Get Lost!

[KevinMos3]

@ Propane: I've been testing that last uploaded rom on real hardware and I have yet to find a problem. I've played it for quite a while and no black screen. Due to Walter's insight, I let it sit still for about 2 hours and no black screen. I've paused it and let it sit for over an hour and no black screen. I continued playing and no black screen. It sounded like Groovybee had some insight on what the issue could be, but I've not been able to experience a problem yet. I hope you're not still discouraged.

 

@ Walter: Where were you at in the game when you let it sit for a while and got a black screen? How long did you have to let the game sit to see the black screen? I'm curious why it crashed for you, but not for me.

[Madaracs]

Nice work. Cool looking game.

[+Propane13]

Thanks for the support. I really mean it.

 

Yes, I'm burned out by this project, at least for now.

I had hoped I could rekindle my desire to work on this, but it's difficult; I can't seem to refocus at this time.

 

This project has been started and stopped many times as you can see from the first post (sometimes a few years in-between).

My last time I coded for this, I had a good many-month stretch where I was coding almost every day. I thought I could get to the home stretch.

Honestly, I'm amazed at how much stuff I put into this.

 

All I had left were a few things; music, a title and end screen, and maybe a small feature or two.

But, that all was dashed to pieces when this bug came up. It's a critical failure that I have no ability on how to solve it.

 

I never thanked GroovyBee for his finding; it's something I need to fix, but I do have a suspicion that there's a deeper fundamental problem in the code.

This is because I believe that someone once reported a few color-change situations or other weird behavior. It means my main kernel, while perfect in emulation, has some sort of timing problem on real hardware. That's the hardest kind of problem I'm aware of. And, the only way I can possibly debug it is with a logic analyzer. I just don't have the stamina or knowledge base to hook one up and use it at this time. And, there are few who do. So, now I'm just... kind of waiting.

 

For now, this is a fully-playable game (and it does end, but not with a spectacular ending), but it'll just have wait on being finished.

I really wish there were more hardware folks on the 7800 scene. If anyone is a hardware guy and is interested in a small project, this is one I could use help with.

 

I have a feeling that this may have been how Bob felt about Frenzy.

 

-John

[Trebor]

I'm curious why it crashed for you, but not for me.

 

Region difference perhaps, PAL/NTSC difference (?) Walter is from Germany, you're from the US, right?

 

Maybe the problem issue is only a PAL one...It is PAL specific (timing related) issue (?)

[KevinMos3]

Yes, I'm in the US. I'm thinking your PAL/NTSC idea may be the case. Also, is everyone who's had the issue using a cuttle cart 2? Is a cuttle cart any different from a real cart? I know a Harmony cart has some differences from a regular cart on a 2600.

[Jinks]

It can be devastating when a great deal of work does not come out right.. I know the feeling.. I have a 17 year project in the garage that I will never part with but due to my younger self screwing up on a few critical areas I am having one hell of a time dealing with it and to move on.. Instead I took on about a dozen other projects ranging from a 74 kawasaki 100 gt4re to a cobra kit build.. meanwhile my parts pile of a car awaits... Support helps if I had someone to get me back on track it would be done..

It's really too bad there is not more 7800 people to help you out... I know you will pull thru it!!

Give er a go every now and then.. Or make the game so if you sit for longer than 10 seconds sabre tooth crotch crickets overcome your man and he dies losing a life...prob solved!!

Edited January 18, 2013 by Jinks

[KevinMos3]

I threw together a quick sketch of the character and put it in photoshop to add some quick and sloppy color for the purpose of testing some layout ideas. Please realize that this was just a quick sloppy sketch of the character for ideas only. Obviously it will need redrawn, detailed, and properly colored. All background items are just placeholders.

• The idea is to have the player jumping off a platform.
  
• There will be a brick structure in the background, probably with the castle crenelation from the beginning of the game.
  
• There will need to be at least one fire breathing dragon added somewhere.
  
• There will be a submarine similar to where the yellow placeholder is currently located.
  
• The bat will definitely need to be present.
  
• Trees in the vicinity of the current placeholders, possibly with pine trees mixed in.
  

I'm hesitant to show it at this stage because it's rather embarrassing, but I'd like to show at least some early progress and possibly get some feedback.

 

[Jinks]

Its awesome!!

