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johnnywc

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Posts posted by johnnywc

  2. Posted

    22 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

    Friday can’t come soon enough! Can’t wait to see Gorf Arcade! @johnnywc since you tackled Galaga, any thoughts on Galaxian?

    Hi Steve!

     

    Hmmm, I probably won't be tackling Galaxian any time soon (I think Atari did a great job on that one), but you'll be able to play a smaller version of it in stage 3 of Gorf Arcade! ;) 

    • Like 5

  4. Posted

    35 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

     

    Definitely an impressive feat, much better than the approach I'd looked into (reply 102). While that was done using Bus Stuffing the 128 pixel display can also be done using CDFJ.

     

    I see it recently passed Draconian, and now holds 11th place in the store - congrats John, well earned!

    Thanks Darrell!  I certainly owe a lot to you with your help with getting me up to speed on DPC+/CDF/CDFJ to make these games in the first place! :D 

    19 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    Next is Thrust, which has been in the top 10 since the store exists.

    Both Draconian and Thrust! are masterpieces IMO and I am honored to have Galagon ranked amongst them. :)  Galaga(on) benefits IMO from name recognition (and it's a pretty good game too) which probably explains why it has gotten to #11 in about a year. :ponder:   I'll be impressed if Galagon every overtakes Lady Bug (currently at #3!). ;)  

     

    • Like 2

  5. Posted

    On 12/5/2020 at 9:04 AM, AtariLeaf said:

    I'm not seeing robotron in these screen shots so safe to assume it isn't part of this release?

     

    On 12/5/2020 at 9:25 AM, splendidnut said:

    According to John, Robotron won't be out until next year:

     

     

    That is correct, RobotWar:2684 (it's new *official* name :) ) is 99% complete code-wise, but since Zoo Keeper and Avalanche were delayed to December (they were originally planned to be released earlier in the year), we decided to spread out the releases and move RobotWar:2684 to Spring of 2021.  Al is hoping to do multiple 'smaller' batches of releases in 2021, including the Spring release.  We're also planning on releasing Gorf Arcade sometime in late summer (possibly to coincide with PRGE 2021 if it happens) and maybe even another game in November. :D 

     

     

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 1

  7. Posted

    1 hour ago, McCallister said:

    A teensy bit late to the discussion, but think I discovered another bug. If you leave the game on for an extended period of time, the worriors will both be gone and  one or two of those blue baddies will be running around the maze at top speed.  It seems like one of the blue baddies escapes, too, leaving his buddy to traverse the demo screen in perpetuity. 

    Sounds like a cool feature! :cool: :D  Can you remind me, what was the other bug?  My memory is failing me... :roll:;) 

     

     

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, madscijr said:

     

     

    Thanks. Still waiting to hear when this adapter will be ready. 

    Hi!  I worked with Nathan (aka @gauauu) on the QuadTari (there was some misinformation about the name, it's no longer called the QuadraStik ;) ).  He has the final enclosure signed off and is currently working on the PCB, so it should ready for production soon! 🤞

    1 hour ago, madscijr said:

    I'd be more interested in knowing how a 4-joystick adapter could be implemented and building one myself. 

    Is there any technical discussion of the workings and how it is read by the Atari? 

     

     

    In short, we use multiplexers and the select line is D7 on VBLANK.  2 joysticks can be hooked up to each port.

     

    If you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a PM!

     

      

    • Like 4

  11. Posted · Edited by johnnywc

    17 minutes ago, stephena said:

    The R77 port gets a few new features, in addition to the bugfixes from the general release.  Specifically, it now supports an AtariVox plugged into a USB adaptor, just like the mainline Stella port.  

    Thanks to Steve and the Stella team for this!  I've been testing for @DirtyHairy and can confirm that the voice in Wizard of Wor Arcade works great! :thumbsup:   Also, if you configure the first controller port to be QuadTari*, you can now play 2 player WITH voice if you have the AtariVox hooked up too! :D  Thanks Christian! :thumbsup:  (and thanks to @Thomas Jentzsch for the QuadTari support :D  )

     

    *For QuadTari support, you'll need to map the P2 joystick controls to your 2nd joystick.

  12. Posted

    On 10/22/2020 at 1:11 AM, Curious Sofa said:

    IDK how you keep picking all my favorite games that never came out or came out poorly. :)  Qix is just so different from other games...can't wait for this!!

