johnnywc

Hello all, I have a 2600 4-switch that is giving me issues with the left controller port. Most of the time the joysticks work fine, but every so often the button will stop working and sometimes left stops working. It's definitely not a joystick issue as it happens on several different types. The issue always corrects itself when I push the controller connector more firmly into the port. It's obviously an issue with the connection between the controller and the pins in the port; my question (being a software guy ) is what is the best way to troubleshoot this and are there any suggestions on how to fix it? Any help is appreciated! There's nothing worse than being in the middle of an intense shootout in Galaga and all of a sudden your ship stops firing missiles! Thanks, John

Thank you everyone for the kind words on Galaga, we're glad everyone is enjoying the demo! It looks like the NTSC and PAL60 demos have been downloaded almost 500 times in less than 2 days - pretty amazing! Thanks Philsan! The enemies in formation are all drawn using 1 sprite each frame; this is done using the same technique that was used for Atari's own Galaxian back in the 80's. The trick involves repositioning the sprite mid-scanline while changing the # of copies to display up to 8 sprites on the same line. You can actually do more, but we went with 8 so we could move the sprites left and right, plus we needed the extra cycles to draw everything else, including the enemy flying down (using the other player), the stars (using the ball) and up to 2 missiles (using the missiles) without flicker. Of course we re-use each of these sprites as we move down the screen to draw more stars, more missiles, other enemies in flight, your ship, the tractor beam, the score, status area, etc. all without flicker if they are vertically separated. Hello there! We are planning on a release in the fall of 2019 while we polish up the game and create the box/manual/label, etc. The release may coincide with the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, the weekend of October 20th, depending on whether Atari Age will be in attendance along with Champ Games. Stay tuned for more info and thanks in advance for your support, it is greatly appreciated! That looks really good! Dave Dries has already been commissioned to do the label/box/manual for Galaga, but I'm sure he's monitoring this thread and will appreciate your ideas. Thanks!

