Kurt_Woloch

Oh... sorry. There was an error in my program, and I think I found it now. Just to explain what happened: The program computes each line of date in two passes: 1. Figure out the best pallette for that line 2. Figure out the best matching dots for that given line. Now, when I first wrote that program (that is, adapted another program to give Channel F data), I didn't care too much about the actual resolution or pallettes of the Channel F, thus the mapping of the colors were wrong, as described above. When I corrected the program to put out actual Channel F data, however, I did a mistake... To check which pallette is best, the program first assigns each possible pallette to the 4 available color slots and then tests how well this pallette is suited to give the best representation of the line to display. After all 4 pallettes have been tried and the best one has been determined, the color numbers for that pallette are again assigned to the 4 color slots in order to generate the final appearance of the line. Unfortunately, when reworking that assignment to the actual color scheme used in the Channel F, I only changed the colors used for determining the best pallette, but not the ones used for actually forming the line, which resulted in wrong color numbers used (although the result looked alright visually shown in my program). So... I hope I've got it correct with the following table: color code Pallette code 00 01 10 11 00 white white white black 01 green red blue gray 10 green red blue l.blue 11 green red blue l.green Also, I'd like to know if I picked the correct RGB values for the Channel F's colors: black: 0/0/0 white: 255/255/255 green: 0/255/0 red: 255/0/0 blue: 0/0/255 gray: 191/191/191 light green: 191/255/191 light blue: 191/191/255

OK, this is my last entry for this week... 148721. One last hint: In the last stage with the clotlets, you can safely touch walls, for in that stage, antibodies won't appear. so you can use the walls to "sneak" past those clotlets (but you should keep the fire button pressed because hitting them increases your score, though not by too much).

OK, here's my take on this... 1. "Space Robot" seems like a clone of Missile Command. 2. "Astro War" is identical to the game "Sea Monster" I had. I think it had the same label as pictured above, but with "Sea Monster" on it (only the manual sheet said "Sea Master" and was packed with the "Missile War" cart). 3. "Phantom Tank" is unknown to me. 4. "Condor Attack" was my "Galactic", though I'm pretty sure it didn't say "Goliath" at the bottom. Same for 4a. "Condor Attack" T-Handle 5 and 5a. "Open Sesame" is unknown to me. 6. "Spider Kong" (all variations) is unknown to me. 7. "Space Tunnel" is unknown to me. 8. "Sea Monster" is the same as my "Missile War", though my cart said "Bit Corp." at the bottom, not "Fuzzy". Are these PAL or NTSC screenshots? I ask this because your folder is called "Eigene Bilder", which hints to a german speaking country, which usually has the PAL TV standard.

OK... I managed to beat my best. My new record is: 118009. Between the last screenshot and this one, I switched PC's. The new PC now has a Quadcore 2,4 GHz CPU (instead of Pentium III/800 MHz) and is running MS Vista Home Premium (instead of the old Windows ME). I've played this on Stella 2.4.2 (previously using Z26), and I noticed the framerate isn't smooth at all times. May have to tweak the settings a bit...

OK, here's mine... 93568. Actually, one of my first games today was the best... I never managed to save 3 patients again after that. As far as I can see, the "life" logic goes like this: You start with a level of 12 or 15. Each time the clock at the left passes 12 (small hand), the counter goes down by 1 and the beeps speed up. If you shoot an enzyme (key-like thing), the counter goes up by 1 again. This is the only way you can re-gain "life". The antibodies (small, dot-like things) only appear if you touch the side walls (which otherwise won't harm you). If you don't shoot them, some of your life will be subtracted if they reach the bottom of the screen. The same thing happens with the alien-like bacteria, and if you shoot the asteroid-like blood cells (which won't harm the patient if they reach the bottom of the screen, but rather if they get shot). So my advice would be... set your priorities. The enzymes are probably the most important things to shoot, for they prolong your life. Then there's the scoring, something of which I figured out (at least). Defense cells (similar to Scamble's rockets) get you 250 points. Blood cells get you 25 points per hit, but harm the patient at the same time. Antibodies bring, I think, 75 points. Bacteria bring 100 points per hit, that is 300 points if completely killed. Clotlets get you 1 point per hit, though they're indestructable. The clot gets you 200 points per hit, that is 3000 points in total. I couldn't quite figure out the mid-level bonus sequences. I think on those the remaining life gets multiplied with the phase number, or something like that. However, the final bonus per patient seems to be 800 points per "life level" left.

