AtariAge welcomes Philip Price, creator/coder of 'Alternate reality'

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, JagChris said:

It contains the what what? 

 

You got to give more info than that before I download 2GB of stuff.

 

Protection from what?

The disk image contains and SDriveMax emulates the copy protection. Therefore the game cannot detect any tampering because it "feels" like it runs from an original disk.

 

The 2 GB are the full a8preservation torrent release which contains only dumps from original disks including their copy protection.

It contains the ATX files for two slightly different releases of The City.

Download it if you are on fast connection and delete the file afterwards if have no use for anything else in it.

 

But better try first if using the joystick already solves your problem.

[Wrathchild]

make sure the D2S1 is writable?

[+kheller2]

1 hour ago, Wrathchild said:

make sure the D2S1 is writable?

Page 1: Do not 'Write Protect the game disks or your Character Disk. 

[smoore]

1 hour ago, kheller2 said:

Page 1: Do not 'Write Protect the game disks or your Character Disk. 

Thanks both so much, changing the drives to R/W solved this for me.

 

Apologies for dumb questions, I never owned a disk drive - only played this when I borrowed an 800xl and a 1050 - I had to make do with a 400 that I had upgraded to 48k with the 410 recorder.

 

Skipped the XL series and went to ST and then Falcon - and now many years later still prefer the 8-bit games!

 

[JagChris]

4 hours ago, DjayBee said:

The disk image contains and SDriveMax emulates the copy protection. Therefore the game cannot detect any tampering because it "feels" like it runs from an original disk.

 

The 2 GB are the full a8preservation torrent release which contains only dumps from original disks including their copy protection.

It contains the ATX files for two slightly different releases of The City.

Download it if you are on fast connection and delete the file afterwards if have no use for anything else in it.

 

But better try first if using the joystick already solves your problem.

Oh yeah hopefully so.  

[JagChris]

So it works. I need to use the stick to back out of banks. However I can't turn left or right once out in town. Only forward back. That's odd.

 

Tried two different joysticks.

 

I bought both this and The,Dungeon back when I was a kid. Though had just burned out my 1050 playing Phantasie so I never really got into this. 

 

 

[+kheller2]

Read the manual!

 

To Turn Right or Left, press the fire button while pushing the joystick to right or left.

[Atari8man2004]

Will it run from the fujiNet ?

[JagChris]

4 hours ago, kheller2 said:

Read the manual!

 

To Turn Right or Left, press the fire button while pushing the joystick to right or left.

Oh sorry. I actually read the manual the other night. Must have missed that part.

[+kheller2]

4 hours ago, JagChris said:

Oh sorry. I actually read the manual the other night. Must have missed that part.

What is worrisome is that I can remember that from when I first played it in the 80's, yet, I have a hard time remembering what I did yesterday.

[JagChris]

8 hours ago, kheller2 said:

What is worrisome is that I can remember that from when I first played it in the 80's, yet, I have a hard time remembering what I did yesterday.

I must have misplaced some of them through the years. My instructions say nothing much about controls. I seem to be missing the card mentioned earlier.

 

The packaging is really nice and I regret not keeping better track of these things now.

[Gravelpits]

On 1/28/2019 at 5:52 PM, Gravelpits said:

...I thought it would be great if I could find the old AR tracks online and add them to my media library. Well, one thing led to another and the whole attempt became a project. I wasn't able to find all the tracks I wanted to include, so I went back to the emulators and into the games directly, where I captured the PCM (705 kbps) sound for each of the tracks. The conversion of Gilbertson's music to the C64 platform was disappointing, but I did include the main theme (wishing well intro), which showcases some of the differences between the two. All of this I put together in a track order that was pleasing to me, while adding the lyrics as metadata to each track for which lyrics were available. I threw together a "cover" using artwork from the gamebox and the AR logo. Finally, I converted them to 192kbps AAC in m4a containers. With the exception of some start/stop copy sounds at the beginning and end of some tracks, they all sound great. I would like to link to them here to make them available to the fan community, but I am concerned about violation of copyright, especially the reproduction of Mr. Gilbertson's intellectual property.

 

I'll make them available if and when I get the go ahead from one of them.

 

Mr. Gilbertson, if you're listening: even before I went back and captured the the in-game audio and edited it, I knew the lyrics to most of the songs. They have haunted me all these years. I took a few liberties with the track names. I wasn't thinking I would have to explain that when I did it because I hadn't thought to share them yet. They were just for me. I hope it's not a problem.

