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Cafeman

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  1. 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  
  2. Cafeman
    It always amazes me the GUNK that sticks to our cement and brick  walkway slabs in 1 year.  Every year I spend a full day pressure-washing all these front & back, and also my pool deck which has composite decking but still accumulates dirt that needs to be washed off.   This year I had a little drawing fun before cleaning them all off.   This isn't chalk on cement;  the dark parts are slime, the bright parts what it looks like after the pressure wash water cleans it off. 
     


  3. 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
  4. 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



  5. 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.


  6. 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) .




  7. 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?
  8. 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..


  9. 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:

  10. 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




  11. 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.

     

  12. Cafeman

    RL5204 Escape From AirWorld

    By Cafeman,

    In the early 2000's decade, there was an effort to make a 5200 version of Swordquest Airworld. It didn't get too far, but it inspired me to draw up a couple of screens just for fun - a palace in the clouds with ladders and platforms, and rooms with items. I never really liked any of the Atari 2600 Swordquest games. None of them. But I did like the concept. Especially of an "Airworld". I had my own idea of such a game, and it was nothing like the original Atari Swordquest games. Years ago I had a game design I called "Joust Adventure" - a man in a poor and arid world discovered a huge egg, hatched it, and then rode the hatched ostrich-like bird into the skies and discovered a world above the clouds. It was kind of influenced by Joust, kind of influenced by SEGA's Panzer Dragoon without me realizing it.

    I abandoned that idea, then later I created a different type of design around the 'idea' of an Airworld type of game. My idea was more a game like Pitfall , or Montezuma's Revenge. It is a platformer with single flip-screens. You explore a land in the clouds. Not just a palace, but I wanted there to be multiple palaces and spooky/dangerous misty/cloud 'land' areas between them. Here are some of the gameplay and level features to differentiate this from every other platformer:


    You walk on palace platforms and climb ladders. This world was designed for creatures who can fly, and you can't - yet. Your goal is to get to the end of the entire game and finish it. Along the way you want to find and pick up treasures for points. Treasures will be inside Treasure Rooms, each with creatures which you must avoid touching. To beat the game, you'll need to find the Sky Sandals. This will allow you to walk on cloud platforms. Then you can find ALL the hidden treasure rooms. Another type of item to find are Wings. You can still make progress if you don't find every one, but you won't survive the end of the game if you don't find enough Wings. After all, you have to get back down to the ground level many miles below. Each time you find another Wing, you start to grow wings on your back and you can float a bit longer. This enables you to reach certain platforms which will lead to out-of-the-way screens and more treasure and items. Imitating Pitfall, there is a "perfect" score if you find all the treasure and play perfectly, and the game can be beaten and thus has an ending.

    Here are the Antic4 screens demonstrating the basic look of the outside platforms, and the inside Treasure Rooms.



    Here's the description so far:



    I liked the idea so this is my theoretical 4th Atari 5200/A8 homebrew game.








  13. Cafeman
    I bought an inexpensive new copy of the Japanese Daytona USA Circuit Edition recently. I've played a lot of versions of Daytona USA over the years - the coin-op original, the Saturn launch Daytona USA (which I lost and no longer own), the North American Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition (CCE) on Saturn, and the Dreamcast Daytona USA. I guess I'm a real sucker for Daytona USA.

    Searching online for differences between the original CCE and the later import CE, I found some claims that the handling was improved on the import CE edition. On first play , I really couldn't tell a difference. So I decided to play the 2 versions back to back for a week and see what I could glean. Here are the results.

    Well, there is definitely a difference in feel between CCE and CE. In fact, it is a little bit annoying to switch between versions because of the different feel! I would say that the CE version is easier to control your car around curves and in power slides, and I prefer the CE version's handling. The difference feels like tweaked control, not rewritten control, so frankly its difficult for me to describe it, or to recommend one version over the other. In both CCE and CE, even with analog steering I still have to 'tap and release' the analog NiGHTS stick to steer,because the steering is pretty sensitive. I can't get my thumb to finely control the analog wand and move a micrometer's worth of distance; so I find my self doing soft analog thrusts left/right and quickly letting go, else I'd oversteer. I don't have a Saturn driving wheel so can't compare.

