Battlesphere Instructions?

[leech]

Just curious about something.  To me there is copyright infringement (piracy) and then there is reproduction / sale (piracy for profit).  I'm okay with the former for preservation.  If things are lorded over forever for a select few, then future generations won't be able to study and improve upon ideas.  But on the flip side, people who take the work of others and sell it, especially for as large a mark up as they do, that to me is scummy.  Like all those SD cards with game collections that pop up on ebay... I mean at least there is SOME work involved in copying a cartridge and assembling it, packaging it so it looks nice, etc.  But for the memory cards on ebay?  They most likely downloaded some image off the net, and used an imaging tool like dd to write it out, and then charge 8x the price of the memory card to begin with. 

 

As a side note:  I think it'd be awesome if someone did their own Star Raiders homebrew for the Jag (or the Falcon for that matter).  Cheers!

[+Stephen]

I am curious - given that many many years have passed since the release of this, is it now permissible to "taunt the Battlesphere cartridge"?

[Zerosquare]

Sure, go ahead. If you want to tell your cartridge "you're a naughty game, yes you are!", nothing bad will happen to you.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Zerosquare

[leech]

1 hour ago, Zerosquare said:

Sure, go ahead. If you want to tell your cartridge "you're a naughty game, yes you are!", nothing bad will happen to you.

I already fart in it's general direction.

[phoboz]

Are there some instructions on how to play in the "Alone Against the empire" mode?

The only description I have seen is that it's like "Star Raiders", but I have never played that game.

(so it's not a very good description)

 

I can bring up some hexagonal map, but I have no idea about what to do with in (e.g. what does the button presses actually do here)

Also I understand that you are supposed to enter warp speed to move to other sectors, bit I have never managed to activate that?

 

I enjoy the "Gauntlet" mode, and the "Free-for-All" mode, but I have no clue about the "Alone-Against-the-Empire" mode?

[PeterG]

11 hours ago, phoboz said:

Are there some instructions on how to play in the "Alone Against the empire" mode?

The only description I have seen is that it's like "Star Raiders", but I have never played that game.

(so it's not a very good description)

 

I can bring up some hexagonal map, but I have no idea about what to do with in (e.g. what does the button presses actually do here)

Also I understand that you are supposed to enter warp speed to move to other sectors, bit I have never managed to activate that?

 

I enjoy the "Gauntlet" mode, and the "Free-for-All" mode, but I have no clue about the "Alone-Against-the-Empire" mode?

The idea here is that you try to defend your bases, while trying to defeat the attackers. So this mode part strategy and part action on your part. On the map you mentioned you can send your ships to certain sectors to protect your bases or attack other ships. You'll not want to send a fighter to battle a supership.  It will take a while but they will use the warp speed to go the sector you send them to. And you can also choose the sector you want to go to. In order to warp, you'll need to go to full speed, than activate warp on the keypad and then trying to keep "on course" to not miss your chosen sector. I forgot if you can dock your bases in this mode, I think so, when you are alone with your base and standing still next to it, you can call a robot that loads up your supplies... Not sure about it, maybe it's another mode but in general that's what AatE-Mode works like...

It's not as pick up and play like the modes you mentioned but I really liked back then when I was putting some time into the game. This and Gauntlet had me coming back to discover more new stuff und codes.

[WIZZARD77]

I really enjoy this game. The whole red-good, green-bad thing is kinda dumb though.

I still can't believe all the drama this still brings up, even after all these years. That in itself is kinda part of the fun of this game. 

[doctorclu]

Tonight I saw this thread, looked at the contents, didn't see a manual, and decided to pull out my copy...

 

 

Took pictures of the manual, and then read the reason it was not posted was due to it being copyrighted?   Possibly post it under "Fair use"?

 

As a long time fan of Star Raiders, I made these videos sometime back...

