Papa

February 5, 2017

I love it when I see a game that is 16K and 32K.

I loaded it, played it for a bit. Not exactly sure how much is working right and not, but I was able to play a game from start to game over.

I'll know more when I fire up the 2600 Jr. with the Harmony Cart... that is in the next room where my wife is crashed out.

Did I do something wrong/stupid again?

If you hold the button at the game over screen you will continue based on your difficulty. Easy sends you back a couple of screens. Hard sends you back to a middle point.

They game plays very well with a Sega pad, so I thought that it might be easier to play with the portable.

February 5, 2017

Would games programmed with the DPC+ kernel work on this? Prolly not, I'd think.

Does Titan Axe work? (32k bankswitching)

January 31, 2017

Thanks! I'm hoping to use up some of these 'infinite' variables to trigger layer after layer of different levels. Using the background colors to 'disappear' the little above-world textures I will have varying degrees of floor-textured rooms and single color background levels. I'm thinking of having little towns or rooms at many of the hotspots this way. I don't know if I want the little guy to shoot like a Zelda clone or run into RPG battles or maybe a bit of both.

The main character is two colors layered with some pixels overlapping for a third color (a funner aspect of the VCS). The objects are sprites.

Once you get the hang of how to work the visible area of VWBASIC it's really quite good for scrolling.

Another idea I'm chiseling out with VW is a game like Cabal, SWAT,NAM '76, etc. I noticed that this game (VWBASICRPG) could be played comfortably with a mouse in emulation (not sure about a serial mouse with an Atari!?) and the little bulb went off for a Cabal-esque shooter where the screen scrolled left and right from a middle point while bad guys appear in the background as targets that 'choot atcha.

VWBASIC is a seldom adopted hidden gem that could bring about some very entertaining and worthwhile software rapidly! It's scrolling 'engine' could bring about newer versions of games resembling Defender (as shown in a demo with VWBASIC using very few lines of code), or maybe Choplifter, by looping, OR (like in this demo), to make smooth, fast-scrolling adventure-RPG styled games!

If PowerShell scares you, or you can't operate outside of an IDE then look away..

If you want an extremely easy and intuitive BASIC with features not often harnessed with such ease...

scrolling playfield

built in music & sound generator

more variables than you can shake a bottle of Aspirin at!

programmatic coding (drop in the code and it happens!)!

lightning fast compiling

easy Stella integration with Powershell to edit and test on the fly!

...look no further!!

January 31, 2017

I've been playing around in the sink..

VWBRPG.bin

This worked on my SuperCharger through my Gemini and through my modded Vader 2600 but had jitters with the SuperCharger on my Sunnyvale 4-switcher. It also works well on a Harmony Cart.

This is just the first screen of a little RPG I'm working on along with all my other projects. Buttons said the character reminds her of a little rabbit.

January 30, 2017

Here are two more levels done. I took a nasty burr off of his rotator cup (one gray dot on his knee). I've also changed the colors on the beginning of level two as to not clash with our hero. I find the last two levels to be particularly beautiful. Now I will focus on repopulating the screen with baddies and get into some interaction before adding any more levels. I may put this code out here for folks to play with before adding too much more. Someone may be able to use this for a myriad of games by just dropping in their own art. I'm usually very squeamish about giving out code as I feel it opens me up to ridicule of a deeper, more personal nature...

Anywho... Graphics with the 7800 is a BLAST!!

Thanks a LOT to Trebor and those behind 7800BASIC.

A78

dd.a78

BIN

dd.bin

MCPBIN

ddmcp.bin

January 29, 2017

Thank you for a MCP compatible bin. As expected, the demo plays without issue.

Improvement to the walking animation noted, as well as the added backgrounds, in the video posted below from the latest images:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t1699p6v5s

DUDE! SWEET!

January 29, 2017

I'm still piecing together the last couple of backgrounds...

It turns out that Billy just needed to take a big Double Duecin'. Now I think we effectively removed the 'stimpy' from his strut!

Here's the MCP testable BIN..

ddmcp.bin

Here's the A78 file if too bright is okay or no MESS..

dd.a78

..and here's the BIN for MESS/MAME/PROSYSTEM emulation sans header..

dd.bin

Thanks Mr. SQL! I'm also working on a RPG with VWBasic that I hope to demo soon. With the bare nakedness of this project I really shouldn't mind just putting it out there.

January 28, 2017

I have studied this up quite a bit beforehand and I don't know of any 8-bit ones that have the full swinging arms, although it's a consideration, surely. The first thing to go was the 'upwards' animation and then the swinging arms are usually replaced by a little spring in the step. I may compromise and add said 'spring' and then even out the hips to avoid any Chubby Checker lawsuits, or I may just be the only 8-bitter to have the subtle sway to meet with that diamond-popping, tight-walking, bad ass gate.

Thanks!

January 28, 2017

Ah, yes. That lingering feeling of forgetting something. Here is one that (although untested) says 'set mcpdevcart on' in there for ya!

