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Cafeman

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  1. Cafeman

    AdvII XE testing

    By Cafeman,

    I'm putting the final touches on this long delayed project., so here is the first summer '19 status report. I tested on my real XEGS hardware to ensure no game-ruining bugs!     Didn't find any!  Although that ranking seems too high based on how many times I got devoured and how many minutes I took to beat it ...  
     
    I take notes of which variation I play , the end stats, and the ranking given. I'll review them after a few weeks and see if I need to tweak the rankings logic. It's not a big deal, but you don't want to see the same ranking all the time regardless of how well your game went, right? 
     
    I made the game a bit more joystick-driven than it had been.  You can pick all the options on the Title Screen using the joystick and button now, and when you are eaten, you can revive by pressing the Joystick button.  Previously I had mapped the "R" key to the revive/respawn function,  but I was tired of getting up from my reclining sofa and using the clunky XEGS clip-on keyboard all the time! So now I can sit back and play Adventure II XE for hours and not need to get up.  To Pause ore reset completely, you still gotta use the keyboard or console buttons though.    That is one huge advantage of 5200 gaming, you have all the needed commands at your fingertips using the CX52 controller.  
     
    I also experimented with some color changes. Some have complained that the Gold Key and the Green Key are hard to distinguish from one another. This is true, depending on what color is the background image that each key is sitting overtop.  Plus, the keys are tiny so color bleed on the overall image is worse than with the bigger images like the Chalice.   But my eyes can still distinguish the difference.   I tried different hues and luminosity settings but I was reminded once again WHY I chose those colors in the original 5200 version -- the items need to be bright and a different hue from the many background graphics across 4 kingdoms.  Changing colors started to bring back the old "blending-in" issue .    
     
    But I did decide to tweak some background screen colors.  I tested my new colors and they looked great on a real TV; now I have to change them for the proper screens in-code and recompile everything. Some of these include files, like the ADV2COLR.TXT one with the screen colors, I haven't changed since about 2006!  The thing is, these are compressed into INCLUDE files which are decompressed into RAM at boot-up. I forgot the compression steps completely, had to search out old notes to re-learn it.   
     
    Thanks for reading, 
    c(_) 




  2. Cafeman
    I am done watching the films in story-chronological order!  Here is my ranking of the 8 Skywalker films and 2 side story films, which I'm sure nobody will agree with: 

    Ep5 > Ep4 > Ep6 > Ep7 >  RO > Ep8 > Ep3 > Solo > Ep1 >  Ep2. 

    Breaking it down a bit: 

    Ep5 > Ep4 > Ep6  -  because the OT films are the best of all them. Unbeatable.   Ep6 ROTJ is an 8.5/10 film, not quite up there with Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back - both of which are 10/10 excellent films.  
     
    Next I list Ep7 The Force Awakens which I rate as an 8.5/10 film overall.  Despite mirroring Ep4: A New Hope story points: a desert planet with a force sensitive new person,  and a cantina scene, and a new planet-killing "Death Star" type of weapon,  a new "Empire" and a new "Emperor" , and even a trench scene ... despite what it looks like when written down, I think JJ Abrams and crew did a nice job bringing back the SW feel and making it all seem familiar, but not really the same story at all.  Plus we got to see Han, Leia, and briefly Luke 30 years after ROTJ!   John Williams introduce new themes here, including Rey's theme which I love.    Ep7 TFA is the best of the not-OT films. 

    Next I listed Rogue One. I like the film, I'd rate it 8/10. It has an awesome final battle, the first Darth Vader scenes since 1983 ROTJ, and reanimated Tarkin which I greatly enjoyed.   I can't rank it too high, since without the OT already existing, Rogue One wouldn't be so great to me.    It fits right into the OT feel, it adds to the Death Star / Rebels story, it fleshes out Vader and the ruthless Grand Moff Tarkin too.  Its a great and fresh film. 

    Next I listed Ep8 The Last Jedi. I like the film, I'd give it 7.5/10 overall, but I get bored with the Finn/Rose scenes, and I don't like how the film uses Holdo and killed off Ackbar.    I don't mind Snoke getting killed, I never really liked that character anyway.    Poe and Finn seem less interesting than they were in TFA!   Maybe the film is just too long and should have had some parts cut or edited. 
     
    Next I listed Ep3 Revenge of the Sith,  a 7.5/10 film to me. It is packed with combat scenes, and even shows Kashyyk and the wookies.  Although it doesn't connect with me like the OT does, it does have scenes we never got before , mostly Palpatine vs just about everybody individually, even Yoda.   I love watching Ian McDiarmid chewing up his scenes. 
     
    Next I listed Solo.  I enjoy the film, and it has young Han, Chewie, the Falcon, and a fantastic version of young Lando Calrissian!  I would rate it 7.5/10 overall. But despite Han and Chewie and even Lando,  this film feels the least like a Star Wars film to me.  Especially with Woody Harrelson and The Vision and that G.ame-of-Thrones actress in it.    So I didn't rank it that high on my SW list.  Fun to watch, but not memorable to me. 

    Next I listed Ep1 The Phantom Menace.  Like Ep7 about 15 years later, TPM brought back the familiarity of SW in a decent way, starting with 2 Jedi and lightsabers.    Darth Maul is the best not-Vader Sith who ever could have been imagined!  His athleticism and attacks , and appearance, are a treat to watch while the swelling music of Duel of the Fates is playing.  Other superb characters are Liam Neeson as Qui-Gonn and introducing Ewan McGregor  as young Obi-Wan .   I liked seeing Tatooine and Jabba again, and the Pod Racing sequence is thrilling.      I'd rate TPM 7/10 as a film. 

    Finally,  Ep2 Attack of the Clones (easily the worst of all them), perhaps a  6/10 film.   AotC has some enjoyable scenes like all SW films,  but a lot of bad scenes that weigh the film down; usually as soon as Anakin and Padme start talking, I click the Fast Forward button until the next scene appears, making it a much more enjoyable movie.  
     
    I guess I really don't like the Prequel Trilogy films as much as the other ones.   One of the reasons is that George Lucas relied on CGI too much and you can see it.  Another reason is the dialogue is often bad. I think Lucas has great ideas, but it seems he wasn't the best director, perhaps?   In hindsight, I think only 2 PT films were needed.  Or, we could have gotten to know the other Jedi a bit more over the course of the 3 films before they are all wiped out. Or, Darth Maul could have, you know, NOT been killed off so quickly?  Well, I have to watch Episode IX and then re-evaluate the PT against the entire Sequel Trilogy. 

    Next up on my Episode IX Star Wars binge:  more video-games, and The Mandalorian to watch! 
     
  3. Cafeman
    Still running down my laundry list of more minor tweaks.  The past few things I've done are: 
     
    - WSYNC  screen color changes tweaking. I can't believe it, but on several screens I had the WSYNC on the DLI  *after* the actual color register change, not *before*. Thus in the 5200 version there are a few screens where you can see a color change mid-scanline.  I tested 5200 AdvII on a 27" CRT so it probably didn't concern me , or I didn't notice it back in 2007.  So, I  fixed a handful of those screens for the XEGS version, and those screens are more rock-solid looking now.     See the before and after screen shots - look carefully along the logs and you'll see blue water color on the before pic . 
    -  Minotaur Freeze State. I never got to put this into the 5200 version but always wanted to have some way you could take out the Minotaur, even if just for a short while.  In the XE version, the Blue Key will freeze the Minotaur in his tracks until you remove the key from that screen.  
     
    - I also finally located a bit of code that needed some gentle massaging (either that or more Hard Work* ) to stop the Troll from BAMF-ing **  around at times. Fixed!   
     
    * obscure AA reference
    ** BAMF is the comic book sound effect in X-men comics when Nightcrawler would teleport. BAMF! 
     
    Al is going to have a recent version at the PRGE show , running on an XEGS machine.   See prior blogs for other recent tweaks to Adventure II XE. 
     

  4. Cafeman
    I tend to save information forever. I've had various notebooks and folders in my garage's filing cabinet , the info is all from 2001 through 2011.  Today I decided to dig out the folders , keep what might still be useful, and pitch the rest. All of the paper had a slight musty smell.   All these were in the top drawer of the file cabinet;  the bottom draw has all my guitar tablature magazines, some from the 80's (remember Guitar for the Practicing Musician anybody?). I'll be going through those mags next to see if I can de-clutter. 
     
    ANYWAY ... I pitched all my work-in-progress notes for 2002's Koffi: Yellow Kopter, plus work-in-progress notes and folders about 2007's Adventure II.  I kept the notes of various other homebrew ideas I had. Who knows?   
     
    Look at all the work I had to do to code Raccoon Lad's sprites! 1's and 0's, yes indeedy. 
     

     
    Then I found these notes ... I remember an original idea for Adventure II when it was just Alan and myself, was to have different colors of Armor.  The Bat turned into our Troll.  Some wanted to see the Wizard, but frankly I vetoed that idea for a few reasons, primarily that Robinette didn't have a Wizard in 2600 Adventure! It was an invention of the manual writers.  Plus I had my hands full with the rest of the programming.  If you want a Wizard, there are 2600 homebrews where the author put him in. And homebrew games where the wizard returned! 
     
    Yeah though, I remember our idea to find Blue Armor to help you cross over water.  Adventure II changed that idea, instead you can build bridges from wood planks, over the water. Or fly across the water if you get that power-up.  I see that we also intended there to be an Inventory system , but that was simplified to be more Adventure 2600-ish - carry 1 thing at a time, bub.  These hand-written notes are from 2001 or so.  I took a picture, then pitched them. 
     

     
     
    I don't know what this simple maze design was for - but it was never used. You want it? 
     

     
    Finally, I also pitched my work-in-progress Koffi notes, I don't want to see those any more, after all the code itself explains how the game works better than those notebooks. But I found this doodle of a Homebrew Patch idea or two ... I like the idea for patches.   I'm not sure if anybody has done them for an AA homebrew?  I think I did see something on ZPH about earning a patch but I can't remember which game(s). 
     

     
    That's all. I filled an entire large-size garbage bag with notebooks , manilla folders, and pages.  Next I have to go through those guitar tab magazines. 
     
