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johnnywc

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Posts posted by johnnywc

  1. Posted

    26 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    These are great hints that John posted above to avoid crashes. I think I played it offline later when I did figure it out that pulling over to the side after crashing reduced my chances of getting demolished from behind.

    :thumbsup: I probably should have mentioned that on the livestream. ;) 

    26 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    I also started to try to avoid clumps of cars duking it out on the horizon for fear of one flying at me after crashing into its opponent. I'm glad they'll start to obey the laws of physics in the next build rather than instantly reducing their velocity to zero after crashing! They turn into deadly bullets at that point!

    Good idea avoiding clumps of cars ahead of you! :idea:  I just checked the code and the enemy speed reduces to 0 in about a second (or at least it should), but I did find a bug where the enemy car moves a bit too fast if your car is going really slow, so hopefully the fix corrects that. 

    26 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

     

    While I'm here... I found when you're going around a turn, just on the seawall section, there seems to be an invisible barrier that doesn't let you go all the way to the outside of the curve (when it's either on the left or right side) when your near the bottom of the screen. In my screenshot here, this is as far left as you can go when it's curving to the right.


    image.thumb.png.16c174c5307766af8a5462cdba95a200.png

     

    In other turns, you're able to go all the way over and hit the side of the road with no issues:

     

    image.thumb.png.511a9f28290ccabd8554ec2b32267685.png

     

    Congrats!  You found the "other" ;) bug!  (like there is only 2 :lol: ).  This is strictly a "not implemented feature" that I had on my to-do list but ran out of time.  The car/side boundary is done using software collision (not PF collision) because of Nathan's 'red bridge' :P and I need to put in the proper deltas for detecting the collisions on the wall scenes.  (right now I think it's checking for the collisions using the medium road width by default).  Should be easy to fix!

     

    Thanks for the feedback James! :thumbsup:  

     

    John

     

    • Like 3

  2. Posted

    8 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    Regarding cheap deaths, personally I do not like them at all. IMO they are either bad game design or meant to milk the players in the arcade. This shouldn't happen in homebrews. If some people want the real, negative experience for whatever reason, add a cheap death variation. But please try to design a variation where cheap deaths do not happen or can be easily avoided. When I enhanced the Turbo proto for a playable version, getting rid of cheap deaths was a major issue. 

     

    Just my 0.02 € cents. 

    Hi TJ!  

     

    Agreed on cheap deaths; I don't think Nathan was listing his examples as "cheap deaths" but quoting James during the livestream and explaining why they AREN'T cheap deaths. ;) :skull:  Certainly there may be some tweaking that needs to be done, but IMO most of these 'cheap deaths' can be avoided (thus, not making them 'cheap').  The biggest issue James seemed to have is the enemy cars crashing into each other and your car colliding with the accident.  A quick peek on the top of the screen you can usually tell if two cars are close together, and just like real driving, you should move to the other side of the road if you think they're going to crash (they don't 'crash' when they're far in the horizon).  With that said, I can have the crashed car not slow down to speed 0 so fast so it doesn't appear to come at you so fast after an accident.

     

    After you crash and start from the bottom, we've already added in a few seconds of 'invincibility' and unlike the arcade we've also added in logic so if you pull over to the side of the road (which you probably should do anyway after a 'crash'), the enemy cars will only enter from the bottom on the other side of the road, so I think with this strategy you can safely avoid any cheap deaths in this situation.

     

    I have already modified the ambulance 'shoving' code so, like the arcade, you can safely follow the ambulance and they will plow through the enemy cars. :D  

     

    There was a bug James experienced in the "After Hours" :P livestream where his car crashed for no reason when on the hill; this is because my code was incorrectly checking for collisions with enemy cars even when they're 'hidden' behind the crest of the hill; this has been fixed also.

