Kurt_Woloch

This is my new best... 1770. I think this will be my last entry for this week, because I don't think I can do any better.

Here's my best so far... 50350.

OK, here's my best so far... 1413.

I don't know which one was the first, but you see this option most often on Atari games, as far as I remember... Not all of them had it, but many did.

Here's my best so far... 86300.

OK, here are my times for this week: Jr. Pac Man (7800) 71 minutes in 5 sessions (trying out different versions) Galaxy wars (Arcade) 66 minutes (this was the HSC competition game) Frogger II - Threedeep (2600) 40 minutes (another HSC game) 4K Pac Man (2600) 12 minutes (to see if cornering also helps here - but it doesn't) Jr. Pac Man (Arcade) 5 minutes in 2 sessions (to compare it to the 7800 version and to record the music from it)

Um... OK, I think this calls for an answer. I mean, I do have some classic systems here (the TI-99, the C-64, the Atari 2600, the Amiga 500, the G7000 and some handhelds), but most of the time I don't use them for playing nowadays. I dug out the TI-99 to play its version of "Burger time" last year when I was on a "Burger time" spree trying out all possible versions of it... but there are some flaws with those old systems. For the TI-99, the only thing working is the antenna output, and I don't get a very clear signal on that. For the Atari 2600, I do have about 30 games, but I don't have most of those who appear in the High Score Competition. The C-64 has the problem that if I connect it to the Amiga 1081 monitor, which is my only full-size video screen, it loses color most of the time... always has been this way. The G7000 doesn't have too many interesting games, and the Amiga 500, in my opinion, is out of the scope of this thread since it's clearly a post-crash system (apart from the fact that I haven't played any Amiga games lately). And arcade games generally are impossible to come by or acquire... I don't know which arcade near me would still have a Jr. Pac-Man machine, and even if it had, it would be prohibitely expensive to play it for 5 hours... that would have cost me about 30 Euros, minimum. On the other hand, that's what I would have to spend for a full-price PC game too. Yes, I know I sound like a cheapskate now... I should spend much more money for those classic games, even if I can theoretically get them for free from the Internet. Maybe I should tell why I played the games I did lately... Jr. Pac-Man got a shot because it was the Arcade/MAME HSC game of that week. Of course the times I spend on this differ, sometimes I get into a game, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's enough to play 3 games in 20 minutes and get so frustrated that I know I won't be willing to put any more time in that game. Other games were more motivating. The same goes for Frogger (2600 HSC) and Galaxy Wars (Arcade/MAME HSC). "Miniature Golf High Resolution" and "Stacker" were some games I read about here in a forum thread and downloaded the binary of in order to try them out. In any case, I admit I don't own any of those games in their original fashion (in this case, as a 2600 cartridge or an arcade cabinet) - though some of them really haven't been released like that (yet). A slightly different story would be two games I played for a long time recently... "Toyshop trouble" (2600) and "Park Patrol" (C-64). I got into Toyshop Trouble when it was the 2600 HSC game around Christmas, and with Park Patrol, I just remembered reading about it in a magazine back in the day, but never having played it. These two really turned out as games I felt motivated to play for so long, and I deeply feel that playing them for so long should also warrant buying them. In the case of "Park Patrol", this would be difficult, however, since I don't think I'd find a legitimate copy that the actual manufacturer (Activision) would profit from if I bought it... if I find any, it would probably be a used copy, so the money would just change hands, but the original manufacturer wouldn't profit from it anyway. The closest thing probably would be to send € 50 directly to Tony Ngo who designed the game back in 1984 (actually, he deserves at least double that since he also worked on "Bandits" and "Squish 'em", which I also played for a long time some years ago without ever buying them)... but something in my head (must have implanted there by my parents) says I shouldn't spend money on games I can get for free anyway. And apart from that, it would be highly unusual to do it this way since Tony Ngo really doesn't beg for any money being sent for playing his old games. In the case of "Toyshop trouble", however, it's a bit different... this one would be still available, and the author would profit from it... maybe one day I can bring myself to actually spend money on games I like even if I could get them for free. Actual times for this week will follow shortly.

OK, here's my best so far... 2989.