 

 

Here is the second part (looks like it didn't get the contrast adjust a few years back when YouTube had that feature)

 

 

Anyway, in short, unlike Star Raiders, you have an armada of your own you command, so technically not "Alone Against the Empires" as Star Raiders was, where you had Star Cruiser 7 and that was it.   The game plays too quickly to have your fleet sit off to the side while you play hero and go at it truly alone.   It's ok though, controlling the other ships is as easy as selecting them and giving them a destination sector.

 

And you just keep at it, deploying the fleet, and jumping into the fight, until all the enemy ships are gone (or you are) 

 

To dock, just fly up to one of your star bases, wait for a second, a shuttle comes out to your ship and refuels you, and then you go on your merry way.

 

All and all, a GREAT modernization of Star Raiders.   A lot of the fun is kept with better graphics, and I like how they brought over some sound effects from the original Star Raiders game, and modernized but kept the alert jingle when your star base is being attacked.

 

[phoboz]

I saw that the Battlesphere Gold ROM is on AtariMania.

Any chance that the source code would be released?

[doctorclu]

1 hour ago, phoboz said:

I saw that the Battlesphere Gold ROM is on AtariMania.

Any chance that the source code would be released?

 

Good question.   Something for Scatologic to answer.

 

 

 

[+Stephen]

11 hours ago, WIZZARD77 said:

I really enjoy this game. The whole red-good, green-bad thing is kinda dumb though.

I still can't believe all the drama this still brings up, even after all these years. That in itself is kinda part of the fun of this game. 

Do you remember the drama that was caused due to the lens flare effect being backwards?  Scott lost his shit on that one after being nagged so much.  Posted a few lines of the code to show what he changed and made some comment like "if you assholes keep pestering like this, eventually you'll get the entire source code" or some such.

[doctorclu]

8 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Do you remember the drama that was caused due to the lens flare effect being backwards?  Scott lost his shit on that one after being nagged so much.  Posted a few lines of the code to show what he changed and made some comment like "if you assholes keep pestering like this, eventually you'll get the entire source code" or some such.

That's hilarious, no I forgot about that.   Anyone still in contact with any of the Scatologic team?   All and all I think they made a fun game.   Not one worth the hype, but there is NO GAME on the Jag worth that.   But a fun quality game none the less.

[PeterG]

2 hours ago, phoboz said:

I saw that the Battlesphere Gold ROM is on AtariMania.

Any chance that the source code would be released?

For those who have followed this back in the day it's clear that it's not going to happen but as you weren't around back then, don't hold your breath.

This whole thing took a bad ending unfortunately.

Actually when BSG released for me it was a really good sign of cool things to come. 

It had the ability to bypass unencrypted CD ROMs which for me was the first possibility to play those things, I dabbled even a bit with Jugs and the possibility to load games to ram. 

Then there was a chart with announced follow up games from Scatologic and other Devs and the idea to get mission expansion CDs that could be hooked up with BSG. Quite exciting at that time but nothing else ever came after that aside from the release of the Scatbox and a lot of arguing on the internet and sour grapes. So no source for you.:/

 

Edit: All this talking about BSG makes me want to play it again. Maybe I'll take it out this evening and see on which wave of Gauntlet I got stuck back then.:) Haven't played it in a long while.

Edited April 29, 2021 by PeterG

[doctorclu]

5 minutes ago, PeterG said:

Then there was a chart with announced follow up games from Scatologic and other Devs and the idea to get mission expansion CDs that could be hooked up with BSG.

 

What I thought was great was the game update they provided.   Apparently there was something like level 92 that would crash and they provided a file you could upload into the game and upload it.

 

Also like how they had the JUGS (Jaguar Unmodified Game Server I believe it was) option on Battlesphere (adaptor included) that could load homebrew games.  Mind you EXTREMELY slow compared to BJL, but it was my start into homebrew games.   And later BJL became possible through game carts and adaptors just like Battlesphere showed could be done.

[+Stephen]

37 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

That's hilarious, no I forgot about that.   Anyone still in contact with any of the Scatologic team?   All and all I think they made a fun game.   Not one worth the hype, but there is NO GAME on the Jag worth that.   But a fun quality game none the less.