     

    I'm sure we'll get more feedback after the ROM is released and I'm sure we'll be able to make sure the game doesn't have the "quarter eating" vibe that the arcade has. ;)  

    8 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    BTW: The visuals of Turbo are great (arcade and this version), but gameplay is a little thin compared to that, IMO. So maybe it could be enhanced somehow to provide some more variation? I am sure there are elements from other racing games which would fit in here too. Without having to change the overall game design. E.g. chasing or running away from special opponents cars, reduced visibility, varying round lengths, some (e.g. time) bonus to aim for, being a able to build up a time buffer in lower rounds, Easter eggs.. whatever. :) 

    Agreed, we plan on adding in a CHALLENGE mode with some of those elements, different race types, weather, etc.  Lots of options to give the game more re-playability. :thumbsup:  

     

    Thanks!

    John

     

    • Like 4

  3. Posted

    Hi all!

     

    Last night on @ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch stream, Champ Games revealed the "secret game" that we've been working on the last few months:  Turbo Arcade for the 2600!

     

    Turbo is a 3D racing game from the early 80's (1981 to be precise) that featured state-of-the-art scaling graphics.  @Nathan Strum has done an amazing job bringing these images to life on the ol' 2600, including full screen four-color scrolling backgrounds (inspired by @cd-w's Zeviouz kernels) and managed to capture all of the iconic scenes from the arcade game, including the city, tunnel, wall, bridges, snow forest and many more!  Nathan also stepped out of his comfort zone and provided the sound effects :music: , but if anyone is interested in 'checking his work' we'd appreciate the help! :D  

     

    The game currently supports joystick for control but we are hoping to add in driving controller support.  There are two modes of shifting supported:  automatic (the game automatically shifts from high to low and vice versa when necessary) and manual (the player manually shifts to low or high gear).

     

    Due to the large number of data needed for the 150+ scenes and 300+ frames of animation in Turbo Arcade, the game uses the new 64K CDFJ backswitching scheme.  Currently this is not supported by the Harmony or Harmony Encore but Fred aka @batari was gracious enough to send a loaner development 128K Melody board to myself, Nathan and James so we could develop, test and reveal the game on real hardware.  Thanks Fred! :thumbsup:   The game does run on the latest version of Stella; I will need to test the ROM on other emulators to confirm whether it works or not.  

     

    A demo ROM is expected to be made available in the next week and will be available on Champ Games ROM Demo Download page.  If you haven't already, be sure to check it out for the latest demos of RobotWar: 2084, Lady Bug Arcade and Gorf Arcade (all expected to be released in 2021), as well as final demos from the released versions of Galagon, Wizard of Wor Arcade and Mappy.

     

    The full version is not expected to be released until sometime in 2022.

     

    We will post updates here, on our FB site and on our webpage as they become available; in the meantime, here are some screenshots from the current build of the game (which we estimate to be about 70% done):

     

    Title screen:

    champ_games_2021_secret_game_old.thumb.png.498e768b308833faf65d2472c492ca2d.png

     

    Start of race in the city:

    champ_games_2021_secret_game_old_2.thumb.png.531c5e8bad6900ccabc9522f6e0f70c2.png

     

    Limited visibility in the darkened tunnels:

    turbo_arcade_passcode_2.thumb.png.27d339402c66efe57eabdc94f5299724.png

     

    Be careful on the slippery surface in the snow / forest scene:

    turbo_arcade_passcode_11.thumb.png.940f60cfe9729a171b9de46ca64f1ac8.png

     

    You lose sight of the opponent cars as they dip behind the oncoming hill:

    turbo_arcade_passcode_7.thumb.png.b552e8296c84a60189299121b5a308fb.png

     

    Slow down around the sharp curve overlooking the ocean!

    champ_games_2021_secret_game_old_4.thumb.png.87e3474020926cf247cf6a048ce2b31a.png

     

    Avoid the ambulance as it travels through the streets with it's sirens blasting!

    turbo_arcade_passcode_9.thumb.png.d41598cb6471a7071c3840315e94755b.png

    • Like 19

  4. Posted

    On 5/5/2021 at 10:21 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    I finally found the time, using my 2600-daptor II on my PC. I did not even get my standard joystick working correctly in ports 1 and 2. It seems like the 2600-daptor detects a different kind of controller. @johnnywcWhat did you use for your tests?