So, did soneone already make progress concerning the confusion of "Sea Monster" / "Sea Master" and "Missile War"? Those two games also showed up in staberinde's screenshot collection, though the shots aren't labeled (which is which)...

Well, those two points at once actually aren't possible, i.e. if you add a third voice, the 2600 certainly would not be able to handle it. But let's take for instance your version of "Smurf's Rescue in Gargamel's castle": This one only has one melody voice while even the 2600 version has got two voices playing music. In other words, your version (except for the drums part) is a further degradation of the 2600 version, which already is a degradation of the Colecovision version, which in turn is a degradation of the original TV theme. And this just sounds sad. Bascially, I view each piece of music as a separate work. That is, if, for instance, the arcade music of "Commando" gets adapted to the C-64 or the Atari 2600, those are two new, different versions of the music, unless they could sound exactly the same, which technically is near impossible. And each version has got a somehow different "feeling" than the other ones. Even if you try hard to make your MIDI files sound the same as the Atari 2600 versions, they still are new, different versions because they still sound differently, as they are performed by different sounding instruments. And I don't want to try to school you how to build your music files. That's up to you. I view making music as something artistic, and everyone's got a different taste, so what's good for someone may not be good for someone else. The main question is if you want your version to be different, or if you want to imitate the 2600 version as closely as possible. A similar question is if the differences to the 2600 version are put in intentionally, or if you just don't know how to do it better or don't want to invest that much work. This is a similar thing to the translation of Coleco's Donkey Kong to the 2600. If you look at the first screen, I honestly don't think it could have done much better graphics-wise. The degradations that are there in the graphics mostly are there because the 2600 isn't able to do better. But then you see what's meant by the Coleco technicians when they said in an interview that the game logic routinely was simplified. As a result of this, Mario's jump isn't really a jump, but rather "hanging in the air" for some fixed amount of time. And then you see the vast simplifications of the second screen, which, in view of the first screen, wouldn't have been necessary at all in this way. There's the missing music, the simplified sound effects etc., and of course the missing screens, most of which could have been added despite the 2600's limitations. So in this game you see very clearly which simplifications were necessary due to the 2600's limitations, and which were only done due to time and memory constraints (probably), or to intentionally make the game look worse than the Colecovision version (or both). 2600 Donkey Kong could have been a great game if the game logic wouldn't have been simplified that much, and if the subsequent screens would have been adapted in the same quality as the first one. The provisions for that are definitely there in the kernal. And the MIDI files are similar. The degradation that the 2600's "Smurf's rescue" melody has undergone isn't necessary from a technical standpoint, because MIDI files are clearly able to play more than one voice. It somehow reminds me of those remixes of old songs which only play the chorus over and over and put a dancefloor beat under them. That is, simplifying the original and turning it into something else. If you're the kind of people who likes such things, fine. What I mean with "staying in the spirit of the version I try to adapt" is actually hard to describe, especially when it comes to Atari 2600 music, because it's mostly so simple that it doesn't really have a "spirit". You see, some musical pieces and songs for me seem to sort of "breathe". Take, for instance, "Hotel California" by the Eagles, and its instrumental ending. There are some drum rolls which for me are the equivalent of "breathing in", and then the song breathes out when the normal rhythm comes back with a crash. It's really hard to describe... anyway, that breathing sequence easily gets broken by adapting the song. Well, enough ranting.

