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Tempest Elite coming soon to Atari 8-bit


peteym5

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I wish I could just give up on hard issues in my day job. I'll try it next time I am having trouble figuring something out. I'll just tell him I am not doing it, and other people on the internet couldn't do it either, so tell the customer that. LMAO.

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I am willing to let people look at the binary and source, but privately and those that I can trust. I require their personal information and need them to sign a confidentiality agreement. Each binary will be stamped so it can be traced back to who received it. I do not know who is who, or what they do on the public forums. I will not post the binary publicly, nor will it be available for pay-per-download. Isn't that like asking Nintendo to post the next Super Mario Brothers World game publicly so it can be debugged? The cartridge game is available from www.atarisales.com for $49.99. http://members.tcq.net/video61/tempestelite.html

Edited by peteym5
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I am willing to let people look at the binary and source, but privately and those that I can trust. I require their personal information and need them to sign a confidentiality agreement. I cannot track who does what on here. I will not post the binary publicly, nor will it be available for pay-per-download. The cartridge game is available from www.atarisales.com for $49.99. http://members.tcq.net/video61/tempestelite.html

 

Are you requiring personal information and a confidentiality agreement with every person who has bought a cartridge? They are now in possession of a binary of the game and can do whatever they want with it.

 

Cartridges can easily be read, they do not offer any copy protection.

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I am willing to let people look at the binary and source, but privately and those that I can trust.

Don't whine because no-one can be bothered with all that hassle to help you for free. I'll bet no-one here who offered to help and who knows what they're doing was even approached privately, and clearly no-one who already jumped through the hoops necessary to get sight of the code has a clue how to troubleshoot it. And as gozar said: it's out there already. No-one cares.

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I required proof of purchase for technical support before working with the people privately who bought the game to help resolve the VBXE issue. Video61 kept records of everyone who purchased the game. He needed to know the address, payment through some financial institution, and email of everyone who bought the game before shipping it to them.

Edited by peteym5
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This is so bizarre when you consider the system is over 30 years old and the market is so small and collector oriented.

 

I'm wondering if each individual copy is watermarked with the purchasers name or some identifiable information. Is it worth the trouble to compare the md5 of the cart for those that bought it?

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I'm wondering if each individual copy is watermarked with the purchasers name or some identifiable information. Is it worth the trouble to compare the md5 of the cart for those that bought it?

 

Given the outlandish level of paranoia exhibited, I'd assume there's someone paid to lurk in the bushes watching each person who purchased a cart.

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Maybe something encrypted in between some other game data.....

 

But lets not talk about piracy and digital downloads, and whatever, it just leads to things becoming negative.

 

Video 61 just keeps customer records just in case he needs to back track proof of purchase.

 

The main thing I figured out how to get it to run with VBXE, and other hardware and different firmware should less likely interfere with it.

 

I have been busy preparing Secretum Labyrinth for the 5200 and figuring out how to make the game more intense. I am glad to had provided the first game in that series as a free download and kept everything positive on those threads. Improving the RPG / adventure game engine is an ongoing process. I just wish the cartridge would had sold better after letting people try a smaller version of it. It is unlike anything else and I can say it is copyright material and my own intellectual work. It probably is something sought by collectors. By the time I get to the next cartridge game, I can add more monsters, and puzzles for the player to solve. I even thought about doing something with VBXE and Secretum Labyrinth.

Edited by peteym5
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  • 2 months later...

in the first video I missed the music change up, was there one?

 

demonstrator missed power ups so I wondered if jump is still in the mix. Hard to say if game play was a little slow but the droid was indeed insane, though that might not be a bad thing....

 

later video seemed like earlier work but did have some music changes... thumbs up

 

not at all worried about VBXE cause it's not real schneakers :) Not sure I would waste one byte in the cart to satisfy .0001 of the Atari world :o unless it literally was a simple tiny fix... I'd just as well make a whole vbxe only version and let the normal Atari have every last bit and chance to be the best it could be...

 

Might want to add just one more triggered sample during game play, anything will do, even.... yes yes yes yes :)

Edited by _The Doctor__
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And that attitude is precisely why no software gets written for upgrades. Why write for extended RAM, my stock machine doesn't have it. Why write for stereo, again, not stock. Let's go farther. Why write for anything above 16kB because then the 400 and 600 can't use it. Preposterous.

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And that attitude is precisely why no software gets written for upgrades. Why write for extended RAM, my stock machine doesn't have it. Why write for stereo, again, not stock. Let's go farther. Why write for anything above 16kB because then the 400 and 600 can't use it. Preposterous.

