BitJag

As I think about this, it seems to me that most homebrew that can be found in a CD format comes from a time before Saint's Jaguar Game Drive, BigPEmu's CD emulation, and AtariAge being a Jaguar homebrew publisher. Also, it was a time were there was less interest in the Jaguar generally, and most people who were actually interested in playing new games for the platform had a Jag CD. Another thing to note about the difference between carts and CD's, especially for the couple decades after 1996, is that even though many homebrew games can easily fit on a cart, a stack of encrypted CD's (after the encryption keys were found) is far easier to produce. Especially for the typically one or two person team involved in making a game. It is important to note that CD's were not exclusive for this time, with publisher Songbird Productions making cart releases of abandoned games like "Skyhammer" and "Phase Zero". I believe at the time there was a calculus being made by developers that made a CD release the obvious choice. That calculus may have included: The cost and availability of parts (shells and pcbs for carts were new old stock, and were a dwindling supply). Time taken to actually physically produce the game (carts take much more time to physically produce). How many people from the tiny pool of people capable of playing the game will actually play the game. How many of these small handful of interested players had a CD unit that worked (probably most if I had to guess). I believe a slow reversal in the preferred format has happened within the past ~10 years, in favor of cartridge releases, for the following reasons (in no particular order): Having the original Jaguar cartridge shell molds being in good hands to produce new plastic for carts has made new plastics more accessible. Custom PCB's that use modern parts that make producing and flashing the actual cart less tedious for a small team or individual. The general disappearance of local and online shops that can produce a professional looking small batch of CD's at a reasonable price. Seemingly the amount of people who want to play games and don't have a Jag CD now outweighing those who do have a Jag CD. AtariAge being a publisher that is willing to produce cartridge copies of homebrew releases for the foreseeable future. As well as Songbird Productions continuing to be a publisher for new Jaguar content. This is just my perception, but there seems that there are a considerable amount of new people showing up to the Jaguar party 25 years late, and there aren't enough CD units to for them to enjoy the older homebrew releases on real hardware. At least when I was considering what format to publish Flappy McFur on, this was the perception I had. I'm inclined to believe that this has been one of the largest incentives for developers to begin favoring a cart release for new homebrew games, and the other pieces of the puzzle appeared naturally and miraculously (the molds for the shells) and fell into place as a result. Thankfully, it seems many homebrew developers are taking advantage of this reversal of incentives, looking back at their older games, and opting to do cart re-releases of older homebrew titles, often as a compilation of games. Reboot is a good example of this with their compilations "Brawn and Brains" and "Rebooted" including most of their older releases, as well as the "Dr. Typo Collection" that includes Dr. Typos work over the years. A good example of this transition from CD to carts as a preferred homebrew format happening in real time are @Orion_'s consecutive CD/cart releases of many of his games starting about a decade ago. I believe it is also important to note that Piko Interactive has opted to use carts exclusively for their licensed Atari ST ports, like "Custodian" and "Impossamole", showing an example of a preference for carts from a relatively newer publisher. I obviously went beyond your question @KrunchyTC, but it was fun to think through this a bit for my own sake as I have been lucky enough to experience both formats being used by homebrew Jaguar developers.

It's a resource management/survival game, in the vein of Oregon Trail, but with a predefined narrative that continues the parody of Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy and Flappy McFur. The goal is to survive 64 days, stranded on an alien planet, by collecting and wisely managing resources, repairing a droid and transponder that is necessary for flagging an incoming rescue ship, and exploring the area around your base camp. I'm planning on adding in some basic item puzzle elements in the wider world that you will get to explore, and some very, very basic item crafting that affects the "potency" of your team's needed resources. Repairing the droid CAT5 also includes some mini games to restore his natural functions, and some other optional depth to the story and world. If you want to do some digging for some more specific information, and get a good laugh at my amateur coding skills, I've done some older livestreams on YouTube where I talk about details here and there. Look for the thumbnails that say "Jag Dev & Talk", and mention Crescent Memories in the video title. https://www.youtube.com/@jagcorner/streams