    Hi TJ, apologies for not replying a bit sooner.  My QT tests with the Retron77 all had issues, whether connected to the front ports or through the 2600dapter/Stelladapter with USB. 😕  

    On 5/5/2021 at 10:21 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    BTW: I don't think this can be implemented at all. It seems the 2600-daptor communication is only unidirectional. So there is no way to tell the QuadTari to switch. I have contacted the 2600-daptor developer to verify.

    Perhaps.  I would assume with the paddles it has to somehow tell the paddles to charge using dumpports through pins 5 and 9; perhaps a similar approach could be used to 'switch' the QuadTari? I'm not a hardware guy but I would think that at some point those pins would have to be set high for paddles to work.

    On 5/5/2021 at 10:03 PM, fdr4prez said:

    I am pretty sure Stella on the PC doesn't need the QuadTari. 

     

    Stella emulates it, so you just need to have 4 joysticks (4x 2600-daptors) connected to the pc. 

    Actually, I got it to work with 2 joysticks hooked up to the front ports and 2 joysticks hooked up to a USB OTB hub using 2 2600dapters.  There is a bit of slowdown on RobotWar 2 player co-op on the high levels but overall it runs pretty well. :thumbsup:  

    On 5/5/2021 at 10:03 PM, fdr4prez said:

    The QuadTari is for consoles. 

    True, the QT does work best on consoles, but certainly if there is a way to get it to work on the R77 that would be a cool bonus! :cool: 

    On 5/6/2021 at 4:37 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    True, but the original question came for the RetroN 77. I am not sure if it can handle that many 2600-daptors at once via OTG cable and a USB hub. Also one QuadTari would save for two 2600-daptors. ;)

    See above; you can use 4 joysticks using the 2 front ports and 2 USB ports through a hub, so I don't think there would be any savings for 2600dapters, unless you could get two joysticks to work using one half of the QuadTari which could save for 1 2600dapter, but I'm not sure if that would be worth it.

     

    What would be best if we could get the QuadTari to work through the front ports and not need any 2600dapters, but I'm not sure if that is possible.  I'm not sure if it's the R77 or Stella that is detecting paddles when they are connected to the front ports (if pin 5 and pin 9 are high are on startup).  If there was a way for it to detect that pin 5 is low and pin 9 is high (which identifies a QT), perhaps that would work.  I'm not a hardware guy so perhaps it's possible. :P 

    On 5/6/2021 at 4:37 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    Anyway, for now I consider this not feasible, also because SDL currently does only support reading from controllers.

    Do you mean the SDL for the 2600 dapters, the front ports of the R77, or both?  Just curious...  ;) 

     

    Also, this is probably not the thread for it and I tried to create an issue in GitHub but was not able to, but one small change for the QuadTari configuration in Stella.  Currently, when you click the "QuadTari" button, it labels the 2 controllers for the left QuadTari port as P1 and P2, and the 2 controllers for the right QuadTari port as P3 and P4.  The physical QuadTari itself is labeled as Joystick 1/Joystick 3 on the left and Joystick 2/Joystick 4 on the right.  Would it be possible to change these labels to match the labels on the QT?  Also, perhaps it would be helpful to show what Pn it maps to in the configuration (Joystick 1 -> P0, Joystick 2 -> P1, Joystick 3 -> P2, Joystick 4 -> P3), so perhaps something like "Joystick 1 (P0)", ...  or "J1 (P0", ... 

     

    Thanks!

    John

  5. Posted

    4 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

    Is there a way to see what's available in the store without creating an account?

    Yes, we made the change so you don't have to create an account to view the store. 

    2 hours ago, Keatah said:

    Is it necessary to create an account to make a purchase?

     

    No, you don't have to create an account to make a purchase (any more).  :) 

    1 hour ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    John answered this during the ZPH stream last night so I'll type it out here.

     

    If I'm not mistaken, each binary is individualized specifically to you and is tied to your Champ Games account, so you will have to create an account to make a purchase.

     

    Hi James!  Yes, you're correct that each binary is individualized to the buyer, but it's not tied to your Champ Games account (just your name and email, which ARE required to make a purchase), so you were half right. ;)  

     

    Thanks everyone for the feedback; we haven't managed a website in about 23 years or so (1998 :P ) so we'll do what we can to make the online buying process as easy as possible. :D  

     

     

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2

  6. Posted

    On 5/18/2020 at 5:13 PM, root42 said:

    Found another bug in Mappy. Get caught by a cat the same moment Hurry comes up. I was stuck and invincible. Until this weird green thing arrived???

