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Space Rocks (2600)


SpiceWare

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is there a version of this ROM that will work in the PSP2600 emulator? I can't get the currently available ROMs to work. Might it be possible to make a ROM version that will work on it? I'd be willing to donate $20 toward such a venture. I mainly use my PSP for my Atari gaming these days, and I haven't bought a Harmony cart yet. I'm betting a lot of we PSP retrogamers would be most grateful if this could be accomplished! :-)

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It looks like that emulator is a port of a very old version of Stella (version 2.2), so there's no way ARM-based games like Space Rocks would work without a total rewrite. A better bet would be to see if anyone is willing to port a more recent version of Stella to run a wider variety of games on the PSP.

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Correct, Space Rocks needs to be run on Stella 3.7.1 or newer due to it using the DPC+ coprocessor. Older versions of Stella, like the one available for the PSP, are unable to run Space Rocks because they don't know how to emulate DPC+. Other DPC+ games include, but are not limited to,

  • Eggventure
  • Evil Magician Returns II
  • Scramble
  • Space Cactus Canyon
  • Stay Frosty 2
  • The Gizzle Wap
  • Tire Trax

Most recently we've developed the CDF coprocessor, which requires Stella 5.0.2 or newer so they won't work on the PSP either. So far it's been used in:

  • Draconian
  • Mappy
  • Super Cobra Arcade
  • Wizard of Wor Arcade

 

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Wow, I just got a tip about this game and as I was always an Asteroids god on the 2600, I had to try this. I am amazed--THIS is what Asteroids should have been! I like the fact that there are enemy ships regardless of difficulty switch settings. The graphics are awesome and the collision detection is spot-on. The post-hit invincibility is a nice touch as well. The magma mines are a pain so I keep those disabled. If there is anything I would take issue with it's one minor thing--there seems to be a short delay after destroying all the asteroids before new ones appear but that's no real problem. I have turned the score over twice in one session on the original Asteroids cart but haven't done it even once on this game. My highest score is 58,650

Edited by classicgeek
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  • 2 months later...

STELLA-THON

12 HOUR TWITCH ZEROPAGE HOMEBREW AUCTION &

GAMING MARATHON FUNDRAISER TOMORROW!

 

Auction includes

A CIB SIGNED COPY OF SPACE ROCKS

& SIGNED POSTER OF SPACE ROCKS

Donated by Darrell Spice Jr. of SpiceWare!!

ALSO:

We will have a CALL-IN by Darrell Spice Jr. at 3PM PT!!

 

61131011_2019StellaFundraiserGraphic-DayBefore.thumb.jpg.1a9f94bd968e0aeca3c4aa5832c3a79b.jpg

 

428375477_SpaceRocks.thumb.jpg.c538f89e5a8356c68b5f020e3218e8ae.jpg1129534346_SpaceRocks-Poster.thumb.jpg.f446349a3fc4e0766c0a02e49759a4fa.jpg

 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS ON ALL THE AUCTION ITEMS!

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  • 2 months later...

I finally managed to break 100,000--admittedly it was on easy mode--which is the equivalent of turning the score over on the Asteroids game.  I may yet regain my master status if I keep improving like this.  And I congratulate the developers yet again for making this great clone of one of my favorite childhood video games.

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  • 5 months later...
8 minutes ago, bradhig1 said:

What score do you need to reach to enter No Man's Land?

 

No Man's Land is triggered from the main menu.  See the spoiler/hidden contents in reply 551.

 

That does bring up another question though, how does one do spoilers in the upgraded forum?

 

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46 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

That does bring up another question though, how does one do spoilers in the upgraded forum?

The spoiler function seems to have disappeared after the update, and recently I tried manually doing a spoiler and it didn't work.

 

I vaguely recall seeing this mentioned as an issue in one of the "site" subforums, but I can't find it now

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  • 2 months later...
4 minutes ago, Omegamatrix said:

Space Rocks is still one my most favorite homebrews ever. Seeing this thread bumped was enough for me to want and say that. I love everything about this homebrew. Amazing job, Darrell!

It really is a great game, especially if you like Asteroids!  Light years better than Atari's Asteroids for the 2600.  :)

 

 ..Al

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  • 4 months later...

First, many thanks to the makers for this great game.

 

I notice people mentioning the Starplex controller, but no one mentions the "astroblast" (autofire) function of that controller doesn't work with this game. Is it just my controller? Or are you all purists who would never touch that function anyway? ?

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4 hours ago, Gilles_B said:

First, many thanks to the makers for this great game.

 

You're welcome!

 

 

4 hours ago, Gilles_B said:

I notice people mentioning the Starplex controller, but no one mentions the "astroblast" (autofire) function of that controller doesn't work with this game. Is it just my controller? Or are you all purists who would never touch that function anyway? ?

 

I don't ever use astroblast. I just installed a AA battery in my Starplex controller to try it, and the firing rate was significantly faster with it turned on.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

I don't ever use astroblast. I just installed a AA battery in my Starplex controller to try it, and the firing rate was significantly faster with it turned on.

D'oh! It needs a battery to work... Oh my. Talk about an oversight of mine. On the other hand, who in their right minds makes a toy where you have to remove the whole backside with a screwdriver to replace the battery? ?

Ah well. Many thanks for pointing that out, I'll try that next. ?

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36 minutes ago, Gilles_B said:

On the other hand, who in their right minds makes a toy where you have to remove the whole backside with a screwdriver to replace the battery? ?

 

 

Yeah, a door would have been better.  Of course it's strange that they required a battery in the first place considering it was designed for the Atari and VIC-20,  box image from Nostalgia King, and both systems provided +5 volts on pin 7.

 

starplex-box-2.thumb.jpg.717541acae904c1d47b60ae925ca96db.jpg

 

 

29 minutes ago, Gilles_B said:

While we're on the topic of this wonderful piece of software, if you ever update it, high score saving with the AtariVox+ would be great to have. It's so nice to come back to this and try to do a little bit better than last time ☺️

 

No ROM space left for it.  Likewise for Draconian. Additionally, there is the problem that with so many game variations it's untenable to allocate space in the AtariVox/SaveKey for high scores for all of them.

 

For Frantic Nathan came up with the idea of adding a HIGH SCORES checkbox that lets the player select which game variations will save high scores. We're thinking 4 variations or so, but won't know until I implement it. Of course adding that option takes up even more ROM for the menu graphics and additional logic, making it impossible to add to Space Rocks or Draconian.



high-score-menu-flag.gif 

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18 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

 

Yeah, a door would have been better.  Of course it's strange that they required a battery in the first place considering it was designed for the Atari and VIC-20,  box image from Nostalgia King, and both systems provided +5 volts on pin 7.

Figures... that would have been handy indeed.

 

18 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

No ROM space left for it.  Likewise for Draconian. Additionally, there is the problem that with so many game variations it's untenable to allocate space in the AtariVox/SaveKey for high scores for all of them.

Oh wow. We've 32KB is where it ends? Damn.

18 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

For Frantic Nathan came up with the idea of adding a HIGH SCORES checkbox that lets the player select which game variations will save high scores. We're thinking 4 variations or so, but won't know until I implement it. Of course adding that option takes up even more ROM for the menu graphics and additional logic, making it impossible to add to Space Rocks or Draconian.

 

I understand. You could always make the hard call and decide that only the "standard", one player version has high scores, but I understand how that could be unsatisfactory. I'd be happy with it for Space Rocks though ?

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1 hour ago, Gilles_B said:

Oh wow. We've 32KB is where it ends? Damn.

 

Space rocks is using the DPC+ coprocessor, which is an extension of Activision's DPC coprocessor used in Pitfall 2.  You can read more about DPC+ in my blog post extra hardware!

 

DPC+ doesn't really exist, it's implemented by a driver that runs on the Harmony/Melody which contains a 32K ROM with 8K RAM. 4K of ROM and 4K of RAM are used by the driver, leaving 28K ROM and 4K RAM for the game.

More recent projects use the newer CDFJ driver which runs on the same hardware. It's more efficient and only uses 2K of ROM and 2K of RAM, leaving more resources for the game.  

 

CDFJ+ is currently in development. Still uses 2K of ROM and 2K of RAM, but supports a newer Melody board with configurations of:

  • 64K ROM & 16K RAM
  • 128K ROM & 16K RAM
  • 256K ROM & 32K RAM
  • 512K ROM & 32K RAM

There's at least one game in the pipeline that'll be using CDFJ+.

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