Rikki & Vikki

[TailChao]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:16 PM, DrVenkman said:

BupSystem works great - the monolithic binary does not. Might be a problem for @TailChao to look into.

Yep, it is.

 

On 7/15/2022 at 4:31 PM, DrVenkman said:

I strongly suspect there's a recent Windows update/security fix that the R&V binary on Steam is not compliant with in some obscure way and probably requires repackaging or something simple and dumb. 

That's also my guess, but not in Rikki & Vikki's binary - rather in FishClip.dll which is the "modern features" shim. This interfaces with Steam through steam_api.dll and is the only functional difference between the Steam and Standalone versions of the game.

 

I have no Windows 11 machines to test with locally. If you've got some time to try running the game through BupSystem 0.9.6.1 and checking whether the problem persists, it'd be a big help. That specific version is paired with Rikki & Vikki 1.0.1.0 and will help me isolate the issue.

 

 

As an aside...

On 7/15/2022 at 4:15 PM, Trebor said:

Yikes... good ol' Steam DRM.  More the reason I am glad that I refused to purchase mine via Steam and went the Humble Bundle purchase route instead.

This is a common misconception - while Steam DRM is frequently used in games, it's also an opt-in for developers. We decided to opt-out and I encourage others to do the same.

Edited July 18, 2022 by TailChao

[+DrVenkman]

8 hours ago, TailChao said:

I have no Windows 11 machines to test with locally. If you've got some time to try running the game through BupSystem 0.9.6.1 and checking whether the problem persists, it'd be a big help. That specific version is paired with Rikki & Vikki 1.0.1.0 and will help me isolate the issue

Thank you for looking into this!

 

I will absolutely give that a try in a few hours after work.

 

EDIT: Well, that's not it. BupSystem 0.9.6.1 by itself doesn't have the same herky-jerky hesitations as running the Steam binary.

 

EDIT #2: THE SOLUTION. On a hunch, I deleted the JoyBox.ini configuration file and now it's working fine. Which is super-weird, because I decided to examine the file before I deleted it and it looked ... fine? Anyway, after deleting the configuration file, restarting and remapping my controller, the game is playing like normal. 

[TailChao]

18 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

EDIT #2: THE SOLUTION. On a hunch, I deleted the JoyBox.ini configuration file and now it's working fine. Which is super-weird, because I decided to examine the file before I deleted it and it looked ... fine? Anyway, after deleting the configuration file, restarting and remapping my controller, the game is playing like normal. 

Ah, if you meant FoxBox.ini then the game's controller settings may have become corrupted. Stuttering like this sometimes occurs when trying to find a controller which is unplugged or doesn't actually exist. However, the software is supposed to warn you about this - not sure why it didn't.

 

So neither Windows 11 or Steam's fault!

Edited July 19, 2022 by TailChao

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, TailChao said:

Ah, if you meant FoxBox.ini then the game's controller settings may have become corrupted. Stuttering like this sometimes occurs when trying to find a controller which is unplugged or doesn't actually exist. However, the software is supposed to warn you about this - not sure why it didn't.

 

So neither Windows 11 or Steam's fault!

Sorry, I may have mistaken the filename - when I was posting after my tests, I had the game’s root folder opened and merely looked at date stamps. 

 

But to your point - when I first noticed the issue the other day, the first time I loaded the game, it was indeed complaining about missing controllers. The weird part is, the controller it was complaining about missing is my Logitech/Saitek X52 HOTAS flight stick and throttle. In fact, that controller wasn’t connected to my PC, so far so good. The weird part is, when I had played the game on Steam prior months ago, I was using a wired XBox controller connected via USB, not my flight stick (which is for MS Flight Simulator).

 

Prior to deleting the file entirely, I did remap the Player 1 options to use my current gamepad (XBox Elite2 wireless) but had been ignoring the complaints about Player 2, since I am playing solo and don’t have a second XBox controller handy to pair to the PC.

 

[TailChao]

Quote

But to your point - when I first noticed the issue the other day, the first time I loaded the game, it was indeed complaining about missing controllers. The weird part is, the controller it was complaining about missing is my Logitech/Saitek X52 HOTAS flight stick and throttle. In fact, that controller wasn’t connected to my PC, so far so good. The weird part is, when I had played the game on Steam prior months ago, I was using a wired XBox controller connected via USB, not my flight stick (which is for MS Flight Simulator).

Ah, I think that's it.

 

If you had the X52 connected on the first launch of the game (or after trashing its preferences), then the second player's controls may have gotten automatically assigned to it. This is a quirk of dragging an Atari 7800 game kicking and screaming into Windows on a tight schedule - even if you're only in single player mode, the second player's inputs have to go somewhere.

