KevinMos3

That's all cool. I wasn't intending to distribute anything, I was just referring to posting these things here in this thread. Like I said, I don't even know if any XBox users are lurking here, but if they are, they might find that reformatted manual handy. The newest XBox emulators updated by Madmab are excellent. They let you view images and even movies while playing the game, (well, not actually WHILE playing the game, you have to bring up the menu for that ). You could always view text files from within a game using the xport emulators, but only recently could you view images and movies.

I just had to read that message again today for a laugh. Both that Atari fan and KMD are operating on a whole 'nother level. Part of me would like to live in their world for just one day. It must take an IQ well above 180 to understand either of them, but I think the Atari fan has KMD beat. Case in point: Atari fan has figured out the meaning of life and the universe and all he needed to do so was an Atari. That, my friends is truly MOMENTUM MACHINE MACHO MAGNIFICENCE. ALPHAGOTASTIC -- need he say more?

My first impression of most homebrew artwork was not good. It wasn't that the art itself wasn't great, it was that I craved carts that looked like they were from Atari in the 80's. However, I soon got over it and really started appreciating the new artwork. In fact, a large part of why I bought Dungeon was the great label and poster. Part of what helped me get over my initial mindset was a post Nathan Strum made in his blog. He basically said what he just said in the above post. After looking at it from that viewpoint, I was able to finish putting aside any remaining bias against non-conventional adherent labels, (for the 2600 at least). Although, I still greatly prefer silver (or gray) Atari looking labels for 7800 homebrews. It's the reason I never bought Pac-Man Collection. Shallow? Sure, but I'm beginning to overcome this as well with the FailSafe release.

beoran, great job on the hints! I formatted it as a txt file for any XBox users (such as myself). You can place the text file in your GameFAQs media folder to view these hints from within the emulator. edit: This file has been updated (8-14-2010) to reflect the changes made by beoran. Ature Hints.txt I do have one question about the hints though. What do you mean by: "The ancient tower was Ikaza’s henchmen. Most likely they hid the way to open it up again on the Black Ship." in hint 16? Also, I found a couple of typos. In hint 2, patter should be pattern. In hint 18, you said the tree big foes. I assumed you meant the three big foes. I included these edits in the text file. I watched a little bit of that youtube video on my dialup. The wait was painful , but I liked the comment bubbles on what I saw. I downloaded the video and watched the full thing (of course without the comments since it was offline). edit: Here is your manual separated into individual images, formatted so XBox users can view it from within the emulator. If you would rather I didn't share these, just let me know and I'll take them down. I don't want to step on your toes. I don't even know if there are many (if any) XBox emulator users lurking here. Ature Manual.zip

Message saved! Thank you for sharing. That made my day. I'd never heard of this guy. All I have is two words for that. WTH?

I finally made it to the library and edited my earlier post to include the picture I said I'd add.

Me too. I used to love playing it with my cousins. Simple and fun.

The system he has in place now is very nice. If you finish the game, but haven't collected everything, you can continue to play and finish collecting items. If you finish with everything already collected, the game starts again from scratch. This way of handling an ending is pretty unique, especially compared to other 2600 games... and IMO more interesting than a simple hard ending. The only problem is the bug I mentioned, which was there before his changes to how the ending behaves. You have to hit the enemies. I'm funnin' ya, but seriously, it helps to have your sword held out when approaching the enemy. Then keep hitting the button to keep striking, but DON'T move forward unless you need to reposition. If you go at a boss without a good strike plan, you're as good as dead. It also helps to level up a bit before you take on a boss. One of the spots on the upper left side of the river is good for this (I think it's the 3rd screen from the top). The screen with the river has a fish and the screen to the left has a warrior?. You can go back and forth between the two screens killing those two enemies to level up quickly. I would upload a gameplay video to demonstrate if I had decent internet. Most of the time, you should enter a new screen with your sword drawn. That will avoid the quick death, especially once you level up enough to kill most enemies with a single hit. The most dangerous enemy (other than the bosses) is the one on the beach hut screen (the one with the hut and two palm trees). He comes at you fast and can kill you very quickly if you're not careful. I only enter this screen from the sides or bottom; never from the top. edit: this board doesn't work right with my slow dialup anymore so I can't upload anything... but I'll be going to the library later and I'll upload a picture of the level-up strategy I described above. edit again: so I finally made it to the library. Here is the image I said I'd upload: Don't click the button if you don't want to know how to level up quickly!

