Kurt_Woloch

Here are my times for this week (August 5th through 11th) on classic systems... sorry, due to the hot weather I didn't play any classic games this week, but for a change, I did play a modern game (see the modern tracker).

Here are my times for this week (August 5th through 11th) on modern systems: Android: McDonalds treasure hunt - 6 min. Due to the hot weather, I only played a single game this week, and only for 6 minutes. It's McDonalds treasure hunt which you can play through their app... the playfield keeps on scrolling down and you have to tap on islands in order to have your avatar jump from island to island and collect pieces of the treasure map. Actually I don't know if the exact English title is correct because I'm playing the German version.

Here are my times for this past week (July 29th through August 4th) on classic systems... Arcade: Pooyan - 12 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 7 min. Colecovision: Pac-Man - 9 min. Carnival - 9 min. This week I didn't play that many games because I got some visitors and also went swimming on some days. I replayed some favorites of mine, Pooyan and Baby Pac-Man. Then the Colecovision version of Pac-Man and finally Carnival which I played on the Atari 2600 last week. The Colecovision version seems to have all the features of the arcade game while the Atari 2600 version, as usual with Coleco, was more watered down than would have been necessary... they didn't even include the bear stage!

Here are my times for this past week (July 22nd through 28th)... Atari 2600: Bobby is going home - 12 min. in 2 sessions Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the park - 10 min. Carnival - 8 min. Carnival 8K - 2 min. Centipede 2K (2000) (PD) - 6 min. Do Re Mi - 1 min. Thunderground - 5 min. Tron - 2 min. Commodore 64: Poc-Man (homebrew) - 2 min. Non-eligible: Rubik's Cube - 6 min. I played some different Atari 2600 games, most of which I've played before. The 8K version of Carnival sadly still doesn't have the bear interlude, but also lacks scoring, so I reverted to the normal one for another game. Centipede 2K is just a graphics hack of Centipede. Do Re Mi is a puzzle game in development, but it's pretty simple and fast. Tron is also being in development, but I didn't manage to properly play it with just 1 joystick. Other than that, I revisited Thunderground, Bobby is going home and Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventure in the park, which is the prototype of the Atari 2600 version of a Colecovision game which itself is an adaptation of the MSX game Athletic Land by Konami which also was available in its original form over here. I'm not too good at it, so I didn't manage to complete the 3rd set of rounds. The same holds true for Bobby is going home, which is somewhat similar to the former game, but much slower. Finally, I took at a look at Poc-Man, which is a C-64 version of Pac-Man I attempted to code in BASIC back in 1985. While it's pretty slow, it's better than the Atarisoft version in some respects... the title tune is arranged correctly, and the ghosts are multicolored (I chose to make them 24 pixels wide, unlike in all other known Pac-Man clones on the C-64). I actually question if this game could be souped up to a full-blown Pac-Man clone which would be better than anything that appeared on the C-64 previously. Probably it could, but it would be much work. Finally, I solved Rubik's Cube in about 6 minutes, but that's not an electronic game, so it's ineligible for the Top 10.

I just saw this... to the initially asked question I'd probably say it's the garbage shown on the right side of the screen... don't know if this is avoidable (there's something similar seen on the NES on some games). But I did ask myself how this was graphically possible... didn't get the idea that the road could be made out of players / missiles. As far as I know, Pole Position does it the other way round... the street is drawn using a bitmap with the scrolling being adjusted on every scanline, and all the objects are drawn on top over it with p/m graphics. The blockiness of the objects comes from the fact that players can only be 8 pixels wide, and putting multiple players next to each other would eat up too many of them, so they settled with drawing the cars using 2 players each (in different colors) in this low resolution. They could do it like this only on this system anyway... the Atarisoft ports of Pole Position use different techniques depending on the hardware, and in comparison the Atari 8-bit version is still technically pretty far advanced. Even if it isn't possible to add more objects to the display, one could still turn this into a playable game by only doing some sort of time trial... it's only you against the winding road. Maybe it would be possible to add different track sections where there's a color change on the road and/or the "grass". For instance, by turning the grass color blue, then brown for a short section and then green again, you could create the illusion of going over a bridge. Another idea would be to do hills... the road would still use the same technique of display, but the correlation between road width and scanline wouldn't be fixed anymore. I think this should be doable as well, as would be simulating different road conditions like ice and dirt by changing the road color and the driving physics... and different times of day like it's done in Enduro by also changing the color of the sky and background. Also there could be different stages with different scrolling background graphics. I think this should all be doable without destroying the technical principle of how the graphics engine works.