 

Here is the tracklist:

 

Alternate Reality -- The Music

 

01 - Abduction - City

02 - At the Floating Gate

03 - Armor

04 - Guild

05 - The Legend of Thoreandan

06 - The Dwarf Dance (Instrumental)

07 - Let In the Lite

08 - Moments in My Life

09 - Waves

10 - Death

11 - Abduction - Dungeon (Wishing Well Intro)

12 - Der Rathskeller Rock

13 - The Devourer

14 - Der Rathskeller Tune 3 (Instrumental)

15 - The Troll King

16 - Evil Guild

17 - In The Hall of The Goblin King

18 - Good Guild

19 - The Chapel (Instrumental)

20 - Death

21 - Into the Fray

Bonus - Abduction - Dungeon - Wishing Well Intro (C64)

Dear AR community,

 

I recently revisited this thread and was saddened to hear of Gary Gilbertson's passing. A few years ago I made the above post describing my effort to capture the music from the original Atari 8-bit version of AR. I am very glad to have done it and I have actually listened to the music quite a lot more than I would have guessed. I have always wanted to make the music files available to the wider community, but I was unsure how to go about doing it without violating copyright or appearing like an opportunist, especially when there still seemed to be the possibility of an AR reboot in the works. However, the sad news of Mr. Gilbertson's passing coupled with the developments reported by @eobet regarding Mr. Price's firm intention to move on from AR has made me rethink my position. At this point, I cannot see any reason not to publish the music. Indeed, it seems to me that the good coming from making the files available to the community would far outweigh any foreseeable harm. Therefore, I am attaching to this post three versions of the music from AR in FLAC, ALAC and AAC formats. I hope you all enjoy listening to them as much as I have. RIP Gary Gilbertson.

 

Best wishes to you all.

 

 

The waves at
home are pounding
on the shore
the snow here's
falling
just outside my door
and all i want's
to be with you
once more
but i'm told
that this is one
thing that i best
stop hoping for
they tell me to
go on
i ask them for
how long
they tell me to
be strong
to what you can't
be wrong
i'm lost without
your love
i need you here with
me
in this
reality.

 

 

 

PS: All audio was captured using the Atari800 emulator in PAL mode, not NTSC. PAL is 50 Hz and NTSC is 60 Hz, so if the music sounds slower than you remember and you are from North America, that is probably why. I am uncertain if Mr. Gilbertson intended for the music to be played on an NTSC or PAL device, though he probably wrote them and played them back on an NTSC device. I broached the subject with him, along with some other points, in a DM a few years ago after sending him the files to review, but he made no mention of it in his reply. Maybe he forgot to address it in his response or maybe the difference was unimportant to him. Nevertheless, if you're an NTSC purist, you're going to need to speed these up by 20%.

 

AR - The Music (fixed).zip

[Goochman]

Thanks for posting - been listening to this great music the past few days

[Gravelpits]

On 7/23/2023 at 2:51 PM, eobet said:

I had corresponded a bit with Gary Gilbertson before his passing, and I know there's quite a bit of music by him uploaded as unlisted Youtube videos.

I guess the below post is what you were referring to, @eobet?

 

 

Here is a post from @ARO2 (Gary Gilbertson) on @Jace Hall's "AR Music Recreated" thread, made during the COVID lockdown in April, 2020:

On 4/19/2020 at 1:12 PM, ARO2 said:

Well with this quarantine business I had a moment to dig up some old
versions of my various AR tunes... As I recall you cannot link directly
from this posting but you can copy and paste the selections.

Note:
The numbers after the song titles refer to yearly dates of...
composed - audio version - video version.

========

https://youtu.be/FhPKnNkngGI   Wishing Well   84-97-01
     [Dungeon theme... yes I messed with it a bit in this 2001 version]     
https://youtu.be/AvnT5Gm-8HU   Moments in My Life   83-97-01

https://youtu.be/nKHCNDbjeNo   Let In The Light   83-97-12

https://youtu.be/INCqNLHRkd0   Into The Fray   84-97-06

https://youtu.be/gBnMPgzrdkU   ARMOR   83-97-12

https://youtu.be/1K3IOcXu1Ik   Ganthem   83-97-12

https://youtu.be/9PIQGzLnISQ   Waves at Home   83-97-06

https://youtu.be/Qu8IXpBljjk   DeathAR   83-97-12

========
Some tunes that were slated to be used in ARO97 - which didn't happen
       
https://youtu.be/N_1xmSUJR-4   Vanish   97-97-06

https://youtu.be/e-FlNb7AW30   Bring You Tonight   97-97-98
       [remember - 20+yr old graphics]

https://youtu.be/f5O6ECnQU0w  Could We Be   97-97-98
    [remember - 20+yr old graphics]

https://youtu.be/FTCW7Rvf23I  Good-Evil Guild   83-97-06

https://youtu.be/py4XnXG7CGY   The Dark   97-97-01

https://youtu.be/_ihCO3yHGKQ   Never Been   97-97-98

https://youtu.be/zt0JfRFRBJ0    Morning Sun   97-97-98

========
Some tunes just for fun...

https://youtu.be/7TyB8WJcgG8    Lyrae   82-18-18

https://youtu.be/ZpUQ3ELXZZ0  AR Overture    97-97-14

https://youtu.be/O0IhiIboKok   I Am Pacman   97-97-19
       [just for fun]
 

 

As mentioned above, the videos are unlisted for searching, so don't lose these links!