  5. Cafeman
    I also wrote a spoiler-free blog entry about the film here - http://atariage.com/forums/blog/618/entry-13519-star-wars-rogue-one-spoiler-free-review/

    I wrote that quickly after seeing the film, being careful to avoid all other reviews because I didn't want my thoughts influenced. Once an idea gets in one's head, its there forever. I left the film in elation, feeling some of the 80's stunned wow-factor that I remember as a kid watching the originals. Rogue Squadron stirred the Star Wars excitement in me more than last year's The Force Awakens. By now, I've read and watched many reviews and comments about Rogue One. I thought I'd blog out my thoughts on CGI humans, cameos, text story crawls, and Darth Vader.

    The most mentioned subject seems to be the CGI Grand Moff Tarkin. Or, is he Governer Tarkin as addressed in A New Hope? When he appeared from behind, with his face semi-reflected in the Death Star window, I thought that's all we'd see. And then ... he turns around, full CGI mo-capped character, Peter Cushing resurrected! And he was in the entire movie. Well, complaints from the internet peanut gallery keep popping up about how distracting this evidently was to them. But honestly, is it not true of all the Star Wars films that some characters, be it CGI or puppet, are obviously an effect? Would it have been better to cast a lookalike actor instead of CGI Peter Cushing? Check out the Tarkin makeup from Episode III again and see how horrible it looks up-close. That film wisely put him into the background, so it works. I bet few people have those cutting Peter Cushing cheekbones.

    I agree that CGI human faces aren't quite perfect yet. But it was still the best we've seen yet, far better than many attempts from earlier films. It seemed better than young Robert Downey Jr , young Michael Douglas, and before that young Jeff Bridges from Tron which admittedly was several years back.

    Tarkin was a great character, played briefly by the great actor Peter Cushing. I loved and applaud the incluson of the ruthless and brilliant Tarkin in Rogue One. It would have felt cheap if he and Vader weren't part of the film. I knew right away it was CGI because of course it is. Immediately I widened my eyes, looking apprehensively for flaws. But even on the huge XD screen at the theater, the effect held up. I think I may have actually gasped at seeing Tarkin as a character in this form! The CGI Princess Leia, at the film's close, was also not 100% a replacement for a human, but it was brief and still looked very good. Seeing the young versions of these actors again in this prequel is not something I'd complain about. To the contrary, it is true Movie Magic that we are witnessing.

    Darth Vader also returned! Wow! And they gave us two scenes with Vader! And we got to see him in a bacta tank! I've seen complaints about his funny lines to Director Krennic, not to be 'choked by his ambitions'. Why was this so bad? Anakin had a sense of wry humor at times, and Vader was never afraid to throw out a cutting jab to fellow imperials. In my theater audience, people chuckled with laughter at that. It didn't diminish the character of Vader at all. This is not a bad line. It certainly isn't 'what happens when a toad is hit by lightning' bad. Frankly, I think Vader was in a hurry to dismiss Krennic and get back to his warm Bacta tank. Nobody likes having to get out of the tub to answer the door.

    Vader's second scene at the film's finale ... WOW! I was so, so happy at that. When those poor rebels got trapped in the room by the faulty airlock door, and they turned around and you could see Vader's red lights dimly .. and then he fires up the lightsaber and methodically blocks blaster fire, uses the Force to throw them, all the while slowly advancing and cutting them all down. Wow Wow Wow! Coming on the heals of the prior excellent space battle, I was in full fanboy-grins and jaw-dropped mode at this point. Go go, Captain Antilles! Hurry!

    I really loved seeing cameos such as Walrus Man (Kenner's toy description from the 70's) , currently still having 2 arms, and his ugly wanted-in-12-systems friend, in a cameo! Looking around, there were so many things to see. Familiar droids, blue liquids, familiar races from Episode IV's timeline. Tell me I didn't see a domesticated Wampa in there during the Jedha City scenes?? I loved the 5 seconds of 3PO and R2 , as the rebels left their base. Just the right amount of cameo and humor, thankfully not wearing out its welcome. I loved seeing Red Squadron. This brings up a question - I swear I saw Biggs as one of the pilots. Perhaps it was just another pilot with a similar 70's mustache? I won't know for sure that I'm wrong, until I watch it again.

    Concerning the characters, I went into the film with no knowledge of any of their histories. Except for possibly Jyn, the other characters were not as fleshed out as much as TFA's Rey and Finn, but they didn't need to be. I got to know them all well enough that I felt down at each of their deaths. I didn't need a text crawl explaining where the story was and who was involved - but maybe general audiences did need that. I absolutely loved the film's opening , with the only necessary verbiage, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and then the scene with young Jyn's family on their farm, and the approach of Imperial Krennic.

    Wow, a film where the entire main cast is killed by the end. Just like old films like The Dirty Dozen or old westerns. I think Rogue One's different, darker tone is one of the reasons the film was so enjoyable to me. As an example or two, I didn't expect Saw to die so early. I didn't expect the wartime ruthlessness shown by Captain Cassian Andor with his informant.

    What irony that Director Krennic is killed by his precious Death Star, courtesy of the absolutely ruthless Tarkin. Krennic, you're far too trusting.


    (_)3



  6. Cafeman
    I've been in a real old-school SEGA mood since fall hit. Up until December, I have been enjoying playing many 16-bit Genesis and SEGA-CD games. I finally had my fill for a while, put that system into the closet and hooked up the SEGA Saturn for December.

    At first it took some time to get into the 32-bit Saturn again. I was still in a 16-bit mood. I looked at my game wallet that has my 40+ Saturn games, didn't really know what to play. Well, I hit a retro store and picked up on the cheap, Madden 97, QB Club (which I haven't tried yet since I kind of know it ain't that great), and World Series Baseball 98 which I've been on the lookout for! I used to love playing WSB II (97).

    Well, baseball is baseball and although I see improvements over the prior 2 WSB games in gameplay, I just can't get into the slow boring baseball gameplay. Not right now. The polygons are sure uglier than I remembered too . The prior 2 used sprites and I was fine with that.

    Madden '97 is another story! EA had not progressed to using polygons yet, so this is like a turbo-charged version of the Genesis games and I love it! Fast to load and play, with just enough brief clips of Madden commenting on things before each game, fast framerate and the best gameplay and presentation we'd seen up till that time. I don't know how Madden 97 was perceived back in the day, but I think its awesome. I keep playing (stubbornly) as the Steelers, now in week 10 of the Season. I had to clear all the save files from my Saturn for Madden to save its humongous 500 block save file. I use a backup cart and swap other files back-n-forth, kind of a nuisance but that's life playing real hardware. It took me a while to figure out the clunky save mechanisms, too. I thought I'd saved but I didn't. You have to manually save!

    Tomczak was the QB back then (1996 stats) and Greg Lloyd and Rod Woodson still on defense. Bettis was the Running Back. Yancy Thigpen over there right-field as wide receiver. Well, I'm really not that good a video game football player! I try to pick the good offense plays and fitting defense formations ... but I'm frequently shut down and burned! Still fun. Why can't my receivers get out in the open more often, I wonder?

    Last night I grew satisfied with all the Madden, so I also played several rounds of Guardian Heroes (as well-designed as it is ... it kind of bores me to be honest), and also the magnificent Sega Rally Championship.

    Sega Rally on the Saturn is (again), a magnificently faithful port of the coin-op. It runs at half the frame rate, half the resolution, but other than that is very faithful. It is my favorite racer on Saturn (with Daytona CE 2nd). I play SRC the same way every winter when I once again nostalgically hook up the Saturn -- First I play normal Championship , trying each of the 2 cars. I usually compete fairly well but have trouble getting 1st place after the 3rd track; usually I'm 3rd. Sega Rally races are brief though, so it only takes a half hour before I've played enough so that I finally got 1st place, and unlocked the Lakeside Track , and I easily beat that since you start in 1st place. Lakeside has beautiful use of bold sunset colors and distant birds flying over the track.

    I know I'm set to win the game in 1st place when I finish the first Desert stage in 9th place. On an average game I'm either 10th or even 11th - there's no way you can make a comeback if you are 11th after track 1. Then after track 2 (Forest track) I start the city track in 3rd or 4th place and win, as long as I don't mess up too much.

    After this, I set the options to 3 laps (instead of the default 1-lap races on each track). This changes up the game's competition quite a bit and is a nice option. I didn't come in 1st playing this way but still had a really fun race! The great thing about 3-lap races is you get to hear the excellent extended musical tracks, with Joe Satriani's great guitar work overtop the other SEGA musicians' rhythms.

    Even after all quickly coming in first place, I still find it quite fun to just race myself in Time Attack mode against your own ghost car, shaving off seconds, then having an infuriatingly poor lap, then again finally beating your own time once again. The game just plays so well and has inviting and enjoyable sound too - even on the title screens!

    (_)3
  7. Cafeman
    [This older blog entry was updated on 2/14/2020 and 9/30/2020]. 
     
    2001-2002 -- Alan and I begin the game and design 75% of what it will be like. Raccoon joins as the artist.
    2002-2004 -- Raccoon Lad & I discuss 5200 limits, we design and create screens, and program the game.
    2004 -- Infogrames "Atari" attack! Game renamed (temporarily to Quest for the Golden Chalice.  Knocked the wind out of me for a while. 
     
    https://atariage.com/forums/topic/59600-quest-for-the-golden-chalice/#comments

    2005-2006 -- mostly me finishing and debugging the program and trying to accomplish my own vision within dwindling memory space.
    Jan - March 2007 -- Since I have to wait for the game to be manufactured, I do add a few things like the Dragon Trap, then test some more.
    May 2007 -- 5200 version of Adventure II is published by AtariAge!


    ... XE Port begins ... 

    Sept and Oct 2010 -  Perry Thuente (Tep392 on AA) ported the code to 8bit format, including both XEGS and Atarimax Bank-switching formats, and other mods involving OS, keyboard code. Added Bryan's AA splash screen. I now have a lot more memory to work with overall, but need to shift things around some more.
    2011 - overhaul of Random Item hiding logic, creature behavior, and overhauled hiding of the 3 Bat Eggs/Dots. Distribute code and data to different banks to leverage out available total memory. Use one bank for a character set to get prettier text on title screen.
    2012 - address bugs with collision and troll sprite 'remnants'. Changes to map paths, create new EXITS on hedge screens so Hedge Maze is the hub between Ice and Dark kingdoms, not the Green Castle itself like in 5200 version.
    Oct 2012 - first PRGE demo.
    2013 - experiment with new sounds;  add more wood plank bridge building (you can build bridges on both islands screens now, not just 1); Added end-game statistics. Implement one-button control scheme.  (5200 version used 2 buttons).  More gameplay tweaks and bug fixes. Timing seems different running on A8? New box artwork is done by David but we do not reveal it. Release first demo in AA Homebrew forum, with resulting feedback. PJT fixes PORTB problem. My homebrewing desktop computer has a problem at end of year, lost some data and felt burned out. Quit for a while.


