Space Invaders 7800

[gdement]

This is awesome work. Are there even any Space Invaders ports of this accuracy on any other console? Great addition to the 7800.

[PacManPlus]

Thanks guys

 

This is awesome work. Are there even any Space Invaders ports of this accuracy on any other console? Great addition to the 7800.

Yes - Eduardo did a *perfect* port for the Colecovision.

[A Sprite]

Good

 

Nevermind that, the Earth needs heroes man! Priorities!

 

Bad

 

They won the battle, but I'll win the war. *starts another game*

 

Good job.

 

Best thing one can say about an entertainment product is you covered every complaint, and made all the hard work look effortless to an untrained eye.

 

This was your first non-hack?

 

Seriously?

 

Any chance we could see an original IP?

Edited July 17, 2008 by A Sprite

[Trebor]

3) I think I know what MESS was having an issue with. Please let me know if the 'garbage' is still there. It's one of those 'should be initialized to zero upon startp' things. :-/

 

The "garbage" is no longer present under MESS.

 

-Trebor

Edited July 17, 2008 by Trebor

[NE146]

First of all I think it was awesome you included the 2600 options (fast bombs, moving shields, zig zag, as well as 2 players, etc.) in the game. Also the fact you can get the 2600 invaders graphics themselves is icing on the cake

 

Couple of things

 

This is purely by feel, but the 1st UFO in each stage comes out a good number of seconds too early. In the arcade game after immediately shooting off your 22 shots (and shooting maybe 3 columns of invaders) the UFO tends to come out about 7-10 seconds later or so. Try it out in the arcade game and see. The timing of all subsequent UFO's after that feels perfect though.

 

When playing with the 2600 graphics, the invaders start out too far to the left again.. (so you can shoot the 3rd & 4th rows). I suspect this is because their graphics are smaller.. in which case that's fine

 

I really like the fact that you added the ability to score over 9990 points... right when I thought I was going to roll it over, up came the extra digit. I had to pause and take a pic

 

That pic also shows something else and that's my old wall of death strategy which works great on this game! I think that's amazing for a port that you could get the gameplay translated so well. You have to be a little quicker on the draw in your version, but that's absolutely fine.

 

I stopped playing this version once I saw you put an even never version above, but I made it to level 5 and was still going strong. One thing I was going to check was on Level 7 (the invaders lowest starting point) are they just touching the shields? Also on level 10 (and later, level 18) does the invader starting point reset to level 2 height? That would complete the entire thing at least for me

Edited July 17, 2008 by NE146

[Trebor]

Beef Drop sound issues have more to do with an incorrect header file than prosystem issues. I have a prosystem.dat file I uploaded in some other thread that corrects that issue.

 

Cool...It would be great if you could locate that prosystem.dat or even just the information respecting Beef Drop.

 

Hopefully, there will be an update to ProSystem that will fix the other sound issues (b*onQ, Ms. Pac-Man, etc).

 

-Trebor

[Shannon]

Here you are. Just add this entry into the prosystem.dat file. Doesn't matter where..

 

[f5add23f7144f27fd28d8641086e423f]
title=Beef Drop Demo
type=0
pokey=true
controller1=1
controller2=1
region=0
flags=0

[ZylonBane]

This is incredibly minor, but would it be practical to move the line at the bottom of the playfield down 3 pixels? This would more closely match the arcade.

[Shannon]

Looks like the graphics corruption on the screen is gone (see pic). On a side note. It's been a while since I looked at the prosystem emu but I do believe it only displays what it defines as the "viewable" area of the 7800. So it is possible that it was there, but that prosystem was not displaying it. Plus it is in what would be considered the "overscan" area of a normal TV. Anyways it's gone so it doesn't matter.

[PacManPlus]

Thank you A Sprite, Trebor, Shannon

@A Sprite: I don't count Pac-Man Collection becuase I started with the Ms. Pac-Man core and wrote everything around that. But yes, this is my first (almost) complete homebrew. Schmutspuppe gave me the original invaders marching code which actually helped me finally understand the DLL & DL in the 7800. Once I understood that I then started from scratch because I originally was trying to keep the 'ripple effect' (see my blog). Once I found that to be too much of an issue I reverted back to the invaders moving as a whole with some changes. So, if it wasn't for Schmutzpuppe giving me the original motivation, this never would have happened. As far as an original game, I would love to do that eventually. There's still quite a bit I have to learn. Part of the reason I decided to do this was because it was a fairly simple game.

 

First of all I think it was awesome you included the 2600 options (fast bombs, moving shields, zig zag, as well as 2 players, etc.) in the game. Also the fact you can get the 2600 invaders graphics themselves is icing on the cake

Thanks!

