Octavio Pinho Bokel

Hello, It has been a long time. I would like to report that on July 20th 2023, Hellway has sold 23 copies. Each copy we made a 5 dollars profit. After converting to Reais, paying PayPal taxes etc, we got 526,54 Reais. Keep in mind that I made the game open source, maybe this has an effect on sales... I am giving a fully disclose of the amounts since is very hard to find the information on the forums, and this might be a important decision before committing doing a lot of work. And also we were committed to donate that money, so we own a public disclosure. For us was all about the Journey, I meet very cool people while doing the game, and a loving and embracing community. Even participate in an amazing web show called @ZeroPage Homebrew. Which I think its work is a pivot point for the community. About the donation, done 17-08-2023, I will quote the words of @Leonardons: I don't know Isabel myself, but I know Leonardo very well. Donating to someone of trust, I think is a better guarantee of the money being better used, than a big organization with a lot of people involved. About Isabel's work, if you want to know more, just contact @Leonardons. Thanks for the Journey, and we will try to keep reporting about Hellway.

The idea is to make the Best Pong ever that Atari can Handle! I will update the original post since this is not clear!

The idea of Bong is to create a Pong with power-ups, pushing the Atari 2600 hardware to its limits, under the 4KB constrains, for more details why, please keep reading: Hello, it has been a while ( life ... ) During the release of Hellway 2PE at @ZeroPage Homebrew I mentioned that I wanted to do a pong with power ups in the real hardware, and that it should be the best Pong Bong game ever made! It is in this interview: Summary, I create a Pong game for android (Mega Ultra Ping Pong Deluxe), got a cease and desist letter from Atari, tried to appeal, and even make the game open source, but in the end, it was removed from the Play Store. You can see the gameplay here running on a galaxy S2 (not the latest version and missing some power ups and icons): And download the APK and source code here (it runs well, but some icons are larger than they should on the latest androids): https://github.com/opbokel/MUPPD-Open The game play works by spanning power ups on the field, that are activate on the position they are, or to the player that latter touched the ball. I will get into details about the power ups in a next post (list is bellow). I want to further differentiate this next game from Pong, even the base gameplay! I want to have the basic gameplay very refined before doing the first power up. Just for disclaimer: The android game takes inspiration on Super Ping Pong for the mega drive, but was never meat to be a clone. It has been several years between playing and implementing my game. The name Bong was suggested by Slobu (however he is) during the live. I am sure I will not have the time I had to do Hellway, but I wanted to post to motivate my self to start, and to receive ideas and feedback from the community. Thanks for reading.

Hello you all, It has been a while. After a lot of anxiety (in a god sense), I finally got my copy of Hellway (A couple months ago actually). I really liked the quality AtariAge publishing, the quality is top tear and @Leonardons design was much more interested when printed and in 3d. Since reports will come at the end of the year, I have no idea if I sold zero or one million copies , but if you did get a copy, a review is welcome. If you want to get a copy, here is the link: https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1250 As told on the first post, all money (my share and Leonardo's share) is going to be donated. Have a very nice day.

Hello you all, @Al_Nafuur told me a while the Hellway 2PE is available to be played at PlusCart (/Public ROMs/Homebrew/NTSC/E-L/Hellway 2 Player Edition) I was wondering if you would like to see a physical release of this game. If so, any ideas the best way to do so, (considering it is a derivative work of the first) ? Please let me know. Regards, Octavio

- Is it the first split screen game with players interaction? It is complicated, if you add to this definition the first completed vanilla 4kb game, so the answer is: PROBABLY But for sure, this old thread that I resurrected will provide us with the answer. I am leaving this to the community.

Dear @ZeroPage Homebrew crew, Sincerely thanks for the opportunity and honor, to be live on your show during unbox day! Bellow is the YouTube video, directly linked to Hellway part (Including @Leonardons interview). I would like to extend my thanks to everyone that participated live that day! Have a nice rest of your day!

4KB, no extra ram?

I think you can have, it is 5 years difference. My work is not based on yours, but it does not change the fact you are the first, and should be proud about it. I am going to clarify this soon on my game thread, and keep the title of first on vannila hardware. Please accept the title with pride! I will be waiting your gameplay videos.

I am going to check your games. Is not claiming to be the first on something the polite way to behave on this district community?