     
    2014 - project on hiatus.  Too much real-world stuff going on such as home repair. 
    2015 - I got a new Lenovo i7 laptop, so I restored and reorganized my Adventure II folders and files, and started working on it again. Added content and tweaks, fixed new bugs that got introduced, continued to get frustrating trying to add new content into the original hard-coded engine!  At least the Yuengling beer was satisfying. 


     
     
    2016 - project on hiatus again.  I just can't get to it.  I can't really remember why! Too busy living life I guess. There is an up-to-date PRGE demo in October.

    Jan and Feb 2017 - with a real "Git'R Dun" determination, I completed engine optimizations.  I had too much going on in Vertical Blank , which was causing strange behavior when several large sprites were all on screen.    These optimizations corrected DLI screen color errors that had been plaguing me.   I programmed the Alternate Icons with distinct special abilities. Added all-new rankings and overhauled rankings determination logic. Opened up Sword collision so it will harm a dragon even if you are not carrying it (I know that is how 2600 Adventure worked, but if you play 5200 Adventure II, a dragon will glide THROUGH an uncarried sword unharmed. Not any more!)

    Sept and Oct 2017 - Fixed some rankings bugs. Revised Title screen so that options are selectable via joystick.  Continued to add content here and there, and worked on years-old list of items. Purchased Atarimax USB programmer, to test on real hardware. Another PRGE demo October 2019, showing new Title Screen and options like Dark Mode. New artwork is revealed in a banner at PRGE show.

     2018  -  not much accomplished.  I lose interest in things. 
     
     2019 and 2020 work: 
     
    1.  After experimenting with different sounds and tunes, I decided to keep most of the original 5200 sounds, which now to me are iconic of the game.  Even the dragon barks. I reduced the repetition of the main tune, and added a couple new sound cues.   To save ROM space, the 5200 version sounds/music  were hardcoded into small static tables which used an index to find the right piece, and compressed/decompressed into RAM to boot. Thus it was difficult to really do much modification of those.  It was easier to make new sounds than to change the old ones.   I moved all sound logic and sound/music data tables to their own 4k bank which I didn't even fill up!  I really feel the game's overall silence is important so I didn't want to put a repetitive and looping pokey tune in there playing all the time.    

    2. Play testing, using Altirra and its nice debug, but also using the Atarimax USB programmer and 8 mbit cart with my XEGS and Atari 800XL consoles.  I have not seen any differences of game behavior between Altirra and real hardware,  other the colors / brightness of a laptop screen vs Plasma HDTV.   With one exception:  my Plasma would roll at the Game Win screen, I eventually fixed that by tweak to when I turned off Antic between game screen and Game Win Rankings Screen.    
     
    Another thing as I opened up the Start, Select, and Option console buttons to server as Start/Quit, Revive, and Game Pause functions, respectively. This allows use of the Atari XEGS without a keyboard.  
     
    My son proved helpful with QA testing.  He really tries to break the game.   Because of his testing, I noticed one glitch that was reported before - when square is changing screens,  if you kept spamming the rotate-carried-item button, it can mess up the X coordinate and the item will be far away from you but still 'carried'.  I thought this bug was an unavoidable VBI timing issue, but it is "user-caused" !  I fixed it.  This was a too-common pattern of mine, blaming the Atari hardware for my own glitches! Because , you know, I'm such a good programmer n'at, how could it be happening due to MY code?  
     
    3.  A new DEMO was released on 2/5/2020 to the Homebrew / Adventure II XE demo and testing thread. So far it looks like 70-80 downloads of the various different formats.  Feedback comments were:  (1) comments about Key colors.  Green and Gold keys aren't always distinguishable;   (2) and a comment showing a collision bug, Knight Helmet gets stuck.   I did find a bug and fixed it to prevent getting stuck on plants, etc. when you are the Knight Helmet. 
     
    This brings up a good subject - NTSC colors.  I spent quite a few hours trying to prevent 'NTSC greenish hue' syndrome on my yellow/tans, and also quite a few hours experimenting with different key colors so that it was always easy to distinguish which key you were looking at.   Depending on which color of background graphics a key sits, it can be near impossible to tell the Gold and Green keys apart, or sometimes even the red and blue keys have a similar purple/white hue on some screens. Making the keys darker helps to distinguish them, but then the keys are sometimes lost in the background graphics which isn't acceptable either.  So, my first solution was to cycle / pulsate the key colors.  But I still got negative feedback about the keys, even after adding the cycling.  And then ....  an epiphany around March 2020 ... 
     
     ... I was so surprised that I didn't think of the obvious solution before -- have unique bitmaps for each of the 4 keys.  I started by making the Gold Key have a square handle.  It looked great - problem fixed. AA member TIX drew some additional Key designs, and I picked 2 for the Red and Blue keys.  Of course I had to rework the code which had previously assume all keys had the same bitmap. 
     
    4.   In summary,  my 2020 tweaks included the new unique key images, that collision fix,  a screen garbage fix at Game Win, several minor gameplay tuning tweaks, and ... one more bug fix that was rare but plagued me for the past few years:  sometimes you would stab a dragon, but the dragon would not die on screen even though the kill music played. This baffled me over the years, then I would forget about it,  but then in testing I would see it again. I thought surely there was a strange and unknowable Atari Hardware VBI timing bug doing something weird. However, since I had some free time waiting for AtariAge to manufacture the game, I decided that I should be able to figure this out and fix it.  And, using the Altirra emulator, I did indeed finally spot the problem, which was not strange timing but was 100% bad programming by me! But the details are a story for another blog entry. This was the last coding change, in September.  Fixed! 
     
    In summary, I had also added new uses for 4 items for the XE version.
         (a)  Sword now interacts with Dragons even if not being carried; 
         (b) Chalice now grants you SPEED as long as you hold it. I think this makes the end-game less tedious and more fun, and adds the game play mechanism of keeping the found Chalice close by to re-grant yourself SPEED as you explore. Yes, you can find the Chalice before you find the sword or the Yellow/Golden Key for the Seashore castle.  This was not true in the 5200 version.  The Chalice will also trigger a sound cue if you carry it onto a screen hiding a Bat Egg;   
         (c) Blue / Ice Key  now interacts with the Minotaur in a certain way. 
         (d) Red Key also has a hidden function, other than opening up its Castle gate.  It isn't a necessary or even helpful function but you'll know it when you go to the right place with this key.  
     
    4.  AA Store  and Publishing ...   Its looking like October 2020.     David Exton created nice art and layouts for the manual and box designs.   The manual is very distinct from the 5200 Adventure II manual with a lot more art (and in a different style).    Albert had to figure out a solution to getting more A8 cart shells in 2020 - in August he shared a pic of one, a charcoal color. The picture is in the Adventure II XE demo and testing thread. 
     
    This may be my last blog entry for Adventure II. I've been involved with the game since 2001!  19 years duration, although not actually 19 years-worth spent. 
     
    FIN


     
  8. Cafeman

    Replay FX is over

    By Cafeman,

    I attended the Pittsburgh Replay FX last year Friday and Saturday - the show runs from Thursday to Sunday. So this year for 2016 I attended Thursday through Saturday. I also joined the Replay World Championships, played a lot of Time Pilot and Dig Dug on max difficulty, but got eliminated in the first round finals. Also attended some GREAT seminars, played countless pinball, coin-ops, and consoles, and heard some good music. Great show!

    Kong-Off Championships.

    This returned for a 2nd year at Replay FX Pittsburgh. I got to talk with one of the youngest competitors, Tanner, who shared with me some of his knowledge of how DK works and various patterns and percentages rules. Pretty cool. Billy Mitchell was walking around and also playing the game himself. I saw one fellow get over a million points and achieve the final "Kill Screen" - level 22.1 I believe. And I bought some Pepper Sauce!



    Replay World Championships.



    The difficulty settings were set high on all the games, so several of us laughed and struggled to even beat a few boards of Time Pilot. Several of us concluded that Stage 1 was harder than stage 2, due to the bombs along with the many shots. If I had more patience, I would have just stuck it out on Stage 2 , not killing the boss plane and hitting 100-point planes for 30 minutes. I didn't see anyone get past stage 3, with the helicopters and guided missiles. The gamer who got the highest TP score did so by staying on Stage 1 the entire time!

    I also concentrated on Dig Dug, which I'd had a chance to practice at max difficulty. But there were players who just knew the game inside out and could consistently get 10,000 point rock-drops for example, and could consistently outwit the monsters. I got about 120k I think ; top score I saw was over 900k. All games had a 30 minute time limit.

    They also had Frogger, Tempest (too hard!), Missile Command (that ball arghhhh), Space Zap, Gyruss, Lady Bug , and Centipede. In the first round finals, I was quickly eliminated by my foe "Chris" at Lady Bug. I'm not very good at the game, never really played it, besides it was Saturday night and all the Seminars were starting so I was anxious to move on to those.

    Game Playing Highlights

    I enjoyed trying out games I don't own -- TurboGrafx (Blazing Lazers, and Victory Run), Vectrex (multi-cart - mostly the Tank game and Berzerk), and Neo Geo (a vertical shooter ). Also tried out Sega Saturn NHL Powerplay 96 for the first time in 20 years - we used to LOVE that game , and it has held up pretty well. I didn't see good representation of Atari's though. Most of the Atari's and the Colecovision were actually Flashback systems. There was at least one 2600 (Pitfall was in it when I passed by), but no 5200's, and I didn't see any 7800's either. I couldn't pass up Genesis Outrun for a few rounds.

    On the many coin-ops, I enjoyed playing rounds of Zaxxon, Tron, SEGA's vector sit-down Star Trek game (awesome!), Karate Champ (I still can't do the bonus segments), and about 50 others for a token play.

    There were of course tons of Pinball games there. Pinburgh competitions were going on and lots of pinball fans. I especially enjoyed playing Twilight Zone and Funhouse. There was an AC-DC pinball - I expected lots of great rockin' stuff, but either the game has no actual AC-DC songs, or the volume was set too low.

    I did bump into Ed Fries as he played Williams' Sinistar and we discussed strategies of this too-hard game.