As promised, here are the demo ROMs for Galaga for the 2600 (both NTSC and PAL60). Note: If you plan on playing Galaga in Stella, the latest version with CDFJ is required (v6.0.1). Please visit the Stella website to download the latest version. A big thanks to Stephen and the Stella team for putting in the changes to support the game! The game will also work in Stellarator and on real hardware with the Harmony or Harmony Encore. This is a fully playable game with the following restrictions: - The CHALLENGE MODE skill level (where you try to clear as many challenge stages as possible) has been disabled - the CO-OP mode (2 players play together, each alternating control of a single ship or both controlling a ship when rescued) has been disabled - Savekey functionality has been disabled, but high scores are still maintained for each skill level during play until the game is turned off - The game loops back to Level 1 after Level 8 is complete. GAME OPTIONS From the title screen, you can select the # of players and SKILL level. Press SELECT to toggle between 1 and 2 players. For 2 players, each player alternates after the current player's ship is destroyed. Move the joystick left/right to change the SKILL level: NOVICE: Player starts with double-ship, 3 reserves. Difficulty ramp up is slower STANDARD: Most like the arcade. Player starts with single ship, 3 reserves ADVANCED: More difficult than STANDARD. Player starts with 1 ship and 2 in reserve. Enemies move faster, enemy missiles are faster, enemies take off more frequently, extra ships are added during the fly-in sequence, etc. Move the joystick up/down to cycle through the 4 menu screens. If you do not move the joystick or start a game, the screens will cycle through after a certain amount of time. Title screen Scoring screen Hi scores. You can also press left/right to swap between the 3 high score tables on this screen. Credits DIFFICULTY SWITCHES The left and right difficulty switches control the firing mode for Player 1 and Player 2, respectively: When the difficulty switch is in the B position, Auto-fire is enabled. With auto-fire, you do not have to press and release the button to fire multiple shots. When the difficulty switch is in the A position, Auto-fire is disabled. In this mode, you need to release the button between shots (this is how it is in the arcade). To start a game, either press RESET or joystick 1 button. PLAYING THE GAME Use the joystick to move your ship left and right to avoid incoming fire and to line up your shots to destroy the enemy. Press the fire button to fire up to 2 missiles (4 missiles when your ship is doubled). Destroy all of the enemies to advance to the next stage. The final release will have 99 levels to complete. THE ENEMIES Bees (blue). These enemies fly towards in a loop pattern towards your ship when attacking. Be careful when they loop around to return back to the formation! Butterflies (red). These enemies fly in more of a zig-zag pattern towards your ship and wrap around the screen when they pass your ship. Boss (cyan/blue): These boss enemies fly alone or in packs protected by butterfly guards. The boss ships require two hits to destroy them; after one hit they turn from cyan to blue. Hitting them when they are blue will destroy them. Split enemies (multiple): Starting on level 4, at some point during the level a bee will flash and split into 3 other enemies! They will swoop towards you and circle your ship; destroy all 3 for bonus points! Captured ship (red or blue): When you ship is captured by a boss (see below), he is forced to fight for the opposition until he is freed! Although he can be destroyed, you should instead try to rescue him so that he may fight for your cause once again! TRACTOR BEAM Occasionally during a level, a boss ship will fly to a particular spot on the screen and emit a tractor beam attempting to capture your ship! If your ship is captured in the tractor beam, it will turn red (or blue for player 2) and join the enemy! When he takes off from formation, shoot his captor to free him and double up your ship (and double your fire power!). Be careful not to shoot the captured ship though! With double fire, your two ships will each fire a missile at the same time (up to 2 each). Also, if you do not have any reserve ships and your current ship is captured, there will be no one left to perform the rescue and your game will end. Be aware that if you are caught in the tractor beam, you can still fire missiles and may be able to shoot the boss ship and escape from the tractor beam as a last ditch effort. If you shoot the captured ship's boss ship while in formation, eventually the captured ship will attack solo; you should avoid shooting him and he will escape the level and return in the next stage (during fly-in, so be careful not to shoot him there either!) where you will get another chance to perform the rescue. CHALLENGE STAGES Starting on level 3 and every 4th level after that is a CHALLENGE STAGE. In this stage, the enemies do not fire and your ship cannot be destroyed. The object is to shoot as many ships as possible (up to 40) to increase your score. Shooting all 40 will result in a 10,000 point bonus. SCORING Bee: 50 points in formation, 100 points in flight Butterfly: 80 points in formation, 160 points in flight Boss: 150 points in formation. In flight: 400 points with no guards, 800 points with 1 guard, 1600 points with 2 guards Shooting all 3 'split' enemies: 1000 - 3000 points Shooting all 8 enemies during a wave of the challenge stage: 1000 - 3000 points Shooting all 40 enemies during a challenge stage: 10,000 points An extra ship is awarded at 20,000 points, 70,000 points, and every 70,000 points thereafter CONSOLE SWITCHES During a game the console switches do the following: RESET will reset the game with the current skill/# of players/options SELECT will end the current game and return to the title screen COLOR/BW (PAUSE on a 7800) will pause the game; press or flip the switch again or press the joystick button to resume. LEFT/RIGHT DIFFICULTY: enable/ disable auto-fire player 1 and player 2, respectively (A = disable, B = enable) TWO PLAYER In two player mode, player 2's ship will have a blue trim (player 1 trim is red) and player 2's score will be light blue (player 1 score color is white). Furthermore, when your ship is captured, player 1's captured ship is RED and player 2's captured ship is BLUE. GAME OVER When all a player's ships are destroyed and there are no reserve, GAME OVER will be displayed followed by the shooting ratio results. This includes the # of shots taken, # of hits and the hit ratio. Note that when you have double fire power, firing two simultaneous shots only counts as 1 shot taken since since both missiles can only hit one target (the other missile is disabled once one of the missiles hits a target). HIGH SCORE If the current player achieves a high score for the current skill level, the high score entry screen is displayed. Use the joystick to enter up to 3 initials. Move the joystick up/down to change the current initial (blinking) and press the button to move to the next initial. Move left/right to change the initial to update. Once completed, press the button after entering in the 3rd initial to register your name and be added to the list of GALACTIC HEROS! Savekey support has been disabled for this demo. CREDITS Special thanks to Nathan Strum for all of his hard work the last few weeks, even as he was putting in 60 hour weeks at work! His amazing work on the graphics and discussions on game design really inspired me to move forward with this project and enabled us to put the game together as quickly as we did. He also was the sole game tester and found many bugs (some that wouldn't seem to go away!) so thanks again Nathan! Also special thanks to Ross Keenum for his amazing sounds and music! Ross and I hadn't met or spoke before I reached out to him a month ago and he was very gracious in providing me with all the help I needed to get the music and sounds put into the game very quickly. He even spent some extra time making a few extra music and sound fx in short order!. Thanks Ross! Additional thanks for the extensive testing done by Steve Ramirez, Glenn (aka GRay Defender) and James (& Tayna) over at ZeroPage Homebrew, as well as Darrell Spice Jr., TJ, Dennis Debro and Mike Haas for additional testing and feedback. I hope I didn't miss anyone! RELEASE PLANS Right now the game is about 99% complete. Currently, we are targeting a release for sometime in late 2019 (I need to confirm with Al), possibly the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (October). Dave Dries has graciously signed on to do the box, manual, and label - thanks Dave! He has done amazing work on numerous AA projects, including Champ Games' own Scramble and the upcoming Wizard of Wor Arcade. Have fun! John galaga_demo_NTSC.bin galaga_demo_PAL60.bin

We'll be releasing an NTSC and PAL60 demo this weekend!

