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Planet Bob

A blog by Cybergoth in General

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About this blog

You can't call a planet "Bob", can't we just call it "Earth"? - No one said you have to live on Bob.

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Colony 7 Successor revealed!

Hi there!Thanks to everyone participating in or just following my previous blog entry which was entitled "The project after the project...", where I was narrowing down a large list of Arcade game choices to find a project to try next, once Colony 7 is out of the door :)So, without any further ado, here it comes:While at first glance it didn't look like a winner at all (in fact I hate sport games!) it just won me over with its charm. Marvellous and unique gameplay, beautiful graphics with lovely

Guest

January 21, 2006

6

Zoo Keeper 2600

Hi there!While researching this, I found two old mockups from moycon:The bologna sandwiches aside, I think this would be a pretty close approximation of what a 2600 version could look like.I'm just uncertain about the required amount of flicker in the first screen, especially on the top/bottom horizontals. Anyone have a clue what the maximum number of enemies in Zoo Keeper is? I assume with buffering the playfield and storing creature information, most RAM is already used up, so this would proba

Guest

January 15, 2006

3

The project after the project...

Hi there! Well, well... researching the next project is always fun and I can never get enough of "discovering" weird old arcade obscurities... So here's my project research list for the project after Colony 7. Beach Head is in there as a stopper, if I find nothing better within my list, I'll do that next (Putting G'n'G a little downwards the ToDo list... I don't think I'm ready for it... yet ) Beach Head Time Tunnel Water Ski Greetings, Manuel

Guest

January 9, 2006

47

Amiga MOD music

Hi there!Here I have something very special. Talking in superlatives, it's IMO "The best computer music ever made".What is it? It's 4 age old Amiga soundtracker tunes. I've searched for them a long time through the whole internet, as these where my favourite tunes on the Amiga. Actually they where one of the reasons I bought an Amiga back then.You can now listen to them, simply by installing this winamp plugin:http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=2266The four tunes are:dns.modThis one bl

Guest

January 5, 2006

2

2005 movies Top 7!

Hi there!Oh, how original, a Top 7! :)Why 7? Pretty easy. I just checked all movies I saw in 2005, considering which would qualify to get bought on DVD. Then I simply ranked all 7 :lol:Well, here ya go:1. Sin City2. Constantine3. Batman Begins4. Episode III5. Serenity6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith7. The IslandAs you can see, I'm a sucker for Comic based movies ;)Greetings,Manuel

Guest

January 1, 2006

13

Don't call the police...

Hi there!... if you don't hear much from me the next week.Today I spent some of that christmas money for "Fire Emblem - Sacred Stones" and, just as expected, I'm totally sucked into it... ;)Greetings,Manuel

Guest

December 28, 2005

6

Colony 7 - 2600 vs. Arcade

Hi there! I've spent a lot of time today playing Colony 7 on MAME, regarding a few aspects of the game: - Crosshair and enemy speeds I actually recorded an AVI of me playing the game, moving the crosshair around from top-left to right-bottom, I let the bummer do a full travel from left to right, and then I spent some more time single stepping through the AVI frame by frame and to my suprise, finally coming to the conclusion that the last binary I sent already is a very close match to

Guest

December 21, 2005

5

Homebrew of the year!

Hi there!Yup, here she comes. It's been a while since Bob requested some proof pics that it's the most beautiful baby in the world, but finally we got some:Greetings,Manuel

Guest

December 19, 2005

5

Colony 7 Defense System 50% operational!

Hi there! While I decided to have my Colony 7 holidays development burst mostly happening on [stella], here's now a version that's IMO justifying some progress report here as well. For one, since Chris asked *here* about a finale for the shooting sequence and because I first saw the masked draw technique I use for it *here* in Roberts Blog. (Thanks! ) Other than that, I did a few more things, like reinstalling the spawning code, and the usual code optimisations. Next things on my

Guest

December 18, 2005

7

World Cup 2006 Groups!

Hi there!Just watched the drawing of the Groups live on German TV and noted down everything:Group A:1. Germany2. Costa Rica3. Poland4. EcuadorGroup B:1. England2. Paraguay3. Trinidad & Tobago4. SwedenGroup C: 1. Argentina2. Cote D'Ivoire3. Serbia & Montenegro4. NetherlandsGroup D:1. Mexico2. Iran3. Angola4. PortugalGroup E:1. Italy2. Ghana3. USA4. Czech RepublicGroup F:1. Brazil2. Croatia3. Australia4. JapanGroup G:1. France2. Switzerland3. Korea Republic4. TogoGroup H:1. Spain2. Ukraine

Guest

December 9, 2005

3

DS vs. PSP: 4:1

Hi there!Wow, that was quick! Nintendo just won the race for the first "killer app rpg" with:Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time!Total no-brainer for me. Its GBA prequel easily makes it into the top 5 games I played the last 5 years! While rather short (except the end battle!) it certainly was the game with the highest laughs/minute ratio ever!Ok, just for the overall summary, scorers so far are:DS: Castlevania, Mario Kart, Advance Wars, Mario & Luigi PSP: Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stor

Guest

December 8, 2005

6

Colony 7 got sprites

Hi there! Uihjah... what a weekend... Against all odds I managed reclaiming my 4th rank in the Mini Compo with Crazy Balloon. Half a year ago I'd never thought it'd do that good, especially since it is pretty "unapproachable" due to its rather unique (un)control scheme Well, I guess maybe it got some extra oddball(oon) bonus because of not being yet another a Lightcycle or Tetris game Besides "watching" the compo and family visits I also found some minutes to finally add Nathans s

Guest

December 4, 2005

12

The Pong Clock!

