RevEng

Just realized I have the debug cycles option set. [smacks head] I'm away from the computer ATM, buy likely I've just run out of cycles. Sorry if I wasted anyone's time!

The attached binary is a slimmed-down version of a playfield loader I'm working on. Despite having nothing to do with setting the background color, it always colors the background purple when called, *even* if I explicitly set COLUBK to another color after the playfield load. No sure if this is my fault, a bB error, or a expected bB behaviour. I'll be damned if I can find the cause. Any help would be appreciated. bug.bas bug.bas.bin

It definitely would be simple if the Zapper worked with the raster in the CRT. It doesn't appear to. Quoth the wikipedia... In any case, I don't see why some form of the "Sequential Targets" couldn't be tweaked to work with LCD and plasma TVs. The white-out time might have to stretch across 2 frames and be more visible to allow for laggy LCD pixels, but I don't see why it couldn't be made to work.

Yeah, from the reading I've done on this recently it seems there's 2 styles of lightgun. One kind - like the NES zapper - requires the game to flash objects white when the trigger is pulled. There's another kind that follows the flash of raster as it draws the screen. It seems the zapper *should* work with LCD TVs, but I've heard reports to the contrary. Perhaps LCD TVs don't have a fast enough response time.

Yup, I've found that's true. For a year and a half I lifted weights and ran regularly on a treadmill, and barely dented my weight. Yes, some of that maintained weight was fat converted to muscle mass, but overall I looked as overweight as when I started. I've been against diets by whole life as a general concept, but after quite a bit of research I decided to try a low-carb diet. My reasoning was that it actually sounded closer to a "natural" diet than the "fructose and grain" diet that is the staple of most people. 7 months later I was *85* pounds lighter, and at what I'd consider my ideal weight. I know I sound like a spokesperson for some whacko health-product infomercial, but it really did change my life. I just thought I'd share in case anyone of the average-gamers is at the end of their weight-rope, like I was.

Here's what I'd love to see - a multisprite kernel with asymmetric playfield. Yes, I know the cycles aren't there to do it straight. But what if you only updated the playfield every other line, and left the other ones blank? On the next frame, the playfield line drawn could dropped down a line. Or if if there aren't enough cycles still, then just every fourth line, and in the second frame the playfield line could be dropped 2 lines. Such a kernel would be *very* useful for a variety of games, and I think the missing playfield lines is an acceptable trade-off.

I updated the original post: I added one more font (Ste's, not my own) and some new symbols. I probably won't be updating this for a while, if at all... Consider it the final version.

Pinned in the A8 forum... http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/138244-how-to-remove-yellowing-from-an-old-atari-case/

Classis consoles were inferior to their arcade game counterparts technologically, no doubt. But keep in mind that arcade games are inferior to the consoles as far as the long-lived games are concerned. You'd never see a game like Adventure or Legend of Zelda in the arcades. Also, sometimes the "resistance of the media" helps to create some surprising art. Yar's Revenge being a loose adaptation of Star Castle is just one example. I always treated the 2600 (and later my a8) as a compliment to the arcade experience rather than a way to save quarters, and to this day I find both enjoyable but different experiences.

Yup, lots of potential! In some ways it reminds me of the 2600 version of jawbreaker. suggestions: I think the side walls should be deadly. As is, you can safely sit in one of the tunnels and have it keep pushing you until the conditions are perfect to get to the next tunnel. The speed/character of the boxiz should change as you earn more points, as should the wall colors (I'm sure you already had that in mind) The main character could be an ant, trying to avoid invaders in his colony... if only we had a name for this character. bugs: holding download at the beginning allows you to keeps scoring without having to go up.

Mario64 was revolutionary, and pretty much singlehandedly kicked off the whole 3D platformer craze IMO. Galaxy had a neat mechanic, but the story was really "meh", and was a bit repetitive at times. I think it was a very solid game, but I disagree with the 10/10 it got in reviews. I'm in a minority, I know, but I actually think Super Mario Sunshine was the best one of the lot. The story is different but coherent, there are a lot of novel play mechanics introduced, and it has gigantic level design. The levels relate to each other and give you a feeling of an even bigger world in a way that Galaxy overlooked. Drifting back on topic, I used to be a big fan of Crash Bandicoot on the original PSX but they drove the series into the ground by releasing the same game over and over. Much the same complaint with the 3D Sonic games as well.

If you have an extra couple of bytes of ram you could throw in some anti-repeat code. If a block matches the last selected one, randomly select another one. That should cut the multiple-runs down a fair bit, and not add too many cycles.

The ordering isn't complete. It hasn't begun from what I can see. Regarding tricky game-resets, I think on/off is most intuitive. Its the first step in switching regular carts, it's how multicarts generally work, it's how flashback 2 works. Trading the wear-and-tear workload to multiple switches insted of one doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Looking for a Coleco Telstar Combat in working condition, but I'll consider one that needs controller rework too. If anyone has one they'd part with let me know... Thanks!