 

 

Quote

Prior to deleting the file entirely, I did remap the Player 1 options to use my current gamepad (XBox Elite2 wireless) but had been ignoring the complaints about Player 2, since I am playing solo and don’t have a second XBox controller handy to pair to the PC.

Whenever you see the Joystick Disconnected dialog, it expects you'll either plug in the device it's looking for or remap the controls to something else. Selecting [Ignore] causes the input manager to rescan the device tree every few seconds while it waits for you to plug in the missing controller. There should be a blurb in the help file's troubleshooting section about this behavior.

 

I'm guessing the "Jerky game play on Win11?" topic on the game's Steam forum is also yours? If you've got a moment and can cross-post the solution (reconfigure controls) over there it'd be appreciated, since you kinda self-solved this.

Edited July 20, 2022 by TailChao

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, TailChao said:

I'm guessing the "Jerky game play on Win11?" topic on the game's Steam forum is also yours? If you've got a moment and can cross-post the solution (reconfigure controls) over there it'd be appreciated, since you kinda self-solved this.

Yep, that’s me. I’ll post the fix later today.  And by the way, thanks again for taking the time to look at the issue and explain what was going on. It’s much appreciated! 

 

As a further aside, I guess I should be glad I didn’t play the game for the first time this week - right now I have Logitech rudder pedals, a TurtleBeach VelocityOne Flight yoke/throttle unit, and a Logitech Radio Panel connected to my PC in addition to the XBox Elite2 controller. There’s no telling what might get auto-assigned as the Player 2 controls!

[MrMaddog]

On 7/19/2022 at 8:45 AM, DrVenkman said:

But to your point - when I first noticed the issue the other day, the first time I loaded the game, it was indeed complaining about missing controllers. The weird part is, the controller it was complaining about missing is my Logitech/Saitek X52 HOTAS flight stick and throttle. In fact, that controller wasn’t connected to my PC, so far so good. The weird part is, when I had played the game on Steam prior months ago, I was using a wired XBox controller connected via USB, not my flight stick (which is for MS Flight Simulator).

 

Prior to deleting the file entirely, I did remap the Player 1 options to use my current gamepad (XBox Elite2 wireless) but had been ignoring the complaints about Player 2, since I am playing solo and don’t have a second XBox controller handy to pair to the PC.

 

Yeah, have fun using more than one wired gamepad in Windows when playing with emulators.

 

I had to unplug and remove both my controllers in Device Manager, insert the one I want as a primary controller first and plug in the other one next.  Games that use Xinput drivers can (usually) use any controller but emulators just pick whatever they want for Player 1.  So that means either configuring for each emulator or just giving up and using Joy2Key...which I'm saving for a seperate thread.

 

[TailChao]

2 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Yep, that’s me. I’ll post the fix later today.  And by the way, thanks again for taking the time to look at the issue and explain what was going on. It’s much appreciated!

No problem, BupSystem and Wataroo use the same input library so no harm in clarifying how it works. Again - whenever you get the Joystick Disconnected dialog, the software is asking you to either reconnect the device or reassign the keys.

 

 

2 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

As a further aside, I guess I should be glad I didn’t play the game for the first time this week - right now I have Logitech rudder pedals, a TurtleBeach VelocityOne Flight yoke/throttle unit, and a Logitech Radio Panel connected to my PC in addition to the XBox Elite2 controller. There’s no telling what might get auto-assigned as the Player 2 controls!

That would be fine - it doesn't matter how many devices you have attached or which one gets assigned to the second player's controls, it just needs to be present if you want to keep those bindings. Don't forget, you can always reassign them to the keyboard or wherever you like using the Input Dialog (F2).

 

 

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

I had to unplug and remove both my controllers in Device Manager, insert the one I want as a primary controller first and plug in the other one next.  Games that use Xinput drivers can (usually) use any controller but emulators just pick whatever they want for Player 1.  So that means either configuring for each emulator or just giving up and using Joy2Key...which I'm saving for a seperate thread.

It's difficult to find a compromise between making things easy for the user to understand and allowing for silly things like spreading one player's controls across several input devices, because both are usually desired. I went with the more flexible and confusing option and, well - here we are.

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, TailChao said:

I went with the more flexible and confusing option and, well - here we are.

It’s not at all your fault - it’s just the performance hit incurred by NOT remapping the P2 controls has no obvious connection to the WMI Provider service spiking the CPU and throwing errors into the Windows Event Viewer logs. Makes it really hard for an average user to have any idea what’s going on.

 

It would be nice if that did not occur, or if there was some way for the average player to realize that would happen if they choose SKIP in that dialog rather than going through the remap process. 

[TailChao]

17 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

It’s not at all your fault - it’s just the performance hit incurred by NOT remapping the P2 controls has no obvious connection to the WMI Provider service spiking the CPU and throwing errors into the Windows Event Viewer logs. Makes it really hard for an average user to have any idea what’s going on.

