solidcorp

Thanks for your comments. I take no offence here and I'm not going anywhere. Everyone has been well mannered and besides, I can't tell anyone else what to think. I can only feel proud or lucky that there are people who care this much about games and feel flattered that there is interest in something I've done. As for the conversation here, I find it interesting and don't want to discourage it, although I'll add that I'd be happy to answer any other technical or historical questions about Star Castle as well. D. Scott Williamson.

That it's not going to be released? I know. Was thinking it would make a pretty sweet Christmas gift too. But... let's get centered here, shall we? It's just a game. If we REALLY want to play a version of Star Castle on the 2600, I'm certain the handful of extremely talented programmers we have "in house" could come up with one. And since that would be a more community involved project, perhaps including a bounty *if* need be; there'd be plenty of testers and input going into the final coding that could ultimately ensure a superior product. Yeah, that's a challenge First gaming option I'd like to put forth would be for 2-player simultaneous play. 1st Joystick port would control the fighter and in the 2nd joystick port you'd have your set of paddles where one would allow for defensive play. Either rotating to fix your shield or sending out a projectile that either neutralizes Player 1 for a set amount of time while you rebuild OR blows pieces off his ship ala Space War. 3 shots and he'd be done That would be awesome! D. Scott Williamson

Wait, what? D. Scott Williamson

Thanks man. D. Scott Williamson

Wow, I'm sure I can not be compared to Leonardo da Vinci. Thank you for the sentiment. D. Scott Williamson

If you are getting mixed signals then you are not paying attention. I have not deviated from the position I took in my initial statement. The "small fortune" comment was intended to be a closing joke, not a 6 page forum discussion, but here we are so let's explore it a little further. If someone offered me a million dollars for it I can tell you I would, at the expense of being "discredited", take it in a heartbeat and whoever bought it could publish the source code in the New York Times for all I care. I would be as within my rights to sell one as I would to sell a hundred, a thousand, or zero. Price is what a market may bear, the value may be a million dollars, a penny, or zero. What gives any of us the right to tell another what they may or may not, should, or should not do with a product of their work. All of this notwithstanding, as I have stated repeatedly, money was never a motivating factor, it is and has been my intention to finish the game and cartridge for myself. D. Scott Williamson

Thank you. I really hope no hard feelings come from this thread for you or anyone here. I respect you and your work. (I've always loved High Voltage games BTW). I try to understand where people are coming from. I hope we will all afford each other that courtesy. Nah, no hard feelings towards anybody. You are all kinder than the press has been towards other games I've done in the past D. Scott Williamson

Isn't it equally ruthless to come to a place where many hardcore gamers and collectors hang out and go "Looky, shiny new carrot, you can't have it!"? I've been professionally making games since around 1985 and I don't get that sort of thing at all. I let people play it at VGS. I talked about the technical details. I didn't start this thread. What games have you done? I'm not setting you up for any kind of argument or attack or anything, I really just want to know. D. Scott Williamson

