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Banned Again
This seems to be the end result when calling people out.
Is it vulgar language.
NOPEIs it personal insults.
NOPE
Call people out for the truth and you get banned.
This was the case for the ColEM area and now the Collectorvison PhoenixNext it will be the Opcode Area.
You people are a bunch of entitled, Millennial assholes that can't handle the truth.
It doesn't matter the contributions, the help or any other things I do around here but as long as you aren't triggered.
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Most of what I experienced of the pre-Disney Star Wars EU was via 2003 Clone Wars, Pandemic Battlefront games, and Lucasarts TFU. Honestly, I was at first mildly-moderately shocked when Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy allowed for the EU wipe to happen. True, there were stupid and nonsensical things here and there in the old EU for sure; you could find stuff of that quality in the pre-2005 Star trek books as well. That doesn't cancel out any of the good parts, such as the Thrawn Trilogy, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Republic Commando, 2003 Clone Wars animated series, the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion and Jango Fett Dark Horse comics, Droids Cartoon, Shadows of the Empire, New Jedi order book series, and Fate of the Jedi novels.
>INB4 THE EU WAS NEVER CANON!
WRONG!
The Star Wars continuity originally had several layers of canon/continuity. Before the time of the EU wipe in April of 2014, it went like this:
G- Absolutely, positively canon. All of the films in the saga are in this category.
T- Also canon, but not exactly as crucial as material in G level. Occupied primarily by 2008 CGI Clone Wars TV Show and the animated movie that directly preceded it. (This level is one of the few gripes I have with the old canon, as TCW is explicitly set in-between Episodes II and III, plus Lucas had quite more involvement in it than the 2003 series, mainly as the executive producer. Plus, the show was made in-house by Lucasfilm animation!)
C- Canon as well, but can be overridden by material of higher-level. The bulk of the EU was in this category. Stuff in this category included the Jedi Academy novels, Lando Carlissian novel trilogy, Han Solo Origins and Han Solo Adventures books, most of the Dark Horse comics, Heir to the Empire novels aka "Thrawn trilogy", New Jedi Order novels, Fate of the Jedi novels, 1980s Droids cartoon, Ewoks cartoon, Kenobi novel, many of the SW video games by Lucasarts such as Shadows of the Empire, Dark Forces 1 and 2, both KOTOR games, Republic Commando, and the Pandemic Battlefront games, and the Darth Plageuis novel.
S- Secondary continuity. Material in this category is mostly stuff that has been overridden, but not so much that its entirely out of the window canon-wise, and thus could be seen as an alternate universe. Included most of the old 1970s-1980s Marvel comic books, Traviss Mandalorian novels, the "life day" part of the Holiday special, Galaxy of fear books, The Force Unleashed 1&2, Death Troopers book, and the Crystal Star novel.
D- Detours level. An even lower form of canon than S. Reserved mostly for parodic works, such as Detours(A CGI show that had one season made but never officially released due to the Disney buyout), and maybe also the Robot Chicken sketches.
N- Non-canon. Stuff in here is at best a "what-if" kind of story. stuff in this level included the majority of the Holiday Special, the 2003 2D animated Clone Wars mini-series after the coming of 2008 CGI Clone Wars TV show, some comics such as the Skippy the Droid comic mini-series and another comic where a cyborg Darth Maul gets into a fight with post-Phantom Menace Obi Wan Kenobi, and some novels.
I am not one of the folks who believes that Star Wars cannot survive for long without George Lucas. The sequel trilogy that Disney is giving us would have been better had the post-IP sale Lucasfilm Story Group at most only slightly tweaked the canon policy, not wiped out every single non-film SW media that wasn't the 2008 TCW or the Son of Dathomir comic(the latter of which was kept likely because it directly tied in to TCW show).
*sigh*
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I thought I was done with the ColecoVision, and had actually worked on a few Atari 7800 captures when I remembered I hadn't done any of the ColecoVision's unreleased prototypes. So, I quickly knocked out screencaps of Mattel's Burger Time and Bump 'n' Jump, and AtariSoft's Dig Dug and Pac-Man, and then collected the audio files onto a USB thumb drive to clean them up.
That was about six months ago. I can be slow sometimes.
I finally have those audio clips prepped and uploaded, so the ColecoVision captures done! Now it's time for the (rest of the) Atari 7800 catalog!
