Tempest Elite coming soon to Atari 8-bit

[peteym5]

Very cool. But still one question is missing.

 

A cardinal one.

What question is a cardinal one? This game has been much more beta tested and many had played it to much higher levels until they were killed. No one has yet reported an issue with the game play yet.

[peteym5]

I am going to revise this and reposting it so it appears at a top of another page.

 

How many people like playing the game just to play it with another controller like Paddles, Trackball, or Indy 500 Driving Controller?

 

How many people like playing the game on stock Atari hardware?

 

How many people like playing the game for its VBXE Support?

 

How many people like playing the game for Stereo Pokey Support?

 

I cannot state exact sales figures, but so far it sold more in one month than Amok Bots, Delta Space Arena, Laser Blast X, or Megaoids 2016 did in one year.

 

We want to hear from you. I will be happy to make more games that support these things.

[miker]

What question is a cardinal one? This game has been much more beta tested and many had played it to much higher levels until they were killed. No one has yet reported an issue with the game play yet.

 

Wrong.

 

OK, I'll add it for you:

 

How many people like playing the game on some emulator?

 

I know that above question (or similar one) was answered severel times but it still remains intact.

Edited July 22, 2017 by miker

[peteym5]

http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/3297-tempest-elite-is-now-available/

 

Can we here from more people who actually bought the game?

[Keatah]

Wrong.

 

OK, I'll add it for you:

 

How many people like playing the game on some emulator?

 

I know that above question (or similar one) was answered severel times but it still remains intact.

 

That's correct.

 

Emulation is the way forward. Emulation is becoming more prevalent and pervasive for many reasons.

[+davidcalgary29]

I just played my cart and have to say that it's...pretty freakin' amazing. It's more polished than 'Xtreem' and the sound samples seem cleaner, too. The soundtrack is incredible, and now I've just got to get a VBXE. I did try out a ST mouse on 'Trackball' mode, but it's too choppy for good gameplay. It's amazing just how much of the spirit of T2K was captured in 64k. Excellent!

[Keatah]

From watching and playing my buddie's setup. I can see some minimal and minor improvements. Something for perhaps a point release or something. But otherwise it seems ok.

[peteym5]

Tempest Elite has 96 different webs ranging anywhere from 12 to 24 lanes. Has lane highlighting. When a flipper "gocha," all the enemies get pulled down with you. Lets you use different controllers. Program adapts to VBXE and Stereo Sound. I spent some time optimizing and debugging the original programming from Tempest Xtreme so it runs better. So the improvements are beyond minor.

 

Tempest Elite is available on cartridge from Video61 for $49.95.

 

We wanted to release the game back in January, but when I said something about using "Gray Code" to read trackball, driving, and mouse, someone jumped and said the trackballs use something different. I had a hacked version of Centipede source that we adapted to read a CX-80 or Wico Trackball, so I see how that was read from the joystick port. The other recent issue was with Playing Digital Voice Sounds was causing periodic crashes after getting 3 warp keys and going to the bonus round. It is fixed now. It was doing weird things like messing up the player/missile multiplexer causing pieces left on screen when a flipper did a "Gocha", pieces of players remained on the screen. I experimented with several fixes like setting the pokey timers lower. What finally did a trick was waiting until the VBI is done before triggering a digital sound so all the processes were completed before starting a new VBI. Now it works great.

[Bunsen]

I would test and review Amokbots, Laserblast X, Megaoids and Tempest Elite for ABBUC magazine (doing reviews since 14 years for ABBUC), but I can't afford all these games, since I don't make any money with my writing. Send a PM if you are interested...

[peteym5]

Anyone looking to test and review our games should email Video61 at Atari Sales directly. I do prefer independent reviews from professionals and from those that actually play the game. I would like to hear back from someone who bought and played Laser Blast X. It has been selling slow, but steadily.

 

Here are some more reviews of Tempest Elite.

 

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/07/tempest-elite-dave-theurers-1980s.html#more

 

http://www.high-voltage.cz/sortky/tempest-elite-novinka-pro-osmibity-atari/

 

and here is Laser Blast X. I am working on porting the smaller games over to the Atari 5200, including our official version of Venture.

 

Edited July 30, 2017 by peteym5

[Sleepy]

Hi,

 

I received my copy of Tempest Elite this week; many thanks, video61! :-)

 

With GTIA-Grafik it works fine, but using the VBXE, Player / Missiles are missing:

 

 

You only hear the gamesound and see the web, but neither Player nor enemys or shooting. Merely the highlightet corridor is viewable and follows the joystick-commandos.

 

At the startup-screen, vbxe is detected at $D640:

 

 

(I tried out both adresses)

 

I tested it with a PAL XEGS with VBXE, Ultimate 1MB (with FJC Firmware) and stereo.

 

U1MB setup is:

 

I tried out different "Extended Ram" (Stock, CompyShop and Rambo) , different "System" (Stock XL & XEGS, both not patched), "SD X" (disabled and enabled).

 

 

The second cart (I ordered two) goes to a friend; he has the same problem (PAL 130XE with Ultimate 1MB & stereo)

 

Any idea what I´m doing wrong?

