Kurt_Woloch

Here are my times for this past week (April 8th through 14th) on modern systems... sorry, I didn't play any games on modern systems this week.

Here are my times for this past week (April 8th through 14th)... Arcade: Splash - 28 min. Atari 7800: T:Me Salvo - 78 min. in 3 sessions I've continued to play T:Me Salvo for a few shorter sessions, and I've revisited "Splash", an arcade game from 1992 which I liked to play back in the day. The purpose is to fill an area of color (actually, to remove the color in it to reveal the underlying picture) while fighting against bubbles and picking up bonus items and extras. As the game progresses, more and more bubbles appear, making the game harder and harder. I think this one has been developed on an Amiga because I recognize the character sets used from there. It also has the same main processor (a 68000).

Since there was the question about some ideas how to improve, I took a bit of a peek into the code and found some locations where space could possibly be saved... I took a look at the subroutine calls. Hmmm... I normally do subroutines when a piece of code gets called multiple times. However, the subroutine GENMOVE is only being called once, and then I ask myself what all these parameters are for. I can't recall exactly how the scope of variables work in XBASIC, but as far as I remember, there's no such thing as a scope, so all variables defined in the main program are visible to all subprograms as well. Which would mean to me that if a subprogram only gets called once, there's no need to use any parameters, or it could be turned into a GOSUB entirely. Same thing about SCOUTMOVE and FINDEN. With CALL CHECKEN, this subroutine gets called multiple times, but some of the parameters are always the same, so those could also be stripped. The line "IF CE1<>120 AND CE2<>120 AND CE3<>120 THEN keep_checking" is superfluous because these conditions get checked afterwards individually again and lead to the same outcome if none of them is true. This entire code section seems to be multiplied 4 times anyway with every iteration being pretty similar to the others, so maybe something could be condensed here as well... That's just some ideas how code space could be saved, I could probably find more if given more time.

Here are my times for this past week (March 1st through 7th) on modern systems... Android phone: McDonalds nests hunt - 3 minutes in 2 sessions The only modern game I played this week is the "Big nest hunt" in the McDonalds App where you have to tap on empty nests in order to have the Easter Rabbit jump there. You win the game by making 50 nests, and then you win a McDonalds coupon. You can only participate once a day, however, and once you have concluded a level, you get presentet with the next, faster level the next day. I only managed to beat the first level, but not the second one.

Well, even if it wasn't released on cartridge, it eventually leaked, like other games that weren't officially released like that Thundervision version of Crystal Castles (which was actually better than the official port later released by U.S. Gold) or Track & Field also by Atarisoft (where I got a version with a corrupted title screen). So I had this version on a disk back in the day, and I liked to play it together with my mother.

Here are my times for this past week (March 1st through 7th)... Arcade: Sky Skipper - 90 min. in 2 sessions Atari 2600: Sky Skipper - 46 min. in 2 sessions Atari 7800: (T:ME) Salvo - 99 min. in 3 sessions TI-99: Eat-Man (Pac-Man by Mr. Becherer) - 18 min. Mario Bros. (unreleased version in Extended Basic) - 6 min. My main game this week was "Sky Skipper" which I found in a Youtube video about Nintendo games on the Atari 2600. This is a game Nintendo actually beta-tested, but then didn't widely release. In it, you fly a plane which bombs Gorillas, knocking them out. While they're K.O., smaller animals jump out of their cages which you have to catch. Your level goal is to catch all animals. Surprisingly, the plane pilot is being introduced as "Mr. You" and actually looks very much like Mario in a flight jacket, the way he's been displayed in the late 80's as cameos in other Nintendo games, only the name Mario didn't exist back in 1981 when this was made or at least didn't have any importance (which you can see by the fact that in the German manual for the Game & Watch game Donkey Kong, Mario has been renamed to Paul). The Gorillas in the arcade version also look very much like Donkey Kong, and they attack the plane by jumping up trying to grab it or throwing balls at you (sort of like Missile Command in reverse where you are the target). So I'd actually see Sky Skipper as another part of the Donkey Kong series, only that this time Mario is flying the plane. The Atari 2600 version by Parker Brothers has been drastically changed... the mainly horizontally scrolling screens now scroll only vertically, there are only two of them instead of four, and the gorillas only stand still and don't attack. Also some logic dealing with card values beared by the animals has completely been left out. This version isn't very rich at all and not as enjoyable as its lost arcade counterpart overall. In comparison, the Atari 2600 version of Popeye (which most Sky Skipper cabinets have been converted to) is much closer to the original. I even think Parker Brothers in this case only worked by a description of the game and didn't have the real game at hand. Other than that, I played an Atari 7800 homebrew by RevEng called Salvo or T:ME Salvo as it's written on the title screen, though I don't know what's the real name of it. I got it from here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224469-salvo/page-8?hl=%2Bsalvo&do=findComment&comment=4208984 It's loosely based on Crossfire which I liked to play back in the day on the C-64 (and the TI-99), but souped up with extras and challenging rounds. The enemies are actually taken from Robotron and Berzerk (and possibly other games as well). Finally I played my attempt to write a port of Mario Bros. in TI-99 Extended Basic which is still unreleased, mainly in order to be able to post the screenshot above. I don't know if I should post the actual game here since I'm aware that Nintendo is very picky with its copyright on games and characters. So I don't know if it's actually eligible for inclusion in the tracker. And I played another Pac-Man game, this time "Eat-Man" by Mr. Becherer from Germany (but it calls itself "Pac-Man" in the actual game). This is a bit different to Atarisoft's official version in that the ghosts are monochrome, the gameplay stops while the eyes go back to the center, and the maze is generally different with somewhat irregularly spaced dots. There's also differences in scoring, sound, ghost colors and shapes and music.

