Starcat

Hi Mendon ! Thanks a lot. Although I think the final game will be even a ton better than the short trailer. Yes, it was quite a nice featival. Although I think the 2003 fest was the best so far, but sadly we had no camera that time. If you like that early footage already, then you'll surely be amazed how much better the game is already and how much better the final game will be. It was only a short "tech demo", but American Hero is much better already I think. Thanks, I'm glad you liked the CD. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Yes, I did the video. The save feature is simple. If you changed the screenpos, you can save it by pressing Pause and A at the same time. (It's also displayed when you boot the disc.) Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! I did a design change of the Starcat Developments page. Just in case you wonder what happened to the site... Regards, Lars.

Hi Paolo ! I'm glad you like the CD ! The video itself isn't exactly perfectly taken, this is because it was done with a webcam only and due to cable problems and stuff like that it's not as good as a real video camera video would have been. I hoped to do a much better video on ejagfest 2003, but it didn't happen. Hopefully on future events. The fest had a little more than 23 visitors overall. About FF / REW option, I thought about doing that, but it turned out to be impossible due to the nature of the Jaguar cinepak format. But I think that's not really essential anyway. Afterall the video is meant to be watched at once and other things that you might want to skip to are pretty much at the beginning anyway, like the Eerievale Trailer, the Star Alliance footage etc. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Yes, the actually work on this project took over a months. From first planning, to creating the eerievale trailer, to set up the macintosh properly, to make the PC and Mac communicate properly, to get the cinepak tools working in the first place, to find a working cinepak player and in the end to even create my own custom version. The video ejagfest movie creation itself took a bit more than a week. With creating I mean, copying the raw data movie to the macintosh (2 GB of data with a 10 Mbit network line takes hours), then converting it to a quicktime movie with settings as good as possible (5 hours), then converting the whole movie into a Jaguar cinepak movie (2 hours), then sending it back to PC (takes ages again), then burning it onto a cd (slow as well, because I have to burn the discs at 2x speed). To test the MT features I even had to encrypt the CDs to see if it runs fine on a normal jaguar. The encryption of the CD took another 2 hours or more, but I only did that about three or four times for the whole project. But then comes the testing of the clip.... This means testing if the datarate is high enough, if it runs smooth enough and if it looks good enough. If not (and I burned over 15 test cds until I finally had it like it is now) I had to repeat the whole steps above. So it easily took a half day to do a test, if not longer. And that is just the time that it took, the money to get the whole mac setup and connect it to a PC properly wasn't cheap either. Euro Jag Fest 2001 video actually. Not JagFest Uk. The Euro Jag Fest 2001 took place in Germany. Thanks a lot for the kind words. It definately was a lot of work to create this CD and I think the price is fair. Actually it's even cheaper than the B&C CDs, because he asks for example $15 for demolition man cinepak cd encrypted version and another $15 for shipping to europe and when I ordered the last time from them it took over a month. So that's $30 with very long shipping times. I sell my disc for about $25 worldwide with airmail and thus much lower shipping times. I'm not saying B&C is bad or expensive. Just that, as my product is even cheaper, there is no reason at all to criticise the price of it. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Of course they are CDRs. If they were pressed nobody could or would want to pay them. Actually I've been looking for a company to press the CDs for my projects, but I gave it up because of the costs and because I couldn't find any company that was doing it. I couldn't find any company that would produce a suitable quantity in the first place. Most companys have a 1000-500 units minimum. (impossible for a Jag CD product) the lowest unit minimum I could find was 100 units which is still too much for such a small project like the euro Jag fest discs. Besides I couldn't find any company that agreed on doing Jag CDs. I explained the JagCD layout to them, but every single company that I contacted said "we're only doing standard CDs, standard CD Audio, standard Data etc". So the result of all my research was, nobody does it and if one of these companys had agreed on doing it, a product price of over 40 Euro for a single unit would still be cheap instead of 20 Euro like it is now. And as other homebrew CD are also CDRs I see absolutely no reason for mastered discs. Afterall Painter was very successful, it was just a CDR as well. Regards, Lars.

