DaveM

Thanks! That did fix that problem. I went through that code looking for that exact issue, and for whatever reason, I just missed it. OK, so one problem down...

I NEED HELP! I've been working on a new kernel for the middle section of the screen since the start of December, and have been doing debugging over the last few weeks, but I'm at a point where I can't figure out the remaining bugs, so I'm hoping some of you can help. So here's what it looks like now during game play: As I was creating the new kernel for that middle section, I wasn't able to get the timing I needed to draw the blocks as solids. I'm using a 2-line kernel, so I'm drawing the blocks as playfield segments on line 1, and blanking out the playfield on line 2 so that I have the cycles I need for everything else. So I'm basically drawing the blocks on every other line. I'm willing to live with that compromise if that's the only way to get things done, but if anyone knows how to get the timing down to draw them solidly across both lines, I'd appreciate the help (it would look MUCH better that way). I should note that while the bird is holding the block, it's made of missile objects. I had that part of it solid, and I'm starting to go back and blank out every other line of that to match the blocks as they fall, but I'm not done with that yet, so the blocks look a bit weird as the bird is holding them. Aside from that, here's the issues: 1. As you can see above, the block is split. It shouldn't be like that. Sometimes, the blocks will drop correctly, other times, they'll split like you see above, or you'll see multiple blocks dropping. Just start the game up, let the bird do his thing, and you'll quickly see what I mean. I think my timing is off, but I've looked the kernel over several times, counted the cycles many, many times, and can't find the bug. I'm using the left PF2 and the right PF0 and PF1 to draw the blocks as they descend. When they hit the bottom of that section, they will disappear, as I haven't yet coded the bottom section of the play area yet. 2. The Player1 object is not appearing. Regardless of whether you choose a 1 or 2 player game right now, both players should appear. Player0 appears in midair as you see above (and I know why that's happening, just haven't fixed it yet), but Player1 should be appearing on the same scanlines. Again, I've been looking at the code for weeks, and can't figure this one out. The new kernel starts at line 2726. New blocks are created starting on line 3927. As blocks are created, the code will generate an array of segments, where it will assign values to the playfields, or a value of 0 if there is a space between blocks. The code in charge of moving the blocks down the screen starts at line 4045. I have a feeling I'm probably missing something obvious, but I just can't figure it out for the life of me right now. I may have to abandon the game and start on my next idea if I can't get past this. Thanks in advance!!! KickIce.a-vcs.zip

Improved score, and a bizarre graphics bug in the map at the bottom of the screen. I warped back and forth through that horizontal tunnel off the right side of the map a few times, and the plus sign thingies freaked out and turned into what you see below. They still moved around a bit after that, but their movement became very choppy.

Very underrated game.

Yes, so you got part of it. The color of the walls determines what you need for each cave: Blue - Collect 5 Notelies. Notelies appear immediately after a rescue. Purple - Collect 6 Notelies. Must shoot 1 object or collect 1 coin to get Notelies to appear. Green - Collect 7, must shoot 2 objects or collect 1 coin to get Notelies to appear. Orange - Collect 8, must shoot 3 objects or collect 1 coin to get Notelies to appear. The blue cave appears only on level 1. Level 1 has blue, purple, and a green cave, while all other levels go purple, green, orange. Yes, the green marker is the progress bar, and it flashes when you have just one rescue left. In the bonus round, you must shoot 10 targets, and the green marker will flash after 9 are shot. When you shoot your 10th, it still flashes, and moves a bit to the right, then it goes all the way to the right when you rescue the gem. And you're right about the bonus round. You must complete all three caves in a level before the time runs out in order to qualify for the bonus round. Also, if the timer runs out in a cave, your score is frozen until you complete that cave.