Yeah, I know... the Ocean version is terrible though, I like the Atarisoft version much better. And yes, I know about that Colecovision version, I think this was the one I actually played the early demo of last week. As far as I know the final version is only available on cartridge, not as a ROM, or if it is, only for purchase. And I think the Atarisoft version wasn't released, only the versions for Atari systems were actually released. I guess they scrapped Atarisoft as a whole before releasing it as well as many games that were developed in 1984 such as Sinistar and Track & Field for the Atari 2600. But I would also think that graphically, Mario Bros on the TI-99 could look the same as the Colecovision version.

This comparison makes me wonder what Mario Bros would have looked like if it was ported to the TI-99... but as far as I know, Atarisoft didn't plan to do that, and in the end the only versions that got released by Atari were for their own systems. Well, maybe it would have looked a bit like this: (This is a screenshot of a crude Mario Bros. port I did in Extended BASIC on the TI-99 back in the day)

What's interesting here is that the title screen of Pac-Land says it was licensed exclusively for Europe. So were there other licenses for Japan or the US? Maybe even multiple C-64 versions of it? I think out of those games Pac & Pal would be easiest to do because it looks like it's got the same engine as Super Pac-Man or even a predecessor of it while the other games are pretty different.

Here are my times for this past week (March 25th through 31st) on modern systems... Browser based: Google Pac-Man Doodle - 18 min. The only modern game I played this week was the Google Pac-Man doodle which is quite true to the Arcade original, but has a completely different maze.

Here are my times for this past week (March 25th through 31st)... Amstrad CPC: Pac-Man - 31 min. in 2 sessions Apple II: Pac-Man - 14 min. Arcade: Bosconian - 68 min. in 3 sessions Mouse Trap - 41 min. Ms. Pac-Man - 9 min. Q*bert - 19 min. Atari 2600: Pac-Man 8K - 29 min. Colecovision: Gyruss - 5 min. Kick Gas - 2 min. Mario Bros. (Early Demo) - 10 min. Pac-Man - 10 min. Tutankham - 6 min. TI-99: Ms. Pac-Man - 12 min. This week I tried a lot of different versions of Pac-Man on different systems - Pac-Man for the Apple II (which was actually called Dac-Man originally before it was bought by Atari), the Amstrad CPC (pretty similar to the C-64 version), the 8K version on the Atari 2600, the Colecovision prototype and also Google's Pac-Man doodle (which appears on the modern tracker). Also Ms. Pac-Man for the TI-99 and the original arcade version, and the Pac-Man variant "Mouse Trap". Some versions (most notably the CPC one) start out quite slowly but then get a lot faster... I think the CPC one goes to double speed from the 3rd to the 5th maze. On the 8K version on the Atari 2600, the change is not that great, but still noticeable. Ms. Pac-Man on the TI-99 is pretty slow in comparison and stays that way. Actually, I questioned if it would be possible to reprogram Pac-Man 8K into a better version of Ms. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. While I was at it, I also played some other games... Tutankham on the Colecovision, which is much easier than the arcade original partly due to the fact that you don't ever have to use multiple keys to clear a level during the first set of levels. Also Gyruss on the Colecovision where the music actually sounds a bit nicer than on the C-64 due to using the noise channel for drums. Actually the sound chip on the Colecovision has the advantage over the SID that you can freely adjust the volume of each voice. Don't know if there are louder and softer notes in the music of Gyruss though. Then I also tried "Kick Gas" which is a scrolling overhead racing game on the Colecovision which scrolls quite nicely, and the early demo of Mario Bros which has the main flaw that sometimes the enemies after being kicked over go to places where you can't reach them, and they don't turn into normal running enemies either. Finally I also played a game of Q*Bert in the original version and several games of Bosconian, after having watched a video of the fabulous Atari 2600 port which is only possible due to a chip in the cartridge which does bus stuffing so that you can do your writes in a shorter time than normally would be necessary, and the chip offers data streams from memory which (presumably) automatically deliver byte after byte to the TIA in the correct order, freeing the CPU from the chore of counting up everything in code. It also offers a good rendition of some of the speech samples of the arcade version with their horrible Japanese accent where "Alert, Alert" becomes "Alike, alike", and "A missile launched" is prounounced "A miss'le lanched"... apart from the fact that it doesn't quite fit to what's actually happening on screen since at that point (Code red) you are attacked by several ships at once.

