Firefly

November 2, 2020

Has anyone tried to compile the game "Quazimodo Help!" from Intrigue Software?

July 9, 2020

I downloaded the Spectrum Parsec image and played it a good bit. Up to level 3 and 50,000 or so points, and I think it's fantastic. Things to note are;

There's a timing issue on some of the sprites that don't fire, such as swoopers, one of them can drop through the bottom of the screen. Mostly to note, the player ship's overheating is a little on the touchy side, you can overheat on level three simply by tapping fire too many times. These are just minor things though 'cos overall it's fantastic to see it on the Spectrum! They did well with the scrolling background.

May 9, 2020

If MAME's menu's become too complex/frustrating you can use Classic99 to save a FIAD image of your program

SAVE DSK1.PROGRAM for example

Load it back in with OLD DSK1.PROGRAM ... or ... if running under Extended Basic you can RUN DSK1.PROGRAM and that'll autorun upon loading

JS99er can do this too but also save out a WAV file cassette image if you're saving Basic and XB. Don't forget to click save tape at the end and then rename the TAPE.WAV in your downloads folder

Edit: Tapes are saved with no filename, so just SAVE CS1 .... and reload the tape with OLD CS1 or if under XB can be RUN "CS1"

May 9, 2020

I've always thought "Venture" on the ColecoVision would be a nice game for the Texas .......

May 4, 2020

1 hour ago, MikeV said:

OK, thank you. Will send an image later today.

Right. I've just seen your Superman game , going to give that a try now

May 3, 2020

On 5/2/2020 at 2:50 PM, MikeV said:

I have the GameShelf bookmarked, so will check it out. Thanks!

Yes, play-test and critique. (I understand about the time element though.) MikeV.

I usually ask one of my two kids to play-test

May 2, 2020

13 hours ago, MikeV said:

Wow, is Castle Conquer an adventure type game? Hopefully here somewhere?

On another note, I realize everyone's time is at a premium, but would you have any to test out a program? I understand perfectly if this is not doable at this time. I only had some time today myself because it has been raining so much. Thanks.

Castle Conquer and Castle Conquer II are both Hunchback clones and are available to download from TIGameshelf.net

I'm not sure what you mean test out a program, do you mean play-test?

May 1, 2020

4 hours ago, MikeV said:

Individual letters are not that difficult, but getting them to look like they all belong together, i.e. as a theme is for me the challenge. In the meantime I've been experimenting with Jim Peterson's wonderful collection.

I found the Medieval type font I did for the Adventure game difficult because of the detail in the letters vs only an 8x8 grid per letter. That was also the case when I made Castle Conquer as it's virtually the same font.

May 1, 2020

16 hours ago, MikeV said:

Designing Font's is not easy!

Magellan makes it a lot easier as you design the font in 8x8 pixel squares and press COPY ... then PASTE it into a text file , it will give you the Hex code to use in CALL CHAR statements then paste it into Classic99 or JS99er.

April 5, 2020

I just remembered about the font for Haunted House - I actually copied Namco's font, the one they used in most of their arcade games in the 80s.

April 5, 2020

10 hours ago, MikeV said:

I recalled a Wilhelm folder (from somewhere) and it turned out to be in Classic, found it last night. I will also check the Magellan program.

When I started using my TI again last Fall I had to (literally) relearn everything. A bit more difficult this time round (and a lot less recall). I started with a couple of very simple (aka Basic) projects that I'd been meaning to do for 20+ years. (Had to start somewhere. They are not up to your standards.) Do you mind if I post them here? Thanks again for the help.

I don't mind at all, post whatever you like here. It's fun to get to grips with, so long as you don't try to take all the steep hill in one go, small steps at a time but eventually you will get to, and exceed, my standard. I don't possess the knowledge and skills of some of the others round here, there's guys on here can program a TI like Hendrix can play the guitar

April 4, 2020

7 hours ago, MikeV said:

Thanks for the information. I will have to look for a copy of the Compiler as the results are quite impressive (aka you get to die more quickly!) Did you design the unique fonts?