Yeah, I getcha.

 

As for why that specific service is getting hit every few seconds - you need to use WMI to filter out XInput controllers when detecting DirectInput devices. So you can kinda see how this would trigger from the input library going "well okay, if you don't want to change the keybindings I'm going to keep looking for the device you mapped them to. Is it plugged in yet? What about now?"

 

 

17 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

It would be nice if that did not occur, or if there was some way for the average player to realize that would happen if they choose SKIP in that dialog rather than going through the remap process. 

Right, what might be best is to replace the [Ignore] button with [Unmap] or [Unassign] since that's really the only other option if you don't want to remap the keys or plug the input device back in.

[Giles N]

@TailChao

 

Not hardware/service question, but in-game question:

 

Not having had all the world of time and opportunity, I finally sat down to get a bit better at the game, and getting on with trying to beat it.

 

So I can buy/exchange credits from Dut for points, but a suddenly Dut said I got the chance to get infinite credits in exchange for zero final score.

 

Is this a rare random opportunity, or does it happen frequently or by doing something special…?

 

(If you’re answered it elsewhere, sorry - threads getting to be kinda long read, and if you want to hide answer in hidden content, do so… I’d just like to know as my gaming time can be somewhat limited in periods).

Edited August 17, 2022 by Giles N

[Trebor]

13 minutes ago, Giles N said:

So I can buy/exchange credits from Dut for points, but a suddenly Dut said I got the chance to get infinite credits in exchange for zero final score.

 

Is this a rare random opportunity, or does it happen frequently or by doing something special…?

Every time a new game is played, at the second "Try Again?"/Game Over, Dut will present the infinite credits for a final score of zero option. 

 

It's a take it or leave it, one time deal.  If declined, the option will not be presented again for that game session.

[Cousin Vinnie]

13 minutes ago, Giles N said:

@TailChao

 

Not hardware/service question, but in-game question:

 

Not having had all the world of time and opportunity, I finally sat down to get a bit better at the game, and getting on with trying to beat it.

 

So I can buy/exchange credits from Dut for points, but a suddenly Dut said I got the chance to get infinite credits in exchange for zero final score.

 

Is this a rare random opportunity, or does it happen frequently or by doing something special…?

 

(If you’re answered it elsewhere, sorry - threads getting to be kinda long read, and if you want to hide answer in hidden content, do so… I’d just like to know as my gaming time can be somewhat limited in periods).

That's basically how all us sinners have to beat the game- infinite credits coupled with immense shame

[+DrVenkman]

2 minutes ago, Cousin Vinnie said:

That's basically how all us sinners have to beat the game- infinite credits coupled with immense shame

And it’s also how us grumpy, stubborn, self-loathing SOBs torture ourselves by continuing to tell Dut to f$#K right off, then, and try again.

 

I’ve resigned myself to never beating this game, btw.

[Trebor]

One Player playthrough to completion - all areas bookmarked too - if needed.

 

Also...

1. Access the Irregular Caverns.*

2. Access Dut's Discount Warps! [And go to the start of any level]*

 

*How to:

Spoiler

1. Access Dut's Discount Warps:
a. Start a new game.
b. Do not lose a life and do not kill an enemy during R1 - R9.

 

2. Access Irregular Caverns:
a. Access Dut's Discount Warps as mentioned above.
b. Jump up into the "I" flying portal when it appears on the screen...

 

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Trebor said:

 

 

It's a take it or leave it, one time deal.  If declined, the option will not be presented again for that game session.

So then it happens every time I start a new game, or turn off/on the console: its not like a bonus thing happening ‘randomly’ like 1 out of 100 000 times… so, restarting the game or turning on the console again makes this chance appears every time a second ‘try again’ is chosen…

  (?)

 

Well, thats good, as I’ll perhaps then just set aside a couple of evenings to get through it.

 

Man! The music alone give me chills; its so atmospheric in the direction of stuff like Black Lamp for C64 etc, its worth to get through just to hear that…

 

But I’d like to both see everything there is to see and do, and add it to the list of played-through 7800 titles (which, ahem aren’t that many… they’re kinda hard or I’m just getting too old, … or both…).

Edited August 17, 2022 by Giles N

[Trebor]

23 hours ago, Giles N said:

So then it happens every time I start a new game, or turn off/on the console: its not like a bonus thing happening ‘randomly’ like 1 out of 100 000 times… so, restarting the game or turning on the console again makes this chance appears every time a second ‘try again’ is chosen…

  (?)

Correct.  Every time a new game is started, or turn off/on the console, at the second "Try Again?"/Game Over, Dut will present the infinite credits for a final score of zero option.

[Cousin Vinnie]

On 8/16/2022 at 11:37 PM, Giles N said:

So then it happens every time I start a new game, or turn off/on the console: its not like a bonus thing happening ‘randomly’ like 1 out of 100 000 times… so, restarting the game or turning on the console again makes this chance appears every time a second ‘try again’ is chosen…

  (?)

