Propane13

Ok; good point-- I will make it less cumbersome in a small release tonight, so it's still playable, with the same functionality. Shouldn't be too painful to do. Thanks! -John

Thank you for the kind words. And, I'm glad to hear that you're interested in making your own map. When I purchased Battlekid for the NES, I heard that there was a map online, but at some point, I thought it would be more fun to make my own, like I did when I was a kid. Surprisingly, it was totally worth it. Glad you're having fun with it; feel free to share your high score at any time. For anyone who has posted here and sent me a PM, if you've noted an interest in the cart, I'll contact you whenever we get to that point. Thanks for letting me know. I think that when I find the answer to this problem, it'll be a great moment of satisfaction. Having never encountered this issue on the emulator (hardware only), it's nightmarish to try to figure out what's going on. I've got some hope that maybe with a few test binaries and some willing folks with Cuttle Cart 2's, I may be able to trace the problem and destroy it. Hopefully, there's only one problem of that nature. My hat goes off to you for figuring out your issue-- it's comforting to know that some folks have had similar problems in the past and got through them. -John

Oh; I just saw a side-effect; the game resets completely every time you die. However, I don't think that should matter too much; gambler172 had said that he was able to reproduce the issue by just standing still. Maybe that's the test needed (of course, standing still away from bats). -John

Hello all. Not much of an update, but I want to try something. The "black screen" really took the wind out of my sails on this project. That, and a welcome break were definitely needed. Recently, I've been thinking about the black screen a little more. My thought is that there is one of 2 things happening: 1) some routine of mine, through some crazy condition, is somehow getting stuck in an endless loop, or 2) some routine of mine, through some crazy condition, is flying off the handle and corrupting memory. Based on what I saw, the screen went black, but moving the joystick caused the sync to change a little bit. This makes me think that 1) is unlikely. Reactions to the joystick (even if it's just a slight change to the sync) make me think that the code is still being traversed, and therefore puts it in favor of a memory issue. Additionally, I don't think that 1) will cause a problem on real hardware anyway after a screen is drawn; the DMA will draw the screen regardless UNLESS I willfully turn DMA off (which doesn't happen often). So... based on this, I checked some code today that I haven't dusted off in months, and I want to try something. My "reset" code doesn't do a full reset; it leaves the DLL's, palette definitions, and other things the same. So, if they're getting corrupted, they're going to stay corrupted. So, I have a bin I'd like to ask for help with. It's not a "release candidate" bin; instead, a reset takes you back to the initial splash screen. But, this will ensure that I'm trying to reset everything, and it'll prove that it's a memory corruption issue instead of something else. I'd like to try to know if I can recover somehow. If I can, then I can maybe work backwards. So, here's a binary: getlost.bin I'd like to request that: 1) Someone try this on a cuttle cart 2) Reproduce the black screen issue 3) Hit reset. Let me know if it "recovers" or stays dark, or is something in between. I'm hoping this line of thinking gets me out of this rut. Thanks in advance for the help, if anyone can. -John

Well done; I had a similar roll found in Mean Santa by my testers. It's annoying at first, and then you realize that they're right. And then from there, it takes a lot of guts to dive back in and refactor code. I'm very glad you did it; adding that little polish makes a lot of difference. -John

Mean Santa can be finished. -John

Actually, this makes me think. Since color is not really a factor, it might be neat to see a human-to-werewold transformation using this style and a few frames.

Incidentally, this is one of my favorites. I like the shadow style; I wonder if that's a new technique. -John

Does that say it came with a tape narrated by Roy Rogers?

PM Sent.

For those who missed it-- someone's making repros: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/202722-available-atari-2600-red-sea-crossing/

Hello; I'm back. Thanks everyone again for the kind words. @carmel_andrews My inspirations were Pitfall, Goonies/Goonies 2 and Battlekid on NES, and a bunch of apogee-related shareware games from the old DOS days (Secret Agent, Jill of the Jungle, Duke Nukem Shrapnel City, Commander Keen). The art may line up a little with Boulderdash; if so, that wasn't too intentional. I was just trying to make things work, and make some of the gems "puzzling". The gem was actually just a placeholder at first, and ended up the way it was over time since I got used to it. @Mord-- the map looks great! @Atarifever - maybe I should change the title of this thread to "Get Lost! A Pitfall-style 7800 game" or something. I didn't even think about how people might miss it; I just posted very excitedly. I'm taking a small break here working on a side project (i.e. house maintenance); just had some electrical upgrades done, and now I get to do some fun drywalling and painting. Typically, when Halloween comes around, I start getting up early and doing programming again-- that's when the rubber really hit the road on this last year. I'll let everyone know as soon as I have an update; I'd like to thank everyone for being patient. Thanks again! -John

Agreed. For those not aware, these came about in an effort to find "all secret POW camps". Each level has a secret POW camp that can only be found by grenade. Can you find them all? -John

Neato!

