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Kickman for 2600 found and RELEASED!!


Dutchman2000

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On 10/29/2019 at 4:24 AM, Nukey Shay said:

No...this was basically "proof of concept" code featuring all the significant gameplay elements...not the version that Dick had created/expanded from it.  It sounds like it went though a crunch phase before he even saw it, tho (since he doesn't recall it being 2 bytes beyond where the cold start vector belongs).

To be fair, it's unclear to what extent this game may have been expanded beyond this and by whom, but I'm still looking into it.  For what it's worth, when I first spoke to him several years back, Dick Balaska told me that he thought Bob Curtiss had done most of the programming on Kickman but he informed me recently that Bob has since denied this and he may simply have been confusing it with Solar Fox.
 

On 10/29/2019 at 6:56 PM, Supergun said:

M8774 - Wizard of Wor

- Targ

M8793 - Gorf

- Maddenness

- Kickman

4L-2486 - Blueprint

4L-2487 - Solar Fox

- Domino Man

4L-2520 - Tunnel Runner

Stomp It

4L-2737 - Omega Race

4L-2738 - Mountain King

- Wings

Those are the internal part numbers for the cartridge labels, not the catalog numbers for the games themselves.  The proper ones can be found on the spines and UPCs of the game boxes.

Wizard of Wor - 80000
Gorf - 80010

Solar Fox - 80020
Blueprint - 80030

Tunnel Runner - 80070

Mountain King - 80080
Omega Race - 80090

AtariProtos and Atarimania both have Targ listed as 80110 but I'm not sure where that number came from.
 

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I am late to the party, so please forgive me if this has already been pointed out; but.....

 

This plays 250% better than the Commodore 64 version. lol. How does the VCS follow most of the arcade "rules" with 4k, but the C-64 has such a crap port?

 

These things make me laugh.

 

Great fine. Thanks for sharing with the community!

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Paddle test Rom:

Still needs work (only 1 paddle is currently utilized), but this will give you some idea of how it feels.

 

B&W switch is used to toggle between stick or paddle control (not 7800 compatible yet).

 

Scanline variances almost fully corrected, so this should help for those with sensitive displays.

 

 

Edited by Nukey Shay
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1 minute ago, Tempest said:

So how does the C64 version not follow the arcade rules?  Iv never played it before.

I might miss a few, but a few from memory:

1. If your player kicks a balloon, another will fall, even on the first level.

2. Falling balloons go through the stack on your head, so it is not possible to trap a balloon on one side of the screen.

3. If you kick Pac-Man, he doesn't go back into the formation.

 

2 and 3 are pretty essential to gameplay. I know there's more. It's amazing the lack of detail from the programmer. The game looks decent though, especially for the time.

 

#1 is really bad, because the balloons will actually get out of sync. I can't explain it, but it's like the balloons are on a timer instead of waiting for one to finish. If I kick balloon A, B falls. Before I get B, another one will fall on the opposite end of the screen. It creates impossible situations.

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That would be possible...the paddle routine is a subroutine read on the "mostly blank" frames which could easily be replaced with grey code.  Ram is not optimized either, so there is some which can be reclaimed there...I already eliminated indirect pointer A2-A3.

 

Speaking of which, I reused A2 for player reflect here...makes the animation a little better.  Still a little glitchy when kicking, tho.

 

Kickman(paddle_hack_v0).bin

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On 10/21/2019 at 11:53 AM, Rom Hunter said:

I always hoped this one would be found some day!

This is truly wonderful.

Many thanks for sharing!

8)

I look forward to this included in the next Rom Hunter Collection.

 

Whenever that may be.

 

Soon....I hope. :D

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On 10/22/2019 at 9:36 PM, billm said:

I put it up on virtualatari.org and it runs, plays well.  Great work!

Thanks for the link! Works great with my usb Genesis controller.

I played the arcade version for the first time just a couple years ago

at Funspot NH. This is an impressive port to the 2600. 

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On 11/1/2019 at 5:11 PM, darryl1970 said:

How does the VCS follow most of the arcade "rules" with 4k, but the C-64 has such a crap port?

Perhaps if the VCS version was developed at Bally with close access to not only the arcade game to play for comparison, but possibly also sources (in Z80 though IIRC) from Midway, while the C64 version seems to origin from HAL Labs in Japan who could only mimic what they saw, or if they even prioritized implementing it fully. Some of their ports were great, some were just playable.

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3 hours ago, carlsson said:

Perhaps if the VCS version was developed at Bally with close access to not only the arcade game to play for comparison, but possibly also sources (in Z80 though IIRC) from Midway, while the C64 version seems to origin from HAL Labs in Japan who could only mimic what they saw, or if they even prioritized implementing it fully. Some of their ports were great, some were just playable.

I  would guess that the C-64 could handle a terrific version. My comment was mostly a jab at the programmers and props to the VCS programmers. HAL completely looked at it from a snapshot perspective vs a study of the gameplay. It was an earlier title for the 64, so there was a learning curve. However, the C-64 was pretty user-friendly. Maybe they weren't paid enough to spend much time on it.

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A couple other C-64 flaws:

 

  1. Kickman doesn't pop the balloons when they are full stack. Only the top balloon pops. That means one will need to kick a balloon. When a balloon is kicked, another one automatically falls. There can be at least 3 balloons floating around. Since the falling balloons do not connect with Kickman's stack, it is impossible to "trap" the balloons.
  2. When Pac-Man is eating the stacked balloons. It is possible to move Kickman. Pac-Man will then miss the remaining balloons.

This rivals some of the worst ports I've seen. It's deceptive, because it LOOKS like it would be great.

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If you have a paddle system accurate and funcational enough to tackle it- be my guest-- but i swear if i got into paddles i would have to go straight to a best electronics pair i suppose-- the odds of finding a truly functional regular pair on ebay or at a local store..... id probably have to try 50 pairs!

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