Disclaimer: I'm not begging for a release and I sincerely hope I don't offend you. It is not my intention to be rude in any way. I'm not attributing any motives to you -- any jabs are not directed at you, but at others in various communities I've seen over the years. I think I understand now. While I don't agree with the premise, I understand the sentiment. You've put a lot of hard work into it and don't want people to play it without any sacrifice of their own, (meaning spending hard earned cash). This is entirely legitimate. But at the same time, you feel that any money earned from sales couldn't possibly offset the time and labor you've put into the game, (which is the reality -- standard selling price in the homebrew market to a limited number of buyers would never amount to real compensation for you. Meanwhile, you didn't do this with the intent of selling it, so there's no incentive to release it for a pittance. It's the enjoyment of making it and the pride of accomplishing something that others said couldn't be done that matter to you. All understandable points. If I'm wrong, please correct me. The part I don't agree with is that I see games as things to be played and enjoyed.* I don't understand a programmer putting all the time and effort into something that only they will enjoy. I wonder if that is in fact not enough, and the reason why we see those who do something and then show it without releasing it. They get the enjoyment of their work plus they get the compliments of others saying how good it looks and how much they'd like to have it. It seems to me that seeing the most amount of people possible enjoying your work would be more rewarding, but this is where my view conflicts with many programmers. In the current market of 360, Wii, and PS3 production, I understand the disdain and fear of piracy. But in the retro market where no one can possibly expect to make a living, let alone get rich, I say do it for the love of doing it and let as many people as possible play it. edit: But I'm not a professional programmer, so I really don't understand their way of thinking (-remembering the confusion I felt reading Rob Fulop's thread). I spent years, (about six), working on a project before and once I released it, I saw websites from Brazil selling my work. I was offended, but at the same time, what would be the point of fighting it? Should I have not released it? I didn't do the project with the intent of making money, heck I released my work for free because I wanted as many people as possible to get it. I didn't like the idea of others profiting from it, but at least those dirty brasilian sellers were getting it into the hands of people who would probably have never gotten it otherwise. While I have mixed feelings about this, I would tend to agree with that statement. I like to know something exists, but I think it's because I have hope that I might someday be able to own or play it, (most prototypes have fallen into this category). In this case, I hope that once it's finished you will one day change your mind and decide to release your work, so at this point I'm glad you let us know about it. On the other hand, if it turns out that down the road there's no hope of it ever being released, then I would prefer to have not known about it. I feel that way with a lot of the so-called "limited run" stuff. If it's done for any reason other than practicality of production numbers, I feel it serves no other purpose than to stroke the releaser's ego and it's a tease. Hey, look what you can't have! (I'm not saying that about you) *subnote from 2nd paragraph: This is why I feel deeply offended with the "collector only" mentality. Some people will buy anything and pay any price for a crap game just to have it in their collection. I couldn't care less if a game is supposed to be "rare." To me, that has NO effect on its value. I won't pay more for a crap game just because it's harder to find, which is why I'll probably never own Chase the Chuckwagon. I'd love to have the game and would actually play it if I did, but it can't possibly justify the price it goes for. But that's the way the world works. I say if one wants to collect something with no intention of using it, they should go collect stamps! You make good points across the board. I think you understand where I'm coming from here. I neither showed the game nor am withholding the game in any attempt to tease people. D. Scott Williamson

...and that's the number one reason I no longer give an extremely pretty woman the satisfaction of knowing I think she's all that by copping a glance. Best turn away or be turned to a pillar of salt! @Cebus... Gorf. ROTFLMAO! Oh great, now I'm being compared to pretty women by jilted men who have given up on the fairer sex. ROFL. If you've seen the video, you know I not that good looking (just kidding don't take this one too seriously) D. Scott Williamson.

Thank you so much Will. I'm not offended or upset but I have to admit I've become rather interested in the human nature this thread is exploring. D. Scott Williamson

So, by your analogy let's say I constructed my own toy, for the sake of argument an intricate model that took years to make. Nobody knew I was working on the model and noone knew it existed until I shared it with a few at a nice party (VGS). Now I'm happy returning to my own sandbox and contented to play only with close friends (where my toy is less likely to be stolen), what's the problem? What's the Gorf reference - sounds like it might be funny - link? D. Scott Williamson

What is the Team Savage game? Link please? D. Scott Williamson

I don't understand this statement at all. Why would people playing your game (whether it be by downloading or purchasing in cartridge form) dilute your effort? More people would be enjoying the game. Do you mean, "People would pirate my game and I wouldn't make as much per copy being played"? Considering you stated you weren't in this "for the money", I'm getting mixed signals. I personally take affront to the whole, "I developed this awesome game but I'm not going to let any of you play it!" mentality. ..Al I did show and let people play the game at VGS. I expended a great deal of effort to make Star Castle and I don't want ANYONE to have it for free. The only way I can protect it is not to release it into production, which wasn't my goal in the first place. I don't need the money and a few thousand dollars is far less than the value of my time and effort poured into this project anyway. If I wanted to make money I'd be making iPhone apps or XBLA games in my spare time rather than classic games. I guess it's more of an exhibition piece, I hadn't given it any thought while doing it, I didn't even know it could be done until about two weeks ago (I ran out of RAM and ROM at the same time there were serious timing issues and there were still more game features to be done). I love the classic game scene and I love squeezing the most out of very constrained hardware systems - the 2600 is the best! I also love a challenge and that's what I found in Howard Scott Warshaws quotes. Some of you just don't get it. I did it to do it, I did it for the love of doing it. I'm getting the impression you would rather not know something you can't have exists. D. Scott Williamson