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Roblox
Roblox is a very cool game where you can play millions and millions of minigames made by other users. If you want to friend me, my username is BrownCanoe46. You can edit your avatar to look really cool. Roblox Studio is what Pc-mac users get after playing their first game. Roblox studio is what people use to make their games.
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Cartridge of the week....
No, there isn't such thing as "Cartridge of the Week Club" but there almost should be.
When I bought my light-sixer a couple months ago, I decided that I would just collect the cartridges that I really wanted: Pac-Man, Breakout, Missile Command, Berzerk, Asteroids, and Adventure. That was it.
But then, eBay lots came into play. I bought my first lot just because it was cheaper to get Adventure with a few throw-ins than it was to buy Adventure by itself. But now that I have a few other games that I didn't want, I may as well just get a few more that I liked when I was a kid that are part of another eBay lot.
So, again, I went into my new hobby of collecting VCS games just wanting a few and ended up with 67... several of which are duplicates. Now, I love Pac-man enough to have him and friends tattooed on my arm, but I now have three working Pac-man carts.
I also don't have much space to store anymore.
That hasn't stopped me from venturing on eBay, filtering for games under $9.99 with free shipping and finding a few games that are on my expanded "must-have" list. They have literally been showing up every week now, much like a "Cartridge of the Week Club."
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Latest Entry
The Curious Case of "Fire! by Palmex" for Atari 2600
An Atari 2600 game called Fire! that supposedly involved setting fire to things first appeared on some of the original collectors lists of unreleased Atari games that began circulating on the net in the late 1990s and early 2000s including this one. I often wondered about this game myself, as it also appeared in the Rumor Mill section of the Digital Press Guide...
https://www.digitpress.com/video-game-guide/?mode=GameInfo&gameid=24691
No one seemed to know much about the game. I remember contacting Joe Santulli of Digital Press years ago and asking him about it but he had no idea either. I never really believed that the game existed in the first place but I was intrigued and curious enough to want to know how the rumors surrounding this game started. I started digging into this mystery a bit recently after noticing that someone had posted about it here on the forums.
By searching newspapers from 1982-84, I was able to find that the likely original source for the rumored existence of such a game is a snippet from a January 1984 article about collectible and controversial video games that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times (and likely other newspapers as well)...
"Fire! likewise generated protests because the "hero" here had to enter a building, set it afire with kerosene, and then escape before the blazing building collapsed. The game from Palmtex was short-lived."
https://www.newspapers.com/image/320819914/
However, I believe no such game ever existed and the writer of that article was either confused or simply misinformed. The only game resembling this description is a 1982 game released for the Apple II by Muse Software called Firebug that did involve starting fires and likely did generate controversy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebug_(video_game)
Palmtex was a manufacturer of electronic games that was the original distributor of the Nintendo Game & Watch series of handhelds (including Fire) in North America. The writer of that 1984 article was probably thinking of the game Firebug by Muse but mistakenly identified it as Fire by Palmtex. The rumored Atari game is thus the result of a case of mistaken identity involving memories from two unrelated games being combined into one. Needless to say, collectors can strike this one from the rumor mill.
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Computer History BEFORE Microprocessors
I have become interested lately in the history of computers before the mid 70s when I first got into them. Maybe it's because I sort of exhausted my curiosity about computers during the 70s and 80s and always thought of anything earlier as the dark ages and not worth spending any time learning. But this hit a fever pitch lately with the project I picked up on via Youtube to restore an Apollo guidance computer. That actual AGC then went on tour and I got to see it in action at the MIT Museum about a month ago. As much respect as I have for the original Atari programmers who had to code for the 2600, the AGC is next-level in what they had to do compared to what they had available in tooling.
I now have this completely impractical and pointless (and probably impossible) desire to learn how to build my own CPU out of TTL logic, similar to what Larry Rosenthal did with Vectorbeam. I still feel like there's some unfinished business in my life for having never truly learning the ins and outs of assembly language, let alone electrical engineering. But there comes a time when you get too old to put in Malcolm Gladwell's 10K hours anymore.
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YouTube vid Gradius III first level...
I've been messing around with using OBS and emulators on my laptop to capture video and stream on Twitch (Controlissues is Twitch name). Here's a video I made of me playing the first level of Gradius III for the SNES. Played via RetroArch, using a PS2 controller connected via a PS2 to USB adapter to my laptop. Recorded through OBS and made into a YouTube video. I haven't messed with this kind of stuff a lot, but I may be doing more of the same kind of thing in the future.