     

     

    Wow - apologies for not replying to this sooner!  😕  That weird "green thing" is the "Gosenzo" cat-coin!  It appears if you take too long to clear a level and will track down Mappy.  Unlike cats, it CAN and WILL kill you on contact no matter where you are, including trampolines, so if he show's up, avoid him at all costs! 

     

    I looked into the code and I was able to find and fix the Hurry up/caught cat bug.  I have sent Al a new ROM (with some other changes and tweaks to the UI but no game play changes) for any future Mappy purchases.  Since we cannot obviously do a mass-recall without putting AtariAge (and Champ Games) out of business ;) , Al has graciously offered to re-program Mappy carts with the latest ROM if you are willing to send him your cart and pay for the shipping.

     

    As another alternative, we have also just added the Mappy full ROM to the Champ Games website online store which is also the latest version, and we offer a 50% discount for people how have previously purchased the cartridge.

     

    Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated!

    John

     

    • Like 6

  8. Posted

    Hello all,

     

    For those interested in purchasing the full ROM of Wizard of Wor Arcade, Champ Games has relaunched our website and added a store to do just that! :)  For now, we are offering full ROMs for sale of Galagon, Wizard of Wor Arcade and Mappy, with plans to add more in the near future.

     

    If you have previously purchased the cartridge for these games and are interested in purchasing the ROM, we have partnered with AtariAge to offer a 50% discount on ROM purchases with proof-of-purchase of the cart version.

     

    We have also posted updated demo ROMs for most of our games, including the latest demos of RobotWar: 2684, Gorf Arcade and Lady Bug Arcade.  

     

    Have fun!

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 2

  9. Posted

    Hello all,

     

    For those interested in purchasing the full ROM of Galagon, Champ Games has relaunched our website and added a store to do just that! :)  For now, we are offering full ROMs for sale of Galagon, Wizard of Wor Arcade and Mappy, with plans to add more in the near future.

     

    If you have previously purchased the cartridge for these games and are interested in purchasing the ROM, we have partnered with AtariAge to offer a 50% discount on ROM purchases with proof-of-purchase of the cart version.

     

    We have also posted updated demo ROMs for most of our games, including the latest demos of RobotWar: 2684, Gorf Arcade and Lady Bug Arcade.  

     

    Have fun!

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 3

  10. Posted

    On 4/17/2021 at 4:05 PM, Rally X said:

    Hi all!

     

    New to this thread. Recently downloaded the latest demo, and just love it! I’m wondering when will the finished version be available and how can I go about purchasing/downloading. Really want to try to 2 player co-op version!

    Hello there!  We are currently doing final testing on the game and the artwork for the physical release is being reviewed (excellent work by David Exton) and we're hoping for a cartridge release in the AtariAge store in late May/early June.  A digital download option will be made available sometime in 2022.

     

    Thanks in advance for your support!

    • Like 10

  11. Posted

    32 minutes ago, Crazy Climber said:

    True, but I "think" I remember seeing a little blurb about Champ games making a sports/baseball game. "Champ Games baseball?" Can't remember, it was awhile ago and not sure if it's still a thing...but that would be a unique non-port if I'm not mistaken.

    You are correct, the game is called Champ Sports Baseball and it's an original title (well, as original as you can get since baseball has been around for 150 years or so ;) ).  We also have numerous other original games that we are considering (including some other sports games depending on how CS Baseball is received).  

    32 minutes ago, Crazy Climber said:

    Champ is definitely "slaying it" with the arcade ports though, wizard of wor blew my mind. Really looking forward to Zoo Keeper and Robotron (Robot war?)

    Thanks!  Robotron has gone through a few name changes, and last fall we decided on RobotWar:2684.  David Exton is working on the artwork (manual/label/box) and we are planning on releasing it sometime in May.

    • Like 6

  12. Posted

    43 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    No. But the cart reader is very unreliable.

    Thanks for the quick reply TJ.  I'll try with a few more carts and see if I can get it to work.  I assume if there is a cart plugged in when you power up, it *should* just load up that game and not go to the Stella menu?