    Seminars

    I kind of felt bad for the Saturday night Seminars folks - attendance was sparse, even though the location was right outside of the main halls. Last year we had an excellent multi-media room, but it was very far away and upstairs. Mike Stulir told me the idea was to move it closer to the main show this year. The show had high quality banners advertising the Seminars. Still, Pittsburgh gamers kind of showed their indifference by not showing up. Slightly unfortunately, the seminars area was kind of stuck in a small corner along the side of the lobby area (with bright sun shining in sometimes), and the projection TV really should have been much bigger. It was hard some of the details unless you sat close enough. Sound quality was pretty good and loud enough - especially Mark Bussler's CGR seminar where he reveled at saying TRUXTON!!!!! into the mike.

    Mark Bussler, Classic Game Room - pretty much what you'd expect, and entertaining CGR based show with a intro video (which I had not seen before) where Mark , and 2 of the Replay FX guys, played the Robocop pinball game. The entire audience were enjoying it and busting a gut laughing at those guys doing 'the robot' in the video as another played the pinball Robocop game. Further Robocop NES discussion took place and talk of the future of CGR.

    Mike Stulir - Mike's fascinating show had plenty of pictures as he discussed the American Classic Arcade Museum.

    Ed Fries, My Life in Games - Ed talked about coding Atari 8bit games in the 80's, his Microsoft days and Halo, reading Racing the Beam and subsequently working on the Atari 2600 homebrew Halo, and his involvement with the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Halo 2600 is in it!). During the Q&A, I asked Ed how Microsoft's legal team felt about his Halo 2600. He laughed a bit and said he had indeed discussed that aspect , and it sounds like he got an unofficial 'okay' . He said humorously that nothing is in writing, so they may come after him legally yet. He also mentioned that he talked to Namco about his Atari 2600 Rally-X port; I got the impression Namco was not going for it, thus that project is still a work-in-progress and in limbo somewhere on one of Ed's computers.

    Steve Golson, the Atari 7800 ProSystem - I had heard Steve's seminar at last year's Replay FX too, and I was pleasantly surprised that the content was quite different this year. Very interesting to me - Steve worked for GCC , and I was already knowledgeable about GCC's creating Ms. Pac-Man , some 5200 games, and the 7800 system itself . What I didn't know until now is that GCC was responsible for several Atari 2600 games, including Atari Cube , Ms. Pac-Man, and Phoenix. Steve is a hardware guy, thus he showed a lot of PCB's and diagrams as he discussed the "Atari 3600" design, which would become the Atari 7800 later.

    After Steve's seminar, several of us perused his items - design docs, and amazingly, the Atari 7800 adapter for the Atari 5200, the only one (a prototype) in existence!




    Warren Davis, creator of Q*bert - Warren also had plenty of pictures and videos of various games he worked on, including Q*bert of course, but also "Us vs Them", a film-like Laser-disc game which I'm surprised didn't end up on the Sega CD 10 years later. Warren ended his interesting seminar with a video showing the making of the Aerosmith game Revolution X in the 90's, which was pretty awesome to be honest.

    This ends my brief synopsis of Replay FX highlights. I had a great time. In conclusion, let me mention some other things that made the show cool - watching people enjoy playing the games; watching people get exhausted attempting to play Capcom vs Street Fighter (projected onto a huge screen) by stepping on foot pads to control it; seeing the Star Wars stormtroopers, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and Imperials walk around; listening to Pittsburgh Rush-inspired band Caress of Steel City (Friday night), and even better the excellent and tight band Flashback play Journey, Bon Jovi, Billy Idol, Judas Priest (with guest vocalist Richie Knuckles!), The Doobie Brothers and many others (Saturday Night) .




  9. Cafeman

    RL5203

    By Cafeman,

    RL5203 is planned to be called Detective Powers. In 2009, I was off work for several months, and during this time I read nearly all of Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories. Also, via Netflix DVDs and Streaming, I watched all the seasons and one-off films from the Granada BBC Masterpiece Theater Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett, and I was especially fond of those. So I started to think about how to do an Atari 5200/A8 game back then in late 2009/early 2010. Coincidentally to me, there seemed to be a real Sherlock craze building in enterainment. In December 2009, the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes film came out, and later that year BBC's new Sherlock debuted. Then Elementary also came out on CBS. But my game was focusing on the Brett version, in my mind - 1880's London area, with mystery, clues, dangers, and a smattering of action when it was called for.

    I wanted a game that would fit into the "Atari" era style of gaming with constant moving around, exploring and interacting, finding useful items, and using abstract concepts in the gameplay. I didn't want you to have to write down notes to remember who was who (like with the Sega CD Consulting Detective FMV games). But I didn't want a generic "Adventure" or "Action" game that artificially placed Holmes into the action as though he were a ninja or a Double Dragon brawler either.

    After some thought, I decided the overall concept of the game should be based on Holmes' famous quote, "Eliminate everything else, and whatever remains must be the truth!". You'd control Holmes (I always imagined the Jeremy Brett version) and explore the 1880's city streets and try to eliminate 'color clues' to narrow down where and whom you should locate. You might start with 4 colors for "Suspect". Eliminate it down until there is only 1 color left - RED for example. Then you know to find a RED character on the streets. All the while, the gameplay involves finding helpful items and not making mistakes or getting into danger, to keep your Detective Powers (DP) meter as full as possible, so that Holmes' abilities will be at their full strength. To further illustrate the 'strategy' of the game, you might find an alleyway is a shortcut to the next street. But if it turns out to be a dead-end, or if you suffered an attack in the alley from thugs or stray dogs and don't successfully escape that situation, then the game could penalize you with reduced DP. If your DP meter drains completely, you've in effect failed the case and must continue. My way of incorporating failure-yet-continuing was to have Holmes announce in-game that "This has become a Three Pipe Problem!" (Google it, if unfamiliar with this Holmes quotation)! You'll have to find 3 Pipes on the streets to restore your Detective Powers and continue to solve the case. Pretty neat, right?

    Like many of my homebrew game ideas, over time I came to find it growing too complicated and huge. I just don't have the time to create maps, draw art, and program a "huge" game anymore. I haven't coded anything for this game yet, other than cannibalizing the Adventure II engine, but I do have a workable design document and mockups, and I think the game could be fun. But I have to be careful not to get carried away with scope , or else I'll never finish it. So my goal now is to make 1 trial level ("Case") of Detective Powers and see how it turns out. After that I'll see if I want to add more to it. The intro case might be a simply one like "Adventure of the 5 Napoleans" where you simply have to hunt on a few city streets (each perhaps being four "City Blocks" (screens) wide), and find all 5 missing Napolean statuettes , and each one will boost your Detective Powers and also eliminate color clues. So after finding them all, you should be able to know (for example) to go look for a RED house on a BLUE street and touch the GREEN man found there. Touch the correct man and you'll have solved the case. If this sounds too complicated, I think that once you actually play the game, it would make more sense.


    Here is the official description for the game that I wrote years back:



    I might end up making one or both 64K. Why not? It solves a lot of memory constraint problems. I'm not sure if we have successfully made a 64K 5200 PCB / cartridge yet.

    Although the Sherlock Holmes "craze" has settled down since I first had the idea, I will always be a fan of the books, the Jeremy Brett Granada series from the 80's and 90's, and I enjoy the modern takes too. Below are some mockups as ideas for what could be in the final game.










    (_)3




  10. Cafeman
    Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , episode IX of George Lucas' original 9-chapter story, debuts December 20, 2019.       Back in the autumn of 2015 before  Star Wars: The Force Awakens (episode VII)  came out,  I binged the Clone Wars animated series (on Netflix  I think) and found it was mostly very good!      And now, leading up to Episode IX, I am  binging on Star Wars content again to get me in the SW mood.  On the movies side of things, I'm going to re-watch all the films in chronological story order:  Ep1, Ep2, Ep3,  Solo, Rogue One, Ep4, Ep5, Ep6, Ep7, Ep8. 
     
    Today I re-watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on DVD, in full Dolby Surround Sound.  Blu-ray films always seem to use DTS sound, but most of my DVDs used Dolby Surround, which to me seems to have louder, more potentially booming dynamic range compared to the more well-mixed DTS sound ... but it could just be my 2000's era Onkyo surround sound system too. 
     
    Watching the Phantom Menace for the first time in a few years, I found myself immediately interested and pleasantly surprised by the film!  Time has passed so my prior grievances have  kind of just become accepted in my mind.   There were too many silly Jar-Jar and Gungan mannerisms and dialogue and clumsy antics by the film's end, but not enough to ruin the film for me.   The soundtrack by John Williams is just fantastic, and I enjoyed young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jinn and their actors.    This film was released in May  1999, and the actors appear so young to me.   Liam Neeson must have been in his mid-forties at this time -  younger than I am now.    And good grief, Natalie Portman was still a teenager!   And the Yoda puppet is very ugly! 
     
    Overall, there is a lot of good stuff found in The Phantom Menace, in my opinion.  But I think George Lucas missed an opportunity with  his direction of young Jake Lloyd as pre-teen Anakin Skywalker.   He is a young kid at this point, but I felt he could have been directed and shot with a few more scenes which would foreshadow Vader.    Like when Anakin accidentally activates the spaceship's auto-pilot, but he survives the dogfight and flies into the control ship bay and blows it up from inside, saving the day.   My problem with the direction is that is almost seems like Anakin did all these things by accident, or was very lucky.  I'd have enjoyed watching him piloting that Naboo craft  and showing in his eyes the concentration as he piloted a scenario that he was quite familiar with due to his days of pod-racing.  It should've been a fist-pump scene when the control ship is defeated (like the mood and suspense we all felt in 1977's Death Star explosion .. wow!) .  But its not quite that. Oh well. 
     
    I was reminded how awesome Darth Maul was, and the excellent Duel of the Fates music and the great Jedi / Sith lightsaber battle at the end.    The sequence where Maul, Jinn, and Kenobi are separated by red force-fields  -- and they can do nothing but glare at each other and wait -- is well filmed , well staged, well acted, and well scored.  Its stuff like this that makes rewatching Ep1 well worth it.  
     
    Next up is Star Wars:  Attack of the Clones, which has historically been my least favorite of the (so far ) 8 main Star Wars films. 
     
    Star Wars! 
     

  11. Cafeman

    Bike Riding

    By Cafeman,

    I'm tired of buying junk. In 2009 I went yard sale shopping and got 2 used bikes. One was for Mrs Cafeman, who since decided biking isn't for her, so I ditched it years back. The other bike, and I don't recall the brand, was for my oldest son who was like 15 at the time - wouldn't you know we still have it, it's older but the frame and wheels never bent, the brakes still work, and it didn't rust out. You can tell this was a quality bike back in the day, whatever year it was sold.