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Getting close (Robotron 2084)
Okay, Here's a pic showing the t-molding, side art, coin door and control panel installed. I've also started wiring up the cabinet.
I still have to finish the marquee, install the Pi-zero, program the controls, and test. Then once that's finished, it's time to connect Robotron to Bosconian. That will be my next post. I plan on doing a video walk around of the whole project at that point. All most done with this segment of the project.
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More Magazine Ads (and a little update)
Managed to dig up some more ads from Mega Machine Sega. I merged the first two ads together. (The second one had an advertisment between the pages.) They also seemed to have made art for the cartoon pilot, which is cool...
Speaking about the pilot, I've decided to upload the photos to a gallery. Trying to put them in seperate blog posts just feels dumb. ?
And lastly, I might be uploading more art on here soon. I ordered a digital pen from Ebay, and it'll arrive in a few days. I'm longing to start making some digital art.
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awesome weekend and my 5200 and collecting thoughts
I just spent the weekend fixing my 5200. I fixed the color on my 5200, re-calibrated the controllers and replaced the flex boards. lot a work but well worth it. My 5200 works better now than ever. I think it needs some more tweeking but now it works. Over all great system. I also found pacman defender super break out and Kangaroo MIB for $20. I now have 10 5200 games.
I also repaired my 2600 joystick and added a few more games. I now have 105 2600 games. nowhere near a complete set but will never own that too many one of games and such. My collection is going well. 60 in box games but not going for all in box just when I can get a great deal. I think I am like most collectors I want the games not something just to sit on the self.
One thing that I hate is MIB people IMO why have a game in an unopened box. Games are meant to play and enjoy not just look at. I also feel a collection is what you say it is. No one has the right to say your not a real collector or a true collector has this or that. I have never bragged what I have though if I get a treasure I wanted or really like I will show it to people. Mainly because it excites me not so I can say I have this and you do not.
Thats my thoughts anyone else have theirs.
My pride and joy in my Atari 2600 collection is my first release 2600 Sunnydale heavy 6er. My mom belonged to this "club" where they sent you free stuff to try and keep and by some miracle we got a 2600. It has promotional use only not for retail sale. Its also carved into the bottom of the system. very deep so it cant be removed. LOL will never sell it but its still cool I had the original controllers but they were lost they were also stamped not for retail sale on the bottom. I remember it had bright orange almost red fire button.
My favorite game I have is the combat game it came with then I would say adventure and berserk. still play those games.
Anyone have a pride and joy of their collection? - 6
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1400504074/the-scientists-1-3-dangerous-ya-adventure-comic
If you like adventures like the Goonies, but with a sci-fi thriller edge, check out this comic!A group of young science prodigies are the lab rats in a deadly experiment.
Have they finally found the way out?
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My collection has increased!
Hello everyone, AtariAddenture here.
I'm finally back, and senior year is just a few days from ceasing and graduation is on Saturday. It has been awhile since I have been on here and I wanted to update you all on my personal collection! I'm up to 64 games excluding doubles of Haunted House (3), and Asteroids (2). I bought a few lots of of friends. I added some new titles to my lineup:
Video Pinball
Superman
Spider Fighter
Grand Prix
Freeway
Laser Blast
Boxing
Sky Jinks
Reactor
Name This Game
Demons To Diamonds
Night Driver
Football
Super Football
Jungle Hunt
E.T The Extraterrestrial
Towering Inferno
Yars Revenge (with Box)
Dodge 'Em (with Box and Manual)
Slot Racers (with Box and Manual)
Demon Attack
Star Voyager (with Box)
Cosmic Ark (with Box)
Atlantis (with Box)
Breakaway IV (Sears Breakout)
Target Fun (Sears Air-Sea Battle)
Race (Sears Indy 500)
I hope to increase the collection more in the future, mainly with Activision and arcade ports.
Happy gaming!
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simon.plata's Composite Mod
Links
Forum Topic
Notes- Composite output
- Two versions: Single and dual transistor
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Removes RF box
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Design only, not a premade kit
- Simon says the two transistor version is better
- PCB is designed, Eagle files are available (contact him on the forums!)
- Two transistor PCB design using SMD parts from /u/albrugsch on Reddit
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I remember seeing this some time ago. Nothing like a live action Filmation show complete with all the sound effects and music you would hear in He-Man.
So they introduce the mini-robot, W1K1. Pronounced Wiki. That would make a great name for a helpful place to get information.
