ScottHuggins

I have noticed the last several years, that some of the homebrew programmers have stopped putting their projects in the Homebrew Discussion, and using a blog to discuss them instead. I like that idea and wanted to move Frantic development here. I will start back this week. The latest version of the rom with screenshots is here: old thread. Now if the bastard (Joe) will get over here, we can start back up on this thing. I am going to make the game a bit easier, and will improve the sound effects first and foremost. Perhaps, a difficulty menu? More later.

Oystron is my fav 2600 homebrew. Love it!

I hook up my Odyssey2 much more than my 7800. I think that says it all.

When I made the show in 2005, I only had one child (a 7 week old). Now, it's two and I couldn't pull off getting a sitter, much like Phosphor Dot. I hope to hear many tales of the show. Hope it goes well.

I didn't think it was dumb, because I was the same way. I found this: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=128428

Phillip, I am impressed with the 'physics' you have implemented. The control of the ship with regards to the thrust and friction is great. I think I had more fun just flying the ship around than shooting at stuff.

Hi Daniel (it's been a while!), It's stalled. I added two new features (a power up and an in-game pause feature) and cleaned up some bugs back in May, but nothing since then. I will post a new binary this weekend. As I was telling Joe and Pixelboy....something is missing from this, and I cannot figure out what. Sometimes, when you back off (I backed off for 7 weeks) and then fire up a project again, you start to really appreciate it again for what it is. I didn't get that feeling with Frantic.

Yea, Cyan would do the trick I think. From my point of view, solid digits should be the same color as the grid, to underline the fact that they are as unchanging as the grid itself. But I'm willing to try a few other colors and see if I like it. I don't think I would pick white, however, because then the visual aid feature would make solid numbers glow in white/gray/whatever, and that would just suck visually. How about cyan?

I rather like Bruce's suggestion. And why just lighter blue? In a timed competition (where you are frantically trying to solve the board), the blue letters would strain my eyes for sure on the real CV. Why not white? Thanks! How about if I draw the solid digits in medium blue instead of dark blue? I think that would be a little better...

Lookin' good, Luc! Way to go. Now I need to go read up on what Sudoku is so I can play it.

This is GREAT news!!! I attended the June, 2005 show. Had me a blast! Brought a mini-mame cabinet that people seemed to enjoy. Maybe I can bring it again. I hope to see and a lot of AAers there in August.

Joe is right... if you make it past level 5 (if you do you are quite something), then level starts over at much higher difficulty. I am starting a new job Monday. Things have been a bit crazy. I hope to get back to this soon. I have a lot of people's suggestions implemented and will post an update soon. PS: I love the ColecoVision. I love the 2600. I love them all. It doesn't have an ending. If you make it through all 5 levels (25 rooms), the game will start over with a much higher difficulty and I think the room order will become totally random instead of random by level. Scott will have to say that for sure, but I think that was the plan. It doesn't have special rooms like the robot factory in Frenzy but it does have enough added things(keys to exit rooms, prisoner rescues, Killbot regeneration) in every screen that will keep things interesting. Our plan with it was to be a "sequel" to Berzerk and Frenzy so we wanted to keep the basic elements of those games but add some stuff too. For instance, running into a wall will kill you in Berzerk but not Frenzy. We have both in Frantic. Regular walls can be shot through and touched but the rebound walls will kill you if touched.

The INTV review was kinda weak. The Coleco was very funny to me. If you like that kind of humor, you might like the site where the guy bashes the crappily designed mame cabinets out on the wild: http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/

Ok, Joe... you aren't going to believe this, but I wonder if the "lines through" the Frantic logo will look great here now. I think the white behind help it look less like the DVD poster for a slasher movie. VERY NICE! Me too. I think I should make the laser go outside the border like the guy now that I look at it again. That's the part I like best, that the guy is running right out of the box.