    Contrast that with the pretty but horrible piece of Huffy junk I bought at Kmart or Walmart (can't remember which store) a year later, which I recently discarded on Craigslist for $15. That Huffy bike was heavy, wasn't built properly - brakes stuck, the chain would come off if you switched to certain gears, the foot pedal broke from my weight (over 200) TWICE, and when I stood and pedaled, the frame of that adult-sized 'mountain bike' would buckle, activating the brakes! The front tire of this "mountain bike" eventually warped as well. Junk. The buyer on Craigslist like my cheap price and said he could fix it and get some use for it.

    So I still have that $25 bike - it has a nice stiff frame, the only problem is I have to add air to the tires every 2 days. I just got a decent deal on a Trek bike on Craigslist - what a difference in ride and quality! The bike was super clean and I can tell it had been well cared for.

    I've been checking out the better bikes for a year now in local premium biking stores - but have been too cheap to fork over the $400+ that they sell for - Canondales, Treks, Giants, Specialized, etc. So I checked out Craigslist and found this 19.5" Trek mountain bike for $80. My 2 sons and I are all around 6' or so (I'm the shortest of the 3, at 5'11" , and I think I've lost some height since my teenage years...). So we'll see how the Trek fits us. For a few sample short rides, it felt nice.

    If you are a bike rider, what do you like? Mountain bikes? Hybrids? Any more affordable recommendations?
  12. Cafeman
    [EDITED again - added a Before and After pic below] 
     
    Back in 2020, I started to tinker with my old 2002 game,  the 32K Atari 5200 homebrew Koffi: Yellow Kopter.    I'm calling it Koffi Redux so far.   I fixed bugs, tweaked gameplay rules,  rewrote various graphics routines to make more efficient, added some colors and graphics, and added 2-player mode.  One nasty bug was in the original on stage Windy Vines - it took AA member @RB5200 to find it and report some clues to me.  The bug mysteriously kills poor Koffi for no reason down near the vine.    I fixed the bug which had a side-effect of simplifying some code there, too. 
     
    Even though I reclaimed nearly 1K of ROM by my recoding stuff,  I was again running low. I was down to under 400 bytes of ROM left.   Originally I figured when I ran out of ROM, I'd call it done and release the current version to play.  But there are too many things I want to tweak, and I kept noticing other tables and routines which could take up a much smaller ROM footprint - one of these areas was each screen's Display List.  The screens are primarily high-resolution Antic E mode lines, and each display list was 195 bytes. 
     
    In Koffi, there are 4 gameplay screens, a title screen, and LoadLevel (between stages) screen.  MV Mountain Valley and CF Coniferous Forest screens used the same 195-byte display list, but the other screens all had their own unique 195-byte Display List Tables.   This week I implemented the method I used in 5200 Adventure II (which had about 90 different Antic 4 screens),  each of the 4 gameplay screens now uses a common display list table,  which uses well under 100 bytes to produce the 195 byte Display List.   At this point I have 952 free ROM bytes, so I saved over 550 bytes recoding all this. 
     
    However, I'll use some of that on the next step - to dynamically set the unique Display List Interrupts into that 195-byte RAM table, a unique footprint for each of the 4 gameplay screens.   This method surgically inserts the value $8E overtop an existing $0E byte, one for each place a DLI should exist as you draw down the screen.    By using my AdvII table idea called DLIMarkerScr and DLIMarkerRow tables, I won't use too many ROM bytes implementing custom DLI's for the 4 gameplay screens. 
     
    Diagram 1:    Sample Code which builds the common DLIST from $1000 to $10C2 in RAM.   The actual screen RAM is mapped starting at $2000.   One thing of note is that this Display List requires an extra LMS jump instruction (3 bytes) before you cross screen RAM of $2xxx to $3xxx - yes, a full Antic E screen needs more than 1 page of RAM memory. 
     
    ; ************************************************************************************************************** BuildCommonDLIST dlist1Part1 ldx #$08 ; store 9 bytes from dlist1 table from $1000-$1008: ;*** load initial 9 bytes: dlloop2A lda dlist1,x sta $1000,x dex ;next byte cpx #$ff bne dlloop2A ;*** load 186 bytes, all are "0E" values for Antic E mode lines, from $1009 to $10BF. dlist1Part2 ldx #$09 lda #$0E ;Antic E mode lines dloop2B sta $1000,x inx cpx #$C0 ;end of display list at $10BF in RAM. bne dloop2B ;*** load MID LMS 3 bytes: dlist1part3 lda #$4E sta $1064 lda #$00 sta $1065 lda #$30 sta $1066 ;*** load end jmp 3 bytes: lda #$41 sta $10C0 lda #$00 sta $10C1 lda #$10 sta $10C2 ;******************************************* end new dlist1 code rts ;***************************************************************************************************************  
    Diagram2:  shows what the built DLIST looks like with some notes: 
     

     
     
    Diagram3:   shows what stage 1 MV looks like with no display list interrupts turned on yet, and AFTER the DLI's are active.  Next I have to add the appropriate DLI rows for CF, WV, and PM stages. At this point I have over 900 bytes left, so it was worth the recoding effort. 
     
     

  13. Cafeman
    I just got back from 10 Cloverfield Lane , and it didn't disappoint. The first section is a spoiler-free review, followed by a spoiler-hidden additional thoughts.



    Spoiler-free Review:

    "After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack." - IMDB's description.

    I didn't really expect the film to be a direct sequel to the original Cloverfield, with that monster stomping around - but I wasn't sure. I've read how it was originally called The Cellar, and perhaps somebody recognized a quality that justified giving it the Cloverfield title. Just like Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits - an Anthology series of films. I think this is actually a great idea, because I really liked Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, even though they are totally different types of films. Bring on another Cloverfield title!



    Getting back to 10CL, the film surprised me a number of times. Three people are trapped in Howard's (a doomsday prepper and conspiracy advocate played by John Goodman) bunker. Howard claims that there has been an attack on the USA. They don't know who exactly, but he has a few theories. John Goodman's acting was particularly excellent! You don't really know a lot about him, you try (as the main female character does) to figure him out. So he was at times sinister and very frightening, even when he was being calm. Is he a madman or the only guy who knows whats going on? There is strong evidence both ways. The film is a slow build of intense and then lighter scenes, slowly revealing more details about Howard and the situation at hand. The intensity always returns and it comes with Goodman's character, even when he's not in the scene but just heard coming down the hall.



    After seeing the film, I went back and watched the trailer and the released stills. More is shown in those stills than you might think. Certain items in the still pictures have an important purpose, but you'd never know until watching - the perfect type of oblivious / hidden "spoiler" material to put into a trailer. Heh.

    As with the original Cloverfield film, where seeing blood splatter against a screen is shocking because it is done realistically and you know what horrible thing just happened back behind the screen, in 10CL the slow burn gets to you and just one loud event can startle you and make you jump. There are a few times I "felt the impact" of a scene and my heart raced for a minute. All of the film's questions or mysteries are not exactly answered, but the big questions are answered, and I felt very satisfied by the ending.

    Finally, I found the lead character Michelle (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to be smart. Right from the start, she's figuring stuff out. There is only one scene, one action of hers, that strained credulity just a bit - and it reminded me of another film with a similar scene - but nothing that ruins the overall film's quality.



    I would rate 10 Cloverfield Lane, a claustrophobic and suspenseful thriller with a simple story line yet filmed in a satisfyingly complex manner, with an A-.

    Spoilers part of the Review:

  14. Cafeman
    Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , episode IX of George Lucas' original 9-chapter story, debuts December 20, 2019. Or Thursday night December 19 as new big movies started to bump up the day.  
     
    I remember in the early 80's when Star Wars was the best and most exciting thing there was, and articles would comment that these films were really just episodes 4,5 and 6 of a bigger story that floated in George's head.  I never thought we'd actually get films for 1,2,3 or 7,8,9.  And now episode 9, the end of the Skywalker and common Star Wars tales, is almost here.   And then its done. Of course, it isn't George's vision anymore, but I'm fine with that.  Just give us some Star Wars.  I'm happy that Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, and C3PO are still showing up in these Sequel Trilogy Star wars films.  But after Ep9 ...  what will Star Wars new films and shows be like?      The Mandalorian TV show is filling in gaps in an earlier era.  Like the very good "Clone Wars" animated series did.   Before Episode 7 came out, that fall I binged the Clone Wars animated series (on Netflix  I think) and found it was mostly very good!      And now, leading up to Episode 9, I'm binging on Star Wars content again to get me in the SW mood again. 
     
    So I started on November 1 by digging out my Xbox console and putting in a game I've owned 15 years but NEVER PLAYED THROUGH ... Knights of the Old Republic.  Now, my oldest boy played it through back in the 2000's and I saw a bit of it.  But I'm not a big RPG gamer , so after running around on Taris for 2 hours and getting lost, I think I put it away and never returned. I know it is an acclaimed game though, so finally I'm going to play through some or all of it.    
     
    I'm about 5 or 6 hours in. I just defeated a Rancor in the sewers, if you know that part. I simply spammed grenades at it until it died.  But now, up above the sewers in the Vulkar base, there is a certain battle which killed my scout, my female Twi'lek party member, and my Wookie party member.   I'm heading towards the light side of the Force / Jedi with my decisions. The game has a lot of depth and I still feel like I've not quite understood the best way to win battles.  So far I think the game was done pretty well. I'm just not 100% sure I'll have the time to beat it before December 20th.  There are other things I want to play and watch. 
     
    My plans for the Pre-Ep9 Star Wars binge are to play through KOTOR, to also play a bunch of Gamecube Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike (including the bonus 80's coin-op SW games on Rebel Strike), and also to buy Playstation 4 Jedi: Fallen Order later in the month.       On the movies side of things, I'm going to rewatch all the films in chronological story order:  Ep1, Ep2, Ep3,  Solo, Rogue One, Ep4, Ep5, Ep6, Ep7, Ep8.  And I'll start watching the Mandalorian soon too, might subscribe to Disney+ soon. 
     
    Star Wars! 