This is not just about crashing. This other game makes no difference if you are taking turns and competing for high score, or playing at the same time. I don't think this is a nuance. It is not about crashing, it is about having interaction, otherwise split screen is just a convenience.

Impressive! Do you plan to finish it?

Hello, for the people that did not watch @ZeroPage Homebrew live, here is the youtube link: I am linking direct to the second gameplay session, which direct shows what the game is all about if you are short on time. But there is more content if you go back a little, including me talking about the game and next projects. The flickering on emulation / real hardware is 30hz stable and much better than seen in the capture, nonetheless, to see people having a good time with the game is priceless!

I could not understand much of what is going on, do you have a video of the two players gameplay? And yes, I was completely unaware of your game. I hope a third person does not pop up Regardless, Stella reports your cart as using: 12K: -FA: Used only by CBS. Similar to F8, except you have three 4K banks instead of two. You select the desired bank via 1FF8, 1FF9, and 1FFA. These carts also have 256 bytes of RAM mapped in at 1000-11FF. 1000-10FF is the write port while 1100-11FF is the read port. @Mr SQL I would like to claim my game to be the first to accomplish it with no extra hardware or bank switch if you agree. While you should have the title of being the true first. Please let me know.

I am resurrecting a 20 years old Thread! I think I created the first true multiplayer split screen game on the Atari 2600. Hellway 2 Players Edition probably the is the first true multiplayer split screen game where players have a fully consistent view of the world and interact with each other. I have seen some examples of split screens, but no direct interaction among players. If this is indeed true, I would like to proclaim being the first! The game is in a releasable state.

Some considerations about the @ZeroPage Homebrew stream last night: First, congratulations, I think you mastered the game, and understood the vision behind it. You are both playing it much better than last time! About the first play: Tanya, your car was indeed worse and was an unfortunate choice. Let me explain He is like the default car with less acceleration, but is very, very good at gliding. This means that he has a clear disadvantage on regular time, but when time is over, if you don't make any mistakes, you can almost glide forever and reach far. It is a risk reward strategy and is the one that varies more the score each time you play. James, the car you choose is the best beginners, it accelerates fast (meaning less punishments on crashes), and a reduced top speed might actually work on your favor, reducing the number of crashes. Regarding that, your score was very very high, and you played almost flawless. I tuned the game a little after watching you play (increasing the traffic levels a little closer to the original). If you play the single player plus cart version this would be a score close to 4832, beating my high score of 4066 for this car. Hellway is a game that gets better when you get the flow of it. https://highscore.firmaplus.de/?page_sort=1&sort_order=0&game_id=35&game_variant=BB+Mode+0+Car+1 About the second play: Changing the the traffic level is not the same as changing the difficulty. More traffic also gives you more time per checkpoint, keeping things balanced. It is all about adapting you gameplay progressively from more aggressive to one that is about being patient and waiting the openings. If the game cycles the switches, change the starting level. There are two settings that can make the game harder, the high speed diference on the lanes and using random traffic intensity mode, on a fixed level that gives you a small amount of time. The time is always fixed regarding the level, so it will average to a harder overall experience. Random can also go over the fixed limits. Please note that the QR code landing page is interactive, you can just select the options you want, and it will tell you what mode to select. The gameplay while short, it was super competitive and fun, it was exactly what I tuned the gameplay. The first game is all about high scores, while the seconds, is all about winning the other player. I had much fun watching this one. James, your car (Dragster) needs some time to get the hang of it. The fact it turns slow, means you to have to break more, because it takes more time to change lanes. But you recover this speed also faster. Fast acceleration and top speed are great for low traffic levels and for using on checkpoints (best car for checkpoints). Tanya, you played great. If you had pushed you car to the right lane, you probably would pass that last checkpoint. Sorry for the long text, I just wanted to give my overview of the stream, and some insight if for some reason you decide to play my game again, and also for the people watching! Please let me know if it helped. Thanks for all your work!