Here are my times for this past week (July 15th through 21st)... Android phone: McDonalds treasure hunt - 2 min. McDonalds has a new game in their app, which is a treasure hunt and actually feels very much like another game they had some months ago in that again you have to hop from stop to stop and collect golden coins (this time). The last time you were an Easter bunny and had to collect eggs, I think. So the graphics and the main character have changed, but the game principle hasn't changed much.

Here are my times for this past week (July 15th through 21st)... Atari 2600: Tom's Eierjagd - 20 min. Lilly Adventure - 14 min. Mattel Aquarius: Burger Time - 78 min. in 3 sessions This week the most time was spent with continuing to play "Burger Time" on the Mattel Aquarius which is a quite challenging version. Today I managed to complete the 6th screen and advance to the 7th one which is quite different to the one in the Intellivision version. Tom's Eierjagd and Lilly Adventure both were released in the ITT Family series (albeit maybe under a different name) or at least should have been. They had the "Pumuckl" as a mascot, and "Tom's Eierjagd" should actually be "Pumuckl's Eierjagd" because he's the main creature there. The game even plays a somewhat distorted version of the title music of the "Pumuckl" TV cartoon series. But there was already a different Pumuckl game in the series (an adaptation of "Zoo Fun"), so maybe ITT realized they only had the rights to put out one actual game featuring Pumuckl, so they renamed the his 2nd occurence to "Tom", but kept the graphics and music intact. Lilly Adventure should have been released in the Family series as well, but clearly doesn't feature Pumuckl as the main character. Instead, it seems to be closely adapted from "Bobby's going home", but it plays notably different music... I could make out covers of "Hänschen klein" and "Jingle Bells" among other well-known children's songs. And it actually plays quite tricky variations on the music, using different arpeggios, pitches and instruments for the same tune to keep things interested For a VCS game I think the music is pretty complex and well done. And the game actually seems to be more difficult as well... I couldn't reach the frist level goal, if there is one at all.

Sorry, but I didn't play any modern games this week (July 8th through 14th).

Here are my times for this past week (July 8th through 14th)... Mattel Aquarius: Burger TIme - 28 min. Atari 2600: Boulder Dash (Demo?) - 10 min. Burger Time - 159 min. in 3 sessions Colecovision: Burger Time - 10 min. Q*Bert - 20 min Commodore 64: Burger Time 1997 - 31 min. Intellivision: Burger Time - 61 min. TI-99: Burger Time - 20 min. This week I mainly played various versions of Burger Time in order to compare them to ChaoticGrill on the Atari 2600, also to compare how well the music is translated. The most challenging one actually seems to be the Atari 2600 version although I didn't try to finish the Mattel Aquarius version. While at it, on the Colecovision I also played a game of Q*Bert which lasted 20 minutes, and on the Atari 2600 I also played Boulder dash... this is the version "BoulderDash100.bin" which is probably a demo since as far as I know the finished version was never released. I didn't manage to get through the 1st level... I guess you have to somehow create the diamonds you're suppose to collect by interacting with walls, but I don't exactly know how.

Here are my times for this past week (July 1st to 7th) on modern systems... sorry, I didn't play any games on modern systems this week.