Man the voices in this are all the voices of He-Man.. whoa.
Wow, Jason just rammed through a hatch like it was made of wood. That is one cheaply made hatch.
Ah James Doohan has the part in this as the Commander and Sid Haig plays the bad guy. YES.
. And the actor who plays Jason is charming enough too.
Apparently they have life support belts. Just rescued Doohan from space with no suit on so hopefully he had the belts as well, otherwise that would be one way to save money on the one person who is known in this show (aside from Sid Haig).
So the commander is resdued and Jason flies on to the enemy space craft, Dragos (I believe that is Sig Haig) welcomes him over the comm system while the large ship envelops his smaller ship.
Show's got cheesy charm. And lots and lots of the typical Filmation effects, sounds, and music.
Oh and James Doohan, I think he was paid by the line. He gets to say like a line before he is abducted and when they find him he is unconscious for the duration. Way to rent fame from a Star Trek actor. Let's see, about 29 episodes and James Doohan was in about 16 of them. I didn't realize this show came out in 1978 (to 1981). Wow... this is real cheese for the era right after Star Wars and around Battlestar Galactica. Wonder if this gets better?
Anyway, for Doohan around 1978 he was probably a little more affordable than after the Star Trek movies started back. Looks like Star Trek the Motion picture hit and Doohan was like "Alright, this has been fun playing make believe with you kids, back to the big time."
1978 was a magical time through wasn't it? Star Wars, this show, Battlestar Galactica, Atari, Intellivision. Watch a bit more of this and see if anyone has made a Jason of Star Command game hack.
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Indie Game Announcement and Fundraiser
MEMOIRS OF A NOVELTY ACCOUNT
VOL. III, ISSUE III
When a coworker approached me about two and a half months ago asking if I would compose the music for his video game, I was skeptical. After all, I had never seen a serious development project. Upon looking into it, however, I discovered that his ideas are full of potential and his drive to get things done is exceptional. In other words, I fully believe in his project, and am helping to the best of my ability.
Since I am (or was, sorry...) active in the AtariAge community, I thought that an announcement here might help the game gather some traction. I know you all appreciate the essentials of good game design, and some of you are even programmers yourselves. I can attest that my coworker is a competent programmer and a lot of work has already been done on the project, technical and otherwise.
Although the scandal involving the Ataribox crowdfunding campaign had soured me to the idea somewhat, I believe this is an entirely different situation. We already have material -- whether we're going to reveal it, though, is up to the community and the amount of support we receive. I hold a deep respect for the moderators and users of AtariAge, and I trust that this can be a success for all of us.
I am posting a link to the GoFundMe page for our game, "They Keep Coming". Please visit and consider making a donation, and also feel free to comment and ask questions. I will be sure to provide updates on this blog when it is pertinent.
Thank you.
https://www.gofundme.com/They-keep-coming- Read more...
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Magical Fairy Force
Been a while since I posted here. I've been suffering a bit of a creative block lately, but I've been forcing myself to keep moving forward on this project.
I've got some really cool things going on now and some of the gameplay details are starting to become clear. Here's a current screenshot:
A few things going on here. First, the orange diamond looking things are obstacles that move toward the player. I achieved this by getting vertical scrolling working on both playfields. Right now I'm calling these things "stars," but that's subject to change. The graphics are temporary, of course.
I'm still not exactly sure what the stars will do, but I have the ability to spawn them at different rates and control the scrolling of each player's "star field" at different speeds.
I've also added a health system. Those four red dots on each player's status area are health points. Collision with the wisp shots is currently implemented, and health is removed accordingly, although neither player can die at this point.
I also have a nifty hit-invincibility blink that happens when you get hit. I may need to tweak the rate on that a little, though.
Hopefully I can get this project moving a little quicker and have more updates and eventually a simple demo to post.- Read more...
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SKYCOPTER II prototype,arcade machine FOR SALE. a unique piece of ATARI history. This was built by CAROUSEL INTERNATIONAL in ELDON missouri. At the time they were going to use the popular ATARI JAGUAR platform. they had been producing helicopter type kiddie rides for years. so they put a JAGUAR console in a machine.
They did a pretty good job,however it never made production. At the liquidation auction in eldon mo in 2007 I bought the prototype,only ONE.
It is an interesting piece of machinery. It was built to use the SKYCOPTER II cartridge that they created.
It works pretty well for a prototype,It would be better with a SKYCOPTER II cartridge, I DO NOT HAVE!! It has a standard ATARI controller so it can play any ATARI game.