    In my fun test sessions of CE, I mostly drove the Hornet. I held X, or Y, or Z a few times (as the game loads) to see the dusk/night/morning color changes. This is a valueless "extra" in my opinion; I prefer the normal original colors. I bumped up the difficulty to HARD and played the Grand Prix 20 laps on Three Sevens - I came in 2nd place and it was a fantastic race! But the same is true of the American CCE version.

    So, what it all boils down to is that the CE version has slightly different control - I'm not sure if either is 'superior'. CE has alternate colors by pressing X or Y or Z (which, well, who really cares - I guess night is fun for a change). CE also has slightly quicker menu loads. And CE has slightly better draw distance, slightly less noticeable pop-up of polygons in the distance. Both versions aren't bad at all in this regard though. Remember , even the coin-op version had some draw-in in the distance.

    The single best thing which CE does have over CCE, and why I play only the CE version now, is the music! Doo-doo, doo-doo,doo-doo, doo-doo, doooo-doooooo. Daytonnnnnnah! CE has the original Daytona USA songs! I enjoy them much more than the remix versions. The NA CCE Daytona USA doesn't have the original songs - how strange! First thing I did was set King of Speed (original) to the Three Seven Speedway. Same goes for the tracks for Dinosaur Canyon (Let's Go Away) and the Seaside Galaxy (Blue, Blue Skies).

    I also noted that the two versions share the same save file; changes to music selections in one will carry forward to the other one, but since there are fewer songs in CCE, the song that carries forward is not the one I wanted. So I'd have to fix it each time I swapped CD's.

    Both versions are pretty good versions of Daytona, very playable (I've been playing the Saturn Daytonas for 20 years and still find it fun). Next I want to hook up the Dreamcast and play DC Daytona USA again, to compare while the Saturn games are still fresh in my memory.

    What do you think of the different versions of Daytona USA?

    c(_)


  14. Cafeman
    I am rewriting parts of the sprite collision routines . I thought I could get them to work , but the timing is too different from the original 5200 version, and the Collision routines make certain assumptions that are not true 100% of the time in-game.

    Here is a quickie video I made to share what the problem is.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHe-yjXFceY&t=2s
  15. Cafeman
    I spent some time in January reviewing the sprite drawing & erasing routines, and the collision routines. I discovered a couple areas I could optimize the code. Maybe this is prep for working on a 2600 game next, counting cycles so much. With 5200 programming, although I did optimize, I didn't really analyze the cycles as much (I didn't need to!) as I did this month. I've heard it said among more experienced [Atari 2600] homebrewers than myself, that there's always another byte you can save, and you can always reduce another cycle. You just have to hunt for them!



    I was doing this to prevent a collision glitch in the game. When there are 2 creatures on screen, and also several items, near the top 1/4 of the screen there is a section where the collision would get confused. See my previously posted YT video for evidence of that.

    I was able to reduce many cycles from the Player (Atari hardware's version of a "sprite") Draw & Erase loops! These routines are performed in the Vertical Blank Interrupt, when the monitor's electron beam resets from bottom-screen to top-screen again. Because Adventure II's creatures can sink beyond the bg-graphics overscan area (which I like), I can't change the logic to start before Vertical blank. I do some Pre-Processing in on-screen time, but certain logic needs to be in the VBI.

    Results: I immediately noticed a good side-effect of the optimization. Gone was another minor visual glitch that I'd previously see sometimes on busy screens - where the DLI color changes would not get activated in time and the top of certain screens could have the wrong color. This problem appears to have been 100% remedied by my January optimizations.



    On the above screen, there are two dragons and 4 items (although I could only capture 2 of them due to the flickering). The screen's background colors are always rock solid now. The same thing on the Castle Ramparts screen (where I actually had 3 creatures on that screen for a few seconds) - rock solid colors and no more DLI color errors on busy sprite screens.

    Well unfortunately, I didn't totally eliminate that busy-screen collision glitch. But the affected area has moved higher on the screen; but it can still occur. I still have more time before end of January and I hope to totally eliminate the bug by end-of-month.