This also has two 'placeholder' levels added that are about to be created.

I will try to cut down on his boogie. He's very excited.

dd.bin

I have Hat Trick and love to build things. Should I make a Devkit (where the system is flashed) or just buy the stuff to flash chips and the 16 game switchable cart?

January 28, 2017

Here's the walking demo. I would have slapped it up here before but there were no restrictions (sprites flying all about) or mirroring (or walking, of course).

Now you can walk around. The restrictions are set for a standard cube that fits many of the backgrounds. Reaching the right side of the screen advances the level. I hope this works on a dev cart!

dd.bin

January 26, 2017

Here are some cute things in the meantime..

(these were hastily tested on the Pro System emulator!)

Where my boss works..

Styverson.bin

My girlfriend..

Allura.bin

My other girlfriend (don't tell the first girlfriend)..

AsukaSky.a78

Here's us on vacation just outside of Santa Monica..

AsukaSurf.a78

Here's me..

Batman.bin

Here's my slave-girl answering the phone..

Buttons.bin

Here's my ride..

Enterprise.bin

...thanks.

January 26, 2017

Show us the anime girl

*girls

too many to put here (I prefer the Tomas Edison method of figuring stuff out so I have roughly 999 not-anime-girls). LOTS of anime girls. Too many. I can put some up here from the 'tame' folder, although they may be too cute to see (we may need to burn a unicorn).

The .BIN will land very shortly. I'm having too much fun with Billy and his shickadance. With something like this you get to chop up things and recycle sprites and it's fun. I've got a nice four frame walking sequence and am sorting out final details.

It happened..is happening...

January 23, 2017

Here are the color differences and pictures from MESS.

(it's printed on the expensive, softer toilet paper for you)

I'm thinking the next demo will have walking animation.

January 23, 2017

Resident Evil for the Game.Com could be examined. The static backgrounds wouldn't be too hard, although low color. Scaling the character would be fake and eat up space and omitting it, like the Game.Com did, would be smart. I think it's great that people find RE games to be advanced somehow. They are, for the most part, backgrounds with polygonal characters and low res textures. They aren't far off from an old Sierra game with point and click, walk-behind areas, hot spots.

This thread is just mocking something, though.

It's not impossible, but it's not going to look like a grainy arsed, texture dropping, polygonal PS game.

It's not like the SNES was creating a tiny, polygonal, bump mapped gorilla but in a way it kinda was.

January 22, 2017

SHEEW! I woke up and started setting up the MESS and finally got where you were yesterday (Trebor, with the screen freaking). It was so dumb of a reason for realz. A 14 instead of a 12 somewherez. Then I notice that my colors are way different than on the ProSystem emulator (love the emulator tho). Everything is much darker and softer so I'll put more up with slightly tweaked, brighter colors.

Thanks a lot for making me finally set MESS up for 7800 emulation. I always avoided it for some reason (..hash chopping, your own headers, all the set up...meh.). Now all the DOS windows open and just right-arrowing all of my commands back up makes me remember nineteen years ago and telling my wife things like "..I never want a high speed cable in the house.", and " I hate high def!", and even back to "Windows is a back door hack job and I'm just doing everything in DOS!".

It works now.

Give me a tiny bit of time to tweak stuff and colors..

January 21, 2017

I'll be making a MESS here pretty soon, so I should be able to put up a cleaner DD.

I totally LOVE the girls in this game. That I can just switch around palettes to make three distinctly different gals is AWESOME! I can have a pale redhead, a dark girl with black hair, or the standard blonde with blue suit with just a simple switch of the colors.

I feel now that the 7800 has some of the most 'ready-to-unlock' potential of all of these programmable consoles.

I've made a LOT of little one-screen demos. Most of them are low color anime girl art as it's really fun to reduce and it keeps my attention long enough to actually learn something (maybe I learned to count to twenty with a pack of cigarettes...) ...

...what were we talking about!?..

...anyway..

Thanks, Trebor!

January 21, 2017

Yeah, I was wondering why the pictures didn't have little previews. I guess I've never uploaded a .BMP file here. As for the graphics, sure, the badguys aren't as good as the good guys, but that's because they have one palette entry rather than two (actually three total with one shared for the heros.). They look WAAAAY better than the 7800 originals, and that's what I'm doing here. I'm using less space for the backgrounds to allow for nicer character graphics.

This is all just a graphics mock up using the ProSystem emulator and 7800BASIC. Full screen with this emulator can cause the programmed colors to appear wrong on some systems. For instance, I can do full screen emulation with this demo on my 667 PIII. Although on my higher end system that I use for programming, the full screen mode is wrong.

Once I buy a multicart for the 7800 or build my own dev-kit (whatever is quicker) then, of course, this will be more real.

I'm having fun with 7800BASIC.

THESE DEMOS ARE FOR THE PRO SYSTEM EMULATOR until I get a DEV-CART!!

