Nostalgic
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Posts posted by Nostalgic
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I've thought that Paul Slocum, with his background music wizardry, could put together a nice version of Dance Dance Revolution.
The game concept itself is ridiculously simple, the graphics need not be fancy, and it could be played with a keyboard controller until the more hardware-oriented folks out there adapted the PS floormats for use with the 2600.I also think Mr. Driller might work out, though the RAM required to keep those long vertical boards might be prohibitive unless done on a Supercharger.
There's also a "virtual air hockey" game called Flash Beats (or something like that), where you press buttons to shoot light beams down tubes at your opponent. However, it takes time to recharge after shooting, and even longer if you shoot and miss the light beam coming at you.
How about Namco's 20-year Reunion: Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga?
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I have two TAC-2 joysticks by Suncom. They're very comfortable, have a short throw (the distance it takes to cause a movement) but not too short, and good trigger response. There's also two buttons so you can play left-handed or right-handed.
I think I've had them for at least ten years, if not longer, and they survived both 2600 and 130XE gaming.
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I think I found another bug, possibly a missing delay cycle. When you pass the first round, The arrow points down (you) with the letter P for about half a sec before turning to the next player. But in the second round, there's no delay at all, the arrow points to the player to the left right away.I noticed the same thing earlier today while I was working on fixing the unnecessary discard bug I mentioned in a previous post. Thanks for spotting it! I'm glad to see there are sharp eyes out there.
Also earlier in this thread you said you had to squish the suit symbols to 6 bytes rather than the 8 bytes, yet you also mentioned there's about 50 bytes left. Why not change the suit to a full 8 byte each so we'd get a better looking club and a diamond that doesn't look like an oval?
Keeping every symbol six lines high helps compact the code. I have one routine with multiple entry points that calculates the address of an image of any type (except a letter) on the fly. I'd have to make a separate routine to have some symbols be six lines high and others be eight, or else I'd have to add two lines to every image. Since there are 43 images, this would be 86 more bytes just to expand all the images to eight lines. (This also means going to seven lines would cost 43 bytes, and even with 50 bytes left, I'd have to add code to calculate offsets based on multiples of seven instead of six.)
If nothing else, the suits look better than the ones in Casino.
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It's entirely possible the computer was going alone.Whew! That's a relief. I played a few games last night and didn't see any evidence of tricks with missing cards except when a player went alone. All the same, I'll still keep an eye open for a little while.
Anyhow, take heart! Since I was searching for a potential bug, I played a few games, and came across something else. If you are the dealer, your partner orders up the turned-up card, and your partner chooses to go alone, the game still makes you discard. This doesn't affect game play, but it's unnecessary to force the discard, since you won't play anyway.
(My partner had two loners in the same game. I think the last time I managed that was maybe eight years ago. *sigh*)
Sometimes you only find bugs by searching for unrelated bugs, so thanks for the help!
BTW, Big Player, is the man in your avatar Ken Uston, the gambling and video gaming veteran of the early 1980s that wrote "Mastering Pac-Man"?
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I found out that the profile entry I created for the Stella emulator had the wrong MD5 values for both the NTSC and PAL versions. This should not affect gameplay, but it may cause the PAL version to not be recognized as PAL.
You can get the corrected one here: http://www.wwnet.net/~eeid/station26/Euchre.pro
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I did come across a bug or glitch. Occasionally, one of the computer opponents played card is not displayed. The trick is played out, but I can't see what card was played. This happened three times in the course of a half hour session and on both the left and right side. I'm playing this in Z26 and tried to get a screenshot of it, which I will post if I can.Yikes! This is the first report of this kind of problem I've received... and three times in a half-hour yet.
Was one of the computer players going alone? This is indicated by an "A" when the arrow is pointing to one of them, but it doesn't stay around after the trump suit is shown. That would account for a missing card, as that player wouldn't be involved.
(I doubt this is it, but I have to eliminate the obvious case first!)
Is this from the NTSC or PAL version? Also, what version of Z26 are you using? The last one I used was 1.52, but that was several months ago before I moved to Linux, leaving me with Stella as my only emulator.
What OS are you using? I'm assuming it's a Windows-family one since you are running Z26. I know Z26 is touchy under XP. Could you please try out CyberStella to see if this phenomenon appears there too?
In the meanwhile, I'll play a few more games to see if it pops up for me.
Now, one thing I would really like to see in this game:Some type of sound effect or music when you get euchred.
I had considered more elaborate sounds when I was starting to add the sound in. At the time, I was very low on space, so I dropped the idea of having any sort of progression of notes and decided to stick to single tones. (This also keeps the game in the spirit of the other card and board games like Backgammon and Othello.)