OK, since this one apparently is still in the works, here's some feedback how to improve it... - I couldn't make out a difference between the "slow" and "fast" player setting... do the difficulty switches really work? - The scrolling could be a bit more "smooth". Look at how they did it in the arcade version... it starts out slowly and then gets faster. - The music is lacking some kind of "envelope" to the notes, such as each note starts out loud and then decays. At least the bass notes do this in the arcade version, as far as I know. I know that Atari also didn't do it in the 2600 version, but the sound chip definitely is capable of doing it, as you can see in games like "Smurf's Rescue" on the 2600. - The sounds seem to be slightly off. As far as I know, the sound when Jr. eats a big pellet is louder in the arcade version than for a small pellet. In your version, it's softer. Also, the sound when a toy destroys a power pellet seems to be off. This should be the typical "Wakka Wakka" sound as known from the original Pac Man. I found this sound to be fairly well replicated in the 7800 version of "Super Pac Man", maybe it could be improved here as well. And the sound when eating a monster in the arcade is only a short "bwoop" (going up once), not a "boo-woo-woop" as in your version. :-)

This is what happens... the maze disappears, but the ghosts stay on screen. After that point, the game doesn't go on, and it also can't be restarted by pressing RESET (F2). JRPAC_78_00.bmp This is disturbing, it should not be crashing--at least it doesn't do this on real hardware. Will have to see if perhaps the dump I made is bad. What happens when it crashes? I'm going to have to finally install MacMESS and see what happens.. ..Al

Hmmm... I played it on ProSystem, and it crashes after clearing the first board. It seems to be more difficult than the arcade version, however... the ghosts seem to be more aggressive, especially the red one caught up to me multiple times. As for the game itself, it seems to be adapted pretty well, but all the game action isn't as fluid as in the arcade, which can be contributed to multiple factors: - The resolution of the 7800 is lower (192x160 vs. 288x224), and the scrolling apparently also only can be done in full pixel steps (unlike on the C-64 where even if you used the multicolor mode, you still could do fine scrolling in the full 320 column granularity) - The scrolling has got a simpler logic. In the arcade it speeds up slowly when Jr. Pac-Man exceeds the scrolling boundary, here it's up to full speed instantly

OK, here's my best so far... 10050 (Actually, it's funny that MAME takes the screenshot in black and white, while the screen display is in multiple colors)

Why are you entering your last score of 14,250? Your high score display clearly shows 17950.

OK, here are my times for this week. No Park Patrol this time, but... Jr. Pac Man (Arcade version, emulated in MAME) 300 minutes (in 4 sessions) Frogger (Parker Brothers) (2600, emulated in Stella) 37 minutes Galaxy wars (Arcade version, emulated in MAME) 20 minutes Miniature Golf High Resolution (2600, emulated in Stella) 1 minute Stacker (WIP) (2600, emulated in Stella) 1 minute

Well, if they're pink tires, they may come from a pink Power Wheels Barbie Jeep. :-) Exactly! Pink tires?!? I thought they were tires for the past 20-some years. Then I sat down and thought about it and thought maybe I just assumed at some point they were tires. Anyhow, thanks! Just added a quick little review of Mario Bros. Enjoy!

Here is my best so far... 1911 .

Update: managed to improve my high score to: 41680.

OK, here's my best so far... 30050.

I'd like to help in coding, but I downloaded the source code, and I can't quite figure out what's happening where because there are next to no comments in the code. The fact that most variable names are only 1 character long doesn't help either.

OK, here's my times for this past week... Park Patrol (C-64, emulated in VICE): 271 minutes in 3 sessions Rescue Terra I (2600, emulated in Stella): 181 minutes in 3 sessions A note to Park Patrol: Finally my efforts of "rolling" the game have fruited. Actually, the game doesn't roll, instead of that it stops scoring at an arbitrary score between 990.000 and 999.990. In my case it stopped scoring at 994520. Since the game stops scoring, it also stops giving additional extra lives at that point, which are normally given every 20,000 points. Thus the only thing that still goes up is the level counter. I made it to Level 39 before I lost all my lives, as shown in this screenshot: I played this game in PAL emulation all the time. After that, I tried it on NTSC, and surprisingly the game is slower on NTSC, including the music, which is also played in a lower key. On the other hand, this game shows a lot of slowdowns in PAL mode when many enemies are on screen (due to most of them, and also most landscape objects, actually being software sprites). These slowdowns are not as remarkable when played on an NTSC machine. Now that I've reached this goal, I think I'll finally stop playing this game for now.

OK, here's another score... I got farther this time, into the "fish force field" level (which actually is a pretty silly concept if you think about it). Thus a higher score of 198025 .

Well... I think the 2600 games could be "ported" to the NES, which means that they use the same game logic, but the kernel part (which draws the screen) would have to be totally rewritten and replaced by something that gives graphics output suitable to the NES... and the graphics would mostly have to be substantially different too. Other than that... you could surely store the original ROM code of several 2600 games on NES carts, but that wouldn't be of much use since you can't plug a NES cart into a 2600.