One hundred copies were made and distributed (Most were sold, the remainder were gifted to individuals that helped me). I would suggest not spending your money on something that is probably being priced way too high for what it is. I will be re-releasing a far superior version of the game, along with two other games, in Crescent Memories. The current plan is to publish this through AtariAge, which will make the game available to everyone who wants it for the foreseeable future. More info can be found at https://jagcorner.com/crescent-memories/. I try to send out an update on this project, and other related things, once a month through my newsletter. I would suggest following the email newsletter for the most recent information, to have a non intrusive reminder that these projects are still being worked on, and other newsletter subscriber only perks. I just read some of the Q&A in that original thread, and there was something that I agreed to do, but I didn't ever end up doing for whatever reason. That was to release a ROM of the game shortly after release. I should probably work on getting that done for that old version of the game, 7 years late, and because I now I have a way of protecting the ROM thanks to @CyranoJ Keep an eye on the newsletter for updates

I imagine space would be an issue if WAV/RAW PCM was used for a cartridge based game. RAW audio is massive compared to small instrument samples that are composed into a song using a tracker. If the game was Jaguar CD based available space for uncompressed audio is less of an issue. The Amiga demo scene might be a place to look into, since the .mod format is commonly used on the Amiga. They do an annual event called Revision, and it's possible that sending a few messages to people who recently participated in that event as music composers could get you to someone who would be willing to help. A couple more ideas. You mentioned modarchive.org. They have a recent users page. Clicking through a few of these shows that there are people who are currently practicing the art of making tracker based music. Many of them are dabbling in more complex/or modern formats (.it .xm), but I'm sure there are a few that are familiar with the specific restrictions that come with .mod (I spotted a few that had .mod on their profiles' module list). I don't believe it will hurt to send these people a message about what you are looking for, but it might be tough to find someone that wants to work on a IP that someone else owns. Another idea is to research who might be composing on places like Twitter and YouTube. On YouTube I found this individual and this one, who seem to have some skills in at least transcribing to the .mod format. I don't want to do all the work for you, but using search terms like Milkytracker, ProTracker, and FastTracker (common trackers for .mod music), and then filtering the results to see more recent posts/videos could reveal some individuals who can help. You will also have to manually filter out individuals that are just uploading old compositions done by someone other than the uploader themselves. It's been fun to see your progress on this port. Good luck!

Thank you @ggn for taking the time to make sure this repository maintained and is available! It means allot to me and I'm sure to the rest of us that rely on these tools.

I don't believe so. I still don't have a 7800, but I'll most likely pick one up once I have my copy of Harpy's Curse.

It looks like these rubber feet are 3/8" in diameter and could be 1/16" or 1/8" thick (using royal measurements here since it seems like that was how they were originally measured). Here are some suggestions, please keep in mind I haven't tried any of these myself. 3M with adhesive 3/8" diameter 1/8" thickness - https://www.ebay.com/itm/254481693726, https://www.ebay.com/itm/254476778950 (a bit cheaper) Another option is to get a 3/8" diameter hole punch and a rubber sheet with adhisive. Finding a good thickness for the sheet of rubber seems to be a bit difficult but not impossible. Heavy duty 3/8" hole punch - link Rubber sheet with adhesive 1/16" thick - link

This is awesome! It's great to see how quickly this came together on Patreon. Now I can play another fun classic on my Jaguar. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

I didn't have a 7800 growing up, this meant that I went from the 2600 straight to the Atari Jaguar (outside of the 8-bit and 16-bit personal computers). Working on this game, and playing some of the available builds has convinced me that I need to invest in this console just for this game. It scratches a strange itch for me. It's a great mix of Legend of Zelda and Joust, both games I enjoy. Having the opportunity two work on the artwork and packaging for this game was quite satisfying as well, and it's work that I'm quite proud to have in my portfolio. @Revontuli was a joy to work with! With his and @Albert's valuable feedback and ideas, the final packaging came out beautifully. I hope others enjoy it, along with the game as well. Before it's release in the AtariAge store, enjoy this timelapse of the box art illustration, as well as some concept art for the harpy herself.

I didn't grow up with the Ultima games, but they have always been on the periphery of conversations and other games that I have played over the years. Working on the illustration and other artwork for the packaging for Penult gave me a reason to dive into the visuals that surround these games in order to give Penult the artistic treatment it deserves. As I have said with another recent 2600 game that I helped put the packaging together for, it's incredible to see what the Atari 2600 can do. I would have scoffed at someone casually telling me that an RPG of this depth would be possible, but here it is. I've put quite a bit of time into the demo, and I look forward to putting more time into it once I get my hands on my own copy. I'm honored to have been a small part in bringing Penult, a game that wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve proudly, to it's final form for others to enjoy. I'm incredibly thankful for @Karl G his amazing work on this game. I'm also thankful for his and @Albert's feedback to get all the physical materials to a point that I hope other's feel does this standout game justice. To celebrate it's impending release on the AtariAge store, I recorded a time lapse of the primary illustration. This illustration was only one of quite a few illustrations done for all the packaging, so there are going to be plenty of visual treats to see when we get our hands on this game. Enjoy!

