CDS Games

Hey no apologies necessary...it's Tod Frye!!! Did he say anything notable about Xevious?

40 systems set up! Wow. Looks great Al, wish I coulda been there.

Hey, you got my game in the background! Well, the flyer anyway...and Xevious on the screen.

Very true. But we don't give our kids tablets or phones (I don't even have one). They play whatever games are on their LCD laptops and on their cameras. We've played games online (Thomas and My Little Pony), but that requires me to set it up on the computer when I'm not using it, and then I have to monitor that they don't scroll off the window or whatever. Vintage, modern, I don't care, I just need something that works, and that's where the VCS really shines. I need short, fun games that don't take forever and that they get bored with quickly so they can then go run around outside.

My VCS is set up in the basement and the kids come down and play it frequently. They don't play many modern games so I'm not sure they are aware what they are missing graphically, but they never complain about any of that. Game play sometimes, if it's boring or too hard. It really meets the needs of a lot of different age groups. My 8 year old boy likes the challenging arcade-style games. The 4 year old girl is a big fan of Freeway. When the 2 year old wants to play, I give her Air-Sea Battle. All she has to do is press the red button occasionally, and she has 2+ minutes straight where she can't die or obviously mess up. Everybody cheers when she hits a plane. It's definitely family entertainment.

Thanks! I was originally thinking of just renaming it "Mantlet", after the medieval siege armor. "Alliance" was another idea. But then I realized that the artwork would have to be totally replaced as well. Nuts. So I pulled an old idea off the shelf for an RPG based on "The Golden Legend" by Jacob de Voragine, which isn't known much anymore but was a bestseller in the Middle Ages and a huge inspiration for Western Art for centuries. If you've heard the legend of St. George and the Dragon, that's where it comes from. Anyway, using saints as the heroes allowed me to use stained glass images for the characters, and it all sorta fell into place from there. Here are a couple of screenshots. The hellmouths function like the generators in Gauntlet. Enemies will be demons, skeletons...you know, just your average run-of-the-mill army of the damned. Al will be debuting Golden Legends at Portland.

I haven't had time to really dig into the code, but making a new ROM for a 2-button option would probably be fairly straightforward. It'd be tougher to make room for multiple read options on a single ROM. I will post an update if I get around to it.

We did a bit of rights checking and realized that there's an active trademark on Gauntlet that would likely be an issue. I'm not interested in giving Al any headaches in that respect, so while we're still putting together a full cartridge release for the store (including box & manual), it won't be a Gauntlet arcade conversion.

Do you have the Stella emulator? It has a built-in debugger and also shows graphics data as graphics, so it makes games very easy to hack. I don't think there's any way to extract bBasic code from a game that wasn't written in it. There's no easy way around it--you will need to learn assembly code if you want to hack a game like this. The good news is, it's not all that hard. I didn't really understand Assembly at all when I started hacking, and with each new project it got easier and easier until I was able to write routines from scratch. Open the game ROM, find the graphics data (Stella makes this super easy), and fiddle around with things little by little. I am sure since you already know how to program it will not be difficult to pick up. People grow old on here waiting for others to do their hack/programming projects for them, so learning it yourself is your best bet.

I'll take a look see how much room there is and what the reading routines are like. We may have to put a call in to the hacking/programming gurus.

I believe that's the plan to offer it in the store, yes, although Al would be the one to ask. I guess you figured out the potions....yeah, it's a bit of a pain unfortunately. But I'm not sure what else can be done without a special controller that not everyone will have. It was suggested elsewhere on the thread push down and fire or something like that....problem is you need aim your fire with the joystick, so you will be tripping that accidentally. There are free console switches, but those (difficulty, B&W) aren't momentary switches.

It might be...I'd have to look at the code again. Honestly though, I am not a huge pad fan so there's minimal interest on this end, even though I like the 2nd button aspect of it.

I'm jealous Jinroh! I don't have a Harmony yet so I'll have to wait till the cart release to play it with my kids.

Not yet but it will be soon. Al and I are putting the finishing touches on the manual.

