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ZeroPage Homebrew is playing the Exclusive Retail Version of Deepstone Catacombs on tomorrow's (Tue May 4, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT! Hope everyone can watch!

 

Games:

648801416_20210504-LetsPlay.thumb.jpg.5fa6c9953ecf19df6bac6452a007583b.jpg

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  • 2 months later...
3 minutes ago, bradhig1 said:

Having issues with Deepstone Catacomb and Panic Rooms in which the picture doesn't always come on.   The games must be using odd video modes.

I’m not sure what would be causing this. It’s worked on every system I’ve tried and tested on. How often does it happen? 

Just to rule out some possibilities, have you tried other games on your system and they work fine other than those two?

 

Also is it as soon as you turn it on that no picture is displayed? Also is there audio? Are you using a crt or lcd hookup?

 

With Deepstone there is about 2 seconds of black screen when you first turn it on before it displays MickMuze in the center and you’ll hear a chime sound.

 

I would like to get to the bottom of it if it’s definitely not your system. If anyone else is encountering this problem as well, please let me know

Edited by mickmuze
Added more info to a sentence that I left out

Pacmsn comes right up.  I tried on my modded 7800 and they work fine. Got to level 24 and some other boss that doesn't belong show up after beating the dragon and I couldn't beat it do to low health.   I am using an lcd.    I am sick of stupid nes difficulty garbage in homebrew.  Do any homebrew authors ever play old commercial atari games to see what the difficulty on this platform should be.   I can't even beat the first floor of Panic Rooms. 

3 minutes ago, bradhig1 said:

Pacmsn comes right up.  I tried on my modded 7800 and they work fine. Got to level 24 and some other boss that doesn't belong show up after beating the dragon and I couldn't beat it do to low health.   I am using an lcd.    I am sick of stupid nes difficulty garbage in homebrew.  Do any homebrew authors ever play old commercial atari games to see what the difficulty on this platform should be.   I can't even beat the first floor of Panic Rooms. 

I’m sorry you are having trouble with it, that should not be happening at all. Maybe there is something wrong with the rom? I’ll bring it up to Al and see if he’s heard of this before. If it’s something I did and someone else can reproduce, I will fix it.

 

to be fair, most original atari 2600 games didn’t have endings. They went on until it got so difficult that you eventually died from the difficulty. I tried to make game 1 very easy at the beginning levels, much like original atari games and have them ramp up in difficulty over time. It’s very difficult to nail the difficulty to a point that it will satisfy everyone. That one endboss you encountered that doesn’t belong is the final endboss of the game.

i suspected you were using an LCD panel. These don't work the greatest with 2600 games. Many LCD panels will go black (or blue or exhibit some other behavior) if a perfect NTSC signal is not present. Since 2600 games are responsible for generating the PAL or NTSC signal, it is often not 100% perfect. CRT displays are considerably more forgiving on this front. 

11 minutes ago, bradhig1 said:

Do any homebrew authors ever play old commercial atari games to see what the difficulty on this platform should be.   I can't even beat the first floor of Panic Rooms. 

I don't think this is fair at all.  Difficulty can vary from game to game, and this was true back in the day just as it is now. I feel it's safe to say that most, if not all homebrew authors have played many of the original games on the 2600.  What's difficult for one person may not be so for another (and vice versa).  
 

  ..Al

  • Like 1
41 minutes ago, bradhig1 said:

Do any homebrew authors ever play old commercial atari games to see what the difficulty on this platform should be.   I can't even beat the first floor of Panic Rooms. 

Panic Rooms is certainly challenging but I was able to make it to Level 3 (link goes to video) within about 15 minutes of playing it for the very first time. Keep at it! ?

 

- James

  • Like 1
12 hours ago, mickmuze said:

I’m sorry you are having trouble with it, that should not be happening at all. Maybe there is something wrong with the rom? I’ll bring it up to Al and see if he’s heard of this before. If it’s something I did and someone else can reproduce, I will fix it.

