Ex-Activision Designers Launch Retro Game Publisher Audacity Games™

[5x7]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:09 PM, fakecortex said:

Had more issues with the score not scanning today 😕  But when the time comes to get that patch, if the code doesn't scan, I figure maybe they would accept a photo of the screen considering it does have your serial number there. I sure hope so. I'm wondering if that was intentional for validating scores submitted the old fashioned way.

I was surprised how far back I had to get from the screen to get it it scan.

[CPUWIZ]

On 4/16/2021 at 1:33 PM, john_q_atari said:

The patch seems printed also based on what I can see in the photo. Is it common for patches to be printed and not embroidered these days?

 

No, just cheaper.  I have better quality, "lame homebrew" patches.

 

On 4/16/2021 at 1:03 PM, livingonwheels said:

Yes, they appear to be printed signatures, not live ink.

 

Thanks.

[MrTrust]

On 4/16/2021 at 4:33 PM, john_q_atari said:

The patch seems printed also based on what I can see in the photo. Is it common for patches to be printed and not embroidered these days?

 

It is.  Cost is not necesssarily the decisive factor here.

 

That merrow stitched edge on the patch?  You actually can't do that with a normal commerical embroidery machine (though you can fake it somewhat convincingly).  You need a special machine for just that purpose.  So good luck finding a shop that will have the right equipment to do a totally custom piece, and that will also have a minimum order low enough for such a small run.

 

So, what you're usually getting is a prefabbed blank patch that the shop decorates after the fact. You can embroider those, but you couldn't get that gold color field without sewing onto the edge.  That is, unless the shop stocks a bunch of blank patches in colors other than white which, generally, they don't.

 

Even if those other things weren't an issue, I would still recommend against embroidering that artwork.  When you have really fine lines, tiny text, and very small detail in an image to be embroidered, you either have to modify it, or you just approximate the detail as best you can with walk stitches and hope the customer isn't fussy.  Sublimating or DTG printing the patch elimates that issue entirely.  Unless you're dealing with a real mom & pop shop, the person the customer is going to talk to first is going to be a sales rep, not the guy doing the actual production.  So, they're going to be inclined to influence the customer toward the WYSIWYG decorations, whether that's a laser-etched leather patch, or a woven one, or injection molded, or in the case of a really colorful logo with a small run like this, a printed patch.

 

TL;DR: The printed patch is not necessarily cheaping out, and is likely preferable to the alternative given the particular image they're using here.

[john_q_atari]

Wow! Thank you for all the details and perspectives regarding patches. It's been a really long time (like more than 2 decades) since I got a patch for anything and back then whatever I got was definitely a much simpler design than this patch. In any case I posted my score, paid my money, and a patch should be heading my way shortly.

[TF14]

Hello - Has anyone tested Circus Convoy on an ATGames Atari Flashback? Lots of larger size games play on it but Circus Convey is 128k - I don't think I have ever tested a game that size. Thanks!

Edited April 23, 2021 by TF14

[mgas]

I tried it on a FB9 Gold. It didn't work for me but I tend to be computer challenged. I hope someone gets it working. Its my go-to platform for Atari 2600 games.

[Lord Innit]

My PAL standard edition arrived today. Will have a go on it tonight.

[Keatah]

Love all the attention to detail. And the color palette, like many VCS games, is quite the thing. The clarity and contrast hit the spot. Many subtle things were done here, like the black outlines in some areas. OR simplky the choice of adjacent colors. It certainly doesn't look like a million-dollar production full of pre-made sounds & graphics! It's got the old-school Activision look we were all used to back in the day.

 

 

[KaeruYojimbo]

Just got these in the mail.

[CPUWIZ]

Totally forgot, was going to post some "non-professional" patches. 

 

One of them I got for outstanding support for the 7800 community, I am sure there are thousands of these, right?

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

9 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

Totally forgot, was going to post some "non-professional" patches. 

 

One of them I got for outstanding support for the 7800 community, I am sure there are thousands of these, right?

 

GIMME THAT ASTERIX

[Shawn]

Full embroidery with a merrowed edge is not expensive even in low quantity. You can get 250 fully embordered with a merrowed edge for around $100 USD shipped. Printing on blanks like they did is 100 percent cheaping out. Merrowed edges are not special and there are tons of people and places that do so on the cheap. What they did is nice but also the much cheaper and easier way to go about patches. The Convoy Club ones could even be made with yellow backed blanks but I'm sure those are made like that. I just wanted to mention the merrowed blanks cause the edge is not a big deal. It might have been 30 or 40 years ago but not now. You are talking pennies more per unit at the most. Home machines might not be able to edge like that but any commercial machine can.

[root42]

On 4/2/2021 at 2:00 AM, Fierodoug5 said:

I have odd problem that only happens on my 2600 jr. When I hit a rabbit, the QR code for the guide come up on its own, and I have to hit select to get back to gameplay. 

Same problem here, PAL 2600 Jr.

[alex_79]

For those who also own the digital download, does the glitch happen in Stella with the developer options on? (In particular, with "Drive unused TIA pins randomly on a read/peek")

 

 

[Dionoid]

Yes, the "Rabbit of Death" glitch is 100% reproducible by checking the "Drive unused TIA pins randomly on a read/peek" box.

I think this indicates a bug where a memory address is read instead of an immediate value?

 

My guess is that the PAL game testers for Circus Convoy didn't use the Developer mode in Stella, and probably also didn't do thorough testing on an actual console, causing the PAL color-loss bug in the Duck Shoot sideshow to be unnoticed.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dionoid

[alex_79]

33 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

I think this indicates a bug where a memory address is read instead of an immediate value?

