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I already proposed "Pitfall II - ARCADE" so I don't know if I'm allowed another option... Just in case, there's always the game we've all always thought impossible to play on our magical and beloved VCS. >>> Dragon's Lair <<< [here is a video posted by none other than Andrew Davie showing the film maker running on the movie cart.... from here making it an interactive film is up to those who know how to program... ] Needless to say, both games with such high-sounding names would be "best buys" that would "sold out" immediately. Obviously over all these years of "waiting" (more than 30) I had already prepared all the artworks for both [PHOTO]

Let me start by saying that it's been a while since I wrote here on the Forum, however I ALWAYS follow it. As I had already written previously (and also to Mr. David Crane, in pvt on a chat), it's almost 39 years I hope that someone will come out with the idea of making a 2600 porting of the arcade coin-op version of "Pitfall II - The Lost Caverns" (Sega, 1985). I'm not a programmer but a friend analyzed the programming scheme of "Pitfall II" for consoles and HC and said that, with today's development systems and the possibility of bankswitching much better than what had been done in the past, an "advanced" hack of the game could be done and even pretty closer, if not "equal", to the "mockups" that I already designed: a full-map, closely related to Crane's original, artworks, sprites, and many, many other things... I already played on the SG-1000/ColecoVision version (emulated): it is a good attempt to re-create the arcade game but... HEH!!! ... but I really can't play on it because it has almost no elements of the gameplay of the Sega coin-operated game. Believe me, since I think I know almost every aspect, even the "hidden" ones, of this game! And it's since the 1985, when I used to play it in a local arcade, in which I owned the top-score [ I also have a score certified as "World Record" on Twin galaxies. Here it is the map of the arcade game. I made it by editing and putting together hundreds of Mame screenshots... [ First section ] [ Underground levels ] Just to show you how "big" is the arcade game... Now, the full-map development of Crane's Pitfall II is 29 horizontal levels/platforms x 8 "columns", for a total of 232 "locations". The arcade game's "lost caverns" underground section develops for 28 platforms x 8 "columns", and it also has a first section which is 2 levels x 32 screens, but apart from this last the two games' developments are pretty "near". Then, if someone would want to "hack" the original Pitfall II he can surely maintain the development of the game area. He should give up only one of the levels of the arcade in the ''underground section"(I have already made a" full map "and, knowing the game, I realized what platform can easily be removed) and as many as 24 horizontal screens of the "first section", but it is a sacrifice that IT SHOULD BE done ! This is the original map of Pitfall II "Pitfall II - Arcade" mockup map, taken from the original map and filled/completed with almost all the elements of the arcade version. Well.. as you can think, I'd really LOVE to see it on our beloved VCS !!

Excellent ! I have always thought that the lack of graphic details in some games in their PAL versions (as well as the initial music of SW-ESB) was attributable (also?) to the number of bytes spent in the program to adapt the image to the greatest number of lines (in practice, all PAL versions are "adaptations" starting from the respective NTSC versions... the greater number of horizontal lines for PAL mean a "shrinkage" of the image compared to NTSC and black bands above and below to "fill" the extra lines .) However, if you have something to "find out" about the arcade version of Sega, I have always been waiting for someone to have the will and the constancy to produce a port for VCS ! It's one of my favorite games of all time... and also one of the few arcade games in which I still manage to "have my say"...

Update: after years of "personal controversy", I decided to send my High Score of Pitfall II - The Lost Caverns, arcade coin-op version, made and officially recorded on WolfMame0.106, to Twin Galaxies... https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/244670 https://www.twingalaxies.com/game/pitfall-ii-lost-caverns/mame

Hi rbairos ! I should have imagined it, also because it seems to me that you have already said it, to a previous question of mine in which I asked you if with a "cleaner" master the encoding would have had fewer "hitches" [btw: did you use the "full playthrough" video I sent you for that clip ? ... I see bright and crisp color]. Not being a programmer (but having read the fantastic book "Racing the beam", as well as reading the equally beautiful "Programming for newbies by Andrew Davie) I thought that, for example, along the same scanline the information of "color change "rather than that of "continue with the same color " and that the second would have saved some space... but without frame buffer in fact this concern of mine makes no sense.

In Dragon's Lair, as in all the other traditional animated cartoons, the frames perpetually have "micro-shifts" and variations of light, chroma and color... isn't it that during encoding and/or decoding all these variations can cause a waste of memory, which in the case of our VCS is really precious ? Could a pre-processing of the movie be useful, perhaps even just to uniform the colors ? A bit like they did for the (fantastic !) DL conversion on GameBoyColor and before that on Amiga (a little less fantastic...).

Oh, thank you, rbairos. But I prefer to stay tuned to your (great !) work, especially since I don't have the right skills on the subject.

