thegoldenband

I noticed that the sound quality in Stella improved dramatically when I turned the volume *up*. At 23 or so, it sounded pretty aliased, but at 99 it sounds great. So does this mean that *anything* in four voices, within a span of 5 octaves, can be played now? If so, it opens up a whole new world for us composers. What are the technical limitations?

Great game, amazing what you can do in 1k! Is there any way to add noise-channel drum effects to the music when you reach Level 5 or 6? Even a simple "boom, click" effect would really add to the tension and excitement.

Would love an update, whether on the game, or just on Alex's health.

This isn't a bug per se, but when I hit ESC in full-screen mode to quit a game, before returning to the main menu, Stella shows the desktop briefly, as if dropping out of full-screen mode for a moment. This wouldn't be so bad, but if I go into full-screen mode from certain window sizes (I think 640 x 420), the monitor decides it has to resync to a different resolution, which takes a good six seconds. It can thus get incredibly tedious: Play game in full-screen mode Hit ESC to quit and pick another game Wait six seconds while the monitor resyncs to my normal display resolution Desktop appears for a second, then screen goes black Wait six seconds while the monitor resyncs to the full-screen resolution Pick game Wait six seconds while the monitor resyncs to my normal display resolution Desktop appears for a second, then screen goes black Wait six seconds while the monitor resyncs to the full-screen resolution Play game. I'm using a Powerbook G4, OS 10.4.8, Stella 2.2. I've had this problem both while using the built-in display, and when running an external CRT.

I haven't played the arcade version of UMK3, but from what I remember of the home version, it had the same problems as MK3 (a game I found awkward and overdone). MKII is pretty much the king of the hill, IMHO -- no fighting game I know of has ever surpassed it.

Yep... I hit the black Abyss... just shy of 700 points. If you have the bubble when you hit the black Abyss, then you just kind of drift along for a while, racking up points (and watching fruits flicker in and out of existence), until you suddenly hit a kind of glitchy section (gray with golden-yellow platforms) and your man is immediately forced off the top of the screen: I hope Alex's health allows him to finish this one (a brain hemorrhage?! Yikes!!), because it's a freaking great game -- I agree that it's easily in the top 5% of Atari 2600 games.

I think I had a dream with this game in it! Which is probably a good sign -- it's a fun little number with a pleasantly creepy edge to it. Could use a few more bells and whistles, perhaps, to make the gameplay a little more complex.

This is looking really, really great. Fireball flareups are a welcome addition and seem to work very nicely.

Did something along these lines -- an easy-to-use .dmg-based image for Mac OS X, with step-by-step instructions on how to build and use it -- ever get made?

I'm really excited by, and appreciative of, the work you've done with Metroid! I know you said on your blog that there won't be any work on this one for a while, but when the time comes, I look forward to seeing more. Even a proof-of-concept treatment of the first room, with collision detection and traditional character movement, would be fantastic. I mean, Metroid on the 2600 -- why not, you know? The basic mechanics of the game make sense for the system, and it'd be an absolute tour-de-force if it could be pulled off.

Regarding the difficulty level, for future builds -- for what it's worth, I just had a session of Deimos Lander in which I managed to beat every level on the first try, except for Level 5 which took me 2 attempts. However, (a) I was having an unusually good run, and (b) if in the future you make this into a larger-scale game, with a scoring system and/or some form of level-to-level inheritance, then this level of difficulty -- i.e. tricky, but it can be mastered -- could actually work really well. (I still think there should be a final, super-tricky level!)

What version? It looks fine on mine (OS X, 2.1.0), as long as I set the phosphorescence to "on" and the difficulty switches to bright. Edit: Oh, I may be playing the next-to-last build, not sure.

What can I say that hasn't been said already: phenomenal work, incredibly classy. I do have to question the algorithm used for choosing which letters come up -- I went ten levels without any I didn't already have. A lot of the fun of this game is working towards the "EXTRA" and "SPECIAL", and if you go 10 levels without making any progress, it's a little dispiriting. Any chance of tweaking it just a bit?