BTW, how many levels are there? Is there an ending? Pardon me if I've overlooked the answer to this somewhere.

I would vote "yes" on jaybird3rd's revision, but "no" on the originally proposed revision. Can you change your poll to clarify what it is people are voting on? The way it's currently worded, I don't feel comfortable committing to a vote.

It's really sad. I hope it was some random loser and not someone in the scene. Unfortunately, I've had things stolen both times I had stuff setup at a JagFest. In my case, I choose to believe it was a walk-in and not someone "in the scene." It's so hard to keep an eye on everything at all times. There's so much going on and so many people you want to talk to. You really want to believe you can let down your guard for a bit and just hang with some of the folks. It would be nice to catch the guy if he tries to sell it on ebay and deliver a beating rather than payment. You could count me in on that action.

Good grief! That's some skill. I have yet to make it past level 3 or so.

I find myself wanting to keep two copies of some things in case something happens to one. Anything more than two, I don't mind selling, though I usually give one to my brother first. I'm the same way with consoles, (depending on the system). The most of a console I have is eight or nine Dreamcasts, (I think). I used to have 12, but I think I sold a few. The DC was my favorite console for several years and I made sure I had enough that some would still be functional when I have kids. I used to not care to have more than one of a particular cart, but I've run into some dead ones in recent times which made me more leery. I bought a Pitfall II the other day with the intention that it would be an extra for backup. It turned out to be dead; so much for that idea.

That's a great idea, but it would take a very generous person. I'm pretty sincere (you don't often find me making cracks at someone), and I'm pretty generous. But even if I found another Crazy Climber (well, if I found another I would probably give it to my brother like I've done with many things over the years), but say I found a third Crazy Climber... I would have to ask the question, "Do I donate this, or do I sell it and use the money to buy a couple more homebrews?" I would probably choose the latter. After-all, there are several homebrews I want, but just can't afford right now.

Consider it a lively marketing board room discussion. Those things usually go through phases anyway. No reason to discourage more discourse. More discussion will only help the process and if we stop focusing on only two of the choices, maybe someone will think of a better one. Now, once the project manager says the time is up -- the thing is going into production -- we all can stop the board room squabbling and get behind the chosen name... but not before. edit: That sounds like a very sensible idea... where a third or fourth party candidate doesn't give us a result that only has 40% support. All this being said, I would have and will support whatever Curt decides. I'm excited that we get to be a part of the process.

Five trackballs NIB? Nice. I have 2 that I got at a flea market years ago, (in good shape but not NIB). Most of my stuff came from flea markets back in the mid '90s.

That's an excellent idea. I'll sort mine like that as well. Thanks for sharing! I play homebrews and hacks WAY more than the official games. Some hacks to note: Space Invaders Deluxe 8K, Pac-Man 8K, Moon Patrol Arcade, all my hacks :wink wink:, as well as several others. Many of the homebrews speak for themselves. Nah, feel free to share your work when you finish. I presume you'll continue for your own personal use. What some of us are saying is that we would like to see it done differently if it is to be called the Ultimate Harmony Rom Pack. With a name like that, it pretty much demands community input and constructive criticism. Personally, I have no dog in this hunt because I'm already happy with my Harmony set-up. But, I'm willing to help others make the best pack possible.

Thanks shadowdoggie! This is my first Crazy Climber. I haven't had any good finds around here in about 13-14 years, so that one made my day.. er decade I guess. And congrats on your find btw.

Okay, now THAT I find funny! That argument cost you money, so... who ended up winning? It's understandable to be in a foul mood and take things the wrong way once in a while. I was in a pretty bad frame of mind when I made my last post and probably took the joke on me too hard, but I didn't personally insult anyone (and with the mood I was in, I wanted to). We should try to avoid making declarations about someone's character. Most of us would avoid being disrespectful when speaking with someone in person (one hopes). If we wouldn't say it to their face, then we shouldn't type it out. :Edited for line spacing:

You need to be sitting close to the console for some games, such as Ghostbusters, Starmaster, etc. The project sounds interesting. It's something I've thought of for years, but never taken the time to do. It would be great to see pictures if someone does it. I've always wanted to mod a Nintendo controller, run an extra wire, and use the select and start buttons. That still wouldn't solve the issue of the difficulty switches, but a SNES pad could be used for that. You could put toggles under the shoulder buttons. As for the pause kit, the only way I'd go for that is if I decided to mount a pause button on a joystick and run an extra wire. There's no way I'd stick a toggle on my 2600.