  13. Posted

    5 hours ago, WishItWas1984 said:

    Will the final cartridge version of "Avalanche" be released for digital purchase in the future? Would love to play this on my R77.

    Champ Games and AtariAge are working on making digital downloads available soon! :) 

    1 hour ago, Karl G said:

    Albert has said that he's working on a way to sell ROMs through AtariAge. Also though, I think there's a very good chance that this one would work through via the cart slot since it's a 4K game with no bankswitching. 

    Hmm, I just tried with the cart version of Avalanche (special throw-back super exclusive collector's edition ;) ) and the cart reader on my R77 doesn't seem to work (I don't think I had ever tested it).  I tested with Combat but it goes straight to the Stella menu.  Does the cart reader get disabled if you install the latest community build?  

     

    20210314_102854.thumb.jpg.341af535cf2bd785cad2ec6fc72e3aab.jpg

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    On 3/10/2021 at 10:21 AM, LadyBugVCS said:

    Can't wait for this one to come out this year, i'm in love with the 2006 Lady Bug port!

    Thanks Christopher, I'm glad you're enjoying the game! :) 

    25 minutes ago, LadyBugVCS said:

    Any chance we can get the coleco limited edition rom! Wish I could buy the cart buy it's no longer on sale on atari age! :)

    Since the game was an exclusive limited collector's edition, we will not be releasing the ROM.  The good news is that the original Lady Bug and Lady Bug Arcade do not have this restriction and can be purchased by everyone! :D  (well, you can't buy Lady Bug Arcade until the end of the year when it's released) ;) 

    • Like 2

  15. Posted

    2 minutes ago, RevEng said:

    QuadTari on 7800 in one-button mode appears fine. I may need to adjust the 7800basic abstraction for two-button vs one-button fire-button sticks as part of the QuadTari support (likely where Karl's test got hung up) but INPT4/INPT5 is registering as expected.

    That's great news, thanks so much for confirming! :thumbsup:  

    2 minutes ago, RevEng said:

     

    Here's a 7800 test program. It sets one-button mode, but shows 2 button controls because it's adapted from another program. Just look at the INPT4 and INPT5 registers, rather than the graphical button state. Left difficulty switch controls vblank cap grounding/charging. (i.e. whether INPT4 reads are for QT ports 1 or 3, and whether INPT5 reads are for QT 2 or 4)

     

    quadtaritest.bas.a78 32.13 kB · 1 download

    quadtaritest.bas.bin 32 kB · 1 download

     

    I'll do a proper 7800basic integration soonish, but this should hopefully give anybody keen to support QuadTari enough info to do it.

     

    You may inspire me to get into 7800 programming now... ;)  It would be nice to add some 7800 games to the Champ Games list someday. :D 

     

    Thanks again!

    John

     

  16. Posted

    30 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

    Well I didn't use prolines as I have Curt's Proline Arcade 7800, the new one that Bratwurst has been offering and also one of Retrogameboiz NES style controllers. Far as I know, they all basically use the same components to trigger the signals as the original prolines do?

     

    But yeah, having Curt's controller in Port 3 on the QT and Brat's controller in port 1 on the QT, and then firing up Rev's utility cart image from my Mateos, it started to immediately trigger player 1 fire as being pressed. Unplugged the controller and it continued to do this. Unplugged the QT and it was still doing this. I then power off the 7800 with nothing plugged in at this point and it still registered fire 1 being triggered. I thought my TIA was hosed at that point, but once I plugged in my Epyx controller into port 1, it wasn't doing it anymore and hasn't since. 

     

    So having the two controllers plugged in while firing up the Utility cart triggered some state on the TIA making it always think the fire button was being pressed when it wasn't. 

    Okay, thanks for the clarification Jesse! :thumbsup:  I'm not familiar with the 7800 scene, but I assume Rev's utility cart is a 7800 program (meaning, it's not a 2600 program?).  If you own the Wizard of Wor Cartridge (or Harmony), have you tried with the QT and Proline-compatible controllers while starting those up?  On my end, 2600 programs (ie. the Harmony bios or WoW Arcade) don't have the issue with Proline buttons automatically engaging, only if I'm testing with Pole Position 2 (a 7800 game) in which case the game starts automatically and the gas pedal is always enabled.  I'm trying to confirm if Proline compatible controllers work with the QT for 2600 programs (they do in my testing) vs. 7800 programs in which case we know it doesn't not work (at least for now).