    Thanks to RUSH , always great music to code to!

    c(_)



  16. Cafeman
    Today I worked on my to-do list of minor tweaks, including the Alternate Icons logic.

    In the 5200 version of Adventure II, you could pick from various icons but they would not play any differently from using the default Sir Square. I started changing that in for Adventure II XE back in 2013, and gave the Crab and Bat special abilities, both can crawl over / fly over background graphics. Today I finished all of the icons' abilities and tested them.



    - Knight Helmet and Blue Knight - I gave them more health and a percentage change that any dragon biting you will injure itself and flee off the screen. So you can kind of plow through the dragons a lot more using these guys. The game gives a +1 health point (up to your max) every time you enter a new screen,so if you keep on the move with the Knights, its harder to get eaten.

    - Shield Alt Icon - I removed this from the Title Screen selection. You can only become the shield if you earn it as a temporary powerup.

    - 3D Wire-frame Cube - couldn't think of anything so just changed his color for variety.



    - Hand / Glove - this one has "Grip Powers" which affect the Troll's stealing. For every screen you enter, the game determines if Troll will successfully be able to steal a carried item from your grip, or not. It gives you just a little bit more advantage in the game. Of course, if you play a beginner level 1,2,or 3, the Troll is never able to steal from you , so this would be noticeable in Medium, Advanced, and Special games.
  17. Cafeman
    I got the new Rankings logic typed in and I hope debugged. Because I doubled the number of rankings from 5200's 7 , to XE version's 14 Rankings, and I doubled the lines of code for the actual 'rules' , I blew out the main ROM memory bank $4000-$6FFF. So I moved some of the new rankings logic down to $7000-$7FFF and the code now fits.


  18. Cafeman
    July 24 2017 post -



    Well, I couldn't put the game down and my scores and strategies have increased. At one time I couldn't score higher than 50k, now I'm regularly hitting over 100k. I'm still not able to get the big-scoring chains. I try to set them up but they get blocked. Usually a chain reaction of four is good enough to finish off the opponents or at least put them on the defensive. You can't putz around too long or YOU will be on the defensive and you might as well give up the round at that point. I usually max out in my chains at the x64 level, but sometimes I accidentally get to x128.

    (_)3



    Earlier Two Posts Follow ... here is my first from April 2017 ....

    I've been playing Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on X360 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. Oh what a frustrating battle, but I finally beat the quest mode and beat Dr. Robotnik's level, and got the achievement.

    I wonder how many gamers, without skipping directly to that level via a GameFAQs password , have seen this stage:



    I think it is programmed well, with good visuals, good puzzler game play (in concept), and very good music composed by Masanori Hikichi. I only now realized the Compile created Puyo Puyo and this version for SEGA - that's Compile who did the wonderful MUSHA and Robo Aleste, also difficult games. But shmups are supposed to be difficult - this puzzle game is so incredibly frustrating!

    As I played through the 13 levels of Scenario mode, every time I beat an opponent, I did a save state. I played and lost some stages at least 50 times before beating them. I did start to get better skills - recognizing when to rotate one way vs the other - but this game is HARD! I bet it made kids cry back in the day. It just gets too fast. Many times, I was doing well but made 1 mistake and that was the end - the opponent did a miraculous comeback and defeated me. I felt I didn't have enough time to mentally think and build a good combo; instead I was often just trying to survive, playing more on the defense. Once a ton of 'garbage beans' got dumped onto my side, it was usually inevitable that I'd lose the stage again. I half expected the game to inform me, chess-style, "checkmate in 10 moves!" because I felt there was nothing I could do at that point.

    Then you have the art. Uglier "Sonic" characters there have never been. The bad guys are from the the Sonic cartoon of the early 90's, but it is jarring to see the poor character designs here. I don't like how Robotnik is drawn at all. All the art is unlike the usual Sonic game art. It is satisfying to see their defeated pictures though.

    So, just sharing the frustration but also the conquest of beating it. I never played the original Compile Puyo Puyo, but was wondering if its 1-player mode was also this frustrating?