Daniel is THE man. Said it much more elegantly than I. JESS- it's not the z80 processor that is the limiter, it's the Coleco's sound chip. To get the 'really' low frequencies, you have to combine the noise channel with one of the 3 sound channels. And whomever said the commercial games sound 'trebly' is right. If you try to go below what is 'acceptable' to the CV, the sound won't even show up. It is a shame... I am not sure why they designed it that way. btw, the CV sound chip is the exact same thing as used in the TI-99/4a computer (Texas Instruments). Overall the CV's sound chip is very capable. I'm just not that capable when it comes to 'getting it'. With me, it's just a constant experiment until something sounds alright. Joe sent me an mp3 file of him playing his guitar. It was distorted and I 'tried' to mimick it on the CV. I failed....badly. The guy that programmed CVDrum (it's in the AA store) is a master at sounds/music for the CV. Frank, where are you!? Do you know 'intense' ? It's a bit hard to explain but there is a guy in smspower forum who can explain it much better than myself. The noise channel is set as "periodic noise" that result by doing a peak at every 14 time unit. the period of time for each time unit can be set by the 3rd tone channel. The result is lower notes than the regular tone channels. You can use my java applet to see what is the difference between periodic noise and white noise by playing the OS7 Sound FX : TEST - Sounditem 1. You can also use my applet to discover the concept on how to play lower notes with the noise channel plus the 3rd tone channel by playing the OS7 Sound FX : Super DK - Sounditem 1. The comments dont reveal what the 3rd channel (soundtab3) is playing because it's muted, but the frequencies are used by the noise channel (soundtab4). soundtab3: byte 0c0h,0e4h,0f0h,030h; rest - length 48 byte 0c0h,0cbh,0f0h,010h; rest - length 16 byte 0c0h,0c0h,0f0h,020h; rest - length 32 byte 0c0h,0e4h,0f0h,020h; rest - length 32 byte 0c0h,0a1h,0f0h,040h; rest - length 64 byte 0c0h,098h,0f0h,040h; rest - length 64 byte 0d0h; end soundtab4: byte 002h,033h,000h,000h,000h; periodic noise - freq channel 3 - vol 12 - length 256 byte 010h; end The original Marcel de Kogel's Coleco library uses its own sound engine having the result on no control on which channel the tones are played, so it's not the best engine to do this kind of notes. However, I did a variation of the Marcel's library to use the Coleco sound bios engine instead, to save space in ROM, but add some in RAM because of the difference in ram usage between these 2 sound engines. My Coleco library to do 4K games use the Coleco Bios sound engine, and it's also this version I included in the begginer's kit (all in a single zip ready to use compiler and tools) to still program with Marcel's Coleco library but with the possibility to use the same sound engine and the same sounds from most of the commercial CV games. OS7 Sound FX Bank (Java Applet, Source Code, EXE...) : Page in english : http://www.geocities.com/newcoleco/soundbank/os7_en.html Page in french : http://www.geocities.com/newcoleco/soundbank/os7_fr.html

Jess, Thanks a ton for the comments. I really appreciate it. I think your coleco review site is great and I wish you'd review some of the more recent homebrews on your site. There are at least 8 off the top of my head that are missing from it. >They're pretty high-pitched, and I'd like to hear more original effects and fewer stock sounds from other ColecoVision games. To be fair...those "stock" sounds were tweaked a bit...I guess not enough though. And there are two sound effects / music that we did come up with completely on our own. Well, any ideas for examples (does not have to be from CV games...any game) ? People mentioned that there needs to be more tension in the sounds / music. I guess I'm struggling thinking of examples or what "tension" sounds like. I don't disagree, I am just not sure how to approach this. Thanks again.

Thanks! Hey, I always wanted to know what your avatar was all about. Who is that?

Sweet! Thanks, lucifershalo. I hadn't had a chance to test on 'real thing' yet. Joe, some of those lasers on level one are in 'tough' spots. I think he is right. I will make a note of that. And yes, the collision detection with those lasers are somewhat "suspect". I am actively trying to figure that one out. Next version (should be early next week) should address that bug and will incorporate several of the suggestions made thus far. Thanks so much to everyone for the feedback. (and please keep it coming!)

Very, very neat so far, Bob! Love the speed and the fluid movement of everything. This comes from someone that does not care much for the games on the 7800. I actually like the music a lot too. I hope you continue this! What do you think of the complexity (or lack thereof) of coding for that machine vs the 2600?

Shannon, Your suggestion was very good. I will implement a slower respawn. I think that will help... I hope so at least. Joe, I like those - they are very "final". Very abrupt. Sparse, but it works, but they look like a DVD cover for a horror movie. Some sort of creepy, scary thing. Some Stephen King movie. nognir Wooooohooooooo! Glad you got a working CV! Now let the fun begin! Go to the classic gaming forum. A lot of threads have been posted about the best CV games to buy.

dalum, Thanks!!! I have your second episode podcast to check out. I will give you feedback on it. shannon, Well, when they respawn, they gradually take form... when that's happening, you can go through the robots. Once they take full shape, yea, you will die if you come into contact with them. Maybe the respawn process could be drawn out longer? I'll check into that.