  15. Cafeman
    I have  re-watched all three Prequel Trilogy films back-to-back.    I've come to live with and accept some earlier harsher criticisms, so I won't focus too much on those.  But I will be talking about what was dumb.   Some random thoughts: 
     
    Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones  (Released May 2002, 17 years ago!)  -- thoughts: 
     
    Anakin acts like an immature,  whiny brat the entire first half of the film. It is awkward to watch these scenes, as everybody else in the scene is taken aback at his petulant behavior.   And he can switch on this behavior at a moment's notice.   But starting with his visit to Tatooine to search for his mother, Anakin starts to exhibit a lot more interesting and better acted traits. I got chills at he scene where Anakin rides into the desert to search for her, then he loses control to rage and takes his revenge on all the Sandpeople.  It was a great touch showing how Yoda could sense ripples in the Force from Anakin's pain, and hearing deceased Qui-Gon yell out "Anakin! No!!".    
     
     I enjoyed the Jango scenes and seeing Slave I's offensive abilities.   It was awesome when the Jango-Clone soldiers finally showed up, along with ole 'backwards-speak' General Yoda commanding them.   "To the forward command center, take me!"     And Yoda's lightsaber battle vs Christopher Lee's Count Dracula Dooku!  BITD,  I seriously geeked out at that scene at the theater!   This time, I still mustered up an eager smile at the scene, even though I knew what was coming.   I love some of the little details, such as  how Yoda uses the Force to pull his saber from his belt to his hand.   "Much to learn, you have!"     It was a treat to watch an older Christopher Lee in action, battling and defeating Obi-Wan and Anakin before almost meeting his match when Master Yoda shows up. 
     
    Dumbest parts #1:    Love-scene dialogue.  In the past, I'd usually fast-forward past the dull, clunky dialogue between Anakin and Padme.    But this time, I watched them all;  they are what they are.   I had forgotten the "I hate sand" meme was invented here and couldn't help but produce a rude snort when I heard the line again. 
     
    Dumbest parts #2:  the video-game styled steel-mill / factory dangers.  I still don't understand how Anakin got his arm out of the steel casings. This sequence reminds me of playing Dragon's Lair for some reason.   And speaking of this sequence...
     
    Dumbest parts #3:  C-3PO's excessively forced humor and 'action'.  Ugh.   He loses his head, it gets grafted onto a battle droid. "This is such a drag!" as R2 drags his disembodied head away.   Just like the "Roger-Roger" droid dialogue we've had to deal with, this may have been aimed at young children, but this fourth-wall-breaking joking around is so corny that it takes me out of the movie, just like in the ridiculous Gymnastics Raptor-Take-Down-Scene in Jurassic Park:  The Lost World.  
     
     
    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith  (Released  May 2005) -- some thoughts: 
     
     Ah yes, I remember now, General Grievous is in this one. With a hunched-over gait and as sinister-looking as George could manage, also with a hacking cough that isn't explained.   I actually appreciate how some things aren't explained by spoon-fed expository dialogue.   Another example is how Palpatine is pulling the strings in all three Prequel films - at first I think many wouldn't realize his just how deep his craftiness goes, but there are clues that basically every major event was being planned and orchestrated by him.   Thus, I feel it is not beyond reason to have him somehow found a way to survive and to be part of the upcoming Episode IX, as the trailers indicate.    Getting back to Ep3,  Palpatine isn't even trying to pretend that he isn't a Dark Lord of the Sith at this point.    Ian McDiarmid is a treat to behold in this film, he appears to be relishing his role as Chancellor / Emperor Palpatine and really chewing up his scenes!  Ha!   
     
     I think George Lucas tried hard to give fans their money's worth with all the STUFF stuffed into Revenge of the Sith.    Lightsaber battles, chases,  and spaceship battle scenes.   Anakin really does look agressive and ferocious when he goes on the attack.    But Yoda has the best lines.  At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was. 
     
    Finally, I've often wondered, why does Obi-Wan only in this film strike the two-fingers pose?   And why does Obi-Wan's ridable bird lizard have that annoying yell?  To quote Mr. James Carrey from Dumb or Dumber, "want to hear the most annoying sound in the world???"  
     
    So far I've re-watched 3 films and my personal ranking hasn't changed:  Ep3 > Ep1 > Ep2.     (Yes, I like the oft-maligned Ep1 a little more than Ep2).      
     
    Star Wars! 

  16. Cafeman
    I started to play Xbox Knights of the Old Republic for the first time in advance of Star Wars Episode IX ... although I've owned it for 15 years!  
     
    On Monday I played for another hour or so.  I'm still on Taris but I have seemingly finished the sewers/Vulkar Swoop Bike prototype engine mission.   I  won the subsequent Swoop bike racing heats (not hard at all), and the female Jedi Bastila has been freed and she is a member of my party now.   I think I learned something about fighting in the Vulkar base sequences - use an Ion grenade to disable enemy personal force-fields,  *and* activate personal force-fields for all 3 members of your fighting party.   Don't forget to lob frag grenades too.   (also - manually save.  Frequently).  I have a couple unfinished missions which should earn me some credits at the very least, so next time I play I'll be wandering around the Cantinas and Apartments to complete those. 
     
    Favorite parts of KOTOR so far .... running into the Rankor and my party getting demolished by it several times;  fighting Gamorrean Guards; seeing the various alien species walk about, species we first saw in A New Hope's Cantina scenes;   and the accurate SW sounds such as  Wookie bleats and growls . 
     
    Edit update 11.25.2019 ... I finally got done with Taris and I believe I only need to defeat 2 ruins protector droids before I can leave Dantooine. Problem is, I am low on supplies.  Taris was on the dull side. Dantooine has Jedis and lightsaber action! I'm not sure I am in the mood to play the entire game though. I have other, more action packed games to play!
     
    Star Wars! 

  17. Cafeman
    As I blogged about earlier, Panzer Dragoon Remake made me want to hook up the Saturn again to play though the original. 
     
    Now I'm mostly working on Panzer Dragoon Zwei, which is one of my favorite Saturn titles. I am up to level 6 which is the assault on the huge flying imperial ship. I died at the boss fight, so I'll try it again next time - this game allows a Save End option to continue later.  
     
    It has been so long since I had played Zwei, that I keep getting killed off. I don't remember the strategies or patterns, and that makes the game a lot of fun all over again. In fact almost all the levels killed me off at least once.  Level 5 (I think) where you battle in the high-up snowy skies killed me the most so far. I finally remembered the secret to beating the boss - have enough health of course, but also don't lock-on at all because his rotating shield blocks all missiles. Just keep following him and button-mash fire at him until he's gone. 
     
    I also popped in my Williams' arcade classics disc and enjoyed a round of Bubbles, Defender, and Robotron.   For Robotron I have to angle my controller a bit because the firing buttons aren't laid out in a perfect diamond. for Up/Down/Left/Right shooting, but I adjust pretty quickly. Love using the Saturn japanese pad for gaming.  I didn't even have to take a carpal-tunnel-syndrome break like I often have to with other controllers (my hands go numb). 
     
    Maybe next time I fire up the Saturn, I'll finally beat all of Zwei and open Pandora's Box.  
  18. Cafeman

    2023 comes to an end, HB updates

    By Cafeman,


    Homebrew
    I'm over 50, thus I have 1 deceased parent (from year 2000), 1 elderly mom and her elderly husband (of 21 years) , my stepfather. This year I spent a lot of days in support of my 2 elderly parents. My stepfather's health deteriorated a lot in particular, and thus there were many trips to hospitals, caregiving, then in-home hospice, then his death in December at age 84.  Now my mom is a widow again.  The first time she was widowed in 2000, she was only a few years older than I am now. 
     
    So, things like Atari, and homebrewing, well there wasn't much time or energy for that. 
     
    But I did make some progress on these:  
     
    Koffi Redux.  I've been reworking the OG 2002 game in the same 32K memory space. Got some new tweaked graphics like more colors and more interesting backgrounds, a  2-player simultaneous gameplay, and plans for a more pinball-game inspired style of gameplay. But I did all this in the 1st part of 2023 with little progress in the tail end of 2023.  I want to include things like appearing bumpers and targets (on the clouds and tree edges) for Koffi to hit and earn you points as you play.  I'd like to release whatever I can accomplish in 32K as a demo, then bump it up to bank-switched 64K for a more fleshed-out follow up. 
     
    Adventure II 5200 2023. I applied bug-fixes, minor gameplay tweaks,  and engine improvements to the OG 2007 5200 game, still 32K as well. These improvements were based on what I did on Adventure II XE in the 2010's. I don't have much ROM space left.   I was trying to make a new 'base' version of Adventure II 5200 that I could then modify for future DLC ROMs which would have fresh new things for folks to play.  The changes significantly improve the efficiency of the sprite engine. The only problem is that these fixes introduced an old bug.  I could put in a simple plug to identify if the bug happened and fix it on the next frame -   but I really would like to solve the root problem that causes it. I put in an error trap , played in Altirra until the bug happened, then investigated memory.  But I haven't really solved it as I haven't had time the past few months.  
     
    Very little progress of another long-running 5200 Homebrew "Detective Powers". 
     
    Going forward in 2024, after this end-of-year period where I'm really slacking, drinking, and just playing games and watching movies - I hope to get back into the rewarding creativity of homebrewing games for 5200 and A8. 
  19. Cafeman

    Me and Saturn

    By Cafeman,

    I loaded Shinobi Legions and have been relearning it for that past 2 nights.  I have not played it for a LONG TIME.  Probably not for 10 years or more.  Quick take:  it is pretty awesome and fun!  Its funny to me, I remember taking note of the game's load times when it was new.  Well ,  compared to Genesis cartridge gaming, yes there are some load times, but after playing modern games for so many years, Shinobi Legions'  load times now seem negligible to me!   The game is more fun, with better control, than I had thought. 
     
    But last night, it locked up on the first boss. Then no disc would load - it appeared my Saturn would not spin the disc anymore or something. Was the laser gone? Did some mechanical doodad finally wear out?  So I unplugged it, shot high pressure component-cleaning air into it, and then turned it upside down and did it again.  BANG my Saturn was working fine again.  Not sure how or why. 
     
    I have been relearning patterns and subtleties of gameplay. This Shinobi plays differently than the Genesis games, even the ninja powers aren't accessible in the same way as before. There are different sword swipes you can pull off - press up + button, or up/right diagonal + button, or forward with button .. all different swipes. The animation is very good and overall its quite fun ... and HARD. I got to the boss on the mountaintop , after climbing hand-over-hand on vines and killing massive snakes and avoiding cannons.  I can't remember if I ever got past this level or not, its like a new game that I've never played before.   
     

     
    The in-game music is excellent.   And although I used to mock the FMV's, I now find them very entertaining in a 'cheaply made' bad sense, and yet there are a few surprises in the cut scenes. One of them is when all the ninjas and a girl actually jump / spectacularly dive off a cliff into the sea - with real people!  The cliff looks to be over 20 feet high! 
     