It also has a four axis JOYSTICK, with FIRE button. ( to shoot that jet in game down)Ha. The controllers only work the game, the helicopter rocks forward and back.
It is not perfect but the Only One! The machine is located 12 miles south of ELDON MO. Where it was made. Contact me with questions? BILL
$295.00 It has two speakers,sounds terrific!- Read more...
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Master System Minimalist Box Art - Part 5
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JHL is back !
What's new ?
Nothing ... it's a hack of Brett Hull Hockey with 2019 rosters
Changing some graphs too
2 questions now ...
- Do you know the player on the Title screen for JHL 20 ? ( Stamkos on JHL 15 , Giroux for JHL 13 )
Poll to vote for this on May ... ( waiting the end of the season ... )
- Which Teams will have the 2 empty spots of Québec and Hartford ?
Carolina and Colorado to respect history ? Columbus and Carolina to respect Conference ? your favorite one
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Lots of things...
Well it's been a pretty productive week - been busy working on quite a few projects over this period in the end. Things will slow down a bit now as I get back to work but we'll push on.
Tower of Rubble
Haven't done as much as I thought I would have but a very special thanks to @cimmerian for not only featuring Tower of Rubble on the his ZeroPage Homebrew show but also for helping me debug a frame overrun issue when starting the game on hardware (still waiting for my Harmony cart). The code for initialisation and beam processing is now nicely spread across many frames (although I did just see a beam one still exists somewhere
).
Read more: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/287107-tower-of-rubble-wip/
VS Code extension for batari Basic
Was having a few issues with Visual bB whilst editing (the source is getting quite big) which were really starting to annoy me so I thought why not! Lets start another thing. So I've created an extension of batari Basic which gives me syntax highlighting, compilation and optional launching of Stella! Also just added a dasm option which does the same so you can compile assembly directly also. Still doing some testing as a I go - finding the odd issue or compilation error I haven't catered for but working nicely. Hope to release soon for the community.
Read more: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/287262-visual-studio-code-extension-for-batari-basic/
TIATracker module for batari Basic
So why not just work on 2 things when you can add a 3rd! I saw @Muddyfunster posted on the forum about whether a music sequencer called TIATracker worked for batari Basic. As music a foreign area for me I was intrigued (I need some for Tower of Rubble). After having a play (still learning batari and the joy of assembly) I finally stumbled over a way to incorporate this into batari Basic (mostly automated but some manual editing required). Must say I was pretty happy with myself when I first heard the tune playing. My daughter didn't understand my joy when she came into the office though!
Read more: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/287435-tiatracker-module-for-batari-basic/ and about the TIATracker here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/250014-tiatracker-a-new-sound-routine-and-sequencer-application- Read more...
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Latest Entry
Maze Generation in Dragon's Descent
Dragon's Descent Level Generation
The latest build is here:DragonsDescent_2019_8_15_2019.bin
A recent build is here:
DragonsDescent_3_19_2019_Beta7.bin
A fairly recent build is here:
DragonsDescent_3_5_2019_Beta6.bin
An older build of the game is here:
DragonsDescent_1_10_2019_Beta5.bin
...an an even older version here:
DragonsDescent_12_16_2018_Beta4.bin
When I posted my Atari 2600 game "Dragon's Descent," I said, among other things, that it was an experiment in maze generation for the Atari. I'm fascinated with algorithmically generating virtual spaces, from VR to arcade games. When given only a few kilobytes to work with, using procedural systems almost becomes a necessity. I wanted to see if I could make a "desert island" game that someone could play multiple times while still getting a sense of novelty - one of my favorite parts of a good Roguelike.
I learned to program for the Atari 2600 using batari Basic, which has proven very handy and fun. I'm using the 16k SuperChip template - this gives me four banks to work with, a little more resolution, and extra RAM, but still keeps things relatively simple. High end games in the early 80s could use this setup.
One caveat - Some of this comes from my imperfect understanding of how rand works in batari basic. In practice it seems that using the 16-bit random generator means you can set each byte of the "seed" independently, either by setting rand = <value> or z = <value>. It seems to work pretty well for me, but there's still a lot I can learn...
(click to enlarge)
Each level generated in Dragon's Descent comes from a specific random seed based on the 16 bit random function used by batari Basic. Using the same seed will produce the same maze. Since the random seed uses two bytes, I can vary each byte, and in this case I usually pick one as a "world" byte and the other as the "level" byte, adding 1 to the "level" byte to create a new, but replicatable maze level. I even allow the player to select the seed they want using the "Select" switch, acting as a de-facto level select mode.
