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Berks Four (64K) - New Release


Nojeee

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I'm trying, but world 4 is very hard...

 

I know :)

 

It's always tricky getting the difficulty level right. I had a few comments that my previous games were too easy so I tried to make World 4 hard (but possible after lots of practice).

 

I played the game a lot during testing and made sure that I could complete all of the Worlds - World 4 was definitely the hardest.

 

If you do continue to have trouble completing the game drop me a PM ... I may be able to help.

 

...

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Hi Jon, thanks for creating your recent games, we're playing them all in the High Score Club now (along with some other recent games) if anyone wants to post scores: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/289709-hsc16-round-5-berks-4-liners-10/?do=findComment&comment=4253348

 

You might have seen we played the fabulous Jet Boot Jack at the start of Season 10.

 

Jason

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Hi Jon, thanks for creating your recent games, we're playing them all in the High Score Club now (along with some other recent games) if anyone wants to post scores: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/289709-hsc16-round-5-berks-4-liners-10/?do=findComment&comment=4253348

 

You might have seen we played the fabulous Jet Boot Jack at the start of Season 10.

 

Jason

 

Hi Jason,

 

I've been taking a peek at the High Score Club posts regarding Berks 4 and I thought I'd take the opportunity to clarify the way the score and percentage completion works.

 

I wanted to retain the feel of the original Berks 3 game so the Berks and Drones respawn when you revisit a room. This was done to keep the game busy while exploring but does make it possible to 'farm' enemies to get a high score. I decided to add the Percentage Complete feature for players who wanted an additional challenge. The Percentage Complete value is purely based on the number of shoot-away blocks completely removed (any remaining blocks can be seen on the map). Getting 100% completion does make the game much more difficult as you end up removing blocks that act as protection from Drones ... and the dreaded Snakes.

 

It's really rewarding to see the game being played in this way. I'm sure it will also affect the way I approach the scoring systems on future games :) .

 

Jon

 

PS: I've read through the Jet Boot Jack thread and I'm amazed at the scores players achieved!

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Slight OT Jon,

 

Have you ever thought about an 'Anniversary Edition' of Multiboot...Its been part of Atari 8 bit computer usage and lore for so long I thing it deserves a special version, does not even need any real changes bar it coming from the creator and rebadged for Atari's long anniversary...

 

Probably one of the more daft idea's you have heard but I still feel its been treated like a bit of a dirty secret by users when it was written by you for handy reasons and not piracy.

 

Paul...

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Slight OT Jon,

 

Have you ever thought about an 'Anniversary Edition' of Multiboot...Its been part of Atari 8 bit computer usage and lore for so long I thing it deserves a special version, does not even need any real changes bar it coming from the creator and rebadged for Atari's long anniversary...

 

Probably one of the more daft idea's you have heard but I still feel its been treated like a bit of a dirty secret by users when it was written by you for handy reasons and not piracy.

 

Paul...

 

I think Multiboot might be well past its prime now :). There are many new and faster alternatives available.

 

I'm still surprised how far it spread from the handful of people I gave copies to in the 1980's.

 

Jon

 

PS: It's fun spotting Multiboot 'clones' where my original text has been changed :).

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  • 2 months later...
On 4/9/2019 at 5:45 PM, Nojeee said:

 

I think Multiboot might be well past its prime now :). There are many new and faster alternatives available.

 

I'm still surprised how far it spread from the handful of people I gave copies to in the 1980's.

 

Jon

 

PS: It's fun spotting Multiboot 'clones' where my original text has been changed :).

I remember being in Chips Computers, Rugby Road, Worthing in the 80's and you came in showed a derivative multiboot was based on yours by typing in Noj on one of the menus.

 

Also remember someone coming in to trade Jet Boot Jack whilst you were there too.

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1 hour ago, Duke748 said:

I remember being in Chips Computers, Rugby Road, Worthing in the 80's and you came in showed a derivative multiboot was based on yours by typing in Noj on one of the menus.

 

Also remember someone coming in to trade Jet Boot Jack whilst you were there too.

I remember Chips well ... I used to go in and slyly make sure any copies of Jet Boot Jack were at the front ?

 

Happy days ......

 

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On 4/9/2019 at 12:45 PM, Nojeee said:

 

I think Multiboot might be well past its prime now :). There are many new and faster alternatives available.

 

I'm still surprised how far it spread from the handful of people I gave copies to in the 1980's.