    Update on May 2 2017

    I kept at this game even after finally seeing the ending. I kept thinking there were strategies that I just wasn't getting. Then I started to see how to get the highest possible score. The best way for high score is to start at level one and beat each opponent/stage as quickly as possible, getting a high bonus score. These end-stage bonus scores, achieving by quick defeats of those cartoon characters, yield far higher scores that just playing each level -- that is unless you are a master of setting up many chain reactions, which I am NOT.

    So, I got a end-stage bonus over 20,000 points once recently. Usually I'm happy to get 5,000 to 10,000 bonuses. If you take too long , you get no bonus and might only score a few thousand points in that stage. So, below you can see my progression of high scores with the final one over 50,000 points. I think I made it to the purple pig-on-wheels ("Skweel" ?) before being defeated. Once you continue of course your score goes back to zero.



    To get that far without losing, I had learned to recognize patterns and to always try to set up chain reactions. I try to never cash in on a foursome set unless I can get at least a 2-set combo. But when the game starts to get wicked, it turns into survival gameplay and I just take whatever I can as the pieces start to accelerate. I doubt I could build 2- and 3-combo sets on-purpose once I reach the harder stages. At that point, the pieces drop so fast that it is mostly a shuffling of the correct color to the left or to the right side, repeat until you win or die.



  19. Cafeman
    I attended ReplayFX (Pittsburgh, PA) on Friday July 29 2017. Didn't go the first day (Thursday). I intend to go Saturday too, tomorrow.

    This is the 3rd year in a row I've attended, and I'll keep attending as long as it keeps happening each year in the City of Champions.

    Vendors - pretty similar to last year, mostly the same ones it seems. Lots to choose from, from comics, posters,magnets, D&D books, etched drinkware, artwork, local chocolate goodies (mmmmmm!) , and various nicknacks and curious with a retro-gaming theme (mostly Nintendo-themed, actually mostly Zelda / Megaman/ Mario themed). And there are lots of used games and consoles if you need one, that is mostly from NES forward. I poked around my first 2 hours there today.

    This year is similar to last year with most of the pinballs segregated over to the right side of the cavernous Hall A, for the Pinburgh competition. Then comes vendors, then the many rows of coin-ops / pinballs, then finally on the other end the music stage and console section which is also vast.

    I liked the one new section called something akin to "games you never got to try before". It had a Saturn w/Nights, a 32X with Star Wars Arcade (and other carts), a Jaguar w/rotary controller and Tempest 2000, a digital pinball game on a 3D TV w/two pairs of glasses to use, a Vectrex and some other stuff.

    The newest coin-ops games I saw were 2 linked sit-down SEGA Initial D racers. I didn't get to play, they were always taken, besides it seems a bit slow and not all that fun looking to me, being honest. I preferred playing other SEGA racers including:
    Hang On. Upright but still had the motorcycle handle-bar controls of course. Man, I had a GREAT time playing this. Couldn't finish the course though. It was new using the motorcycle accelerator control. I quickly trained myself to slightly release it from full acceleration and then to crank it back to full , around curves to slow down just a bit and maintain control w/out having to use the tough-to-reach hand brake control. Outrun. Upright with wheel of course, and pedal on floor that you use your right foot. My left leg was growing weary from balancing on it. The whole wheel shakes when you crash, and the wheel was perfectly tuned for control. Harley Davidson LA Riders. Y'know, I never got much chance to play this game and was loving it, its a full motorcycle and you can put your feet up on the pegs and lean into those turns. I reached a couple of goals then moved on. Saturn Daytona USA. Even though I own a Saturn, its been years since I played the original Daytona USA on it so I took it for a couple spins, it plays great but wow the visuals are worse than I remembered. Genesis Outrun . They have Outrun in a Genesis every year, I noticed, and I always sit down and play a round or two. Well, after playing the coin-op version so much, this was a bit too watered down and I wasn't having too much fun. Its a good port though but there's a time and a place to enjoy it.

