Amoeba Junp and savekey

[MarcusFrom1982]

I recently got Amoeba Jump but I'm not seeing the game actually has a high score save for the Savekey. Is there something I'm missing?

[Albert]

It should save your high score if you have a SaveKey plugged in.  And then restore it the next time you fire up the game.  Is it not doing that?

 

 ..Al

[MarcusFrom1982]

Other games always say "savekey found" but this one does not. Also, i do not see a highscore area. I'm playing on a 7800. 

[Albert]

Not all games display a "SaveKey" or "AtariVox Found" message (in fact, most probably do not).  As long as you have the SaveKey in the right controller port, it should save/load the high score.  It only remembers a single high score, there is no high score table.  Should work fine on the 7800.

 

 ..Al

 

[MarcusFrom1982]

I'm a bit lost I guess.  I can't find where the high score is displayed. 

[MarcusFrom1982]

Weird... i tried it with my Atarivox and it did save my score.  Let me try the savekey again

[MarcusFrom1982]

Ok... now something even more strange is going on. Atarivox worked fine. Put the savekey in and now when the game tries to display the high score, the game just resets. Put the Atarivox back in and it displays and plays perfectly. 

[MarcusFrom1982]

Also should add, it only resets with savekey if i press fire and then just let it jump without moving. After the second jump it resets. 

[Albert]

I'll test it out with a SaveKey and see what happens.

 

 ..Al

[MarcusFrom1982]

Cool. Something seems to be going on between the two devices.  I tried it out on two different 7800 consoles.  Thanks for you attention.  Still love the game, just wondered what was going on.

[Richard H.]

You must have a bad SaveKey because the circuit is identical on the AVox.

[+Karl G]

I don't have the manual in front of me, but does amoeba jump have a way to clear the high score information? If so, maybe trying this with the SaveKey would be a good thing to try. If that doesn't work, I would see if the SaveKey works with any other games.

[+Nathan Strum]

It doesn't list anything in the manual about resetting the AtariVox data.

[+Karl G]

If it would help, I'd be willing to create a one-off ROM to clear the area reserved for Amoeba Jump. 

[Dionoid]

Amoeba Jump has SaveKey support, but won't show "SaveKey found" because there was no ROM left to show that message. Yes, Amoeba Jump uses every single byte in the 4K ROM ?

The highscore is displayed when you start a new game and don't move your joystick yet (it shows alternating with current '0' score). Combining the display of the score and the highscore was also an optimization to keep the ROM-size within 4K.

 

To "reset" the highscore, you should start the game with the SaveKey disconnected from your console, and then plug it back in as soon as the intro-screen shows up.

Then your next score will automatically become the highscore.

 

@MarcusFrom1982 Please try to reset the highscore and see if that fixes the game resetting itself.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Dionoid

[MarcusFrom1982]

13 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Amoeba Jump has SaveKey support, but won't show "SaveKey found" because there was no ROM left to show that message. Yes, Amoeba Jump uses every single byte in the 4K ROM ?

The highscore is displayed when you start a new game and don't move your joystick yet (it shows alternating with current '0' score). Combining the display of the score and the highscore was also an optimization to keep the ROM-size within 4K.

 

To "reset" the highscore, you should start the game with the SaveKey disconnected from your console, and then plug it back in as soon as the intro-screen shows up.

Then your next score will automatically become the highscore.

 

@MarcusFrom1982 Please try to reset the highscore and see if that fixes the game resetting itself.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you.  I will try that out tomorrow and let you know.

[MarcusFrom1982]

On 3/9/2020 at 9:47 AM, Dionoid said:

Amoeba Jump has SaveKey support, but won't show "SaveKey found" because there was no ROM left to show that message. Yes, Amoeba Jump uses every single byte in the 4K ROM ?

The highscore is displayed when you start a new game and don't move your joystick yet (it shows alternating with current '0' score). Combining the display of the score and the highscore was also an optimization to keep the ROM-size within 4K.

 

To "reset" the highscore, you should start the game with the SaveKey disconnected from your console, and then plug it back in as soon as the intro-screen shows up.

Then your next score will automatically become the highscore.

 

@MarcusFrom1982 Please try to reset the highscore and see if that fixes the game resetting itself.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you.  I will try that out tomorrow and let you know.

[MarcusFrom1982]

On 3/9/2020 at 9:47 AM, Dionoid said:

?

 

 

@MarcusFrom1982 Please try to reset the highscore and see if that fixes the game resetting itself.

 

Hope this helps.

 

The reset totally worked!!!! Thank you