The random seed primarily drives where the actual rooms exist within an 8x8 grid (7x8 after a fix, a silly story I might get to later). I allocated 8 bytes in RAM, and used their bit values to indicate if a room exists (1) or not (0). Using the array function I could see what each row maze rooms looked like. Going into this, I thought that getting the bit value would be relatively easy, but alas Batari Basic cannot use a variable when checking a specific bit of a variable (variable{2} is fine but variable{x} is not). The other way to check a given bit in a byte is to bit shift, but that required a bit of assembly. My clumsy implementation produced a bug I only found much later, but the system seems to work.
As for the generation of rooms within the maze, the algorithm is pretty simple. Each maze has several rooms, but specifically includes a Starting Room, an Exit Room, a Key Room, and a Treasure Room. Each of these rooms is placed in a separate quadrant of the 8x8 maze, although which room gets which quadrant is randomly determined. Separating the rooms like this guarantees that they won't be placed on top of one another (bad) and -usually- spreads them out to make a more interesting maze. If I just did this, though, there wouldn't really be any dead ends, and the odds are high of each room being very close to each other (there's a chance they'll all be next to each other, and a 4 room maze is not really a maze). To help add potential loops and dead ends I also add in 2 "spare" rooms placed randomly but each on specific areas of the maze, roughly corresponding to opposite corners of the maze, away from the center, to make sure the maze is properly spread out, and entertain the possibility of a dead end or two.
To connect a room I check to see where the rooms are in relation to each other - I then create a horizontal corridor until a passage of rooms is vertically aligned with the target room, and them vertically connect them. In a larger maze array this would show up as a fairly obvious set of "L" shaped passages, and sill kind of does, but an 8x8 array is small enough that the resulting patterns aren't too obviously L shaped. As the passages criss-cross you get loops, dead ends, and large internal spaces, creating new rooms as I make my way towards a special room.
I don't connect all rooms to each other - that would pretty much fill the 8x8 array and always leave a fairly open maze. Certain rooms will always connect with certain other rooms, which in sum total means you can eventually get anywhere you need to. The start room always connects to a spare room, while that same spare room always connects to the exit. This increases the probability of more interesting maze - while a straight shot to the exit (or just having it next door) can still happen, you generally have to turn a few corners, even before you try to find the key.
The 8x8 bit array just stores if there is a room or not. I also store the location of each of the 4 special rooms in their own byte, being a value between 0 and 63, accounting for the 64 possible rooms in the 8x8 grid. At any given point I might need to convert this 1D array value to a semi-2D bit/byte location, which results in some clumsy code on my part.
What I outlined above accounts for the maze room placement, but not the actual contents of the room- this involves another system. Each of the special rooms has their own playfield data, and I have around 10 different room designs defined as playfields for non-special rooms. In order to determine what kind of room will be in a given place on the 8x8 array, I have an array of 64 random "noise" values stored in ROM. A simpler maze setup would just equate one value to one type of room, so the array bit at (2,3) would always have room 7, for instance. Instead, I also take into account what level the player is currently on (0-7), and add a further lookup table of rooms for each level. While mixing things up a little more, this also allows more difficult or wall-heavy rooms to have a higher chance of appearing the deeper you go.
What I've outlined here is the "pseudo-code" for generating the mazes - implementing this all in batari Basic was interesting, and required a few tricks. Explaining everything would take a while, but I'll say here that key components involved referring to 8 adjacent variables in RAM as array data, and bit-shifting/ORing binary values in order to actually set the room values.
According to my calculations, there are potentially 255x255x(8 variants dependent on level depth) = 520,200 different mazes. A lot of this depends on the quirks of the random generation system, and I'm certain there are repeats, but I did a few experiments in outputting a few dozen mazes and found a pretty good variation - below are a few maze shapes that have been produced (I ended up outputting the data to the player sprite and making screenshots to make these):
And here's level 001-001:
I might go into further detail on how the code actually works in a later post, but I wanted to get some of this knowledge posted, and show how some of the game works "under the hood." -
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Board Game Development 5 Sometimes You Gotta Commit
Ok, so after much hemming and even more hawing (it wasn't pretty), I think I'm going to build this game primarily as a solitaire game with multiplayer options. It was conceived as a solitaire board game way back in the day and I think that is where it's the strongest. That takes a lot of the pressure off making sure that the game is fun for 2+. I think if I focus on making the game for 1 it will be an overall better game. THEN I can figure out the best ways to translate that experience to multiple players and make it even better.