[+Gemintronic]

Meh. I wouldn't kick yourself for knowing how you code. Sometimes you just have to set a project aside for a time. I've been having difficulty being motivated to continue on my Sega Genesis projects. In the meantime I've switched back to more Atari 2600 goodness. Whatever works. Just as long as you continue to find an outlet for your creativity.

 

I still say an Atari 2600 or Sega Genesis version is quite doo-able though I hope you wont be too irritated if I make a conversion of Get Lost! someday

[The Usotsuki]

Been there.

[+Propane13]

Wow... that artwork is really amazing!

I really like the color hues, and the addition of in-game details. It made my day.

I think you have a great plan for this; I'd love to see what you come up with.

 

I'm going to try to start thinking about what hardware I need to debug this stuff.

I'm not very good in that area, so I may need some help. Not guaranteeing it goes too far, but at least I might as well start thinking about what parts I need to procure.

 

-John

[tep392]

Your code is writing to the ROM (in all binaries posted). When you go up the ladder and off the screen (so the next part of the level is drawn) the instruction "sta ($50, x) at address $E8E0 is writing $D0 to address $FF01. I suspect that this is a bug because the tables at $235A (+2 -> $50) and $FE25 (-> $51) are both accessed with an index register Y value of $FF. If it isn't a bug then writing to the ROM on carts that aren't bank switched is not good coding practice.

 

Did you check for any illegal opcodes? You had found a few in my Donkey Kong code. There were some FF's that didn't cause any problems in emulation but caused some corruption to happen on real hardware.

[AtariBrian]

I remember back in the summer playing it on a 7800 and 3 different times it froze up . I think i had 2 pictures taken of what the screen looked like when it froze . Really good game and I hope it doesnt get shelved .

[+Propane13]

Ok, let's try something a little more crazy.

DanBoris and KevinMos3 inspired me to try something a little out-of-the-box.

 

Here is a new demo:

getlost.a78

getlost.bin

 

Ok, so 2 things:

1) I think I fixed GroovyBee's issue. I want to thank him for finding this; yes, your assumption was correct about what was wrong.

I have since added a little logic that should prevent that case from happening. I would be very happy if you could verify my fix.

 

2) I made a debug mode, and am asking for a little bit of patience to help find this problem.

Here's how it works:

- when you feel like unlocking debug mode, insert controller 2 and press it's left button.

- it will bring up a screen with a 4-digit number, and a 2-digit number (both hexadecimal, so numbers go 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F in both digits).

- Left/right on the second controller will decrement/increment the number on the left.

- For faster movement, Up/down on the second controller will decrement/increment the leftmost 2 digits

- Reset will restart the game and git you out of this mode. But, you'll lose all progress-- sorry about that (it's a full reset).

 

 

I would like to try to see if some of my memory has been corrupted, and if so, what pieces of memory.

My guess is that my display segments of code are somehow getting changed or wiped out.

Maybe I can find a pattern and figure it out.

 

I realize this is a lot to ask, but here's what I'm hoping for (I may be looking at gambler172, who seems able to reproduce it most easily).

- stay on screen 1

- when the issue happens, push button 2

- select and go through some memory, and see if these numbers line up.

- If they don't, let me know what values you see there.

 

 

=========

 

 

$2400: 00

$2401: 1E

$2402: 80

 

$2403: 07

$2404: 1E

$2405: 80

 

$2406: 07

$2407: 1E

$2408: 80

 

$2409: 07

$240A: 1E

$240B: 80

 

$240C: 00

$240D: 1E

$240E: 80

 

$240F: 07

$2410: 1E

$2411: 80

 

$2412: 07

$2413: 1E

$2414: 80

 

$2415: 07

$2416: 1E

$2417: 80

 

$2418: 4F

$2419: 18

$241A: 00

 

$241B: 4F

$241C: 18

$241D: 80

 

$241E: 4F

$241F: 19

$2420: 00

 

$2421: 4F

$2422: 19

$2423: 80

 

$2424: 4F

$2425: 1A

$2426: 00

 

$2427: 4F

$2428: 1A

$2429: 80

 

$242A: 4F

$242B: 1B

$242C: 00

 

$242D: 4F

$242E: 1B

$242F: 80

 

$2430: 4F

$2431: 1C

$2432: 00

 

$2433: 4F

$2434: 1C

$2435: 80

 

$2436: 4F

$2437: 1D

$2438: 00

 

$2439: 4F

$243A: 1D

$243B: 80

 