Kripto, first off, awesome suggestions. Thanks a bunch. >Robot Re-spawn. Is this needed due to limited screen space or processing restrictions or just choice? I prefer the original Berserk's >method of having all enemies (except Evil Otto) on screen at the level's start. Well, I believe the robots (they are really called killbots) are always on the screen at the start. It takes about 5 seconds before they start to come after you. When you shoot one, he will re-spawn in 8 seconds. If you kill three right in a row, then the game will randomly choose one of the "dead" robots to re-spawn. 8 seconds later, it checks for another robot to re-spawn. Maybe I am missing the point of your question (I think I probably am). About skipping the communicator. Alright, Consider it done...but only on the intro to the game. I will make it to where left fire button will skip it. However, have you guys cleared level one yet? The communicator is good for telling you your bonus (I think so, at least). >Make the sounds more "hostile". While this is of course a matter of taste, I think the game would benefit from a more stressful type >of audio environment, similar to Millipede, Robotron, etc. (My spellcheck just flagged me on 'Robotron', oh, but 'spellcheck' is a 'real' >word... ) Interesting. I wonder if you mean just a general hostile melody going on in the background or just when robots repawn, or just in general? I might be able to just do a low thump - thump sound like in Millipede. >Maybe a power-up which would make the player invincible for a very short time (Force-Field Suit)? He could wreak major destruction >in just a few seconds and possibly be able to kill your Evil Otto-type character if timed correctly... How's about (Joe what do you think?) at random times in a random location a "vest" shows up (only for a little bit). You grab the vest and are then invincible for 10 seconds... you can crash through walls, run over robots...anything like that. Also, you can move at double speed. So you can literally fly about the screen. >Love the premise and general execution. Joe's the man. I had nothing to do with that. >Creature design is top-knotch Joe's the man. I had nothing to do with that.

Luc, That was by design. Joe and I discussed it and decided to make everything happening in the rooms random. Random door placement and exit door placement, every screen. So, you're right, the "flow" from one room to next isn't there. Could it be done that way? Sure. If enough want it that way, maybe we should do it. Anything else to do? Well, if you let the attract mode go long enough, music will play as it randomly shows you different rooms. Need to work more on that music. Maybe a hi-score feature. oesii, Thanks a bunch for the compliments and stop killing those innocent dudes! That's where you get the huge points once you clear the five 'rooms' in level one. The more prisoners you rescue the bigger your bonus. duncantoml, I hope you try this out. I'm sure you will roll the score. nognir, Get yourself a ColecoVision! It's a neat little machine.

Ha! It's still got a little bit to go, but we'll see how it all turns out.

Hi! Myself and Joe teamed up for this one. It's an original game loosely based on the Frenzy game for the ColecoVision. When attract screen comes up, press left FIRE button to start game. Pressing '4' will pause the game at any time. If you get into trouble, you can press '7' (only once) to warp to next room. Bonus life after you clear a level (5 randomly chosen rooms per level). Use joystick to move the man and left controller will fire. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated! THE STORY 5 words took 240 hours to travel across space. "Landing party captured on Mazeon" was all it said but it only took 5 hours for the mission to get started. This was the third Interstellar Organization ship to go to Mazeon to try and establish an embassy with the Automazeons but it seems to have suffered the same fate as the first two. Capture and imprisonment at the hands of the Automazeon robots called Eviscerators. Based upon your skill and rank you've been picked to lead the rescue mission in prison complex Rallok 96. You're equipped with a hand laser and teleportation tags for the prisoners. Blast open the prisoner cells and tag the prisoners to immediately teleport them to the rescue ship in orbit around Mazeon. There are 25 rooms spread out over 5 levels in Rallok 96 and you'll need to get all 3 keys to exit a room after saving the prisoners. You can leave prisoners behind but you'll be sacrificing them to the Eviscerators. There are five generations of Eviscerators guarding Rallock 96 on the various levels. The IO recuse ship will communicate with you between levels regarding your progress. Key points to survive your mission: 1.Speed is of the essence. Although the stationary canons can be destroyed permanently, the Eviscerators will regenerate after a laser blast. The Eviscerators are controlled by an Omnibot nicknamed Heinous Hank. Hank is the tech-evolution of the original Mazeon ruler Evil Otto and he will attack if you stay in a oom too long. 5 shots will temporarily disable Heinous Hank. 2.You can shoot through the blue walls but the green sections will cause your laser to rebound. Do not touch the green rebound walls because they contain a lethal jolt of energy. 3.You must leave a room through the exit door. Do not try to exit a room through any holes you make. The rooms in Rallok 96 are linked by pressurized hallways but going anywhere outside of the room or hallway will cause a massive lethal depressurization. 4.The prisoners may be disoriented and try to run away. You may need to chase them down. Your hand laser will destroy Eviscerators but it will also kill prisoners. F.zip