I'm also committing to making the game a set, fully developed, "open and play" experience and allowing the "open source" nature to be a secondary bonus feature for the advanced gamer. I think this makes the game more instantly accessible, but doesn't diminish the fact that this is still a "build your own adventure" game for those that would enjoy such an experience.
I've also started locking down some of the elements that will be in the base game. I am calling these elements the Core elements. I've narrowed down my character set to 30 characters. 10 Heroes and 20 Villains. I think that should be a fair mix. Plus whatever heroes do not comprise your party get shuffled into the villain deck for use as enemy characters, so that will make about 25 total villains per game. In the play testing I have done thus far that provides a decent mix of characters without seeing the same faces over and over in a given game and without asking the customer to break the bank buying a box full of miniatures. I'm committing to a final group of treasure/items characters can find in the game. That should put a cap on all of the massively expansive ideas I've been spilling out onto the page and give me something finite to work with.
I'm in Scenario building mode right now. I want to get a set of 3 scenarios just to test the overall game mechanic and make sure it works. I have completed what is basically a tutorial scenario that will give the Player a chance to familiarize themselves with the basics of the game. The other two scenarios will be more indicative of what the full blown game has to offer. I plan on play testing all three of these a couple dozen times myself and then pass it off to a close associate who will basically try to break the game to make sure there are not obvious cracks in the mechanic. Once she is done destroying my game, I will go back to the drawing board and troubleshoot.
Meanwhile, I am ready to move to the design stage. I have someone who is willing to do the prototype designs, but she's not sure she will be able to do the final art for the finished product, so I guess I'll be shopping someone who loves to draw/paint and who would love to donate hundreds of hours of work up front for a meager shot at profit on the back end if this thing goes to market. Translation, I'm gonna have to draw this thing myself and that's going to be a sad mess. But I guess we will see. I also need to get Bill working on some prototype miniatures that we can use for play testing. The good news is, I don't need new minis for this, we can use existing minis and Bill can paint them up so they look nice. Hell, I can do it with wooden pegs if I need to. But I will need something I can hand to people and say, "this is an Ogre, use this for the Ogre character."
So things are moving along well. In some ways it kind of coming to a head, and it other ways a playable demo seems forever away. But I've waited 30 years, I can wait a few more if it means a really awesome game that people will want to play. We shall see.- Read more...
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My Random process for choosing a Super NT Console
Hi all!
This may end up being a boring read, but I thought I'd document my Super NT purchase in a Blog. Just a one off... Mainly because I'm going to pick the color at random.
First, I've wanted an Analogue Super NT since they were first announced. SNES in HD here I come!
For what it's worth (FWIW), when I could afford one, at first they were still in "Pre-Order" mode...Then they only had black. Then they appeared to be out of stock at one point when I had money so I bought a RetroN 77 instead, Which may have been a mistake...But That's another story.
Now the MEGA SG (A sort of HD SEGA Genesis FPGA Console) will be coming out and I HAVE To HAVE one of Those too!!! Damn you Analogue! But, the MEGA SG is in "Pre-Order" mode now and will be coming out in April 2019, so I have time to save for that separately and get this (SUPER NT) NOW.
Back when I was in college I bought a SNES in January of 1992 and then later bought a Sega Genesis, also in 1992, and that also marked the first time I bought a console that was Not the latest thing. I've Loved both ever since. I had an MGH (or Multi Game Hunter
) that worked for BOTH SNES and Genesis allowing me to put games on discs. I've also bought tons of games for each system. And now I have Everdrives too...Moving on.
I'm picking the color of the console AT RANDOM. I thought it would make an interesting purchase and I'd document it here. Even if just a couple of people read it or comment, I'll be happy. Otherwise it's just for me and that's cool too
They discontinued the transparent color (which I didn't want anyway) so there's 3 color choices: BLACK, CLASSIC, and SFC (SUPER FAMICOM).
So initially I wanted CLASSIC....Purple and gray, Just like my SNES. FWIW, I still have my SNES from '92 plus a couple more in case one breaks (Perish the thought!)...
Then when all they had available was BLACK, I set my sights on it...
