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http://anthologyone.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/981379 http://atariage.com/forums/blog/757/entry-15629-space-roanoke-23/

It's another edition of the Retro Hunting Adventures! http://atariage.com/forums/blog/3/entry-15627-retro-nintendo-ds-wii-and-wii-u-games-ahoy/

I worked on my GOOMW today. I managed to tell the player hit 5 times to the enemy to beat down. I used this formula: if x player and x enemy is less than 16 pixels, punch it! I would use check_collision but I decided my method is better. YOU ARE IN MY WAY! TAKE THAT! Defeated. I hope he learnt his lesson. Ok. That's all for today. Attached thumbnail(s) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/56/entry-15626-hit-hit-hard-on-colecovision/

While reviewing London Blitz I recall mentioning Tunnel Runner several times as a maze game that did it right, so it seems only fitting that I go in depth as to why I think so. Tunnel Runner is the hardest game to find from CBS Electronics but is well worth it. I found something quite touching actually with this game, I got lucky and snagged a cart with the manual and on the back of said manual there are a couple paragraphs about the programmers themselves (probably written by the programmers themselves), it’s very charming so I’m going to type it out for you. TUNNEL RUNNER is Dick “Bucko” Balaska’s first game for CBS Electronics. Married, with a finite number of children, he makes his home deep in the crustacean layer of Connecticut. DB graciously thanks Cindy and Isis for their countenance while he lived inside “TR”. (It’s rumored that his flat is still somewhere in there.) His hobbies include fast bikes and fast chips. Kudos also go out to Trevor Marshall and Lou Abbagnaro for their support and to Col Stone for his outstanding computer graphics. A round of applause to Andy Frank, the man responsible for the eerie sounds of Tunnel Runner. And a special note of thanks to Rich Eckerstrom and Dan Rappaport for keeping things going when the going got weird.(Can we go now rich?) That’s just downright wholesome and I feel better now after reading it. If any of you guys are around just know that you did good. Let’s get going with the graphics. Tunnel Runner starts out strong with an excellent eye catching title screen that wouldn’t look out of place on a much more powerful system. When you start the game you are treated tone of the most satisfying things ever, watching the computer build the maze for you, I don’t know by what process it does this it’s just really cool to look at, as far as I can tell it generates the same mazes every time you start the game, so it’s not randomized that’s what game two is for. The actual maze screen is okay, it’s quite advanced for the 2600 but it still ends up looking a bit bland, but the game has ways of shaking things up. The floor changes through color gradients as you move through the maze imparting a sense of motion; you also don’t feel as if you’re moving on a grid since everything scales pretty well, it doesn’t feel fluid like in Escape from the Mindmaster but it’s still big a step up from London Blitz or even Crypts of Chaos. Another nice touch that you’ll notice is how the color of the walls changes with the level, the same thing goes with the color of the maze/map screen. You have pretty good visibility so you can see pretty far ahead so you can plan your route as you avoid the dreaded Zots. These things are scary looking; I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Alright, so we have a graphically impressive looking game, usually if the standard formula is followed one of the subsequent categories, sounds and gameplay, will suffer greatly due to it, which will it be? Well it ain’t the sounds! This game uses sounds perfectly. I must refer back to Escape from the Mindmaster again, when in close proximity to an enemy a tune will play otherwise it’s just you with your thoughts and footsteps echoing through the endless mazes. When in close proximity to a Zot a tune will begin to play, this tune is actually quite jovial and bouncy unfortunately it’s attached to a Zot, and when you hear it it’s time to panic and run away as fast as you can! Since the sounds haven’t suffered it seems that the gameplay must now suffer. The gameplay does not suffer! This game is great fun! The premise is simple… escape or be eaten, well actually it’s a bit more complicated than that. You are stuck in a great big maze and you must evade the evil Zots to escape to the next maze, and then the next, and the next, repeat ad nauseam. The key to your success is the key to your success, you must collect the odd triangular key and then find the exit door hidden somewhere in the maze. There are three and a half kinds of doors, there are the up and double up doors which will bring you up a maze or two if you have the key for them, the transport doors that will take you to a random point in the maze, and the down door that takes you to the previous maze (you really don’t want to do that.)Since the 2600 was incapable of displaying doors on the walls whilst you are moving the programmers found a clever workaround, just make the floors go al disco and flash through a rainbow gradient. When you stumble upon one of these disco floors simply turn to the side, or the other if you faced the wrong way the first time, and you’ll be faced with a door, just be careful of which one you pick. As you progress through the game you’ll be faced with new challenges the hardest being the invisible mazes where you cannot see the maze layout from the map screen and can only reveal parts of the maze by running through it. The Zots will also increase in difficulty, you’ll start with mainly grey Zots, which are dumb as bricks and about as fast. You’ll start to get a white Zot or two which are faster and smarter culminating in the red Zot which has the equivalent IQ of an evil Einstein, he’ll kill you dead. Overall Tunnel Runner is a very fun game, a bit repetitive at times but I never found myself getting tired of it like I do with many 2600 games and with the addition of game 2 you get randomized mazes which simply skyrockets the replay value. I did find an issue or two with the maze generation, mainly being started on a dead end with a Zot, though the programmers knew about this and game the player an emergency transport, hold the button and swirl the joystick, you get one per level so use it wisely. I would also recommend mot using a particularly sensitive joystick for this game and getting stuck in a loop of moving forward and backwards trying to stop can get a little annoying, especially with a Zot hot on your heals. This is without a doubt CBS’ most expensive game; you can find loose copies on Ebay for 25-60 dollars and CIB from 50-120 dollars. I got lucky and got my copy loose but with the manual for $17.50. I would consider $15 to be a fair price for Tunnel Runner, no Collector’s Zone today; I feel the game justifies the price (for once.) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/729/entry-15625-tunnel-runner-cbs/