 

to be fair, most original atari 2600 games didn’t have endings. They went on until it got so difficult that you eventually died from the difficulty. I tried to make game 1 very easy at the beginning levels, much like original atari games and have them ramp up in difficulty over time. It’s very difficult to nail the difficulty to a point that it will satisfy everyone. That one endboss you encountered that doesn’t belong is the final endboss of the game.

I didn't have enough health life to fight it.  Last boss should have been in a separate room with chicken for health recovery in between.  There are two other floors after 24 I think there are 26 floors.

which means there are likely enemies on 26.  Get rid of the stupid dot that chases you in the bsss rooms that is too much and I can't move that fast..   All these homebrew people are doinig is ruining difficulty to elevate my anxiety through the roof.   All I want is an easy ,enjoyable , and winnable game and I am never going to get that.

1 minute ago, bradhig1 said:

which means there are likely enemies on 26.  Get rid of the stupid dot that chases you in the bsss rooms that is too much and I can't move that fast..   All these homebrew people are doinig is ruining difficulty to elevate my anxiety through the roof.   All I want is an easy ,enjoyable , and winnable game and I am never going to get that.

There isn’t any enemies on floor 26. Also, remember that you can run by holding in the fire button. This will help you avoid the tracking missile at the dragon. Lure it away to a corner of the room and then make a run for it to get some hits into the dragon. If you got as far as the Dark Lord already I’d say you are doing pretty good. It may seem like he is too much after the fight with the dragon but I purposely gave him a lot less hitpoints than the dragon has because of this. You only have to stick with the fight for a few hits. If you got that far, I know you can take out the Dark Lord. You’ll win this game.

Highest score so far is 12500.   Those tracking missiles are what ruins the game.   I am sick of being in rooms with tracking missiles and not being able to leave and come back without the missile.   I am sick of not finding chickens or mushrooms on 20+ levels when I need them the most due to bad rng.    I plugged in my tac 30 joystick and my character flew around the room without holding the fire button , while he moved much slower with my Wico bat handle joystick.

1 hour ago, abrower9d9 said:

Mick! I love it it! Best dungeon crawler for the 2600 and just a phenomenal game, the product packing and artwork is astounding! Well done! 

 

Thank you for the kind review Adam! When you compared playing Atari to reading a book, that hit home. I’ve often made the same comparison when talking with friends. It’s definitely more of an imaginative experience with just enough to get you going. 
 

As a kid, I didn’t know E.T. was “bad” either. I had a blast just exploring that tiny world which I thought was huge at the time lol.

 

Glad you enjoyed it :) and don’t forget, hold fire to run ;)

 

cheers

  • Like 3
34 minutes ago, mickmuze said:

Thank you for the kind review Adam! When you compared playing Atari to reading a book, that hit home. I’ve often made the same comparison when talking with friends. It’s definitely more of an imaginative experience with just enough to get you going. 
 

As a kid, I didn’t know E.T. was “bad” either. I had a blast just exploring that tiny world which I thought was huge at the time lol.

 

Glad you enjoyed it :) and don’t forget, hold fire to run ;)

 

cheers

? Good Lord! I read the instructions and forgot the RUN button!! Don't worry, I'll be playing A LOT more of this. Astounding what you did for the 2600. Thanks for making this. And truly mean, best packaging and artwork to date!

  • Like 3

My LCD tv has a game mode which brightens the screen on HDMI connections sadly doesn't work on RF connections.  It helps prevent games from being too dark ,but the startup delay is likely just the LCD not getting the signal right away.

  • 2 months later...

This game looks awesome. I bought a physical copy and wanted to stream it on my Youtube channel. I usually use an emulator, but am unable to dump the cart using the Maxflash device. I'm assuming it's because it's "Melody enhanced" in some way. So, I have 2 questions:

 

1) If you don't mind disclosing, how are you using the Melody chip?

2) Is there a way I can get a ROM of this game to play in Stella? Like I said, I own the physical box/cart.

 

Thanks!

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