A couple improved scores. First, Star Castle Aracde: And finally, Boom! Never having played any of the Bomberman games before (I don't know why), I found this one quite frustrating. Finally got the hang of it a bit, but still kept blowing myself up. Oh, and I'm listed as "DameM" in the Conquest of Mars high score list on Page 1. I may be a lot of things, but I'm no Dame. Glad Mr. Yo-Yo did so well with the HSC. A few things I've learned that I'll work into my future homebrews: 1. Don't flicker the score. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it makes taking screenshots a hit-and-miss thing. 2. Make sure the game works well with the traditional Atari joystick. Mr. Yo-Yo definitely plays better with other controllers. Even I have trouble with the regular joystick. I can usually score 500k+, but with the joystick, I have trouble cracking 150k. Although, I think with practice, that would improve. Seems to be mainly a timing thing. 3. Offer an easier version so players can learn the game. I think I ramped up the difficulty too quickly. I'm trying to keep all these in mind as I work on my next game, Kick Ice. The development thread can be found here: This one is taking me a while to develop for numerous reasons, but I am still working on it, and hope to have an update either over the weekend, or sometime next week. I just have so little time to devote to working on it, that it's become a very slow process. When I started on Mr. Yo-Yo, I decided early on that I was making the game just for an audience of one - myself. I always intended to share it with the AtariAge community, but to help take some of the pressure off of making my first game, I just wanted to make sure that I enjoyed it, and that was it. The idea for the game has sat in the back of my head since the 80's, so I was thrilled to finally get it out of there and start playing it. In the end, I really do enjoy the game, and play it almost every time I fire up Stella. Anyway, thanks again for playing my game! I think I'll try to participate in the HSC more in the future. I've always kinda lurked in the background and checked out the scores and whatnot, but never got around to joining in. So I think I'll stick around here and give it a shot.

Much appreciated! So glad the group looks to be enjoying the game, and that the scores are becoming quite impressive! I went to PRGE this year, and stood back and watched as people tried the game at the AtariAge booth. Virtually everyone I watched play the game quickly got frustrated and walked away. Quite disheartening. So I'm glad it's getting a much better reception here Anyway, my scores for the other games so far. All the other games are quite impressive. My scores, not so much. 😄 Boom.... I actually had a much higher score than this, but in attempting to hit the game select switch to detonate a couple bombs, I accidentally hit the reset switch and erased my score. Too frustrated to try again right now. Star Castle... I'm much better at the arcade version. It's easier for me to work with a thrust button than pushing the joystick up. Conquest of Mars... Took me forever to get past that second screen. Finally made it to the end of the first cavern.

First off, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! I noticed my high score of 792k on Mr. Yo-Yo was posted as the leader in this competition. I would like to request that it be removed from the high score list in fairness to the other competitors. I set that score over a year ago, so I don't think it should count. Since I designed the game and have a bit of an advantage over the rest as far as high scores go, I thought I'd give myself one game to see what I could do. I haven't played the game in a couple months, so I thought I'd be a bit rusty, but ended up doing rather well... My scores on the other games are quite horrible, so I'll need to give them more play before I post my efforts. Thought I'd give a few tips that might not be so obvious, especially if you didn't memorize the manual. Collecting coins is the whole key to high scores. Coins are worth 100 points if you shoot them, but if you collect them, you not only get 1,000 points, but a couple other things happen. First, a Notely will automatically appear, regardless of how many enemies you normally need to shoot in that cave. Second, the value for rescuing Notelies doubles. That value starts at 200, and you can run it up to 3,200 per rescue. So, collect 4 coins and you get to max value. It resets when you lose a life, but just pick up 4 coins and you're right back there. Coins first appear in the first purple cave, and since the timer there moves so slow, I like to just hang out until I've collected my 4 coins, then I start my rescuing. Power Pods also have different results depending on whether you shoot or collect them. Shoot a Power Pod, and you get 300 points, and it acts as a smart bomb, clearing the screen. You do get points for the enemies you clear in that manner. Collect the Power Pod, and it starts a coin frenzy, where everything on the screen turns into a coin, and nothing but coins spawn for 4 seconds. That's usually a very easy way to get your 4 coins to max out the rescue value. Between the coins and power pods, if you play it right, scores of over 80k are possible just by the end of the first bonus round. Speaking of the bonus round, those targets are 500 points a piece. If you get your required 10 shot quickly and there's still lots of time left, let the gem sit there for a while, and pick off a few more targets. At 500 each, they're worth more than the bonus you'll get for time remaining. Just watch the timer and make sure you take care of that gem before it runs out! I'm so glad you're enjoying the game! The feedback so far has been fantastic! I hope you'll consider leaving a review in the AtariAge Store: Mr. Yo-Yo - Atari 2600 (atariage.com) Thanks!

Congrats, you've reached the bonus round! If you don't score points by running into them, try shooting them! 😄 You need to shoot 10 targets. That will cause the bonus gem to appear. Bring the gem to the top of the screen before the timer expires and you get a 9900 point bonus plus an extra life. This will also trigger the game's cutscene.