    Thanks!  I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of Qix.. I don't think I ever played the arcade game but did enjoy playing on the Atari 5200.  It certainly is a different type of game from what we've previously worked on so we're looking forward to the challenge! :D

    15 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

    Guaranteed to Qix some *ss when it comes out👍

    Good one Steve, sounds like a good marketing tagline! :lol: 

    14 hours ago, Prizrak said:

    I positive@johnnywc will make an awesome port of this game for the 2600. I was playing the PSX version the other day and it left me disgusted. Had to play the Lynx version to get a good feel for the game.
     

    Thanks for your confidence! :thumbsup:  The biggest challenge is the limited horizontal resolution if we use the playfield, so the playable area becomes 38x96 which is much less than the arcade.  We (well, TJ) have done some experiments with bitmaps to try to achieve 96x96 but it flickers pretty bad. :( We are looking into maybe a monochrome version with patterns that would flicker less, but IMO wouldn't look that good vs. a PF version with sprites.  I think that a 38x96 playfield would play similar to Qix with different strategies and may be 'Qix enough' for players, but until I can put together a POC it's all speculation.  I plan on working on this a bit in early 2021 as right now our focus is getting Gorf Arcade playable by 11/27 for it's reveal and finishing up Robotron (aka RobotWar) for an early 2021 release. :D 

     

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

    I just played this for about 45 minutes in the Stella emulator with a PS4 controller.

     

    Gameplay- excellent as far as I could tell. I did switch from Direct 3d to OpenGLES2 in Stella and the game felt overall faster. Not sure why on that one. The ramping of difficulty between Standard, Novice, and advanced all felt like an appropriate difference. I enjoyed looking at the different enemies on each stage so much that most of the time it ended up causing my deaths. The movement of your character feels a bit slower than when playing in mame, and a bit slower than the 7800 version. But overall not game breaking. Also your shooting when changing directions feels a bit slow, and possibly could be a bit faster.

    Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you're enjoying the game!  I agree, the mutant does move a bit slower to accommodate the smaller screen vs. the arcade/7800 version, but I can easily speed it up a bit if needed.  I'm not sure what you mean by shooting when changing directions feels a bit slow; there is a small delay in between shots, but perhaps that should be removed if you're firing in a different direction than the last shot?  ie.  If you shoot two missiles to the left, there is an 8 frame delay between shots.  However, if you shoot up and then quickly shoot down (using two sticks), perhaps it should do so without the 8 frame delay?  :ponder:  

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

    The overall presentation and look of the game is unique enough to feel like a true 2600 port of the game. The transition screen looks very VCS to me and so do the enemies, especially the standard robotron robots.

    I agree; it's definitely Robotron but with the unique 2600 look and feel. :D  

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

    If their are any bugs I haven’t noticed any yet. I’ll keep playing tonight for a couple hours and update this thread if I find anything.

    There are a couple bugs in the demo; most notably I think on wave 9 if you are in the far right and shooting up or down, your missiles are invisible (I've fixed that in the latest dev version).  We've tweaked the game a bit since then and have logged about 10 hours of playtime and have not found any major bugs yet.  Thanks in advance for the testing! :thumbsup: 

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

    I’m really impressed by this effort to bring my favorite game of all time to my favorite system of all time. This is at the top of my Christmas list in whatever year this game comes out. Thanks for making the demo available to try, it’s been a great time! Once my 2600 is back from being modded I look forward to trying this on a harmony cart.

    Thanks and you're welcome!  We were originally planning a holiday 2020 release but since Zoo Keeper and Avalanche have been delayed in the store (plus we're still working on the artwork for RobotWar, being done by David Exton), we're pushing the release to early 2021 (not sure exactly when yet).  I've been playing extensively on real hardware (no slowdown of course ;) ) and spent a lot of time optimizing the code to eliminate screen rolls, especially on level 40 expert with 100+ enemies.  😮  

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

    P.S. I’ve logged hundreds of hours playing Robotron on the 7800 with an Edladdin controller and this game feels great to me so far. I’ve played the original game on mame, and ports of the 800, and 5200 versions. I think this is as close to a port of the arcade version as I would expect to the 2600. I like the way it looks and plays just as much as the 7800 version, which has been my favorite version until now.

    Thanks! :thumbsup:  

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

     

    I was thinking of possibly an expert variation where you could have friendly fire and kill the humans your trying to save. That would make your shots have to be very precise. Or possibly friendly fire co-op mode. As it is now it’s an incredible game though.

