Boom! (Atari 2600)

[Prizrak]

Same here, same setup. Maybe the game randomly has a glitch. [emoji848]

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[cd-w]

On 6/24/2022 at 6:52 PM, chewy said:

is there always like an hidden exit.  I am playing on a light 6'er//harmony regular if that helps.  will play more soon

 

Thanks for finding this issue - there is a hidden exit on every level apart from the bonus rounds.

 

I found a race condition in the code: if you are killed as the exit is being uncovered then it wont appear - please let me know if you find any more bugs! 

 

Chris

[chewy]

22 hours ago, cd-w said:

 

Thanks for finding this issue - there is a hidden exit on every level apart from the bonus rounds.

 

I found a race condition in the code: if you are killed as the exit is being uncovered then it wont appear - please let me know if you find any more bugs! 

 

Chris

i found a bug? wow- sounds plausible as i wasnt playing very good!

Edited June 27, 2022 by chewy

[Bomberman94]

Played the actual version (0.3 PAL60) on real Hardware (light sixer) and real TV:

 

- Speed (roller skates) power-up: Bomberman is too fast (compared to the Famicom version), maybe the impression is reinforced because of the smaller screen proportions but overall it is too fast

- Highscore Input screen: now characters are bigger and good to read (no noticeable fringe) but - for my taste - do not look as nice as before ?. I don’t have a solution but would it be helpful to scroll slower and change the grid so Bomberman don’t have to walk „so long ways“?

 

Must check: after bombing the „B“ symbol - in the Famicom version it can’t be bombed away (it only could be collected). And: when bombing the door many enemies were set free, if you die and continue playing these enemies are still there (must check what Famicom version does). 

 

Here‘s a video that shows the speed:

@0:21 Roller Skates taken…

@12:04 you can bomb the door AND escape (if you’re fast enough ?)

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Bomberman94

[Bomberman94]

Last version (PAL): I had the speed-up extra and two additional bombs in bonus round. After setting some bombs and running to the right the screen went black and I can’t do anything. I guess too much traffic… I try to make a video if you need. 

[cd-w]

On 7/1/2022 at 5:38 AM, Bomberman94 said:

Last version (PAL): I had the speed-up extra and two additional bombs in bonus round. After setting some bombs and running to the right the screen went black and I can’t do anything. I guess too much traffic… I try to make a video if you need. 

Thanks for the play-testing!

 

I don't have space to make the highscore screen taller, but I could enable the roller skate option if that would help?   I'll see if I can slow down the roller skate also without making the movements too jerky.

 

Can you let me know if the black screen issue happens again - it sounds like another bug!

 

Chris

[cd-w]

On 6/27/2022 at 1:23 PM, Bomberman94 said:

Played the actual version (0.3 PAL60) on real Hardware (light sixer) and real TV:

- Speed (roller skates) power-up: Bomberman is too fast (compared to the Famicom version), maybe the impression is reinforced because of the smaller screen proportions but overall it is too fast

Here are 3 options for the roller skate (game modified to always run at this speed).   Speed5 is the current roller skate speed, and speed 3 and 4 are slightly slower versions.    I think speed4 is best, but let me know your thoughts?

 

Chris

speed3.bin speed4.bin speed5.bin

[Prizrak]

4 seems a good middle ground, 5 feels almost to fast

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Bomberman94]

13 hours ago, cd-w said:

Here are 3 options for the roller skate (game modified to always run at this speed).   Speed5 is the current roller skate speed, and speed 3 and 4 are slightly slower versions.    I think speed4 is best, but let me know your thoughts?

 

Chris

speed3.bin 32 kB · 5 downloads speed4.bin 32 kB · 6 downloads speed5.bin 32 kB · 5 downloads

Speed 3 will be right/enough but can you push it to speed 3 after getting the roller skates AND a second time when you get them to speed 4 (and don’t lost this item until then)?

[Bomberman94]

13 hours ago, cd-w said:

Thanks for the play-testing!

 

I don't have space to make the highscore screen taller, but I could enable the roller skate option if that would help?   I'll see if I can slow down the roller skate also without making the movements too jerky.

 

Can you let me know if the black screen issue happens again - it sounds like another bug!

 

Chris

- highscore screen: yes, faster movement will solve it ?

- black screen issue: not happening again but will record now every session ?

[Bomberman94]

Wow - very nice ‚text roll bar effect‘ in the last „speed versions“. If I remember right - I never saw such an effect on the 2600 before (this is minimum „C64 Niveau“)! For my taste it could be a little bit slower (for better readability). 

 

Here‘s a short video to show it for all that haven’t seen it yet (sorry, NTSC version on PAL Atari but already beautiful):

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Bomberman94

[cd-w]

I have updated the binary in the top post, and the main changes are:

1. You can change the second fire button type by pressing "Select" on the main menu (fire2 = fire button on second joystick).
2. All hidden bonus items now implemented.
3. Roller skate movement speed is reduced.
4. Movement speed on high score entry screen increased.

I am calling this Release Candidate 1 (RC1) as I believe all the issues are fixed, apart from the line through the Boom logo on some consoles.