The 7800 keyboard isn't really a good example because a keyboard is a keyboard. You don't need to add anything to the name to describe it's function. An Expansion Module on the other hand could be anything. It could BE a keyboard. It could be a voice module. It could be a steering wheel like the Coleco Expansion Module #1. It could play Sega Dreamcast games and be Expansion Module #9-9-99. It could be a cup holder. Heck, it could be a foot warmer (keep them tootsies toasty while you play). I'm not lobbying FOR 7800 Super Game Module as much as I'm lobbying against 7800 Expansion Module. I simply think the former is more fitting and descriptive than the latter. I believe it sounds as much like something Atari would have named it as anything else I've heard so far. I also don't believe there is a contradiction with its use or existing games. On the contrary. It contains elements that are IN the Super Game Cartridges, so it seems to be very fitting for a console addon. We have Super Games with pokey or extra RAM. We'll have a console addon with pokey, extra RAM, plus more. Super Game Cartridges & 7800 Super Game Module. edit: or 7800 Enhanced Game Module (EGM for short). Even 7800 ProSystem Enhancer is good and currently in 3rd place. In reality, us debating whether one is more confusing etc. is irrelevant since we aren't an uniformed customer strolling by the boxed unit on a Toys R' Us shelf. In this case, everyone buying it will know exactly what they're getting and marketing isn't an issue. I'm just saying I prefer to have a less generic name merely for personal taste. All that said... I'll reiterate... I still believe there's a better name than what we're debating right now. We just haven't heard it yet.

I wanted to post about this, but didn't want to start a new topic for it... this sounds like the perfect place to mention it. I just found a Crazy Climber in the wild today! There's a little store in a little podunk town near where I live and the guy has a lot of odds n' ends -- rather like a one man indoor flea market. I've been going by there lately and picking up a NES game now and then, but when I looked through all his Atari stuff the first time, all I saw were commons that I already had. Today, I glanced at his stack of 2600 carts and I thought I saw "MBER". I stretched my neck to get a better look and there was a "IMBER". There aren't many games with those last letters in the name. I thought "Surely not", but proceeded to move away the stack of things in front to see if my eyes were deceiving me. Sure enough, there it was -- Crazy Climber... for all of $2. I never thought I would find a game like this in such a small town as this. Good deals have been hard to come by since the days of ebay arrived. The end label is a little faded and was coming off, but was otherwise in good shape, (nothing a little glue stick didn't fix). The front label is in excellent condition. I felt I overpaid for a set of keypads last week, but this more than made up for it!

I'm immune to your Jedi tricks. I still think 7800 Expansion Module is too non-descriptive -- too generic. Of the given choices, I prefer 7800 Super Game Module, (because it includes elements that accounted for games being labeled "Super Game Cartridge"), but I still think there has to be something better that we haven't heard yet. Let's get those creative juices flowing folks!

All caps with no spaces sounds like a bad idea. Also, some game names have non-alphanumeric characters, so removing those doesn't look right. I say this because if you want it to be the "Ultimate ROM Pack", then it should appeal to the most people and be the most accurate. Rom Hunter's naming convention is already the most accurate if you remove the extra info. What I did for my Harmony was to start with Rom Hunter's collection and use a command line to separate the main versions from the others. Rom conveniently included ~ in those names. I also separated PAL and prototype ROMs. I used Advanced Renamer to do mass renaming and removed all the extra info from the ROM name. If a game uses Paddles or a Driving Controller, I left that in the name with parentheses. I also added my favorite hacks to a hacks folder and homebrews to their own folder. So when it was all done I had: Licensed Cassette Homebrew Hacks Prototypes Because of the way the Harmony sorts the files, I temporarily renamed some games to sort them the way I wanted in Windows, (Defender I and Defender II for example). Once Defender I displayed before Defender II in Windows, I changed it back to Defender so that it copied over to the SD card in the right order and displayed that way on the Harmony cart.

With all the mentions of Wico and Competition Pro, it can be easy to confuse the names. Especially since there's NO brand name printed on my Competition Pro. It's been a while since I bought it -- so what if I had it in mind that it was made by Wico. You obviously understood what I meant, so what's your point? Of my entire post, you pick out three words to mock? Nice.