tmont

Hmmm... Clearly, I need to invest in some PS RPGs, as I have not tasted the sweetness of its honey. Or something. I didn't realize they were so plentiful. Thanks for the lists!

What are other RPGs on the PlayStation besides the Final Fantasies? I can't think of any; I seem to recall that there were a lot of PS RPGs released in Japan that weren't released in the US. edit: Chrono Cross is one, I guess. Anyway, I would have to say SNES. It definitely had a more dynamic library than any of the other platforms, with games like Final Fantasy V, The 7th Saga, Terranigma, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, etc. The other platforms just don't have that kind of variety.

The music in this game kind of rules. I'm not really a big fan of games that try to create that psuedo-3D atmosphere by making your character only able to move in diagonals. I imagine that trying to complete platforming puzzles, like jumping from rock to rock across a river, would be rather annoying when your depth perception is so severely limited.

I played this for a while (got a score or 1802!), and everything seemed fine. My only beef is that sometimes it's kind of hard to tell which fish you're allowed to eat, especially since they're slightly different colors depending on their depth. Maybe some kind of indicator could help, or something. Like maybe the sky turns orange when you're allowed to eat the orange-ish fish, or perhaps something less obtrusive.

Here's the main difference in my circles2.php program from circles: $i = 0; $order = 0; while ($i != 360) { $i %= 360; $order++; $i += $interval; } $i = 0; while ($i != 360) { $i %= 360; for ($j = 0; $j < $order; $j++) { [draw the line with a random color, etc.] } $i += $interval; } The only difference was the number of lines drawn from each point. As you can see (maybe), it depends on the order of the interval in the additive group Z[360]. To figure out the order of an element in this group, you just keep adding it to itself, until it equals 0 mod 360. I think there's an actual formula, or something for figuring that out, but I haven't taken group theory for a few years. What this also does is make all elements with equal order look the same. For example, if your interval is n, then 360-n will look exactly the same.

So, my other post got me curious, so I went ahead and created a program to do whatever gibberish I said earlier. Except I'm pretty sure I made a trigonometric mistake somewhere, but I like the results, so I don't really care. Here's a few examples: Interval: 30 Interval: 15 Interval: 187 Interval: 111 You get the idea. If you want to play around with it, just change the interval, color and radius variables in the URL. Here's the source code if anyone's interested: circlesource.php. Edit: My error was actually a group theory error, not a trig error. Fixed version is here: circles 2. It's quite a bit slower, but the differences are pretty evident, e.g. interval 115 circles 2 and interval 115 circles.

Sounds cool; computer generated art has always been interesting to me, even though I'm a terrible artist, and have no interest in ever becoming an artist. But I like looking at it. An interesting variation on your circle-line program would be to vary the points. The way you're implementing it now, all the intervals are equal (I assume, although you didn't show an example with a number of points not divisible by 360). There's a (semi-) famous logic puzzle that goes something like this: There's a circular table with 13 chairs (I don't remember the exact number), each numbered 1-13, going clockwise (like a clock). You want to sit in the chair numbered 1. The way you decided where you will sit is by skipping every other chair. So the first time around, if you choose to start at chair 1, you can't sit in any of the even-numbered chairs. i.e. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Now you're on chair 13, but you still have to skip every other chair, so you cross out chair 1, bypass chair 2 (it's already gone), and now you're on chair 3. After the second iteration, it would look like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Keep repeating this process of skipping every other chair until only one chair is left (in the example I just made up, the last chair would be 11). Which chair do you start at so that chair #1 is the last chair left? Obviously, the solution is irrelevant, but I was thinking what if you selected the points on the circle like that? Instead of evenly spacing them out, you choose an interval (in degrees?) that you start with, and place points like that until the entire circle is filled. For example, if you choose your interval to be 7, then you'd place a point at 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, etc. until all points on the perimeter of the circle were filled (assuming each point on the perimeter of the circle was numbered 1-360). I don't know if it would make any difference, but I think each generated circle would look different depending on the interval you chose (after you added color, of course). Anyway, your pictures made me think of that puzzle. I'm not sure if I related it in a coherent fashion, though...

Heh. I was pretty sure I could blow all of you out of the water, but that wouldn't be very nice. Actually, I was just curious how long the record-holder had to play to get that score. I was going to play for a couple hours to see if I could beat it, but eh; Contra the 3rd-4th-5th-10th time through just gets more and more boring. Particularly when you're doing it in one sitting. And I got really pissed every time I lost my Spread.

Very cool! It reminds of a program I saw on TV about fractals and the Mandelbrot set. They drew a Mandelbrot set and rotated the colors like you did, and it created the effect that it was "moving," kind of like going through a never-ending a tunnel. I was totally mesmerized. Check this out; it's very similar to what you've created: http://www.eddaardvark.co.uk/python_patterns/mbaindex.htm

I don't normally like playing games for high scores, but Contra is fun, so I did. I don't have a screenshot, because I couldn't steal my roommate's camera because I couldn't find it (selfish piece of crap). But the final score was 1,539,700 I got bored after the second time through, and I had about 15 or so guys in reserve. I guess the TG record-holder played through about 10 times to get a score of 6 million. I played for about 40 minutes, so the world record probably took 4-5 hours. That's a lot of Contra.

Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but this tool translates a MIDI file into an editable text file and back: MIDI Disassembler I've used it before, and it works fairly well, if you can figure it out. What are you trying to do? Because the MIDI file format is pretty simple, and it wouldn't be that hard to write your own MIDI parser (I wrote one in PHP to generate the MIDI files for my little musical experiment). Here's a good place to find the MIDI specs, if you're so inclined.

Well, I'd need two things: .wav files of all the pitches for all the distortions (for immediate playback, like when you click on a key). an algorithm to dynamically create .wav files (for when you want to listen to the whole song). Unfortunately, I have neither of those. I used MIDI because I already knew the format, and the files are small enough to make the lag unnoticeable. I would've preferred to use some kind of "true" audio format (I was actually prepared to use .au), but MIDI files are better documented and more easily manipulable.

The answer is a resounding "no." The Japanese music is the bomb: US version Japanese version

Does the American version of this game have the same awesome music as the Japanese version? Because I think this game has some of the best NES music of all time.

Your guys' compassion breaks my heart. Note that these samples I'm spitting out aren't testaments to my so-fine musical skillz per se, they're more like examples of what my little tool can do. And the rodtv thing was an experiment in trying to create the illusion of a third channel. And I had the music handy. You bastards.

That's probably the problem (I don't have IE6 anymore, so I couldn't test it). It should be fine now, except now the buttons are totally offcenter. Lame! Also, an experiment with R.O.D. TV, or whatever that show is called. It turned out to not be quite as awesome as I tried to make it. http://tmont.kicks-ass.org/music/songs/rodtv.mid

huh? Are you using IE? 6 or 7? What's your screen resolution? (I had the same problem whenever I viewed it in Firefox, but I fixed it before I posted it on here)

Everything besides the sound should work in all browsers (well, I don't have a way to test Safari or Konqueror). Actually, Opera, one of the most annoying browsers available, doesn't allow disabling the context menu (right click menu), so the little window that pops up when you click on a key won't work. As for the code, I don't know anything either, but I think the music driver is unique to each game, so in essense, the code would be different depending on who's doing the coding. Maybe. I don't really know. It shouldn't be all that difficult to just translate the data that the script spits out into 2600-speak, though.

So, I've wanted to make something like this for a while, but didn't have the motivation/skills/intelligence to do so. I've been teaching myself PHP for the last couple months, and thought this could be a good outlet. Also, I may use a derivative of this thing for my senior project, which is something like "using ternary continued fractions to derive tuning ratios." It sounds more awesome (or maybe less) than it actually is. Anyway, what I've created is a keyboard (like a piano) of sorts that corresponds to the frequencies capable of being emitted by the 2600. Since these frequencies don't conform to any recognizable musical scale, basically any music written for the 2600 is a gross approximation of what'd you want. More details here. What this utility does is provide an easier way to compose music for the 2600. Agreed, it's not really all that useful, since composing music for the 2600 can be done without it. But, it does make it a little easier, since you'll be able to immediately hear your song, rather than code it up and run it on an emulator. No 2600 coding skillz are required; after all, I created it, and I'm an idiot. Sorry to all you fools who use Firefox or Opera, but this is IE only, for reasons that can only be described as mean-spirited. Well, that's not completely true. While it's true that every time I see a "Spread Firefox" button on a website I want to punch the webmaster in the face over the internet, that really had no bearing on not allowing Firefox users to use this thing. Read the FAQ on the page for more details. You'll also want to enable Javascript, or it will be quite useless. Link: http://tmont.kicks-ass.org/music/ Enjoy. I'd be interested in hearing some comments (like if anyone can figure out how to use it). Most of your questions are probably answered in the FAQ. Oh, I almost forgot. Here's some sample songs that I made while testing it out (they aren't that cool, I was just testing stuff): test.mid test2.mid --test2 channel 1 data --test2 channel 2 data fun_with_modulation.mid --fun_with_modulation channel 1 data --fun_with_modulation channel 2 data

After reading some of the long-winded, heated, far-removed, and opinionated arguments in these posts, I'm curious, too.

You know, Pitfall! (the original) is a minigame in Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, so theoretically, all of those votes could be transferred with no harm done. Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure holds special nostalgic sentiment for me: it was one of my first Genesis games, and I beat it when I stayed home from school for a week with a broken collarbone. I also played it quite a bit recently...

Here's a video of some dude beating Gradius (.wmv): http://vortiginous.com/vids/shiner-gradius-directors-cut.zip The final score was 671,500. He missed 16 enemies. It even has some vaguely humorous nerd humor in it. "It's somethin' to shoot for, Carl."

According to this guy, you're the only one who's ever cast a vote for Top Gun.

Heh. I haven't played this game in a while. I'm not really a big fan of playing Tetris for a high score; I'm all about survival and longevity. That said, this game bores me after 10 consecutive minutes. 64,538 144 lines

There's a video of the 800k game on archive. It's pretty awesome: http://www.archive.org/details/TETRIS_NES_800K He starts on level 18 (hold A when you select your level) and ends with 224 lines on level 28.