Personally, I'd prefer a shadowgate-styled game.

Well, how fun would this be? I think what sold Dragon's Lair was all of the stuff going on, animation-wise. Gameplay-wise, it kind of is a drag. Here's an example of what it looks like without the animation stuff: - a picture of a cat is on screen - text: "You meet an angry cat." - text: "Go up / left / right / down" User presses the wrong way "You died!" User presses the right way.. goes to next screen. So, if someone just made some images with some text underneath, and some death images, you could have a cute little homage. Would it be fun? I don't know. Maybe. -John

It's a way for programmers to generate "random" numbers. When you play an Atari game, you can have the system grab data from certain places on powerup. On some consoles, they're return "random" results, whereas on some consoles, you might have the same result. But, as you can see; you only power-up once, and it may not work at all. So, the next step to generating a random number is to have some sort of crazy counter that goes "in the background". If a title screen is up, you can count up until the user presses "reset". Then, you have a "random" number. But, how does one generate "random" numbers quickly, like say every frame, for moving an enemy on-screen left or right? The trick is this thing called an LFSR (linear-feedback shift-register). It is a long sequence of bit operations, that make certain bits appear to have random states. In short, it's a way to make pretty blinky lights.

I think it's an homage to the 2600 game "Man Goes Down"

Ooh-- this engine might be neat to see the output of an LFSR sequence.

Cool stuff!

I think moderators can do that. What do you want to change it to?

Yep-- I think the last few times through, I remember getting to the million mark, but never 2 million. I think I'll need to put this on my refrigerator tonight.

Sorry man; I didn't mean to come across that way. I think you're just like the rest of us-- excited to get a fun game, after a long and patient wait. Otherwise, I wouldn't have offered to help.

I concur-- I'm surprised that people are thinking that Travis owns a gaming store. I was there- it's a thrift store, not a videogaming store. There were clothes and other vintage items. I'm sure he gets electronics like that from time to time, but I'm pretty sure that those are not the main source of income. There's even a youtube video someone made as a commercial walking through the store; it's definitely not a gaming store. The only Atari there was the one that came with Red Sea Crossing, and it was missing the TV adapter. If you're not a classic video game enthusiast, it might be tough to even know what you need to hook it up to a TV. Last time I hooked an Atari up to an HD TV it took me a lot of time to figure out how to put the antenna into analog mode. This is not something that's general knowledge anymore; I can see how it could take some work. As I mentioned when I visited the store, Travis seems to be looking to get some publicity out of this first. Until that happens, I have no problem waiting. He sounded like he was going to contact some press. If you're going to do that, I would assume that you want to do it right, and have a well-thought-out story to present. That would potentially attract more people to the store ("wow, I have to see that place"). I'm sure we'll see gameplay video soon enough, when he's ready. It took 5 years for a second one to surface-- a few weeks/months for things to settle isn't much to ask. The longer he holds the cart, the more publicity he can probably get for it. -John

John! You didn't bring a 2600 ready to test this cart cause why? Anyhow, go back tommorow and get a video of that bad boy in action so this mystery can finally be put to bed. Oh and awesome on you for doing the leg work on this for everyone here at AA to get details,ect. Your doing a real service to all of us. Actually, I did. But, I think since Travis had no idea who I was, he was a probably little nervous about having a complete stranger come into his shop and handle his rare 2600 game. I am pretty sure that just before I arrived, someone phoned in a significant offer that made him realize just what he had in hand. Anyone on the internet could have found this thread and just as easily visited the store, offered to help play it, and then made a mad dash for the door with the cartridge in hand. He played it pretty smart. I think that if I established a little credit here on the forum as someone who knows what they're doing (i.e. I wouldn't break the cartridge if handling it / trying it out), and trustworthy enough not to take off with his prize cartridge, then this could probably happen in due time. I did bring a copy of Mean Santa along to show that the Atari 2600 is indeed alive and well, and that there is a community of people that really care about this stuff. I think it was a good first move; at least he now knows there's someone local that frequents these forums and can show up if he needs / wants any help with this, which he'll probably want in the future. Whenever / if-ever Travis needs some help with this, either cleaning the cartridge, getting it to work on hardware, or whatever else may be needed, he'll know there are people out there willing to help. And, that will probably happen if sellers request information that he's not sure how to provide. Don't worry; I'm not going anywhere, but a potential buyer probably would have to indicate that I'd be someone that would help the process, and not harm it before a next step takes place. I am assuming that there will be some press first, and then after that, he can opt for assistance, or to go his own route. Incidentally, I never mentioned that when I got home, my wife was kind enough to place my left-behind opened beer in the fridge. So, the day rounded out after all. -John