Well, I listened to some of them, and something seems to be wrong here... somehow I have a problem with MIDI's of songs that actually were conversions of other systems or "real" songs. A few examples for this from your page: "Burger Time" was an arcade conversion, and the music is also adapted from there- except that in the arcade, it's a bit longer and uses 2 voices. "Commando"... here the same applies. The original version in the arcade is a bit longer and at least uses 3 voices (by the way, my favorite version of that music is the C-64 one, where Rob Hubbard converted the rather short arcade music into a 5-minute piece) "Crystal Castles - Level done"... actually this is a broken link so I can't check out how it sounds, but this is actually an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker". "Frogger"- this is also adapted from the arcade where it sounds a little nicer. The same applies for other arcade conversions which I won't mention here. "Smurf's Rescue in Gargamel's Castle": This melody actually also appears in the Smurf cartoon series, where it is, of course, much better orchestrated. "Vanguard - Invincibility": This one sounds suspiciously like a cut of Queen's "Flash Gordon" soundtrack, called "Vultan's Theme (Attack of the Hawk men)" - of course simplified and shortened. This is probably not obvious since that track is pretty unknown, but I have the LP of it and recognized it instantly. The problem I have with these is hard to describe... when I do music, I always try to to the best thing that's possible with a given system. This means that if I adapt something to MIDI from an inferior system, it should be an improvement to its source, and if it was obviously adapted from another song which originally sounded better, I try to stay true to that better version, as long as it stays somewhat in the spirit of the version I try to adapt. And there's no doubt that in a MIDI file you can do better music (that is, more voices and a better range of notes) than on the 2600 and even better music than in most early arcade games which used the usual TI or GI sound chips or POKEY's. The music in the arcade original of Crystal Castles even is slightly out of tune. For instance, a MIDI file I feel apprioriate for Crystal Castle's "Level Done" music would be this here: http://www.kunstderfuge.com/-/midi.asp?fil...)kirschbaum.mid By the way, do demos count too? If so, I'd like to add my "Jim's heart will go on demo" (or "Titanic Rescue Demo") to the list... and the music, of course, is an adaptation of "My heart will go on" by Celine Dion.

"Fix" for what? I didn't tell you what's really wrong with my PC. In fact, on first glance, it seems to work fine, it boots up and most of the programs in the start menu work fine. But I've had problems starting Windows Explorer... the drive would just spin and spin, then I defragmented it, and it works fine again, but while defragmenting I found out that some areas in the drive have execptionally long access times. Now this doesn't HAVE to mean anything, but if it does, I'm pretty much screwed... To explain it further (but as short as possible), I had the following problems: 1. The already mentioned problem on the C drive, which was (at least temporarily?) fixed by DEFRAGging it. 2. On trying to defrag the D: file, errors were detected, so I tried Scandisk on it, which detected errors that were corrected. Then I tried to defrag it again, but had to abort it because I needed the PC. On another day, I tried Defrag again, and it showed errors again, so I tried Scandisk again, which showed more errors that were corrected. After that, some of the files on D: are corrupted - some have been turned into CHK files, and some more don't contain their original content, but fragments of other files. I guess either the Scandisk or Defrag (or both) utilities supplied with Windows ME can't handle such big drives. So those are the reasons for "jumping ship" now: - Both the C and D drives are somehow screwed up... I can still work with them, but the question is for how long. Anyway, I would have to format the D drive and put back all the data onto it in order to be able to work properly again. - The main PC is already from 2001 (a Pentium III/800), thus it's got a rather small memory and is rather slow compared to today's PC's. - Since the PC's that old, the BIOS doesn't natively support more than 128 GB drives, so there might be problems if I have to change the C drive for a new one. I'm already using a DDO for the D drive, which is a 160 GB one. - I would have to upgrade to a newer OS anyway, since more and more programs don't support Windows ME, which I'm still running. - I just did a backup on all of the files on my drives, so if I change the PC now, I don't have to do an additional backup. But it's not that the PC doesn't work at all anymore. In fact, I'm typing this on it. I just can't reliably use it (especially the drives) anymore, so I store everything on a USB stick at the moment for safety reasons while I look out for a new PC. Sorry to go off topic, just wanted to reply...

OK, this is a game I played for a long time back in summer... so I made a pretty good score already in my first game: 30960. I doubt I'll have time for more this week... my pc is dying and I decided to buy a new one. Now I have to decide which one and where to buy it... hmm... so many decisions. Does it make sense to buy a quadcore processor? Or to have two hard drives already built in? Or should I rather go with a cheap one? And what will I do with my 3 1/2" disks if most new PC's don't have a drive for it? So many things to consider... and after I've bought it, I'll probably start to install it which takes even more time. But I've made my entry now, and I'm confident I'll make it to submit the next entry in time for next week.