OK, here's my best so far... 151800. Here are some things the manual doesn't tell... At first glance, it seems like the game would be timed, i.e. after some time of playing it when the timer counts down continuously, you would reach Terra I... however that isn't true. Actually, each wave seems to have an "end distance". If the timer goes below that distance as you're playing the wave, it stops counting down further. If you make the wave before the timer has reached the end distance, it's set to the end distance at the start of the next wave. Thus, you start each wave at the same end distance every time. Then, there's the break-up in waves. The manual already mentions that the way to Terra I is divided into 4 sectors in which different enemies reside. However, each of those sectors is further subdivided in 3 speed zones (slow, medium, fast in succession), each of which is further subdivided into 4 waves, which differ in the number of enemies you have to shoot. I'll refer to the waves by the numbering X/Y/Z, where X is the distance zone to Terra I, Y is the speed zone and Z is the wave inside of the speed zone. Thus, the complete game should consist of 4 * 3 * 4 = 48 waves. In each wave, there's a fixed number of enemies you have to shoot. Each enemy that passes the top without being shot wraps around to the bottom of the screen, but not neccessarily at the same place. The place they spawn at seems to be set in correlation to the vertical position of your ship. Thus, if you stand still at one spot, the enemies will repeatedly spawn in one or two places, but will change that place from time to time. If you don't stand still, however, they will spawn more irregularly. In the first sector, there's meteors only. In waves 1/X/1, you have to shoot 8 meteors to continue, in waves 1/X/2, you have to shoot 16, in waves 1/X/3, you have to shoot 32, and in waves 1/X/4, you have to shoot 64 of them. The numbers in sector 2 are different, however, and I couldn't figure them out yet. In the second sector, cargo ships and fighter sauces are added to the mix. However, in waves 2/X/1, you will only encounter meteors and cargo ships, no saucers, in the other waves there are saucers too. The cargo ships are best to hit when they enter the screen. Of course that's difficult to anticipate since you don't know where they will spawn. But once a cargo ship has shot, I'd stay clear of that lane and rather try to hit something else. There's also a pretty buggy collision detection. Your shots tend to go through the enemies without hitting them (especially in places where they are only a few pixels high), but so do their shots. If you stay at the top of the screen, enemy shots heading towards you have some chance of still not hitting you because the collision is not registered. As the second sector speeds up, the enemies' shots don't speed up as well. This means that in the fast waves, the enemies' shots actually travel towards the top slower than they themselves do. This means that cargo ships actually get less dangerous. You only have to be careful if you shoot them still not staying in their lane, because their shots still may hit you. I found a good place to stay is at the very upper left of the screen. In that place, there will be only few enemy shots aiming to hit you. If you stay there and continuously shoot to the bottom, you will hit enemies from time to time, though most of them will pass you. But at that level, you shouldn't try to hit everything before it passes anyway, because it's simply not possible. I found a good strategy is to stay at the very upper left and shoot to the bottom. Only when you see a saucer aiming to the left, you should dilate a bit to the right and back while continuing to shoot. The shots you give off a bit further to the right have a higher chance of hitting a saucer. Other than that, you should only move to the right when you see a shot heading your way which you have to avoid. By the way, I've also tried the other "missions", which is what you get 20000 miles into your way to Terra I, and from that point, the game seems to change completely, into a vertical shooter!

Hmmm... OK, I listened to it, and, excuse me saying it, but some things seem slightly wrong to me, though it's hard to describe which ones... first, the "melody note" (not the bass note) during the intro seems to be an octave too high to me... should be an octave lower. Also, in this part you're not using the 3rd sound channel before the drums kick in... actually, I wonder how this works, since in that part it sounds like the higher melody line doesn't use the normal square wave waveform... how are you generating this? Then, when the drums kick in, the bass line is slightly wrong. The last note should be lower by 2 or 4 half-steps (depending on the measure), and the note before it should always be lower by 4 half-steps. At the same time, the short synthesizer notes are too long... they should be shorter (exactly one beat). Then, the vibrato... normally, I think a vibrato should circle around the note that's supposed to be playing. In your version, however, the vibrato goes down from the note supposed to be playing and up again, but never above it. Thus the average frequency is lower than it should be. But you are not the only one having that mistake... I saw the released Amstrad CPC version of Ghostbusters back in 1985, and it had the same fault. The C-64 one, however, was correct in that respect as far as I remember. OK, I meant to write more, but got caught up in a chat... but maybe you'll appreciate my feedback anyway.

This week was a pretty busy one for me, so less time for gaming... Park Patrol (C-64): 232 minutes (in 7 sessions) Spy Hunter (2600): 15 minutes 8K Space Invaders Deluxe (2600): 13 minutes Jezzball (2600): 3 minutes Dot (all three games together) (2600) 2 minutes Good luck Charlie Brown (2600) (Jokes with digitized pictures) 2 minutes All 2600 games, as usual were emulated on Stella, and the C-64 was emulated on VICE.