Scott & Doug (T-Bird) totally disappeared.  I did get to chat with Stephanie a few times.  She seems to be in much better health after the kidney transplant she had many years ago.  She was always the nicest of the group.

[doctorclu]

7 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Scott & Doug (T-Bird) totally disappeared.  I did get to chat with Stephanie a few times.  She seems to be in much better health after the kidney transplant she had many years ago.  She was always the nicest of the group.

Oh she was awesome.   I think the music she made for the game was quite good.

 

Naturally back when Battlesphere came out there were quite a few that were amazed to have a woman like her fan developing a game.  And I sensed a few crushes from the game nerds. 

 

[PeterG]

48 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

 

What I thought was great was the game update they provided.   Apparently there was something like level 92 that would crash and they provided a file you could upload into the game and upload it.

 

Also like how they had the JUGS (Jaguar Unmodified Game Server I believe it was) option on Battlesphere (adaptor included) that could load homebrew games.  Mind you EXTREMELY slow compared to BJL, but it was my start into homebrew games.   And later BJL became possible through game carts and adaptors just like Battlesphere showed could be done.

The level 92 bug was in Battlesphere classic, but yeah somehow nice to have the possibility to patch a cartridge game. Although I thought it was a bit overkill since they did this not to give the level code away and then not long after Saturn found the "run the gauntlet"-code so this was a mute point as you could jump to level 93 if you wanted to.

 

But yes I agree with what you said and it seems we made similar experiences with our carts (although it was BSG for me, so a bit later)

 

It's kinda sad that the whole drama was around this game since it's pretty solid if you like space sims and of course it's networkable. So a wider availability and lower prices would have been cool for jafests and such. (We had a lot of fun with one big network on one of the E jafests after setting everything up. I still have some of Matthias'telephone cords.:D)

 

 

[doctorclu]

2 minutes ago, PeterG said:

The level 92 bug was in Battlesphere classic, but yeah somehow nice to have the possibility to patch a cartridge game. Although I thought it was a bit overkill since they did this not to give the level code away and then not long after Saturn found the "run the gauntlet"-code so this was a mute point as you could jump to level 93 if you wanted to.

 

But yes I agree with what you said and it seems we made similar experiences with our carts (although it was BSG for me, so a bit later)

 

It's kinda sad that the whole drama was around this game since it's pretty solid if you like space sims and of course it's networkable. So a wider availability and lower prices would have been cool for jafests and such. (We had a lot of fun with one big network on one of the E jafests after setting everything up. I still have some of Matthias'telephone cords.:D)

 

 

Oh cool, how many did you get set up?   I think I've heard up to eight.

 

Used to get a setup at a friend's house with their kids for about three... so with gunners they had six players.

[PeterG]

4 hours ago, doctorclu said:

Oh cool, how many did you get set up?   I think I've heard up to eight.

 

Used to get a setup at a friend's house with their kids for about three... so with gunners they had six players.

I don't recall exactly but 7,8 or 9 sounds about right. Probably 8 because we also tried Air cars afterwards and I think that's the maximum number of players there and I remember people being pretty enthusiastic that we finally managed to have a big jaguar Network... On the other hand I imagine we would have been exactly as enthusiastic with 6 or 7 consoles.:D 

 

In any case it was a bit of a hassle to setup and a really nice group effort. We had to have enough Battlesphere and BSG carts, catboxes and scatboxes and also the cables. I had mine from the jaglink and fortunately Matthias Domin had a full bag of telephone cables with him as if he had known.:)

 

Also we had difficulties to get the network running because unfortunately Battlesphere relies on all players to press a button at the same time to connect to the network and BS classic and BSG have different times after starting the console. BSG loads everything faster so we had to get everyone in timedelayed synch so to speak. This proved a bit difficult with the consoles going around the corner and not seeing everyone's screen to know when they are ready. But once it ran it was rock solid and a lot of fun. But we also never repeated a network with that many in all the following years.