$243C: 07

$243D: 1E

$243E: 80

 

=========

 

$1800: 36

$1801: DE

$1802: 80

$1803: 20

 

$1804: 36

$1805: DE

$1806: 80

$1807: 28

 

$1808: 4E

$1809: DE

$180A: 80

$180B: 30

 

$180C: 00

$180D: 1E

$180E: 80

$180F: 38

 

$1810: 00

$1811: 1E

$1812: 80

$1813: 40

 

$1814: 00

$1815: 1E

$1816: 80

$1817: 48

 

$1818: 00

$1819: 1E

$181A: 80

$181B: 50

 

$181C: 00

$181D: 1E

$181E: 80

$181F: 58

 

$1820: 00

$1821: 1E

$1822: 80

$1823: 60

 

$1824: 00

$1825: 1E

$1826: 80

$1827: 68

 

$1828: 00

$1829: 1E

$182A: 80

$182B: 70

 

$182C: 00

$182D: 1E

$182E: 80

$182F: 78

 

 

=========

 

If you leave "screen 1", all of the info in the $1800-$182F section will be slightly different, but not necessarily wrong.

 

Before diving in full-force, you can try this out on screen 1 without waiting for the bug, and you should see these line up. It took me about 5 minutes to verify these numbers in emulation. This will also let me know if debugger mode is actually working on real hardware, which I can't verify at the moment.

 

I want to thank those that have stayed with me on this; sometimes, motivation slips away, and getting it back is difficult.

I am hoping that maybe a little bit of this information may help me to find what's going wrong.

 

If any programmers want the source code for this feature, I am willing to share it.

 

Best regards,

-John

[KevinMos3]

Great to see you back on this. I'll give that bin some testing time this evening.

 

The issue finally happened to me last night. I was almost 2 hours into the game (1:56 if I remember right), and I was in the underground area. I don't remember if I was on a platform or a ladder, but the game just froze and some reddish brown vertical lines appeared on either side of the screen (the left & right extremities).

 

From my experience, I'm pretty certain the issue won't happen for me on "screen 1", but I can play until it does (if it does). Help me make sure I understand how to use the debugger. So, I play the game until it crashes... then press the button on the 2nd controller and write down all the numbers as I increase them (1800-182F and 2400-243E)?

[+Propane13]

Yep. That's a starting gameplan. As I learn more, I may ask to peek at other areas.

 

But, now I am thinking there are 2 scenarios here. The one you describe happened to someone else before. So, when that happened, the game froze but the graphics were still on-screen plus the 2 vertical bars? Basically, the game stopped, with the controls unresponsive?

 

That is slightly different from the black screen. But since I think someone had seen it before, I have some hope to fix it. If the screen doesn't go black, I would love a screen shot.

 

-John

[KevinMos3]

Okay, so I got the freeze to happen again. Yes, it becomes completely unresponsive and you have to power off. Reset button doesn't work when this happens either. Still haven't had the "black screen" happen though. The freeze did not allow me to go into debug.

 

Here's a screenshot of the freeze:

 

 

 

I also found an odd thing happen when underground in a certain area. I've not seen this happen anywhere else in the game. The game has NOT frozen here, I just paused it to take a pic. What's happening is the player is able to get out of line and "float." At first, it was just a scanline, but as I traveled to the left or right and jumped, I kept rising by a scanline. I was able to get about 7 scanlines above the ground when I got hit by the bat, which re-aligned me. I went back to that area and was able to do it again. This time I kept rising until I fell in the hole you see in the screenshot, where he is currently floating by about 7 scanlines/pixels.

 

 

 

 

Also, I have some thoughts about gameplay that you may like, (or not).

 

The collision detection seems to be based on a square around the player; is this correct? I'm currently playing on an LCD (I hate these things) with a video modded 7800 (which I just got working today). The other night I was using an un-modded 7800 with RF out. The video mod on the LCD makes this cleaner, but I'm thinking of everyone who will play this with RF on either CRT or LCD. If it is possible to tweak the collision detection so that it is a little more forgiving, it would probably be a good idea because of the color bleed and ghosting with RF. Even with this modded 7800 I have some ghosting and bleed. Anyway, it can be difficult (impossible) to be exactly precise when not playing on an emulator with VGA or digital monitor.

 

Also, it may be a good idea to lighten the player's main color by a shade or two so he stands out more against the black background. He blends in quite a bit (at least on this TV).