 

This is purely by feel, but the 1st UFO in each stage comes out a good number of seconds too early. In the arcade game after immediately shooting off your 22 shots (and shooting maybe 3 columns of invaders) the UFO tends to come out about 7-10 seconds later or so. Try it out in the arcade game and see. The timing of all subsequent UFO's after that feels perfect though.

I'll look at it. I was going by a few people who told me that the UFOs start to come out about 25 seconds into the level. I tried to match that - I will double check with your findings.

 

When playing with the 2600 graphics, the invaders start out too far to the left again.. (so you can shoot the 3rd & 4th rows). I suspect this is because their graphics are smaller.. in which case that's fine

Hmmm.... Let me check that.

 

I really like the fact that you added the ability to score over 9990 points... right when I thought I was going to roll it over, up came the extra digit.

Thanks! It actually goes to 6 digits

 

One thing I was going to check was on Level 7 (the invaders lowest starting point) are they just touching the shields? Also on level 10 (and later, level 18) does the invader starting point reset to level 2 height? That would complete the entire thing at least for me

Yes, all of the levels should have the correct starting height (relative to the height of the 7800 screen, which is 1 playfield row short). I went through them in MAME (using a cheat to clear the levels quickly) and noted the starting positions.

 

This is incredibly minor, but would it be practical to move the line at the bottom of the playfield down 3 pixels? This would more closely match the arcade.

I can move it down two pixels. If I move it down three, it will be touching the top of the letters / numbers in the line below.

 

Thanks all!

Edited July 17, 2008 by PacManPlus

[Underball]

Here you are. Just add this entry into the prosystem.dat file. Doesn't matter where..

 

[f5add23f7144f27fd28d8641086e423f]
title=Beef Drop Demo
type=0
pokey=true
controller1=1
controller2=1
region=0
flags=0

That hash isn't valid for all versions of Beef Drop.

 

the Hash for the final demo from July 18th 2006 is: [7adbd2cec2e2cbc1e0ad237778ee46b9]

[Shannon]

Thanks for the hash. So many versions!!

 

Anyways just replace my hash with your hash and keep the same options.

 

I'll dig around and see if I have that version around somewhere. I may have just forgot to add it to the prosystem.dat file.

[Underball]

Just did this - Also (Sorry bob for taking your SI thread way off course, but it's kind of relevant) -

 

Look here Missing in Action is now fully playable in Prosystem. Woo Hoo!!!

 

I promise - back to Space Invaders only talk from now on.

Edited July 17, 2008 by Underball

[ZylonBane]

This is incredibly minor, but would it be practical to move the line at the bottom of the playfield down 3 pixels? This would more closely match the arcade.

I can move it down two pixels. If I move it down three, it will be touching the top of the letters / numbers in the line below.

Really? I'm counting a four-pixel gap in the current build. Moving it down three should leave a one-pixel gap, just like in the arcade version.

[PacManPlus]

Ok - I just checked a screenshot - sorry, you're right. I'm an idiot. I don't have the source in front of me at work, so I went from memory (I should know better). I'll move it down three when I get home.

 

EDIT -

 

Ok - I've reduced the ground line by 3 pixels. Here is the updated binary.

 

@NE146 - I see what you mean, although it's not the invaders that are in a different spot, it's the shields that are! I am using the 3 shields from the 2600 version instead of the 4 from the arcade when the 2600 graphics are in place.

 

Bob

Edited July 24, 2008 by PacManPlus

[PacManPlus]

Hey Guys:

 

@NE146: I took a look at the arcade Space Invaders (I don't know why I didn't just do that to begin with), and you are right - the ufo comes out between 30-35 seconds. I've adjusted accordingly.

 

I know I keep saying this but here is what I believe is the final release candidate of SI 7800.

Edited July 24, 2008 by PacManPlus

[HammR25]

So it's the final release candidate until it's not.

[keitaro]

Hi!

Anyone test it on a real PAL 7800 hardware? (sorry If posted this question before)

 

(I should buy an Eprom burner to test PAL versions for my self )

[PacManPlus]

PAL version. Let me know if there are any issues.

Edited July 24, 2008 by PacManPlus

[PacManPlus]

Coming soon...

 

 

[Gregory DG]

Let me be the first to say, "Drool..."

[HammR25]

Coming soon...

 

 

 

That'll go well with this:

 

[Trebor]

Coming soon...

 

 

 

That one's mine....right?

 

-Trebor

[Mayhem]

PAL version. Let me know if there are any issues.

 

You post this the day after I leave for the US, so no testing for me! I hope it works fine though... I'll be in for a real cartridge of course as well.

[Impaler_26]

Great... just great!!! After Pac-Man Collection, Asteroids Deluxe and Space Duel you give us this....

Now i have to buy a 7800 in the near future... :x

 

 

 

This is a great SI-Port, all i can say is ! Oh, and how about bringing Phoenix to the 7800 one day?