Here are my times for this past week (July 1st to 7th) on classic systems... Arcade: Burger Time - 19 min. Atari 2600: Chaotic Grill - 16 min. in 2 sessions Commodore 64: Munchy - 7 min. I'm just helping out with the creation of Chaotic Grill, which at the moment still is a WIP, by redoing and improving sounds and music. In order to do that, I played both the WIP version of Chaotic Grill and the original version, Burger time. Chaotic Grill is improving from build to build. Other than that, I was playing Munchy on the C-64, but only one game of it.

Here I attempted some of the sound effects... note that they actually should have a falling envelope (like the sound when a burger falls a level). That is, each of the two sounds should start playing on volume 7 (they are also some of the loudest in the arcade) and then gradually decay as they play until they reach volume 1 at the end. The "Squash" sound is actually only 4 frames long, the "Enemy riding" sound lasts about half a second. I hope you can see what's going on in these ones... Burger Time Enemy squashed.ttt Burger Time Enemy riding.ttt

Thank you for your versions of the tunes! Here are some of mine... I've amended your burgertime.ttt in order to more closely resemble the one in the arcade. Also, there's a new version of the death tune which I actually created from scratch just before you posted yours. I think it sounds much closer to the original... Then, another version of the level start and end tunes. The level start tune mostly plays in three parts, so for this new version I took advantage of the fact that the bass only plays short blips to have that channel play 2nd voice at the time the bass doesn't play. I tried the same with the level end tune, but it isn't such a big improvement because great portions of the original are only 2 parts, and the bass doesn't take as many breaks as in the level start tune. I don't think there needs to be a real envelope for the tunes, but the background music should be played at a lower volume setting than the rest in order to have the sound effects stand out. burgertime V2.ttt Burger Time Chef death.ttt Burger Time Level Start V2.ttt Burger Time Level End V3.ttt

Thank you for posting this new version! Much improved sound there! There are still some things that occured to me about the sound: - Something's wrong about the main background music. While the overall tempo is correct, the individual notes need to be played shorter, I think, with rests in between. Also there are places when they seem to get somewhat out of sync to each other. - The start of the level end music gets drowned out by the last sound effects. Maybe you should either start it later so that it's fully played, or disable the sound effects immediately once the level is complete so that they don't prevent the level end music from playing fully. - The sound when Peter Pepper walks over the burgers seems to be too quick in tempo. The tempo of the last version seems to have been correct though. - The sound effect for "burger part starts falling without an enemy" at the moment also seems to play if one or more enemies are on it, in which case a different sound effect should be played. I know I didn't provide that one because it's not actual music... Basically it's kind of a sweep from high to low tone, but on both channels... - The player death tune isn't quite correct. I know I didn't provide that one either since you didn't report having difficulties with it, but I'll do so tomorrow if I'll get to it... - Two sound effects that are either missing or don't come close to the arcade is spraying enemies with pepper (not spraying pepper in general, but hitting enemies with it!) and squashing them with burger parts. - Generally, I think the background music should be softer in volume, and the sound effects should be louder in comparison. Sorry about nitpicking...

Here's an updated version of my level end tune... I set it in the wrong key, now it's in the correct one (on both channels). One suggestion about the level start tune... the last note is off... the last note on the higher channel should be the same as the 2nd note the higher channel plays in that tune (D-5 instead of C-5). In fact, I've now tried to recreate several of the tunes that occur in the arcade original. I hope they are usable in one way or another... Burger starts falling without enemy.ttt Burger falls one level.ttt Bonus item appears.ttt Walk on burger.ttt Pick up extra pepper.ttt Burger Time Level Start.ttt Burger Time Level End V2.ttt

Sorry, I didn't play any modern games this week.