 

 

Anyway, wanted to add that I'm loving exploring this game. It's unbelievable that you've fit all this into 32K. I've gotten places I've not seen before. I really love the underwater volcanoes. I think I've gotten all the underwater loot except for inside the sub. I haven't figured out how to get all the way to the left side.

Edited January 27, 2013 by KevinMos3

[NIKON]

 

as you can see from the screenshot above.. I was not so lucky...after 2 hrs of being beat about the head and shoulders I finally caved in.

 

All this brings me to some questions...

 

1. Are you sadistic??? (lol)

 

2. What were you thinking when you made some of these areas?...<points to inside the big yellow submarine> and <to the area with all those ladders you have to perfectly jump to>

 

3. HOW BIG IS THIS THING?????

 

Don't get me wrong I love this game and I love doing all the exploring....but far be it from me if I will be able to remember what i did to get most of the loot.

 

Time to hunker down and make maps...(this should take about a year..ROFLMAO)

 

Really THANK YOU for this game.

Edited January 27, 2013 by NIKON

[edweird13]

I tend to stay away from the BIN's because I want to play them on the real hardware. I play the initial release then decide if it will be a game that I like. THIS IS ONE OF THE ONE'S THAT I REALLY LIKE!!!!!! Please don't give up on this truly original 7800 game!!!!!!!!!

[Mord]

 

Time to hunker down and make maps...(this should take about a year..ROFLMAO)

 

 

I'm just waiting until the final release before doing the complete map.

[NIKON]

I'm just waiting until the final release before doing the complete map.

 

I honestly do not think that he is going to change any of the areas now...its mostly clean up and add sound...just my humble opinion

[KevinMos3]

Update: I've FINALLY reproduced the black screen bug. I was playing on the same game from the screenshot in my last post where my guy was floating. I left it on pause for a few hours and went back for some more play. I got the black screen soon after that (I'd say within 10 minutes). Unfortunately, the game will not let me enter debug mode. Before starting this game, I entered the debug a few times just to make sure I was doing it right, but once the black screen occurred... no debug ability.

 

 

Oh, and Mord, I'd love to see it all mapped out too. At this point, I've seen pretty much all of the game, but there are some places I've been unable to figure out. A map would definitely help. Even if some things were to be changed, I'm sure it would just take some minor updates to make your map current again.

[+Propane13]

So, at the moment, there are 3 bugs I'm counting:

 

1) the jump bug that was recently found

2) The "red bars freeze screen"

3) The black screen

 

For 1, that should be easy enough; that was actually a fix-on-fix issue; the fix I made for GroovyBee somehow causes a jumping issue.

I'll look into how to correct this, since I can reproduce it.

 

For 2, I notice 5 similarities for those who have reproduced it. Let me share the 2 reproduced screenshots (one from KevinMos3, one from AtariBrian) side-by-side:

 

 

So, here are the 5 things I notice:

a) it's the same screen, so it may be easily reproducible here, specifically.

b) It's an irrecoverable freeze, meaning that basically, my code is stuck in an infinite loop, or has left the program and gone on its own, yet hasn't corrupted the screen

c) The 2 "curtain bars" that are typically black have changed to the same color in both screenshots

d) The player character is in almost the same place.

e) I don't see a bat in either picture

 

This is making me suspect my bat movement code has a problem somewhere.

If I were to guess, the exact spot where the Hero character stands is right where more data would be fetched into RAM for screen drawing (both players represent the left-most and right-most one needs to be to reproduce that). So, maybe the player moves left or right, causing the screen to fetch new data EXACTLY at the second that the bat is offscreen. Something like that.

 

So, maybe testers should go to this screen, and just run back and forth (you can do so on the little ledge just above the player) and see if we can reproduce that freeze when the bat goes off the edge. Might be tricky to trigger, but this MAY be it. In short, go to the little ledge above where the player is in these 2 pictures, and run toward the right into the wall just as the bat's off-screen. Oh, I hope that makes it recur.

 

On my side, I want to dive into my bat code a little bit and see if I can find some sort of race-condition problem.

 

If I don't come up with anything, I could fix my jumping bug I introduced and just disable the bat code temporarily. to see if the problem goes away. But... I'm hesitant to do that, as it could give explorers a real advantage in beating the game and getting to places they haven't been yet.

