your initial arrival in the yellow area doesn't count? And the final ascent is tricky even with a map, even though you're only taking a couple steps per level. Without a compass, it's very easy to get disoriented, and if you take that one extra step, you're back to square one...

Edited by thegoldenband
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I just checked this thread and noticed it said nothing about my reason for stopping anything to do with Black Onyx.

 

Basically, someone on the board with a 2-digit number of posts (not anybody connected with Opcode) was employed by BPS, in some unknown capacity, presumably not in any management or decision-maker position. He decided that he would take it upon himself to inform BPS about the situation, even after he was asked not to. (They're still around because of an obscure game called "Tetris".) In other words, it was his own personal vigilante crusade about the posting of ROMs in general, which he had no obligation to pursue.

 

They said no. End of line.

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I just checked this thread and noticed it said nothing about my reason for stopping anything to do with Black Onyx.

 

Basically, someone on the board with a 2-digit number of posts (not anybody connected with Opcode) was employed by BPS, in some unknown capacity, presumably not in any management or decision-maker position. He decided that he would take it upon himself to inform BPS about the situation, even after he was asked not to. (They're still around because of an obscure game called "Tetris".) In other words, it was his own personal vigilante crusade about the posting of ROMs in general, which he had no obligation to pursue.

 

They said no. End of line.

I vaguely remember that. That sucks. So someone informed BPS and they invoked their copyright on Black Onyx? Hmm... maybe someone could hack it into something else? It would be a shame to let all this work go to waste. White Opal maybe? :)

 

Tempest

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Indeed, would a name change help? (probably not, because it's not original code)

 

What about the IP holders getting a cut of each cartridge sold? That's certainly worked to a degree before. Also, there could be a misunderstanding over scale of the release. It's a damned shame that both this and Lord of the Dungeon are not available to purchase, meaning zero available RPGs for the ColecoVision/Adam outside of I-don't-really-count-it "Gateway to Apshai".

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I just checked this thread and noticed it said nothing about my reason for stopping anything to do with Black Onyx.

 

Basically, someone on the board with a 2-digit number of posts (not anybody connected with Opcode) was employed by BPS, in some unknown capacity, presumably not in any management or decision-maker position. He decided that he would take it upon himself to inform BPS about the situation, even after he was asked not to. (They're still around because of an obscure game called "Tetris".) In other words, it was his own personal vigilante crusade about the posting of ROMs in general, which he had no obligation to pursue.

 

They said no. End of line.

Alright, thanks for clarifying your position relatively to this project, Bruce.

 

My position is that you did an outstanding job of porting (and more especially translating) The Black Onyx, and parallel to that fact, I'm working on a homebrew PCB solution that will allow the game's password system to be replaced with a more convenient savegame feature. Not every ColecoVision fan out there is an RPG fan, so I'll feel lucky if I manage to find 50 to 75 customers for a cartridge release. I am quite aware that I am taking a chance with this, in regard to BPS, but considering that I'll be selling this game at cost (with box and manual) with zero profit made on my end, I believe that 75 copies is nothing to get worked up about, and I expect BPS simply won't care. If an appointed representative of BPS contacts me and asks me diligently to stop selling the game in cart format, I will comply without delay, but until then, releasing a limited run of The Black Onyx in ColecoVision cartridge format will remain an active project of mine. (It should be noted that The Black Onyx will NOT be released under the Opcode Games label.)

 

You say you want to stay out of it, Bruce, and I respect that. All I need to know now is if you want your name to appear on the back of the box, and in the manual. Beyond that, I will leave you alone, and I will handle everything else myself, assuming I can find a Z80 programmer who will be willing to help with modifications to your source code.

 

The ColecoVision needs a good RPG like The Black Onyx, and I'm simply not willing to let it go without a fight, especially with the CV port so well done already. :)

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Great news! For what it's worth, you have my full non-technical support.

 

I can only second Bill's emotion ;) I for one would love to have more RPGs on the CV and have been disappointed for some time that Bruce's efforts never achieved a cart release. At least I now know why - although I am frankly disgusted such an issue arose over such a tiny niche market as is ours - AFAIK it's this very reason that Steve Bégin's great ports never saw a fanfare release and have never seen the range of release that they deserve.

 

Anyway, anything non-technical that I can help with let me know - otherwise I'll be second in line to Bill to buy a copy of the Black Onyx cart.

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Thanks for filling us in on what happened, Bruce. Frankly, I think BP should be paying you for your terrific translation and porting work, since it adds value to their IP.

One of the reasons I recall given was that of quality control, that they had no way to be sure that no bugs were added. Which is ironic because I apparently found a gameplay bug in the orignal MSX version.

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