Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) OK guys here we go. As stated in the PM I'm trying to gather information concerning the game variations in 2600 games for inclusion with the xbox Z26 emu. A rather large task to say the least. I also intend to make this DB file available for use by anyone wishing to use it. I only ask anyone who does to give credit to the people involved with gathering this information. To get to the AtariAge provided manuals, just follow this link. Use the following settings. Region -> North America TV Format -> NTSC Items Per Page -> All I count about 945 titles which comes out to 315 each with the 3 volunteers we have. Me, Albert, and Mimo. If we go alphabetically that would end up as follows (approximation). Me -> 2003 AtariAge Holiday Cart thru Final Approach AL -> Fast Food thru Quest For Quintana Roo Mimo ->Qb thru Zaxxon Hopefully no one ended up with a bunch of stinkers. I included one sample. See message #2 for what it would look like. I usually just cut-n-paste the stuff into notepad, edit it, and then cut-n-paste it into the message board. Looks like with HTML manuals it's best to use the "code" tag and cut-n-past straight into the message box. Also listed in message two is a sample of the database file format. It is designed to work within the constraints of X-ports "INI file" reading code. Don't worry about formatting anything that way unless you want to.. It is pretty much a work in progress and as you can see Asteroids has a little exception called "Kid mode" which I have not really resolved just yet so the below example just might have to be changed. Ultimately how it ends up will depend on what ALL the different games have in common with each other in regards to game select charts. I'm trying to keep the size of the DB file small as can be seen. Mostly due to the amount of memory the xbox has compared to a normal PC. This thread will self destruct in one week. Some CRC's.. 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe - 58805709 Acid Drop(NTSC) [c] (TJ) - 13160630 Adventure - A6DB4B3A Adventures of Tron - 1B8019D6 Air Raid - B0E53814 Air Raiders - BB16539D Airlock - 25C90CE7 Air-Sea Battle - 1FC6C0F1 Alien - 6D61059F Alien's Return (PAL) - C161F53B Alpha Beam with Ernie - 27C6B897 Amidar DS (Fast Enemies) - 851CCF3D Amidar - 8EB5BD72 Angriff der Luftflotten (PAL) - 74FE8262 Arcade Golf - 28562315 Armor Ambush - FC35704B Artillery Duel - 1D0F7E8D Assault - AB3A2B77 Asteroids - C7D64C94 Astroblast - 1DE25331 Astrowar - 7B4B7EAF Atari Video Cube - 272AE37F Atlantis (Imagic) - 92560498 Atlantis - C22E6A25 Atlantis II - BA5566AA Bachelor Party - D9CD6C95 Bachelorette Party - E8189EEB Backgammon - E2A7FFA6 Balthazar (aka Babylon 5) - 84F589FF Bank Heist - 7AA79D1E Barnstorming - 4A005181 Baseball - EF851FA2 Basketball - B31D49F0 Battlezone - 9155DD1D Beamrider - 1618565B Beany Bopper - B722BC8F Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em - C90D4F84 Berenstain Bears - 29D28BAF Bermuda Triangle - 0FCB5B94 Berzerk (Voice Enhanced) - 8A2C4F09 Berzerk - 2E8B4B5F Big Bird's Egg Catch - 96DC9A9C Blackjack - 7125A8B9 Blueprint - DA7B9DFA BMX Air Master - B4017EE3 Bobby is Going Home (NTSC) [c] - 97559337 Bowling - FEA0D6D5 Boxing - 9ECE0021 Brain Games - 150709C2 Breakout - Breakaway IV - 3037638C Bridge - 9C71D175 Buck Rogers - Planet of Zoom - 2030F686 Bugs - 1202427C Bump 'N' Jump - DF2BC303 Bumper Bash - B1A6A23E Burgertime - C183FBBC Burning Desire - 92F91D36 Edited June 29, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) Edited July 29, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 reserved for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 reserved for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 reserved for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 reserved for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 reserved for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 (edited) I was thinking. If you guys want we can maybe skip over the stinkers and concentrate more on the mainstream stuff. That way at least the good games will be taken care of if/when we get tired of doing this. Also we might as well avoid hacks as well. Homebrew is fine, though. I mostly wanna have a pretty decent sized DB by release time. Just trying to "enhance" the experience for the end user a little more. Edited June 14, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 I think I may have a case of square hole round peg syndrome (pretty common for me). After going over Air Sea Battle, that was a close one. Phew... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 I admire your spirit, Shannon. Good luck with this mission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 (edited) Shhh I'm trying to ignore the fact that I probably bit off more than I can chew. But I appreciate the comment. For anyone half paying attention I currently have wto formats. The Iteration format which is the most common and the "matrix" type which is based more around the typical atari game matrix style. I had to make that one up due to Atari Video Cube having some rather odd game selection patterns. The Iteration format is based on a nested loop style format, anyone familar with programming should be able to follow. Those ones I think should work but it will be easier to tell when I plug the numbers in. Probably need to pick a smaller word than "iteration" though. The game matrix format lists all the options and then which "options" are available for each game. If some enterprising programmer has any suggestions, feel free. There may be a simpler way. I'm mostly concerned with keeping the file size down due to memory constraints in the Xbox. Although I should still have a decent amount of space available. The idea is for the emulator to display which game options the user "selects" while in the emulator and pressing the button assigned to the "select" switch. Edited June 15, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
video game addict Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 You should skip over most of the Sears titles and some of the other dups then just edit back in later. Lots of retitled games with the exact same code/variations. Snacho/Froggo/Panda etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 16, 2008 Author Share Posted June 16, 2008 (edited) Thanks for the advice. I've always found the 2600 games to be a bit confusing to keep track of. For example Atlantis was made by Imagic and eventually bought by Activision. So in that case I actually knew about it. Luckily the Atariage database is pretty good about providing links about clones, etc. That is kinda why my system is a little convoluted. I use the CRC as a tag [crc-here] and then a Name=Atlantis underneath that which "points" to the real information which is tagged as [Atlantis] that way multiple CRC's can be taken into account. I know it's a bit convoluted but I'm just trying to take advantage of the code already present in X-port emu's without "adding" too much customized code. I honestly hate messing with strings in C. I know there is the string library but for some reason most emu's avoid it and x-port's code is no exception. Like I said square hole, round peg. Edited June 16, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 16, 2008 Author Share Posted June 16, 2008 (edited) Although I have not heard from Ne146 lately, I volunteer him for the mystique games. j/k I'm still flip flopping between using the iteration method and the game matrix method. Although the iteration method is more compact. I feel the matrix method is easier to follow and is something anyone who helps should be able to do without my involvement. Plus matrix order makes it easier to control the "order" text is displayed in. For example typically the game type or number of players would be preferable to display first. I'm also toying with the idea of including controller type info just to make things a little easier for the end user.. It's probably the only thing (outside of the mysterious game selection and left/right difficulty switches) that would be useful in getting a game going. What do you all think? Edited June 16, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 I'd like to see this project gain momentum. I have considered making labels to stick on the backs of all my cartridges, containing: controller type, number(s) of players, notes about any special conditions (unusual console switch functions, uses right controller port for 1-player games, etc.), as well as a game select matrix. Having all the info in a single database would certainly make this easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 I've always found the 2600 games to be a bit confusing to keep track of. For example Atlantis was made by Imagic and eventually bought by Activision. So in that case I actually knew about it. Luckily the Atariage database is pretty good about providing links about clones, etc. No, it's not. Please use this page: http://www.atarimania.com/rech_advanced.ph...amp;TYPE_CODE=G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 21, 2008 Author Share Posted June 21, 2008 Who woulda thought that Big Bird's Egg Catch would have such a hard to read game matrix... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 24, 2008 Author Share Posted June 24, 2008 Hmmm. Seems Brain Games is the first title I've run across that has different difficulty settings depending on the game selected... Gonna have to think about that one a little bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 29, 2008 Author Share Posted June 29, 2008 (edited) Well I'm gonna kinda skip over Brain Games for now in regards to the difficulty switches. Anyone know the difference between game variations in Bugs Bunny? The manual does not really specify. Well I finished the B's... Edited June 29, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 30, 2008 Author Share Posted June 30, 2008 Hmm seems I stumbled across a couple more games that use different settings for the difficulty switches for each game variation (Flag Capture and Casino). I guess I'm gonna have to think up something not too convoluted. For now I'm just listing the options until I think of something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 5, 2008 Author Share Posted July 5, 2008 Added some more games. Added a variation for Pele's Soccer. Not sure if that method could be applied to games I already covered or not. But it may be useful for multiple difficulty switch settings. Not really sure. I also noticed that according to the game matrix for chase (aka surround) that Game 10 and 11 are the same. I wonder if this is really true.. I don't have my CRC's text file with me so [X's] are in there for temp.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 Check out the back of this box: http://www.atariage.com/box_page.html?Soft...p;BoxStyleID=13 Shannon, I noticed you're fighting a lonely battle. Don't get mad in that desert, ok? Keep up the good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 5, 2008 Author Share Posted July 5, 2008 (edited) Aha! Thanks. Maybe my eyes were crossed at that point. Staring at those game matrixes makes me see dots when I look at a white wall. Yeah I've seen various projects like this fizzle out over the years. So hopefully I'll be able to get thru without real life getting in the way or boredom settling in. Luckily when I've been working on these I was more bored with what I was doing at them time then doing the game select stuff. I get distracted easily by shiny objects. I had one guy that copied the game matrixes for the Y's and Z's PM me. Had not had a chance to put 'em here or look thru them yet. But he offered to do more. I know my method is a little odd but it is meant to be read by an emulator. Still need to figure out something for multiple difficulty switch settings though. Edited July 5, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 7, 2008 Author Share Posted July 7, 2008 (edited) Added a bunch of games I did yesterday and a couple homebrews. I'm currently trying to talk someone into going over the homebrews since documentation isn't always readily available for them. Condor Attack -> I'm not sure about the game variations (does it have any?) Communist Mutants From Space -> Not sure about the difficulty settings. The two homebrews I did were Conquest of Mars and Elevators Amiss since I already ran them thru the emulator real quick. I just thought of a way to do type=matrix that should make for a smaller text file but harder to read. For example a matrix right now looks like this. Game01=02 Game02=04 Game03=12 Game04=03 Game05=04 Game06=13 The new format would be like this. Games=02,04,12,03,04,13 Now for small matrixes this is fairly easy to follow but on larger matrixes it wont be so easy to read. Well Cosmic Swarm nearly threw me for a loop with weird difficulty switch settings but at the very least I think I came up with a multiple difficulty switch settings system. Edited July 7, 2008 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 12, 2008 Author Share Posted July 12, 2008 Narf! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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