 

Oh, and for 3), I wonder if it's related to 2). So, we'll table that for now.

 

Thanks for the inspiration and assistance. I think we may be on to something here.

 

-John

[+Propane13]

The collision detection seems to be based on a square around the player; is this correct? I'm currently playing on an LCD (I hate these things) with a video modded 7800 (which I just got working today). The other night I was using an un-modded 7800 with RF out. The video mod on the LCD makes this cleaner, but I'm thinking of everyone who will play this with RF on either CRT or LCD. If it is possible to tweak the collision detection so that it is a little more forgiving, it would probably be a good idea because of the color bleed and ghosting with RF. Even with this modded 7800 I have some ghosting and bleed. Anyway, it can be difficult (impossible) to be exactly precise when not playing on an emulator with VGA or digital monitor.

 

Though this would be difficult to change, it might be possible. I can't remember how the collision routines work (they were written in 2009), so I'd have to investigate. No promises on this one at the moment, but.I'll at least put it into consideration for feature-requests.

 

Also, it may be a good idea to lighten the player's main color by a shade or two so he stands out more against the black background. He blends in quite a bit (at least on this TV).

 

This can be done-- does anyone else see the same problem on real hardware?

I'd like to get a consensus for the best color, and then we can try it out.

I am pretty willing to tweak colors here or there to make them more visible / help prevent color bleeding.

 

Anyway, wanted to add that I'm loving exploring this game. It's unbelievable that you've fit all this into 32K. I've gotten places I've not seen before. I really love the underwater volcanoes. I think I've gotten all the underwater loot except for inside the sub. I haven't figured out how to get all the way to the left side.

 

Glad to hear that you're enjoying it. I tried to cram as much stuff in as I could, so hopefully, people keep finding little surprises.

And, yes, the submarine can be beaten, but I will agree that it's a tough nut to crack.

 

Thanks for helping out on this one!

-John

[+Propane13]

as you can see from the screenshot above.. I was not so lucky...after 2 hrs of being beat about the head and shoulders I finally caved in.

 

Wow; I admire your dedication and perseverance. That is quite the death count.

 

All this brings me to some questions...

 

1. Are you sadistic??? (lol)

 

2. What were you thinking when you made some of these areas?...<points to inside the big yellow submarine> and <to the area with all those ladders you have to perfectly jump to>

 

3. HOW BIG IS THIS THING?????

 

This made my morning. You asked, so I'll answer.

 

1) You probably wouldn't believe me, but before releasing, some areas were much harder; I tried to remove all pixel-perfect jumps related to spikes. There were a few that were even too annoying for me. So, it's hard, but it was worse for a time.

 

2) I can speak to the ladders you have to perfectly jump to-- when I was 5, I remember playing Pitfall 2, and getting to the final ladder area underneath Quickclaw. I had to go through a nightmare tower to get there; there were buzzards everywhere, and bats you could barely sneak under. I got to a point where I saw a red cross to save my progress, and then... the power went out. It wasn't fair. I played that game again days later, and it took me forever to get to that spot. The farther I got, the harder things seemed to get. And at the end, you have to pass 3 scorpions (which I hated timing jumps for), and then get past a frog going up. I still die on that stupid last frog on occasion; that tower was a great piece of gameplay that just got harder as you went. But, the only way to get back to the rest of the game world was to take that path. So, you had no choice.

 

Flash forward to Super Pitfall. Yes, I know most people hate it, but there's a similar section in the caveman area where you have to go all the way down and left, up a huge tower, and then make some terrible jumps from vine to vine in order to leave that world. That section was HARD. Oddly, I have beaten Supert Pitfall 3 twice in a row (the third quest is the exact same as the second quest, so I decided to stop there). I guess that concept of the "hard way to get back" somehow stuck with me. I will say that it can be done; when all of this gets released, I'm considering making a youtube video walkthrough. Some day, I hope to see a Speed Run of this game out there.

 

No comment on the Submarine, though.

 

For 3), well... let's just say the game is BIG. Level design took somewhere between 4-6 months (I come up with an idea at night, rough-sketch it on paper during the morning, and implement it in code after work), and I was constantly trying to come up with map concepts that would be cool, fun, and different. Hopefully, it's not too boring or frustrating and has just enough "new stuff" to make it interesting.

 

 

Really THANK YOU for this game

 

Glad you are having fun with it.

 

-John