Ahhhh ... I missed the pre-processing part . Can I see, of course if allowed, a pre-processed videoclip just before being fed to the encoder ? It's just a curiosity...

My thought was not for a simple qualitative increase... I mean that a clip which originally has fewer compression artifacts, more defined colors and margins can facilitate the work of many video data decoding and compression programs and so improve the results. It was a fact at least for the work I had done during the "rips" of the LaserDiscs. Obviously I don't know the methodologies used in this case... in "my" case I mainly used ATI acquisition interfaces, post-processing programs like VirtualDub and lot of disk space due to "non-compression" de/encoding systems like HuffYUV.

rbarios, I see you're probably using a DVD-Video source. I don't know if there could be improvements in your (awesome) job if you'd use another "master"... maybe the process could run smoothly if done with a clip which has different resolution or color gamma. If you'd like I have some different captures of NTSC LaserDiscs, some other from PAL LaserDiscs and also other edited clips taken from HD sources, matched to the NTSC LD frame number/length. I personally produced some of these clips years ago for the Daphne Team to have them working on the emulator, and they were shared through torrents (now "dead"). I don't deny that HD clips have their "charm" but in my opinion the best are those taken from the LDs and "reworked" just enough to remove traces of "laser-rot" and small imperfections.

I was in the Daphne dev team and I remember well when we obtained the permission from the Digital Leisure for sharing official LaserDisc captures for the emulator. People could get those "rips" which was encrypted, and they had to unlock them by inserting an original DL/SA/TW DVD-ROM/Video disc in their PC/Mac. I already had the idea of a DL porting for the VCS, years ago, and at the time it was intended to be a kind of "platformer" Pitfall-like but project stopped due to the lack of time and progarmming skills... I showed all my project to a person I know at Digital Leisure (a friend/neighbor of mine did some italian translations for the manuals included in the DVD-ROMs and console like PS2 and Wii versions) and he said that LLC partners would not consider it a source of income, so there would be no problems regarding the small amount of possible cartridges produced and sold. At now the problem is the copyright factor for the name of the game itself and for all the characters who, as you well know, have returned a few years ago to be an integral part of the retro-gaming world and therefore have regained a lot of popularity. Then, unless I had thought to buy a license, the best thing would have been to change the names, of the game and of all the characters. Of course... this makes sense for the "platformer" game, certainly not for a homebrew that controls a movie taken from the laserdisc .

Years ago we also had a small discussion among Italian fans on how to identify "cheating" in games developments. The epilogue, widely shared by the vast majority of all of us (including myself, and I support it, absolutely!) was: >>>>> IT IS NOT CHEATING WHEN A GAME is able to RUN ON THE ORIGINAL MACHINE, as it was conceived from the beginning <<<<< In other words: > including enhancement processors inside the cartridges (for example the ARM-based DPC+ or -other o.t.- the SFX of some SNES cartridges) IS NOT CHEATING; > internal co-processors or hardware modifications to the machine = CHEATING; > memory expansions are valid only if if the methodology of addition is conceived in origin (-ot- example: Commodore Amiga 256-> 512-> 768-> 1024-> and so other, MB). To connect this thread with that of the "Movie Cart", it can be said that it is designed to read A/V files appropriately created and present in a cartridge through the VCS hardware itself. This IS NOT cheating. It would remain to evaluate an hypotetic device similar to a "superimposer" able to mix the images generated by a FMVplayer installed inside a "supercartridge" with those generated by the VCS, which would also have the task of controlling the execution of these clips by means of appropriate commands set through the usual Joystick and button controllers. All this would make possible conversions from laserdisc-based games such as the AmericanLaserGames series, FireFox, Astron Belt... not to mention the various Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and so on . Also the display interface system would be ideologically complex: audio/video outputs of the VCS should first be connected to the supercartridge and then other A/V outputs would start from this last and have to be connected to the TV.

Hi, sorry to "resume" this thread so late ... Is there any update/improvement/news about the way to stream video+audio data from an external storage device thru the VCS and maybe control clip's correct execution with precise and desired interactions with the usual controls via joystick / firebutton ?

Finally a good Xevious on the VCS ! I have the previous game on an "undressed" cart since almost 20 years and I thought it was a good point from starting a "complete" Xevious, but this one has a completely new engine that makes spectacular use of the characteristics of the VCS ! The various "programming tricks" that have been seen for more than a decade now are part of all realizations of a certain depth, so EXCELLENT job, Chris, Nathan !! If I can (I'm a coin-op fan and a decent player with a few hundred thousand points), the Solvalou is a tad too fast on the move (and that's something that would have been nice in the arcade ) and so is enemies' bullets. It may be that it is my impression also due to the fact that I'm used to playing it in vertical development but obviously VCS can't do it on a TV screen...