I've been playing the earlier version of this game on and off for a few years now, and it's quite addictive. This game is a great fit for the Lynx, especially in this updated form, and it's great to see it get a packaged treatment. While we wait for this gem to show up in the store, here is a time lapse of the box art illustration. I shifted away from my usually semi-realistic style to a flat shaded style. I believe it fits well with the flat nature of ties in general, and with the overall look and feel of the game. Thank you to @drludos and @Albert for inviting me to work on this one, and for their guidance and feedback to get this illustration to where it needed to be for this game.

With Immunity coming to the store soon, I wanted to personally thank @Sohl and @Albert again for allowing me to work on the box art illustration and manual for this incredibly involved and fun Atari 2600 game. It's astounding to me what the 2600 can do, and Immunity does this in a way I haven't seen before on the system. With a 30 page "Lab Notebook" (manual), this is a ton to wrap your head around, but it's very satisfying when the mechanics of the game set in. Here is a short time lapse of the illustration coming together. Something I don't often mention with these illustrations is that they are done in a way were they are horizontally seamless, so the artwork is continues as you flip it around. It can be tricky to design for this, but it does make the overall box feel more cohesive. Enjoy!

Another day closer to seeing the AtariAge store update with a pile of new releases, so here is another time lapse. This time, the creation for the box art of Novagen Volume 1, a pair of fun arcade shooters that have made their way over to the Jaguar. I grew up with an Atari ST and I never knew these games existed until @CyranoJ and @Albert approached me about doing this 3D illustration and the layout/design for the packaging/manual. I was aware of the Mercenary games, other games by the late Paul Woakes, so it was a bit of treat to discover Encounter and Backlash for the first time, and that they were both making it from the ST to my favorite cat. To be a part of this migration was also a treat, and opportunity I'm very grateful for. I hope people enjoy this new official collection for the Jaguar, and the small recorded bit of my processes of adding to the total experience these memorable games. (Don't forget to look at the manual when you get this, there are some additional renders for the various enemies and tank to look at and enjoy).

Since this one is close to release in the AtariAge Store, here is a time lapse of the box art illustration and some of the design artwork to establish what these characters/aircraft might look like in more detail. Be sure to take a look at the manual when you get it. It features a bit more artwork that isn't in this video, as well as some of the beautiful pixel artwork done by @agradeneu . Seeing a new shooter on the Lynx is always welcome, and to be part of a carefully put together and fun game is always an honor. Thank you to @LordKraken and @Albert for asking me to work on Odynexus as the artist for the packaging.

The rom is working as intended. Meaning that it boots and plays fine in BigPEmu, runs on Skunkboard, and runs on JagGD. I'm personally not familiar with the MiSTer Jaguar core, please don't expect what are probably unnecessary adjustments to the software to accommodate this use case.

Thanks! The mechanics for this game were based off of Hoplite as far as I know. The original manual for the Atari 8-bit release mentions this and a note for this is in the manual for this version as well. Hoplite's structure has a very satisfying gameplay loop.