Not sure how I missed this. It's a pdf of the AtariAge Store Mr. Yo-Yo manual, featuring great artwork by John Calcano. He also animated the Mr. Yo-Yo characters and created this 1980s style tv commercial: MrYoYo_Manual_2022-01-29.pdf

Hello all! What an honor to have my first homebrew, Mr. Yo-Yo as part of the High Score Club! I hope you all enjoy the game and have fun with it! I know the game can be a bit difficult at first, but like most games, with practice, it gets easier. Since I see that the blue Bouncers are already causing a little trouble (they're supposed to be fish, btw), I'll give you a tip on how to deal with them - if there's only one on screen and you just want to get by him, wait until just after he passes the midpoint of the screen, then go. You'll fly right by him every time! I've attached a text draft of the game manual, which may help out a bit. I also uploaded a video to YouTube a while back which features text commentary on the gameplay. I put a bunch of tips in there, and a little on the game's background. The video can be found here: If you happen to have purchased a Mr. Yo-Yo cartridge from the AtariAge Store, the cartridge version has two easter eggs that are not present in the downloadable ROM. So a little something extra to go after there! Personally, I've found that I do much better with the game when I use a gamepad type of controller, such as the Sega Genesis controller, as opposed to the traditional Atari joystick. It's easier for me to fire right and left with a quick press on the gamepad, instead of moving the big joystick back and forth. My personal high score was set on an Atari Flashback Portable: If anyone has any questions or would like tips on how to play the game, feel free to ask! And if you enjoy the game, I would appreciate it if you'd leave a review for it on the AtariAge Store! Thanks! Mr Yo-Yo Game Manual_TEXT_DRAFT.docx

Still working on it, but nothing new to show so far. Mainly doing some background logic stuff at the moment. Some good news to share though - My fiancée was able to stand under her own power the other day for the first time since she got sick. Still a long ways to go, but definitely heading in the right direction!

The bird now drops a block when he reaches his desired position. You'll notice the block disappear shortly after that. That's because I haven't written that part of the kernel yet. I haven't quite got a good grasp as to what to do next to draw the blocks falling. While the block is in the grasp of the bird, I use the missile objects so I can have smooth horizontal scrolling, but I'll be using the playfield below that. I've only got a vague idea on what I should do next, but haven't quite figured out how to execute it. Any assistance would be appreciated. By my count, I have 54 bytes of RAM remaining. And if you're wondering about the wedding mentioned above and didn't see my post in the Mr. Yo-Yo thread, you'll find the details here: KickIce_20221029.bin KickIce_20221029.a

So Ground Kontrol ripped me off. I used my debit card to pay the $3 cover charge, but paid cash the rest of the night. I had a look at my bank statement today, and they charged me $95! I'm in the process of disputing it. Never mind. I forgot I bought something from their booth at the Expo. Whoops.

