Crazy Climber Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 This particular forum [programming] is really not the venue for any launch announcement, let alone one like this. Hmmmmm....questions earlier about purchasing carts with LED's and boards from WIZ, now a referance to a "launch" announcement....not sure what all this means but I am getting interested again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 This particular forum [programming] is really not the venue for any launch announcement, let alone one like this. Hmmmmm....questions earlier about purchasing carts with LED's and boards from WIZ, now a referance to a "launch" announcement....not sure what all this means but I am getting interested again... He's running back... Up against the wall... It might be. It could be. ....just a foul ball Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 What ever became of the Star Castle demo by John Payson? This demo had colored rings and it looked like the animation in the center had a lot of potential. The different colors in the rings, to me, are important for quickly assessing how much more you have to blast through. And there was a version where the whole Fortress + shielding entourage moved around the screen, like the amiga bouncing ball demo, but of course much slower and in different patterns. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Yowza! I didn't even see Supercat's demo before. Thanks for mentioning it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sometimes I feel as though I must be invisible! supercat outlined how a nice version could be done with 30hz flicker a few years ago - http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/142/entry-5136-star-castle-anyone/ - I think it's quite similar to your implementation? What ever became of the Star Castle demo by John Payson? This demo had colored rings and it looked like the animation in the center had a lot of potential. The different colors in the rings, to me, are important for quickly assessing how much more you have to blast through. And there was a version where the whole Fortress + shielding entourage moved around the screen, like the amiga bouncing ball demo, but of course much slower and in different patterns. Yowza! I didn't even see Supercat's demo before. Thanks for mentioning it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sorry...I got sidetracked by the HSW quotes. I gave your original post a cookie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sorry...I got sidetracked by the HSW quotes. I gave your original post a cookie mmmmm cookie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=148Rm-KcP2k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sometimes I feel as though I must be invisible! I think it might be because your user name kind of sounds like a sneeze. People read it, automatically say "bless you" then move on to the next post so they won't be standing in the germy particle cloud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Looks like Supercat was the first to prove that a Star Castle port was possible. I wonder if Solidcorp used any of this code . Would be funny if someone took Supercat's demo and turned it into a functioning game. LMAO, maybe then Solidcorp's price might drop from $32000. This thread is starting to get interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impaler_26 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Supercat's demo is awesome! But IIRC the first to prove that Star Castle can be done on the 2600 was TROGDOR with Stellar Fortress. I really hope he will finish it one day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 I see you're running on a ~45 degree angle once the enemies become very fast and follow steadfastly past the edges of the screen. I used to play quite a bit... although not much in the last 25 years... I used to run vertically in similar fashion. I never thought of running at an angle, but running vertically works fairly well. Is there an advantage to running on an angle later in the game? You'll see a lot of players that will go north/south and bounce off of the rings. That's fine for the earlier stages, but is certain death in the latter stages of the game. So, by exiting at 3 o'clock, entering at 9 o'clock flying up to 12 o'clock and entering at 6 o'clock you maintain full speed ahead of the sparks. If you choose to bounce off the rings you're too slow. I should have been clearer... I'm speaking of driving vertically, but to the right (or left) of the rings, so you can go continuously, without bouncing off the rings. Of course to fire on the rings you need to rotate, fire, "un-rotate", but that's true regardless of whether you're driving straight up or on an angle. Now I wish there was a machine I could find locally, or I had a proper controller for MAME (not that I'd use MAME, of course, because that would be illegal and all that ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Don't be so hard on yourself. Some of you guys are just ruthless. I don't know what you are talking about?!? I have all of my teeth!! Noice, I made a black label with the same image from the promotional flyer and manual, but it's lacking that watercolor feel of the early Atari artwork. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) Unless I'm mistaken, he posted that it is a standard F8 game. So no, it is not using a unique scheme...and (would) run on anything that can load 8k. His comment was in reference to what he used during development. One can only imagine what HSW could have done with a modern dev system and Harmony to test on-the-fly back in 1981 Chances are, it would blow anything that is being done today completely out of the water. I used DASM, Xasm, Z26, Stella, and Harmony in development. Last year I showed the game on a Harmony cartridge, this year on my own cart (64K with 2 software controllable LEDs) that has my own bankswitching. Star Castle on this cart still takes only two banks. I have two versions in source control, one F8 and the other for my cart. From Howards DP Press interview: We used a VAX system to compile/assemble, and then downloaded the code to an emulator box for execution, patching, and debugging. So he had emulator hardware, and could download and debug, which was great in the 70's/80's. I'm sure he could have done a lot more, or did what he did faster with all the features available in Stella debugging - source level, stepping through the rasterizer... It is a really wonderful tool and emulator. Edited July 22, 2011 by solidcorp 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 ... In fact, I need to get back to work, so be civil people. Or else... ROFL 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Solidcorp, speaking of the capacity, I noticed on your image of the cart test that you comment "It is the first working 64k cartridge that I am aware of." Stella's Stocking was 64k, and Joe Grand has given away the gerbers for his 64k cart design for a while now. Cool, thanks. I became aware of other 64k cartridges later. I had only looked at the sizes of released cartridges in a list online somewhere. A chose 64K not to set any records but because I have a huge stack of the EEPROMS from my SNES/Genesis dev days I think. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 I just came here to say... 1. Roadblasters and STUN Runner are two of my favorite Lynx games. Excellent work on those! 2. I would buy a Star Castle cart if it were available and reasonably priced (not $80, I won't do that again). It would go well with all of the other homebrews I've purchased after being able to play the binary. 3. May I suggest starting a tentative list of all persons interested in purchasing a cart? You might then get an idea of what you stand to make off your work. Thanks a lot. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 I'll give you $65,536.00... ...double the price, that's why they call me Terry Tibbs. Much love xxx Offer accepted, my attorney will be contacting you shortly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 This particular forum [programming] is really not the venue for any launch announcement, let alone one like this. Hmmmmm....questions earlier about purchasing carts with LED's and boards from WIZ, now a referance to a "launch" announcement....not sure what all this means but I am getting interested again... Bad choice of words, sorry for the confusion. No launch, unless you consider a single cartridge a launch. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sometimes I feel as though I must be invisible! supercat outlined how a nice version could be done with 30hz flicker a few years ago - http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/142/entry-5136-star-castle-anyone/ - I think it's quite similar to your implementation? What ever became of the Star Castle demo by John Payson? This demo had colored rings and it looked like the animation in the center had a lot of potential. The different colors in the rings, to me, are important for quickly assessing how much more you have to blast through. And there was a version where the whole Fortress + shielding entourage moved around the screen, like the amiga bouncing ball demo, but of course much slower and in different patterns. I saw your demo after showing Star Castle last year, someone on the forum brought it up. It's very nice and not easy to do what you've done, great job. Yowza! I didn't even see Supercat's demo before. Thanks for mentioning it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerwannabee Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Sometimes I feel as though I must be invisible! supercat outlined how a nice version could be done with 30hz flicker a few years ago - http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/142/entry-5136-star-castle-anyone/ - I think it's quite similar to your implementation? What ever became of the Star Castle demo by John Payson? This demo had colored rings and it looked like the animation in the center had a lot of potential. The different colors in the rings, to me, are important for quickly assessing how much more you have to blast through. And there was a version where the whole Fortress + shielding entourage moved around the screen, like the amiga bouncing ball demo, but of course much slower and in different patterns. I saw your demo after showing Star Castle last year, someone on the forum brought it up. It's very nice and not easy to do what you've done, great job. Yowza! I didn't even see Supercat's demo before. Thanks for mentioning it I saw that after you announced your selling price that you got absolutely no love rep points wise. Well sir I like to buck the system. I really don't care what price you currently put on the game. I realize that you are one of the former Atari programmers from the old school days. The fact that you put so much effort into this labor of love is awesome. You spent several hundred hours on this game, and I give you a standing ovation for that. Sides I love being a non conformist. And by golly this thread is so much of an invite to be a non conformist that I just couldn't help myself! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) If anyone should pay something even close to those 32k, I will talk to Andrew. Maybe we will only release a single cart of BD then too. At an even higher price of course. Really! And if that works, we will most likely see only single cart homebrew releases in the future. So no more homebrews for anyone but one! Edited July 22, 2011 by Thomas Jentzsch 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 I saw that after you announced your selling price that you got absolutely no love rep points wise. Well sir I like to buck the system. I really don't care what price you currently put on the game. I realize that you are one of the former Atari programmers from the old school days. The fact that you put so much effort into this labor of love is awesome. You spent several hundred hours on this game, and I give you a standing ovation for that. Sides I love being a non conformist. And by golly this thread is so much of an invite to be a non conformist that I just couldn't help myself! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 And if that works, we will most likely see only single cart homebrew releases in the future. So no more homebrews for anyone but one! Artists sell paintings to individuals all of the time. If a video game is art too, you should really only sell your game to one person. If it's good enough for a painting, it's good enough for a video game. Art is art. Note to game designers: stop tainting your art by trying to bring joy to as many people as possible. Remember, one game for one person and only one person. Keep your art in the hands of the wealthy few where it belongs. Do not waste your talents on the unwashed masses! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eshu Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 If anyone should pay something even close to those 32k, I will talk to Andrew. Maybe we will only release a single cart of BD then too. At an even higher price of course. Really! And if that works, we will most likely see only single cart homebrew releases in the future. So no more homebrews for anyone but one! Well I've got this 32 character text display routine that I wrote because the great Scott Williamson said it would be impossible, it's only a 4k rom and I've already released it, but I'll chuck it on a cartridge with a piezo buzzer and it's got to be worth at least a couple of grand no? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidcorp Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Re: [i'm not using the silver label, it's just here for reference] What serial number do you guys think I should I put on the label? The original designation for Star Castle (from here and here) was CX2665 but that was used on Yars' Revenge. I'm inclined to use it for historical reasons but I don't want to be disrespectful of Yars' (or my intentions misinterpreted here guys). Ideas: CX2665,CX2665A ,CX26651, CX2665.1 CX2665SC, CX2665NR, none Is there a precedent here somewhere? What do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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