 

Let me know if you find any further bugs or glitches!

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

EDIT: Found a minor bug so have updated RC1 binary

Edited July 3, 2022 by cd-w

[Prizrak]

I have played Bomberman a few times over the years so I had a pretty good understanding of the game. This conversion is really good, thoroughly enjoy playing this and amazed to see it on our beloved 2600. Over and over I'm amazed at what the system is capable of in the right hands.

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[knievel1]

Love this game! Playing on Stella with an X-Arcade but the Player 2 Fire button isn't working to detonate. 

I map it but once I get to that screen, doesn't boom. 

Anyone else have this issue?

[cd-w]

4 hours ago, knievel1 said:

Love this game! Playing on Stella with an X-Arcade but the Player 2 Fire button isn't working to detonate. 

I map it but once I get to that screen, doesn't boom. 

Anyone else have this issue?

Thanks - I’ll check the code at the weekend to see if I messed something up.  I assume you changed it to Fire2 on the main menu by pressing the select button?

 

Chris

[Big Player]

I had the same problem. I did make sure Fire2 was selected on the main menu.

 

I use a Stelladaptor, which due to this game and the 1942 port, I learned it doesn't support a Sega Genesis game pad.  Never had the need to use one with Stella before. It's great that 2600 homebrews are starting to use it to have a second button.

[alex_79]

Stella autodetects that the game uses a genesis controller on left port, and an savekey on the right one and sets the inputs according to that.

 

If you want to use the button on the second joystick, you must manually set the controller in the right port as joystick in "Game Properties".

Selecting it on the game menu alone doesn't change the controller settings: Stella is still emulating a savekey in the second port, not a joystick, unless you manually change that.

After you change the settings, Stella will remember them for that specific rom, so you only need to do it once.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 hours ago, alex_79 said:

Stella autodetects that the game uses a genesis controller on left port, and an savekey on the right one and sets the inputs according to that.

Correct. The controller analysis is static (not at runtime). If a game contains SaveKey code, this will be detected and set, because SaveKey has a higher priority than Genesis.

[cd-w]

I think I will disable the fire2 option if a savekey is detected - this should avoid the issue, i.e. it won’t appear until Stella has the right port configures as a joystick.

 

Chris

[knievel1]

Yep, that fixed it. Working good now. On Stage 12. 

Only bug is on Bonus Round if I kill too many enemies at once it crashes. 

But loving this game, thanks!

[Big Player]

I am getting crashes during the bonus rounds as well.  Two different kind of crashes.

 

The first one I get shows this screen with a message "Fatal error instructions > 500000."  I am able to click "continue" on the box and then "run" in the window to continue my game. I have more screen shots of the state tabs if they would help with debugging.

The second crash takes me out of the game and puts me back on Stella's ROM menu, as if I hit escape during the game. The also happens during the bonus round but later in the same game, after continuing the game about 5 or so times.

I play the bonus rounds by setting a lot of bombs in a row and walking through the enemies, which sounds like the same way knievel1 plays.

 

I am running Stella 6.6 on macOS Monterey 12.3.1 and using the boom_RC1_NTSC bin.  I was having this problem with earlier versions of the game but a new version would get posted before I could report it.

[+SpiceWare]

On 7/12/2022 at 1:09 AM, Big Player said:

I am running Stella 6.6 on macOS Monterey 12.3.1 and using the boom_RC1_NTSC bin.

 

Stella's support for CDF/CDFJ/CDFJ+ and the ARM emulation have seen a number of updates since Stella 6.6 was released, so I suggest installing 6.7 to see if that resolves it.

[Big Player]

One game with Stella version 6.7 and I had a full crash in the first bonus round.

 

I'll keep testing though.

[cd-w]

On 7/10/2022 at 3:32 PM, knievel1 said:

Yep, that fixed it. Working good now. On Stage 12. 

Only bug is on Bonus Round if I kill too many enemies at once it crashes. 

But loving this game, thanks!

 

On 7/15/2022 at 9:11 PM, Big Player said:

One game with Stella version 6.7 and I had a full crash in the first bonus round.

I'll keep testing though.

 

Thanks for the testing - knowing the problem was on the bonus round helped me to reproduce the issue!   I found a bug that could occasionally cause the game to enter an infinite loop when an enemy is spawning (which happens every time you kill an enemy on the bonus round).

 

I have uploaded a new RC2 version with the fix - let me know if you find any more problems.

 

Thanks,

Chris

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Boom! on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Fri Jul 22, 2022 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 7PM GMT

WATCH: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Orbital War (2022 Exclusive World Premiere | 2600) by Leandro Camara @HSW3ET (Programming, Design and Soundtrack) / Heitor Maciel (Programming Consulting) / Viviane Peçaibes (Design and Text Consulting)
• Refhraktor (2022 WIP | 2600) by Dave Christianson @Dave C
• Boom! (2022 WIP Update | 2600) by Chris Walton @cd-w (Programming) / Nathan Strum @Nathan Strum (Graphics)