Let’s celebrate the Atari Jaguar’s 30th anniversary with a new game. “The Hunt” was originally released in 2013 for the ABBCU competition for Atari 8-bit computers. I discovered this game randomly a few years ago, and I have put more time into it than just about any other game I’ve played over the last few years. "The Hunt" is a turn based combat puzzle game. You control a young Predator on his first Hunt on the planet Earth. Fight your way through 16 randomly generated, and progressively harder, levels to claim your ultimate trophy. Here is a short video of the game on hardware. If you are on the JagCorner newsletter, you already know the story behind this one, but here it is for those who missed out. At one point, the game wouldn’t run on my recently purchased Atari 800XL. After going through some serious withdrawals not being able to play this gem of a game, I decided to port the publicly available C code for the game to the Atari Jaguar. Just a few weeks after starting the port, and with the help and approval of the original creators of the game, “The Hunt” has been ported to the Atari Jaguar, and is freely available to play. You will need a Skunkboard, Jaguar Game Drive, or BigPemu to play this. If you are using BigPemu, be sure to enable the "Force JGD Emulation" option in settings. If you run into any bugs in the game, let me know here on this thread, direct message me here on AtariAge, or contact me directly through https://JagCorner.com Thank you to Jakub Debski @ilmenit (original code), and Michal Radecki @michomis (music), for making a great game that deserves a bit more attention, for their support of this port, for feedback on transcribing the music for the Jaguar, and other thoughts suggestions. Also, credit goes to Pawel Szewczyk @ripek for the artwork/graphics in the original version and this version, it all fits the tone and theme of the game and setting beautifully. Special Thanks to @CyranoJ (Reboot) for getting the final ROM to a place for this release, and helping out on such short notice. The_Hunt_v1-0.zip

JagCorner’s Atari Jaguar 30th Anniversary Marathon Stream is about to start. Check the stream or the first post for details. https://youtube.com/live/Ye6QQuc0tyQ?feature=share

I actually had it on my list at one point, simply for how bad of a game it is, but I have Fight for Life soon after. I decided to drop it because of that. If your in the chat around 1:45pm MST, I throw it back in the line up just for you Carl

Join BitJag Friday the 24th at 1:00pm MST to celebrate an unbroken chain of 30 years of software releases on the Atari Jaguar. I will be playing games through the year by year, enjoying the highs and lows that our favorite finicky cat has to offer. Each game is worthy of highlight in relation to the Jaguar’s legacy, or at least meaningful to me personally. Here are some of the games from my playlist: Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, Tempest 2000, Missile Command 3D, Fight for Life, Iron Soldier II, Protector, Beebris, Tube SE, Another World, Flappy McFur, Rebooteroids, Escape 2042 The Truth, Defenders, Uwol The Quest for Money, A selection of Dr. Typo Games, Gravitic Mines, Gods, Block’em Sock’em, and many more... There will also be a few opportunities for the audience to pick, and we might even get to play up to 64 games! Wouldn't that be rad!? We’ll also stop to note some important historical moments in the Jag’s history. Outside of this, the structure of stream will be loose, and I’m sure I’ll have a surprise or two waiting for those who take the time to watch. I'm planning on this being about 6 hours along, so... We'll see how that goes. Come and enjoy some great and terrible games, correct me when I get the history wrong, and celebrate the unique story of the Atari Jaguar with others! https://youtube.com/live/Ye6QQuc0tyQ?feature=share

Thanks for taking the time to work and maintain this @ggn and @Shamus and others. I also rely on this for the scripts I use in my Linux environment. It's a great feeling to know that I'm using the latest rln/rmac when I get a chance to work on Jaguar stuff.

Hi everyone! A few months ago, Carl at Songbird Productions asked me to share my reaction to the differences between both versions of Towers II. Of course, I said yes. Below is a video where I put about an hour into both versions of the game, and give my long standing impression of the original release of Towers II, along with my initial thoughts on this new version of the game. After putting together this longer video, I decided to do a shorter video, also posted below. I wasn't planning on doing this shorter video, but I thought it would be useful to go more in depth with this game for those who are generally unfamiliar with the game, and those who are still deciding whether or not to get a copy of the game. I also wanted a project to do some new motion graphics for JagCorner, and this opportunity fit the bill. In this shorter video, I cover some of the history of the game, spend time showing side-by-side's for most of the changes that have been previously listed by Songbird/JV Games, and share a more concise version of my opinion regarding Towers II: Enhanced Stargazer Edition. Thank you to Songbird Productions and JV Games for allowing me to play through the Enhanced Stargazer Edition of Towers II ahead of the release. It was great to be a part of this rerelease with producing the illustration used for the box art, and I'm grateful to be able to share my thoughts/opinions about both versions of the games with everyone else. I'm looking forward to getting my own copy of the game soon, and reading the opinions/reviews others have about this new version of Towers II.

I don't know if this will change the list, but I thought I would bring it up to make sure it's clear. '"Odd-It Will Be Watching" will be part of a collection of three games. This collection will be called "Crescent Memories". This collection also includes "Flappy McFur", an updated version of the 2016 release, and Odd-Ball (unreleased). I'm fine with how It's currently listed above, but if you think it would be good to have something like "Included in the Crescent Memories collection". I dunno, that might make it more confusing Let me know your thoughts.

