CapitanClassic

February 20

2 hours ago, Draxxon said:

I wasn't sure if you could snake the part from the LFB2/D or just straight up flash the AFBX firmware onto the LFB2 (but I'm guessing controllers won't work). Or load .a26 games onto the LFB2D sans paddle support.

I would go with another hidden drive if i were you. That sounds awesome. All my minis have OTG adapters and flashdrives and sd cards everywhere. for the nes mini, i just flashed it all to the system itself. NES, Famicom, Disk System, VS. System & HQ Homebrew. (1G1R). It actually all fit. I sometimes wish I would have left out all the "unplayable" Japanese RPG/Sim games. But they are there with the boxart. A lot of HTF pachinko game covers. Maybe one day I'll have a friend who can read/play them. lolol.

I similarly have a bunch of JRPGs on stuff that I probably will never get around to playing. Took Japanese in college and can probably read and pronounce the Kanji after a small refresher, but for translating it, it would require a much larger commitment than I probably ever would want to make. Plus, it seems that so many fan translations get released all the time, there almost isnt a point.

February 18

Ok first round at this.

46852 - CapitanClassic

February 18

https://stella-emu.github.io/faq.html

https://stella-emu.github.io/docs/index.html

February 18

Can’t say I care for the controls on this one.

Pooyan G1(B/B) - 3350

February 18

Controls different than the a800 version

Quote

To take the bait that appears at the top-right hand side of the valley, 
first move the Mother Pig up to the level of the bait, release the lever 
and then push it upwards once more.  When she has got the bait, the Mother Pig turns red.

https://atariage.com/manual_html_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=372

February 18

I like Pooyan, but only on the a800. Don’t remember liking the NES port or the arcade (on MAME).

This week is going to be interesting.

February 18

Well, that was disappointing. Not playing my best. Not going to quit until I break 300k. I wasn’t able to pull off my trick to continually kill spiders for 900 / 1200 points while 1-3 centipede segments roam the bottom screen. That is usually the trick I use to build up lives until I get into the zone.

Millipede G1(B/B) - 185246 (135k)

February 18

After 3 tries I was able to get 11500

CapitanClassic

Donkey Kong G1(B/B) - 11500

2 board, no death

February 17

3 hours ago, Albert said:

I am going to setup digital homebrew purchases in the AtariAge Store. Once I get over the hump of getting a huge number of pre-orders shipped (which I am actively working on), I will be moving the store to new software that will better support this. Have already spoken to several homebrew authors about it, and once I have the software in place, will open it to everyone. And I've been researching store software for a while and have been playing around both with SaaS solutions and self-hosted solutions (on a development server).

In addition to this, also going to use the Downloads section of the forum (currently not public) to allow anyone who has created homebrews, regardless of whether they are sold in the store or not, to upload their games and make them available for free and/or purchase. Including systems for which we're not even selling games for (Intellivision, Vectrex, etc.) AtariAge homebrews will also be here for completeness' sake, but in the store they will be tied directly to the physical games so you can either purchase the digital version (which will likely include a PDF manual), the physical version, or both.

..Al

Thanks for the status update.

February 17

16 hours ago, BrianC said:

Thanks for the link. I plan to buy the rom when it's made available for purchase so I can play it on the encore. I'm also curious about updates to the website since I heard merchandise will be made available there too. I tried searching for more information on the site on the forums, but came up empty. Oops, I thought the Champ Games site was linked in the last post, but it wasn't (I meant to quote the previous post that mentioned the site). It has direct links to the store and some of the links there point to a sign in page.

Maybe we need to adopt the Shareware software distribution model for Atari 2600 roms. From my understanding, the software developers only get about a $5 royalty for each game that they sell through the AtariAge store. I would guess that Al makes at least $5 himself for each game sold, with the majority of the cost going towards production of the boxes, manuals, and melody boards. (Al needs to be compensated for assembly time)

BitD, software developers would give you free "demo" shareware versions of the software that everyone was free to distribute on floppy disks, BBS, or other means to anyone interested.