No, you're not missing any game controls... the demo itself is missing any game controls. And yes, it's a joke hack on my "Titanic Rescue" demo. Originally there were men jumping from the ship, and the game planned for it is that you have a boat below the ship which should catch the men and bring them to the shore... but that part isn't implemented yet. I just did a quick hack changing the falling men to ostriches (and the ship color from brown into black so that the brown ostriches stand out in front of it).

Well... I can't promise I'll do that, but... what if the ostriches jump ship instead of getting caught? ship71104.bin Yes, this is a 2600 binary. By the way... is an ostrich able to swim?

But I'm pretty sure this feature has been used in War, where the castles and shields never move to the other side of the screen. Concerning Gorf: I'm not sure if all of you are aware of it, but the arcade hardware of Gorf (and Wizard of Wor, maybe others too) is nearly identical to the Bally Astrocade. The differences are that there's more video RAM (16K vs. 4K) for double resolution, and the "Magic RAM" chip is a bit more powerful since it's also able to rotate things while writing to the RAM (which it can't do on the Astrocade). Oh, and the memory mapping probably is different too, allowing for more ROM space - as far as I know, Gorf is 32K of ROM. So instead of writing an all-new version, it could be attempted to somehow "port" the code from the arcade (probably leaving out things here and there). But I'm with you on the different 8-color set on each scanline (actually, the vertical resolution is 2 scanlines, so it doesn't make sense to rewrite them in every scanline). Already with 4 colors per scanline, you could do something like this:

OK, here's my first attempt... 13050. I also compiled a little map of the house: There are two rooms with blackouts, which are the second one from the left and right, respectively (as mentioned before). The doors on the left and right lead to the other floor; the doors in the middle room lead to the other door on the same floor. Here are some more tips: - The killer usually appears in the uppermost position, either on the left or right side, so as long as he's not in the room, it's safest to be in the lowest position possible. In rooms with doors, the killer may also appear in the door. - The killer's position isn't consistent, that is, if you leave him behind in a room, he may still appear on the other side of the next room (and most of the time, he does appear eventually while you cross a room). In contrast to that, the position of unsaved children and the knife stay consistent until the knife is taken or the a child is saved or killed, in which case they move to some other room, which may also be the room you're just in, but in that case they won't be visible until you leave it and enter it again. - The knife always seems to appear in a room on the lower floor. Thus, the lower floor is a little easier to play because there are no blackouts there either. However, after rescuing some children, you may find there are none left on the lower floor, so you'll have to go upstairs to rescue the children there. - Picking up the knife usually means that you get the chance to use it in the very room you're in, since the killer will usually appear before you enter another room. - If you have the knife, you can push the button a little in advance. The knife will stay up for about half a second, in which you can continue to run and stab the killer. If you keep the button depressed, there will be a high chance you stab the killer, because after the "up" time, the knife will be down for a split second and then be up again. - If there's a child, the killer will first close in on it and kill it, after which he will close in on you. If there's no child in the room, he will go for you immediately, but you can outrun him because you're faster (at least in the first 2-3 levels).

OK, here's my final entry for this week... 40200. By the way, I made it to "wrap around" the patterns... I think the 2600 version of Mr. Do! only has 6 patterns vs. 10 in the arcade version... and I also roughly figured out how the players are distributed... one player gets used to display Mr. Do! and all the cherries, which means that if Mr. Do is in one scanline with some cherries, both flicker, otherwise they don't. The other player gets used to display the enemies and the apples. That player's missile also gets used for the player's shot, which causes it to change between being blue and orange. The playfield displays the dirt, and the other missile and the ball don't get used in this game.