... maybe now is the time for a porting of the awesome arcade version (1985, Sega / Activision) ? I mean a TRUE porting, not that "thing" made for Sega SG-1000 & ColecoVision. I link here one of my post in a thread on the 2600 section... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261070-pitfall-ii-the-arcade-game/#entry3672026

Got some more time tomorrow morning to play again with the latest release and get at least a perfect in the first levels... Seems you fixed the "head coming-off" issue, but if you watch the ending of the first level sequence you could see that when Harry's jumping L - R repeatedly he's pretty much rid(d)iculous . I see the modded final sequence sprites and I like them ! Quicklaw is so quiet and peaceful, with its big nose and its pleasant face . Nice job !

Too late ... just finished. I did a 1st level "speed-run", which took me about 10 minutes, and an hour of falls and hxggxds for the lost levels... Yup, I noticed exactly what you just said: the levitating rope sequence still has original sprites: Btw, I took some pic from the game, just to show... [notes] I see when Harry is jumping he has no feet . and, I personally think that the movement of Harry's head is a bit too "goofy" ... perhaps moving it a pixel closer to the center of the body ?

Here it is some "walkthrough" indications for the shortest routes to grab all the objects (but not all the treasures) : Regarding the Arcade game I mentioned in my previous post, I'm still disappointed that no one has thought of (re)programming a "Pitfall II Arcade" version for the VCS and/or even Atari 8bits. It would certainly be a kind of "goose with golden eggs"... Too bad I'm not able to program anything else than a June seaside vacancy with wife&daughter...

Sure. Just a few "precisations"... I'm an "hardcore" Pitfall II fan, since VCS' age, and I also have a WR (MARP, top score with 1cc, 1life) in the FABULOUS Sega's arcade game. Bt, sincerely, after all of those "big words", the "perfect pattern" (if there ever was one) for the "Lost Levels" of 8bits "Adventurer's Edition" is not clear to me, so that I could reach the rope in an safe (or not too complicated) way. In this particular case, vultures are extremely difficult to avoid because Harry must simultaneously make complicated and extremely precise jumps on the underlying platform, interrupted in several places ! And, my word of hardcore videogamer, this section is one of those shitty bastards for which you risk to throw your console, computer, TV or monitor in the landfill, and this is all spiced by rivers of the most varied and disparate blasphemies... Well, the first levels takes about 10 minutes to go, but the lost levels are really, really and incredibly difficult... maybe I'll find some time just tomorrow .

In "Pitfall II - Adventurer's Edition" (for Atari 8bit computers and 5200 consoles), Harry's mission, after goin'thru the portal at the end of the "standard" levels , is to collect four main objects: a rope , a pot , a flute and a SNAKE ENCHANTER . Then, he'll have to go to a "particular" place where these collected objects will be combined so that the snake charmer sounds the trumpet making the rope, which is inside the pot, levitate . This will allow Harry (with Rhonda, the Raj Diamond and Quicklaw, whose reappear just in time to leave the caverns but we didn't see them since before Harry passed the first-caverns-portal - seems he carried them in one of his pockets ?! ) to reach the upside ground and finish the adventure ! So... the subject you changed the appearance wasn't a lost explorer but a snake charmer !

At least, I see this in the Store : https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1130 Definitely a good game, but I think, as I already said before, that it is a good attempt to re-create the arcade game but it has almost no elements of the gameplay of the Sega coin-operated game ! To be clear, I don't want to dispute or criticize (I haven't the power to do it, coz' I'm not a programmer), but out of the SG-1000 conversion, it could have been done much better, with the potential of the ColecoVision ! ... and, OBVIOUSLY, our VCS could do such a game !

Hi again, Tom. It seems to me that the difference between the standard palette and this your is quite marked about the black level, so I find it much more faithful with CRT's colors (seen on a LCD computer monitor... wonder if they're too much dark if displayed on a CRT PC monitor...) . John, I played (HeavySixer+HarmonyEncore) with the "testing-mode" invincibility cheat until level 34 and it seems there's something strange... I grabbed all the objects but the level didn't end. I waited until the lost of all the available lives, so not only dying by jumping three times on the same bumper but also making the "killer green coin" appear (sorry... I can't find another name for it ), but it didn't want to go to level 35. I tried another time but no level 35, again... [EDIT: despite the necessary "alternating display" used to overcome the known limitations of the VCS, it is truly INCREDIBLE the amount of stuff movin'on the screen !!!]

Have to try, maybe on Saturday, when I'll have some more spare time

Hi again, Tom ! Ok, yep... level counter colors are ok... unveiled the arcane ! Doors are ok, too... wonder why all the times I hit F12 it didn't show a light-blue door... a special case ! In this pic you could see my settings on Stella (Win7): And here it is the full PAL50 palette color test: