+Propane13 Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 So I decided to try the aforementioned November 2, 2012 build next. Started playing for a couple of minutes, then left the game standing for about 20 minutes, played for a couple of more minutes, and then left standing. At 0:32:14 the game evidently froze. No response from any input and a hard lock of the console under MAME: Oh wow. This is the first ever freeze that has happened in emulation. So, even though it might be rare, it IS possible to reproduce at least one of the problems. With the fact that RevEng's test worked fine after leaving it overnight, it just shows how rare the issue can be. I think I'm going to have to download a version of MacMame and see if I can reproduce what you have. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what the debugging capabilities are, so I'm going to have to dive in and learn what's new. Maybe I'll have time to give this a shot this weekend. Thanks again for your help-- I may have a path here, which would be a good thing. -John 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Oh wow. This is the first ever freeze that has happened in emulation. So, even though it might be rare, it IS possible to reproduce at least one of the problems. With the fact that RevEng's test worked fine after leaving it overnight, it just shows how rare the issue can be. Just to clarify - RevEng experienced no freeze with the February 2, 2013 build. I experienced no freeze with the January 27, 2013 build. I did experience a freeze with the November 2, 2012 build. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 I wonder which build I have on cart . I still have that cart with the freeze issue . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Thanks for the clarifications. I'm going to try to take a look at this. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to convert my old DOS-based build system over to bash. -John 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 A fun thing I found during my conversion investigation was a QBasic program that was used to do some graphics conversions. I saw this line in the revision history: "Last Modified 11-26-2001" This may take a little while... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Hey John... Saw your post in the XM thread and still really looking forward to see this one completed. Respecting the aforementioned freeze issue, it seems builds prior to January 27, 2013 (I.E. November 2, 2012) is when freezing was last experienced. Regarding both the January 27 and the February 2, 2013 builds, freezing appears to never have been encountered per the testing performed by RevEng and me. It may actually be something that has already been rectified and one less hurdle to overcome. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edweird13 Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 This game is in regular rotation on my 7800 emu would love to see it get a proper release. This is the kind of game you never play the same way twice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 This game is amazing and I have tried it in emulator years ago and played very well. Can you imagine a cool pokey soundtrack in the background and a bit more sound effects? or not..whatever way it is still great and when you have time to get back to it your 7800 coding skills are appreciated!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted June 13, 2016 Author Share Posted June 13, 2016 Hey folks! Thanks for the encouragement. Since I've been out of the loop for awhile, does anyone know any good tools for programming POKEY music? That would probably be the next order of business. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 There is a member that I am assuming could do music for your game . I think his name is Synthpopalooza . A really nice pokey track similiar to Pitfall 2 would be very cool . I loved your game propane and was just talking to a friend about it today since we were playing pitfall 2 . I still have your game on cart and remember playing it and it would freeze up . Would love to see that darn bug figured out ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 There is a member that I am assuming could do music for your game . I think his name is Synthpopalooza . A really nice pokey track similiar to Pitfall 2 would be very cool . I loved your game propane and was just talking to a friend about it today since we were playing pitfall 2 . I still have your game on cart and remember playing it and it would freeze up . Would love to see that darn bug figured out ! The freeze up was mentioned back on January 20, 2013 and then another on January 26, 2013 was encountered. Discussion spilled into January 27, during the morning. That afternoon on January 27, a build was posted with no freeze-up mentioned after it. Then a February 2, 2013 build, again no freezes were flagged by anyone with that build posted as well. RevEng and I did some pretty extensive testing with both the January 27 and February 3 builds, relatively recently on real HW as well as under emulation, with no freezes encountered. Certainly, more testing would be greatly appreciated though. Hey folks! Thanks for the encouragement. Since I've been out of the loop for awhile, does anyone know any good tools for programming POKEY music? That would probably be the next order of business. -John Eckhard Stolberg's RMT POKEY Player and MobiusAqua's Prickle POKEY Utility may be helpful. Synthpopalooza's POKEY Note table is posted under 7800.8bitdev.org. Or it could be kept simpler with just TIA, applying The Perceptual Tuning Primer. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Whoa... these are neat. I had no idea these existed. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 I will check with a friend and see if he feels like burning the newest build onto cart for me so I can test it out . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 I will check with a friend and see if he feels like burning the newest build onto cart for me so I can test it out . If you can, I'd say wait a little bit. I'm going to try to slowly get back into this. It might be a couple of months, but I'll try to have a minor build out. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Alexander Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 I am interested in a cart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Just experienced a freeze with the red-brown vertical bars at either side of the screen using the 2 Feb 2013 build. I was using MAME 0175b. This is the first time I've experienced it with an emulator, but then again, it's the first time I've played it for any length using MAME. I was 43:17 into the game with 26 loot collected, had already visited the secret area, and had made my way back to the starting screen. For the most part, I was actively playing rather than letting it sit, but I did pause several times for quite a while. Still love this game and hope to see it completed. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIKON Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Still love this game and hope to see it completed. I second that!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 Just experienced a freeze with the red-brown vertical bars at either side of the screen using the 2 Feb 2013 build. IMO the first suspect would be this bug. If not, getting a build without it would also help track down the real culprit. John, I'd be glad to help track down the issue, or provide a second set of eyes on the source. Either way, I'd love for this very unique game to be completed! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 Hey, thanks everyone. Been off the grid for a bit. Neat that the bug is reproducible in emulation. It means that there's a path to catch it without buying expensive hardware. I thought I had solved that STA issue, but perhaps I didn't. I will see what I have built up and try tracking it down. Thanks everyone! -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Sorry folks-- they're sounding the alarm at work, so I'm overly busy. Haven't forgotten; was hoping for a free weekend, which there may be one in 9 days or so. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galactus Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 I would definitely be in for a cart also. Somehow I keep missing them. Thanks for the nice work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pbrook67 Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 Maybe I missed it but how do you get to the HIGH jumps? Or you just have to go a different direction??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 Maybe I missed it but how do you get to the HIGH jumps? Or you just have to go a different direction??? Try a different direction/approach...And use the force the map. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradd1978 Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 Was this offered on cart at some point? Would love a copy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted June 4, 2017 Author Share Posted June 4, 2017 Was this offered on cart at some point? Would love a copy Hello there, Sadly, the game was never finished. There were a few features I was going to add (music, good title screen, ending screen, and a save feature that was hardware-dependent) that never made it into the shuffle. Unfortunately, before I could get to those, a critical bug was found-- basically, on real hardware, your game can tend to freeze. It's unrecoverable without a full reset. That bug also hit when I was moving, so I had to put away my development efforts for awhile. I frankly have found it hard to get back into it. My development environment has been upgraded since the last build, so I know I can make it work on mac now, which is good for me. I'll probably get to it "some day"-- there have been some good debugging suggestions on this thread, and the emulators have caught up a lot from where they were a few years ago. So, you never know. I wish I had better news, but that's the current status of things. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.