Hi thereOh my god, can it get any cooler?The Pong Clock And here I thought the part about the "Church of Pong" in Interplays classic "Neuromancer" game was a joke... :lolblue:Greetings,Manuel

Guest

November 29, 2005

4

Return of the Nephilim!

Hi there!Today is the day! Today after 13 or 14 years the first new real Fields of the Nephilim album "Mourning Sun" will be released in Germany! This is the major headline news in each & every gothic mag available here:Needless to say I'm thrilled to the hilt!Where's my goth gear? Where's my hat? Time to roam the streets in black again! :lol:Best part of it: They'll not only return on CD, but also soon to the stage!(Nonrelated sidenote: I think I just read somewhere that Nitzer Ebb are also

Guest

November 28, 2005

2

Colony 7 particles under control!

Hi there! Yay! I somehow managed to find some time to work on this again! This update implements a large chunk of the particle code. There's still several small tweaks to be done sometime later, but all particles are now able to *perform* their main tasks: The game can handle 6 particles. 2 are reserved for the "Own Fire Trails" effect and the other 4 for enemy fire. Right now the Trails effect is pretty much completed, just press fire to see it. (Move the crosshair while firing

Guest

November 27, 2005

5

DS vs. PSP: 3:1

Hi there!Uihjah... long time no see of this feature... well, Nintendo and Sony are still very slow on releasing games striking my interest.Well, ok, as you might remember, I'm tracking here my little private handheld war, with the result helping me decide which of the two new portables I should buy (maybe I should say, "buy first", as I might get the other one as well - a year or two down the road...)Originally my deadline was Christmas, but since both handhelds don't have any RPGs available so

Guest

November 25, 2005

2

The two coolest things on earth meet 2!

Hi there! Wow! Remember last time I reported about this I asked you to: "Imagine that: Your favourite Band gets an appearance in your favourite comic!" Impossible to top you think? Now Imagine that: Your favourite Band writes a song about your favourite comic character! Yup, you guessed it! The Damneds new single "Little Miss Disaster" is all about Emily the Strange! It even got original Emily Strange artwork! On top of that, The Damed soon start their Little Miss Di

Guest

November 8, 2005

0

Minigame Mania

Hi there!Phew... now with the minigame contest being finished for 2005, the fun thing begins: Playing the games!While most were available for a long time already, I prefer to go through them in two big blocks (1K & 4K) at once, so I can all compare them against each other. Today was a day "off" in Germany, so I had enough time to go through all 1K mini game submissions.I rarely really like a 1K game. It seems too much of a compromise usually. No music, no fx, no scoring, no state display, no

Guest

November 1, 2005

21

Unfocused Summary...

Hi there!So the baby arrived here 14 days ago. Since then I found it somewhat impossible to focus on anything for longer than 10 minutes, so I didn't even seriously try 2600 programming during the last days. I sure hope things will calm down some time soon... :ponder:In case some was wondering at what unusual times I post messages lately... - yes, I don't sleep much anymore. In fact I'm slowly turning into a zombie... (What an interview question for Alien Sex Fiend: "Did you have a newborn baby

Guest

October 22, 2005

13

The Mission / Live!

Hi there!Ouch, that hurt! Real tragedy :sad:This was easily one of the three worst live gigs I've ever seen. So bad I actually left the building after 8 songs. (Right now I can remember only one single other gig where I left during the regular set out of pure disappointment : The Wipers )To me, the Mission were always the 2nd best live gothic rock show on the planet. (2nd only to Fields of the Nephilim that is!)They lost songwriting sometime after 1994, I think. Masque was their best album IMO.

Guest

October 11, 2005

2

Colony 7: Particle Storm

Hi there! Another small step is done, I'm just done smoothing out the particle code. The attached demo shows 6 particles at once on the screen. Note: Only 4 of them make it down to the bottom. 2 of them are reserved for the players shots, so there's no need to display 3 particles below the cannons. There's also occasionally a barely noticable tearing effect on particles on the left edge. But I think it's ok like it is. I'm currently thinking about a tradeoff, but I'm not sure if

Guest

October 10, 2005

1

Scramble 2600

Hi there!So I decided to analyze (i.e. reverse-engineer) Super Cobra first, to see what potential a Scramble port would have.In a first step, I distella'd as much as possible of the code and made it compile into a bit perfect NTSC binary.Next thing I need to do now is learning how Parkers b/s scheme works ;)Greetings,Manuel

Guest

October 9, 2005

3

No more Jitterbug on Colony 7!

Hi there! Phew... so my plan worked out. The display kernel code is now totally crazy. Top to bottom it's eating more than 1K of ROM space! That's the code for the scoredisplay, 8 different lines of kernel code for the main display, and 16 different lines of kernel code for the bottom display... Space is already getting somewhat tight, while the game isn't even doing that much right now and only a fraction of data is present... I think I'll just do a 4K snapshot for the 2006 Mini Ga

Guest

October 5, 2005

4

One Step forward - Two steps back

Hi there! Phew... so I hit yet another brickwall. Yesterday I discovered that a single scanline resolution object also requires a single scanline precission for its vertical motion. The problem is with slow moving objects. When an object is moving two scanlines at once every other frame, it's visible on the same position for 2 frames and then makes a 2 scanline jump. The human eye expects this object to move one scanline every frame tough. And so it interpolates an extra *merger* st

Guest

September 25, 2005

4

Frustration vs. Motivation

Hi there! Phew... so I'm on one of those "turning" points When I discovered the Colony 7 Arcade, I thought I had found one of those lost gems, that'd deserve more attention and that'd be worth considering for a 2600 port. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and finally after a bunch of several mockups I think I found a pretty good strategy for a real good conversion, very faithful to the Arcade. I spend a lot more work on it, mainly fleshing out all required display kernels. When I

Guest

September 20, 2005

17

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