RKGames

Thanks for the info! I see there is a unpack.asm in the .zip file. I'm guessing that is what you modified in your games to decompress? or did you roll your own assembly routine to decompress? I would need a month or two to get myself caught up onassembler to be good enough todo anything with that info, but any additional info / help is always appreciated! Either way, thanks again for all the info on the subject, it's great to see there is a very powerful compressor available!!! Russ

Coool info! If it's a small amount of assembler, maybe i can sort that out then?! Where can i get info on Pletter compressor? I just did a google search and found nothing! By the way, amazing work you did on Zombie near and Princess quest!!!! You set the bar pretty high with those! Also, if it's not to difficult to just do bank switching, if you or someone could supply me with a working example of moving from bank to bank (even if each bank just wasts alot of space on some char set data) and move a few values (score, level, lives ) to the new bank to retain player data as example then i can take it from there and retool monster bash to work that way! If i can sort that out, that i can go back to my original idea of adding 1 or 2 new levels with new monsters as i originally wanted to. Take care, Russ

Too funny! I've got that sooo many times that my building makes the game look like fix it felix. the building in my game is actually a fully textued 3d model. i have a simple camera fly by at the beginning to show it's a model, but i've heard that before I also added a fun twist on the kaboom concept and added a "Bumper Mode" to the game for those who might want to snag a free copy. Cool, i saw that link on max console a few weeks but but never tried it on my PC. it's great to see the game is available for anyone who collects that sorta thing! This is the primary reason why i wanted to release monster back so bad on coleco. because it was a game that never got a home release. I did see a god aweful MSX version of Monster Bash a while back during some google searces of the game, but i think it was a homebrew and not an official release. Coleco's version looks better i'm happy to confirm Take care, Russ

Thanks for pointers! What compression can/should i use for sprites? I'm using all 64 frames for the 2 levels i have completed (due to all the multicolored animated sprites) I am storing only the level char data instead of the full screen (excluding bottom HUD) to save some spave and that worked well for me! but i only have 4.5k left for all of level 3, and that is not including room i need for a title screen and no sound / music yet either. I'd be VERY interested if you could share any sprite / char set compression info!!!! The other thing that i'm wasting space on, is the first 24 sprites are the same for sprite sets 1 and 2. is there a way i can only store the later sprites on set 2 for level 2 and not waste so much space with duplicate sprites 1-24 on both sets?? I've tried to figure out how to load sprites from 25-64 from the set 2 but could not find anything in the coelco dev kit to load sprites starting at a specific offset. any info on that would be AWESOME!!! That right there would likely get me 2-3k back! Take care, Russ

Thanks for the interest in the game! Yes i'm still planning on releasing it, i admit i havent touched the code in about a year, but mainly due to the rom space corner i coded myself into. I think i'd like to release it as a SGM game, if SGM allows me to code larger then 32k easily without getting into the bank switching nightmare. If any SGM coders out there read this let me know if i can just continue to code as is and the extra space will just be there? I need to look at OpCodes SGM specs sometime soon. Sorry it's not the most exciting update on the game. but thats it. On a side note, if anyone wants my latest android game, it's a really nice Kaboom remake and it's FREE!!!! I'm literally making 2 to 5 cents a day on ads, so trust me i'm not trying to get rich off it. Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.russkumro.armissledefense&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5ydXNza3Vtcm8uYXJtaXNzbGVkZWZlbnNlIl0. Take care, Russ

AWESOME JOB!!!! game looks and sounds great!

The only thing i can suggest is to make sure you unzip the CV Tracker 1.21a files into a folder on your desktop and run the setup.exe from the unzipped folder. not that be the issue. let me know how it goes. Russ

Quick Screen Capture of CV Tracker Playing the Zelda 2 Palace Theme. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMlIVNFbSs&feature=youtu.be Available now for download at : http://skyrank.com/cvtracker/cvtracker.html

Great to hear you got it working on your winXP PC! Sorry for having you go through all the issues, but it was very useful for me to fix and ensure it's working for all other users! Thanks! Russ

CV Tracker Beta v1.21a is now available and appears to be working finally on Windows XP. I had 2 successful installs on 2 XP PC's tonight. link : http://skyrank.com/cvtracker/cvtracker.html Please dont forget to uninstall any previous versions before upgrading. You do NOT need to reinstall slimDX SDK if you had it installed from the prevous version, and there are NO changes to the songs demo pack files, so you dont need to download those again either. PLEASE let me know if anyone has a successful install on winXP and win7 with this new release! Take care, Russ

All that should be wrong is i had you download the wrong version of SlimDX. just make sure you download the SlimDX Developerd SDK installer on the page listed in the install instructions on my site and hopefully that should get things working. I wish i could sound more sure about it, but seeing that i'm now struggling to get a working install on winXP i'll need help from testers out there! please anyone with a workinf winXP install of cv tracker let me know! CV Tracker on Windows 7 does install and run just fine! Take care Russ I get this when I run the installer of SlimDx SDK JF I dont see the error you got. looks like you didnt paste or attach the error. Make sure you uninstall slimDX first. Russ Ok...got all uninstalled , then I download the SDK version ........... But apparently I got the very same windows error when I run CVtracker Damn........... Likely you are getting the same error i'm getting in XP. D3DERR_INVALIDCALL: Invalid call (-2005530516) let me know if that is the same error you are getting. I'm still researching how to fix. Russ