OK, this seems to be my best so far... 35650. By the way, the manual is wrong on multiple points: - Badguys change into Alpha monsters each time you pass a multiple of 2000, not 1000. However, this won't help you if you also complete a level by doing so... the alpha monster won't appear on the next one. - It is possible to dig beneath an apple from below without dying, but you have to move on to the left or right instantly after that. - Not sometimes, but every time you try to push an apple sideways and a badguy is on the other side, that badguy will instantly turn into a blue chomper. Some more tips: - It's usually more advisable (if you get the timing right) to directly let a badguy (any type) be squashed by a falling apple without first letting the apple fall down one level. - You can safely eliminate badguys if you're on one side of an apple and the badguy is on the other side. As long as you're trying to push the apple to the badguy's side, neither you nor the apple nor the badguy will move. However, as soon as you get the power ball, shoot it off... it will go over the apple and kill the badguy on the other side, but this only works if the path between you and the badguy is clear of dirt. - I'd advise you to try to rather pick up all the cherries and get out of the way of the monsters. Reserve the use of the power ball for really nasty ones - blue chompers or fast-moving badguys following you. It may pay off to shoot an alpha monster, though... but take no risk getting to it, because it only earns you a fifth of a life, while you may lose a whole one by taking risks. - If a badguy follows you closely, don't try to reach an apple which you can let fall on the badguy. Chances are you will have to change direction first, and at that time the badguy will get you. - A good way to start a level is to wait until the first badguy comes out and lead it under a falling apple. This will give you 1000 points (which is a 50% chance an alpha monster will come out, provided you're on a useful letter) and one badguy less on the level (I counted 6 badguys on one level, but I'm not sure if they are the same number on every level). - If a badguy stays on screen for a longer time, it will eventually morph into a blue chomper, and it will also eventually speed up. However, changing a badguy into an alpha monster seems to slow it down again. And I've also seen blue chompers morph back into normal badguys. - This game is remarkably similar to Dig Dug. Several tricks (i.e. how to handle falling apples / rocks and let monsters follow you in order to crush them under an apple/rock) work on both games. For the arcade gamers in you, these are some of the main differences in gameplay between the 2600 and the arcade version: - On the 2600, there are only 2 enemies at once; in the arcade, there are several more (I think I counted 5-6). - The arcade game awards alpha monsters at multiples of 5000, not 2000 points. Those come out of the "Extra" box instead of one of the bad guys turning into them and stay on screen for some time before they go back into the "Extra" box. If you make a screen at the same time as reaching that score, the alpha monster does come out at the start of the next screen. - After the last enemy has spawned, the spawn spot turns into a bonus item. If you take this, the bad guys freeze, and the alpha monster comes out of the "Extra" box accompanied by 3 or 4 blue chompers. Once you've defeated the alpha monster, the normal action goes on. (this feature has been omitted completely in the 2600 version). At that time, both the alpha monster and all remaining blue chompers turn into apples which fall if they are in a vertical lane. The alpha monster also turns into an apple after having been on the screen alone, while it completely disappears in the 2600 version after being defeated. - The bad guys don't morph into blue chompers, rather they morph into "diggers" which dig through dirt like the blue chompers do in the 2600 version, but more slowly. - The enemy AI is obviously different. The bad guys chase you more aggressively in the arcade, but try to flee from falling rocks (but often don't succeed in doing so) - The logic of digging in the dirt is different. If you dig two adjacent lanes in the 2600 version, there's nothing between them, while there's a wall in the arcade version which the bad guys (except for diggers) can't cross (but falling rocks can). - In the arcade, there are 8 cherries per block vs. the 6 in the 2600 version, and the apples always are outside the cherry blocks (which are closer together than on the 2600), while they can be inside of them on the 2600. - In the arcade, the cherries are sometimes laid out horizontally and sometimes vertically. On the 2600, all cherry blocks are laid out horizontally (that is, 2 rows x 3 colums). - In the arcade, the playfield is a grid of 13x12; on the 2600 it's 16x8. - In the arcade, apples break up after falling more than 1 lane deep at one time. However, they are allowed to fall down by 1 line several times as long as each fall isn't longer than that. In the 2600 version, they break up after falling 2 or more levels from their original location anyway (even if there were only 2 short falls).