Crap! Thanks for saving my neck there...it didn't even occur to me that it was a Tripod image. Oops!

I was trying to figure out what the loss and victory screens reminded me of, and then I realized: Bokosuka Wars! To wit:

What do you think of the "reserve tank" idea -- that at the end of the game, there's one last, really hard level, where the fuel you're given is the sum of all the leftover fuel from previous levels? That way, there's an incentive to play each level as skillfully as possible, so that you have enough at the end to pull it off... Anyway, just an idea, but I think it might be the best of both worlds. Plus, I really like it when games have proper endings!

Hmmm... Well, that could create a few problems in later levels if you didn't save enough fuel from previous levels. Especially when you manage to land with no fuel left. For some of the later levels it's often easier to pop up from under the pad, then coast onto it with only inertia. The last of your fuel can then be used to make a last moment adjustment. Just to make sure what I wrote was clear, I meant that extra fuel could be inherited from level to level, but that (contrariwise) you should always receive a certain amount of fuel at the beginning of a level. That way you'd reward lower scores, while not making it impossible to keep going if you have a bad run. (That's one of my pet peeves with certain NES games like Legendary Wings - if you get hit and lose your weapons, you're dead meat!) Basically, some sort of level-to-level inheritance would be nice. Here's an idea - maybe the extra fuel from each level could go into a reserve tank, which progressively fills and - after you finish off the regular levels - determines the amount of fuel you get for one final, fiendishly difficult level? And maybe you only add fuel to your reserve tank if you finish the level on your first try? (Actually, I really like that idea! Do that. ) Thomas's suggestion scares me - keeping in mind that this is the guy who wrote Thrust, a game I wasn't able to beat (though admittedly I didn't put THAT much time into it) even when using savestates!! Some of the levels in that one are insanely tough...

I think this is the best idea, long-term: adjust the fuel for later levels downward a bit; inherit the fuel that went unused from the previous level; and give a fuel bonus for finishing the level on your first try. Something like that, maybe?

I managed to complete it, but I think the difficulty level is just right. I'm torn about whether the infinite lives issue is a good thing -- though I think the game would be too frustrating without it. (Maybe there could be some sort of reward for completing a level without losing a life? A hidden level, or a special ending, or something?...)

Not exactly, just some weird quirky interaction between those particular keys. Maybe they share a trace on the circuit board, and the designers didn't expect them all to be hit at the same time (??).

I'm excited to see how this one develops -- any progress of late?

Chris, It turns out that the problem's completely on my end, and was caused a USB keyboard I've got plugged into my laptop that, for whatever reason, can't handle the key combinations in question. When I tried it using the laptop's own keyboard, everything worked fine. (I got the keyboard fairly recently, and I guess I'd never had occasion to try that particular combination of keys, but when I went and tried Battlezone just now I ran into the exact same problem...) My apologies for taking up your time with this!

I think I've found a bug, though I can't be sure it's not an emulator artifact (I don't think so, though). When thrusting forward and firing, if you move to the left and then attempt to move to the right (while still thrusting forward and firing), nothing happens. Conversely, if I'm thrusting and moving to the right, and while doing so I attempt to fire, nothing happens. Going *backwards* is fine -- all this only happens while going forwards. So, in sum: Up+right = can't fire, up+fire = can't go right. (I'm using Stella 2.1 on OS X, for what it's worth)

What's the incentive to build more than the first two modules? Does it help you later on, somehow?

I beat this game this evening -- the gold coin puzzle is a nice "gotcha". Some questions: I assume that you're supposed to start on the hilltop, correct? (i.e. that it's not a bug) The penny and hammer are red herrings, I'm guessing -- is there anything at all you can do with either of them? If this is "Part One", was there ever a "Part Two"?