Thanks so much! Yeah I guess that's a part of it, the challenge, but the big draw for me is whether I have fond memories of the game. I must admit that I have never heard of or played Space Taxi (I didn't have a C64 back in the day; I owned an 800xl) but I just did a search on YT and watched the long play. Very cool game! Having never played the game, it does appear that a good version could definitely be done on the 2600 for at least some of the levels (looks like there are 24!). I also found a post on the AA forums where it looks like someone has already started a port too!

Hello there! No, not yet. We are squashing the last remaining bugs and adding a few more bells & whistles, including a really cool and fun co-op mode where both players control a ship when you double-up after a rescue mission! I anticipate a demo version being released in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Speaking of Avalanche, the game is all done (thanks in big part to Thomas (TJ) for his assistance with optimizing the code and design). Al & I are coordinating a label contest that we'll post info about soon, so artists get ready and sharpen up those colored pencils!

Thanks! I believe the link in this forum is the final version; are the ROMs different for each? It's been a while (13 years lol) but I think if I would have made a change to the final ROM I would have posted it in this thread, but I would have to confirm. Either way, they're probably either the same ROM or 99% the same. The *final* ROM is certainly on the carts sold through the AA store.

Galaga was just one of those "I have an idea, let's run with it" type of projects that came together much faster than expected (6 weeks!) thanks to Nathan (graphics & design) & Ross (sounds). We are now turning our focus back to finishing Wizard of Wor Arcade (manual, additional speech, finishing the sound fx, other bells/whistles) for a summer release. Once development is complete we'll pick up Zoo Keeper; that is sure to be a challenging game to finish as it's basically 3 games in 1!

Hello there! We are still working on this game and finishing it up as we speak! The manual/box/label is almost complete and we are adding in the final sounds and speech phrases. We have also updated the game to support the latest changes to Nathan Tolbert's QuadTari adapter that will support 2 joysticks in one port, leaving the 2nd port free for the Atarivox and 2 player/voice! EDIT: I forogt to mention; while we were waiting for these things to come together, Nathan Strum and I (with sounds from Ross Keenum) started another game... Stay tuned for updates! Thanks, John

Thanks RH! I'm glad you enjoyed the interview! One of these days I need to recruit someone who would be interested in helping me bring Mountain Raider to the Atari!

CHAMP Galagon was released for the PC (DOS specifically) back in 1997.

Thanks for your support with CHAMP Galagon - I'm glad you liked it! As for the Easter Egg, we probably won't have the room (we're pretty short on ROM as it is), but we're still debating on the name so Galagon may make it to the title screen one way or another.

Thanks Thomas - I agree! Lady Bug (and Caverns...ummm I mean CONQUEST of Mars were the two that really got me into developing games for the 2600 and they will always be my most proud accomplishments (Lady Bug especially ). Galaga, Mappy, Scramble and Super Cobra aren't too shabby either...

Hi Dave! Thanks! The password distribution shtick was a little off-the-cuff and impromptu but provided some good drama. Galaga was difficult to pull off, especially the in-formation enemies with the scrolling stars, but I had some help with the pattern in-flight engine and pattern data which made it much easier to port this game vs. the others. I 'borrowed' my code from my PC conversion of Galaga that I did back in 1997 which really sped up the development process. IMO, Mappy was *much* more difficult to convert due to the multiple elements that require precise timing (asymmetrical playfield scrolling, background color changes for the trampolines, etc.) plus Mappy is a much more complex game. Lady Bug was one of my first games so looking back it was very challenging since I had just learned 6507 programming, plus I didn't have extra ROM/RAM/ARM to help.

Oops - I forgot to mention Stellarator support too... thanks DH!

