e1will

Re Defender/Defender 2, if you wanted to get REALLY fancy: C button alone = nothing C + joystick left = hyperspace C + joystick right = smart bomb --Will

Hello again! Attached is the latest - and possibly final - version of Duck Attack! (v0.27) The main changes are the addition of a second bonus item in each level, implementation of the "elusive red balloon," and a fix to the "jitter bug" which would cause the screen to flip back to the old screen briefly when moving from one screen to another horizontally while hugging the walls. That took a long time to fix, but it's fixed. Also included is a tweak to the logic that controls when a duck throws a fireball (previously there was a slight chance a duck would get into a loop, sitting in one place blowing fireballs and not chasing you.) I also changed the "permanently zapped" duck color from red to yellow since it wasn't very distinct from the color of the red duck being temporarily zapped if there were more than 2 objects in a room. Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions... I'm really glad you did; I think the game is a lot better because of it. --Will

Sounds really neat. What's the appropriate controller to select in Stella to get this to work? Also, how are you detecting the second fire button? Is it mapped to one of the INPTs? As for suggestions, Asteroids would have to be at the top of the list: you could make the second button hyperspace and have joystick down turn on the shields. --Will

If I were doing an improved DK, I think my first priority would be "first, do no harm." DK is one of those nice arcade ports that has absolutely no flicker, and several of the improvements discussed would require adding flicker to the game, which would be a turnoff for a lot of folks (myself included.) And the gameplay in the existing two screens is actually pretty decent, so I'd probably leave the two existing screens alone for fear of making them worse. But I can think of some improvements that could be possible on the VCS without adding any flicker or otherwise degrading any existing elements of gameplay: 1. The title screen animation of Donkey Kong climbing the girders (skippable by pressing the fire button) 2. The "How high can you get?" interstitial between rounds (also skippable) 3. A nice-looking Kong sprite at the top of the game screens 4. "Kong climbing the ladder" animation for completing the 1st screen 5. "Kong falling down" animation for completing the 2nd screen 6. Close-to-original background music in the 2nd audio channel 7. "Got the hammer" background music 8. "Running out of time" background music 9. Mario death animation and sounds (also skippable) 10. Improved walking sound 11. 3rd screen (elevator stage) with those bouncy springy things 12. 4th screen (conveyor belt stage) complete with oil can (kinda like this) and pies 13. high-score-saving logic (assuming an attached AtariVox or SaveKey) 14. high-score display screen 15. colors closer to the arcade version All of the above should fit comfortably in a 32k cart, and wouldn't really be too tough to program given a good disassembly of the original. But as to the original question of why nobody's done this yet, I think it comes down to the likelihood of working for months to improve the game, and then hearing: 1. from the community that it still doesn't quite capture the arcade version, and/or 2. from Nintendo's lawyers. Both possibilities are pretty depressing to contemplate, when one could have instead been spending those months on an original VCS game that has: 1. no arcade version expectations to live up to, and 2. no lawyers to worry about. But it's definitely doable, IMO. Of course, even if you did all 15 things above, some people would be turned off by the lack of multiple barrels and/or fireballs on the same scanline (which the arcade version has), the inability of the fireballs to chase you around, and the lack of the bonus items from the arcade version (hat, umbrella, purse). And if you did add those, you'd have to add flicker, which would turn off a whole other set of people (with possibly a lot of overlap of people turned off by both possibilities.) So it seems to me like it would be a pretty thankless task. But you never know. Someone might just say "what the heck" and do it anyway. --Will

Good question. I don't know, but the fact that they used the Buckner & Garcia tune (released in December 1981) and the fact that the screenshots look spot-on to the eventual release may narrow it down. --Will

i dont know where all this hate for 2600 pacman comes from at the time i thought it was fine of course pacman on the 5200 looked awesome i dont understand what was misleading they showed what the gameplay looks like other than the ghosts looked like dudes under sheets who cares that was just artistic licence ever seen any other game art nothing ever looks like what is going on screen Showed, yes. Your speakers must not have been on. For the record I don't (and didn't) hate the game at all: I logged many, many hours playing the 2600 version. But putting the arcade sounds in the commercial instead of the 2600 sounds was a leetle shifty IMO. --Will

