roland p Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 I know only the fame of Ballblazer and little of the game mechanics, can someone give me some heads up on how much is missing from it to make it a complete game? Well, Peter Langston replied to the video from 'Down the Rabbit Hole': Nice going! Of course, it won't really be Balblazer until (1) the jaggies are smoothed out and (B) the droid AI can run the players, and (iii) the killer machine-composed music and game-related sound effects are included! But still... it's great that you've gotten this far, and we're flattered that you're interested enough to put the work in. Congratulations! I think it's safe to say that smoothing out the Jaggies is not possible. There was some discussion here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/132005-ballblazer-brainstorming/?hl=%2Bballblazer&do=findComment&comment=1593985 Droid AI, very important. That's high on the priority list. If I have that, Ballblazer is a playable game for a single player. Then music and sounds. I might do that first because so far, Ballblazer hasn't produced any sounds. #4 on this excellent list: http://www.langston.com/LFGames/TenTips.html So out of my head: 1. sounds 2. droid ai 3. countdown timer / ramping difficulty (like goalposts that are getting narrower when time passes) 4. intro demo? 5. make it nice / testplaying 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 That's pretty cool to have Peter notice and respond to your hard work! Congrats! Personally I'd continue with the pathway of the two-player game, and get sounds going before the AI also.. Remember you are accomplishing stuff the Lucasfilm Game team didn't think possible in the 80's. I talked with David once and he said if they could have done it on the VCS they would have. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 If you're going to take on machine-generated music, let me humbly suggest you keep the music in the key of A3@218.3Hz. It may be obvious, but you'll also need some kind of sound channel priority system, so notes and sfx will go to an unused channel, or allow the sfx to have priority over the music notes, and ideally allow newer sfx to interrupt an sfx that's been playing for a while. I baked something like the above into 7800basic, and it works quite well. You assign a priority value to a given sound effect or note, and it decreases each frame it plays. People don't usually notice the tail of a sound missing when a new sound interrupts it - it's the same auditory masking effect that audio codecs often take advantage of. 2 channel shared music and sound effects are quite doable under such a system. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 Nice going! Of course, it won't really be Balblazer until (1) the jaggies are smoothed out and (B) the droid AI can run the players, and (iii) the killer machine-composed music and game-related sound effects are included! But still... it's great that you've gotten this far, and we're flattered that you're interested enough to put the work in. Congratulations! Nonsense. Even the premier version of the day, the Atari 400/800 version, was full of them. Anti-aliasing doesn't determine if Ballblazer is indeed Ballblazer or not. Because look at what happened to the Apple II and C64 versions. They couldn't even get the colors right! Hahah! Let alone the anti-aliasing exhibited in the 400/800 version. So, Of course, it won't really be Ballblazer until (1) the colors are matched correctly.. and.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Wow, another year has passed... I've been very busy at work, working on a new product for the last year (and still not finished since requirements grew...). So not much time (and maybe I'm just lazy). If I continue, I think I should go for 8K instead of 4K. Still looking forward to this! Amazing work so far, I've been following for a long time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Any updates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted May 10, 2017 Share Posted May 10, 2017 What do you mean? Someone released basically the same game in 2015 and called it 'Rocket League', and many think it's the greatest thing ever Funny you mention this. When I was visiting my nephew last summer in Florida, he wanted to show me this game. I immediately said "wow - that's Ball Blazer - I played this 30 years ago". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangentg Posted May 21, 2017 Share Posted May 21, 2017 Not a big fan of it since the creator stresses that you should play the 5200/800/7800 version or else you haven't played the game since he was disappointed that the physics he spent so much work on is absent from all other ports. I have played the NES/Famicom version. It's terrible since it's nowhere near smooth and looking at the screen confuses me as to which direction the player is moving in. I don't see the good scaling being on the 2600 version either, which is pretty important for 3D games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 I think this is one of the most epic 2600 ports, and I'm a big fan of it. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 (edited) Not a big fan of it since the creator stresses that you should play the 5200/800/7800 version or else you haven't played the game since he was disappointed that the physics he spent so much work on is absent from all other ports. I have played the NES/Famicom version. It's terrible since it's nowhere near smooth and looking at the screen confuses me as to which direction the player is moving in. I don't see the good scaling being on the 2600 version either, which is pretty important for 3D games. If you want to be impressed (me and my pot head game buddies were) set up Emulator Altirra correctly. Then run BallBlazer at 7 or 10Mhz. It's like your Rotofoil got an upgrade. The action is hovercraft-on-ice smooth and you get a higher "in-game framerate" from the emulated computer. The game time passes normally, 3 minutes is still 3 minutes. Sound and gameplay dynamics remain the same. All the physics are just bumped up. It's the premier way to experience that classic 80's game today. Edited May 22, 2017 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangentg Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 I was talking about the nes version. There is no problem with the Atari 8-bit version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangentg Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 I run Ballblazer though on PAL60 since the NTSC colours are a bit off, using the NTSC 7800 version as standard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 I think this is one of the most epic 2600 ports, and I'm a big fan of it. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here. Yes. I hope the project can be completed too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 22, 2017 Share Posted May 22, 2017 I was talking about the nes version. There is no problem with the Atari 8-bit version. I know. It's probably as bad as the gyruss port. Anyways. The extra smoothness that can be had through emulation is a real bonus. Not all games can be enhanced like so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 Hi roland p! I'll be streaming your port of Ballblazer tomorrow (Friday) on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch livestream at 7PM PT/10PM ET. If you're not able to watch it live you can catch it after in our YouTube archive. Hope to see you there! :-) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 Christmas release? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomberman94 Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 Any news on that in 2021? ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 Forgot about this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 30 minutes ago, Stephen said: Forgot about this one. I didn't forget, but I forgot it was over 10 years ago when I played around with the Ballblazer tune that was posted by thegoldenband. ballblazer_start_zylon_alt_2008y_11m_04d_0426t.bin Doesn't feel that long ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 1 hour ago, Bomberman94 said: Any news on that in 2021? ? Hmm, been a while since Roland was last here. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted January 26, 2021 Share Posted January 26, 2021 Wasn't this shown at one of the shows last year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 (edited) Not sure if this was posted earlier but I was reading Howard Scott Warshaw’s book Once upon Atari and it has a picture titled “Tod Frye creating Ballblazer” and it clearly shows a pretty familiar Ballblazer screen with Tod…. This puzzled me as I knew Ballblazer (original A8 version) wasn’t an Atari developed game but only by doing a bit of Googling I realised he was working on a 2600 conversion. The picture also shows no 2600 machine but what seems to be the “standard” 2600 development hardware used at Atari. I think “creating” is the wrong term for doing a conversion but anyway….there’s proof he was working on it…. Edited August 10, 2021 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 Tod Frye mentioned he was working on Ballblazer on my Stella at 20 documentary as well (which I probably mentioned somewhere in this thread years ago). It's kind of sad that his output was really defined by Pac-Man. He did have good coding skills. Save Mary was also a pretty impressive kernel. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 25, 2022 Share Posted April 25, 2022 (edited) Does anyone know what happened to @roland p? He was last here in August 2018. Ballblazer needs to be finished. Or redone! Edited April 25, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogerpoco Posted April 25, 2022 Share Posted April 25, 2022 5 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Does anyone know what happened to @roland p? He was last here in August 2018. Ballblazer needs to be finished. Or redone! Way off topic, and my apologies, but a semi-educated guess tells me that might be the "Roland" who has amazing scores on the C64 Epyx "Games" games, some I've beaten, some I've not-if anyone hears from him or if he happens to notice this, I'd LOVE to pick his brain some, and mebbe share some of what I've figured out. Apologies for the interruption, but finding the legendary "Roland" has been a mission for a few weeks now, just coincidence I had to follow up on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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