    Music - I listened to 3 groups tonight.
    Super Thrash Brothers were first. Drums/2 guitars/bass. The organizers spent 25 minutes of their set time trying to fix an audio snafu (I heard that a breaker blew). but they eventually played and were fine, playing the expected NES sountracks as a metal band would. The lead guitarist was noticeably louder than the other guitar and bass, I had to move away from the stage where it sounded better and not so freaking loud and shrill. Triforce Quartet - strings , and sounded beautiful. Bit Brigade - similar in concept to Super Thrash Brothers. Bit Brigade played the bg music to Castlevania, then NES Batman, then NES Ducktales while a 5th member of their band sits and actually plays (and beats!) those games. Bit Brigade had a remarkably tight, professional sound. They were flawless. Drums/two guitars/bass. Good stuff.

    Competitions - I didn't pay the $25 to join the Replay World Championships. I knew once I did that, I'd be consumed with trying to play the 50 allotted game tries and get high score, and I just didn't have time today to do that. Everybody gets 3 free tries, and I used mine up playing 3 rounds of Gorf. All the games are cranked to hard difficulties. Other games were Asteroids, Popeye, Donkey Kong, I noticed.

    I did take a stab at the console area's SEGA Genesis MUSHA competition, and I ended up winning that with the high score. We had to play on Hard mode here too, I scored over 7 million which was easily double what the others had done but probably not a personal best of mine. It's been years since I played MUSHA but I used to play it a lot. Anyway, I won so I earned a free T-shirt. yay!

    Also had a $5.00 hot dog. It was all beef and the thickest dog I ever had. Kind of worth it. Washed it down with Fathead's Ale (16oz runs you over $8.00) .

    I also got to battle another guy on coin-op Virtua Fighter 2, about a dozen rounds. Haven't done that in 20 years! Finally, I also had fun playing coin-op Bubbles, Karate Champ, Donkey Kong, DK Jr, and sit-down Star Trek (the 80's Vector Graphics game).

    So that's the Friday report for anyone interested.


  20. Cafeman

    Playing Dig Dug

    By Cafeman,

    In preparation for the competition ( http://replayfx.org/competitions/replay-world-championship/ ) next week at the Replay FX show, I've been trying to boost my Dig Dug scores. I'm playing the PSX Namco Classics disk 3 version (playing on my PS2).



    First of all, I saw recorded Dig Dug patterns on YouTube that blew my mind! One video shows a guy who consistently can get the 10k or 12k bonuses for smashing mulitple monsters under the same falling rock! In the past, I was only good at killing 2 at a time. But after developing a few of my own strategies and patterns, today I was killing 3 and 4 monsters more regularly, and once I killed 6 monsters at a time, and I finally saw the 10k point bonus. Killing 1 monster is 1000 points and killing 2 is like 2500, for example - much more common in my playing!

    Playing with the PS2 d-pad sucks though. Not as bad as playing Atari 5200 Dig Dug via emulation on Dreamcast, using the DC's tiny dpad -- but still, so many times my big thumb mashes the dpad and Dig Dug will wander left or right the wrong direction, getting killed.

    My scores are still pretty bad. Maybe because I'm still experimenting and trying for points too much. I am usually only getting 80k through 150k. My high score is like 189k. My old Dig Dug strategy was always to just stay alive until the pineapple rounds. Each pineapple is 8000 points. The first bonus veggie - a carrot - is only 400 points. Hardly worth going out of your way to grab.

    I just thought about the difficulty settings - I'm likely not even playing on Expert setting. The competition will be set at Expert Difficulty D. I better check into that setting tomorrow when I play Dig Dug again.



  21. Cafeman
    https://web.archive.org/web/20010720152157/http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com:80/
     
    I found a 2001 version of my old site (Well, some of it) on the internet Archive. This site was a part time project of mine, mostly about 2D games on the Saturn. It was created with hand-coded HTML and MS Paint between 1998 and 2001, and it was basically my introduction to web pages and picture formats, early on.
     
    The site is still there but my Atari 5200 stuff took it all over eventually...
    Http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/atari/atari5200.html
     
    I can't remember if I purposely deleted the original Sega stuff, or accidentally. But I thought it was gone forever, so it was a treat to search and rediscover it.
     