Yes, it's reading a TIA register instead of the immediate value, but the TIA only drives 2 bits, and the value of the other 6 is undetermined.

Many old games have this kind of bug and will glitch in Stella in developer mode, but only very rarely on real hardware. Apparently eproms are more likely to affect the undriven bits than the mask roms used in original games, so in this case the bug shows up more frequently also on real hardware.

 

It is a bug in the game anyway, not an issue with the consoles themselves.

Edited May 22, 2021 by alex_79

[+Stephen]

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Yes, the "Rabbit of Death" glitch is 100% reproducible by checking the "Drive unused TIA pins randomly on a read/peek" box.

I think this indicates a bug where a memory address is read instead of an immediate value?

 

My guess is that the PAL game testers for Circus Convoy didn't use the Developer mode in Stella, and probably also didn't do thorough testing on an actual console, causing the PAL color-loss bug in the Duck Shoot sideshow to be unnoticed.

Sounds like the mistakes some amateur homebrew clowns would make, not some big badass studio

[Andrew Davie]

14 hours ago, Dionoid said:

My guess is that the PAL game testers for Circus Convoy didn't use the Developer mode in Stella, and probably also didn't do thorough testing on an actual console, causing the PAL color-loss bug in the Duck Shoot sideshow to be unnoticed.

I'd be wary of blaming playtesters for bugs in a game. Often they do this work for a pittance, and purely out of a love for gaming. Bugs are a developers' responsibility, and they will almost for sure get through most testing processes. It's a shame that these bugs (two I know of) have made it through to production. The real issue here is how Audacity responds. I know that a severe bug in one of my programs led to me doing a recall, which was a bit of a personal disaster, actually.

 

Edit: I'm not suggesting/implying there should be a recall. My point being, a bug screws everyone. Developers don't want to release games with bugs. Consumers don't want to play games with bugs. Playtesters don't want to feel responsible for bugs.

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Andrew Davie

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, Andrew Davie said:

The real issue here is how Audacity responds.

Just like some major companies do too. Fits!  

[CPUWIZ]

And that is why downloadable patches exist.

[Dionoid]

5 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

20 hours ago, Dionoid said:

My guess is that the PAL game testers for Circus Convoy didn't use the Developer mode in Stella, and probably also didn't do thorough testing on an actual console, causing the PAL color-loss bug in the Duck Shoot sideshow to be unnoticed.

I'd be wary of blaming playtesters for bugs in a game. Often they do this work for a pittance, and purely out of a love for gaming. Bugs are a developers' responsibility, and they will almost for sure get through most testing processes. It's a shame that these bugs (two I know of) have made it through to production. The real issue here is how Audacity responds. I know that a severe bug in one of my programs led to me doing a recall, which was a bit of a personal disaster, actually.

 

Edit: I'm not suggesting/implying there should be a recall. My point being, a bug screws everyone. Developers don't want to release games with bugs. Consumers don't want to play games with bugs. Playtesters don't want to feel responsible for bugs.

I fully agree that bugs are a developer's responsibility, so in hindsight I should have referred to "game testing" instead of "game testers".

Anyway, it was more of an observation, really. Even for an obvious bug like the PAL color-loss in one of the sideshows, I realize that this was the result of a late code change, probably bypassing the normal regression testing.

 

I'm still a bit frustrated by the lack of empathy in Audacity's (indirect) response to my bug report, which came across like "sorry, but for most other people this isn't a problem at all":

Quote

Thank you to those who reported the issue, and the speculation is correct. Even with 2000 hours of Beta Testing, we missed a frame rate anomaly on the Duck Shoot game.  (In our testers' defense, it has an insignificant effect on NTSC and only really shows up on PAL.  And even then only on real hardware - the color effect does not show up on emulation.)

...

As I have bought the PAL cartridge edition, I don't care if the bug has no effect on NTSC or on emulation; that doesn't fix the problem for me. In this case, letting the developer handle customer service probably wasn't a good idea 🙂

 

And what to think about the words "In our testers' defense, ..." ??  I'm not sure we all agree that bugs are the developer's responsibility 😉

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Dionoid

[toiletunes]

15 hours ago, Stephen said:

Sounds like the mistakes some amateur homebrew clowns would make, not some big badass studio

Someone should have instructed them to make their game bug free, simple as that.

[+Nathan Strum]

1 hour ago, Dionoid said:

And what to think about the words "In our testers' defense, ..." ??  I'm not sure we all agree that bugs are the developer's responsibility 😉

Maybe the testers they're referring to are the developers.  

[+Nathan Strum]

21 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Yes, the "Rabbit of Death" glitch is 100% reproducible by checking the "Drive unused TIA pins randomly on a read/peek" box.

I think this indicates a bug where a memory address is read instead of an immediate value?

 

My guess is that the PAL game testers for Circus Convoy didn't use the Developer mode in Stella, and probably also didn't do thorough testing on an actual console, causing the PAL color-loss bug in the Duck Shoot sideshow to be unnoticed.

Well, thank heavens they don't consider themselves Homebrewers then! I don't think we could afford that sort of damage to our reputation.

 

 

 

(Mostly kidding.)

 

(Seriously. I love Laser Blast.)

 

(And Space Jockey.)

[AtariBrian]

5 minutes ago, Nathan Strum said:

Well, thank heavens they don't consider themselves Homebrewers then! I don't think we could afford that sort of damage to our reputation.

 

 

 

(Mostly kidding.)

 

(Seriously. I love Laser Blast.)

 

(And Space Jockey.)

Considering my box has come unglued and my cart label has a bunch of big bumps under it, I wouldn't expect that from a "company". I would have to say I would rather it be a "homebrew" from the AA store as far as quality and I am not kidding 😁