Propane13

There are maps of the hidden areas that were made a few years ago. I'll just give you an initial hint that doesn't spoil much: - If I remember right, there's a hidden room on every world. - try throwing grenades at solid objects, and look for things that are unusual. -John

Does FSS even have a 2600?

Agreed-- Scramble is a LOT of fun, and seems to have excellent replay value. Well done! -John

Yeah, I got busy writing an original 7800 game. There's a lot of map/level generation in it which is really burdensome/tiring, but in the end I hope it's worth it. Apart from that, I have a mechanical project I'm working on that has nothing to do with Atari at all. When those are done, I'll revisit old links-- who knows what could happen? -John

The idea just struck me-- what sould Minecraft look like on the 2600? -John

Hi Bob, Is this kind of issue something that other 7800 programmers should be aware of when coding? -John

http://www.houseofnames.com/peed-family-crest

This looks awesome!

Well, first of all, let me say that it's really cool that you found the license-holder. There are tons of dead-ends and red-herrings to finally locate whoever owns any proprietary info that's over 20 years old. So, that in itself is an applaudable effort. I've tried tracking down these things before, and have gotten lost, redirected, and frustrated. Sometimes there's a lead, but most of time, there isn't. So, it's cool that you managed to do this. When I ask about intentions, I'm wondering what you plan to do with the permission you received. I take it that you just got written permission for to sell your single cart, regardless of price? Did they ask for a royalty? Or, will things change now that you have permission-- are you thinking of selling multiple copies? If I remember right, this was a technical hurdle you were not sure if you could overcome. Now that it has passed, I am wondering if anything changes. I'm also wondering if your request to them makes yours "the official Star Castle for the 2600", and could potentially halt other efforts. I'm guessing that's not your intention, but it would ne nice to know the details of the arrangement, so that other people's work isn't potentially halted. Also, if cd-w is finishes his version, would you be willing to share the licensor info with him so that his version could be official as well? Regards, -John

What's phase two?

Just curious-- what is your intention with this?

Awesome! Nice that you're considering making this work on cross-console hardware. Hey-- I've been wondering something. As a programmer, how does it feel to get close to release? This project has gone on for a LONG time and had hurdles overcome in many areas (technical feasibility, negotiations, etc). When it's all said and done-- is it fun as a programmer at this point? Or, more tedious and painful? And, when the first copy goes out the door, will it be an ecstatic moment, or maybe just a little sad? I think it would be very tough to keep the motivation going on a project of this magnitude, and then to just "let it go" seems like it would be strange to do. -John

Ok, I'll bite-- How does a 2600 game have a 7800 pause routine?

Though revisiting old source code for tweaks is kind of a pain, I'd recommend that you take your time and maybe look into a few of the recommended features. I don't think there's any need for a hack-like reaction; this game seems it just needs a tiny bit more polish, and then it will make all of the difference. People here are used to waiting for things that are worth it.

These guys may have parts, if you contact them: http://best-electronics-ca.com/ -John

Just an FYI on screenwriting; the rule of thumb for a screenplay is that each page "reads" as a minute of screen time. So, a full-length movie is 100-110 pages since it's 100-110 minutes. If you'd like your film to be 60 minutes long, then you've just saved yourself 40-50 pages of pain. If you don't believe it, I recommend reading any publicly posted screenplay (there are tons out there). Back to the Future reads in about 2 hours. Die Hard reads in about 2 hours. So, the 1 minute per page rule is actually surprisingly accurate. Oh, and Celtx is a really good program; I recommend it for screenwriting.

Thanks for the responses! A few of these techniques are very interesting. RevEng, would you be willing to share any code snippets that show your method?

Check this similar thread out from years ago. http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/73735-four-player-games-on-the-2600 Street Racer has a 4-player mode, so that's one I missed.

Warlords, Party Mix, Video Olympics, and if you look for old homebrew ROMS, my prototype for "Pressure Gauge 2"

This looks really good!

I just found these 3 interesting links on Atariage: http://www.atariage.com/features/Stan2002/index.html http://www.atariage.com/features/Stan2003/index.html http://www.atariage.com/features/Stan2004/index.html These are really neat; I was hoping there were more, but it seems that these features stopped in 2004. Is there any reason why they did? -John

What platforms is this award limited to? All platforms, classic and modern?

Hello! I've written TIA music before, and it's always a pain for me to get started. There are so many variables, and I always bang my head against a wall before I start writing music. Here's why. Let's say the simplest algorithm for music generation is: set channels once, never set again. Read frequencies from a list at certain intervals-- if that frequency is $FF then change volume for that channel to zero, else turn the volume to a pre-specified amount (say, 6). The above is a very simple practice, but there is so much more that people do with the 2600's sound capabilities. I can see that some people may want to keep a table for volume toggling, and some may want a table for sound channel swapping. If you take those into consideration, you may have more thatn 255 bytes of notes to deal with, since you have to do things in-between notes, and this could take up a lot of space (by this, I mean you may be toggling notes every 10 frames, but volume every frame). Plus, if you want to "fake out" that you have more sound channels, you may want to have AUDC switch between frames to 2 different sounds. It may sound a little funny, but this may allow you to feel like you put more sound into the mix. And, to add one final headache to the mix, let's say that you have actual sounds in a game, and you want the "second track" of music to go quiet while a sound plays on screen-- you can see this happen in Pitfall 2; the music doesn't stop, but one channel seamlessly mutes whenever you get a gold bar. Of course, all of this comes at a price, and I was wondering what some of the best coding algorithms are that people use to make their msuic better than the simplest method of "just notes, and no volume tweaks". Any recommendations? Thanks! -John

I have a complete NTSC set as well (loose carts, mostly). When you factor in homebrews and PAL duplicates, I don't have all of that stuff.

Same here! It was fun to meet all of the local east-coast enthusiasts, and have some good "classic video game" chat. I'm going to have to go again in the future. -John