OK... first, here's my second and last entry for this round... $10544. A few notes to your tips... I don't think it's impossible. I tried starting at level 8 and, yes, it is very fast, but at the start of level 8 there's still a slight delay before the cops come out. In fact, I believe Level X meant that it was already above 8. On the other hand, $100k might still be impossible because $99,999 probably is the maximum score (or it rolls over after that). The reason for this is that the Atari 2600 is only able to display a 6-digit score counter, and the first digit is already taken up by the dollar sign. However... I tend to disagree to the tip above. If you're good enough and don't need as many extra cars, I'd try to rob as many banks as possible on each level until your car starts to flash. The reason for this is that difficulty seems to increase with each town cleared, not as a function of the score. In other words, if you make it to rob some extra banks per level, you can get to the "impossible" level with a higher score on your counter. I do agree that it gets harder to rob more than 9 banks with each level because overall game speed seems to increase with every other level (that is, on rounds 1 and 3 for each level). That is, the cops get faster, your car gets faster too and fuel is consumed faster as well. Oh, and I think I've made out some of the enemy AI. It seems like enemy cars first try to line up with you horizontally, then vertically. For instance: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX <---1 XX XXXXXX XXXXXX XX <----------2 XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX If 1 is your car, and 2 is an enemy car, 2 will reach the intersection, but continue to drive left (passing you in the wrong lane) because it will first try to line up vertically by going left, not horizontally by going up. Unfortunately, it won't reach you this way. However, it will turn around the corners on the left and appear to the left of you (where you can bomb it) when it reaches the corner. It would also do so if the lane would continue to the left, because in this case it's not allowed to take a U-turn, and out of the directions left and up, up is the better one because it leads the enemy car closer to your position, while left would lead it away from you. All the enemy cars seem to have the same AI, though they vary in speed (at least in later levels). It's a bit like Pac Man, in a way... and I can say that this one is well programmed, also with its joystick response. If you push the joystick diagonally up/right, your car will try to either go up or right, whatever's possible. However, on an intersection where both directions are allowed, it will always make you turn, that is, if you were going right previously, you go upwards from the intersection and vice-versa.

Seems like my first entry isn't that bad... $8073.

OK, so this is probably my last entry for this game... 79460. I tried all kinds of strategies, but I still can't get beyond level 6.

OK, here's mine... 57920. I kept playing until I reached Level 6... at Level 6 the game gets MUCH harder.

OK... I managed to improve my best... but not by far, as compared to the other members all rolling the score. Didn't manage to do that, but... 58200

39200. I don't bow out since submitting ANY score gets you one point in the ranking, while submitting no score gets you none. Actually, I own that game (the PAL version though), but I never got much farther than this.

Well, maybe except for this one: createst.bin (Yes, it's me again... note: the BIN file above is for Creativision emulators, not for the Atari 2600 this time) Hey Kurt, do you want me to distribute your demo through my CreatiVEmu website? I thought it was private for me only I think it would be a good idea... basically I see this demo as "finished"... its only purpose was to demonstrate that it's possible to program the Creativision (and that its video chip is able to do the Bitmap Mode). Maybe this could encourage more homebrew authors to do something for it... The reason why this demo is finished is... well... it fills up 12K of a cartridge with a single image alone (which does take up 12K in the VDP RAM), so I probably wouldn't do something like this in a game, since the biggest released carts only had 18K, so a 12K title picture would only leave 6K for an actual game. So, yes, I think it would be a good idea to have this demo on your website. If you want, you can also put up the sourcecode, unless it makes you feel deprived of a gift I gave you... but I think it could be a bit useful in demonstrating how sound and video can be accessed... OK, actually the source code is a bit confusing since I tried out different things which I then just commented out instead of removing them... and some comments I wrote into it apply to the commented-out lines which don't really get compiled and executed. I'm just cleaning it up a bit... and I'm not sure what to do with it. But it's time to go to bed now...

Well, maybe except for this one: createst.bin (Yes, it's me again... note: the BIN file above is for Creativision emulators, not for the Atari 2600 this time)

OK, so which games by Opcode Games are really available? As far as I can see: - Space Invaders Collection - Sky Jaguar - Yie ar Kung Fu - Magical Tree At least those work with the standard Colecovision... I was pretty sceptical about the planned games requiring additinoal hardware like the memory expansion or the Opgrade module, which is essentially a more powerful video chip.