GroovyBee Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 OK, I might actually be prepared to let MY copy be this loaner cartridge. The idea appeals to me. Perhaps on the condition that each "borrower" pays for postage in advance, that the cartridge is sent registered mail, that they agree to hold it for a set period (say 2 weeks), and that they agree to do an honest review on an AA 'review' thread setup just for that purpose. If all those could work, then yeah, I'd be prepared to let my cartridge travel the world and satisfy those people who REALLY want to play it. Great idea. Its a nice idea but I suspect your cart will be "lost" after a while. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark-aleph Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Can you imagine the bad karma you'd accrue from nicking Andrew Davie's personal copy of Boulderdash I reckon your afterlife would be a take on the Sisyphus classic: You'd have to roll an impossibly heavy boulder up a hellishly-hot thorn-covered mountain, and when you got to the top there'd be a VCS sitting there. As soon as you touched the joystick you'd realise the cart in the slot is Mythicon's Fire Fly - Eternal Redemption Edition, in which you'd need to accumulate 10 billion points before you'd get the relief of being allowed to roll the damn rock up the mountain again. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Great idea. /signed I am prepared to do the same with my cart. Then we can satisfy more people who want to play the game and/or give them more time. To save shipping costs and time, maybe we should dedicate the carts to different regions of the world. E.g mine could go to Europe only. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 (edited) Its a nice idea but I suspect your cart will be "lost" after a while. If it gets lost during shipping, AFAIK that can be proven. Else there could be a an agreed hefty penalty (e.g. $100) for the responsible person. That penalty could be even paid upfront, so no one can run away with the cart. That should help. Edited August 1, 2016 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 If it gets lost during shipping, AFAIK that can be proven. Else there could be a an agreed hefty penalty (e.g. $100) for the responsible person. That penalty could be even paid upfront, so no one can run away with the cart. Thats still less than the going rate for one on ebay, so it'd be a cheap deal then . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Thats still less than the going rate for one on ebay, so it'd be a cheap deal then . For a loose cart? Without manual and box? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 For a loose cart? Without manual and box? I'm playing devils advocate here but if a person wants it enough, they will pay the fine after its "lost". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Like some other posters I bounced pretty hard off the reduced view of the game. I was used to the C64 version, where I typically played in an improvise-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth style. I swore a lot during my first few plays of the VCS version. If the half size view affects playability to the point where the gameplay is frustrating, try KC Monochrome Dreams. It uses a full sized view like C64 BoulderDash so that you have a chance to react to the offscreen characters and rapidly changing terrain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacrosCode Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 It is possible to do this by switching VBLANK on and off at the edges? Thanks for this hint. More via Messenger. (I don't want to be more off-topic here). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Star Castle... saw it today the first time (gaming a bit in the last minutes). This is also a very impressive game! VERY WELL done! When I saw the title screen it was hard to believe that this is 2600 grafics! Is there an explanation on how this is done? My title screen for Draconian was inspired by Chris' title screen for Star Castle. I explanation explain* how it works in this blog entry, be sure to read the comments for more details covered by Q & A. * - I'm way overtired from a fun weekend in Austin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacrosCode Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 (edited) My title screen for Draconian was inspired by Chris' title screen for Star Castle. I explanation how it works in this blog entry, be sure to read the comments for more details covered by Q & A. draconian.png Also quite impressive! Even more colorful than Star Castle. Looks very smart! I will follow your link to the blog. Thanks for this hint! PS: And a big thank also for explaining this in detail at the blog! Edited August 1, 2016 by MacrosCode Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Just read about the 5200 version of Boulder Dash as mentioned in The 100 Greatest Console Video Games 1977-1987 by Brett Weiss. This was a 400/800 port. How about trying to get another 100 copies of this port approved? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Not going to happen due to various reasons discussed in this thread. More likely would be doing e.g. Boulder Dash II. Andrew and I were almost going for that. We also briefly discussed ideas for an own BD construction kit, where you could load your own levels into the cart. And maybe the same for different themes (replacing the graphics). As of now, we (well, more or less me only) are trying to extract the non-copyrighted stuff. Also porting the code to a more flexible bankswitching mode is on the todo list. This can then be released and whoever is interested can build his own games based on it. Maybe even another BD or a clone. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 Thanks for the quick reply Thomas. While I appreciate you and Andrew's willingness to share your carts, I think I would be reluctant to participate as I would hate for anything to happen to the cart while on my watch. I do thank you both for considering this. This alone make me a satisfied customer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 OK, I might actually be prepared to let MY copy be this loaner cartridge. The idea appeals to me. Perhaps on the condition that each "borrower" pays for postage in advance, that the cartridge is sent registered mail, that they agree to hold it for a set period (say 2 weeks), and that they agree to do an honest review on an AA 'review' thread setup just for that purpose. If all those could work, then yeah, I'd be prepared to let my cartridge travel the world and satisfy those people who REALLY want to play it. Great idea. Problem is it only takes one party pooper who decides to play "keep away" and not return it. There needs to be some kind of collateral tied up in the rental to prevent such abuse of the service. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special Teams Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 And coming soon (again) to the Colecovision via CollectorVision and First Star Software: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255463-collectorvision-games-blog/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Problem is it only takes one party pooper who decides to play "keep away" and not return it. There needs to be some kind of collateral tied up in the rental to prevent such abuse of the service. We just have to make sure the party pooper pays a hefty price. E.g. he has to deposit $100 (or $200) and his name will become public. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LS_Dracon Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 ... We also briefly discussed ideas for an own BD construction kit, where you could load your own levels into the cart. And maybe the same for different themes (replacing the graphics). ... That's a good idea! If the ROM is available for anyone try on emulator (just the editor, different character, nothing related to copyrighted material), you can pick the best levels submitted by us and pack into a cartridge as "Boulder Dash EX" or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 That's a good idea! If the ROM is available for anyone try on emulator (just the editor, different character, nothing related to copyrighted material), you can pick the best levels submitted by us and pack into a cartridge as "Boulder Dash EX" or something. I'd like to kill this misunderstanding pretty early. Our engine will have NO BD-type logic or graphics. The engine is only a tiling engine that essentially brings a character-graphics display to the 2600 similar to the VIC-20 display or any other of the character-based computers. We implemented in software what they implemented in hardware - but with much more fundamental limitations on character size (i.e., resolution). Our character size is 4 pixels across, by 21 pixels deep. However, those 21 pixels are in 7 bands of 3 colours, so you could also think of the characters as 4 x 7 in size. Really low res! Furthermore there are SEVERE limitatinos on the number of characters in your character 'set'. I don't remember how many... say, 64 or so. So what we're going to release is a *generic* character-based display system that has NOTHING of FSS BD inside. Nothing. You won't be able to do a "BD construction kit" with this, or anything like it. I just wanted to be really clear; the source code we release will have nothing at all to do with any FSS IP; it will only be our character-graphics engine for the '2600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 I'd like to kill this misunderstanding pretty early. Our engine will have NO BD-type logic or graphics. The engine is only a tiling engine that essentially brings a character-graphics display to the 2600 similar to the VIC-20 display or any other of the character-based computers. We implemented in software what they implemented in hardware - but with much more fundamental limitations on character size (i.e., resolution). Our character size is 4 pixels across, by 21 pixels deep. However, those 21 pixels are in 7 bands of 3 colours, so you could also think of the characters as 4 x 7 in size. Really low res! Furthermore there are SEVERE limitatinos on the number of characters in your character 'set'. I don't remember how many... say, 64 or so. So what we're going to release is a *generic* character-based display system that has NOTHING of FSS BD inside. Nothing. You won't be able to do a "BD construction kit" with this, or anything like it. I just wanted to be really clear; the source code we release will have nothing at all to do with any FSS IP; it will only be our character-graphics engine for the '2600. Andrew I think what LS_Dracon means is that fans would create new BD levels and character data for your generic tiling engine. You would choose the best looking content to put back into the engine to make BoulderDash EX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Andrew I think what LS_Dracon means is that fans would create new BD levels and character data for your generic tiling engine. And Andrew is telling you that will not be possible. Feeding a Boulder Dash level into a generic tiling engine would be as effective as tossing your Boulder Dash cartridge into a bowl of alphabet soup and expecting it to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Unless FSS would license a BD cart which allows loading levels, you would have to add the all the removed BD logic. Based on the generic tile engine, you can create various tile based games. And you have to do the game logic all by yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LS_Dracon Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 I meant a level editor with generic sprites, and the ideas from it compiled/converted into a BD game, with FS authorization. And this editor is not something you can play more than a level with game rules (score/time). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted August 3, 2016 Share Posted August 3, 2016 I meant a level editor with generic sprites, and the ideas from it compiled/converted into a BD game, with FS authorization. And this editor is not something you can play more than a level with game rules (score/time). Good luck getting authorisation for that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schizophretard Posted August 3, 2016 Share Posted August 3, 2016 We just have to make sure the party pooper pays a hefty price. E.g. he has to deposit $100 (or $200) and his name will become public. Or you could avoid shipping the cart at all with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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