Cometball - New Atari Falcon game released! Merry x-mas!

[Atari_Falcon]

Cometball - new Atari Falcon 030 game is ready for takeoff!

My Christmas present for the Atari community!

Features:

- unique gameplay using your mouse

- Arcade mode including powerups and surpises

- Story mode with 5 actionpacked levels and a bossfight

- about 17 minutes exclusive soundtrack composed and performed by award

winning composer Mark C. Wilson

- Highscore list to challenge your friends

- ...

Download: http://ofam.lima-city.de/comet.htm

Boxed version is soon available and can be preordered for 24.99 EUR (including worldwide shipping)

Boxed version will feature:

- soundtrack as an audio CD

- game on CD-Rom

- nice looking box

- some surprise

- first 25 will be "limited-edition"

Contact me at christian.hellmuth@gmx.de

Donations can be made of course: http://paypal.me/falcon030

Stay Atari!

Chris

Edited December 9, 2018 by Atari_Falcon

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Tried with Hatari 2.1.0 - Win64 version - no success. Too late now to pull out Falcon, but will try tomorrow, I promise.

I can make YT video if I'm allowed

[Atari_Falcon]

Of course you are allowed. Strange it didn't work with hatari as I had success on my cheap 32-bit win10 netbook with hatari with both emutos and TOS 4.04...

 

Maybe you set up too little RAM for the machine?

 

Even more strange is it's crashing on stemulator... But that's another story... It seems to lack the Magic of real hardware

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

Edited December 10, 2018 by Atari_Falcon

[Atari_Falcon]

Btw, plans for the future: I will update the gfx to 256 colors. The only reason to use 16 was to stay compatible with the TT. As the music Playback isn't working on it, there's Not a real reason to keep to it

 

If there are TT users out there who would like to play cometball, they can drop me a line and I could make a Special tt version that Features at least digitised Sound FX.

 

But I won't do that with no demand for it.

 

Next project is hitting the road

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I did test on real Falcon. And before some new "Maybe you set up too little RAM for the machine?" type questions: I'm expert for starting games. I adapted 1000 Atari ST(E) games to run on Falcon (because many will not without changes) ....

Capture from real Falcon with 14 MB :

This is same as with Hatari (14 MB RAM set) .

 

What could be the reason ? I guess it needs some resident SW to be loaded (in AUTO folder) to work, but no mention of it in README

Great Balls of Fire plays for some 30 sec. Then if exit, it kills IDE port, it seems - what happens when you write not proper values to PSG port A - which controls IDE port among other things.

And it is always user friendly to make switch to needed resolution in game, so no need that user deal with it - exception is only GEM/AES SW what must be started in it's working res. to proper work - I really have no clue is this such - seen only what is on attached screenshot.

Atari_Falcon : pls. test it with clean system - hold down Ctrl. after reset, that will skip loading of resident SW.

[Atari_Falcon]

Hi there,

 

I am really sorry, didn't want to offend you. Of course I believe you know what to do. But hatari uses 1 MB as a Standard, so that was my first guess...

 

https://youtu.be/9g1_4VcU5Sw

 

The Video is from my Setup. I did a Clean Boot as you can see. Cometball doesn't need any boot program but will benefit from Nvdi. As I tested on 3 Falcons I am sure something must be wrong with the archive. I will check and reupload in that case.

 

Regarding the Resolution: I don't know how to do this in Omikron Basic. If I would I would have included this of course. Sorry, it's my first game ever and I did not Code anything real before.

 

Sorry again,

 

Chris

[Atari_Falcon]

Sorry, I cannot reproduce your Error the downloaded zip works for me on real hardware (3 Falcons)

 

https://youtu.be/WsUZVv09A6U

 

and hatari with both emutos and TOS 4.04

 

https://youtu.be/AWw_CUUfZfA

 

On hatari music is Not played well due to my slow pc. But game works...

 

Really strange.

 

Btw I do not do any strange things to ide ports. Just load the music to RAM via bload and other standard basic commands But the Bus Error seems to be the same as on stemulator that was reported to me. So do you have a stock Falcon or is anything modded regarding IDE? Hatari with a gemdos drive (link to PC Filesystem)?

 

But as this all is offtopic and seems not to be the common case please pm me if you want this issue to be investigated.

 

Cometball IS working.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Off topic ? Sure . Why should I mode IDE port of Falcon, Sorry for trying to help you. I have better things to do.

[Atari_Falcon]

Why so harsh? I really want to help you and find out why it doesn't work on your machine. Therefore I need your configuration. Some people use for example Second ide Port that comes with ctpci and I didn't try with that.