Hi Jason ! Thanks I hope you like it, I have sent the cd out on 24th december. This also applys to all orders of the cd I got so far. I'm able to say now how many of the euro jag fest cds will be made. The total number will be 40 discs. So everybody who is interested should not wait too long, because they might be out if you wait to long. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! I never force anybody to buy my products. But if you keep in mind how much time and money I put into this cinepak stuff, it's a fair price I think. You should also keep in mind that the 20 euro includes shipping anywhere in the world. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! My dev kit (alpine with dev Jaguar) is NTSC and I also have a PAL normal Jaguar and PAL BJL. It was tested on all of these units and works without problems. So the disc works on both PAL and NTSC. I'm not sure what went wrong with Dragon's Lair, but this disc is, like all other Jaguar carts and CDs working on both PAL and NTSC units. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Yes, the CD is fully encrypted and runs on any normal Jaguar CD drive. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Yes, it's a cd with cinepak clips. The trailer of Eerievale that is on the disc is also a cinepak clip. To TheGrandPubaa: If you pay with paypal, the currency doesn't matter, it's converted automatically... It should be about $25 or so including shipping anywhere in the world. Regards, Lars.

Hi Glenn ! Thanks a lot And also thanks a lot for your help in the past. Btw, the Eerievale trailer that I put onto the CD now, is a completely redone one. Nothing like the one you saw already. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! Right in time for Christmas it is finally here. After trying to create cinepak movies for ages I finally managed to finish the Euro Jag Fest 2001 video and converted it to a Jaguar Cinepak CD. It's fully encrypted as well, so no CD Bypass is needed. I also added a 2 minute trailer of Eerievale to the disc. :-) Have fun ! You can find it on the Starcat Developments Homepage in the products section. http://www.starcat-dev.de Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! I updated the Starcat Developments Site a bit. I just noticed that the news and some other sections were really outdated. :-) Fixed now. http://www.starcat-dev.de Regards, Lars.

Hi Saturn ! Sorry. Regards, Lars.