Distribution isnt the issue any more, shareware was trying to solve the issue of software developers getting their games to the largest array of people, with only limited shelf space in Electronic Boutiques (or other software stores), so that if 1% or 5% of the people chose to buy their games they could make enough to make updates or sequels viable for the developers time. With the ubiquity of the internet, the cost of getting your software to people is nil. Any money you send to a developer is a small way to compensate them for their time.

Maybe more Developers need to link their PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, BitWallet, or PO Box in the profile page or signature line. That way, the small percentage of people who enjoy their work, but are also willing to support it can give them something. (Patreon support percentage is like YouTube engagement. Only maybe 10% will thumbs-up a video, only 1% will make a comment, etc. The less barriers you have between you and people wanting to give you money the better.)

This is all baring some contract that developers likely sign with AtariAge for exclusive distribution for X years, to give Al time to recoup batch printing costs.

February 16

6 hours ago, ZilchSr said:

Believe me, I too have had my share of skepticism in these photo-only, friendly competitions, some of the skepticism warranted, some not so much. Some players post videos on their YT channels when they get a good score here for others to see and get some good strategies and tips. Not everyone posts video, obviously, but it's a good practice, imho. I do this myself for every 1st or 2nd place I've gotten here (unless my score doesn't even beat my own PB that I have a already have published video of). For others it seems as though posting video of a record that literally no human being has achieved in ~40 years (even though thousands have tried including many world-class players) is too much of a hassle for them, even though I can't see what the hassle is. It is what it is I suppose.

ZilchSr, what do you use for your recording HSC solution.

Back when I started in the new HSC: S3, I was running one of those junkie HP notebooks that were all the rage before tablets, with non-standard resolutions and windows XP. I don’t think I ever figured out how to record gameplay with Stella, so I tried a few other emulators. I think an offshoot of MAME, but for consoles was the next thing I tried, but the file size grew too rapidly (or maybe it just recorded screenshots 60 times a second, and I used Microsoft Movie Maker to paste them all into a continuous video. I don’t remember, but it was awful.

I eventually found another emulator I think, but it seems to only record video and no sound. I think I posted a couple YouTube videos with gameplay hints for California Games and Dragonfire using that emulator/recoding method.

These days I run an intel i5, and Win7, so I know there has to be a better solution. Something that can compress the file size as it generates the recording (Atari 2600 is only 192x168, so the file size shouldn’t grow that big for 2 hour gameplay I hope.) Hopefully ignoring the 2x/3x pixel video setting in Stella and only saving the original resolution video while my eyes get to see the magnified view.

February 15

2 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

Your eyes must malfunctioning from playing way too many games. Didn't your parents warn you this would happen? I asked a while back and was told by a few that about 30% seems to be the figure at which phosphor blend on Stella matches what they see on their TV.

I love Stella, but you gotta love the visual streaking caused by sprites on a real CRT from a real Atari, (or AFB2). While playing in the high score club last season, Circus Atari just wasnt the same without the real TV (Partially due to my lack of a Stella Adapter, but also because the clowns were easier to track on the CRT )

February 14

4 minutes ago, MrZarniwoop said:

For what it's worth, most Atari 7800 games play just fine with one button, in case they can be supported.

Certainly. I could see myself playing 2600, 5200/a800, or 7800 games on this system, because they are Atari branded. My big hope is 800 support, since I owned both a VCS and 800XL bitd. 800 support will be interesting, since most games will need at least 3 additional keys, Start, Select, Option and the AFBX really only has 2 assuming Rewind and Menu cannot be remapped. (Menu certainly cannot, since you need a button to exit Emulation and go back to the main menu.)

February 14

6 hours ago, Draxxon said:

AtariAge - Text, Art & Rom Injector v3.2

CODENAME: "Lazy Susan"

Make sure you have installed Brad's totally rad Custom Firmware.