Over 10 million people have bought games I've worked on over the last 20 years. I wrote Star Castle to prove it could be done and I'm not finished with it. I worked on it intermittently over the last two years, and pretty hardcore over the last four months sacrificing time I could have spent on other projects or with my family. I am fiercely proud of the nearly finished product and I can't convey how surprised, flattered, and appreciative I am that people want to help me sell it and others legitimately want to buy it. Unfortunately, once I let the genie out of the bottle I can't put it back, and lets be honest with ourselves, once I release it in any form I can expect that it will be more downloaded than purchased which dilutes the effort in my opinion. For the time being, I'm going to focus on fabricating just this one special cartridge for myself. Thanks, D. Scott Williamson

Thank you lucifershalo.

I can't say too much about it but it's really awesome. A big jump up from the first one. Check it out here on IGN http://wii.ign.com/objects/067/067276.html

[getting way OT] Wow, very cool, I thought so. My other big project is a 5x10' CNC table with a 4.5' x 8.5' x .5' work area, a 3.25 hp porter cable router, vacuum table, vacuum system, and a fourth axis I'll install one of these days. I designed and built it from scratch with a mountain of advice and guidance that from a machinist friend of mine whom I've known and worked with for 10 years - we met at a local robotics club. He died in his sleep last November and I miss him terribly - I'm on my own now and the learning curve got a lot steeper. Photos here Some of my latest test cuttings here I was going to make a mold of an Atari cart in silicone and cast my cart in acrylic, but I'm planning on machining the cartridge pieces on my machine now. It all takes a different kind of time and space D. Scott Williamson

I like to call it NTSC AntiAliasing.

Colors were originally going to be blue and white, but so was the palette in the game. I had a few colors in there and yellow and white were the most eye catching. We'll see. I just found out about batari basic from Dan, the organizer of the Video Game Summit show. He uses it and has written a game on it. I'm very impressed that it can compile such usable and capable for such a quirky platform. Say hi to the genius next time you see him at the supermarket (zp,x) takes too much time! I like dec $7f to kill 5 cycles in 2 bytes. I really like all the cleverness you can get by moving the stack pointer around and using php to set bit1 from the carry bit - like enabling missiles, or setting vdelp1 for the 6 digit display kernel. Or using the stack pointer to fill memory. I got a surprising amount of memory back with this function: ; INITMEM WILL LOAD RAM WITH PREDEFINED VALUES FROM TABLES INITMEM .INITLOOP LDY INITTAB,X BEQ .DONE LDA INITTAB+1,X STA 0,Y INX INX BNE .INITLOOP .DONE RTS INITTAB INITGAMEDATA DC SHIPS,3 ; CLEAR VBLS AND SCORE DC SCORE,0 DC SCORE+1,0 DC SCORE+2,0 DC 0 INITGAMEDATABOOM DC SHIPX,0 DC SHIPX+1,160*3/4 DC 0 Called with these 5 bytes: LDX #INITGAMEDATABOOM-INITGAMEDATA JSR INITMEM It replaces each 4 byte lda #, sta zp with 2 bytes and they all can be unique. The table is good for 128 values in any number of 0 terminated lists. The routine could be optimized to use two lists for example which would double the address range and eliminate the need for one dex, but the lists wouldn't be as easy to manage. Also, like I said earlier, I underestimated the value of reducing indexed page boundary crossings. I really don't want to bring the topic of money up again, but $15k is cheap for a fab machine but not exactly in john q. public's home brew budget. What "building" do you have one in and what kind of work do you do? D. Scott Williamson