    Check it out, you might be mildly entertained.
     

     
    Edit - ha! I found another view with some additional, more Dreamcast oriented pages! I don't remember writing all these, too long ago.
     
    https://web.archive.org/web/20020302213934/http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com:80/index.html
  22. Cafeman
    Pterodactyl imagery and a portal. Portals open to a Treasure Room where you defeat the pattern/enemies to grab treasure. I want the portal door to be a brighter color - might use a wide missile for those.

    Played around with ideas for different bg's -



    Here's the description:





    Other entries on this project:

    http://atariage.com/forums/blog/618/entry-12413-rl5204-escape-from-airworld-log-2015-10-19/

    http://atariage.com/forums/blog/618/entry-12269-rl5204-escape-from-airworld/

  23. Cafeman
    I love Jurassic Park. I read the novels, saw all the films, played the games on Genesis, Sega CD, SNES, Saturn, and Playstation, for better or worse! I enjoyed Jurassic World as a sequel. I was not disappointed by Colin Trevorrow's direction or the storyline. Since its been a while that I played a game with JP content, I was tickled that LEGO made this game, with content from all 4 films! I am playing the X360 version.

    Just like with the films, I feel that the Jurassic Park section was the most special and fun of the 4 here, too. This review is mostly based on my first play-through of Story Mode of each film. This is the first time I've played a LEGO game with audio clips from the films. In prior games (like LEGO Star Wars), they'd pantomime scenes and you'd understand it from your memory - and it was often funny. But now, lots of the real actors' dialogue is played! This is mostly good; see JP3 section for 'bad' example.



    Jurassic Park

    The graphics are really nice in some sections, I noticed. Cinema-quality backgrounds, water, and lots sprites with little LEGO debris temporarily cluttering up the entire playfield! I got an immmediate charge out of playing as Robert Muldoon and hearing his dialogue. Man, it would have been great if Muldoon was also in TLW. But nope , he was outwitted by the Clever Girl and died. I experienced a few little glitches here and there. The one that I remember is between the Brachiosaurus paddock, and the main JP Visitors' Center. You need two types of characters to open a gate - an athletic jumper (Ellie), and sometimes a Dino Expert (Dr. Grant) to assemble LEGO bones into a machine. Well, I jumped in one of the two jeeps and the other characters didn't follow me to the gate. I had to drive back to the previous gate until the characters re-spawned, and fool around until I got both characters to the final gate. It didn't take long but at first I was confused, and I was so preoccupied with whether I *could* actually solve the problem, that I didn't stop to think if I *should* ! Still , these little bugs aren't a deal-breaker for me. I experienced a few other bugs such as a character getting stuck in infinite "backing-off-from-danger" loop, but I was able to get past that by switching characters and moving forward. I saw a number of graphical graphics tears as well. This game must've been on a tight schedule for such bugs to still be in there.

    One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen is Ellie Sattler investigating huge piles of dino droppings. She jumps headfirst into them with a swimmer's pose. Other characters back off from the smelly piles automatically (the source of my previously mentioned bug), waving their hands in front of their noses. Dino Droppings Diving occurs throughout the game. There are also Loose Earth piles (which Dr. Grant uses his shovel to dig up and reveal things) , and they often look pretty similar to Dino Poop piles, causing me to be initially confused by what to do.



    The Lost World


    The fun LEGO gameplay continues here, but opens with a boring level of Eddie's Workshop location with some minor vehicle-fixin' puzzles, then leading to the Stegosaurus sequence where you must hide in logs and get the angry Steg to attack it with his tail, getting his tail stuck there for a moment. And of course there's the hanging-trailers w/Eddie-in-the-Jeep sequence! I anxiously awaited the horrible film part where young Kelly does gymnastics and kills a raptor - it's certainly in here, even Iam Malcolm's line "They cut you from the team?!". HAW HAW HAW. I hate the scene, but its fun to make fun of it. Another funny make-fun scene is where the characters hide behind a waterfall in a cave, and the dino expert runs out to certain death (by T.Rex) because he's afraid of a little snake. After this happens, the Rex looks at the other characters and shrugs his shoulders/arms at that dumb action. Then he leaves to eat the guy! The mainland scenes with a loose T-rex are included too.