Which 2600 Tempest? I'm only aware of the proto, a couple of started homebrews, and my partially corrected hack of the proto. Is there another one floating around?

Oops, source code, that's right! I shouldn't have said "disassembly". I'm not a programmer either obviously.

A huge factor in making that hack possible was the commented disassembly for the original game. I'm guessing there isn't one for the 7800. But even so, a simple graphics hack wouldn't be a bad start.

Did you try to move up a little and go through? The character sits a little high in relation to the doors because of the quasi-3D perspective. You should be centering your feet in the middle of the opening rather than your whole body. That's how Dark Chambers worked and Gauntlet as well: I don't know of any other key/door glitches, so let me know if you still have problems.

Thanks all for the comments! Lots of good points...sounds like I may be trying to reinvent the wheel here.

Been toying with an idea lately and thought I'd throw it out to see if it was worth pursuing or too dumb to waste more time on. Basically it involves upgrading common VCS carts via bankswitching to add levels, variations, and other functionalities that weren't in the original: like a 4-screen Donkey Kong for example (see my hack here). The original PCB would be swapped out for a new one with added memory (8k or higher), and a brand new sticker would be slapped on it. Alternatively, I suppose, this all could be done as an upgrade kit, where you can order a PCB and a sticker and assemble it yourself from your commons. There are quite a few games that I think could benefit from something like this: Combat (more scenarios), Venture (level 3), Wizard of Wor (more levels), Superman (different heroes), Adventure, etc. Why not just go the traditional homebrew route? Mainly I want to spare myself the trouble of acquiring donor carts. Also, I just like the idea of cart designs blending seamlessly into your stacks of vintage ones, like Al's beautiful Coleco-style Turbo and Lady Bug. Does this all sound like something folks would be interested in?

Good point. A randomized version would likely need a redesign.

It was one of my favorite carts back in the day and I still enjoy it. I don't think I cared much that it wasn't very like the arcade, mainly because it was fun in its own right.

Thanks! Ironically, I wasn't a huge fan of Dark Chambers before I started the hack. Liking it more and more now though. An enhanced version of Dark Chambers has been tempting me for a while. I'll have to think on it more. Out of the ideas you mentioned, the level select would be easiest. And adding levels after Z is no problem with bankswitching. It's the random item location part that seems tough...I don't have any bright ideas on how to do that.

I'm a big fan of adventure games, but Secret Quest I have not really gotten into for some reason. Maybe it's the sci-fi theme. The original poster said it well...Dark Chambers on the 2600 is more about maze exploration. Gauntlet is more about relentless fighting to the exit over and over. DC has a slower pace, and there are fewer enemies to fight but they are more powerful. More different kinds of treasure with different values also--in Gauntlet you only have treasure chests. And to add to what sloth machine said, we should also keep in mind they were released on two very different platforms. Ed Logg specifically designed Gauntlet as a quarter eater at the arcades--and it was very successful in that respect. Arcade owners loved it because 4 players could be feeding the thing at once and adding quarters constantly as their characters died. Dark Chambers as a home console game could afford to take its time and be about exploring without your life continually draining away. Agree with everyone about the room randomizer, though I'm not sure how hard it would be to hack something like that in. The item locations are currently pulled right from a table. It might be easier to randomize the room sequence, so that when you get to the exit you have no idea what level comes next. And I've often thought about the beyond Level Z problem....but I have not been able to come up with what *should* happen. Should it just end? Should you be given a whole different quest, with different room arrangements, treasures etc?

Thanks for reminding me, iesposta, I actually meant to post links to both bBasic versions but forgot: Here's the thread by Gorf: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/121203-tempest-for-2600another-attempt/ And your mock-up too....very clever how you got the spikes in there!: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/227035-tempest-mock-up/ The way the code is set up now, the proto can't accommodate a 360-degree level. Your shot must go up, and enemies must travel down. We can add that functionality I think, but we may run into problems with memory and cycle time. Plus Gorf's designs have 12 lanes and we have only 8 lanes to work with, though if we can solve the 360° issue, your level design could definitely work. Just to throw this into the development stew as well, here are some flat-level mockups I did...you lose the 3D perspective but the levels look cleaner.