As it is, you do get a sound with each point added to a score, so there will be two beeps for a Euchre. It's not what you're seeking, but I'm also at this point more concerned about saving space for bug fixes than adding anything new.
Thanks for the bug find! Hopefully (for me) it's limited to your emulator/computer combination.
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Am I seeing things...where is the HMOVE comb effect in this game? Am I just missing the HMOVE lines in the screen shots? Is it masked by the black background and the scanline right after the platform is drawn? I notice the players don't actually reach the top of the platform, they are off by a scanline.The ways to avoid HMOVE lines (as far as I know) are:
1. Black background
2. Very careful timing so that there's no need to use it
3. Write to HMOVE on _every_ scan line so that there's just a black bar on the left of the screen. Popular in Activision games.
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Any chance that a game like 'pitch' or setback could be made? [snip] Anyone else ever here of this? We used to play in college all the time (I'm in the NE). Ttoo much time if I remember correctly...
I never have, but you can get the rules here: http://www.pagat.com/allfours/pitch.html
When it comes to good card games... it's always too much time.
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You have no idea how many times I looked at the Activision Bridge cart and wished Larry Kaplan had been a Eucher player instead. [snip] If I have one complaint it's that the suit symbols are a little odd looking. Other than that I think the game is perfect (although I didn't try anything too illegal).*laugh* I doubt Euchre would have had quite the potential appeal as Bridge. I did think about buying Bridge until I learned that it was "stunted" - your opponents don't bid!
As for the suit symbols - I based those on the ones in Bridge!
They were originally identical when the sprites were eight pixels high, but got squished when I went to six pixels to save some space. -
a slight change might help here: when every player passes the first round, and you choose to "pick up", you are presented with a choice of 4 suits. The problem is if the first round was passed, that particular suit is no longer available as a choice for the second round. If you could hide the 4th suit, it would help some less experienced players.(snip)
I don't have the speakers installed so I don't know what the sound's like but it would be really cool if there were a way to get synthesized voice of "pass", "pick it up", "alone", the 4 suits, and such. I don't expect to see any though as it's very hard to properly code in synthesized voice.
Not only that, but I have less than 50 bytes free, which is not nearly enough to add voice.
As for your comment about hiding the suit that was turned down, given that the four suits are read as one "word" and displayed all at once, it would be difficult to modify the game to do that. However, the game does produce a buzzing sound if you try to select that suit - you just didn't hear it since your speakers aren't connected.
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I dont have a cuttle cart otherwise Id check it on the TV, but you can send me a cart if you want and I'll test it The manual seems OK but when I first started playing I was confused which of the other three players was my partner, I dont think it mentions that.
Adam
If you have a Supercharger, it should work fine with that. I made sure the program doesn't hit the two addresses that need to be avoided. It works on my unmodified Supercharger.
Good catch about not mentioning which players are partners! I'll add that to the manual when I next modify it.
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I was wondering if people outside the midwest U.S. would be eager to see the game. I'm glad to see there is interest!
Seeing as I only have an NTSC television, I had to approximate the color scheme for PAL using an emulator. (I'm working with Stella 1.2 for Linux.) Therefore, if anyone with a PAL television could please make sure the PAL version has colors close to the NTSC version (see the screen shots on my page) and the display remains stable, I'd really appreciate it.
I'm also looking for comments about the manual, which is available from my development page.
Also, if anyone notices any bugs, please let me know!
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Hacking the monster and bonus graphics wouldn't be hard, but making the maze disappear or one of the monsters indifferent to the power pills could be difficult...Not changing one of the monsters after eating a power pill wouldn't be that tough, but making the maze vanish sure would. You couldn't turn the maze to black because it would turn the dots black as well. (Both the maze and dots are done with playfield graphics.)
You'd need some sort of bit mask to apply to each byte of the maze when the maze is supposed to be invisible.
Was that all the possible effects? I know of turning the maze invisible and of having one ghost not turn blue. I also remember that when you eat the fruit, the ghosts become invisible, and any you eat are worth double points.
I'd certainly like to see a Pac-Man Plus! I liked the variety it brought to the regular Pac-Man.
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River Raid ][ is what tortures me. It's very, very hard to play. It took me a while just to get the hang of taking off. During the combat segments, it's easy to crash and difficult to actually shoot anything, plus there's so little screen space targets are almost on top of you when you see them.
The best I've managed to do is get past one (!) bridge and back to the aircraft carrier, then crash hopelessly.
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Millipede does, to an extent. You can start at the skill level corresponding to your best score since you put in the cartridge, in multiples of 30,000 points.
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Part of what may make Jr. Pac-Man for the 2600 seem so difficult is that its difficulty approaches that of the arcade game.