Had a great time at my first PRGE! It was so nice to finally meet everyone in person, from Al to the developers, to James and Tanya from ZPH. Everyone was so friendly and made me feel at home. I got to play a lot of the fantastic AA homebrews, and received a lot of great comments about Mr. Yo-Yo. I also got to see random strangers stop by the booth and play my game, which was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, watching someone play the game for the first time. A number of them got frustrated and walked away, but that's the way it goes, I guess. I did want to share some info though. I wasn't going to post anything about it, but I was encouraged to, and after thinking about it, I'll go ahead. So you may have seen me mention before either in this thread or my Kick Ice thread that I was getting married. Well, that didn't happen. It was supposed to happen Oct 8, and the PRGE was supposed to be tacked on to the end of our honeymoon. Well, the first part of our honeymoon was supposed to be Charleston, SC, and a hurricane took care of that, but that's not why the wedding got canceled. One week prior to the wedding day, I woke up to find my fiancée on the couch. She had gotten sick during the night and couldn't move. I tried to get her up off the couch so I could take her to the hospital, but she just couldn't move. She didn't want to go to the hospital, but I finally convinced her, and I wound up calling 911. The fire department came out, got her on a stretcher, and got her over to the hospital. An initial MRI showed she had developed a large infection of some sort. They transferred her to a different hospital, since she couldn't move her legs, and the first hospital didn't have a neurology department. Now, you may have seen me mention before that she's a cancer patient. A few months back, they implanted a pain pump device in her to help with the chemo pain. The doctor decided to now do surgery on her to remove the pump, as it appeared that the location where the pump went into her spine to deliver the meds might be where the infection started. They removed the pump, removed a lot of the infection, and kept her in the ICU for a few days. She still couldn't move her legs, but they put her on antibiotics, hoping that would clear the rest of the infection, and once the infection receded from the spine, she'd regain movement. All that was on the Saturday prior to the wedding. We had a call set up with the wedding venue on Monday afternoon and we decided if she wasn't up and walking around by that call, we'd have to postpone the wedding, and that's exactly what happened. No improvement by Monday, and to make matters worse, the meds they had her on caused her to lose control of some other muscles as well as her ability to speak. At first, they said maybe she had a stroke, but now it's looking like it wasn't a stroke, and the meds are the cause of the speech issues. So, I ended up spending Monday in her room at the ICU contacting all our various vendors, trying to reach all our out-of-town guests to make sure they could cancel their plans, and then start contacting our other guests. Along the way, I forgot to contact her family.... Whoops! I spent all of last week going back and forth to the hospital. I told her I didn't want to go to Portland with her in that condition, but she insisted I go. That was a very long conversation, but I ended up going, and glad I did. She was moved out of the ICU on Wednesday, and has started to recover a bit. She's being moved to a physical therapy rehab facility today. Her speech has almost returned to normal, although she has a little droopiness on the right side of her mouth. I'm told that's most likely from the meds, and she most likely didn't have a stroke. Friday night she was able to slightly move her legs for the first time. To give you an idea of how bad it was for a while, on Saturday afternoon while I was standing at the AtariAge booth, I got a text from her. It read, "I can finally drink with a straw!" She hadn't the strength to drink through a straw prior to that. I saw the text and almost broke down right there in front of everybody. They expect her to be in the rehab facility for 4-6 weeks. Our wedding vendors have been marvelous, and they're all willing to work with us through all this, so once she's done with rehab and we have a better idea what things will look like going forward, we'll be rescheduling the wedding. This whole thing has been like a bad nightmare. I haven't felt like myself since it started, and I could tell I was just a little bit off while I was in Portland. So, if you met me up there and I seemed a little off or awkward or distracted, now you know why. But I did have a fantastic time, and I was so happy to meet everyone, and I'm looking forward to attending more PRGE's in the future.

Star Raiders was quite expensive when it first came out, if I remember correctly. Even buying in bulk, I'd have to raise the cost with a yo-yo pack in. But those are blank yo-yos. Probably cheaply made too. The ones I looked into were custom yo-yos, where they would've printed a Mr. Yo-Yo face on one side, and the AA logo on the other. I forget the specifics, but there was a minimum order of something like 250. Most homebrews sell less than 50 copies, so I'd be stuck with a box of at least 200 yo-yos lying around my house. So, I'd have to charge extra not only for the pack-in yo-yo, but the other yo-yos that would remain in a box in my garage. There's also shipping costs, and the work Albert would have to do to create a larger box that could fit the yo-yo. In the end, even buying in bulk, the costs didn't work. Trust me, I'm a financial analyst. So when I say that I looked into it, I actually did look into it quite thoroughly. But if everyone wants, I'll create a sequel to the game and design a special pack-in yo-yo controller with turbo boost spinner control and a plastic overlay, and I'll jack up the price of the game to $350.

I looked into that, but it would've just cost too much for me to produce.

I haven't posted on this game since July???? So here's the latest... I've only had a couple chances to work on this since, and I might not work on this again for a little while, but I'm still determined to get it done. The bird now moves horizontally. The red player scoreboard displays the bird's horizontal position, and if you have 2-player versus mode on, the blue player's scoreboard will display the location the bird is moving to. Obviously, I'm doing all that for testing purposes, and it'll be removed for the final game. Once the bird lowers into position, an ice block is spawned, and he'll move back and forth with it, but that's it so far. There's still lots of glitches, most notably, a scanline issue anytime a player falls off the platform, but I'll resolve that later. I've been trying to remove the blank lines between the bird's claws and the ice block, and I've narrowed the gap a bit, but I can't figure out how to get rid of it completely. If anyone wants to have a look, I'd appreciate it. I've attached the code. Looking at the game as it stands, I'm starting to think the players will need more vertical room. I love that scoreboard I have in there, but it takes up a lot of space. I may end up re-working that area to cut its size in half and give the game play area more room. I'll proceed as-is for now, try to get the game to a playable state, and see how it works before I go changing that scoreboard. Many more important things in the game to work on first. This will probably be the last I work on this game for at least a month or so. I'm getting married on Oct 8, and getting everything set for the wedding is taking up a lot of time. Hopefully, I'll free up a lot of time post-wedding, and I can start devoting more time to working on this. I've got ideas for another few games in my head that I'm anxious to get to, but I'll have to finish this one first before I get to those. In the meantime, gotta take care of wedding stuff. We will be heading to Portland at the tail end of our honeymoon to attend PRGE, so hopefully we can meet some of you there! KickIce_20220913.bin KickIce_20220913.a

