TheMole

Yeah, the other cars were a quick addition I threw in and they aren't really polished yet. Now that I'm back from vacation, that's one of the things on my todo list I'm looking forward to tackling. I also don't know if the C64 let you move your men past each other when facing the same direction, something to figure out later today. Sorry for picking the wrong monitor, but it's what I had back in my day, so it's staying ;). (although I had the amber version, it's just that the TI doesn't have any good shades of amber to work with). Still planning to do the boxed release. Hopefully more news on that soon...

First, congrats to @Albert for being rewarded for his effortless work for our communities. Well deserved! Second, I'm really interested in knowing more about this (as a developer), if the entire idea is still being entertained?

Glad to hear that you find the driving to be better, but in all honesty, I haven't made any changes to that yet :). Perhaps you're starting to get used to it...? Yeah, I noticed some bugs while futzing about with it on the plane, I'm taking notes on all feedback I'm getting. I must have broken something in the vacuuming mechanic, the distance calculation is all off. As @SteveB pointed out, there's an important gameplay mechanic still missing, which can lead to massive earnings (and losses) in the second half of the game. Each ghost you catch can net you up to $900 depending on how quickly you get to the building. So, you should be able to win the game with about 15-20 successful catches. Thanks for the feedback, and glad to hear you enjoyed it so far!

Okay, this is going to be the last update for a while (probably a month or so), as I'm leaving tomorrow for what is shaping up to be a proper vacation without laptops and technology! I'd have hoped that I would've been able to finish the game before, but alas... still a few things on the todo list for me to tackle when I get back. New in this version: Account system is implement, and compatible with the old accounts from the original game (C64 and MSX only, Speccy and CPC had a slightly different algorithm). The shop is there now, as are all the items the game will support So far, the following items are properly implemented Traps Vacuum (although the car graphics do not yet reflect whether or not you've purchased the ghost vacuum) Image intensifier -> if you don't have this, the ghosts in the cathcing sequences will flicker in and out of existence, making it harder to catch them. Different cars, with different properties (speed and capacity) Boss battle is there, if you manage to finish the game with more money than you started with, you will get the opportunity to sneak past the Marshmallow man. Sneak past with two of your three men, and you win the game, fail and you lose. Two new songs, the classic theme song throughout the majority of the game. In the shop you'll get the "Main Theme" though. Still todo: Improved navigation on the map screen Karaoke-style intro Victory sequence: scrolling up the Zuul building, crossing the streams and defeating Gozer. This is just an animation though, so just some polish. Show account info after winning, so you can start with more money the next time you play. Marshmallow building destruction. Port keyboard code over to the Geneve, so no Geneve version this time around. Some other stuff... Have fun! Any and all feedback welcome, after I get back I'll work on the final version and release it officially! ghostbusters.rpk ghostbusters.bin

By "classic TI", do you mean published by Texas Instruments, or are officially released carts from back in the day that may or may not have been sanctioned by TI also part of the conversation here? If the latter: Some of the Atarisoft games: I would personally vote for Shamus, Jungle Hunt and Donkey Kong Computer War Besides those, I think Return to Pirate's Island Buck Rogers Treasure Island Eh, I'm just listing games that make the computer look good at first glance, I guess, so that those new to the system don't think it all looked like Tombstone city.

That's fair. I do disable fctn-= and most of the time don't run interrupts. I also do have headers in all banks that run code, banks 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as the last bank. The middel banks contain continuous data and I don't want to deal with the hassle of taking into account the header when copying that data to RAM or VRAM. I'm not sure if a physical reset switch is also considered a soft-reset (I would think not), but in most cases the cart should revert to bank0 at start-up just fine. If you happen to force a reset - somehow - mid "block copy", you might be out of luck though.

The at28c040 is available in an LCC package, which - as far as I understand - can be surfacemounted. I don't see anything in the datasheets that would indicate the LCC version is not TTL compatible. That's the component we're looking at, if you or anyone else has tried these before and they don't work for some reason, do let me know!

Most PCB houses will happily stuff (readily available) SMD components for a very small fee, since this process can be almost entirely automated. Doing the same with through-hole components is more expensive (and why most of us do it ourselves). I also believe (but I'm not a specialist, I have a friend helping me out with the hardware who knows this stuff way better than I do) that if you can avoid the need to drill holes, the PCBs themselves tend to be cheaper as well. *edit* The whole reason for going SMD is not cost as such though, of course it would be cheaper to go throughhole and solder them ourselves, but the goal is to not have to solder each board ourselves. We will likely build a programming jig with pogo pins connecting to pads on the PCB to flash the EPROM in situ. That way, PCBWay or JLCPCB can do the full assembly, we just pop each cart in the jig and program it with the appropriate ROM before mounting it in a shell.

Yeah, I remember @Ksarul talking about there being SN74x latches that reliable start up in either the first or last bank upon power on. But I'm looking at the possibility of perhaps drawing up an SMD version of the 512k cart design to keep manufacturing costs down.

Finished the account system, I'm glad to say that if you've ever played the game on the C64 or the MSX and ended up with a nice fat account, you'll be able to use it in this version as well. The account obfuscation algorithm is quite well documented, so it seemed like the right thing to do. Working on the shop now, although I don't think I can get this finished before I'll be traveling. I'll be away from any sort of computer for about a month. After that, it should just be some finishing touches here and there before I can officially release it. I'll be starting a poll before I leave to gauge interest for a physical release, perhaps start taking pre-orders. I've been looking at things like the boxes, manuals, getting boards manufactured (and populated), etc... haven't got a solution for shells yet, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Lastly, let me leave you all with this picture, showcasing the different cars you'll be able to choose in the game: I definitely wanted to do better than what you'd see on the MSX. The beetle was especially challenging, but comparing to the other 8 bit versions below I'm quite happy with the results: (C64, Atari 800, Amstrad CPC, IBM PCJr, Apple ][, ZX Spectrum, MSX, NES, Atari 2600, Sega Master System)

Some unrelated progress, I wanted to get working on the account and shop systems... what do you guys think, does this look work? I wanted to do something a bit more polished than the original, but still keep the teletype style feeling...

I could take a cue from Pacman. There, the direction you're not traveling in will take precedense. So if you're traveling westward and your holding the joystick in the NW direction when coming up to an intersection where North is a valid direction, Pacman will turn North. Of course, Pacman keeps moving even if you stop pressing the joystick in the current direction until he hits a wall, so some modification will be needed, but I think that would be good strategy. In watching some longplays of the C64 version, I notice the logo sometimes "cuts the corner"... I've never had that happen when I play the game. I guess it also depends on the players idiosyncratic way of using the joystick. Good thing you guys are playtesting this thing!

Fair enough, that's three votes against the movement now, I'll look at this before the final release!

Joystick only for now, @InsaneMultitasker worked on a compatibility layer to enable keyboard support on the Geneve, but I haven't implemented that yet. Final version will likely support the keyboard as a joystick alternative on the Geneve, but not on the TI

Artwork is hard... Does anyone else think the below kinda looks like what would've happened if Ray conjured up a combination of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Michael Flatley's Riverdance as the shape of the destroyer?