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/56/entry-15624-here-my-another-favourite-commercial-ad/

Marvel has a knack for making superhero movies. And by knack, I mean they've pretty-much got it figured out. Of course, when you think about it, they probably should by now. But nothing is a given. I should note here I'm talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, not Marvel movies made by Sony or 20th Century Fox. Those have been, at best, inconsistent. If you think about how many truly bad superhero movies there are out there, it's impressive that Marvel Studios really hasn't had any outright bombs. No Catwoman. No Elektra. No Batman and Robin. No Spider-Man 3. No Green Lantern. No Fantastic Four. No Fant4stic Four. They haven't had anything that I'd classify as "awful". For as many films as they've done, that's impressive. Sure, some have been just "meh" (Thor: The Dark World, I'm looking at you), and some may have not performed spectacularly at the box office (Ant-Man and a few others), but they've still all made money, and they all have one other thing in common: despite their flaws, they all have at least some compelling, likable characters in them. I think this is what separates Marvel's movies from DC's, and is what separated what Stan Lee did in the early 60's, from what other comic books were doing at the time. Make the characters behind the heroes compelling and interesting first, then what they do as a hero will follow suit. With the Aquaman and Wonder Woman movies, DC got it right. They made the characters interesting: who they were, their personalities, their stories. They got the casting right, and wrote the characters behind the superheroics in such a way that we could relate to them and like them. To some degree, they did this with the Flash in Justice League as well, but so far they've failed to make either Superman or Batman likable, because neither Clark Kent nor Bruce Wayne is particularly likable. That doesn't mean they have to be without flaws - Tony Stark is a very flawed character, but ultimately, Stark is redeemable, relatable, and chooses to be a hero for the right reasons. The fact that he's Iron Man is secondary to who he really is as Tony Stark. Where DC has gone wrong is that Batman is an unlikable jerk, because that's what Bruce Wayne is. Superman is distant, aloof and unrelatable because that's what Clark Kent is. It's how they're written, casted and acted. Oh yeah... and they kill people, too, which is counter to who they're supposed to be at their cores. Sure, it was cool watching Batman beat up a room full of henchmen in Batman vs. Superman, but one cool scene does not a good character make. In the comics, Batman is already a great character. So is Superman. They've been great onscreen at times, too. Batman: The Animated Series is still the high-water mark for Batman, and Christopher Reeves is still the definitive Superman. When it was recently (finally) announced that Ben Affleck was done as Batman, I was glad to hear it. Hopefully they can reboot the character and do it right this time. I'm hoping DC will recast Superman, too. DC has the ability to make great superhero films. They have the iconic characters to do it with. They just need to stop overthinking it, and go back to who the characters are, and why they're compelling and have been for some 80 years now. Stop trying to "make a blockbuster". Just tell good stories. The rest will follow. Right. So what does this have to do with Captain Marvel? Well, I didn't know much about the character going into the movie. I knew a little bit about her from when I collected comics, back when she was Ms. Marvel, and (a pre-X-Men) Rogue stole her powers and memories. At that point Carol Danvers became just sort of on the periphery of mainstream comics. She became Binary for awhile, with the powers apparently of 1's and 0's. Or a binary star. Something like that. Anyway, the name Captain Marvel belonged to a completely different character then. By the time Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel, I had long since stopped reading comics. I would suspect also, that outside of regular comic book readers, few people knew of her, even though she had become a very popular character in recent years. For me, the same had applied to a number of other Marvel characters. I had only passing familiarity with Dr. Strange, even less with Black Panther, and absolutely none with Guardians of the Galaxy. But all of those movies managed to draw me in, and made me interested in those characters. This is what Marvel has done so effectively since Iron Man. When the MCU started, those characters were the leftovers they had after selling off all of their most valuable characters to other studios. Hard to believe that now, given the success of the movies. Harder still to believe, is that there have been over 20 of these movies. So, as with other Marvel movies before it, last Monday I went to see Captain Marvel without any real expectations. Besides my unfamiliarity with the character, the trailers didn't really do much to convey her personality. It wasn't until I saw Brie Larson in several interviews that I got a sense of her own personality and humor, and began to see the potential in what her character might be. She was engaging, sincere, and genuinely funny. Especially when she teamed up with Samuel L. Jackson during their press junket. The two of them clearly have a lot of fun together. That relationship shows through brilliantly in the movie, too. They have a fun, natural chemistry together. It's almost a buddy movie when the two of them are onscreen. But make no mistake - this is Brie Larson's movie, and she's a, well... a Marvel. I really enjoyed watching Larson in this movie - a lot. Clearly, she had fun making it. But also, she clearly put an incredible amount of effort and dedication into the role. The emotional intensity she brings to the screen, the physicality, and the humanity all really make her character compelling (there's that word again), likable, and heroic. Marvel doing what Marvel does best: good characters, good casting, good acting and directing. And obviously, despite some trolling, audiences have caught on. Earning over $500,000,000 in less than one week, the score is: Captain Marvel 1, Internet Trolls 0. The rest of the cast is on point as well, but the standout is Jackson. He's playing a much younger Nick Fury here, early in his S.H.I.E.L.D. career (ca. 1995), less world-weary, and learning of all of this superhero and space alien stuff for the first time. It's a great, fresh take on a familiar character, and a lot of fun to watch. And this has to be said: the de-aging used on him in this film is seamless. I was going to use some other superlative like "incredible" or "astounding" but that makes it seem like it was something that was amazing to watch, and that's just the point - it wasn't. It was just... seamless. He never looked weird, or off-putting, or anything. He was just a younger Samuel L. Jackson. Now, admittedly, for someone in his 70's, he looks pretty ageless anyway, so I'm sure that helped. But in a film packed with all sorts of big-budget effects, the one that was just there and didn't draw any attention to itself was the most impressive. Another impressive effect were the Skrulls. Shape-shifters have been in science fiction for decades. But usually, that effect is done with a "morphing" effect, or something which doesn't really show how they actually change shapes. The closest to doing that is probably Mystique in the X-Men movies, but even that is a bit more sleight-of-hand. For the Skrulls though - when you see them shape-shifting close up, you can see them... well, sort of turning their skin inside-out. It looks like a biological (and not at all comfortable) process, and is the most effective way I've seen of doing this sort of thing. It's really cool, because it adds a new level of believability to an old trope. The effects throughout the film are excellent, which by now you almost just expect going into these films. There may have been one or two things which could've been done better, but nothing that was distracting, and no film is perfect anyway. Although one thing which has bugged me for years, and continues to bug me: colored contact lenses. Yeah... it makes someone look like an alien if they have yellow irises. But the problem is that a real iris is nearly flat and behind the cornea, and a contact lens is convex and sits on the surface of the cornea. The end result is that the eye never looks right - the iris and pupil sit on the surface of the eye, and light hits it completely wrong. It would look better to digitally recolor the irises instead. It'd be more expensive, but it would look more believable. There are some fun action sequences throughout the film - fights, chases, and a particularly excellent escape sequence where we get an early glimpse of how fierce Captain Marvel can be. Throughout it all, there's just the right mix of humor, and the chemistry between Larson and Jackson is always fun to watch. Oh, and there's a cat in the movie, too. I understand that people like cats. The movie is replete with 90's references, and there are a lot of in-jokes, period music and details for audiences to appreciate (although it's weird to think of the 90's as being a period piece...). There's a particularly moving tribute to Stan Lee as well. Excelsior, Stan! The overall plot of the movie probably isn't anything groundbreaking, although there are a few welcomed twists to it. But the real heart of the film is about Carol Danvers. Watching her story unfold, seeing her discover who she is, and who she becomes. Again, Marvel comics, and the best of their movies, are about the characters, and they really deliver here. I had fun watching this movie, and am considering seeing it again in the theaters (which I rarely do). Especially in contrast to some of the heavier Marvel films, it's nice to watch something that's fun and uplifting. Again, Marvel has a knack for these films, and a large part of that is how diverse they make them. From a World War II movie to an espionage thriller, from a science fiction romp to a heist comedy, from the craziness of Thor: Ragnarok to the drama of Avengers: Infinity War, and now a 90's era alien invasion flick. Take notes, DC - I'm hoping the rumors are true, and the next Batman film will focus on him as the world's greatest detective. For now, I'm really looking forward to seeing Captain Marvel again in Avengers: Endgame. I really liked Captain Marvel. I got lost in the entertainment of it, and the strength and appeal of the lead characters proved Marvel hasn't lost its touch. Some elements of the story were a little predictable, but I still enjoyed watching it all unfold. There are a lot of people out there who are happy to see Captain Marvel because it's the first Marvel movie with a female superhero in the lead role; and given the wealth of strong female characters in Mavel's pantheon, it's certainly overdue. But I liked Captain Marvel because it was a fun movie with great characters. If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't be the success that it is. And as long as they keep churning these out, I'll go see 'em. Captain Marvel gets a 9/10. Get an extra-large popcorn. And be sure to stay through the end credits. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/118/entry-15617-captain-marvel-spoiler-free-review/