 

Also to this day I didn't have the opportunity to play the Battlesphere mode with someone, I think that one is only for two players and you can overtake the enemy bases with a virus but I never had enough time with anyone to figure that one mode out. For a game that simple at the core it wasn't ever really something to just pick up and play aside from gauntlet and free for all.

 

 

 

[PeterG]

So, I had a go at it today after talking about it the last two days... Interesting that I remember some things differently than others.

 

For example I like the music much more than I remember caring for it before.

 

On the other hand I found Gauntlet to be rather tedious with its almost always repeating waves of enemies and the odd different wave in between. Back in then it was cool to discover the new ships like the sharks and flying saucers and so on, I felt getting bored faster this time around.

 

Alone against the empire still held up and to me seems the best mode now for a few rounds.

 

Also interesting, I tried to play the game differently today than I used to but quickly reverted to proven strategies. I don't know how people play the game flying forwards, I constantly find myself flying backwards away from the enemies trying to shoot them. Guess it doesn't matter in space but it seems I would be a shit jetfighter pilot for an airplane.

[phoboz]

8 hours ago, PeterG said:

For those who have followed this back in the day it's clear that it's not going to happen but as you weren't around back then, don't hold your breath

That's to bad, because what usually happens is that the source code is lost forever.

It's very cool that this (quite good game) is a Jaguar exclusive. I think that the engine has all the ingredients to make up the basis for a game very like Starwars: TIE Fighter, e.g. including missions with different objectives (besides from shooting everything)

Edited April 29, 2021 by phoboz

[PeterG]

23 minutes ago, phoboz said:

That's to bad, because what usually happens is that the source code is lost forever.

It's very cool that this (quite good game) is a Jaguar exclusive. I think that the engine has all the ingredients to make up the basis for a game very like Starwars: TIE Fighter, e.g. including missions with different objectives (besides from shooting everything)

Well I guess technically it's not lost as the coder, I remember a post by Scott LeGrand, made it very clear that he took measures to preserve the code but yeah to everyone trying to do something with it it's lost. ?

 

What you are describing is something I had hoped to get with the expansion CD's. Or actually I even hoped the game itself would be more like that when I didn't yet know more about it. I thought it would be more mission based and it turned out more like an arcade game.

 

Thinking of source code for the Jaguar there is already quite some source code out there but aside from Doom it doesn't look like anyone really did anything with what is there so I wonder if it would have been any different with Battlesphere. I think there is source to a lot of games, don't know how complete though but nothing came out of it after all this years. Here's some and I think there might be even more ...Tempest 2K, Iwar, Fight for life, Crescent Galaxy, Club Drive, Checkered Flag, Breakout 2000, 2600 emulator, BIWN...

 

So I'm not sure how helpful the source to that other game would have been in that regard or we might already have gotten a better 3D fighter than FFL turned out to be despite it somewhat solid 3D engine.:)

[tripled79]

12 hours ago, Stephen said:

Scott & Doug (T-Bird) totally disappeared.  I did get to chat with Stephanie a few times.  She seems to be in much better health after the kidney transplant she had many years ago.  She was always the nicest of the group.

I think I chatted with her a few times years ago. She had some kind of blog too...

[doctorclu]

2 hours ago, tripled79 said:

I think I chatted with her a few times years ago. She had some kind of blog too...

Dig this, found on her blog where she did a survey in 2007 of which music we liked most and least.   I just chipped in my answers some 14 years late.

 

https://sebab.livejournal.com/970497.html#t8871681

 

 

[KidGameR186496]

20 hours ago, Stephen said:

Scott & Doug (T-Bird) totally disappeared.  I did get to chat with Stephanie a few times.  She seems to be in much better health after the kidney transplant she had many years ago.  She was always the nicest of the group.

Scott is on Twitter. Stephanie (based on some research I did a few years ago) works at HBO as sound engineer. Doug... Well, only Scott and Steph knows what happened with him but I hope he's doing well whenever he is now. In regards to BattleSphere, I played it via the Phoenix emulator and I liked both the regular and Gold versions of the title but it has been some time ago since I played it...