Season 13 ~ Week 19/20/21 ~ Atari 2600 Homebrew

[Vocelli]

@cd-w

Loving Boom!

But I would also love an instruction booklet.

 

I ran into the same problem with a bomb not exploding.

I am assuming I had a power up and didn't know how to use it.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Vocelli

[Vocelli]

4 hours ago, Atari_Warlord said:

Dragon's Descent?

CORRECT!

+5 Bonus Points for AtariWarlord!

[Vocelli]

PLEASE READ THE BONUS GAME RULES ABOVE.

Last Game for the day

 

Game 14:

Name this Homebrew Game for 5 Bonus Points.

One Guess per Game!

You Can Only win Once.

[Jason_Atari]

7 minutes ago, Vocelli said:

PLEASE READ THE BONUS GAME RULES ABOVE.

Last Game for the day

 

Game 14:

Name this Homebrew Game for 5 Bonus Points.

One Guess per Game!

You Can Only win Once.

Medieval Mayhem

[Vocelli]

3 minutes ago, Jason_Atari said:

Medieval Mayhem

Correct!

+5 Bonus Points for JasonAtari!

[Vocelli]

PLEASE READ THE BONUS GAME RULES ABOVE.

Last Game for the day

 

Game 15:

Name this Homebrew Game for 5 Bonus Points.

One Guess per Game!

You Can Only win Once.

[kermit73]

Star Castle: 13180

Boom: 133900

Mr. Yo-Yo: 89790

Conquest of Mars: 41570

 

Star Castle starts out challenging and ramps up the difficulty quickly.  Having watched a couple videos of the original arcade game, this is an excellent port.  The arcade game also gets crazy difficult after clearing a few boards.  Most of the challenge is just managing the movement of your ship.  I'm not sure if I prefer a joystick or using Stella with keyboard buttons mapped to match the button layout on the original arcade game.

 

For Boom, is there a manual or further documentation?  I'm mostly interested in knowing what all the power-ups do.  One of them prevented my bombs from detonating.  I had to wait for time to run out and lose a life for bombs to start working again.  Am I missing some important detail with this power-up?  I have learned a couple other things the hard way.  If you bomb a door or a power-up, the game spawns a bunch of new enemies.  If you run out of time, the game also unleashes a whole bunch of new enemies, but they are much faster, more dangerous, and score a ridiculous amount of points when killed.  It's a very high risk/high reward scenario.

 

So far, I'm liking Mr. Yo-Yo the best of the bunch, but I expect I'm missing some details for this one too.  It took a few games before I realized that pushing left/right fires at enemies.  I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to do on the board which has a bunch of small rectangular shaped objects that don't kill you, but also don't score any points when you run into them.

 

On Conquest of Mars, I finally escaped the first cave.  I struggle most making it through the open area with a large wave of enemy ships and fuel cells.  It took a few games to realize that after setting the bomb, I need to push up on the joystick to increase speed to make it out of the cave before the 30 seconds is up.  Now I just need to figure out the timing of the laser gates(?) that appear in the second cave.  I found that if I take too long to get a photo of my score, the game goes back to the title screen.  I had to start a new game, crash to end the game as quickly as possible, and take a photo of the high score.  Is there a better way to see your score again after the game goes back to the title screen?

 

 

 

[Jason_Atari]

Mr. Yo-Yo (Game 1 B/B): 22,980

Conquest of Mars (Game 1 B/B): 38,380

Star Castle (Game 1 B/B): 6,810

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 hours ago, kermit73 said:

Star Castle starts out challenging and ramps up the difficulty quickly.  Having watched a couple videos of the original arcade game, this is an excellent port.  The arcade game also gets crazy difficult after clearing a few boards.  Most of the challenge is just managing the movement of your ship.  I'm not sure if I prefer a joystick or using Stella with keyboard buttons mapped to match the button layout on the original arcade game.

Yes, even though we made it a lot easier than the original arcade game, Star Castle Arcade is still a really challenging game. But the game mechanics are pretty identical. So watch expert players playing Start Castle at YouTube should help a lot. 