For the past couple of hours and last night before I went to sleep, I was trying to get the ball bouncing around the screen in my new JezzBall-inspired game. You'd think such a thing would be relatively easy, but no. It came down to this. When the ball hits the border, it either goes two ways. For 4 borders, 2 x 4 =8. I needed 8 different lines of code to write in case the ball hits the wall. Since the ball is moving diagonally, it was a little harder. But I remembered some code from earlier about converting playfield positions to playfield block coordinates. This proved beneficial to me. But still it took me a few more hours. Sometimes the ball moved out of the playfield and off the screen, ignoring the walls as if they weren't there. And then I noticed the cause. I don't know why, but whenever the cursor to make the lines was moving at the right side of the screen next to the right wall, it happened. So I had to change the way I was moving my cursor. It took a few hours to get the correct block coordinates as well. I also had to make it so the ball didn't actually touch the walls in order for the death (which happens when the line touches the ball while it was being drawn) to happen. So now I'm fairly happy with what I have so far. I don't know why such a simple concept had to take two days (or 300+ lines of code). http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15623-follow-the-bouncing-ball/

http://anthologyone.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/981003 This is one of my favorite pages so far, tho I think it took a little longer than normal. They aren't really dinosaurs, just dino-like creatures. Spent a year or two working on an unpublished comic with dinosaurs, so they were relatively easy to draw. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/757/entry-15622-space-roanoke-22/

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/56/entry-15621-this-commercial-ad-is-just-great/