There will definitely be an option to play using the original Indenture setup (i.e. only one object carried, no extra items like the shield or balloon). Much like what Indenture tried to do with Adventure, there will be the "play the version you remember" game variations alongside the new & expanded variations. I should clarify that at this point, I'm actually working on three separate games, which will all use the same kernel and will be bundled into one 32k binary: 1) Bedraggled - an entirely new game with new mazes and objects. The goal is to help a lost dragon find his home. He won't try to eat you, but he will run from you, so you'll need to strategically place items to lure him back to his castle. More details on this to follow. 2) Dragon Attack - another new game, heavily inspired by Adventure: there are ten castles, and ten crowns: each of them needs to be returned to the proper castle to win the game. There are ten fire-breathing dragons and moats in front of each castle to slow you down, but extra items like the shield, balloon and torch to help you. Unlike Adventure, you won't be able to reuse the sword: once it's used to slay a dragon, it's stuck in there, and you have to go find another one if you want to slay another dragon. You will be able to carry two objects at once. There will be familiar objects like the bridge(s) and key(s), but the secret dot(s) and original easter egg will not be present or required to get into the expanded areas. Some of the mazes will be borrowed from Indenture, some taken from Bedraggled, and a couple from other sources. There will be about 100 rooms total. 3) a port of levels 4 & 5 of Indenture, with extra game variations that include some of the new mazes and objects from Bedraggled/Dragon Attack. All 332 rooms from levels 4 & 5 will be included. I've got separate kernels written and working for symmetrical and asymmetrical mazes, and am in the process of testing a 3rd kernel to support the couple of "weird" rooms in Indenture that require higher vertical resolution. --Will

Good points. Here are some of the things I'm going to add to it to mix it up a little: - the ability to carry two objects at once. This eliminates the whole juggling-the-bridge-and-dot-across-300-rooms thing. - hot-air balloon that lets you coast above walls. - more dragons to fill all that empty space. These will all be "game variations" you can turn on or off if you want the "authentic" experience or the "new and improved" one. I haven't decided what to do about the whistle yet. I agree, in its current incarnation it's not that useful. --Will

I've been making some progress on a 2600 port of this. Some work-in-progress binaries posted here. --Will

After I had recreated a few dozen screens from Indenture, I figured what the heck, why not include them all? Here's a binary (NTSC for now) with all 300+ Indenture screens. You can't get to the rooms inside the castles yet, since the gates aren't in place, but all the outside rooms are accessible. Hold down the fire button to disable collision detection (there are some areas that require the bridge, but I don't have the bridge coded yet.) Enjoy! --Will DRAGON.BIN

I think I remember playing that way back when... I'll have to take another look at that to see if there are any good ideas worth using. --Will

You're setting the "first" GRP0 line AFTER you turn the screen on, so whatever was in GRP0 from the last pass gets drawn at the top. If you put the "LDA #0" and "STA GRP0" lines BEFORE the STA WSYNC/STA HMOVE/STA VBLANK group, that should clear it out. Hope this helps. --Will

Added a good chunk of the Indenture "outside" rooms. --Will DRAGON.BIN

My favorite Apple II game was BOLO, One of my favorite video games from the early 80s was Bolo on the Apple II. It was a cool little game where you drove a little spaceship (or tank, or something) around, shooting at things; your goal was to destroy the six alien bases (represented by large monochrome squares with a dot in the middle of them.) If you succeeded, you would get a congratulatory message "You have destroyed the alien proving grounds. The Dinochrome Brigade salutes you!" Does anyone remember this game? Is there a similar Atari 2600 game? --Will

Yep. There will probably be two bridges.