    Excellent idea - I was thinking the same thing!  However, adding in a different skill level is tough code wise (not much left) and also I would need to take up more Savekey slots to store Expert high scores (I try to keep it to 2 savekey slots to save some for everyone else! :) ).  I usually add those type of features using the difficulty switches, but those are currently being reserved for enabling Autofire.   With that said, I think being able to shoot the humans sounds cool but in the end I think it would be frustrating for players, especially on the harder levels where you need to blast stuff blindly just to survive for a few seconds (same with shooting your partner in co-op).  I'll think about it though; thanks for the suggestions!

    21 hours ago, adamchevy said:

     

    I don’t know after playing it again for awhile the movement and shooting speed feel right. It just has different sized sprites and a different sized play field area in relation to the 7800 and arcade versions. I think it’s just getting used to the space between objects and the time of your shot direction when switching between different versions on different systems.

     

    That makes sense - I'm glad you're getting used to it and enjoying it! :thumbsup:  

    Just now, adamchevy said:

    I played it a bunch last night and today. After plugging my PS4 controller in and not using it through Bluetooth I noticed the controls felt just right. I think there was a bit of lag over Bluetooth.

    Oh okay, that makes sense.  Once you get your Harmony back and play it on real hardware (no lag :D ) I'm sure it will play even better! 🤞

    Just now, adamchevy said:

    Wonderful game! I’m really having a great time.

     

    Thanks - I'm glad you're enjoying it!  We've had fun making it (and playing it) too! ;) :P  

     

    Thanks again for the feedback!

     

    John

     

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    3 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    Done!

    Thanks!

     

    3 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    The nomination committee, and eventually the public, will evaluate each game based on what's available to them. If they have the purchased game, that would be the most complete way to evaluate but for those who don't have access to that they will base their decisions on a demo/older public build or at a last resort a YouTube video of gameplay.

     

    So, in short, the public demo binaries are completely acceptable for consideration! 🙂 

     

    Sounds good, thanks James!  There are a ton of changes to ZK since the March demo but I want to keep some surprises for the full version.  With that said, I think it's complete enough for people to judge it properly.  I may release another "nomination demo" prior to voting (I assume that will take place sometime in early 2021?).  

     

    Thanks for the info!

    John

     

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    8 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    It has to work for @johnnywc. I don't know how much of my code he really used in Zoo Keeper.

    Hi TJ!  You made the credits in the manual. so you should be listed here also. :D  

     

    @ZeroPage Homebrew James, can you also add Lee Kebler (aka @keebz) for Additional Music and Testing?

     

    FYI, both Zoo Keeper and Avalanche will be on the Completed list for 2020 awards, as soon as @Albert releases them in the store. ;)   Are the current public demo ROMs of Avalanche and Zoo Keeper sufficient for consideration?  The latest ZK demo is from March 2020 but the last Avalanche demo is from December 2019 (little has changed since then).  

     

    Thanks!

    John

     

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    6 hours ago, SpiceWare said:

     

    Hmm - for a simple test try to turn the R77 on its side then position a small fan to blow in, or pull air out of, the vent at the bottom where the heat sync is visible.

     

    IMG_1284D.thumb.jpg.8b1ec30622fca111027214781a38e07b.jpg

    Thanks for the suggestion Darrell!  I ordered a small fan (I don't have one handy) and will try this as soon as it arrives. :) 

    • Like 2

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, DirtyHairy said:

    As the slowdown is intermittent, I have a vague idea that this may actually be thermal throttling. The NG firmware clocks the R77 at 1.2GHz, which is higher than the original clock speed of 1GHz, but still within the spec. However, even with the increased clock, CDF and DPC+ games drive one of the CPU cores at almost 100%. Maybe the activity of the USB bus increases power consumption of the SOC and increases the thermal load, causing the CPU to throttle every now and then in order to prevent thermal damage.

    That sounds like a plausible explanation! :thumbsup:  

    1 hour ago, DirtyHairy said:

    Do you have equipment to measure the power consumption of the R77? It would be interesting to measure consumption with and without the daptors attached. If you feel adventurous, you could also open the casing and provide some additional cooling to the CPU (which only has a pretty small heatsink, see https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/wiki/Retron-77), like an external fan.