 

Some tips:

• Kill the rings with strategy, making sure that you do not kill the outer ring completely. Else the rings will regenerate. Remove ~80%/90% of the outer ring and as much of the middle ring as you can, before you start attacking the inner ring.
• Keep on moving! This may not be necessary during the first rounds, but they offer you the chance to train this. If you do not move, either the homing mines or the cannon will kill you.
• Use the shield bouncing to your advantage! Learn how to correct your ship's direction after a bounce. That way, you have a good chance to attack the cannon before it has fully turned around. And it helps you to escape the homing mines.
• Don't Panic!  

Edited December 20, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch

[DaveM]

9 hours ago, kermit73 said:

So far, I'm liking Mr. Yo-Yo the best of the bunch, but I expect I'm missing some details for this one too.  It took a few games before I realized that pushing left/right fires at enemies.  I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to do on the board which has a bunch of small rectangular shaped objects that don't kill you, but also don't score any points when you run into them.

Congrats, you've reached the bonus round!  If you don't score points by running into them, try shooting them! 😄  You need to shoot 10 targets.  That will cause the bonus gem to appear.  Bring the gem to the top of the screen before the timer expires and you get a 9900 point bonus plus an extra life.  This will also trigger the game's cutscene.

[+SpiceWare]

21 hours ago, Vocelli said:

 

Awesome game, it's the homebrew that got @Thomas Jentzsch into coding for the 2600.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

5 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

Awesome game, it's the homebrew that got @Thomas Jentzsch into coding for the 2600.

Oh, yes!  

[+johnnywc]

12 hours ago, kermit73 said:

 

On Conquest of Mars, I finally escaped the first cave.  I struggle most making it through the open area with a large wave of enemy ships and fuel cells. 

I'm glad you're enjoying CoM!  In retrospect, I do agree that overall the game is too difficult to start off, with this one and the laser gates level being the most difficult IMO.  The game was developed 'in secret' (as Caverns of Mars) for Atari back in 2005 (my first homebrew!  ) so there weren't many testers.  Atari decided not to use the game in a revision of the FB2, it was subsequently released as Conquest of Mars through AtariAge.  

 

 Re: the Rocket stage, although it is challenging, the good thing is that the pattern is the same each game so look for areas with less rockets (mostly the sides) and it does get easier with practice. 

12 hours ago, kermit73 said:

It took a few games to realize that after setting the bomb, I need to push up on the joystick to increase speed to make it out of the cave before the 30 seconds is up. 

Hmm, it's been a while but I think you need to press the button to increase speed.  Up/down moves your ship up/down relative to the screen.  Also, when you use the thrusters with the button, your horizontal speed is reduced, so usually you want to accelerate in the open areas and then hold up on the button when maneuvering through the tight spaces.

12 hours ago, kermit73 said:

Now I just need to figure out the timing of the laser gates(?) that appear in the second cave. 

This is certainly the most challenging stage, but like the rockets the timing is consistent so once you play a few times it should be easier.   One tip that is critical is that you need to pull down on the joystick and approach the gates while they are low on the screen, and then push up to follow them as they move up.  Once they disappear, make your move down to the safe spot and repeat until you're through, but don't take too long or you'll be on the top of the screen and out of room to maneuver! 

12 hours ago, kermit73 said:

I found that if I take too long to get a photo of my score, the game goes back to the title screen.  I had to start a new game, crash to end the game as quickly as possible, and take a photo of the high score.  Is there a better way to see your score again after the game goes back to the title screen?

Hmm, probably not.   17 years and 13 games later, the UI for Champ Games has improved greatly, but unfortunately CoM was the first it is the most limited.   

 

Good luck and thanks for the feedback!

John

[kermit73]

I did some research and figured out a couple more things for Boom.

 

1) If you use the power-up that causes your bombs to stop detonating, you're supposed to detonate them with a second joystick button (a Sega Genesis controller is recommended).  If you don't have a joystick with two buttons, you can also detonate the bombs with the Game Select switch on the console.  I think the right joystick button was also considered during development, but it didn't work when I tried it.  I expect the right port is reserved for a SaveKey.  I see value with this power-up since you can wait until an enemy approaches your bomb to have it explode, but I think it causes more harm than good if you don't have a 2-button joystick.  It's a bit cumbersome to hit the Game Select switch, and if in a real hurry, I could see myself accidentally hitting Game Reset instead.

2) You get an extra man every time you complete the level.

 

The next strategy I will try on this game is to complete a few early levels to rack up extra lives, then on a later level, allow time to expire and rack up points with the fast-moving high point value bad guys, expecting to lose a few men in the process.  I may try this on a level with the roller skates power-up.  The extra speed from this power-up often causes more harm then good, but might be beneficial when dealing with the faster moving enemies.