Yes, it's a very flexible engine that can definitely support a few other shoot-em up type games. Nathan has a suggestion of one of his favorites that we actually started as a POC and has mocked up some of the graphics also. Yup, Moon Cresta was started way back in Spring of 2007 (I actually borrowed the star scrolling code from it for Galaga ). I had asked Bob back in 2011 when he finished MC for the 7800 and he has already graciously agreed to let me use the sounds and pattern data. Satan's Hollow is also a good one, but it doesn't lend itself nicely to this engine since it would require playfield/background color updates to get the SH look (Galaga does not use the PF at all during the game and the ball is used for the stars).

2019-Aug-3: Version 2 of the demo ROMs (NTSC and PAL60) have been added to this post. Version 1 demo ROMs can be found in this post. Hello all! Yesterday, the Champ Games 'secret project' was revealed live on Zero Page Homebrew's Twitch stream: Galaga for the Atari 2600! This game was developed over the last 6 weeks by Nathan Strum (graphics, game design), Ross Keenum (music and sound) and myself (design and programming). It is about 90% complete with just a few bugs to be fixed and bells & whistles to be added. Here are a few pics of the game in action: Game features: 1 or 2 players (alternating) with plans to add in a 2 player co-op mode NOVICE, STANDARD and ADVANCED skill levels a special CHALLENGE game mode where you compete with only CHALLENGE stages all enemies from the arcade included (thanks Nathan!) all music and sound from the arcade included (thanks Ross!) High scores for all game modes; will support save to Atarivox/Savekey Will support Nathan Tolbert's multi-tap (QuadTari) for 2 player with Atarivox/Savekey A/B switch to enable/disable auto-fire (A = no auto-fire aka like the arcade; B = auto-fire with button held down) Pause game via Color/BW / Pause (7800) switch Technical details: the game uses the new CDFJ driver (Stella 6.1 or better) and runs on both the Harmony & Harmony Encore. It also runs on the latest community build of Stella on the Retron 77 (thanks Nathan for the confirmation!) A video of the reveal and the game in action can be viewed on ZPH's Twitch stream archive (link above). We are planning on releasing a playable demo ROM sometime in the near future once a few bugs are fixed. A cart release has not been planned yet (I haven't talked directly to Al about it since the reveal) but I'm sure it will be available in the AA store at some point. Thanks to Nathan and Ross for all their hard work in getting this game together in such a short period of time, and special thanks to James & his team at ZPH for taking the time to debut the game on the ZPH Twitch stream. It was a lot of fun! EDIT: I just realized that the screen shots are super small (not sure why). I was trying to give Nathan a break from having to do all the work but obviously I should leave this stuff to the experts!

Hello there! The final version of Avalanche (ROM not available yet) will only support paddles (joystick support was removed to fit in more important features). Once I have the final version, I will let the Stella team know so they can update their config file and have Avalanche default to paddles on start up. Glad you're enjoying the game! John

I'm glad you're enjoying Mappy! I hope to get a chance to play it someday soon lol... I usually don't get to enjoy my own games until long after they're done and I've given myself enough time to recuperate. Wizard of Wor Arcade is coming along nicely and we hope to have it released by the end of Spring if all the pieces come together (Dave Dries is doing an amazing job on the manual/label/box, Mike Haas is finishing up a couple sounds, Nathan is helping refine the graphics, Nathan Tolbert is finalizing his design on the multi-tap (needed for 2 player with voice), and of course I'm working on polishing up the game by adding a few more bells and whistles. There will be another Champ Games release soon also. Thomas and I spent a couple weeks polishing up Avalanche!, a 4K game that I started way back in 2007. TJ was able to find a bunch of ROM and had many good suggestions so the game is really solid now. I'll be coordinating with Al to have a label contest soon. Finally, once WoW is finished, I'll turn my focus back to finishing Zoo Keeper. The target date is October 20th 2019 (Portland Retro Gaming Expo), but I'll know more once I get farther along in development. It's a pretty complicated game - almost like 3 games in one! Thanks again for the support! John

Yes - Zoo Keeper will run on a Harmony cart.

Hello! Short answer: no I'm using an ARM chip inside the cartridge to do a lot of the heavy lifting, although I am still bound by the limits of the TIA for graphic capabilities, etc. However, I do think a decent version of Mappy could have been made with the tools circa 1990 (extra RAM, 32K ROM, DPC chip used in Pitfall for the music, etc).

Yes! Mike Haas (aka iesposta) is working on the sounds now and they will be included in the final version! Dave Dries is currently working on the label/box/manual and it's coming out great! Nathan Tolbert is finishing the design on the multi-tap interface (for those who want to play two player with the Atarivox speech/hi score saving) so everything is coming together nicely for a mid-2019 release!