JT Cook

If nothing else, this thread can be seen as a good case study of a company(big or small)/customer expectations and relations and product and support after issues arise. It also makes a good case study of the advantages and pitfalls of using DRM in software, and maybe to have a plan if that DRM cripples the rightful use of the software it was intended to protect. If there are any inspiring or active indie developers looking to sell their game (retro or even current PC) this thread is a good read through. Also it is promising at the end of the day it looks like Ritchy is trying to make things right with the people who are having issues.

It seems odd that a developer who stole another company's IP has built DRM into their version(bootleg) of the game.

So one thing I have wondered about the Colecovision Flashback is if it supports hardware sprite collision detection. I know that Qbert uses the hardware sprite collision and saw that you plugged that into your hack, can you give it a spin and let us know?

That would explain why I only found the plank once, it was probably just by accident that I bumped the sword into a log when I did find it. It is a very nice power up when you did get it. One thing I have tried to do is map the beginnger lever and it is certainly not easy! You have unuqie way of wrapping the game world.

I have found the secret dot you have described, but haven't been able to get to it yet (need to locate a plank in one of my games). I have completed it once through on the beginner level at 14:59 with the rank of Swashbuckler. One thing I did notice is on the first screen with the gold castle, there is a misplaced tile in the tower in the upper left hand corner. Another thing that I thought was odd is on one of the fountain screens it looks like you should be able to take a path down, but you can not advance to a new screen. Overall pretty good tho! Played on Altirra emulator.

Sounds good! One idea, is if you are playing as one of the secret characters, maybe have a key to toggle between the special character you selected and the default square incase you hit a room as mentioned above. Maybe the space bar if it isn't already used.

I am really excited about this one. I have a 5200 but couldn't bring myself to buy it since the 5200 controllers are so awful. But an Atari 800 version would be pretty ideal. One thing I would love to see is the selection of different player sprites (I remember you mention you played with this idea way back when). One of the player options was a knight, I think it would be fun to have the option to play as that or the square. The other thing I want to mention that you may or may not have fixed, there are two screenshots of a Gold Castle, in the upper left hand corner of the screen, part of the back tower, there is an incorrect tile placement.

Agreed. If I would have known that pre-orders shipped a week plus after it was available for general purchase, I would have just bought it when it was ready to ship. I wouldn't have layed out the money up front only to have to wait again when there are people who order it at release are getting their copy right away. Can we at least get the Kindle version free since the pre-orders are delayed?

That's great, but when do the pre-order books ship? I haven't received any email on it nor have I seen any info on when these start to go out.

When are the pre-order books going to ship?

I for one don't want to cancel my pre-order, nor do I want to advocate anyone else into doing so. I put down the money because I beleive in the people who are working on it will do a good job due to their past track records. I am excited for this book! I also appreciate the second sample that was posted and made me even more eager to get the book. With that said, when people start to invest their money into something, in their mind it becomes less a labor of love that people are working on in their spare time, and more a real product. These people are now customers and investors, and not just community members. Anyone who has ever worked in any sort of customer service/customer facing field starts to understand how people interpret "the customer is always right". I am not looking to disrespect anyone involved because I think the quality of the past efforts is going to be reflected in the current/future efforts (this book). I also understand that not everything goes as planned. It is like the quote I heard John Cash (id programmer) once say "I'd love to live in theory, everything works in theory". We are ALL excited for this, we just want the flow of updates to open a little more

I think at least weekly updates should be posted. I understand problems happen, but this book is almost 4 months past its release date! And since this is a community funded book with kickstarter and pre-orders, the community should at least know the status. If there was no money exchanged, then that would be a different story and would have the right to stay silent with the old developer montra of "when it is done".

That was exactly what I needed! The horn sound was documented and I was able to recreate the sounds. Thank you very much!

This is an odd request, but I noticed in the 2600 game Freeway, the game produces a perfect car horn sound. I am wondering if some guru out there can tell me what frequencies and waveform is used to render the car horn sound?