Millie and Molly (Atari 7800)

[+mksmith]

9 hours ago, doug0909 said:

Just purchased and downloaded the c64 ROM... I like the game, but why no 2-player / 2-joystick mode? I also purchased the Eskimo Bob homebrew for the NES, which does have an option to work that way, and 2-player coop games where one person controls the active onscreen character at a time can be kind of fun, but in a relaxing way (as sometimes you are controlling the character, sometimes you can sit back and analyze the screen while the other person plays...) 

Thanks for supporting the guys.  Yes this could have certainly been an option but they're are only a sub-section of levels with both on screen to really add value with that. Perhaps a follow-up!

  

[+mksmith]

13 hours ago, Jinks said:

Would this be xm supported so I do not have to buy an expensive chip? Also cart only? Would be great with ym sound as would match the c64 version.  The game and sounds are great but I can hear a high pitch squealing in the music with pokey every 5 or 6 seconds. Other than that the music is great and that noise must be a limitation of the pokey chip. 

Yes I guess an XM specific release could be an option - something to be discussed how that could work.  Synthpopalooza has really pushed the Pokey into uncharted waters and all emulators have their strengths and weaknesses with pokey playback. Everything shown so far is in emulation and some tunes are having some issues.  We have done some analysis of playback on real hardware and it sounds great so we should be right.  The Yamaha will definitely be an option going forward on the XM. 

 

10 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

Looks good hope to see a cart release!

Thanks - we are working to make that happen.  Hope to announce something soon!

[+mksmith]

7 hours ago, AW127 said:

Looking forward to this Atari-7800 version of "Millie & Molly". I have the C64 version of the game and really like it. A great puzzler definately. When i look at the screenshots here, the Atari-7800 port will look as good as the C64 one, only the color-palettes looks a bit different logically. Good idea, to port this game to the Atari-7800.

It's such a fun and engaging game to play for sure - I have loved playing on my c64 too!  Nearly all the graphics are a straight pixel conversion due to how they were originally drawn (double-width).  Only the backgrounds which are 320 (7800 is 160 for M&M) and the title have been adjusted for resolution. The 7800 palette layout required some thought to gain the most colors we could get within the tiles.  

7 hours ago, Mayhem said:

Funky! Enjoying the C64 version, great to see this here.

Definitely! Very pleased Carleton and his team were happy for us to release for the 7800 so Atari users can enjoy it too!

[tjlazer]

Very nicely done but why does it feel so wrong that there’s no Atari 800 version of this yet?

[+mksmith]

1 hour ago, tjlazer said:

Very nicely done but why does it feel so wrong that there’s no Atari 800 version of this yet?

Thanks! Unfortunately I have never owned an 800 ?

[Dionoid]

I saw this game on ZeroPage Homebrew; an amazing conversion to the 7800 and an insta-buy for me!

[+mksmith]

3 hours ago, Dionoid said:

I saw this game on ZeroPage Homebrew; an amazing conversion to the 7800 and an insta-buy for me!

Thanks Dionoid - the team has done a great job!

 

Going to pickup ToR and Fools Gold when your done too - looks absolutely brilliant!

[thursday83]

I'm in for a cart....

[+mksmith]

Just now, thursday83 said:

I'm in for a cart....

Thank you very much - appreciate your support ?

[Synthpopalooza]

On 5/17/2020 at 9:55 AM, Jinks said:

Would this be xm supported so I do not have to buy an expensive chip? Also cart only? Would be great with ym sound as would match the c64 version.  The game and sounds are great but I can hear a high pitch squealing in the music with pokey every 5 or 6 seconds. Other than that the music is great and that noise must be a limitation of the pokey chip. 

 

 

its issues with emulation ... I used some 16-bit and 1.79 mhz settings on some of the music channels, and current emulation doesn't like it.  Prosystem seems to come closest on the music, but it is 100% better on the actual hardware.

 

As a comparison ... recordings made from real HW ... thanks, @Trebor

 

 

Style 2 - 20200514 (2).mp3 Style_1-Update.mp3 Style_3.mp3 Style_4.mp3 Style_5.mp3 Level_Complete.mp3 Title.mp3 Have_You_Played_Atari_Today.mp3

[Jinks]

That is good to know. Does this need the real deal pokey or will these new variants work? 

[Dionoid]

2 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said:

its issues with emulation ... I used some 16-bit and 1.79 mhz settings on some of the music channels, and current emulation doesn't like it.  Prosystem seems to come closest on the music, but it is 100% better on the actual hardware.

 

As a comparison ... recordings made from real HW ... thanks, @Trebor

 

 

Style 2 - 20200514 (2).mp3 4.61 MB · 1 download Style_1-Update.mp3 4.6 MB · 1 download Style_3.mp3 4.6 MB · 1 download Style_4.mp3 4.6 MB · 1 download Style_5.mp3 4.61 MB · 1 download Level_Complete.mp3 661.27 kB · 1 download Title.mp3 4.6 MB · 2 downloads Have_You_Played_Atari_Today.mp3 627.59 kB · 1 download

Thanks for sharing the recordings from actual hardware. These are great songs for a 7800! (except the Style-1 song, where IMO the melody that starts at 0:09 is out of tune)

I can hear high pitched squealing in three of these recordings, which I think are between 10-12 kHz and should be audible for people younger than 50:

• Style 2 (e.g. between 0:09 and 0:11, but audible occasionally throughout the song)
• Style 3 (e.g. at 0:03 and 0:06, but audible occasionally throughout the song). Here the squealing tone is somewhat lower, I think about 8 kHz
• Style 5 (e.g. at 0:03 and 0:04, but audible occasionally throughout the song)

My guess is that you don't hear this squealing, but for people who can hear them, it is very annoying.