Now, with all color choices available to order I've given new thought to SFC because nobody really thinks about it and they'll likely be more rare, I assume. Not that I'm not really worried about rarity or anything. If I were to guess, I'd think Black was the most common since it seemed the most widely available, but that could also imply they sold out of the Classic color scheme quickly because of its popularity...So perhaps Black and Classic are the most common while SFC would be less popular here I'd predict, but bigger in Japan (as everyone matches their nostalgia with a color scheme haha)...The Transparent (See-Through) one, Now discontinued would be the rare one for collectors, but it was easily my least favorite anyway.
And matching wireless controllers are available from 8BITDO for any color choice.
So...Here's my thoughts currently:
CLASSIC Matches my SNES and I've always liked that color scheme.
BLACK Matches my soul and my PS2, plus my Retro Duo is black,... and my Vader 2600, my Black Dreamcast... Also might look neato parked next to my MEGA SG, once I get one of those (It will be mainly black).
SFC Matches some SFC controllers I have and might be spiffy to be the oddball who goes for this choice, since I predict this one will be bigger in Japan.
Below is a pic of the matching controllers, but from what I've read I assume (but don't know for certain) all of their controllers will work with the Super NT if you have the Retro Receiver...I think you can also use these on the SNES/NES Classic if you have the Classic Receiver (So I'll get a couple of those too)...
OK SO now to trust in the RANDOM ENERGY of the Universe!
(Skulls and Spidey are pretty Random ...Hmm so is Jango Fett...maybe next time)
I do this often, for example, rolling dice to see which CD Comp I will listen to....Including randomly picking which spool of CDs, which disc and which song...
I could just roll a die, but then the saga would end too quickly...
What I'm going to do is this: Collect points for each color choice based upon die rolls and then the winner will be the first Color to a certain amount of points.
I'll explain as I go...
First the Winner will need X Amount of points.
X will equal 3 dice rolled. I will Add them up.
(Rolling 3 standard 6 sided dice now)...
X = 2 + 1 + 4 = 7
The Winner needs 7 points!
OK Now for each die roll the following COLOR gets a point: (I'll list the colors alphabetically)
1 BLACK
2 CLASSIC
3 SFC
4 BLACK
5 CLASSIC
6 SFC
I'm making a Matrix below and will add one hashmark (Represented as "I") for each die roll until one color gets to 7 (For example, rolling a 2 would give CLASSIC a point. Does that make sense ? I hope so)
Here goes Nothing!
***At this point I roll the dice, and tally the points until one color reaches 7 points***
BLACK CLASSIC SFC
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
And after all is said and done CLASSIC is The WINNER!
There was a lot of back and forth that would not have been easy to put into a Blog (I didn't want to be too confusing), but before that final die roll, both Classic and SFC had 6 points...
I am now going to order a CLASSIC SUPER NT!!
And later on,... a Controller for the Super NT, A CollectorVision Phoenix, a MEGA SG ...And I should also keep saving to get out of debt haha...
Thanks for reading! -
Latest Entry
HSC Season 8 Week 1: Dragonfire
And so begins my first ever blog, and what better subject to start on than HSC Season 8!
For you not in the know, season 8 of the AtariAge HSC started today (Friday 5th October) and this will be my little corner of the web to document my journey through it.
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/283665-season-8-week-1-dragonfire/?p=4127906
My Mission for HSCS8 is thus:
1) To play in EVERY round – this is easyer said than done for two reasons, first, Im moving house in two weeks, and second, I only started collecting Atari again after a decaded long break so my cart collection is minimul to say the least. Yes, I can (and will) play some games on Stella, but im still waiting on my USB-CX40 interface and playing on a keyboard is shocking!
2) To play on original hardware for each round – Obviously if super rare games start cropping up this wont be an option, likewise, when it comes to homebrews, the logistics of buying the carts in time for the torniment will make it impossible. As someone coming back into the hobby after a long break with a very small collection I think this will give me some incentive and direction into building up my collection again. Can I source the games intime though!!!!! We will see!
3) To have fun – And that IS the name of the game, to enjoy a bit of friendly competition with like minded folk...I really cant wait to get started!
…...and I wont wait……
So….. Game No 1: Dragonfire by IMACIC
I do not own it….. tried playing on keyboard….. no hope!
Five Minuted on ebay came up with a few options but for the sake of a couple of pounds (Yes… Im from England) I have bought a boxed copy for £12….. heres hoping it arrives in time!
I’ll check in again soon, hopefully with a score!
*sigh*
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