 

Jon

 

PS: It's fun spotting Multiboot 'clones' where my original text has been changed :).

oh no... There are folks who still do it all old school like back in the day. They are recapturing the experience the way they saw dad do it with them. This brings them back to when dad was still there with them. Very nostalgic, very respectful, and emotion provoking. This helps folks remember things they otherwise forgot. It also helps people who did this sort of thing without a loved one relive their experience back in time, seeing an old favorite done up even better with added goodies! I still do disks, as I don't know when my wintel box will die (they do that so many ways today) and or when my SD card will die or the device will scramble its contents (that's also common these days)

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My introduction to multi-game disks was getting Multiboot disks from my mate. The sense of nostaligia I had listening to the Antic Podcast interview this week with @Nojeee when I found out he'd written it was great. We used Multiboot for pretty much everything until September 87 when I started college in Hull and made friends with another 8Bit Atari owner who had loads of RobC menu disks.

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It's really interesting to hear how Multiboot made it's way out from the south coast of England - it was long before the days of the Internet so it could only have traveled via physical media. When I got back into the 8-bit scene last year I was really surprised to find out how many people had used it over the years.

 

If anybody is interested, if you go to the Sector Copy Menu ('X' for Utilities, then 'X' for Additional Utilities and '1' for Sector Copy) ... entering NOJ and Return shows values for Clone Originator and Clone Generation. Note - this was added for the XL version of Multiboot and there are lots of the original Multiboot disks out there.

 

If I remember correctly, I only handed out a few copies of Multiboot to friends and each would have a different Clone Originator number (my master being zero). The Clone Generation value would then be bumped for each new master generated from that copy. I haven't kept the record of who had the original copies but I don't think it was more than a handful?

 

I wonder what the highest Clone Generation value is ?

 

 

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It certainly fell out of the Slough ATari HQ at times :)

 

Thankfully it wasn't on the discs that ended up in the High Court in London, they were the old DOS menu's with the coloured 1, 2 ,3 , 4 etc down the side.

 

Just want to note that I'm not talking about MY disks...

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fabulous to see a new game from one of the original coders of the day, i remember getting jetboot jack and timeslip on multi boot!!  shortly after they came out... i was a naughty little pir8 in the day.... the scene back then was mega! - nothing but fun.

 

good stuff jon, nice to hear your enjoying the coding, cant wait to see what  gems are to follow...

 

good luck in your endevours.

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4 hours ago, Nojeee said:

If anybody is interested, if you go to the Sector Copy Menu ('X' for Utilities, then 'X' for Additional Utilities and '1' for Sector Copy) ... entering NOJ and Return shows values for Clone Originator and Clone Generation. Note - this was added for the XL version of Multiboot and there are lots of the original Multiboot disks out there.

 

If I remember correctly, I only handed out a few copies of Multiboot to friends and each would have a different Clone Originator number (my master being zero). The Clone Generation value would then be bumped for each new master generated from that copy. I haven't kept the record of who had the original copies but I don't think it was more than a handful?

 

I wonder what the highest Clone Generation value is ?

 

 

Ah that's a fun way to keep track it. Just looked as all mind Multibook disks and the highest Clone Generation was 73 and the all had tghe Clone Originator of 1.

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Hi Jon,

 

Great to know you're 'back on the scene' , was a BIG Multi-boot user in the 80's (and still am today, 1050's in daily use here!) Also, slightly mind-boggling to be playing a new game from you in 2019, loving it!! 

 

I, for one, would love a special/anniversary Multi-boot edition in any guise - Although I had many different menu makers such as Rob.C, always came back to Multi-boot for ease of use and flexibility.

 

Anyway, I fear we may be straying off topic here but before we get back OT I'm furiously checking my disks now, my master disks from 2001 is showing a 'high score' of 105 so far!!

IMG_6917.JPG

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The Clone Generation of 73 was higher than I expected but 105 is mad! ?

 

I checked my original source code and it reminded me that the value is only bumped for a new Master Multi-Boot - the disk that creates the new master retains its original value. This means that it would take a lot of new masters creating more masters for it to get that high ... if you see what I mean. 

 

The image also shows another feature I'd forgotten about; 'Updated Multi-Boot' means that at some stage one of the older style Multi-Boot disks was updated to an XL version.

 

I'm not sure if it's widely known but you can use CTRL and cursor Left or Right to adjust the chroma of the text and CTRL Up or Down to adjust the luma. If you then create a new master it will retain these settings. 

 

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