    30 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

    It was odd that it didn't correct until I plugged in an actual single button 2600 stick into it to 'reset' it internally somehow.

     

    I had the same issue for me.  We'll have to leave that explanation to the hardware experts as I'm not sure what causes it or what fixes it. :P  

     

    Thanks!

    John

     

  17. Posted

    48 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

    Wow! Just now paying attention to this thread and I see that what I experienced when I was first testing the QT on my 7800 with 2 sets of 7800 controllers is happening to others! Yes I also noticed when using Rev's utility cart that if I have 2 7800 controllers plugged into the QT, the system immediately registers player 1's fire 1 as always being depressed. Worse is that even removing the QT and power cycling didn't correct the issue?! It was stuck with fire button 1 always registering as being pressed. It didn't correct itself until I plugged in a single button controller (My Epyx 500Xj) into the play 1 port and then power cycled the 7800. At that point is seemed to be working correctly again. 

     

    When I made my video on the Quadtari, I made sure to keep the Epyx plugged into port 1 on the QT and had a 7800 controller in port 3 of the QT when I was showing off the QT using Wizard of Wor: Arcade and that worked properly. I've not done much else but it would seem that when using actual 7800 controllers in the QT connected up to a 7800 and trying to operate in 7800 mode, that the TIA is always triggering on fire 1 at that point.

     

    So for now it would seem that using a QT is only possible with actual single button controllers on the 7800, especially in 7800 mode.

     

    Thanks for the feedback Jesse!  I have tested Wizard of Wor Arcade with a QT and 2 Proline controllers in port 1 and 3 and it works fine for both players.  The only caveat is that only the left button works on the Proline.  So, it seems that Proline controllers work with the QT on 2600 games at least.  Does this work for you too?

    1 minute ago, RevEng said:

    Yeah, we came to that conclusion a while back, before QuadTari was completed. As part of the design it uses the paddle lines, and so do the proline sticks, so two-button mode has always been known to be unsupported.

     

    QuadTari *should* work with 7800 in single-button mode with regular cx-40 sticks. It *might* work with prolines in single-button mode, but that needs testing. I've been swamped IRL, so I just haven't gotten to that yet.

    Thanks, I think it *should* work too but unfortunately I don't have a way to test since I need to find my Cuttlecart (oh, and I don't know how to program 7800 games ;)  ).  Hopefully you can figure it out when you get a free moment, RL has been pretty swamped over here too! :P  

     

     

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    11 hours ago, Karl G said:

    I'm not much of a hardware guy, unfortunately, so I didn't do anything with the button code after that previous post. The gameplay doesn't rely on a button at all; I only added that as an option to restart the game. I have the QT and a Concerto cart though, so I can run tests if anyone has anything specific they would like me to try.

    Thanks for the update Karl.  I'm not much of a hardware guy either (the QT design and testing was more of a trial by fire for me ;) ) so for now let's wait for the hardware/7800 experts to do some research and hopefully come up with a solution. :D   Thanks everyone!

  19. Posted

    @Karl G  Hi Karl!  Were you able to make any progress with the joystick button for 7800 games in 1 button mode using the QuadTari?  I saw your raindrops game was played on ZPH but didn't get a chance to watch the show.

     

    On my end, I dug out my 7800 and did a few tests; as expected, 2600 games in a 7800 work with any controller (included the Prolines, although only the left button works).  I was not able to find my Cuttlecart (it's been at least 10 years since I've seen it) but I did find Pole Position II (the only 7800 game I own) and similar to what you experienced, the button for the gas seems to be pressed all the time, the brake (button 2?) doesn't work but the joystick directions all work as expected.  Are there any 1-button 7800 games that anyone knows of (those that explicitly set it to 1 button mode) so we can at least see if the button works in that situation?