 

All I can say is:

 

- Game runs on Stock Falcon 14 MB with TOS on IDE hdd no matter where I Copy it

- Game runs on Phantom Falcon 14 MB with TOS on IDE hdd no matter where I Copy it

- Game runs on ct60 Falcon with or without Phantom on TOS and IDE hdd

- Game runs on ct60e Falcon with hs40 accelerator and TOS on IDE hdd

- Game runs on TT without Sound

- game runs in Mint on the above configurations and will even return to the Desktop nice, but typing Name in highscore List won't work

- Game runs on hatari 32 bit with emutos and TOS 4.04. actual version I Just downloaded. Set to Falcon, 16 or 32 MHz, 14 MB RAM and gemdos Drive as c.

 

I can send you a Version with traceon that would Help to identify where it crashes if you want.

 

The game has carefully been tested on several machines. And I just don't think it's a good Idea to investigate this issue here as no other person has reported me such and nobody really is interested in Reading Bug Reports except the programmer.

 

I am really sorry that it doesn't work for you and I really want to find out why.

 

No offence, but please PM or e-mail.

 

Thank you!

 

Chris

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Something indeed topic: What happens when someone posts here info about new game, or 'renewed' game ? People gives feedback, like :

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/232867-new-old-game-for-the-atari-st-laserball-2014/

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/199033-elansar-an-adventure-game-for-falcon-030/page-2?do=findComment&comment=2603973

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/233961-xenon-2-megablast-with-mega-music/?hl=%2Bxenon+%2Baudio&do=findComment&comment=3158015

Any feedback here about successful run ?

No offense, but I don't think that following should be in PM, because what I will say may be useful for everyone:

 

When you put some SW online, accessible for community, you need to make SW so, that it can be run in possible simplest way. And of course, to give proper usage guide, with min. HW requirements, SW requirements - like TOS version restrictions. Maybe about need to have some special driver installed, and like.

What I see here is :

 

Quote from Atari_Falcon: "
The Video is from my Setup. I did a Clean Boot as you can see. Cometball doesn't need any boot program but will benefit from Nvdi. As I tested on 3 Falcons I am sure something must be wrong with the archive. I will check and reupload in that case.
Regarding the Resolution: I don't know how to do this in Omikron Basic. If I would I would have included this of course. Sorry, it's my first game ever and I did not Code anything real before."

 

I don't see well is it clean boot. You should record it from moment when hard disk driver starts - it's messages on screen. Actually, you have for sure not clean boot, since there is at least NVDI loaded. Proof for it can see on pos. at about 10 sec. from start, after resolution change. So, it may not work for me because I don't have NVDI (what is btw. not freeware, still) .

How to change res. in Omikron Basic ? How to perform XBIOS #14 call in Omikron Basic ? Look in available TOS documentation if it is not present in Omikron basic documentation. I'm not Basic programmer, but did some simple GFA Basic SW, and I used there TOS trap calls.

Yes, you are beginner, so instead giving some basic instructions here should listen to someone with 35 years experience in Atari programming.

 

Quoting from supplied usage:

"System requirements:
Atari Falcon 030 Computer, 14 MB RAM (should work on 4 MB but untested),
about 20 MB free space on harddisk.
Required resolution: 640x480 in 16 colors
Cometball will also work on Atari TT computers (but without music) and on
PCs with Hatari Emulator with both EMUTOS and TOS 4.04.
Depending on your PC hardware / emulator settings music or sfx may be
delayed or not played correctly. Sorry folks, I don' t have a PC to try.
Use real hardware for the real fun.
Cometball will play better and smoother if you use NVDI and/or an
accelerator like Nemesis, Phantom or the CT60/E.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation:
=============
On a real Atari:
----------------
Copy the contents of the folder "Com-Ball" to any place of your harddrive.
That's it."

 

Well, what I see is that it simply works not without NVDI - not in Hatari 2.1 , not on real Falcon.

You should test it better. You should add in usage what exact NVDI version is needed to be installed on Falcon.

Believe or not, there is plenty of people not using NVDI.

And I need to add: all I wanted with this is to help and make things working better. I'm not beginner, contrary: read again what I wrote in my second reply here.

Edited December 11, 2018 by ParanoidLittleMan

[Atari_Falcon]

Hi there,

 

your help is really appreciated! I wrote you a PM for further investigations.

 

I have to admit that the video quality is not too good, but no, NVDI is not loaded, it's just the cops.acc that complains about lack of NVDI.

 

And although I am new to programming I am not to Atari and I know what a cleanboot is. I am using these babies since 1986. But of course you are right, as during a change of resolution what I did (I wanted to show what resolution is needed) the .ACCs will load. And that was cops.acc in my case with all its cpx.

 

Anyway: NVDI is not required for the game, but will make it a bit smoother at least on non accelerated Falcons.