     

  20. Cafeman
    I've watched Star Wars Episode VII:  The Force Awakens about a dozen times;  I've watched Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi a couple of times.    I just re-watched them, after having watched all the other SW films in story-chronological order. 

    I've already blogged a lot about Episode 7: The Force Awakens, so I'm not in the mood to say the same things.  Basically I really enjoyed its return to the OT feel, and I really liked Daisy Ridley as Rey.  Even though TFA mimics story points from ANH, I still enjoy it a bit more than TLJ.  

    If TFA is an example of how to play it super-safe in making a new Star Wars, then TLJ is an example of how to go in a totally unexpected direction from the prior film, for better and worse.    TLJ starts with off with an unexpected use of humor, as Poe Dameron and his droid BB-8 try to stall First Order General Hux from attacking the fleeing Rebels or their own tricked out X-wing.   I like the gag and I laughed out loud on this viewing as Hux, who takes himself and his role far too seriously,  is played for laughs.  He just doesn't get it;   but his fellow officers sure do, as do we the audience.     Then after a costly brief battle (for both sides), Hux is immediately and hilariously berated by Supreme Leader Snoke himself, wiping the floor with Hux's face!   But Hux was not 100% a fool as we soon learn.  

    As I watch General Hux later in the film, I am starting to believe his character is the Star Wars equivalent to Pride and Prejudice's character Mr. Collins.  Mr. Collins is a pompous, idiotic clergyman who constantly drops the name of his patron, lady Catherine De Bourge.   The actor who plays him in the 1995 BBC mini-series was perfect for the role, a greasy and sniveling man who has a bit of authority.    In the same way, Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux can't mention enough times his admiration for the SUPREEEEME LEEEEEADER Snoke.   And he is pompous enough in his zealous love of the First Order that he gets easily pranked by Poe Dameron.     Hate the scene if you will, but I've watched it several times and I like it. 

    My problem with TLJ is that as the film progresses, I start to get bored with some of it.  I love all the scenes with Luke Skywalker , Rey, and Princess Leia.   Leia's Force abilities are demonstrated for the first time.  She is empathic and senses what is going on with Kylo, Luke, or Rey. She doesn't waste time doing things like levitating and cutting fruit for example, but when her life is in danger, she is able to almost unconsiously pull her body through space to safety.  I like this scene. I will not criticize it. It makes sense to me.   

    What I don't like about that part of TLJ is that Admiral Ackbar is killed off in this attack scene with only a mention later.  The film squandered his character.   Later,  paleo-botanist Ellie Sattler shows up in a purple wig to replace Leia - it should have been Admiral Ackbar in this role,  taking charge, making the sacrifice, and being heroic!  Admiral Holdo (purple-hair's name) is lame!   Sigh.... oh well.  
    I also have problems with Finn's and Rose's dialogue and mission , namely the journey to the Casino planet and return. This stuff veers away from the main story and I get impatient with it.  The Casino's aliens are entertaining enough, but the preachy message about war profiteering,  sad or smiling horses and  pauper kids really don't connect with me.     Well, once Finn and Rose find a master hacker character and infiltrate the First Order Star Destroyer (to turn off the hyperspace tracking device), it gets better.  

    TLJ does a great job with its use of the Force. It shows new Force abilities and the Force is once again quite mysterious!  The scene where the Dark Side tempts Rey is  creepy, mysterious, and very cool!   The way Kylo and Rey get connected, and Luke's unexplainable final demonstration as he punks Kylo Ren on the Ice Planet Hoth  the SALT planet . Well, at first watch I didn't really like the reveal about how Luke got there.  But now, I think it is GREAT.   The scene where Luke appears in the cave, briefly talks to his sister Leia, then walks past them all and outside to confront Kylo Ren and the walkers ... that was one of the most exciting SW scenes I've ever seen. Even knowing how it ends, its still magnificent! When he brushes off imaginary rubble from his  shoulder , fantastic!  Mark Hamill rules in this film! 
    I actually enjoyed the decision to make Luke regretful and hiding out on the island, waiting to die. I originally expected him to be an uber-powerful wizard by now.  But that would have been boring to be honest. Instead, it was nice to see Mark Hamill act his way around the unexpected direction of his character and his journey to going back to using the Force and his decision to help Rey.   Especially enjoyable was his getting trolled by Force-Ghost Yoda.  Who was again an excellent puppet. 

    Finally ... I really really liked that Kylo killed Snoke, and I liked Kylo and Rey teaming up to battle the First Order red guards. I never really liked Snoke that much, good riddance and bring back Palpatine for Episode IX!

    In my next blog entry, I will rank the 8 Skywalker films and 2 side story films and give some brief reasons for my personal rankings. 
    Star Wars!
     

  21. Cafeman
    I decided to re-watch Rogue One, then Episode IV: A New Hope immediately after.  I have never done this before!   Rogue One is a 2016 film, but a prequel to 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope.    I know the original Star Wars film like the back of my hand, but I wonder, how will the experience change after having just watched its prequel?   Rogue One ends with Princess Leia having just escaped the Imperials and Darth Vader, with the plans to the Death Star.    Star Wars began with Princess Leia storing those plans in a certain little R2 unit, before being captured by Darth Vader. 

    Will it feel natural? Rogue One is the story of the individuals,  rebels,  who just battled and sacrificed their lives to accomplish getting those Death Star weapon plans.  It also explains, in a satisfactory way,  why this huge battle station has a critical security flaw that farmboy Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance will later exploit.    Rogue One was created nearly 40 years later, thus it likely has much more believable special effects and production values. Right? 

    Watching Rogue One .... 

    From Rogue One's first moments, I enjoyed the fresh direction and mood that is set.  There is no verbiage screen crawl here, instead the film starts quickly with a great-looking scene of  an Imperial shuttle descending past a planet's rings and down to its surface.  RO avoids the 2000's-era CGI look of the prequel films  and feels very different from them.     I don't dislike the prequel films, but they do seem to exist in their own bubble, with a very different in feel from the Original Trilogy or any other Star Wars films.    Rogue One seems to fit naturally with the feel of ANH.  Care must have been taken to purposely do this. 
    Having just watched EpIII:  Revenge of the Sith, I enjoyed seeing Jimmy Smits appear in Rogue One as Bail Organa, appearing without notice from the shadows at the Rebel base.   Unfortunately, he informs Mon Mothma that he is heading back to Alderaan ... and we all know what is going to happen to Alderaan soon. 

    Now ... rewatching the OT films.  

    Over the weekend I watched the DVD special editions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.   I just didn't have the patience to dig out my VHS versions and watch them in crappy resolution, so I tolerated a few of the extra S.E. goodies... more on those later on.  I need to hunt down the de-Specialized versions. 

    First of all, I did feel that Rogue One led naturally to Ep4 A New Hope, not much else to say.    Good job RO people!

    Watching ANH,  I was reminded what a great film that is.  It doesn't waste a moment.  Many scenes are not hurried and are left to breathe a bit, but even so the film is tightly edited and never lost my attention.   TESB was also a fantastic and complex story line of course.  TESB was the first Star Wars film I watched back in the day -  around 6th grade  I think - since I had not been taken to see the original Star Wars in '77.   So, I will always be partial to TESB as a film, yet I still can't find any reasons to disagree about TESB  geing the absolute  best of all the Star Wars shows.    It was even more fantastic BITD when we learned that Vader is Luke's father, and Yoda says "there is another" hope.   Well, we wondered for 3 years, who is it?  And was Vader lying? You cant trust a thing that a Sith says, and that seems to make Obi-Wan into a big fibber.  Which we learned later, is true.  From a certain point of view.    

    I  feel like a hypocrite after complaining about forced C-3PO humor in Attack of the Clones, because there are a TON of 3PO "funny quips" in TESB too.  One quip that I really did enjoy was when 3PO didn't quite get through the Hoth rebel base door following after Solo and Leia; it closes on him, and 3PO turns away and mutters "typical!".    I laughed. Then Han opens the door again and pulls 3PO into safety.  
     
    Watching ROTJ, I found myself feeling impatient with Jabba's palace scenes for some reason.  The Special Edition "improvements" are at their most intrusive here, with CGI alien singers and extra music that was not needed.   If this is the first time a person watched it, I guess it is fine, but to me, these extras are intrusive.   You have to remember, this film introduced Jabba the Hut (mentioned but not shown in the prior films,  before the Special Editions added him to one ANH scene at Mos Eisley).   He was introduced and he is magnificent here - gross, slimy, shrewd, cruel. A real gangster.   The puppet work on Jabba is fantastic - his eyes narrlow pupils focus and you can read his emotions when he laughs or is angered;   and his tail and hands are moving independently in a natural way.  Jabba is deservedly strangled to death by Leia in a gruesome tail-twitching scene. 
    After seeing a CGI Yoda in the prequel trilogy films,  I was reminded at just how well the puppet Yoda (TESB/ ROTJ) works! Such an expressive little character.  When he died in ROTJ from extreme old age  (when 900 years you reach, look as good you will not!), it is a heart wrenching scene.  Slow-motion is used both in TESB's Dark Side cave and in ROTJ when Yoda vanishes after dying, his cloth clothing slowly folding in its own emptiness.  Love that stuff. 

    I really enjoyed the OT films again and I think I may rewatch them all again before Episode IX!    They are far and away still the best of Star Wars.   ROTJ is the lesser of the 3 OT films to me, despite it having absolutely fantastic and iconic scenes and a satisfying ending -  there is a little bit of 'seen this all before' with the Death Star, and personally I get impatient watching some of Jabba's palace and the Ewok village scenes.    

    My rankings of the films I've seen so far on this watch (man this is hard, ranking them) is:     Ep5  >  Ep4 > Ep6  > Ep3 > Ep1 > Ep2.  

     I'm not sure where the side-stories of Solo and Rogue One fit in.   But to me, RO > Solo.    It seems wrong to put them ahead of any of George Lucas' work, like comparing apples to oranges.   I'll think about it and rank them all after I've also rewatched Ep7 and Ep8.  
     
    Star Wars! 
     