I will soon, but I have a question. The game runs 30fps in two 60 Hz fields. One field draws the cannon, shields, and the shots, the other the ship, fuzzball, and three sparks. Using over bright colors on black makes the flicker on a phosphor television unnoticable, but stella flickers a lot. Do you have a suggestion for the best way to capture a video? D. Scott Williamson Stella emulates the phosphor effect To enable it, press tab and click on game properties. From there, go to the display tab, turn phosphor on, and set it to 100. Doh! That would have been insanely helpful at times. Thanks! Stella fraps capture here http://www.youtube.com/user/spot1984#p/a/u/0/UygsjtFtf2k

Definitely two of the best games on that system (Toki especially). Aw Gee Wiz, thanks. I wrote S.T.U.N Runner on the Lynx too. I absolutely love that system to this day, it was way ahead of its time. I was the head of external Lynx development at Atari. I developed new technologies and supported external developers. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. I still work with John Sanderson who wrote Steel Talons and Hard Drivin' (and more? idk) at High Voltage Software. Not to get too much off track, but I just wanted to add another thumbs up for Toki. I had played the Lynx version for years, and only recently found the arcade machine at an amusement park. I played it, and was amazed at how close the Lynx version was. Star Castle looks great, btw!!! Thanks. We got no source code from TAD, it was the first game I reverse engineered - legally of course it was licensed - but I did install a pause switch on the coin op. It would halt the CPU, and if you were really lucky, you could unpause it too I STRONGLY recommend checking out the "Freakout" easter egg. http://www.vgcheats.co.uk/cheats/lynx/Toki.html There is an opening scene where the princess is held by a floating magic fist and carried away, well the first time I got the sprites in there they were upside down. That was so funny it became an inside joke and we started throwing all kinds of crazy stuff in there. And thanks re. Star Castle.

Yea, the other thing that happened was that I had a sincos table (a full sin table, with a quarter repeated to read cosine by starting 1/4 cycle into the table) but I was shifting the results to match all the fixed point math for the different entities that it was cheaper to add more tables and remove the sign extended shifts. The ship velocity is a byte but stored in such a way as to affect the 16 bit fixed point ship position with a decent balance of precision. The shots need to inherit the ship velocity but they use a different decimal (binamal?) location in their single byte fixed point precision. It was great seeing people enjoy it and talking to some really great people who've seen a lot more retro gaming stuff than I have. For example I met a guy who had an absolutely fantastic collection of Lynx's and Lynx games. When I watch people play the game I see all the things I still want to fix though (the shots need more directional precision, the game starts too hard, there's no progressive difficulty, I want a better attract mode, I'd like to keep a high score...) And most of all I really want to finish fabricating my clear acrylic cart with LEDs flashing to the game play in it. And the Harmony, man I just love that thing, that and Stella are just genius. I'm soooo glad I found it here on Atari Age. I was just going to use Stella and a home made cart with a romulator on it. Hats off to the guy(s) who made the Harmony. I do some hardware development (PIC/FPGA) and I know first hand a lot of work goes into something like that, and to top it off, it has a really good PC interface and a top notch on cartridge menu. A really well conceived piece of hardware all around - with the casual consumer and developer in mind. D. Scott Williamson

ROFL - I'm jamming out to it now on youtube here. I was only 4 when that song came out but I remember it vividly - awesome! D. Scott Williamson

I will soon, but I have a question. The game runs 30fps in two 60 Hz fields. One field draws the cannon, shields, and the shots, the other the ship, fuzzball, and three sparks. Using over bright colors on black makes the flicker on a phosphor television unnoticable, but stella flickers a lot. Do you have a suggestion for the best way to capture a video? D. Scott Williamson Stella emulates the phosphor effect To enable it, press tab and click on game properties. From there, go to the display tab, turn phosphor on, and set it to 100. Doh! That would have been insanely helpful at times. Thanks!