Relative to previous years, I've been making much more progress over this last year. Here is a brief report for those who aren't watching the JagCorner live streams or are not signed up to the new letter. Odd-It Will Be Watching In regards to Odd-It Will Be Watching, this is where I've been putting most of my time. In my last stream a few months ago, I showed my progress with the CAT5 bios, this has to do with the robot (CAT5) that helps you repair the transponder that enable the player to 'win' the game. This includes a CAT5's file system that needs repair, which is done by playing a simple mini-game. These fixed files enable CAT5 to repair specific systems in the transponder by spending battery power, among other things. This part of the game is close to finished, and will be buttoned up when I bring it, and the other expansion to this game, all together with the core gameplay loop. Over the last couple months, I have gone from the micro, inside of CAT5, to the macro, where the player can explore and scavenge for resources. This includes designing a world for the player to explore outside of the camp site, painting tile maps for top down zelda-like environments, character sprite maps, and building the engine to display the these tilemaps. I have the engine to a point where there is flip screen scrolling, with multilayered single screen tilemaps. You can select between multiple characters on the map, which will allow the player to have some characters scavenging, while others are defending or exploring elsewhere. I may use this selectable character mechanic for some basic environment puzzles as well. There are a bunch of little things I've been learning and playing around with while designing this tilemap engine, but those items aren't so interesting to share. I was thinking of implementing a crafting system for these resources, but I'm not a huge fan of crafting systems. So, I believe I'm going to instead have the resources collect into metaphorical processing bins. Then, as the days pass, and depending on what you've collected, the player will be notified that the resource is ready to be used when needed. I still have quite a bit of work to do on this second expansion, but compared to the previous year, I've made massive progress. Even though this has been allot more work than anticipated, I feel that Odd-It Will Be Watching is turning into a game that is much more fun to play. Odd-Ball Odd-Ball hasn't seen many updates, except for a bit of code clean up based on my increasing knowledge of C code. I've gotten feedback from a few people about adding more variety to the visuals of this game, but I think I'm going to wait until OIWBW is close to complete before I decide to expand the assets for Odd-Ball. Flappy McFur It's been a while, and I know that I've mentioned this in the JagCorner newsletter , but Flappy McFur is finished at this point. I added some visual flourishes, and did some code clean up over the last year. In my head this is finished, but I'm sure I'll end up doing some polish as I close in on the finish line. Good Things Happening on the Side Lines There are a few more things I would like to mention along with this update for Crescent Memories. While not working on Crescent Memories, I've been busying myself with projects that have benefited these games. I recently finished up an illustration for the Atari Lynx Fans Facebook page, and created an accompanying wallpaper program for the Lynx. Also, I've been doing a artwork and other work for some amazing games that have been released for the Jaguar/Lynx/2600. I've programmed a snake game that I'm still deciding what do do with, I started programming a collection of screensavers for the Jaguar, and I got a decent first version of the 240p Test Suite published. Allot of these side projects can be seen on my previous streams on JagCorner over the last 2 years or so. Coding has never been an easy thing for me, so I see all these little side projects as stepping stones to getting me to a point where I can tackle something as big as Crescent Memories. I could wish that I had the wisdom six years ago to know that I would need to take these smaller steps, but I don't regret how it's gone so far. It's been fun, and I've built good relationships with some good people that are here on AtariAge because of all these projects. I look forward to the coming years with these people and with these consoles. I also look forward to finishing Crescent Memories. Thanks for checking in on my progress!

Thanks for sharing this. Great look into how Atari operated with their audio people and some fun details about audio hardware and how that evolved with, and away from, the rest of the arcade hardware. It's also great to hear that the audio group was treated well for the most part. I've been involved in commercial video work for about 15 years now, it's sad how often music/audio takes a back seat on a production. My opinion, and a somewhat non-sensical saying that I picked up from somewhere, is that audio is at least and sometimes more than 50% of the picture. The right sound/or song at the right time can change a piece of content from garbage to gold. I'm not a great composer or anything, but I have imagined Tempest 2000 without it's soundtrack, or the original arcade Tempest without it's sound effects. Sure, the games would still be fun, but I don't believe they would have been half as impactful on me as they ended up being.