Hi Sauron ! No, there never was an estimated release date for my projects. Like some other developers stated before "it's done when it's done". Tieing myself to a fixed release date doesn't make sense to me, because if I can't keep it, I'll just be stressed, dissapoint people and/or have to release an incomplete product and I want to do neither of those things. to dragonforce: I do not really have much to say to your previous post, because I think I said everything already that is to be said, but I think it's just sad that you have to fill the gaps in your posts that are created by missing arguments for your opinion with insults. Good arguments are the base of every conversation. If you don't have any, conversation doesn't make any sense at all. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Linkovitch: Yes, that is true. That is why I said it has the perspective of Myst like games. (First person). But the rest is very much like the old lucas arts games. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! TheGrandPubaa: I'm sorry for the posts to Dragonforce in the forum. The point is just that when talking to him in ICQ, I told him many things again and again already in the past and it just was too much. Like always repeating how interested he was in Star Alliance without knowing much about it, and in the same sentence saying that he had no intention of paying the high JagCD prices. The way he always said stuff like that, it had more of an ironic touche than anything true. I know this should have been settled on a private base and not on this forum, but it happened. Sorry about it. The only real similarity with Myst is the view. The whole rest of the game will be much more focussed on games like the classic lucas arts games. With items, inventory, other puzzles than in myst, people to talk to etc. Linkovitch: I know uninvited. Actually I have the PC version (for win 3.1 ) right here. The question is what you are thking of when you say "like uninvited" . The interface will be very different and more focussed on the lucas arts games, as you can probably see on the screenshots. But of course it also plays in an old mansion and allows you to walk around the area, outside as well. The most important difference might be, you can't die in Eerievale. (At least I have no plans to let the player die at the moment.) It's long ago since I played Uninvited a bit (maybe it's time to do it again ), but from what I remember some puzzles in Eerievale might be in a similar way. I do not mean taken them from other games, but some might be in a similar way of thinking. Walter: Yes all my projects will be CD based and of course encrypted. Memory Track will very likely be used to save, although I haven't used the Memory Track yet or looked into the details how exactly they are used. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! To dragonforce: Riven is just like Myst. But as stated before, Eerievale isn't like Myst. Besides, once you've finished a shooter you know just as well what it's all about and how to finish it. If you're not an adventure fan, that's ok. Maybe you're more of a shooter fan, but in that case you shouldn't judge adventures. But I played adventures probably more than anything else. There are adventure games that I finished over 20 times in the past and that I still consider the most fun and greatest games of all times. If you don't like a genre of a game, you can't judge the game. For example I would rate all those trend sport games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater with less than 40 %, because I think they are boring as hell. Some magazines who like the genre gave games like that over 96 % though. About Jaguar dev: I told you many times, get BJL (it's free, just a few $ in parts or free on CD if you had a JagCD), get the tools that are on my site (free too). That's all you need to do Jag dev. When I started back in 99 it was a TON harder than now. There were almost no sites with infos, tools, demos, source codes or examples. Just the underground docs and a few other sites, but nothing that can be compared with the tons of infos everybody can get easily these days. And I started at the age of 14 afterall and started with an Alpine. I had to save my money and search for a dev kit for about a year. That was also the first time of me doing business with the USA and also I was still very new to the internet. You're 18 and you still don't get such easy things done like getting BJL and downloading the tools ? Either you're not made to be a game developer or you just didn't want it bad enough. I'm sorry to say this, but when I remember what hard and stony road I had to travel to get all the tools, equipment, and effort I put into learning Jag coding, you're efforts to get started look like a joke. You post a message and when there is nobody who rushes to help you and get everything together for you and teach you how to do it, it's not possible for you or what ? Other developers at least got the dev kits and tried Jag coding before giving up. And I don't see any point why just about everybody else who trys can get a dev kit and get started in jag coding, except yourself. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! It's very hard to tell to what percentage the games are done already. The Eerievale engine is more or less finished and I can completely focus on the game design now, which means good progress thanks to the adventure editor that I wrote. Star Alliance however is a very different topic, due to many problems the project was and still progressing only at a very slow pace. The pronounciation of Eerievale is simple.... simply say both words after each other Eerie Vale. A bit like Sunnyvale (just with Eerie instead of Sunny) as somebody mentioned to me a few weeks ago. Kinda funny, because that similarity was new to me. Btw, Dragonforce... I do not really understand you... First of all, my favorite genre of all time is Adventure games. And I think probably the best games of all times were adventure games. (like the lucas arts games) Not long ago you told me that the only adventures you ever played are Shadowgate (which can't compete with ANY good adventure game) and a freeware "adventure" game that lasts a few minutes. How can you judge Eerievale without knowing ANYTHING about it ? You have never played any games that are like it. You can't tell if it's like Myst and if you listened to me, or knew a bit about adventure games, you would see immediately that it's very different to myst games. Did you even play Myst yet ? Same with Star Alliance, how can you know how good it is ? How can you tell that you can play the "over and over again" without it getting boring ? You've never played it. Not even seen it live. The only thing you have seen are a few screenshots. And even more important is, you'll not be able to play ANY of them, because you don't even have a JagCD ! I think it's great when people appeciate my work and are looking forward to it, but it seems like what you're doing is always too much. Best example is your signature here: "Sega is the best fuck the rest". This is an ATARI forum, not a sega fanboy forum. While I think everybody should have their own opinion, you should try to not insult others. But I think when you say "fuck the rest" that also means fuck atari, nintendo and whatever else made games that what they are today. Thousands of great games, great efforts and great companys. Without them nothing would be like it is today in the video game industry. Same with Jag dev as well. First thing you do is saying you want to do games. You explain what they are about, raise hopes and then without even TRYING you just abandon that. Other people at least tried. I could mention many other similar points here, but I'm running out of time (time to go to school). Regards, Lars.

Hi dragonforce ! If you could finally remember how to spell the game properly, I could think about counting your vote It's STAR ALLIANCE not star allience. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! Please take a second and visit the www.atari-jaguar64.de forum to vote for the Starcat Developments Game you're most looking forward to. The poll is running for 14 days. The URL is: http://www.atari-jaguar64.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15 Thanks, this helps us to focus on the project that you're most interested in. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks ! I now have an own domain for the game. http://www.eerievale.de You'll find everything about the game at this URL in the future. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! How about doing a step by step guide how you encrypted the CD ? Regards, Lars.

Hi TXG/MNX ! Thanks. I'm glad you liked it. Yes. As stated on the fest, the version I presented was just an early tech demo of the engine. The problem with loading times is indeed a bit annoying, but difficult to fix. I'll try to reduce it as much as possible in the final game, but at the moment it's difficult, because there is not much for decompressing graphics, so using compressed graphics doesn't help much either. But the engine is flexible and it's up to the programmer to say when new data should be loaded. So with clever placement and other tricks, I'm sure the loading times could be improved a bit. Yes There will be an option to choose either the joypad, an Atari ST mouse or Amiga Mouse as input. (Although I really recommend using mice, adventures with joypad are a pain to play I think). Thanks. Regards, Lars.