All that should be wrong is i had you download the wrong version of SlimDX. just make sure you download the SlimDX Developerd SDK installer on the page listed in the install instructions on my site and hopefully that should get things working. I wish i could sound more sure about it, but seeing that i'm now struggling to get a working install on winXP i'll need help from testers out there! please anyone with a workinf winXP install of cv tracker let me know! CV Tracker on Windows 7 does install and run just fine! Take care Russ I get this when I run the installer of SlimDx SDK JF I dont see the error you got. looks like you didnt paste or attach the error. Make sure you uninstall slimDX first. Russ

All that should be wrong is i had you download the wrong version of SlimDX. just make sure you download the SlimDX Developerd SDK installer on the page listed in the install instructions on my site and hopefully that should get things working. I wish i could sound more sure about it, but seeing that i'm now struggling to get a working install on winXP i'll need help from testers out there! please anyone with a workinf winXP install of cv tracker let me know! CV Tracker on Windows 7 does install and run just fine! Take care Russ

I just posted a 9 minute quick tutorial of CV Tracker on youtube. Hope this helps get some of you up and running. I'll record screen capture versions of the tutorials soon. Russ

If anyone has luck with a working install of CV Tracker on windows XP let me know! follow the revised install instructions on my site http://skyrank.com/cvtracker/cvtracker.html Sorry for all the inconvenience on this everyone! Also if anyone has a successful win7 install let me know as well! I have it running just fine on 2 win7 PC's and had it running just fine on my XP pc until i uninstalled and reinstalled direct X. It's a beta Russ

Pavlov, I made a mistake and said you need to download the wrong version of slimDX. I just a few hours ago updated my website to say you need to click on the second orange "Get the latest release" button on the slimDX site. you need to download the developers SDK version of slimDX on that same page. Let me know if that works for you! I'm running into issues with installing CV Tracker on my winXP PC for some reason! I've been researching all night. Works great on my two Windows 7 PC's! Take care Russ

I did find one mistake in my install instructions! you must download the SlimDX Developer SDK. it's on the same page as the link on my site points to, but instead of clicking on the first orange "Get the Latest Release" you must click on the second one to get the SDK version. install with all default settings! BUT FIRST, UNINSTALL THE FIRST VERSION OF SLIMDX!!! just use remove programs from the windows control panel. let me know how that goes! I was successful in uninstalling and reinstalling from ONLY the files on my site with no issues! I'm going to try on my win xp machine again Russ Russ

Zone Alarm is flagging that download file as malicious. Dude, that is awesome!!! actually is sucks! thanks for the info. I can assure you there is NO malicious code in there!!!! Russ

Thanks for the info. I just installed on another XP machine and it's not working. It installed just fine on my win 7 desktop and my wifes xp laptop! weird stuff. I'll be researching tonight for sure!!!!!! typical windows, cant guarantee it will install on all machines, that's frustrating! Russ

Thanks! I cant wait to hear some of the music created by you and the others on here! Please read the "Keep in mind" section on my site for things that are missing in this version. Play the demo songs first and it will show this is already a nice composer to play with Video tutorials will be coming in a few days! Take care, Russ

OK, the moment some of you have been waiting for! CV Tracker Beta v1.20b is NOW AVAILABLE!!! visit my website at http://skyrank.com/c.../cvtracker.html Keep in mind this is an incomplete beta, but will allow you to compose, load,save and playback! so it does have enough in there to actually create some nice music! There are lots of things i need to add, but i wanted to share this version so get some people started composing! Windows XP and Windows 7 only. Sorry, but please dont ask for mac / linux versions as i'm not sure if i'll get around to them. This has already taken half a year to code in my spare time and i need to get back to game coding soon! I can not wait to hear what some of you will create with this. PLEASE post your .CVT song files on here or message me them to share your creations! Colecovision data format export is NOT available yet, this is the next big part to tackle! you can load and save to the .CVT format with no problems, so you will not loose your work! I'm hoping to post a few youTube video training tutorials in the next few nights to help show how the functions work! if you load the included demo songs and play around with them, it should start to give you a feel for how the tools work! Take care and enjoy! Russ

My list would be Elevator Action (cant wait to play Opcodes version), Zoo Keeper, Super Pac-Man and Do Run Run. All are somewhat doable on the coleco I think.

SO DARN CLOSE!!!! I'm really close to releasing a CV Tracker beta and found a few little things i need to add into CV Tracker for a nice stable build! I spent the last 2 nights looking/tracing an annoying bug, but finally just got it fixed just minutes ago! Got 1 bug left and it's beta time! I truly worked hard to get it out this weekend, but will likely have to wait till late this upcoming week or next weekend to release the beta. Soon, really i mean it!!!! Most notably, i got unique instrument volume effects working that can not be assigned to any of the notes on any sound channel! No more hand coding volume sweeps and effects by hand one note at a time, just create the volume instrument and assign it to the note or channel and done. you can instantly change how a whole song sounds with just a few clicks. Russ

That is some great work!!!! Now, i want a copy You're gonna have to program it first, pilgrim! Oh yeah, i forgot about that part! just kidding Great work again on the boxes Vincent! Russ

That is some great work!!!! Now, i want a copy