Here are my times for this past week (March 18th through 24th) on modern systems... sorry, I didn't play any modern games this week.

Here are my times for this past week (March 18th through 24th)... Arcade: Galaga - 3 min. Atari 2600: Astro Attack - 8 min. Missile War - 16 min. Oystron - 10 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 6 min. Channel F: Pac-Man - 6 min. I had some rather short sessions on various games this week... I played the Channel F variation of Pac-Man (AKA VES Pac-Man). Don't know if this game could be improved... I'd guess it could be given enough ROM space, but I don't know if that much ROM space would be doable. Then I replayed Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800, but I didn't come very far because I haven't played it for a long time. Nevertheless, the maze part is pretty smooth compared to VES Pac-Man. Then I played a short session (1 game) of Galaga and three Atari 2600 games from back in the day. Astro Attack and Missile War are the names of two of them, but they go by other names as well. To clarify, Astro Attack is this one: And Missile War is this one: I had both carts back in the day, though my Missile War cart was actually called "Sea Monster". And the ROM copy I have in Stella is called "Astro Wars", while the ROM copy of "Astro Attack" is called "Time Warp". Go figure... Then I also played Oystron which is somewhat similar to Missile War, but much more colorful. In Missile War, I beat the 50,000 points barrier, but didn't get much further. In Oystron, I think I got to Level 3 while I played Astro Attack until I had passed the first labyrinth screen. In Galaga, I think I reached Level 3, and I don't know exactly how far I got in Channel F Pac-Man, but I think it was Level 3 as well. In Baby Pac-Man it was the 2nd maze.

Here are my times for this week (March 11th through 17th) on modern systems... sorry, I didn't play any games on modern systems this week.

Here are my times for this past week (March 11th through 17th) on classic systems: Arcade: Jr. Pac-Man - 13 min. Atari 2600: Jr. Pac-Man - 112 min. in 2 sessions Commodore 64: Jr. Pac-Man - 15 min. Ms. Pac-Man - 137 min. in 2 sessions This time I've been mainly playing different versions of Jr. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, It's interesting to compare the games with one another... The C-64 port of Ms. Pac-Man is slower than the arcade version, and it has additional slowdown while eating pallets (the ghosts slow down as well). The C-64 version of Jr. Pac-Man is - well - lackluster. Although they captured the essence of the game well, there are certain areas lacking. The maze design is different to the original mazes (the mazes do not scroll and are smaller), the toys are moving pretty quickly, but you've got 8 instead of 6 power pellets. The first intermission looks very much like in the arcade, but in the end, Ms. Pac-Man doesn't go back into the house, but goes off to the right instead. These are some of the details where they could have done better. The Atari 2600 has got vertical scrolling instead of horizontal one, but it still tries to capture the essence of the arcade mazes - I think it manages to do this better than the C-64 version. What's a bit disturbing here is that both Jr. and the ghosts move much faster horizontally than vertically. Generally this game is very fast and harder than the arcade original. And for a comparison, I also played the arcade version of Jr. Pac-Man.

Here are my times for this past week (March 4th through 10th) on modern systems... Sorry, I didn't play any modern games this week.

Here are my times for this past week (March 4th through 10th)... Arcade: Jr. Pac-Man - 47 min. in 4 sessions This week I played a bit of Jr. Pac-Man again, set to 5 lives for longer games. I managed to beat the 4th maze once, but not the 5th.