Thank you to RocketFan for Everything you have done! This $#!+ is seriously dope!

Thanks Again to MrFister for setting us all up with a perfect A2600 NTSC rom set.

Add new Atari 2600 roms to /rom_alt_1 and add other supported system's roms to /rom_alt_2
If you want to mess with any setting or cores, etc., RocketFans AFBX Internals 2 ReadMe file is

in the /emulator folder. It covers basically everything we know. And the legacy system files

from past flashback units are in there as well if you want to experiment.

Now that I can get that into everyone's hands to play around with, and incase you prefer that setup,

I can now get to work on a more organized and nicer looking layout. It may take a little while though.

You can call it, CODENAME: "Nexus"

A.T.A.R.I. v3.2

ATARIv3.2.rar 163.33 MB · 3 downloads

Yes, thank you @Brad_from_the_80s, @MrFister, @Draxxon, @rocketfan (And anyone else I missed). This has made a good Atari 2600 replica machine into a great one.

Quote

Current extension/core mappings:

.a26 = Atari VCS

.nes = Original Nintendo

.zip = FInal Burn Alpha

.zim = mame2000

.bin = Picodrive (works really well for Sonic, not sure about other specific games)

.gg (or .sgg), .sms, .md, .gen, .sg = Genplusgx is the default, so should catch the rest of Sega, such as the ones listed.

I have been reading the thread religiously and I am impressed with all the progress so far. I am slow to implement changes though and haven’t modified my AFBX after the 1.0 (or maybe 1.2) drop of themes, instructions, and rom sets.

I too am looking forward to a combined Atari 800 dream setup for my AFBX. While I find the support for NES and other systems interesting, I have other emulator solutions for those systems. I can see putting maybe a handful of MAME games from the Golden Age of the arcade on the box (Galaga, Mr. Do, Ms. Pacman, etc), but I cannot see myself interested in hacking together a different controller for more button support, or playing non-Atari branded games on the system.

I look forward to trying out all the improvements to box artwork and themes, load times, and library culling in the 3.2 collection.

February 14

23 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

How about multi button controllers? Has anyone ever thought about combining two joystick inputs into one controller? So that you have e.g. a directional stick plus lots of buttons (6 in total). Or a directional joystick and a hat with two buttons.

I know this would have worked without a QuadTari. But now you can do 2-player games too.

I guess that means someone needs start on Steel Battalion for Atari 2600 - Quatari. Won’t exactly get 2 controllers and 40 buttons, but 2 sticks and 10 buttons ain’t bad. 😁

February 14

16 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

The helicopter in Robot City is done from a missile, flickering between two tank colors.

I would say the flicker is barely noticeable. Didn’t even realize the Helicopter was made up of two different colors and that it’s “true” color was the blending of two different colors over two frames.

Without looking into it, I assumed the helicopter was made up of a missile, but I assumed the color was changed to a single “helicopter-color” that was different than the tanks on the fly. I would have guessed if two tanks and the heli were on the same line that flicker would have to be introduced, but from the sound of it, flicker may only be necessary if there were 3 tanks and the heli on the same horizontal scanline . With just 2 tanks and the heli, only “shimmer” would occur.

This has piqued my interest. I need to look at it more closely is Stella (both with/(out) Phosphor mode on).

February 14

I’d rather be playing Omegamatrix’s version.

February 14

CapitanClassic

Berzerk G9(B/B) - 4380

Venture G1(B/B) - 7300

February 13

On 2/10/2021 at 4:47 AM, vhzc said:

I understand your point and I possibly will add some extra lives here and there as I usually do in my games, but a game that rewards you for simply clear a screen is not the game I want to develop and also is not the type of games that people that plays my games expects from me. I have a reputation to maintain 😛

I wonder if this is a matter of how old a gamer is, and what games they grew up with. The term “Nintendo-Hard” entered the nomenclature within the last 5-10 years, to mean the game is designed to be difficult. Nintendo is probably used, because games from the Nintendo generation were popular and there was a change in the focus of a game to get to and ending rather than a High Score (a remnant from the Arcade)

It certainly is a design decision that requires some thought, depending upon the market you are trying to reach.