It’s uncommon in this day and age for there to be zero information on something, it seems that everything has a Wikipedia page or an article explaining it somewhere. Bomb has no Wikipedia page nor does it have any articles, Bomb has nothing but word of mouth, and frankly I haven’t heard any of it so I can’t form a proper opinion of the company. From what I can understand these guys were most active over in Europe, due mainly to the fact that 90% of all Bomb carts are PAL. From looking at the available advertisements on AtariMania it seems these guys were based out of Germany, or at the very least distributed from there, if this is the case that would make Bomb one of the only non-U.S. companies to sell games in the U.S. The game in question today is Z-Tack, and strangely enough we actually know who programmed it, its Robert Esken Jr. the guy who programmed Gamma Attack, probably the rarest game on the 2600. I’m curious though, how did an American programmer wind up programming a game for an assumedly German company, where it was then sold all over Europe, then later it was distributed in the U.S. where it was originally programmed? How confusing. Z-Tack doesn’t look half bad; actually I think there are elements of the game that are quite good in fact. The enemy base designs are quite stellar there are over eight unique base designs which helps stave off the boredom that inevitably follows same-y looking games. There is also a good selection of different level designs/terrains, according to the manual there are six unique designs that will loop as the player progresses. Z-Tack has something that many games of this genre lacked, variety, you’re not going through the same looking stage against the same looking enemies over and over again, the game changes as you progress and I think that’s an excellent touch. That being said there are a few gripes I have with the game, the first being the terrain itself, it is incredibly blocky and is monochrome, though I did notice that the life counter changes color with the terrain so I’m guessing that this was programmed in due to necessity. The saucer doesn’t look too bad, but there is a strange visual issue that causes it to stretch vertically whenever it crosses certain parts of the screen, I don’t know what causes this so if any of you programmers out there can explain this I would be grateful. This game barely has any sounds. All you get are a few squeaks and beeps and a few explosion noises. Sadly I think the explosions are miscast, if the explosion that plays when you are destroyed plays whenever you destroy an enemy I’d find the game to a more fun experience since a good explosion makes everything better. Yeah, there isn’t anything else to talk about let’s just move on to the gameplay. This is a simple shoot ‘em up, but there is a twist (as always), instead of shooting enemies to protect your bases/cities, you are the enemy destroying cites, and they are shooting back to protect themselves. The cites are well protected by the terrain, often appearing at the bottoms of holes or are nestled in caverns with only a small opening to shoot through, making hitting them more challenging. Your saucer is quite nimble, moving quickly and able to go in eight directions, you’re also able to shoot in four directions. There is a caveat to this maneuverability; your saucer suffers from ‘Cruise Missile’-itis, in that you must be moving in the direction you want to shoot to shoot in that direction, which will make the game far more difficult in the long run. As you progress through the game you’ll notice that sometimes a city’s shot will turn into a skull ‘n crossbones and hang around for a little while, these things are death and I would recommend against touching them. Later still those crossbones will turn into heat seeking missiles that will shoot in the horizontal direction of your ship. Soon you’ll be warding off attacks from left right and beneath which makes the game a hectic and fun shooter with the only downside being the ‘Cruise Missile’-itis, but you can get used to it pretty quick especially if you have a fairly sensitive joystick on hand. Z-Tack is fun, which is odd from a no-name company that released four games and then rode off into the metaphorical sunset. As you can probably guess this isn’t an easy game to track down, at least in the NTSC format. You can find PAL copies all day long for around 50 dollars, and a boxed PAL copy sold for over 90 dollars a little while back, but I have no concrete sales info for an NTSC copy. If you’re wondering I bought a reproduction copy for 26 dollars which is good enough for me. This game goes to the Collector’s Zone for just being inaccessible to the general gaming audience, sorry guys unless you have a Harmony Cart or a repro copy you just aren’t playing it. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/729/entry-15620-z-tack-bomb/

I designed a new screen for the first screen of level 2, since it is snowing where Frank the Fruit Fly is, the mountains. But I had a problem with something. The screen went all weird on the right hand side. It kept giving me 2 very short lines. I tried everything. I tried redesigning the mountain. No. I tried moving the clouds around. No. Then I just got rid of the clouds. That seemed to work. But why? Who knows? I really wanted those clouds in there, but oh well. Next on the list of stuff I wanted to do was to make the snowflake hurtful. That proved easier. So was making the snowflake disappear and having a new one come on when Frank went to a new screen. And now what's next? I am going to compose and program in a different song for level 2. I have to go to the doctor tomorrow to get a dumb blood test. It will hurt. At least I can convince the nurses to get the blood from my hands instead of my arm because I have no veins in my arm. I have a little scar and infrequent pain from a botched blood test from my arm. About once every few months, my arm will start hurting and then stop. I'd say that is the reason my hands are cold, but you can see the veins in my hands. So I don't know. At least I get burgers after that. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15619-frank-and-snow-part-3/

So I learned something. The Jaguar can only display (or have available at any one point) 256 colors. The part in parentheses was the one thing I was having trouble with. I was coming up with rather weird stuff trying to make the backgrounds be 256 colors. As a result, they can only have 192 colors, because I apparently already have 64 colors ready to go in the other CLUTs. But I only have 3 other 4-bit cluts, which would only make 48 colors. So does this mean that CLUT 15, which displays text always, has 16 colors in it? That would make some sense. Jaguar programming is hard. All I would need is one color for the text. Could I free up 15 more colors for the background somehow? I'm so confused. So I went to work on Castle of Doom. It had been awhile. Turns out I already had a castle58.bin, but no .bas file to go along with it. So I renamed the castle58.bas to castle59.bas. I designed 50 levels. My goal is 63 or so, depending on the amount of room I have available. The maximum number of rooms I can have is 63 with the code I am currently using. I have to go to the doctor Friday and get a blood test. I don't know why since they all come back fine. I should ask him about why my hands are so cold, but I would have to remember to. And sleep. The melatonin gummies were working, but then stopped a few nights ago. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15618-256-colors/

I get the feeling that this will be the final game I review from Apollo in a very long time, there is only one left for me to review after this and it’s Guardian and I don’t have the 100+ dollars lying around to buy it with. The game I’ll be looking at today is Racquetball, and is the perfect example of a good idea executed poorly. I would also say that Racquetball is also a victim of the 2600 hardware itself, a game this complex simply needed better hardware to power it, probably something around the Colecovision or NES even. Apollo did their best with what they had so let’s take a look at Racquetball (I never thought I’d actually review this one but here we are). This game is quite impressive graphically; it’s second only to Wabbit and the unreleased game Kyphus, this is quite impressive since this was only Apollo’s third game. The game takes place in a very blue room, with most of the graphics simply being colored lines which work together to give the impression of three dimensions. The details are quite numerous, a few highlights are the lights on the ceiling, the players having defined clothing (even if player one looks like he’s naked), and there’s a little opening cutscene when the game starts. When you start the game the two players will emerge from a vertically sliding door (don’t ask) and shake each other’s hand before the game begins, little touches like that go a long way towards making the game a unique and fun experience, though Racquetball probably stops at the unique part of that statement. This game will both overwhelm you with sounds and make you fall asleep from the silence. The game opens with a very loud, very jovial, tune that takes no time at all to be annoying; it plays twice in a row. The noises in game are just a bunch of quick blips as the ball hits the walls and ceiling , occasionally the ball will glitch into the wall and the blip will play many times in rapid succession but otherwise the game is very barren. When either the player or computer win the same annoying jovial tune that plays in the beginning will play twice over again one more time. This game is hard to play, but it’s not for a lack of trying. Apollo added small squares onto the walls ceiling and floors to indicate where the ball is located spatially but it comes off as confusing since the ball moves so darn fast. Hitting the ball will only happen by accident since the player is unlikely to have the needed predictive positioning skills to figure out where the ball is going in a three dimensional space. The lack of any scaling removes any depth from the game and only adds to the confusion. A normal game of Racquetball lasts about thirty seconds, you serve to start with, and the computer opponent being a computer will follow the ball almost perfectly, only faltering if the ball has a large amount of horizontal movement, and knows exactly where to go to hit the ball. The player being confused will not know where to move to hit the ball, and after the computer has scored several points on them the player will turn off the game never to play it again. I got lucky and managed to beat the computer by getting the serve into a sweet spot where the computer could never keep up with the ball (too much horizontal movement) and always lose the serve, I didn’t move an inch and kept mashing the serve button. I will at least credit the game with having very consistent and ‘accurate’ ball physics since hitting the ball in the same place at the same angle made it move on the same trajectory every time. The game is over at 21 points, if anybody can even score that many times without cheating like I did. Racquetball is a shelf warmer plain and simple, you’ll buy it, play it once and never play it again. There is a chance that you might play it with friends over but I’d recommend against that since after playing this game they’d likely not be your friends anymore. If you just NEED this game to round off your collection it’ll cost you around $7 for a loose copy and between 10-40 dollars for boxed copies of differing quality. This game goes to the Collector’s Zone for simply being a confusing mess of a game that I can find zero enjoyment from. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/729/entry-15616-racquetball-apollo/

While i was play-testing the Aaron the Aardvark game, I noticed that on some backgrounds, the white text was partly unreadable. I decided after earlier trying to change the color of the text that something else needed to be done. Then it hit me: Change the background! So I went and put in a black background in each of the four background images. I thought it diminished further the quality of the image by making it use less colors. Then another idea hit me: Put the background as a level. This way I wouldn't have to put the bar in each level. This is especially helpful since I want to put in more background images. I put in Aaron's head on the first attempt, but it wasn't very viewable since I was using the Aaron CLUT. So I changed it to a red heart and the other CLUT I was using for the poop, ants, taco, etc. I think this version is the best looking one. But I am unsure if the whole thing will be put on the TV screen. I still don't know what that massive black bar at the bottom of Virtual Jag is, and from what I can tell on other people's skunkboard videos of the game in action, doesn't show up onscreen. So now I have a red heart in the game, something I wanted from the beginning when I put the heart in. I don't think I could have done it since CLUT 15 seems to be associated with the text, and it only appears to have one color in it and I can't change it. And this is what it looks like now. The text is much more readable now, but I'm not sure if it's too ugly to stay in. I guess I'll keep it in. Come to think of it, it's what SMB3 had, and that was, for a long time, the best-selling video game of all time. Perhaps it's due to the info bar... Attached thumbnail(s) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15615-the-information/

I was reading Dungeon Hacks, by David L. Craddock, the other day and found a short reference to the Atari 8-bit in the chapter on the first Rogue-like, Beneath Apple Manor: For Beneath Apple Manor Special Edition, I reverse engineered the 6502 runtime environment for the Galfo Integer BASIC compiler and ported it to 8086 machines (IBM PC). Bob Christiansen of Quality Software also ported it to the Atari. I did not write Ali Baba--Bob might have--but it was in integer BASIC too I think, so Quality used the Galfo compiler on it to port it between machines too. Bob must have given me a copy, which is why I had it. So there's another virtual machine hiding inside this game, so I had to find it and figure out how it works. The first step of course was to download the xex file from www.atarimania.com and hook up a my disassembler to the image with appropriate offsets. The image has a number of parts:use strict;use m6502;sub open_lst { open my $fh, '<', 'bam.lst' or die; $fh;}sub read_img { my ($addr, $size) = @_; read_img_core( $addr, $size, '../bam.xex', [0x0006 - 0xbf00, 0xbf00, 0xbf9f], [0x00aa - 0x02e2, 0x02e2, 0x02e3], [0x00b0 - 0x0c34, 0x0c34, 0x803f], [0x74c0 - 0x8100, 0x8100, 0xa7ff], [0x9bc4 - 0x0110, 0x0110, 0x0132], [0x9beb - 0x02e0, 0x02e0, 0x02e1]);}assem(@ARGV);The first chunk at $BF00 sets of a simple display list for the load. The load into $02E2 invokes that code before continuing the rest of the image. The next two chunks consist of the main portion of the code, with a small gap that isn't used by the program. The last two chunks load a small init routine and invoke it. Let's look at the init routine:​ ; pull IP-1 from stack009A: 68 PLA009B: 85 B0 STA IP009D: 68 PLA009E: 85 B1 STA IP+1 ; increment IP by 100A0: E6 B0 INC IP00A2: D0 0B BNE $00AF00A4: E6 B1 INC IP+100A6: D0 07 BNE $00AF ; increment IP by A00A8: 18 CLC00A9: 65 B0 ADC IP00AB: 85 B0 STA IP00AD: B0 F5 BCS $00A4 ; read byte code and jump00AF: AD 40 1D LDA $1D40 ; start at 1d4000B2: 85 B5 STA $B500B4: 6C FA 63 JMP ($63FA)This is a little virtual machine fetch loop, with page $63 containing the bytecode vectors (which point to code in pages 64 to 6F), and entry points here to increment the IP by 1 or A, or pull the IP-1 from the stack (implementing an RTS-like return). The machine even has the start address built in ($1D40). It patches the bytecode into the indirect jump address directly, so it only supports 128 even byte-codes. The Atari Pascal virtual machine I posted about recently supported 256, but at the cost of a more expensive fetch loop. We can now write a bytecode disassembler by disassembling the codes, figuring out how long each is, and making a table of those lengths. My preliminary disassembler looks like this:And my preliminary bytecode disassembly of the start address is: $81F0-$9FFF is the data for an ANTIC mode E picture, the title screen, with the display list at $8126. So 1/5 of the image is for this picture.$7C40-$8000 is the data for an ANTIC mode 2 (graphics 0) screen, with the display list at $7C20. The code modifies most of it to ANTIC mode 4 during the game for use as the main screen.A 1k character set is located at $0C00-$0CFF. The game doesn't just modify the Atari set.The game requires 48K to load, but likely runs in 32K. A little creativity (compressing the title screen and character set might be enough) could have squeezed it into 32K, but 48K was probably quite common when this hacked image was circulating.I'll probably return to do more work on disassembling this, but I've established how the virtual machine works, so I'm happy enough for a few hours work. P.S. I took a quick look at Ali Baba and didn't see the same virtual machine. I'll need to explore that more fully to determine if it has a similar architecture. Attached File(s) bam1.zip (21.29KB) Number of downloads: 0 http://atariage.com/forums/blog/734/entry-15614-beneath-apple-manor/

http://anthologyone.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/980853 http://atariage.com/forums/blog/757/entry-15613-space-roanoke-21/

SonyEricsson's PC Suite had a nice feature which would synchronize your phone's clock to your PC's clock when establishing a connection. I found more often than not my frequently-synchronized computer time differed by a minute or more from the Cingular/AT&T network time. (quick bitching about Sony) Spoiler SonyEricsson discontinued the PC Suite (sad, since it could also compose and send MMS messages) for the PC Companion. Sony has since discontinued the PC Companion in favor of its Android-only software for its Xperia line of mobiles. Fair enough, since the SonyEricsson phones are, while functional, defunct. Two problems arise for me: first, that while I can install the PC Companion software, none of its modules are part of the installer and are downloaded from the Sony website upon first use, including text messaging and PC synchronization. I long ago null-routed the Sony website from which PC Companion downloads its modules because it would also determine a new program was available and prevent you from using the PC Companion, thus forcing the upgrade. F.U. Sony. At this point, once I move to a new machine I have limited options for continuing to use the PC Companion software, meaning I will lose my ability to synchronize Outlook with my phone and use my laptop to send and receive text messages via the phone. Why I stick to my old SonyEricsson phone is a discussion for later and I have wandered off-point. Since PC Companion no longer synchronizes my phone's clock with my PC, using the SonyEricsson AT Commands reference guide I wrote a Powershell script to take up the slack. The script opens the Bluetooth COM port set in the first line (no error checking, sorry so lazy) which is COM14 on my laptop, then sends the AT*EDST and AT+CCLK commands to set daylight saving time status and the clock, respectively. Setting DST is extremely important for setting appointments as I do not enjoy being an hour late or early. Since Get-Date returns the local time adjusted for DST, the time submitted to the phone must compensate. The IsDaylightSavingTime() return from the Get-Date object is perfect for this as it returns 0 for "not DST" and 1 for "DST," so this is subtracted from the current hour. *EDST is sent to the phone first, per SE recommendations, then +CCLK. $seTZ holds the time zone offset, which is the offset from UTC in quarter-hours, calculated by comparing the local time to UTC, adjusting for local DST, then multiplying by 4. One other trick is to clear DST before setting the time. Otherwise, the phone accepts the given time as the current time including DST, but since DST has already been accounted for the time gets set an hour off. I put one-second pauses between sending each of the three commands to the phone. Without this pause commands will sometimes get missed. I suspect this is due to not reading the phone's responses which I do not try to read. This is a very primitive script which does not check to make sure the port is even open, so why even bother registering an event for reading the port? http://atariage.com/forums/blog/600/entry-15612-powershell-to-set-clock-on-sonyericsson-phone-via-bluetooth/

Usually, I post one WRC blog entry for the season, then just add comments for each subsequent rally. But since I had already named this year's entry after the first rally in Monte Carlo, I thought I'd post new entries for each of the other rallies too (or every other rally... or every third rally...). Rally Sweden was a bit of a disappointment in that the weather was unusually warm, and so what's supposed to be the only full-snow rally of the year turned into a slushy mud bog. Now, driving on mud isn't really unusual in rallying as long as you're expecting it. But these cars were set up to drive on snow and ice - not slush. Consequently, drivers were being pushed and pulled in all sorts of ways they weren't expecting, and this really turned into a contest of who could adapt to the conditions and make the fewest mistakes, rather than who had the best speed on snow. Of course, this is what separates the best drivers from the rest of the pack anyway, but it wasn't as much fun to watch as it would've been if they were on full snow (that's quite a sight to behold), and I'm sure it was even less fun for the drivers. In the end, Ott Tänak managed to stay out of trouble the most, and came away with the victory and all five power stage points. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Sebastien Ogier got sucked into a slushy snowbank, and came away from the rally in eleventh place, with just a measly two power stage points. Thierry Neuville ended up in third place for the weekend, with four power stage points. So the Championship standings took Ogier from being in the lead to dropping to third, Neuville remaining in second, and Tanak jumping from third to first. You can read the official recaps of rally Sweden here and here, and watch some highlight videos here. This past weekend was Rally Mexico. Hot and dusty with lots of sharp rocks, and run at a high altitude (and therefore reduced power), it's about as an abrupt shift in terrain and weather as you can get from the previous event in Sweden. If anything, the attrition rate was even higher in Mexico, with punctures (and road cleaning) playing a big role in the final standings. Tänak had to run first on the first day, which meant he was plowing the loose gravel for everyone else. Neuville picked up a puncture causing him to lose just enough time to keep him out of the running for the weekend. And in one of the odder happenings this weekend, even though Ogier also picked a puncture, the stage he was in at the time got red-flagged (canceled), so he effectively didn't get penalized for it. And why was it canceled? Well, Ogier's teammate had spun out and was partially blocking the road. Coincidence? Well, of course. Citroën isn't going to ask one of their drivers to intentionally ditch one of their cars. But it made for some interesting choice comments from Kris Meeke at the time. But that was certainly lucky for Ogier, who managed to capitalize on that and his good road position to win the rally and take home five power stage points. Tänak managed to claw his way up to second (largely due to that aforementioned attrition, but also just some really good driving), and Neuville ended up in fourth. Elfyn Evans turned in a really impressive weekend for a well-earned third place, which has to make everyone at M-Sport pretty happy. In the end, the standings changed again. Tänak is still in first, but now Ogier is just four points behind in second, and Neuville has dropped to third, but only six points further back. It's shaping up to be another close and unpredictable season. Ogier is especially impressive, since this is his first year driving the new Citroën. Neuville just needs a little bit more luck, and Tänak just needs to keep doing what he's doing. I think if Tänak continues to mature into the driver he seems to be capable of becoming - the championship is his for the taking. He's just that fast. But he also needs to learn when not to be. They haven't posted the recaps of Rally Mexico yet, but I'll update this when they do. Meanwhile, video highlights are available here. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/118/entry-15611-sloggin-through-sweden-mixing-it-up-in-mexico/

Another successful week of hunting! http://atariage.com/forums/blog/3/entry-15610-tetris-plus-mario-party-9-and-double-switch-on-rha/

I was play-testing Aaron the Aardvark when I noticed when the taco came down, the ants kept coming out, thus enabling you to eat all the ants you wanted without the UFOs, and then get tons of lives before eating the taco and moving to the next level. So I stopped new ants from coming out when the taco comes falling down from the sky. I also made the taco stop lower so it looks better. I also changed the shooting so you can shoot at the UFOs and destroy them when they're at the top of the screen. Just something I noticed. The game also freaked out on me when I was video capturing it. I couldn't move right at all and I kept moving to the left until I got to the left side and when I pressed left, Aaron's feet moved really fast. I am chalking that bug up to the video capturing software because when I exited it, the problem went away. I also changed the copyright year to 2019. I posted a YouTube video of the game. I wanted to enable longer than 15 minute videos, but I didn't like the way it wanted to contact me for the verification code. Why couldn't I just get an E-MAIL? It wanted to text or call my smartphone, which I didn't want to do because I don't know its number. Apparently now e-mail is too old fashioned? WHY? http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15609-more-tacos/

http://anthologyone.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/980256 http://atariage.com/forums/blog/757/entry-15608-space-roanoke-20/

We can all agree that Data Age was not a very good game publisher, or were at best average. Out of their eight released games I would classify only one of them as great (Frankenstein’s Monster), four of them as good to average (Journey: Escape, Bermuda Triangle, Warplock, and Encounter at L-5), with their three stinkers being Airlock, Bugs, and Sssnake. Despite the bad rep that Data Age had they really tried their best with the packaging, even if the game inside wasn’t worth the circuitry it was printed on Data Age gave all of their love and care to making these some of the most eye catching boxes out there. It is even said that some of the box art was done by Marc Ericksen who also drew the box arts of Megaman 2 and Strider on NES and he even did the Tengen Tetris box art on NES as well. Like with most game companies the box designs are not uniform across the entire run, there were several small changes made to the design while still maintaining the overall look. Data Age had to generations in their box designs, there are three that I know of. Early box designs are fairly standard, the standard Data Age Silver Box with large white bold font stating the title. The back is just a small blurb with no pictures apart from a line illustration of the controller, it’s all very standard. The standard basic box design isn’t all that bad, the box arts are well drawn and eye catching (with the exception of Warplock and Enctounter at L-5, simply because they’re fairly generic space pictures) and the blurbs on the backs are well written and humorous, they make the player excited to play the game. The late box designs are very similar to the early designs but with a few changes for the better. Instead of the fairly generic bold white text for the title there are now personalized and themed titles that are basically works of art themselves. The box art has gotten really good, I’d honestly say that the art for Bermuda Triangle is probably my favorite behind the stuff from Tigervision, and they (at least for Bermuda Triangle and Frankenstein’s Monster) manage to represent many of the elements of the game in the box art without making it cluttered or ruining the overall composition. The backs of the late boxes also finally have a picture showing a screenshot of the game itself, which is a welcome change. The final major change with the late boxes is the addition of a small image on the sides of the game boxes much like what Activision did with their games to denote the theme of the game without the player having to pull the box out. Unfortunately it is rather difficult to find a Data Age box in decent condition, the problem isn’t the durability it’s the color. That silver color will show every little bit of wear and tear the box came across in its 35 years of existence, if you find or own a mint one consider yourself lucky. The manuals are the fairly standard pamphlet style and range in length from two to three folds allowing for 4-6 pages to fill with game info. The early manuals just state the basic game info, and show a picture of the game while also giving you a streamlined explanation of the game for players who just want to jump right into the games. The late release manuals have a bit more meat to them including a character/enemy roster giving details about them and fleshing them out a little bit, these are excellent since their pictures are direct copies of what they look like in-game so you won’t get confused. Also included are small sheets of high quality paper that expand upon the blurb from the back of the box and basically hyping the player up for the game, I affectionately call them Hype Slips, they were included in Data Age’s final three games, and are probably pretty rare so hold onto them if you have them. I also need to mention the game catalogs; there are two versions, late and early. The early version is a standard pamphlet like with the manuals that detail the first five Data Age Games, it’s nothing really special and all the blurbs for the games are the same as on the backs of the boxes, the lade catalog however is a different story. This thing is dripping with effort you really just need to see the scans of it on Atariage or Atarimania since I can’t really do it justice (and the paragraph would get too long), the only things I really need to mention are the games in development section. Data Age was apparently working on games featuring Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live, Mr. T and Smokey Bear, it also mentions Secret Agent but that one’s actually been found unlike the other three, though I’ll admit that I’d take any of the other three over Secret Agent any day. The cartridges are custom for Data Age with a triangular beveled front and ridges around the sides and back for either grip or aesthetic. The labels are silver paper with the title, art, and info printed on it, like with Imagic and Spectravision carts, this has lead to some issues. Many loose Data Age games develop a strange white crusty substance on the labels and flaking ink is common as well. Every little bump, ding, and scratch will stay on these carts until the end of time, and don’t bother trying to clean them since the ink will come off with the cleaner. Overall the whole package is quite nice, and you can really tell that a lot of effort went into these games, especially the final three. Boxed copies for all of the Data Age come up all the time, even Frankenstein’s Monster, but I would advise you to be wary as they often come up for slightly inflated prices. I would recommend paying no more that 15 dollars for the first five, paying no more than 25 for Journey: Escape and Bermuda Triangle, and don’t pay more than 60 for Frankenstein’s Monster (good luck with that though). http://atariage.com/forums/blog/729/entry-15604-monday-box-review-data-age/

It's annoying to take pictures/videos with my New 3DS, specialy taking pictures with cats. No matters I turn down the volume, and select attention sound to none, there always has a sound when taking pictures scaring cats. Most of time, i can only take one picture. I also have an old digiital camera, but again, it make noise when zooming and take pictures. At least, take pictures with my camera makes softer noise than New 3DS but it makes flashing light when taking pictures. Maybe I should use smartphones if they don't make noises when taking pictures. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/56/entry-15607-new-3ds-scares-cats/

I've recently started playing the PC version Ultima III: Exodus via DOSBox with an upgrade patch to allow for EGA graphics and midi music to more closely match the colors and music of the original on other platforms. The PC version out of the box uses CGA graphics and has no music. This was my introduction to the series, but I didn't play it on a computer when it came out initially, but rather on the NES many years later. I hadn't heard of the game, and I was blown away. The NES version has a different look and feel compared to the computer versions, but it is otherwise a decently faithful port. I think this is the installment that made the series really take off in a big way. You could form a party of 4 characters, with several race and class choices with different strengths and weaknesses. The choices can really make a difference in the effectiveness and survivability of the party. It is also the only one of the series where there isn't really a central hero. You make 4 characters, assign a marching order, and begin adventuring. If those 4 are all killed, then you can create 4 more, and resume with the world in the state that you left it. You can also freely swap out party members with new ones as needed. Official Ultima cannon says that the Stranger / Avatar is among these heros, but I prefer to think that he/she just decided to sit this one out, and let the land solve its own problems for once. I have a soft spot for the NES ports of Ultima, since that was my introduction to this awesome series. I think I'm actually too big of a fan to attempt my own port to the Atari, but I would like to take a stab at producing something very heavily inspired by Ultima III. Attached thumbnail(s) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/741/entry-15606-ultima-3-musings/

Tesla Club of Greater Houston took part in 2K19 Galveston Cruise today that was hosted by Texas Infamous. Groups came from Austin and San Antonio (and possibly DFW). In preparation I did a Trip Charge this morning, which is charging the car to 100%. For daily use you should only charge to 90% or less as it's not good for the battery to sit at 100%. It's OK to do so for trips, you just want to hit the road soon after you finish charging. I haven't done a trip charge in a while, so wondered how well my range was holding up after 11K+ miles: . When new the range of my Model 3 was 310. I couldn't wait for the full charge, so my range is either 309 or 310. If it's only 309 then I've experienced a 0.3% degradation in range. We started off on the west side of Houston near the intersection of I-10 and Beltway 8. I didn't take any photos there, though I did take a video walkthru. We next met up at Mall of the Mainland in Texas City were everybody was going to get lunch. However, there was an apparent mixup on permission resulting in security chasing us out of the lot soon after we arrived. The Tesla group headed over to Tanger Outlet Mall to have lunch at the foodcourt because they offered free EV charging which some of the shorter range vehicles took advantage of. Mall foodcourts can be hit or miss, the Philly cheesesteak I had was hit. After lunch we rejoined the Texas Infamous group at Diamond Beach in Galveston. I also did a video walkthru (part one and part two). Attached thumbnail(s) http://atariage.com/forums/blog/148/entry-15605-2k19-galveston-cruise/