Here are my times for this past week (February 25th through March 3rd) on modern systems... Browser based: Drawception - 5 min. Surviv.io - 21 min. in 2 sessions The Uber game - 14 min. I played some Drawception again, or, rather, looked at how my games turned out. Then I played Surviv.io which is a war game in overhead view where your goal is to fall last of all players. Then there's The Uber game which is a kind of multiple choice adventure where you play a Uber driver who has to make quite a few decisions during a week of work.

Here are my times for this past week (February 25th through March 3rd) on classic systems... Arcade: Jr. Pac-Man - 54 min. in 3 sessions Jungler - 27 min. Ms. Pac-Man - 8 min. As for classic systems, I only played arcade games this week... some Ms. Pac-Man and even more Jr. Pac-Man. Somehow this game has its own appeal with its big mazes and the possibility to lead around the ghosts in circles. I also played Jungler which is somewhat similar to "Serpentine" by Broderbund, but contrary to that, you eliminate the enemy snakes / worms by shooting their last part.

Here are my times for this past week (February 18th through 24th) on modern systems... Browser based: Drawception - 49 min. in several sessions Pacman.io - 10 min. This week, I played "Drawception" where you have to give a title to a drawing of your previous player, and the next player will attempt to draw something according to your caption, and so on... it gives pretty funny results if you view the completed games, but there are some good drawings in there as well. Pacman.io is a multiplayer variation of Pac-Man where each player plays a Pac-Man which grows with every dot eaten and also is able to eat the other Pac-Men as long as they are smaller. The goal of the game is to grow into the biggest Pac-Man on the playfield, but even then you can be destroyed by another player turning into a ghost.

Here are my times for this past week (February 18th through 24th)... Arcade: Speak & Rescue - 13 min. Atari 2600: Chaotic Grill - 13 min. Mr. Pac-Man (Hack of Ms. Pac-Man) - 3 min. Atari 7800: Astro Blaster - 9 min. K.C. Munchkin - 3 min. I tried a new build of Chaotic Grill which was released earlier this week. Then it was a few Pac-Man games, this time K.C. Munchkin on the Atari 7800 and Mr. Pacman, which is a hack of the Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man. Sadly, it's not perfect, most of all it got stuck in an endless look at the end of the first maze, which is why I only played it for 3 minutes. In the Baby Pac-Man thread, someone posted something about another Pac-Man pinball machine by Bally which he thought would be easy to port to the Atari 7800 as well. I knew a bit better and also pointed out the speech output of that machine, questioning how that could be done on the 7800, and it was answered with the posting of one of Bob's earlier games, Astro Blaster, which does have speech, so I tried it out. After that I remembered another arcade game with speech, Speak & Rescue, which I tried as well.

Very easy? Well... it is a bit different from the pinball poirtion of Baby Pac. The table layout is different, it's more of a "full" pinball game, and it's not symmetric, unlike Baby Pac-Man, which is strictly symmetric, which the collision map of the Atari 7800 version takes advantage of. Then there's diagonal targets and power bumpers, both of which Baby Pac doesn't have. Here the round bumpers actually add some force to the ball.while in Baby Pac-Man the bumpers on the bottom just deflect the ball with the same force it came in. Then there's speech (how do you do that?) and the very simplified maze portion. It does reuse some of the sound effects of Baby Pac-Man though.

Thank you for posting this new version! The enemy movement code looks better now, and that scoring panel on top looks good as well, but there's still a few things that occured to me... If you're on a ladder, and enemies are on the same ladder as you and come to an interception, they usually don't continue to follow you, but turn left instead (that's the absolute left side of the screen, not relative to their movement), whereas in the arcade they would continue to follow you. If you let enemies ride down on a burger part, in the arcade version they get a badge showing the scoring (I think it uses one of the enemies' sprites for that because that enemy disappears while the badge displays). Your version doesn't do this. Also, I'm not sure how many layers get added for each additional enemy riding the burger part. Could it be it's the same number of levels a burger part falls whether there's one or multiple enemies on it? The game looks pretty easy and stays that way, I think the arcade version is a bit harder. You could make it harder in progressive rounds by speeding up the enemies once you've cleared all the patterns once.

Here are my times for this past week (February 11th through 17th) on modern systems... sorry, no modern gaming for me this week.

Here are my times for this past week (February 11th through 17th)... Arcade: Ms. Pac-Man - 6 min. Atari 7800: Jr. Pac-Man - 38 min. I didn't play much this week, only two games in one session each... the usual ones I also had last week, Jr. Pac-Man on the Atari 7800 and Ms. Pac-Man in its original form. On Jr. Pac-Man I managed to reach my personal goal of 33.330 points.