    Jurassic Park 3


    Remember when Eric's mom had that megaphone and kept yelling "ERIC! ERIC!!?", and Dr. Grant told Mrs Kirby "that's a very bad idea" ? Well, you get to hear that audio clip OVER and OVER again, for 5 minutes straight until you reach her and shut her up. Thanks, Traveler's Tales. It's weird using characters like Mr and Mrs Kirby, who had no survival skills at all in the film, yet here they are athletic and can use grappling hooks and so on. Well, overall I liked playing through this section but it is nothing special. The Spino isn't nearly as menacing as the raptors and Rex from JP and TLW sections. You do get to battle Pterries and the Spino at the end. Billy is the rock climber character and nobody is too angry at him here for stealing raptor eggs; he uses his paragliding parachute to span long trenches that no other character can. The game finishes with the Spino in the water, you get to battle it with puzzles and exploding fuel tanks.



    Jurassic World

    It was finally in this section that I realized that you need to play as a compy to access the green tubes, that I'd seen in the prior film story sections but couldn't utilize the compy yet. The two boys have a section where they need to re-tire and supply batteries and gas to the jeep. It makes more sense that in the actual film where they show incredible mechanics skill reviving a 20-year old jeep.

    Speaking of compies, by this time in the game, I'm pretty sick and tired of the Compy thugs which attack you in every movie storyline section. Sometimes you must smash then assemble a blockage over their nest (usually a hole coming out of the mountain) or they come forever. But other times 2 or 3 show up to slow you down a bit more.

    You get to play as the Rex and finally the Raptors in some parts here. JW seems more thought-out and longer than TLW and JP3, to me. Pretty much all of the main scenes are here. I liked the brief scenes in the truck , or on the bike, with an aiming reticle trying to zap the pursuing raptors. Once raptor Blue joins your team, she is needed to pull off some puzzles. It is funny to press the B button over loose LEGO piles and see the raptor furiously assembling a LEGO machine!

    --------------------
    All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed playing LEGO Jurassic World! What a trip through the films, and its easy because you can't really die, all you can do is get stumped on a puzzle for a brief while. With the authentic music and voices and great visuals, this game is a lot of fun for the JP fan.


  24. Cafeman
    If I had to rate Xbox Knights of the Old Republic based on the first 5 hours, I'd have given it a meager 4/10 , and those 4 points were solely because of the Star Wars universe.  You are stuck on boring planet Taris.  Your character slowly jogs around the upper and lower levels of a city block, talking to characters, breaking into apartments (how exciting!),  trying to remember who's who and why you care, and engaging in some turn-based battles with unimportant characters.  Blah.   The music, voice and sounds are pretty good, and the graphics not bad for that era, but it just lasts too long, and that's why I gave up on the game 15 years ago.
     
    To be honest, I played even longer than 5 hours on Taris because I forgot stuff and re-explored, and I'm not sure how 'fast' you could beat the planet in a replay. 
     
    But the game immediately gets more interesting once you get off the planet and head to Dantooine. And then, you can Pass Go and proceed directly to Tatooine!   Yes!  I really enjoyed the cinematics of the Falcon Ebony Hawk taking off, hyperwarping, and entering the new planet!  But it is a thousand years before Anakin... 
     
    Dantooine was mentioned by Princess Leia as a bluff to Grand Moff Tarkin, back in the original Star Wars film.   The Imperials investigated and found remnants of an ancient rebel base , that's all.   To which the evil Tarkin, who just exploded Leia's home planet of Alderaan,  exclaimed hilariously, "she LIED to us!!".    What comes around, goes around, Monsieur Tarkin. 
     
    Back to KOTOR, I was finally seeing Dantooine, and that was a little bit exciting to me. There's a Jedi counsel, farmland to explore (those people must starve regularly because the Xbox can only render a few polygonal fruit trees), mysterious Force-related stuff to learn about, and rogue Mandalorians to battle! 
     