January 21, 2017

All I have to test with right now is A7800. I'm pretty sure I know what's causing it, though, and I'll get it worked out once I get a dev cart.

Would the 16 game switchable flashcart work for testing on a real 7800?

I don't suppose the Maria has a reflect bit?

Thanks for the input!!

Sorry it didn't work on real hardware.

January 21, 2017

I like MARIA...

ROM GRAPHICS DEMO (2 player button 1 changes backgrounds. Hold 2 player button 1 and directions to scroll. Player 1 and 2 are layered and move.)

TITLE DEMO

CUTE STUFF

...still working on Street Fight World, Zonic, MOTU, Street Fight World 32k, a VWBasic RPG, etc...

January 6, 2017

I totally love that title screen. It's better than the original by far.

I often cringe at BMP mock-ups as multicolored sprites that layer like this are not the easiest thing to do on the VCS.

So, is someone really programming this?

January 2, 2017

Dropping PNG files is easy. I'm programming 7800 now, too...

December 26, 2016

Fixing said pots is one of the many exercises for the VCS enthused. Prying tiny metal tabs and cleaning forty year old grease brings the controller back to decent functionality (I've cleaned many and Buttons is using my best ones for chopping down brick game scores on highscore.com). The best alternative to the pots is found with the Gemini system and it's single PCB, potless controllers that use one metal rod and some feelers to cram a paddle and extremely sensitive controller into one frame. There are conductive pathways that are touched by activators like with more modern controllers (no frail metal, taped-down blisters to break off or collapse) although the dial for the paddle is like this as well. It's a circle that is brushed down on by a metal 'feeler'. If these are clean they are quite good. You have to hold down the button when you start certain games with them and I believe someone somewhere mentioned a 'Y' connector that makes them functional with all paddle games as they don't work with a couple of them.

December 17, 2016

my favorite Pacman has always been the VCS Pacman.

November 8, 2016

I thought that something else controlled these offset lines when the mod is done. A pot before modding. I just went back to original RF (yet another CRT to test on) and was pleasantly surprised at how nice everything looked when there is little to no interference. Our problem with modding (and this created effects not dissimilar to yours) ended up being immediately fixed by reverting to original power supplies. These new ones mess my systems up.

October 9, 2016

So, some backstory- when I was 13, I received my newest issue of Game Players magazine in the mail. It proudly announced that their December issue would include a free copy of the Christmas Nights demo disc for all subscribers, and had a little article talking about all the cool things Christmas nights would do beyond just being a demo. There were also ads from Sega, promising 3 free games for anyone who bought a Saturn that holiday season. I was STOKED. I thought Nights looked amazing, but I was a kid who just didn't have the money to go buy a new system on a whim. But with Christmas and my birthday so close together, I could use my holiday money to buy a Saturn. It'd be awhile before I could have the full version of Nights, but I'd have the 3 other games- they didn't really appeal to me, but they didn't seem bad. And if I saved Valentine's money and my Grandpa's invariably late birthday money, I could combine it with Easter and get Nights then.

Fast-forward to December. My magazine came... torn cover, no disc. Somebody decided to help themselves to my copy of Christmas Nights. I was heartbroken. Upset enough, in fact, that I abandoned my plan to buy the Saturn. It'd just remind me of the game I wanted but couldn't have. I suppose in the long run, it worked out socially- my parents got my a Playstation a couple years later, and I made a lot of friends over Final Fantasy. But part of me never really got over not having the Saturn. By the time I was out of school and had a job, Saturns (well, the games at least) were already moving out of my price range. I just kind of wrote it off as 'the one that got away', and left it at that.

Then I attended PAX Prime this year. The way the schedule fell, I didn't have to get into the expo hall on the first day- which, in turn, meant Pink Gorilla was sold out of most games I'd want well before I got there. I got home with a notable amount of my spending money intact. I loaded up Amazon and skimmed over my various want lists trying to decide if I wanted to splurge on something. And my list of Sega Saturn games (kept for wishful thinking & the hope of price drops) caught my eye. I wouldn't be able to get anything too crazy, game-wise... but I did have enough to get one or two. I could afford to start a Saturn collection. I could actually, really do it.

Ladies and gentlemen, after 20 years, I present to you- my Sega Saturn!

It's as basic as it gets. Just one controller, AV hookup. The battery was dead, but I just stocked up on 2032s a few weeks ago so that was an easy fix. It works wonderfully. The first games to arrive were, appropriately, the very same I would have had back in 1996. Which was the year I set it to test on- December 25th, 1996. Because 13 year old me deserved her Christmas back.

I have a copy of Astal on the way as well, I need to pick up a backup cart before I get too many more games. Which will take a while, as I've burned through most of the PAX money. But that's ok- I can wait. Maybe around Easter.

If Segata Sanshiro heard this then!! He would have punched through your house and handed you a white one and patted your head while gleaming a tooth!!

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