tmont

I don't know anything about fractional speed, 2600 programming, etc., but does this mean that the elevators (have the potential to) change speed on every frame? Or does each individual elevator maintain a constant speed at all times (until you pass the level, or whatever)? I think it would be cool if the elevators didn't act like elevators, rather they acted like sentient, evil elevators, that adjusted their speed based on the vertical alignment of the maid. For example, when the maid is directly above or below the SEE (sentient evil elevator), it would increase speed until the maid was no longer vertically aligned. Kind of like the sharks in Go Fish! Also, no offense, but "Got it Maid?" doesn't really make any sense, other than the fact that you're using a maid for the sprite, and it's a pun. I think something along the lines of "Maid vs. Elevators" would be more appropriate, despite the fact that that's an incredibly lame, terrible example. "Got it Maid?" doesn't really tell me anything about the game; it's just a clever pun. Just my professional opinion.

He's also responsible for the weirdest game of all time: A Boy and His Frickin' Blob (not Atari 2600, though).

I was actually going to do that. But then, amazingly, I erased all (current versions) of my source code. And I don't feel like rewriting it. Yes, yes, I am a flaming idiot.

So, I've been doing a little experimentation with hex-editing, and I decided to put my newfound knowledge to some kind of use. So I implemented this feature, in a very rudimentary way. You can now import a bitmap file (.bmp), but there are a few restrictions: the bit-depth must be 24, it must be 40 pixels wide, and it must be between 20 and 180 pixels tall. This is rather annoying, I know, because pixels are square and playfield pixels are rectangular, so the bitmap file in the graphics program will look slightly different than what it will look like as an Atari 2600 playfield. Also, it doesn't import color. What it does do, however, is treat everything that isn't white (red=255, green=255, blue=255) as "active," and will only draw those non-white pixels to the screen. I demand a 24-bit bitmap because the pixel data is far simpler (no pallettes). And I'm also lazy, although both reasons are essentially the same. Yeah, probably isn't real useful, and this program needs some tweaking anyway, but I wanted to try some stuff out. I packaged it into a jar file, along with a readme that explains this stuff (it's not really that complicated). To run it, either double click on it, or, if you hate yourself, run it from the command line with java -jar PlayfieldEditor.jar pfe.zip (24.1 KB)

striped elevators = hott! In my opinion, and such. And I think it's about time you actually finished something, hmm...

Geocities sucks nuts. Try WOU: rpg-battle While you're there, you can listen to the battle tune, and also the title screen tune which I never gave to you: http://www.wou.edu/~tmontg1/midi/

These all sound pretty decent, particularly Wizards & Warriors. However, you omitted (on purpose, maybe?) about six measures from the battle song. It's supposed to be like this. If you didn't do it on purpose, then you probably had one of my eight revisions to that tune, in which I was trying desperately to smash it into 128 notes. Thanks for doing these; they all sound surprisingly good!

I'm impressed that Rocket Knight Adventures is up there. I didn't think anyone knew about that game. I don't know if it deserves to be on a top 10 list (unless it's a list of top 10 games featuring a rocket-powered possum), but it is fairly fantastic.

I think the drum breaks are kind of boring, at times. Maybe something a little more busy? Think Splash McGallion from Cherry Poppin' Daddies if you need inspiration. Otherwise, it's hot.

... Yikes. This is a huge disappointment. I may have to make a few phone calls; hopefully their tech support speaks English... Danke!

Dude, Sweet dominant 7th. Love, Tommy

Well, it nearly came to fruition. I added a new goal and gave up on another. Goal 2 Substituted Goal 1 Enjoy.

What!? Impossible! Out of curiosity, which ones are wrong? I arranged it like, before Christmas, so I don't really remember even doing it. It sounds fine to me; those notes that sound out of tone are tritones, so they're intended to sound bad. I purposely used notes (like G4 [Lead, pitch 12]) that aren't in tune to achieve the dissonance. At the time, I was going through every video game MIDI I had on my computer, learning each of them by ear. The ones I liked, I arranged for 2600 just for fun. I have like 6 more (mostly Final Fantasy, and of course, The Legend of Zelda, although Zelda didn't respond too well to the limitations of the 2600) video game MIDIs that I have arranged for the 2600, just to keep my transposing skills in practice. Or something. Sounds good!

I was working on an improved version of the sprite editor applet I made a while ago, which kind of sucked, but then I abandoned it several months ago. Since my last final is tomorrow, I won't have access to my school's server, so I figured I'd post this now before it's too late. Maybe I'll get it done during the summer (coding during the summer? ha!). Do it! I'd list the features and stuff, but I don't really remember anything. I think things are pretty self-explanatory, and everything (besides a few of the menu options) works. The only thing I didn't implement was the code generation (which might be the most useful part). Anyway, enjoy (or not). Actually, it looks flipping vertically doesn't work in some cases. Not sure why that is...

Heh. Interesting timing. I just finished my week-long bout of being obsessed with Sudoku (the algorithm/programming nature of it; solving them still sucks). I made a little page about it. It's nothing new, but you can check it out if you want: http://www.wou.edu/~tmontg1/java/SudokuSolver/sudoku.html My brother mentioned that he was contemplating how to set this up for the 2600, as well.

It was broken about two weeks ago by Rodrigo Lopes on an emulator by 4 seconds, I think.

A little something I created with my birthday present. I find it intoxicating. Enjoy! Sadly, errors were found. Crap-o-cities to the rescue! Do it! (right click, save as, etc.)

That one's pretty good, what with the magic wand and keys and stuff, even though the color pallette is disgusting. Try Super Demo World- The Legend Contines. It's a Super Mario World hack; easily the best Mario hack available. There are some tool-assisted videos of Mario Adventure and Super Demo World here.

What the hell is this thing? collabertaion Is that a word in another language? If not, that's a pretty ridiculous spelling error...

Yeah. It's kind of like a cross between Zelda 1 and Zelda 2. It's a top down view like Zelda 1, but you have magic points and spells and stuff. You also get to ride a dolphin. You're also in a sexy purple outfit. It rules. If you like purple stuff and/or Zelda, you should check it out on an emulator or something. Amusingly, I forgot I made a page about it while trying to come up with content for my website that I created while (re)learning HTML. It's pretty lame: http://www.wou.edu/~tmontg1/test/crystalis.html

Hee hee. I got my scanner to work, so I thought some of you might enjoy this masterpiece I made while working on a speedrun of Crystalis. Since I can't access my school's server at the moment, crapocities to the rescue! http://www.geocities.com/tmont_musicman/sabrenorth.GIF (287 KB)

I played the balls out of Kid Icarus a couple months ago. I was always surprised that Nintendo never capitalized off of the popularity of Kid Icarus. I'd love to see some kind of sequel, but as awesome as it sounds, this sounds like an optimistic rumor.

Oh. It was the literal explanation. As far as importing from Photoshop (or wherever), that's pretty much impossible. You'll have to redraw it or import it from code if you want to edit it with my program. As far as exporting to a graphics program, I suppose you could just screenshot it, and then copy and paste. I wrote this about 6 months ago, so I'm not really in the mood to tweak it anymore. Well, I'm not in the mood to work hard at tweaking it anymore.

Thanks guys. I tried it out on a couple different computers, and it worked every time. I think as long as you have the Java 2 platform (which is included in the browser installation... maybe?), it'll work. The jdk has nothing to do with it, I don't think. Uh... I don't know what that means. Which one are you talking about, and what is a bitmap file?

Dude. That guy's name is Seamus?