Do you make a game with limited lives and no continues? (eg. Dragonfire. These games are well designed for HSC, and reward playing it safe)

Do you make a game with additional lives earned by score? (eg. Asteroids. These games can be exploited by players to rack up infinite lives)

Do you make a game with infinite retries? (This ensures that with dedication, more players will see all of the game that you designed)

Back when I was a kid, it seemed like I had tons of time to play games. We might tolerate too difficult of a learning curve, because we didn’t have many other games to play. We did feel a large sense of accomplishment when we beat those difficult games though, because there was a limited amount of people who were able to. This was the design philosophy of the team that made Ninja Gaiden for Xbox (Org), they wanted to keep the difficulty high so gamers who completed it felt a sense of accomplishment.

When a game is too hard though, many people don’t see all the awesomeness that programmers went to the trouble to create. (I think some Steam survey found that most people played way less than 50% (don’t remember the details), and of the games people had played similarly more than half the people never completed them. (This isn’t too surprising due to the Holiday Sales and the abundance of entertainment)

I personally think the 2nd concern (too hard) isn’t much of an issue today due the availability of emulators and save states. If someone truely wants to see all of a game, emulators are the answer (and if just the visuals not the gameplay, YouTube/Twitch)

February 8

It voted for never played, Aquatron. I think I am an expert at Popeye, and decent at Qix. I have played the 800 version of Mountain King, but prefer the 2600 version. As far as Pole Position goes, I never was a big fan of the home version, when games like Great American Road Race and Pitstop II exist.

I do like the Arcade’s, “Prepare To Qualify” speech synthesis. (Don’t remember if the 800 version has that).

February 6

3410 - Air Cadet Class 2

Really starting to hate bombers.

February 6

3 hours ago, doctorclu said:

Those planes. All kinds of three dimensional space and they happen to hit you. But let's just be honest, they are really just World War I cruise missiles essentially.

These planes seem to defy physics, while my bombs have to be spot on, they appear to be able to hit you if their bomb passes anywhere over your plane sprite (even when the shadow says they should have missed by several planes)

February 5

I haven’t found the sprite editor too useful. Instead I have used Alien Bill’s sprite editor tool. It is useful for showing animations between the frames.

At the bottom of the screen, you can generate 6502 assembly or bBasic code.

https://alienbill.com/2600/playerpalnext.html

February 5

6 hours ago, AvocadoLatte said:

hiya! my name is gavin.

first off, when i tried running the install_win it came with a invalid syntax error issue. "Default option is not allowed more than 2 time(s)" aswell, it says that "This batch file requires SETX," and i was unable to find a solution, so i instead set the bB compiler directory manually. I was watching tinkernuts video. I have everything updated correctly though, because his links were outdated.

From what I have heard, the Tinkernut installer and instructions are way out of date. I would recommend the information on the RandomTerrain website, especially the code snippets and examples.

https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#gettingstarted

I also second the ADS extension for Visual Studio Code. The interactive development environment gives cycle counts for 6502 assembly instructions, auto-complete, single click compile and launch Stella, and a host of other nice features that makes programming easier. It also supports visual BB so you can program in that language if you want.

February 4

2 hours ago, therealbountybob said:

Damn it, I thought I'd got away with it

Crash Test Dummy nice work carlsson, think you are earing a bonus point!

Table above edited re rank order.

Got to city stage for 1st time, bombed 2 of 3 targets I saw, 5,630 AC3 missed photo by 1 second!

Yeah, I forgot that this is one of those games that doesn’t display your high score, or your score for very long after a game over. I need to remember where the hot key is for Taking screenshots (of of the many advantages of playing on emulator than real hardware.) I don’t really have space right now to hook up my 800 or 800XL anyway.

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