Here are my times for this past week on classic systems: Arcade: Burger Time - 15 min. Atari 2600: Chaotic Grill - 12 min. Crystal Castles - 8 min. Like last week, I didn't play much because it was hot outside and I went swimming on 5 days. However, I did sneak in a round of "Chaotic Grill" because a new version of it was released. After that I played a bit of the original Burger Time for comparison. Also I viewed the demo "Danger zone" for the Atari 2600 for one minute (but that's no game, so it doesn't qualify here), followed by "Crystal Castles" for the same system.

OK, uh... would it help if I try transcribing the level end tune for you? I read you're using TIA tracker, so I attempted to create something that resembles the level end music in it. This should at least give you a hint at what's going on... Burger Time Level End.ttt

Very nice improvements there! The background music is now correct on both voices. This time I also had no hiccups (other than the enemies sometimes turning around when you don't expect it). However, there are still some things that could be improved about the music: - The starting tune is mostly correct, but the last note on the high channel is wrong. You could also revisit the note durations in some places - The dying tune isn't quite correct, especially not both voices - The level end tune is still missing, replaced by only, I think, 5 notes.

Here are my times for this past week (June 17th through 23rd)... I didn't play any modern games, so I'll post the times I spent on shared e-scooters instead, which are also somewhat modern, but no electronic games... Uneligible: Rides on Flash / Circ scooters - 203 min. in 2 sessions... er... standings Ride on Tier scooter - 18 min.

Here are my times for this past week (June 17th through 23rd)... Arcade: Puzzle Bobble - 20 min. Atari 7800: Frogus - 6 min. I didn't play much this week because the weather was hot and I went swimming with my father, also I rode some shared scooters again... Frogus is a variation on Frogger, but I don't think it plays as well as the original game. Puzzle Bobble actually was a single game... I don't think I ever got this far in the game as in this session (I think it was Level 14 or so).

Here are my times for this past week (June 10th through 16th) on modern systems... Rides on shared electric scooters (ineligible): WIND - 67 min. in 2 sessions Circ (formerly Flash) - 34 min. in 1 session which was broken up in 3 Since I didn't play any games on modern systems, I decided to instead post the time spent on shared electric scooters this week. I did 3 rides in total, but the Flash scooter died 2 times and was reactivated. When it died for the 3rd time, reactivating it was unsuccessful. Support said this was because of low battery, now because of riding outside the business area. By the way it is possible both for Circ and WInd scooters to begin a rent outside the service area if you find one of their scooters there, but it should be impossible to end the rent of a Circ scooter outside the service area, and if you do that to a Wind scooter, they charge for it extra.

Here are my times for this past week (June 10th through 16th) on classic systems... Atari 2600: Alligator people - 95 min. in 4 sessions QB - 30 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 30 min. in 3 sessions I've continued to play Alligator People, but I've repeatedly managed to surpass my goal of 33333 points. The game doesn't seem to get any harder after Round 4. Then I replayed an older game called QB, but I didn't do so for long because it's rather frustrating in that I sometimes get killed by an enemy which I didn't know how to avoid. I also replayed Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800 since the first batch of cartridges (hand-printed by Bob) has gone out to people and has been played by them. Actually I wonder if the Atari 7800 version of Baby Pac-Man has been reported here by anyone else but me previously. In any case, I mentioned the existence of this tracker in the Baby Pac-Man thread where people are posting how they received the cart and how much they appreciate it. So maybe we might see a few new faces in here this or next week...

I wonder if anybody of you is posting their times in the tracker for classic gaming. So far Baby Pac-Man hasn't shown up in the Top 10 although it seems like many people in this topic are playing it right now.

Here are my limes for this past week (June 3rd through 9th, 2019) on modern systems... Arcade: Dolphin Star - 3 min. World's largest Pac-Man - 3 min. I only played modern games in the arcade this week... two games I first played last year, only this time around I rode to the local arcade where they are located on a Lime e-scooter which didn't yet exist last year. They even fixed Dolphin Star so that it now carries my weight without struggling. I wasn't so successful on World's largest Pac-Man, where I already failed in the 2nd level.