    I was again growing frustrated with the game,  because I ran out of things like grenades and credits. So in desperation, I did what the game's creators wanted me to do, I searched around. Oh! There is a Rodian (Greedo's race) selling weapons! I passed right by him a few times. Oh! By going back to my base ship,  the Ebony Hawk, I find that the Wookie and Mandalorian in my party will actually give me free grenades (not the type I really wanted) and Stim enhancement shots! That's good.  So far in the game, I'm low on credits but I refuse to play the Pazaak card game to try to win more money.  That will have to change, I suspect. 
     
    There were 2 tough battles for me on this planet.     The first comprised of 2 individual attacks against a security droid.  I seemed to be attacking it, but it wasn't getting harmed. So I re-engaged my brain and examined the weapons ... oh! ION weapons are good against shields and droids, and sometimes Vibro Blades might be better than a lightsaber due to energy shielding.   So I switched things up, threw an ION grenade,  and both Droids fell quickly .   The final battle on Dantooine was against the leader of the Mandalorian thugs that were bullying and killing the populace. This guy was TOUGH.  And I didn't have any Frag Grenades because I was out of credits.  After at least 10 losing battles, my team defeated him (and the rest of his team was a snap to finish off after he fell),   and the experimentation did teach me better how to battle in this game.  
     
    Mostly my other 2 party members have been the Mandalorian guy and Jedi Bastila. I've been talking to both, hearing his glorious war battle tales, and her sad tales about her family.  This is likely par-for-the-course for an RPG (I don't play many), but I took note that KOTOR has very good writing and very good voice acting.  The one problem with the game is the frequent re-use of character faces and  builds for different characters.  But hey, it was 2003. 
     
    So now I'm on Tatooine, at familiar Mos Eisley (ahem) - I mean at Anchorhead (not that they look any different).    I'm actually eager to get back to it after work tonight!  I love the idea of destroying Sand People and outwitting Jawas!  
     
    And the Star Wars Binge continues .... 
     
  25. Cafeman

    RL5203 Jan 2022 update

    By Cafeman,

    For a while,  I have had an idea for Atari 5200 and A8 called Detective Powers. My old blog entry from 2015 has my original ideas.  Here is the original blurb for the game: 
     
    Assume the role of the world’s most famous consulting detective, using investigation and deduction to navigate Baker Street, countryside manors, and interior room locations in a retro 80’s arcade-adventure style of game play. Find helpful items and clues, keep your Detective Powers fully charged and solve each case. Cases are based on several canonical Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and are planned to include The Musgrave Ritual, The Dancing Men, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Final Problem. Sherlock Holmes Adventures is a 32K game for the Atari 8bit XL/XE computers and the Atari 5200 Supersystem.
     
    I've worked on it now and then, but my goal of twin 5200 / A8 dev has been slow going.  I have 2 Atari 5200 engines at 32K, and 1 A8 engine at 64K using bank switching.  My attempts to make 1 64K engine that would produce twin 5200/A8 game ROMs hasn't been going too well. So I went back and just fooled around more with the original 32K 5200 code. I figure I can eventually copy this code to an A8 compatible shell.  But I was tired of fighting with the mechanics of bank switching and 5200 vs A8 registers. 
     
    I took the prettier font/charset I used in Adventure II XE and I've got a shell going on 5200. This game is more text-intensive, and the 5200 version is currently in TASM (not DASM). I tried using the TASM .TEXT directive, but it only seemed to work with lower case letters.  If I put .TEXT "Hello World" , the capital letters don't translate to screen correctly.   I wrote a conversion macro so I can continue to use the .TEXT feature for the verbiage and not worry about capital/lower-case letter problems.    I haven't included any of the actual in-game screens into this engine yet.  First I'd like to understand better how to easily include the verbiage.   In the game, Holmes will talk to you as you play, as though you are Watson. Do something dumb, you'll read in the text box "Really Watson, this will NOT do!" 
     
    I still have some more work to figure out how to more easily include lots of verbiage. 
     
     
     



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