     

    I did do a last test, and for that I disconnected pin 9 from the QuadTari and that stops the button from being pressed all the time.  This is with Prolines and regular CX-40's.  

     

    Hopefully I can find my Cuttlecart and do some more testing, but if there are any 7800 software/hardware experts out there that know how the joysticks are hooked up physically and read internally that would be most helpful.  Obviously CX-40' s work on a 7800 but only button 1 registers (obviously) so that's being read from pin 6; I'm not sure how pin 5 and pin 9 are utilized in 1 button mode on the 7800.  

     

    Anyway, hopefully this can be resolved or perhaps there's an adapter that can be added to wire the pins properly but keep the functionality of the QT.

     

    Thanks,

    John

  20. Posted

    5 hours ago, Prizrak said:

    After playing a lot of the first Lady Bug conversion you did, the symetrical play field is not bad and if you hadn't played the arcade you wouldn't have noticed.

    I agree!  Symmetrical doors was the big concession I had to make back in 2006 for Lady Bug to be possible given the constraints of the time, so I was pleased to see that it didn't detract too much away from the arcade Lady Bug feel.

    5 hours ago, Prizrak said:

    Got a question about the new Arcade one your working on, the maze flicker/fuzziness is that done to create the color of the maze and the asymmetrical format? When I first played it I noticed it but it thought it was my eyes but I see it in Stella as well.
     

    It's only to create the color of the maze, doors and dots to have 3 colors with no black lines or alternating colors.  The asymmetrical doors don't have anything to do with the maze coloring.  The 2006 version method handled the different colors in the maze by displaying the green color for the maze AND the doors on one frame, and the pink color for the maze only on the other frame.  This allowed the doors to be just green (flickering at 30hz) and the maze color was a mix of the pink and green which was an odd but acceptable color.  The flickering of the maze has always bothered me and was one of the only complaints about the game from other reviewers over the years so I sought out to correct this in the 15 year anniversary 'arcade' edition. :) 

     

    The new method uses 2 coloring techniques that can be toggled with the right difficultly switch.  The default method (diff b) will alternate pink and green on each line for the maze and door, and alternate odd even lines as well, giving the maze a 'full' look (no black lines) with minimal flicker (that's the fuzziness you see).  As a bonus, it happens to be that if you combine pink (red and blue) with green, this yields a non-flickering white for the dots! :D 

     

    The alternate method doesn't flicker at all; it will alternate pink and green every other line, and for the dots it uses a pink alongside green (not combined) to give the illusion of a 3rd color.  The main benefit is no flicker; the drawback are the black lines and less 'full' display.  IMO, both are better than how the 2006 version and is made possible with the ARM, especially the blending method which has to redraw the entire maze/doors/dots every frame (although I'm using the same method in Qix and figured out a way to get around this by managing two copies of the playfield in memory and swapping them each frame ;) ).

    5 hours ago, Prizrak said:

    Got another thought@johnnywc, I've been super interested in getting a colecovision. Never had one as a child and it's on my list as an adult (one could definitely sink more money into it than the 2600 it feels).

    I have never personally owned a Colecovision either but have always been intrigued by it.  I had a couple friends back in the day that had one and I always looked forward to visiting and playing a game of Donkey Kong, DK Jr., Zaxxon, Venture, Cosmic Avenger, and of course Lady Bug.  I do own a Colecovision of sorts now; the Collectorvision Phoenix, and it can play Colecovision carts as well as games from an SD card, all with an HD display!  :thumbsup:  

    5 hours ago, Prizrak said:

    I was reading the manual to Lady Bug and how your mom played the colecovision verison a lot and was sad they didn't make one for the Atari. Lady Bug on the Atari, especially the Arcade one your working on us vastly superior to the CV version. Your mom would certainly be proud.
     

    Thank you very much, that's very nice of you to say.  My mom sadly only got to play Lady Bug for a week when we borrowed my friend's Colecovision and instantly fell in love with it... I remember she would be in my room where the Atari was set up at all hours of the night while I was trying to get some sleep for school the next day. :lol:  Her absolute favorite was Pac-man on our 800xl.  2020 marked 25 years since she passed and probably one of the reasons I felt inspired to revisit Lady Bug after all this time. :) 

     

     

    • Like 3

  21. Posted

    7 minutes ago, CentipedeFan said:

    I ordered a copy of this months ago and forgot about it.  Has this shipped yet?  It says will ship in January and clearly it's not.  Any thoughts?