 

Sleeπ

 

Now I have to check if I can do an adapter to connect my jag rotary-controller to the 8Bit... :-) Otherway, I have to look for an Indi 500-controller...

Edited July 30, 2017 by Sleepy

[+davidcalgary29]

I haven't been able to get Laser Blast X to run on my XL; I just get a black screen. Defective cart, perhaps?

[peteym5]

Could this Ultimate 1 meg be interfering with VBXE set up? It has been tested with VBXE without this Ultimate 1 Meg extension. Does it work with other VBXE applications? Will need to know which memory locations Ultimate 1 meg upgrade is accessing.

Edited July 30, 2017 by peteym5

[peteym5]

I haven't been able to get Laser Blast X to run on my XL; I just get a black screen. Defective cart, perhaps?

Need to rule out a cartridge port issue first. Other cartridges work and do the contacts appear dirty?

[flashjazzcat]

Could this Ultimate 1 meg be interfering with VBXE set up? It has been tested with VBXE without this Ultimate 1 Meg extension. Does it work with other VBXE applications? Will need to know which memory locations Ultimate 1 meg upgrade is accessing.

You might read the section on U1MB, which is now rather a prolific RAM upgrade out in the field:

 

http://www.virtualdub.org/downloads/Altirra%20Hardware%20Reference%20Manual.pdf

 

U1MB uses no registers in the $D6xx/D7xx region and is largely invisible to the system anyway. Any anomalies are described in Avery's text. The newer U1MB BIOS does probe the VBXE hardware on cold power-up, however, so it's entirely likely the game makes some assumptions about the VBXE's initialisation state which are no longer true.

[+davidcalgary29]

Need to rule out a cartridge port issue first. Other cartridges work and do the contacts appear dirty?

 

Tempest Elite plays just fine. It's a tight fit on my "Kjmann XL", but there's no playability issues there (or with other carts). I just get a black screen and a slight buzzing with Laser Blast X.

[peteym5]

 

Tempest Elite plays just fine. It's a tight fit on my "Kjmann XL", but there's no playability issues there (or with other carts). I just get a black screen and a slight buzzing with Laser Blast X.

So you have tried Laser Blast X on another computer? Tight fit could mean not all the pins not making contact.

[+davidcalgary29]

Not yet -- I can't find my monitor cable and have ordered another (this XL has a s-video mod). I'll try the cartridge again when that arrives. Laser Blast X isn't a "tight" fit in the way that Tempest Elite is, though.

[peteym5]

You might read the section on U1MB, which is now rather a prolific RAM upgrade out in the field:

 

http://www.virtualdub.org/downloads/Altirra%20Hardware%20Reference%20Manual.pdf

 

U1MB uses no registers in the $D6xx/D7xx region and is largely invisible to the system anyway. Any anomalies are described in Avery's text. The newer U1MB BIOS does probe the VBXE hardware on cold power-up, however, so it's entirely likely the game makes some assumptions about the VBXE's initialisation state which are no longer true.

Are you using 1.24 core with VBXE? It does look like the color map is working to generate a lane highlighting effect. If its an issue with VBXE initialization, I would need to figure out how to adapt to make it work with this other memory upgrade. Is it also using a 65816 processor?

Edited July 30, 2017 by peteym5

[Tigerduck]

Could this Ultimate 1 meg be interfering with VBXE set up? It has been tested with VBXE without this Ultimate 1 Meg extension. Does it work with other VBXE applications? Will need to know which memory locations Ultimate 1 meg upgrade is accessing.

I'm the friend of Sleepy with the same problem.

Every other VBXE application works quite well, except Tempest Elite.

My System is a PAL 130XE, Ultimate 1 MB, Rapidus, Stereo Pokey, U-Switch and, of course, VBXE 2.1 with all the actual drivers installed.

 

Tried several different configurations without success...

[flashjazzcat]

Are you using 1.24 core with VBXE? It does look like the color map is working to generate a lane highlighting effect. If its an issue with VBXE initialization, I would need to figure out how to adapt to make it work with this other memory upgrade. Is it also using a 65816 processor?

I don't have access to the problematic game and I have no issues with other VBXE software so can't really comment on the FX core version. Ultimate 1MB does not include a 65C816 processor or anything else out of the ordinary. If the issue is indeed one of initialisation states, then it shouldn't be hard to guard against (be sure to initialise whatever is not currently initialised).

[peteym5]

It was programmed with 1.24core based upon information I have in a PDF file and looking at other source code samples. Could there be an issue with PORTB bank switching for this Ulitmate 1 meg. I need to research Ultimate 1 Meg and see what it accesses to switch banks.

[flashjazzcat]

Well, Ultimate 1MB models 320, 576 and 1088 KB RAM expansions using the common PORTB bits. All the information you could require is present in the document I linked to earlier. The same document covers the VBXE FX core.

[peteym5]

I see there is a newer 1.26 core out for VBXE, but not sure if anything changed with the registers. Did you try Disabling Basic and Extended Memory.

[peteym5]

I downloaded Altirra 2.9, and it is stating it only has 1.24 core available. Now I did some research and it does state something was corrected and a priority register was updated.

 

I am not sure if this will be causing the sprites to be shifted behind the back ground. I would need to go through all the source code to figure this out.