     

  22. Cafeman
    I've been going through and making tweaks to a laundry list of subtle and minor things.  I'm using the CONSOLE keys more than before so that you can play the game on an XEGS without needing the optional keyboard.    START  resets you back to Game Over / Rankings screen,   SELECT  Revives you to a Checkpoint,   and OPTION is Pause.    If you play on a computer like the 800XL etc, you can also rely on the  SpaceBar for Pause, "R" for Revive.     You can also Revive after getting eaten by just pressing the Fire Button on the joystick which is really the only time I ever use Revive when I play the game. 
     
    Why Revive if you aren't eaten? Well, just in case you play as a bigger alt icon and get stuck in a bush , or the Troll steals your bridge and you are stuck ....  the revive is a safeguard - it takes you back to the last checkpoint. Or players might use it as a shortcut back to the checkpoint screen when they are deep in a castle and don't want to manually find their way out.  You have the option to do that.  But you don't bring any carried items with you back to the checkpoint screen. That would be cheating!!!
     
    There have been approximately 1,000 changes made to the Atari 5200 Adventure II base code, give or take a hundred. 
     
    So, the last 2 changes I made were:    
     
    Bridge Building -  when you drag a wood plank to either of the 2 island screens, you can build a walkable bridge.  I opened up the path more so that all icons can cross over to the left-screen island area now. That wasn't possible on the 5200 unless you build the path AND used the bridge sprite.   
     
    You build bridges to reach items, but you might also find a secret bat egg that way too. 
     

     
    More Rankings tweaking -  I had been noticing wrong rankings.  One statistic that the game tracks is Time Played.  The game gives you 10 minutes for Small mazes, 15 minutes for Mediums, and 20 minutes for Vast mazes. If you exceed those limits,  the game will reduce your final ranking.   But even on some games where I exceeded those limits, I was getting great rankings. WHY WHY WHY??   So, I found the problem, I was using Hexadecimal $10, $15, and $20 and not Decimal 10, 15, 20.   Thus, the game was checking 16 minutes for Small mazes, 21 minutes for Mediums, and 32 minutes for Vasts!  I fixed that.   You can play a level for that long, especially if things just go wrong.  I've played some games from 45 minutes.    On the other hand, I've beaten small levels in under 4 minutes as the Square, and under 2 minutes playing as the Bat. 
     
    Adventure II XE shows which statistics are considered bad by marking those with a little "x".   If you quit out of the game, are eaten too much, didn't kill any dragons, excessively Revived, or took longer than the Time budget ... you'll get dinged on those categories and it affects your final ranking. 
     
    All in all, the rankings are more complicated and robust than the original 5200 Adventure II , and the actual rankings are different with the exception of one which I kept.  There are unique rankings for the Bat, Crab, and Knights. 
     

     
    The game won't be published for many months because of the AtariAge store workload ... so I'll tweak a few more things in the meantime until I consider it done.   That !@#$ Troll sometimes seems to BAMF! around, like X-men Nightcrawler, so I'll look into that next.  And I'm still playing around with some new sounds.   I have the ROM space for some new sounds and music, but I don't want to overload the game with repetitive music.  The silence is golden ... and when a sound does occur, it can add suspense. 
     
    (_)3  
  23. Cafeman

    Reactors

    By Cafeman,

    I was discussing Atari homebrews and Reactor was brought up. I can remember only one arcade that actually had that awesome coin-op, with its trak-ball and loud electronic music and cool sounds. Atari 2600 Reactor by Parker Brothers (the only console port I've ever heard of) was one of my most often played 2600 games, and I still go back to it. It's just so unique. The 2 types of reactor cores, the switching bonus chambers, and the invisible walls keep it interesting as you play across levels. I'd probably give it a 7.5 / 10 review.

    I once fooled around with the idea of a 5200 Reactor 2 game. I think I was going to call it Reactors. I can't remember all the slight gamme play changes I had planned, I have it written down in a folder somewhere. But in the recent discussion, 2-player simultaneous was brought up. Man, that would be awesome! With Trak-ball compatibility!

    I dug around and found my Antic4 screen development work. So I'm sharing. Of course, this was a first-draft and it would need some artistic improvements here and there. I thought about switching the bonus chambers , like the 2600 version did. But you know, I don't think the coin-op does that. Ok, as I type, I remember a few more details. I'd have "classic" gameplay and "plus" gameplay. "Plus" game would have stuff like moving control rods and different Reactor playfields. Just to spice it up.



    Most of the fun would be trying to get the tile animation to closely match the coin-op's reactor cores.

    I didn't get far so I'm including this as a 'what if...' blog. I'm not sure how many sprites/particles I'd need all at once but it'd be nice to have temporary smart-flickering (when 2 particles cross each other horizontally), or none at all.


  24. Cafeman
    I've seen The Force Awakens four times now. Three viewings at the theater, and one at home on my new BD copy.

    Review Grade: A

    I simply adore The Force Awakens! I love it! I love it more than any of the prequels. I love how it feels like natural 30-years-later continuation of the original trilogy that I loved as a youth. I like the new actors and characters, all of them. I give credit not only to the actors but to the film's director, JJ Abrams and writer Lawrence Kasdan.

    Top 3 reasons I love The Force Awakens:

    1. Rey. From the moment she shows up, after every spoken word by her, watching her live her life at the beginning and then she displays disgust, fear, anger, aggression, and sadness. I believed this character exists. John Williams' "Rey" score fits the scenes so incredibly well. Rey's duel with Kylo Ren in the forest gives me the shivers. She means business. Just watch how she kicks Kylo Ren, grabs his arm and forces his saber into the ground, cancelling it out. I can't wait to see what she becomes. Daisy Ridley was a real find. I think the greatest "payoff" scene in TFA is when Rey successfully pulls the lightsaber out of the snow and it whips past Ren who was also vying for the lightsaber; there she stands holding it, the music swells... wow!

    2. BB-8. This little guy cracks me up! Seeing him rolling and just booking along the ground ( Booking: urban slang for running really fast, probably comes from setting a record/putting it in the books) . Kudos for the filmmakers for creating a new, earnest and feisty little droid that can stand beside R2 and C-3PO.

    3. Familiar SW universe stuff. Destroyed AT-AT walkers and huge crashed Star Destroyers, TIE fighters and X-wings, blasters, stormtroopers, Imperials and Rebels (under different names), lightsabers. Also Han, Chewbacca, Leia, Admiral Ackbar, Nien Nunb, 3PO, R2, and even Darth Vader's helmet. They couldn't have added more to satisfy me.

    Grumbles about The Force Awakens:

    1. Mirrored plot points from the OT. Nope. I change my mind. At first, I was originally slightly underwhelmed by the ideas of Snoke and Starkiller plaet. But that's passed. I now don't mind the fact that "there's another Death Star-type thing!" in TFA. That is the Empire's modus operandi. And being introduced to another desert planet (Jakku , not Tatooine) where an important character is unknowingly about to be thrust to bigger things , well it worked. Nostalgic familiarity, true. But it made sense why an old ex-Rebel would hide out near the junkyard of this dustbowl planet.

    2. Han Solo's death. I don't mind that it happened. But for such a huge moment and extremely beloved character's death, Harrison's acting wasn't the greatest in this scene. C'mon, he looks surprised but it doesn't really look like it HURTS to be ran through by your son's lightsaber. I loved how Chewbacca went a little berserk , but really, more time and attention could have been shown at his rage (he didn't even pull the arms out of any stormtroopers! this was the chance to show it!) and his grief.

    3. Absolute lack of Luke Skywalker!!! I am just grumbling here, because it was a good idea to keep him reserved for the ending scene, and the next film. But dang it. I wanted to see him in action! What if he gets hit by a truck, or a TIE fighter panel, before he is done filming Ep8? What were you thinking Abrams?

    4. I didn't like Greg "Matt Parkman" Grunberg being in the SW film as Porkins Snap Wexley, a heavyset rebel pilot. He takes me out of the scene a little bit. I see Greg Grunberg, not a SW character. Thank goodness he didn't have Force powers. I don't want to see the Matt Parkman Stare in Star Wars. There were 2 other out-of-place actors, in my opinion -- Ken Leung (X-men and Lost), and the other was Carrie Fisher's daughter. Nepotism! If you watch her, she looks like she doesn't know what to do, she is just standing in the crowd in the background. But she is in several scenes. At least she is cute..


  25. Cafeman
    Just like smelling the roses in the garden, it's nice to have time to Watch the Replay. After a race. I've always loved doing it , to soak in the graphics which , during a race, you can't. And also just to watch myself racing around the track , from the 3rd person vantage point. So right now I'm typing this while half-watching a Mermaid Lake replay where I came in 3rd place, using the Lightning Car with Medium-Soft tires. Today is 9/9/15 - the 16th anniversary of the USA Dreamcast console release, so I am playing DC tonight. Tonight's beverage is Samuel Adams Cream Stout.

    As I view the replay, I see billboards with "Tide Table" and "Unique" and "Ken Ken 21" scribbled on them. What do they mean? I will never know! But I salute you, SEGA artists of 2000! I see RV's parked in the lot around the track. I see the frankly gorgeous Mermaid Lake's aqua blues and tints of green highlights. There is a blimp floating around with "Dreamcast" written on it too! After playing the Sega Saturn versions of Daytona USA, it was a real treat to play the DC version when 2001 rolled around, with its enhanced visual detail, performance, and (for the time) clarity. But the point I am thinking about is that, even after having played Daytona USA in the arcade and on Saturn and on Dreamcast for years, and after picking the car with the fastest speed and acceleration, I still could only come in 3rd place, and I fought for that. It makes me want to play another round. I hate when games have no challenge. You need to learn how to take the curves (the racing line), and maybe draft off other cars when you can, or you ain't gonna get 1st place.




    Over the past week, I've reacquainted myself with this game. There is nothing more drenched with SEGA nostalgia than than playing Three Seven Speedway with the Hornet car and hearing that track's music. If you master the Sonic Mountain Curve without slowing down too much, even if you only do it once, it is a great great feeling. After coming in 1st place, I bumped up the # of cars from 20 to 30, and then to 40 cars per race. 40 cars on one looping oval track means you are constantly getting out of the way of the slower pack. You can change the # of cars on any of Daytona USA 2001's tracks, also you can race in reverse or mirrored. This is a game you can play for a night or for a week and be happy with it, put it away for a while until you get the itch again. That's my kind of game; I don't have the free time to unlock all the stuff and earn all the licenses in a game like Gran Turismo.

    I snapped some pictures and even included my white lava lamp in 2 of them. The pictures are Dreamcast hooked up to a Panasonic 42" Plasma TV by the RCA cables. I used to love using S-video, but my TV doesn't support it, but it still looks quite good to me.

     

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