     

    Hmmm, being a software guy with my only real hardware experience being the QuadTari ;), this is probably a bit out of my league.  I have a multi-meter, but I wouldn't know where to start or what to measure as far as power consumption is concerned. 😕  I may be able to install a small fan on the CPU if given explicit instructions. :D 

     

    Thanks for the info!

  20. Posted

    37 minutes ago, stephena said:

    I would suggest also trying this on a PC, to see if similar slowdowns occur.  We would need to determine if it's related to the QuadTari handling itself, or moreso with the R77.  I will say that the R77 port is marginal on certain games.  That is, it's operating close to the limits of what the hardware can do, and just a little more processing would cause noticeable slowdowns.  And your ROMs are using ARM and are quite advanced, so it's possible that the processing of the QuadTari on top of the ARM emulation is bringing the hardware to its knees.

    Thanks for the suggestions and quick reply!  Apologies if it wasn't clear, but I experience slowdown even on 6.1 (no QuadTari support) when using 2 joysticks hooked up to the 2600-dapters, so I don't think it's specific to the QuadTari support (although it's most likely that using it on 6.3 with 4 joysticks and QT support will slow it down even further).  Perhaps it's the overhead with using USB controllers vs. the native R77 ports?  In my tests, Robotron experiences no slowdown when using 2 joysticks hooked up to the R77 ports; only if you're using USB joysticks.  I went to try this on my PC but alas it seems that one of my 2600-dapters has crapped out on me. 😕  I do have some Legacy Engineering USB controllers that I'll test with also and see how it goes.  One thing I'll test is using 1 controller hooked up to the R77 and one USB joystick hooked up through the 2600-dapter DB9 and see if that has any slowdown.

     

    Thanks for the suggestions!

    John

     

  21. Posted

    Hello all,

     

    Has anyone tried using joysticks with the 2600-dapter and experience slowdown when playing games?  My son and I were playing 2 player co-op Robotron this weekend and we typically use the standard joystick ports on the R77.  Unfortunately, I have found that the connection isn't that good in that the joystick connectors are a little loose and we'll have situations where you can't move in certain directions unless you really press in the joystick.

     

    To get around this, I hooked up 2 joysticks through 2600-dapters to a USB OTG hub which have a much more snug fit.  The controls work great, but for some reason the games experience intermittent slow down (slow audio, choppy movement).  This only happens when using the 2600-dapters; I never see slowdown using the joystick ports on the front of the R77. 

     

    Any ideas?  Is it possible that it's the USB OTG hub causing the slowdown?  Eventually I would like to use 4 joysticks for 2 player co-op Robotron (each player uses 2 joysticks) using Stella 6.3 that has QuadTari support so having all 4 joysticks working without slowdown would be ideal.  I have been able to successfully configure 4 joysticks using the pre-release 6.3 build (thanks @DirtyHairy!), but the slowdown is too annoying to enjoy the game. 😕  

     

    Any help is appreciated!

     

    Thanks,

    John

     

     

  23. Posted

    6 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    BTW: Next release of Stella will support all these controllers with QuadTari.

    Thanks so much TJ for your hard work adding this support into Stella - I really appreciate it! :)  👍

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    Just now, fdr4prez said:

    Have you tried this with the Driving Controller?

     

    A 4-person version of Indy 500 would be neat

    Yes, it works with 4 driving controllers :) you can also use 8 paddles but it only recognizes the buttons of course.... maybe a four player competitive pinball game? 🤣

  25. Posted · Edited by johnnywc

    Hello all,

     

    It's been a while, but I am ready to share the latest demo of Robotron: 2084 for the 2600. :)   

     

    There are literally hundreds of changes since the last build so I won't list them all, but I can say that this is about 99% done with the main focus now on game play difficulty ramping.

     

    Major changes:

    • The name has been changed to "RobotWar: 2600".
    • 2 player alternating mode has been added (disabled in the demo)
    • 2 player co-op has been added:
      • 2 players each control a mutant (purple and orange) using their own controller.  
      • The 2 players share the score and # of reserves.
      • A maximum of 4 missiles total are active for both players (they share the # of missiles).  This is done to balance out the difficulty.  Working together as a team you can quickly figure out ways to overcome this 'limitation'
      • When 1 mutant is hit, he will stay on the screen and flash. 
        • The other mutant can revive him by making contact with him.  At this point, the 'revived' mutant is invincible for 1 second so they can escape to a safe area (note that they cannot rescue humans during this time).
        • If the other mutant is hit before rescuing the first mutant, a life is lost.
      • A mutant can be rescued once per wave.  If a mutant is hit twice, they will disappear for the remainder of the wave.
      • Enemies track both players when they are active.  When a mutant is disabled (or removed), all enemies will then track the remaining mutant.
      • Both mutants are revived at the start of the next wave.
      • A '+' sign appears before the player's initials in the high score table to indicate that this score was achieved in a co-op game.
    • Control schemes supported:
      • 1 joystick with no autofire (left difficultly on B)
        • In this mode, use the left joystick to move your player and press the button to fire in the current direction.
        • You can continually fire in one direction by holding down the joystick button and move in another direction. 
          • To fire in a different direction, release the button and move in the new direction you wish to fire and then press the button.
        • To fire in place (fire without moving), center the joystick and hold down the button.  You can then fire in any direction by moving the joystick in that direction (your player will not move).  Release the button to move your player.
        • If you have a Genesis controller connected, you can press the second button to fire backwards (opposite direction that your player is currently firing).
      • 1 joystick with autofire (left difficulty on A)
        • This is similar to the no-autofire mode except your player automatically fires in the current direction (no need to press the button)
        • If you have a single button controller:
          • To change the fire direction, press the button and move the joystick to the new direction.  Release the button to continually fire in the new direction.
          • You can also "fire in place" by centering the joystick and pressing and holding the button.  In this mode, you must fire by moving the controller in the direction you wish to fire (your player will not move).  Note that your player will not fire if the button is held down and the joystick is centered.
        • If you have a Genesis controller (gamepad) connected:
          • Press Button B to rotate the fire direction counter clockwise
          • Press Button C to rotate the fire direction clockwise
          • To change the fire direction, press both Button B and C together and move the joystick to the new direction.  Release the buttons to continually fire in the new direction.
          • You can also "fire in place" by centering the joystick and pressing and holding both buttons B and C.  In this mode, you must fire by moving the controller in the direction you wish to fire (your player will not move).  Note that your player will not fire if the buttons are held down and the joystick is centered.
      • 2 joysticks (preferred, left difficulty on B)
        • If you have 2 joysticks, you can use the left joystick to move your player and the right joystick to fire, just like the arcade.  There is no special settings that need to be done to enable 2 joystick mode since the buttons aren't used.  Note that you can also play a co-op game by having one player move and the other player fire! :) 
      • QuadTari support has been added so that both players can each use 2 joysticks in a co-op game or 2 player alternating game (the QuadTari is an adapter being developed that allows you to connect up to 4 joysticks to the Atari, available in late 2020/early 2021)
    • High score saving to Atarivox has been added (disabled in the demo)
    • The player can select the wave they want to start at at the beginning of the game (01-40).  (for the demo, you can select to start at wave 01 or wave 11 only)
    • Full animated intro story with scoring added (only first 2 pages available in demo).

     

    The demo is full functional with the following features disabled (they have all been implemented and will be included in the full version):

     

    • 2 player alternating play mode is disabled
    • High score saving to Atarivox is disabled
    • Player can only select starting wave 1 or wave 11 for a 1 player game (in the full version players will be able to select waves 01 - 40)
    • Once 10 levels are complete, the game wraps back to the starting level.
    • The scoring instruction screen only shows the first two pages of instructions.

    I estimate the game to be about 98% done (7 bytes left!) and we're shooting for a release in the AtariAge store sometime in early 2021.

     

    Here is a playable demo if you would like to download it and give it a try.  It works on real hardware (recommended), the latest version of Stella and Stellerator, and will also work on the Retron77 with the latest community build.  It will *not* work on the Flashback Portable.   Also, it should be noted that the ROM will not work on very old Harmony carts as it uses a part of the ARM that contains a bug in older revisions.  If there is a demand for it, I may try to put together a build that can work on old Harmony carts with some features disabled (the issue is that the ARM feature is required for the later levels when there are 100+ enemies on screen 😕 ).  Of course, the released cart will contain the latest Melody board which will work on all Atari 2600 models. :)  

     

    Any feedback is appreciated!

     

    Have fun!

    John

     

    robotwar_20201004_demo_NTSC.bin

     

    robotwar_20201004_demo_PAL60.bin

     

    robotwar_20201004_demo_NTSC_1.thumb.png.ad5856f10c69572fb87f104b740a0e6e.png

     

     

    • Like 22
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