    Hello there!  I'm pretty sure @Albert was waiting on some manuals and boxes to be printed and he's getting ready to ship things soon (I'll let him give you an actual update ;)  ).  Thanks for your support! :thumbsup:  

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    On 2/27/2021 at 11:08 PM, e1will said:

    I am liking the additional maze capability. In maze 2 you can trap the bugs in various corners, which is fun.

    Thanks for the feedback Will!  Yes, the custom mazes offer more gameplay options, including trying to trap a bug or two if you're good enough.. ;) 

    On 2/27/2021 at 11:08 PM, e1will said:

    One interesting quirk I noticed was that occasionally the vegetables in the special round are all eggplants. I've never seen it do that with a different kind of vegetable, although I have seen half eggplants, half carrots.

    ladybug_arcade_demo1_NTSC.png

    That's most likely a bug, although I am a huge fan of eggplant 🍆 so maybe its coincidence? :P   Seriously though, this is a bug and has been fixed in the latest version.  The veggie type and location is much more random but also balanced.  I'll probably post an updated demo sometime before the release in November as this one is quickly approaching RC. :D  

     

    Thanks again!

    John

     

     

     

    • Like 3

  23. Posted

    36 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    I created a non-playable demo of my simple, eight player, one button racing game. 

     

    Gameplay (not implemented yet):

    • When the button is pressed and the car is over the boost arrows, the car accelerates. 
    • When the button is pressed and the car is not over the boost arrows, the car brakes. 
    • When no button is pressed, the car slows down gradually.
    • The horizontal position of the car signals the position in the race. Also it requires the reaction of the leading players to be faster. Currently the difference per position is half the car width, this may change, even while the game is played.

     

    Vroom 8!

    Vroom 8! (v0.1).bin 2 kB · 0 downloads

    That looks great TJ!  It reminds me of those carnival games where you're either shooting water or a ball into a target and it moves along a horse during a race.  Can't wait to see how this one progresses!   I believe it will be the first 8-player Atari game. :D   With all these multiplayer games being made, maybe @ZeroPage Homebrew James should consider adding a "Best Multi-player Game" category to next year's award. ;) 

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Prizrak said:

    Thanks for clearing that up@johnnywc I knew I was close but forgot about constraints because of hardware not personal choice and also the new Harmony being developed.
     

    Hi there!  It looks like Darrell @SpiceWare cleared things up ;)  (thanks Darrell!).

     

    I do have an opportunity to use CDFJ+ for Gorf Arcade now that it's been finalized (and used actively in @cd-w's amazing  Zeviouz :o ), but I am going to stick to 32K for the reasons you described (I don't want to be working on Gorf Arcade for another year and I have a delivery date set of August 2021 :D ).

     

    With that said, I am considering using CDFJ+ for Champ Sports Baseball so I can use the extra ROM for player names/stats/etc. and, more importantly, use 4K of that to save stats/etc. on the cart itself and not have to rely on the SaveKey for that.  We'll still have AtariVox support for voice, which will also take up a bunch of ROM if we plan on adding on full announcer phrases ("now batting, number 8, the left fielder"), etc. :music:   Games that use the extra ROM for data only and not necessarily game play shouldn't add as much development time than say, a game that used the extra 32K for additional levels, features, etc.

     

    It'll be fun to find out!

    • Like 3

  25. Posted

    1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    6.5 switched to a SQLite database for properties. So settings for 6.5 and versions before are independent.

    Okay - that makes sense.  I think a clean install on my end is in order! 

     

    4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    It tested with the attached ROM. Without any parameters, QuadTari is detected for both ports, with "-lc joystick -rc joystick" joysticks are detected in both ports. Can you double check your input, please?

    witchtower.bin 32 kB · 0 downloads

    Okay, that worked.  Not sure why when I run it through Textpad /Tools with the same command it doesn't override.  Must be my system/setup/environment... please disregard my "error" reports. ;)

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