e1will

Depends on the family, dunnit? I mean, what if it's Chuck Norris' family we're talking about... Why don't you do it this way: make it dependent on the difficulty switch, so: A = violence and killings B = penises That way everyone's happy! --Will

Well, he's been flying around for 32 years, he was probably just tired. But no, I've played a lot of Adventure and I've never seen that outside of a hack or frying the console. In Level 1 he just sits there inside the white castle until you move him or bring him something, but of course you can't get to the white castle in Level 1 without frying or hacking. --Will

Nope! It's still active, though. My day job and night classes are keeping me pretty busy, but I'll be working on it some more this summer. --Will

Since the cloud is always above the rain, you could use the same sprite for both. A player sprite would probably give you better results for the cloud than a missile sprite. If you had to share a color between the targets and another object, which other object would you prefer to share the color with? The sunbeam? The rain? That decision will likely drive which sprites you'll want to use for the targets. Your job would also be easier if the targets were all on separate vertical lines... can you do that or would that affect the gameplay you have in mind? (Something like this:) * * * * * (instead of this:) * * * * * --Will

Yeah, I've found those to be super handy. My favorite "1-bit" sprite so far has to be Thomas's helicopter. --Will

Could you post some mockups? That would probably be the best way to gauge how feasible it is. --Will

I love that Rockwell video.

Was Warlords the first Atari 2600 game to use the missile sprite as something other than a square or rectangle? Or is there an earlier game that did this? --Will

You can flip a sprite horizontally by using REFP0/REFP1, but anything else you'll need to draw and store your own sprites. Take a look at the Combat disassembly for examples of how each different direction is represented by a different set of sprites: http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/combat_asm/index.html --Will

Thanks! Yep, there's an online manual here: http://willnicholes.com/duck/duckattackmanual01.htm --Will

Well, you also have to adjust the code a little to make sure the reset vectors are present in each bank and point to a valid area of code that will switch to the bank the game's actually in. --Will

Does it still count as a hack if it's your own game you're hacking? I dunno. But here is an all-green version of Duck Attack! in honor of St. Patrick's Day. An "all-green" version is always generated when I compile it so that I can verify that all parts of the code are referencing colors indirectly via palette table macros (so that both NTSC and PAL palettes are used correctly) rather than raw hex colors. So it's technically more of a compilation side effect than a hack, I guess. The gameplay is identical to the normal version, but it's much more challenging since you can't rely on the color of the eggs to tell you which door to go to next. I did change one thing in this version: I replaced the green "1 UP" balloon with a shamrock. (OK, not technically a shamrock since it has four leaves instead of three...) With all those caveats out of the way, here it is, in NTSC and PAL formats! Enjoy. --Will DUCKGR60.BIN DUCKGR50.BIN

As a workaround you could remap the buttons that currently map to the F and R keys (and any other keys that have unwanted interactions with the control key.) --Will

Very nice!

There are a couple of other bugs you could emulate if you're inclined: http://donhodges.com/ms_pacman_bugs.htm --Will

Weird. Stella doesn't like it when I try to run it as .png ("Not a valid ROM file" error) but is happy to run it once I rename it. --Will

Works with GIF files too... remove the .GIF extension and Stella will run it as a playable game. This one's a better example since the GIF is nice and big, and the game included is actually playable instead of just a sprite demo. --Will

Just for fun I wrote a little C program that combines a playable 2600 binary and a screenshot of that same binary into a single file. If you download superpac.bin.png, you can view it as a normal graphics file. If you strip off the ".png" extension, you can load it in Stella, which will auto-detect it as an 8K game. --Will

See, this will give you excellent practice "like"ing other people's dinners so you can jump back in there with mad Facebookin' skillz! --Will

Now that the Duck Attack! development work is done, I figured this would be a good time to announce my second official 2600 homebrew project: Facebook Hero. You're familiar with Guitar Hero? Well, this would be pretty much like that, or Rock Band, except instead of notes scrolling up the screen, people's statuses would. Using the joystick, you would select one of the following options: - "Like" the status - Comment "LOL" - Comment "*hugs*" - Comment "I am so sorry!" It's a timed game: you start off with 20 friends, and the goal is to see how many friends you have at the end of two minutes. If you comment inappropriately (for example, responding "LOL" to "My grandfather is in the hospital" instead of "I am so sorry!"), you will be defriended and your friend count will drop by one. If a certain number of statuses pass by without you commenting (or "liking"), that person will think you don't like them and will defriend you. On the other hand, if you're able to keep up and respond appropriately, friends of your friends will friend you, increasing your friend count, i.e. your score. But the more friends you have, the faster the statuses will come, and the quicker you'll have to be with the joystick to keep up. Attached is a shot of the title page. No binaries yet; it will probably be a while before it's ready to test. I'm LOLing just thinking about it. --Will

Yep, both NTSC and PAL versions will be available. --Will

The updated Duck Attack! manual is up: http://willnicholes.com/duck --Will

You know what would be perfect for this? Yars' Revenge. B for the "Energy Missile" and C for the Zorlon cannon. Also, Mouse Trap. --Will

The manual should be back online now. (Still the old version for now, I hope to have the newer one uploaded this week.) Yep, it's supposed to do that. The fire button drops whatever objects you have, unless you're carrying the zapper, in which case it throws that instead. Unfortunately there isn't any room left in the game to do either of those things. The latter would be especially tough since if you have the thrown zapper, the robot and a door in a room, flickering is required and the zapper and door will only be on the same frame sometimes, so a door-zapper collision test would only work some of the time. The only consolation I can offer is that the magnet is usually pretty easy to find, and it will grab anything that's otherwise inaccessible. You're welcome! It was a good idea you had, I'm glad I had the room to squeeze it in. --Will

Ah, looks like my webserver is down; I will investigate. I haven't uploaded the final version of the manual yet, but it doesn't warn about specific paths and doors: just a general warning that some of them lead to traps. There are a finite number of such traps, though, (less than ten, I'm pretty sure), so once you encounter one once, you'll know to avoid it next time around. That is by design: the game is supposed to be full of surprises, some pleasant, others not so much. The magnet-zapper interaction is also by design. I kind of like the boomerang effect. --Will