[Rickster8]

1 hour ago, kermit73 said:

I did some research and figured out a couple more things for Boom.

 

1) If you use the power-up that causes your bombs to stop detonating, you're supposed to detonate them with a second joystick button (a Sega Genesis controller is recommended).  If you don't have a joystick with two buttons, you can also detonate the bombs with the Game Select switch on the console.  I think the right joystick button was also considered during development, but it didn't work when I tried it.  I expect the right port is reserved for a SaveKey.  I see value with this power-up since you can wait until an enemy approaches your bomb to have it explode, but I think it causes more harm than good if you don't have a 2-button joystick.  It's a bit cumbersome to hit the Game Select switch, and if in a real hurry, I could see myself accidentally hitting Game Reset instead.

2) You get an extra man every time you complete the level.

 

The next strategy I will try on this game is to complete a few early levels to rack up extra lives, then on a later level, allow time to expire and rack up points with the fast-moving high point value bad guys, expecting to lose a few men in the process.  I may try this on a level with the roller skates power-up.  The extra speed from this power-up often causes more harm then good, but might be beneficial when dealing with the faster moving enemies.

So would a TAC-2 controller work? 🤷‍♂️

[Keir]

I took a screenshot of Mr. Yo-Yo apparently right at the time when it wasn’t showing the score which was 34320.

 

Boom and Star Castle aren’t working on Z26 so I’ll have to try something else. Looking forward to playing them as I’ve really enjoyed both Mr. Yo-Yo and CoM so far.

[Lauren Tyler]

Here's my score for Mr. Yo-Yo: 7,250

The others will be here soon.

[Vocelli]

Vocelli:

More Scores:

 

Boom! 129500

My hint is NOT clear out bricks until you clear the screen of baddies. This way you can 'Trap' them in areas with no escape.

 

Conquest of Mars: 39180

 

Mr Yo-Yo: 25960

[+jgkspsx]

On 12/19/2022 at 2:31 PM, Vocelli said:

PLEASE READ THE BONUS GAME RULES ABOVE.

Last Game for the day

 

Game 15:

Name this Homebrew Game for 5 Bonus Points.

One Guess per Game!

You Can Only win Once.

Hey, I know this one! Oystron.

[+SpiceWare]

8 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Hey, I know this one! Oystron.

 

Hurray, somebody finally got it!

 

I was planning to post a hint today that I'd reviewed it in my blog back in 2008.

[Vocelli]

9 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Hey, I know this one! Oystron.

CORRECT!

+5 Bonus points for JGKspsx!

[Vocelli]

PLEASE READ THE BONUS GAME RULES ABOVE.

Last Game for the day

 

Game 16:

Name this Homebrew Game for 5 Bonus Points.

One Guess per Game!

[+jgkspsx]

Ooh, I know that one too. I blanked on all the early ones including the ones I had played.

[Keir]

This time I took a photo instead of a screenshot to make sure it came out.

[kermit73]

Boom! - 2551100 (Rollage???)

 

@Vocelli:  Unless @cd-w suggests that there are ways to score in the tens of millions that I have not yet discovered, we might want to establish a "rollage" requirement for this game.

 

The only thing I know for sure that I have not accomplished is picking up the question mark power-up.  It appeared on two levels during my game.  I didn't blow up the block revealing it the first time and the second time I accidentally blew it up.

 

For the first hour or so in my game, I just cleared boards, making it to Level 32 with a score close to 350k.  At this point, the difficulty seemed to have stopped ramping up for several levels so I started purposely allowing time to run out and/or bombed the door to get more bad guys to run up the score.  On Level 34, bombing the door brings out the high point value bad guys and you can score 64k with each wave.  After some experimentation, I found a strategy to consistently repeat this process with almost no risk of getting killed.  Within 10-minutes or so, I had run the score up to 2.5M.  Assuming the game rolls at 100M with the 8-digit score display, actual rollage would have taken another 2-3 hours.

 

Assuming there isn't a significant means of racking up points that I've not yet discovered, my suggestion is to set rollage to 500k, provided you've completed Level 25.  I think there should be a minimum level requirement for rollage since the point pressing strategy I used could probably have been implemented on an easier level.