I always preferred Battlezone over Robot Tank. Robot Tank I think may have looked better, but was too repetitive for me. Battlezone had a nice variety of enemies, you had two enemies at once, and you actually had to worry about them when they weren't on the screen in front of you. Moon Patrol is another favorite. I think it kinda gets lost in the shuffle among the other excellent arcade ports from around this time, but I think it's one of the best. I like that you can turn the BGM on or off with the difficulty switch. Other favorites are Pressure Cooker, Frostbite, Dig Dug, and Joust. Quick Step is a fun 2 player game and a bit of a hidden gem. Decathlon is the only game I ever gave away for free. I had it, broke a few joysticks, and decided it was just costing me too much money in repairs so I gave it away.

Solar Fox may be my all-time favorite 2600 game. I used to be able to roll the score back in the day. Can't come close now. It may be the only game where I like the 2600 version better than the arcade version. No Escape, Enduro, and Moonsweeper are more of my favorites. Flash Gordon and The Earth Dies Screaming are a couple games where you need a manual to know what's going on. Without it, they don't make much sense, so the games get a bad rap, but if you know what's going on, there's some fun to be had with them. Tip for Sky Skipper - to refuel, you need to pick up one of each animal at a time. If you pick up just one of each, then your fuel goes to full. Had a strange experience with this one. Back when it came out, we got it through a mail order offer for free. When it arrived, each page of the manual was doubled. So, it had two covers, and two of each page, all perfectly stapled together. I wish I had kept it that way. For some reason, I pried open the staples, carefully slid the pages apart, and created two separate manuals.

As the guy who transcribed the Sub Scan instructions for the Atari Age database, I feel almost a legal obligation to watch tonight Some strange quirks with a couple hidden gems that'll hopefully save a bit of time: Tac-Scan uses paddles, but the paddles have to be plugged into the RIGHT port. The left difficulty switch on Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes gives you infinite lives if set to B, 4 lives if set to A. And for some reason, the cartridge starts up on game variation #6. It's a good default game variation, but why not make that game #1?

Lots of shovelware here. Spider Fighter and Phoenix far above the rest, but I kinda like Quadrun too. When I was in college in the early 90s, there was a computer store near campus that also sold leftover Atari 2600 stock. After going a few times, I figured out just two guys worked there - a smart guy and a dumb guy. If I went while the smart guy was there, I'd just look around, as he'd charge full price for everything. The dumb guy, however, would only charge $2 for all 2600 games. I picked up a new in box Quadrun from him for just $2! Also stocked up on a lot of Atari red box games and some late Activision games like Private Eye, all for $2 each. Eventually, the smart guy caught on, and that was the end of that. Years later, I ended up selling Quadrun for $750 on ebay, minus the box.

Dangit, I gotta miss this one. Lots of good hidden gems in this group. My favs are Nexar, Turmoil, Dark Cavern, and Fantastic Voyage (but you gotta know what to shoot and what not to shoot. Shoot the wrong stuff, and the game ends quickly!)

You're right, I grabbed the wrong terrible game! I'll make a correction in the next stream and we'll play EarthWorld right at the top. Fireworld isn't due to the beginning of 1983's games. So bad... so very very bad. Just please don't blame me for having to play 5 minutes of Earthworld. It is better than Fireworld, but that's not saying much. Quick Fireworld story - When our family went shopping as a kid, I always bugged my mom to get me an Atari game, and most of the time, the answer was no. But, I saw Fireworld, and I knew it had a contest connected to it, so I told my mom I could win $25,000 by playing the game, so she plunked down the $30 or whatever it cost and bought me the game. I was so excited - I finally got my mom to buy me a game! I got home, immediately stuck the cartridge in, started playing, and what a piece of crap it was. Despite that, I must've played for hours. Never got one clue to appear on screen. I then went through the manual and the comic book looking for help. I then had a look at the contest rules. The deadline for the contest had passed 3 months prior. ? I had never been so mad in my life. FINALLY got my mom to buy me a game, and not only is it a piece of crap, but the contest had expired. ?