I designed the fonts yes. The package I used to do this was the Magellan program, you can find this on the TI99/4a Development Resources thread, and that's where you'll find the Compiler package (actually it comes with new downloads of Classic99 from Tursi's Harmless Lion website, look in the Contributors folder you get with it and stick the files from Harry Wilhelm into your DSK1 folder, it will then autoboot the great compiler and xb256 package when you select extended basic!)

April 1, 2020

I've a lot of time now, to work on a new project. However, unfortunately, I keep getting distracted/bothered/disturbed/poked/prodded/prompted by various members of this household and so no project can reasonably start at all. I don't know what it is but since this outbreak started everyone in this house got more annoying by about 25 percent. I am intending to do something though, sometime, if I can.

April 1, 2020

On 3/10/2020 at 8:35 PM, MikeV said:

These are both very good. Haunted runs impressively better than the original (never heard of the other till now). What software did you utilize to compile the original? Thank you. MikeV.

Hi Mike. Retrospect here, I'm having to use a new account as I lost the login details for my old one.
I used Harry Wilhelm's XB Compiler.

February 1, 2020

This looks fantastic! Very well done

January 31, 2020

Well, the 6309 could be seen as "better" because it might have had a speedier Basic onboard the computer it was in, and the rest of the architecture didn't slow it down .... but really the 9900 cpu itself wasn't known as slow or bad as such. Think of it as a High Speed Train that's been made to wait at every damn red signal along the route it goes. Take out those red signals and the train will surprise you at how fast it can travel. Keep them in and slower trains that don't have any signals will be getting there quicker.

January 9, 2020

If you use Js99er, to play Tombstone, look where it says SOFTWARE in the blue box at the bottom , click that, then click the "More" tab at the bottom of the pop up list. You'll find it by typing it's name.

January 9, 2020

Really the only differences between the Beta Saguaro and Tombstone are the graphics are changed for the Cacti they are actual Tombstones and the Morgs seem somewhat faster - also interestingly, there's no white sprite over the Tombstone where the Morgs spawn from like there is on Tombstone City when they spawn off a Cacti. This makes it somewhat more challenging. The gameplay's the same for both though, on the TI, you get rid of pairs of Tombstones same as you do Cacti in the released version. Coleco version without it just seems like a shooter on a timer which is fine but it's not stated that it's not the same game as the TI version which I feel is a bit of a trap if someone knows the game well.

January 6, 2020

The thing that gets me is they're charging $60 a cartridge for it.

January 3, 2020

They've ported the graphics but they have altered the game, made it rather pointless. You don't have to separate the Cacti anymore it seems just blast and its on a timer.

December 19, 2019

MunchMan cartridge was used mostly when I had the TI99, I loved that game. I'd say then XB for tape games, Parsec every friday night and Tombstone City the rest of the time. I loved MunchMan because of the monsters changing shape & colour every round.

December 15, 2019

The game is looking good, Sometimes.

Regarding the headache, you mentioned you get into bed slowly at night, and it can come on if you lean over ... you may benefit from checking with your doctor if there's no fluid build-up in the brain, this can cause all of what you mentioned. The procedure to treat it isn't particularly nice though, it's called a Lumbar Puncture, (spinal tap)

I really hope you're better soon.

December 2, 2019

Hello everyone. Some of you may have known me as Retrospect, well it's still me but I lost all my login details after one of the computers I was using crashed and died.

So I decided on a namechange. I chose "Firefly" as a name due to the old Firefly games for the TI99 ... so I've named my account after that. I have a few games in mind to release during Xmas 2019 and into 2020 ... one of them I've started with is (yet another) plane bombing game, 'cept this is one with a few differences.

Midnight Blitz will have the following;

twinkling stars (similar to Parsec)

tanks that fire at you, that can be destroyed by your bombs (50 percent done)

bombs with decent explosion animations (as in the video)

limited moves up and down to avoid the tank fire (to do)

various amounts of levels with higher buildings (to do)

innocent people who run across the screen, not to be hit! (to do)

music and sound effects (to do)

I plan on doing a game for Xmas, it might be "Return to Monsterland" but to be honest the older i'm getting the less concentration and focus I can apply to coding in general (anyone else getting that??)