I hope you can figure out the source of the squealing and fix it ?

[Synthpopalooza]

5 hours ago, Jinks said:

That is good to know. Does this need the real deal pokey or will these new variants work? 

Will work on POKEYOne ... i.e. no SKCTLS needed.

[Jinks]

Yeah I can hear one the second phrase on the melody on style 1 the last 2 notes are out of tune. Maybe a limitation of the pokey? 

Style 2 has lots of squealing. Like 5 seconds of a loud squeal near the beginning of the song. It is the equivalent of a band playing and getting feedback from the mic in front of a speaker.

Your saying if your over 50 you can not hear it? I am 43 and it is loud as heck..

Maybe play it back for some kids and ask them if they can hear it? I asked my daughter while I was playing it on my cellphone and she could hear it 20 feet away. It is the super high frequencies a person loses in their hearing first. 

I hope you are able to figure this out. 

 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

10 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Thanks for sharing the recordings from actual hardware. These are great songs for a 7800! (except the Style-1 song, where IMO the melody that starts at 0:09 is out of tune)

I can hear high pitched squealing in three of these recordings, which I think are between 10-12 kHz and should be audible for people younger than 50:

• Style 2 (e.g. between 0:09 and 0:11, but audible occasionally throughout the song)
• Style 3 (e.g. at 0:03 and 0:06, but audible occasionally throughout the song). Here the squealing tone is somewhat lower, I think about 8 kHz
• Style 5 (e.g. at 0:03 and 0:04, but audible occasionally throughout the song)

My guess is that you don't hear this squealing, but for people who can hear them, it is very annoying.

I hope you can figure out the source of the squealing and fix it ?

 

It's definitely hard for me hear the 16kHz tone in the three above styles unless I isolate it and turn it up but the 7.5 kHz tone is very prominent. I took a look at the three songs in a spectrogram view in Audition and they're easy to spot coming in and out. Expand below to check out the screen grabs:

 

Spoiler

• Style 2: The high pitch frequencies are quite piercing and looking at the Spectral view at the 0:09 part of the song it's around the 7.5 & 16kHz range.

 

 

• Style 3: The 8 kHz tone is quite short and sounds like it might be emulating a bell? It's not as bad for me to listen to due to its short length but the 16kHz tone comes in and out throughout the song.

 

• Style 5: The 16kHz tone is constant throughout the song in this one. A tone at 7.5kHz comes in and out. They're both pretty hard on the ears.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jinks]

The tones are like a switch that just decides to ring for awhile then just shut off.. Cool you are able to see the tones...

[+mksmith]

Thanks for the feedback @Dionoid, @Jinks and @ZeroPage Homebrew!

 

We'll keep working on tuning the music to get it as good as we can make it - we really want to do justice to the music Hans created.

 

If you want to here an actual musical recording of some of these tunes check these out:

Swimming deeper (love this one!!) appears in Level 61 onwards and is based on an underwater theme. Mummys little helper appears from Level 26 onwards and is an Egyptian styled theme. 

 

[+mksmith]

On the rewind front I made some really good progress in the past 24-48 hours. Still have a few issues to work though but the main functionality around it appears to working so far.

 

Once I get a bit further I'll put a video up showing the progress.

[+mksmith]

A further update on the rewind front.  Looks like I've ironed out the most of the bugs and everything is being properly tracked and restored ? I've had one strange issue where a memory map was being overwritten with junk and this caused the rewind to restore some odd tiles but a re-order of those fixed that - will do some further review tomorrow.

 

 

[Jinks]

Is there a course builder too? I thought the c64 had that as well. 

[Jinks]

One major thing lacking would be sound effects for breaking monsters, climbing, falling. All done with the tia with a controllable volume for sfx and music on the menu. 

The c64 version does not have it but I think it would be a major advantage. 

I hope no one is offended by the suggestions. The game graphically and gameplay wise is great I would not change a thing. 

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jinks

[+mksmith]

3 hours ago, Jinks said:

Is there a course builder too? I thought the c64 had that as well. 

Probably not at this stage - I don't have the space unfortunately.

3 hours ago, Jinks said:

One major thing lacking would be sound effects for breaking monsters, climbing, falling. All done with the tia with a controllable volume for sfx and music on the menu. 

The c64 version does not have it but I think it would be a major advantage. 

I hope no one is offended by the suggestions. The game graphically and gameplay wise is great I would not change a thing. 

 

 

 

I did have a play with adding some sound effects a while back. I think you are right in that it does add a little something but again no space to include them ? 

 

I'm still very surprised I have been able to fit the rewind TBH.

[+Defender_2600]

Nice surprise, Matt! Great job, accurate and fast, as usual. Congratulations to the whole team!

[+mksmith]

Just now, Defender_2600 said:

Nice surprise, Matt! Great job, accurate and fast, as usual. Congratulations to the whole team!

Thanks Marco! Unfortunately I didn't need your awesome talents on this one as everything was essentially done for us.  Will be getting back to Arkanoid soon though!

[+mksmith]

Looks like we are on the home straight with the rewind - think I have all the bugs/issued ironed out and everything appears to be working as expected.  Next up is adding the graphics (VCR style) and hooking up the buttons which will require a bit of work to reconfigure for tap and hold.

 

@Defender_2600 has touched up the Style 1 background to better match the original (thanks Marco - still amazed at how you scale things!). The backgrounds on each style are 1/2 width resolution of the original

 

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