Updated: I reduced the traffic intensity on every level, because of the missing lane, you have less openings, so you should have less traffic as well. I felt now is more balanced. (This was tuned again after the ZPH live show)

Update: I restored the non dark mode functionality, moving the rubber band feature to the reset switch, with each reset that has no change on config toggling it (Similar to how you changed cars in the previous game). Dark mode still default on this game. The reason is that I made a research about flickering on AA, and is a very controversial topic. For me the game is totally ok with a stable 30hz, and even close to normal with phosphor mode on in Stella. But when I tried in other monitor, the effect was much more noticeable. The individual perception is also a key factor. It is impossible to me to know the effect on each person, but what I can do is to offer a grey background that looks bad, but reduces contrast and flickering perception in some cases. This game cannot run without flicker, not without extra hardware. With an arm CPU and extra RAM I could create a framebuffer like structure and just draw the elements on the screen in a non mirrored manner. But this is a huge amount of work, and defeats my self imposed challenge.

Update: - Fixed line count during reset. - Added 2 arrows that appears when the opponent is out of screen, but still in a close range. It is like you extend you screen a little more regarding the other player position, giving more time to position for an overtake. In case of the winning player, is like a rear view mirror, allowing to block the other player. I putted the arrow in front of the player just because in some televisions it might not be visible behind the car (overscan).

Fixes for the above message: * I made Player 2 Green and Player 1 Orange during checkpoint * invincibility, not invisibility. New update: - I just introduced something to keep the game play really competitive, rubberbanding. The player that is behind will have the checkpoint time countdown decrementing at half rate. This can double the checkpoint time. If you pass the opponent, now the opponent time starts decrementing at half speed and yours at normal rate. That is way I say it decrements at half rate, and not that it gains double time. The countdown bar is now a much more useful feature. - Rubberbanding can be disabled by turning the black and white switch to black. This was simpler then doubling game modes and gave another use to the BW switch. If rubberbanding is turned off, a pipe appear on the only space left in the intro screen, in the middle. - When the HUD shows my name and year, the second time it shows my name and build number. Since there is no more score screen, this is a way to know for sure you are playing the correct build.

Hello, I going to post all private @ZeroPage Homebrew updates, so you know what you missed, and the current status of the game! New update: - I made Player 2 Green and Player 1 during checkpoint. Since player 1 is yellow, it was a little confusing the P2 turning into a color that was very close the default P1 color. - During checkpoint and start, now there is a countdown progress bar that tells exactly when the invisibility will end. This will be even more useful in the next update.

Hello you all! Thanks for being heree during the journey! I will restore the binary links after @ZeroPage Homebrew plays it (they are broken for a while). It had several updates from the last time I reported, and the reason I was silent on the forum, to make it exclusive. For me is a very special occasion. I will be in the chat during the stream, and will be answering any questions you might have. See you there!

Version Update: - Aligned each player screen perfectly with each player score. - Kept only dark mode. The BW switch still can be used on the QR code for better camera reading. It is expected QR codes to be dark in a light background, I just reversed the default because it is still readable by most devices, and hurt the eyes the screen almost all white, going to a black background, and vice versa. Due to the flickering, all non dark backgrounds looked bad. This made me save some bytes. - Removed the completely obscure alternate flickering mode on the score, since the game is all flickering now (Saved more bytes) - Each player now have distinct colors for each status, so they will not look the same anymore if using the same car. For this one I also considered giving each player distinct car models, but due to space and the fact that collisions are done by hardware (different models for the same car would affect the gameplay if not exactly the same outer pixes) I gave up on the idea.

Version Update: Fix player 2 checkpoint text. I got ride of the score screen, makes not much sense for 2 players and will be impossible to fit in 4KB. I solved the end screen by: - No more game over text, so the scores are kept. - Time and speed are replace by a clear indication of the player position (1 or 2) This was by far the less resource demanding solution, resources are getting scarce. Next, I have to solve how to differentiate the players that are using the same car and are in the same non default status (checkpoint, game over, glide...) they now look the same and can be confusing...

New update: Updated into text. Introduced the ready text. Both players have to be pressing fire at the same time for the game to start, solving the problem of one player starting before the other. The player pressing fire will show ready on its half of the screen. This was much more simple than doing a countdown, since all the state keeping I have to do is done by INPT4 and INPT5, and is as effective. @Karl G, Probably I can still make the 4kb. What I am afraid is introducing bank switching, and having a 4,5 kb games. I know myself, if do introduce, I will have to fill the 8KB... I don't think this game will win anything in any category. The original already required some time investment to be enjoyable, this one also requires 2 people, making it harder for people to play and vote...