 

It has always been that way, for a long time. Even in the days of the Apple II, game were written conservatively. And only when hardware became well established and standardized did software devs make use of it.

 

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in the first video I missed the music change up, was there one?

 

demonstrator missed power ups so I wondered if jump is still in the mix. Hard to say if game play was a little slow but the droid was indeed insane, though that might not be a bad thing....

 

There are a lot of things the demonstrator missed, like sitting on part of the web where a flipper would have to flip more than 180` to get you. Or doing that trick in combo with spikes for rapid fire. Among other things.

 

 

not at all worried about VBXE cause it's not real schneakers :) Not sure I would waste one byte in the cart to satisfy .0001 of the Atari world :o unless it literally was a simple tiny fix... I'd just as well make a whole vbxe only version and let the normal Atari have every last bit and chance to be the best it could be...

 

Might want to add just one more triggered sample during game play, anything will do, even.... yes yes yes yes :)

 

I'm not worried about VBXE either. VBXE user or not - everybody gets the same experience. That's my choice. And, I would have improved the game with every last byte. Like including the zoom at end of each level.

 

The end-of-level zoom is a hallmark of tempest and not having it takes away from the experience.

Edited by Keatah
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And that attitude is precisely why no software gets written for upgrades. Why write for extended RAM, my stock machine doesn't have it. Why write for stereo, again, not stock. Let's go farther. Why write for anything above 16kB because then the 400 and 600 can't use it. Preposterous.

Tempest Xtreme and Tempest Elite always ran on stock 64K machines. When you see 128K or 256K, it is referring to the size of the ROM used for the game. I had to use the whole 64K RAM because there was a lot of stuff that needed to be always mapped in memory and using areas not affected by bank switching. 64K RAM is what over 95% what people have with these old Atari 8-bit computers anyway. It is rare to find anyone with just 16K RAM. I did make a few games that just use the lower 16K RAM + 16K cartridge, but that was ensure making an easy 5200 port. Now I am looking to port a few titles over to the 7800, starting with the smaller games.

 

The 400/800 can be expanded to 48K, 64K with that incognito thing. A lot of people bought 600XLs and expanded them to 64K or more.

Edited by peteym5
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It has always been that way, for a long time. Even in the days of the Apple II, game were written conservatively. And only when hardware became well established and standardized did software devs make use of it.

 

But if everyone always yells from the towers, "don't code for this, it's not real", you get nothing for the upgrade, hence you kill it. Should it not be the case, if a cool upgrade is out there, you encourage development for it? Especially in a case where this game, uses it if it exists, and runs better if it is there? That is a win, win for everyone.

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did you read? I said make vbxe version all by itself.

Why then you can have all your VBXE goodness.... no sacrifice for VBXE computers and no sacrifice for the average Atari either.... no one said don't write for VBXE and certainly no one said don't write for memory....

 

hops in delorean.....

 

"...I'd just as well make a whole vbxe only version and let the normal Atari have every last bit and chance to be the best it could be..."

 

jump back to the future.... Einstein I missed you boy!

 

looks like I suggested a VBXE only version be made....

Edited by _The Doctor__
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did you read? I said make vbxe version all by itself.

Why then you can have all your VBXE goodness.... no sacrifice for VBXE computers and no sacrifice for the average Atari either.... no one said don't write for VBXE and certainly no one said don't write for memory....

 

hops in delorean.....

 

"...I'd just as well make a whole vbxe only version and let the normal Atari have every last bit and chance to be the best it could be..."

 

jump back to the future.... Einstein I missed you boy!

 

looks like I suggested a VBXE only version be made....

hmm...I didn't realize having a dual version game would detract from one or the other...maybe you are swaying me to have separate versions...right now, I don't have a VBXE, so I'm only interested in standard versions, but I plan on getting a VBXE, and when that day comes, for games that use the VBXE, obviously I'll only use the VBXE versions when I get it. But still, I do like the fact that I can buy the game now, use it without the VBXE and not have to buy another VBXE version when the time comes, so I'm still on the fence for now.

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But if everyone always yells from the towers, "don't code for this, it's not real", you get nothing for the upgrade, hence you kill it. Should it not be the case, if a cool upgrade is out there, you encourage development for it? Especially in a case where this game, uses it if it exists, and runs better if it is there? That is a win, win for everyone.

 

Tempest Elite could well be the VBXE's killer app for the NTSC market if its glitches and bugs can be fixed. It certainly was the encouragement I needed to get my machine modded.

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