 

I confirm the successfully running of the game on 3 Atari Falcon comuters with a total "real" clean boot now

 

And of course I have reports from people who got the game running. But they are free to post this here or not It's like in car forums... you can only read about probems, not about satisfied drivers

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

[Atari_Falcon]

The mystery is solved:

Cometball needs VGA.

 

On RGB it gives BUS error.

 

Reason: RGB technically only provides 640x400 (and that simply won't match...)

 

Thanks Insane!

 

Chris

[ParanoidLittleMan]

The mystery is solved:

Cometball needs VGA.

 

On RGB it gives BUS error.

 

Reason: RGB technically only provides 640x400 (and that simply won't match...)

 

Thanks Insane!

 

Chris

I don't know why I'm still bothering with this, but same error happens in VGA mode. It seems that some just lack some basic knowledge how TOS works. How resident SW works.

[Atari_Falcon]

Well, then there must be something different with your Falcon. If you want I could still send you a debugging version that may point to the line where it crashes.

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

[Atari_Falcon]

One last time I will feed the troll:

https://youtu.be/z8Axp4kaPfc

 

Video with real clean boot.

 

I will now ignore your posts, as bashing the game through claiming it won't run in a real hardware and without Nvdi is simply false.

 

Also your only goal seems to attack me and tell us all how great You are. You don't react to my offer sending you a debugging version, you refuse to try an other harddisk driver as you are not willing to give me yours what seems to be the only difference between your Falcon and the others the game is working. And it is. So how could I solve the problem you have running my game (If there is any at all) when you don't cooperate and only Show Screenshots of a Bus Error (what clear is wrong resolution as Image is stretched).

 

It makes me really sad how you treat me. I won't do you the favor and get more personal as this seems to be the only thing you want.

 

It's a pity I announced my release here. I won't make that mistake again in the future.

 

This thread is totally destroyed now in my opinion...

 

If a Moderator is Reading, please delete the whole thread.

 

Thank you!

 

Chris

[ParanoidLittleMan]

It is exactly as I said: "It seems that some just lack some basic knowledge how TOS works. How resident SW works."

You using XBoot III, so it's not clean boot. Somebody explain to Atari Falcon what is clean boot, and that Xboot can load NVDI and other things after restart.

There is nothing personal in my replies here. I stick to facts and actually well known facts how Atari TOS works after reset.

You need to supply some more files with your game distro.

[Atari_Falcon]

Watch the Video. I rename xboot to prx and do a real clean boot Afterwards. It's you that lacks the ability to watch a video. Go away and keep your so called knowledge yourself.

[Atariforce]

Don't feed the troll. I tested your game on a real Falcon, it runs fine. Thanks for the game !

[ParanoidLittleMan]

More "trolling" : finally I made it work. Now who to blame that it took some much time ?

The answer is clear: Author did not give enough info how to start game.

What is missing from READ.ME is : runs only in VGA mode and interlace must be set off.

Sorry my dear Atari_Falcon, but you could avoid all this discussion it you'd be more careful when wrote that READ.ME instructions.

 

And last words here: you could also avoid this PITA discussion if you'd read this: "How to change res. in Omikron Basic ? How to perform XBIOS #14 call in Omikron Basic ? Look in available TOS documentation if it is not present in Omikron basic documentation." If your game would self set proper resolution and video mode, then usage would be easier - and users should not bother with that resolution change, for what proper instruction in manual is missing.

Yeah, I needed to watch video for some minutes to reach that resolution change, because someone is so smart that made some Xboot usage curse instead presenting clearly that it is clean boot - and actually it is still not it - how that there are some colored icons instead normal TOS 4.xx icons ? Sure it is some ACC what loads at res. change, but still, that's not clean boot, even if game works without that ACC .

Arrogance, as it is usual when someone writes some SW in amateurish way. With better coding it could be made that work in RGB/PAL mode too, with interlace on. Not everyone has VGA monitor for his Falcon. I will not comment game self ....

[Atariforce]

finally I made it work.

 

Groovy

[Atari_Falcon]

Thank you. Hope you can enjoy it. Blame on me I am maybe even worse readme writer than coder

 

I won't discuss about clean boot anymore.

 

Icons are loaded from newdesk.inf. No ACC, no nothing, but it simply doesn't matter as it doesn't affect the start.

 

I didn't know about an interlaced mode of VGA, sorry, blame on me.

 

Have a good night ya all and peaceful Christmas!

[Atari_Falcon]

Upgraded version 2.00 is available:

2 player arcade mode included

Stay Atari!

Chris

[Atari_Falcon]

Cometball 2.06 online:

- fixed video mode detection. Game will now definitely tell you if you did start in wrong res/color depth.

- little bit speed improvement.

 

Game still can be downloaded at http://ofam.lima-city.de/comet.htm

A few boxed versions are also left for sale, limited edition is sold out.

 

Stay Atari!

 

Chris