OK, here's a bin (NTSC) where you can actually move around and browse the kingdom. There are only a couple of rooms in place, and the dragons just sit there, but I think this is a very promising beginning. --Will DRAGON.BIN

Hello everyone! A while back on an Indenture thread I had posted a possible 2600 asm kernel that could be used to create asymmetrical playfields used by Indenture. I've been playing around with it for a while, and have actually got it to the point where it supports not only asymmetrical playfields, but also multiple-color playfields and 2-scanline-resolution support for missile0 and missile1. What this means is that I can create a new version of Adventure that adds fire-breathing dragons, castle moats that need to be crossed with a bridge, and tons of other neat things. Here are some screenshots and an NTSC binary of what I have so far. The binary is just a static frame, there's no player or dragon movement coded yet. I just wanted to show that this is actually doable on the 2600, and not just a mockup. What I eventually plan to do is incorporate: - all 31 of the original rooms from Adventure - 32 of my favorite rooms from Indenture, including the yellow maze, orange "ATARI" maze, and the green and silver castles. - 34 original rooms I'll also be including the shield, flashlight (possibly reimagined as a torch), blue balloon, and a handful of rooms from my Duck Attack! homebrew. Note that this isn't a hack of Adventure (although I've got nothing against Adventure hacks, obviously); it's a complete rewrite from scratch (although I'll probably pull in some routines from Duck Attack! when appropriate - e.g. the fire-breathing logic.) Nonetheless, the basic gameplay should feel very familiar once it's done. I'll post updates here as it progresses. --Will DRAGON.BIN

Neat!

Found a bug that was preventing the recharging station and warp of death background sounds from triggering. Fixed version attached: v0.26. --Will

Hello everyone, The latest version is attached: v0.25. The biggest change in this version is to the "Continue?" logic at the end of the game. Previously you could continue at the level you were on when you finished the last game. The problem with that was, with the warp of death you could effectively leapfrog up to an extremely high level by using all your lives on the warp, continuing the game at that level with three new lives, using them on the warp, etc. That didn't seem quite right, so now the Continue logic deducts the number of times you used the warp from the level you start the next game on. If you ended the game on Level 10 but used the warp 3 times to get there, choosing "Continue" starts you at Level 7. That seems more fair. Other changes include: * A new sound for picking up bonus items * Save & Load game states now chirp or buzz to indicate success or failure (in addition to moving you to the score room or egg shelf room respectively) * As requested by Nostalgic, a duck hit by a super-zapper now has a visual indicator of this. (It will glow red instead of returning to its normal color.) * Some extra challenges added to the extremely high levels. Enjoy! --Will

Trying to get caught up with some comments... I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that... There isn't enough space left to calculate a true "bee radius" to give you ample warning in all cases without generating a lot of annoying false alarms; the "bee is in the room below you" buzzing sound will help in many cases, but not all, as you point out. Yep, that's by design. You can tear yourself out of the duck's clutches, but otherwise the duck is a solid object, except when it's zapped. Only when it's zapped (or there are enough objects on the screen to force flicker) can you pass through one. Good suggestion... There isn't any space left for additional graphics, but I did find enough bytes to cause a super-zapped duck to glow red (the same color as the super-zapper), which should do the trick. That'll be in the next posted version. Yep, that's intentional... the further you get, the more rooms go dark. The flashlight becomes more valuable as you progress, unless you've managed to memorize where all the walls are. You bet... I really do appreciate all your feedback. Keep it coming! --Will

I think that's already taken. --Will

Latest version attached: v0.24. Mostly behind-the-scenes changes this time, partly to ensure 100% stable scanline counts. Added a "fast-forward" feature that lets you skip the "Level completed" and "Level start" screens by pressing the fire button when they appear. As always, please let me know if you see any bugs, or have any other comments or suggestions. --Will

Thank you! The bonus dimensions are all over the map, aren't they? Mainly, I thought big bonus items went well with the aesthetic of the game (i.e. enormous, cartoony sprites.) But with some of the "borrowed" bonus designs, an addition factor was the fact that I'm using a 3-line kernel, and the original versions were from a 1-line kernel game, so unless I stretched the image horizontally, the aspect ratio would look way out of whack. As it is, the "borrowed" bonuses are going to be somewhat stretched either vertically or horizontally no matter what, since none of the games they were borrowed from used a 3-line kernel. (Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever seen another 2600 game that uses one.) There is a warning about deadly doors in the updated version of the manual, but I haven't posted that addition online yet (hopefully soon). There's not an in-game warning; you just have to learn which doors lead where, and/or carry a shield and/or blue balloon when you venture through unfamiliar doors. With a blue balloon, they're quite handy shortcuts. Without it, well... --Will