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The TI game that never was...


Omega-TI

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Over the years there have been some exciting looking games that had some pre-release demo's, but for some reason or another were dropped and never heard from again.  What are your one or two most anticipated games that never were finished released?

 

I was thinking about this the other day, and it occurred to me that when some of these games were originally being developed, the FinalGROM was not yet developed and it may not have been possible to finish them due to memory constraints.

 

 

 

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Well, the game I most love and find most interesting that wasn't released is probably Imagic's Wing War (gameplay demo).  But the more complete of its two prototype iterations is more or less fully playable, with some minor caveats.  So indeed, we aren't denied its experience, in the present. The earlier proto is pretty incomplete and broken. 

 

image.png.a253fe591058898d7ce86b0e0f6714cb.png

 

SNK's Fantasy is also pretty cool (gameplay demo).  Likwise, unreleased, but absolutely playable, with just minor issues.  The only port of the game to any home system.  So notable, interesting, and playable, despite being unreleased.  A note on this title screen: there's no such thing as a 2 player game.  That doesn't even make sense.  It's inherently a 1 player game, by design.  But this is a proto, after all.  The option does nothing.

 

image.png.c7833b1d05f894fd8bd2f4824f9cf1c5.png

 

Both of these games have speech, incidentally.  Which is always nice. 

 

 

Edited by pixelpedant
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12 minutes ago, INVISIBLE said:

#1

2770019_Formula18A.thumb.png.45b0f7cad381631a2422552ace0d55fc.png

 

 

Ah, that does interest me. 

 

It does feel to me like 

 

1) A "chase cam" or driver-perspective racing sim (that improves on Pole Position, which doesn't really use either of those)

 

and

 

2) A good flight sim (that improves on SPAD XIII mk2)

 

are two areas where it'd be cool to see offerings improve via modern homebrew and potentially F18A support. 

 

 

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5 hours ago, INVISIBLE said:

One of the games I really like that came to fruition was Borzork, so thankfully that one is off my want list and on my play list!

The two games that had me drooling were...

 

#1

2770019_Formula18A.thumb.png.45b0f7cad381631a2422552ace0d55fc.png

 

#2 Power Strike

90982499_PowerStrike.JPG.4f10b9f17e523c48d3818c1b0c2bf77f.JPG

 

Looking at Power Strike, wouldn’t it be cool to have a genuine arcade machine driven by a custom mainboard with a TMS9900 CPU or derivate and F18a. A board perhaps kinda similar to Stuart Conners board. Not talking about 99/4a compatibility so games would need to be reworked, but for all homebrews of the last 10 years or so we do have source code. Put some real arcade control buttons in there and of you go. 

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11 hours ago, INVISIBLE said:

I was thinking about this the other day, and it occurred to me that when some of these games were originally being developed, the FinalGROM was not yet developed and it may not have been possible to finish them due to memory constraints.

I can think of many reasons why some home-grown game projects are never completed:

  • It took too long time to develop
  • The original idea didn't work out
  • It wasn't possible to make the code work as expected
  • It wasn't possible to achieve high enough performance
  • It was never meant to be a full game
  • Bad or missing feedback from the community
  • Loss of interest/desire to do something else
  • Copyright issues

I don't think lack of storage space has ever been the reason, unfortunately. 

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2 hours ago, retroclouds said:

 

Looking at Power Strike, wouldn’t it be cool to have a genuine arcade machine driven by a custom mainboard with a TMS9900 CPU or derivate and F18a. A board perhaps kinda similar to Stuart Conners board. Not talking about 99/4a compatibility so games would need to be reworked, but for all homebrews of the last 10 years or so we do have source code. Put some real arcade control buttons in there and of you go. 

 Re: power strike.

Not sure if I completely understood it. But would a retropie + TI99/SIM + real arcade control panel and @Asmusr Flying Shark come close to get some similar experience? 

 

 

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I quickly correct myself...as i was only reading the arcade button part....and had not tested the arcade panel which just came in.( flying shark is a complete game of course).

 

A bit struggling to configure all buttons to map to TI buttons (retroarch does not seem to work, probably need to do it in TI/SIM itself).

 

But i must say now flying shark feels like playing in the arcade hall. 

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There are lot of games started/announced for ti99 and never released as final version.

about the new homebrews, i am personally sad about "Super TI99 Mario Bros" but i can understand the Rasmus reasons to keep it just like a playable Demo.
I also dreamed with Powerstrike demo, remembered me an Amiga game damn... what fantastic could be.