Consider the various arcade ports that were done for the 2600. Some of them, like Defender, are much easier than their arcade counterparts, primarily because you couldn't have nearly as many enemies to contend with at one time. (Though having a joystick made Defender a lot easier to play...)
I find that with Ms. Pac-Man I can regularly get past the first banana board, but not so with the arcade game (unless the super-speed option is active). With Jr. Pac-Man, I'd say the challenge is closer.
Plus, consider the nature of Jr. Pac-Man. There's no tunnels, which are a commonly used escape route in its predecessors. There's many more dots to be eaten to clear a level. The mazes are also difficult because there's many long straight paths and narrow curves with very few ways out.
At least it's not Baby Pac-Man. That's nearly impossible to play well...
Anyhow, I find Jr. Pac-Man to be fun, challenging, and technically very impressive. It's one of my more frequently played games.
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Ok now my request, can anyone post places to listen to music made from ANY system (i.e. 2600 commadore 64, and various others)Try out Hi-Score. A long time ago you could get a free CD of the songs, but I don't think that's the case now. There's still plenty of MP3s there. The songs are made largely from 2600 samples, with a few arcade games thrown in.
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Seeing as Blackjack has already been done - though not with as many options as you might be seeking - I think I'll let that one pass.
To be honest, I don't know what will come after Euchre. I'll let that decision come later, so that I don't distract myself with some new ideas before I finish Euchre itself. (Well, any more than I already am distracted.
)I'm glad to see that there is interest in the game. I was concerned that since Euchre is popular only in certain areas that it would just be a niche product with very little demand. (If you think about, new 2600 games are already niche products.)
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I bought a few cartridges from Collectors' House, all with boxes and manuals. I got good service and a pretty quick response.
Two sites that I have not bought from before, so I can't say anything about their service and selection, are B & C Computer Visions and Best Electronics.
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quote:
Originally posted by Atari-Jess:playing the ms pac man cart on the atari 2600 is gonna feel more real than an emulated version of the actual arcade on a psx ever will.
I think this has a lot to do with it. The original PS controller isn't very good for switching directions quickly. (Buttons for direction control is quite hard to work with.) I bought a joypad and it helped somewhat. However, it seems a true joystick is best for arcade-style games, as Cosmic Joke suggested. (Playing Gaplus with a joypad is awful!)
I also think that the Namco Museum emulation isn't great. It's good, but not great. The squashed screen technique used for the Pac-Man family of games makes the game seem smaller, and the alternative for vertical games is to scroll (Dig Dug), which changes the game a bit, or to cut the top and bottom off the screen (Xevious, Gaplus). I was much more impressed by the DOS-based emulation in Williams Arcade Classics. Those were fast and dead-on and even playing with a joypad worked well in some games.
Maybe the difference is that the 2600 version feels like an arcade-style game and the Namco Museum emulation feels like a photocopy of a photocopy, faded and gray.
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I've noticed something odd about myself recently...
I have the 2600 Ms. Pac-Man. I also have Namco Museum 3 for the PlayStation, which includes an emulated version of Ms. Pac-Man.
When I want to play, I normally choose the 2600 version first.
Has anyone else experienced a preference for the 2600 interpretation over an emulated version of an arcade game? Nothing replaces the real thing, but I find it odd that the 2600 game is what draws me in at home.
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CIB?
in Atari 2600
I also try to get a manual and box whenever possible. Nearly all the games I have from when I was young are complete, plus I like to have the boxes for storage and the manual so I know how to play some of the games!
I am a completist unless there's an opportunity that I normally wouldn't get. I picked up Wizard of Wor, cartridge only, at CCAG since I'd had no luck finding a CIB copy.
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Most of my collection is a holdover from my childhood. I got a few carts back in 1996 when I learned you could directly order some from Atari's warehouse. I bought the first edition of the Stella CD soon after that came out.
I didn't get anything new again until this year. I ordered a few carts from Collectors' House. I picked up a few more CCAG.
I've had no luck "in the wild". I went to a couple of subdivision garage sales and the oldest games anyone had were for the NES. At a big flea market at Greenmead (a historical village in Livonia), only one both had 2600 games, and most were old and faded commons with no boxes or manuals.
I'd say the Internet or shows like the CCAG are the best resource for games these days.
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A hack of Tempest was made a number of years ago, creating sixteen new boards. It was included in Atari Greatest Hits for the PC as Tempest Tubes.
I've seen a Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man ROM hack that changes the graphics to look like the 2600 version, but I can't remember where...
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Girl programmers
in Atari 2600
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Let's not forget Carla Meninsky, who gave us the very fun home version of Warlords. (I didn't even know there was an arcade version until the emulator packs started coming out.)