First off, I like the game concept, the screens have humour in them, and the speeding up near the end is a nice touch! I hesitated about making the rest of this post, because I didn't want to take away from what you've accomplished so far... hopefully you'll take it in the spirit it's given in. I have 2 recommendations for your source code: use the dim command to give yourself descriptive variable names, and dim them up top of your source. Then only use descriptive names in your code. Descriptive names make the source code more self-documenting (more scaleable, easier for people to help you, most importantly easier for you to work with) and it makes the code easier to search through for variable usage. (As it stands, you can't automatically search through the code for every usage of the variable "r", because you'll have a whole bunch of false-positives when your search matches any command containing the letter r.) Having the dims all up at the top of the code is a great help when trying to squeeze variable usage; there's one central place to look and understand how you're using each memory location. It also makes it easier to use the def command to combine together any variables you use in a true/false manner into a single variable with bitwise fields. I'm positive your rom and variables can be squeezed. However, much of the information I'd need to give recommendations is obfuscated by the generic variables.

A painless name change might be "Trash Mania". A painful one might be "Sanitation Engineer"

The NES if plenty fast to detect the raster beam as it passes the view of the gun. Even ancient computers with light-pens used the same approach. There are no modifications to make it work. Modern TVs no longer have raster beams. That's why modern consoles don't have point-and-shoot gun games anymore, with the exception of the Wii which uses it's sensor bar instead of relying on a raster beam.

Nice job CurtisP. He looks great! Nicely done, jrok. It looks like you started something rolling! Is it too late to make the ant a hunchback? From your description, I get he's hard working and never gives up, but what else sets Ari apart from the rest of the colony? Does Ari have any weaknesses or enemies? secret aspirations?

Nice... I really like the meanings behind the name! I'm not entirely sure that an ant is the most cuddly of mascots compared to a panda, monkey, hunchback, or whatever. I'm not sure that a mascot has to be cuddly to be popular either, but it might help.

I'm not convinced that's the only reason. I think at times people are wanting to come up with an original idea for a game, but simply lack the creativity to come up with one unless they begin with someone else's stuff as a seed. I'm not thinking so much "I'm gonna make a Ladybug port" (which is fine, and a great goal if you're willing to risk the C&D) so much as "I'm going to make an Itchy&Scratchy game". (An invented example. There are plenty of real-life ones, but I'm not interested in pointing fingers.) jrok, a mascot definitely doesn't solve the problem of getting game creators to be creative. I don't think there's anything to solve that. Either someone understands they would do better to just repeating cliches, or they don't. (aside from ports.) I do think a homebrew mascot can provide an alternative to those that use (copywritten thing) as a crutch because they can't come up with a starting idea. Using the characters and environment in (copywritten thing), they go ahead and add scenarios that will work in a 2600 game. There can be creativity in that last step, and it would be a valid approach if the original thing wasn't copywritten and trademarked. Realistically, I'm not expecting people to say "oooh, a rez the rectangle game", just like nobody says "oooh, a Tux the Penguin game" either. The game has to stand or fall on it's own merits, no doubt. Yes, Tux games are sometimes a joke. Other times they are quite good. Sometimes he even serves as a nice recognizeable character to act as a stand-in when someone decides they want make a game with gameplay similar to Mario Kart or Puzzle Bobble and avoid C&Ds. Totally where I'm going with this. Emehr, I like your idea of incorporating Atari Age in some way, though I'm not sold on the Double-A name yet. It does seem to conjure up a walking battery!

Otto is cool, but he's already part of the berzerk trademarks. That's the kinda thing I'm advocating we avoid. You were kidding, but a square character isn't out of place either. Call him Rez or Player0, and you have the beginnings of a backstory for a supporting or minor character. I think the willingness for someone to pick up the character(s) in their game is completely proportional to the utility it will provide. An original backstory can suggest unique play elements to the right game designer.

There are a lot of 2600 homebrew efforts are based on commercial characters and wind up being grey legally as a result. I understand why the authors decided to pick that path; it provides instant character recognition and a rich backstory to pick game elements from. But it's unfortunate when lawyers eventually come knocking and you wind up with something that you can't distribute. Plus you're piggybacking off someone else's hard work (marketing, character design, etc.) who doesn't want you to. I thought it would be a cool project if the Atari 2600 dev community could come up with a "homebrew" character that coders could base games around - similar to how the Linux folk have Tux - but hopefully cooler and with a richer backstory and related characters. This could also provide those creative types who like to "design-and-suggest" games a different way of contributing to the community. Contributions could run the gambit... written descriptions, cartoon representations, stories, etc. Now to kick off the thought process, here are some random ideas: possible character names: Fuji, Go, Stella it might be useful to crib and update characters/stories from existing mythologies. eg. Norse, North American, Japanese, Greek, ... Anyway, thought I'd put the idea out here and see what people thought.

Wow, I am humbled... I didn't even realize you could have both the helicopter and the mushroom power at the same time! Clearly I haven't played enough!

I've only seen the two glowing fruits, and recieved the 2 teleports as a result. I expect since Alex didn't finish the level design that those are teleports that are yet-to-be implemented. 9 zones = 9 levels of hell, in Dante's Divine Comedy. If I'm right, maybe I don't want to see the ending! I racked up an 815 on the last posted version of MGD. Anybody got that beat?

Ah! How miraculous he is! I think I'll go find some obstacles for my back body. That sounds like fun!