 

Well, thats good, as I’ll perhaps then just set aside a couple of evenings to get through it.

 

Man! The music alone give me chills; its so atmospheric in the direction of stuff like Black Lamp for C64 etc, its worth to get through just to hear that…

 

But I’d like to both see everything there is to see and do, and add it to the list of played-through 7800 titles (which, ahem aren’t that many… they’re kinda hard or I’m just getting too old, … or both…).

Check this owt

https://rushjet1.com/album/rikki-vikki

[+Muddyfunster]

Rushjet 1 did the music for Tyre Trax and Dare Devil. Super talented TIA musician.

 

[sirlynxalot]

Late to the party but I just bought this on steam and am really enjoying it. I'll save my overwhelmingly positive review for when I've experienced a bit more of the game (can get to first boss no problem but haven't beaten him yet).  Just a couple gameplay questions right now:

 

-Does the single player game need to be beaten all in one go?  Is there any password system?

-Right now, continuing brings me back to level 1. Is there any checkpoint system, like maybe after I manage to defeat the first boss I can start from level 11 instead of level 1 each time I continue?

[Trebor]

33 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

-Does the single player game need to be beaten all in one go?

Yes.

33 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

Is there any password system?

No.

33 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

Is there any checkpoint system, like maybe after I manage to defeat the first boss I can start from level 11 instead of level 1 each time I continue?

No.  However, after the second "Game Over" encounter, the player has the option of Direct Dutposit which provides infinite lives at the sacrifice of having a zero score for the remainder of the game.

 

Additionally, there is the ability to warp.

[sirlynxalot]

Wow the difficulty/challenge really kicks up a notch after the first boss.  I've gotten as far as sand level 8 but its starting to feel highly difficult in an of-the-era way   Especially playing via the emulator which does not allow for save states and the need to play through all previous levels again if I shut the game down and come back to it later. 

 

I guess I haven't seen most of the game yet, but so far my impression is

Graphics and art direction - A+ most impressive I've seen in a 7800 game, the graphics easy rival NES games from my perspective

Music and sound - A+ best I've ever heard in a 7800 game, the music and sound fit the game and the music is atmospheric and sounds great, kinda reminds me of Cave Story's music

Depth of game and replayability - A+ top notch for a 7800 game, countless unique levels and a 2P option that provides even more new levels, blows stuff like impossible mission out of the water

 

The game seems to be getting very difficult as I progress but taken in the context of the difficult of other games from the era that this is paying homage to, I don't think its outlandish.  I can't imagine that I would be able to progress that far if I were using a mushy unresponsive 7800 pro line controller though 🤣

  This is the most impressive 7800 game I've ever seen.

 

 

 

[leech]

By the way, this game works pretty flawlessly on the Steam Deck.  Though having never played it before, I realized that picking both meant a 2 player game and I had no way of entering in the second player's high score...

 

Fun game!  Not sure how long ago I bought it on Steam...

[Cousin Vinnie]

On 9/4/2022 at 3:45 PM, sirlynxalot said:

Wow the difficulty/challenge really kicks up a notch after the first boss.  I've gotten as far as sand level 8 but its starting to feel highly difficult in an of-the-era way   Especially playing via the emulator which does not allow for save states and the need to play through all previous levels again if I shut the game down and come back to it later. 

 

I guess I haven't seen most of the game yet, but so far my impression is

Graphics and art direction - A+ most impressive I've seen in a 7800 game, the graphics easy rival NES games from my perspective

Music and sound - A+ best I've ever heard in a 7800 game, the music and sound fit the game and the music is atmospheric and sounds great, kinda reminds me of Cave Story's music

Depth of game and replayability - A+ top notch for a 7800 game, countless unique levels and a 2P option that provides even more new levels, blows stuff like impossible mission out of the water

 

The game seems to be getting very difficult as I progress but taken in the context of the difficult of other games from the era that this is paying homage to, I don't think its outlandish.  I can't imagine that I would be able to progress that far if I were using a mushy unresponsive 7800 pro line controller though 🤣

  This is the most impressive 7800 game I've ever seen.

 

 

 

It's got a different ending if you beat it with two players. Crazy huh? I agree, its the most technically impressive 7800 game to date. Here's my review here... it may or may not help you do better.
https://www.atari7800forever.com/rikkiandvikkir.html

 

[Ecernosoft]

On 7/18/2022 at 8:21 AM, TailChao said:

As an aside...

This is a common misconception - while Steam DRM is frequently used in games, it's also an opt-in for developers. We decided to opt-out and I encourage others to do the same.

Thank god you chose what you did. Sometimes, Anti-Piracy isn't worth it, especially with sonic generations on PC.