 

another really hard sad unfinished pearl has been: H.E.R.O.

also i feel to mention titles like: Tutankham remake, Time Pilot, Destroyer

BTW  invested my likes into these also ? :
platform like, Nebulus ?, Avaris, The Castle, JetBall, Gridslugger, Elite ? , Biliard (ops it's mine ?), Thrust, and Bruce Lee

maybe there is something other i still forget, sorry... I still have hope in all them anyway ;) 

Always thanks for developing new games dear friends :) 

 

 

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BTW, In order to get an embedded video window in this forum, do I only have the options to upload the video here or on Youtube? Or can I host them on my own server? In the latter case I only managed to place a link in the posting.

 

(The above video shows up here, on my PC, but takes some seconds.)

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8 hours ago, INVISIBLE said:

Can anyone else get this video to play?

Play for me, but in the Flash plug-in.  Might just be Firefox being bitchy.

56 minutes ago, Asmusr said:

It's a 117MB file. Maybe that's why it doesn't show up so quickly?

This is a problem for a lot of browser when trying to use the built-in video rendering.  Not all sources or programs will encode the video with the "moov" atom at the beginning of the file, which would allow the browser to play as it downloads.  This means the file has to be downloaded completely before it can be played.

 

If you are encoding your own files using ffmpeg, look at using the -movflags faststart option as you work.  If you have a "bad" file, you can reorganize it using the copy codecs with this option.

 

To the topic, my personal problem with completing projects is time.  Even when I have "spare" time available, most of the time I need it for down-time as I tend to run myself to exhaustion.  During these periods I literally cannot bring myself into a "creation mode" of thinking, I can only work in a "consumption mode."

 

It used to be a large of my time was creative, but now I put so much time into work that I have little time for creativity.  This is one reason why I relish every year in Evanston -- this is the one time of the year I can mingle with people of my mindset and who share my interests.  I lack that at home as none of my friends share my interests.  It can be quite demotivating.  But, this is part of the sacrifice I make running my businesses.

 

While it can be frustrating, it is less stressful than working for someone who knows less about the job than me but tells me how to do my job, and having to take up for those who will not do their jobs.  Or, as I deal with at the state office, those with whom I work to develop standards and procedures, only to have them completely thrown out the window for the convenience of the high-ranking staff (who wanted the policies in the first place.)

 

On 4/26/2020 at 5:29 AM, Asmusr said:

I don't think lack of storage space has ever been the reason

Nope.  Coming back ten years ago cartridge space was already being expanding, the nanoPEB and CF7 were available, PEBs and disk controllers have always been available.  Except for the most ambitious of projects, I do not see storage space as a problem.

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8 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Not all sources or programs will encode the video with the "moov" atom at the beginning of the file, which would allow the browser to play as it downloads.  This means the file has to be downloaded completely before it can be played.

Yeah, the "moov" atom is damn near the end of the file.

 

ffmpeg -i filename.mp4 -c:v copy -c:a copy -movflags faststart fixedfilename.mp4

Should fix it right up.

 

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On 4/26/2020 at 8:08 AM, ti99iuc said:

There are lot of games started/announced for ti99 and never released as final version.

about the new homebrews, i am personally sad about "Super TI99 Mario Bros" but i can understand the Rasmus reasons to keep it just like a playable Demo.
I also dreamed with Powerstrike demo, remembered me an Amiga game damn... what fantastic could be.

 

another really hard sad unfinished pearl has been: H.E.R.O.
 

 

 

I love H.E.R.O. on the Commodore 64 and I somehow missed that it was ever an option for the 99/4A.   Those 1983-85 Activision home computer games (Toy Bizarre, Park Patrol, Beamrider, Zenji) were great.  I'd give a lot to play Park Patrol on the TI.

 

As a slacker with my own share of announced-but-unfinished projects in this forum, I get it.  Real life has a way of crowding out fun time.  And it's hard to be close-ish to finishing a game and not wanna share your progress, even though you risk adding yet another title to the list of "vaporware"...

 

I'm resisting the temptation and only posting new projects when they're finished.

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
3 hours ago, alortegac said:

Battlezone?

 

That one is on my list too!  That classic game was so much fun!  I like it so much that it was one of the major reasons I got a TRS-80 emulator for the RPi.  I'm convinced that game would be so much better on the TI than this TRS-80 version shown below.  This proves a game does not require have stellar graphics to be fun.  Many games from that era like Omega Race and Lunar Lander have stood the test of time.

 

 

 

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