RatTrap

[marauder666]

5 hours ago, Asaki said:

Probably a nitpick, but wouldn't you want the colors to match the buttons?

The buttons are in the same positions as arcade and coleco versions of mouse trap.

US SNES controller doesnt have coloured buttons.

Edited February 5, 2023 by marauder666

[Trebor]

20 hours ago, juansolo said:

Anyone who hasn't played this with a SNES2Atari adapter should, it makes the game so much more playable. The original adapter I tried it with was a bodge, because it worked so well we decided to do it properly and make it a bit more robust/pretty. Essentially it's a 9-pin extension and a SNES extention chopped up and a tiny project box with a tiny piece of veroboard and a 1k resistor. Dead easy to make and cool as hell. Now I want everything to support this adapter. Awesome game @darryl1970, you keep knocking out of the park dude!

An SNES2Atari adapter is included free with every purchase of Attack of the PETSCII Robots.  The game alone is well worth its purchase price.  Additionally, you get a free SNES2Atari adapter, that works with the game too.

[+darryl1970]

16 hours ago, Asaki said:

Probably a nitpick, but wouldn't you want the colors to match the buttons?

NO. I don't.

 

Not all of the countries have cool colored buttons.

 

I had a method in my head, and I wanted it consistent on all control schemes. I figured Red, Yellow, Blue was a nice left-to-right pattern to remember. That's how I think about it when I am playing.

 

When holding down the right button I left, up, and right are the doors, which match the pattern for dual stick and the SNES control.

 

When playing with dual sticks, left is red, up is yellow, and blue is right. Down is the doggie button in dual stick.

 

I figure consistency works. It is cool that the Super Famicom controller has matching colors.

 

The though of adding options crossed my mind, BUT that would add conditional logic to my joystick controls. That takes away from processing cycles, and I do not want the game to suffer.

[AtariBrian]

Perhaps if this gets a cart release someday, if one of the difficulty switches aren't used then a flip of the switch could change the button layout from one to the other. Or have it on menu as an option. Just a friendly suggestion.

[Asaki]

11 hours ago, marauder666 said:

US SNES controller doesnt have coloured buttons.

I live in the US, and when we were kids, 3/5 of our SNES gamepads had colored buttons.

 

56 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

When holding down the right button I left, up, and right are the doors, which match the pattern for dual stick and the SNES control.

 

When playing with dual sticks, left is red, up is yellow, and blue is right. Down is the doggie button in dual stick.

Gotcha.

[+darryl1970]

55 minutes ago, Asaki said:

I live in the US, and when we were kids, 3/5 of our SNES gamepads had colored buttons.

Hmm. I just assumed, since the controller said Super Famicom on it. I guess I just have a less colorful version. I will have to look through my collection, because it didn't seem that odd to see the different colors.

55 minutes ago, Asaki said:

Gotcha.

Yeah, I like consistency and simple sometimes, but it was a cool idea for the controllers that match.

[BrianC]

Some third-party pads in the US like the Ascii pad have colored buttons. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by BrianC

[+Defender_2600]

24 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Hmm. I just assumed, since the controller said Super Famicom on it. I guess I just have a less colorful version. I will have to look through my collection, because it didn't seem that odd to see the different colors.

 

If it may interest you, all Super Nintendo PAL consoles have joypads with colored buttons.

 

 

[+darryl1970]

9 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

If it may interest you, all Super Nintendo PAL consoles have joypads with colored buttons.

 

 

That was my first though when I noticed mine were not multi-colored. I figured the US got the less colorful variety. I guess it's just luck of the draw,

[Asaki]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:20 PM, darryl1970 said:

Hmm. I just assumed, since the controller said Super Famicom on it.

It was just the first pic I grabbed. This is the gamepad I usually use:

On 2/5/2023 at 3:34 PM, BrianC said:

Some third-party pads in the US like the Ascii pad have colored buttons. 

I know it's different today, but back in the 90s, I don't remember any third-party controllers that didn't have them.

US SNES is one of the few consoles where I prefer third-party.

Curiously, the Super Advantage had the colored BAYX buttons, but copied the purple power/reset buttons:

[+darryl1970]

4 hours ago, Asaki said:

It was just the first pic I grabbed. This is the gamepad I usually use:

I know it's different today, but back in the 90s, I don't remember any third-party controllers that didn't have them.

US SNES is one of the few consoles where I prefer third-party.

Curiously, the Super Advantage had the colored BAYX buttons, but copied the purple power/reset buttons:

I have a couple "Advantage" sticks tucked away downstairs. That might be fun to dig out.  I remember being disappointed with it for fighting games, which was all I really cared about during the 16-bit era.

[John Stamos Mullet]

I tried the Jan 28th version on my concerto and it just gives me a solid yellow screen.

 

any ideas?

[+darryl1970]

1 hour ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

I tried the Jan 28th version on my concerto and it just gives me a solid yellow screen.

 

any ideas?

I never upgraded from the .95 firmware on my Concerto, because it works perfectly with everything I want to play. I started getting issues reported with Pengo on the newer firmwares, which aren't present on the older version. It seems to happen when large object is being plotted in one zone.

 

I am guessing that it might be that the newer firmware doesn't like something.

 

From my experience, it's not anything that I can change on the program's end. It appears to work flawlessly on tjat Concerto/Firmware combo, Dragonfly, and VersaCart.

 

That bums me out to hear.

 

[Trebor]

4 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

I tried the Jan 28th version on my concerto and it just gives me a solid yellow screen.

 

any ideas?

I receive the same yellow screen and even tried stripping out pokey@450 from the header, but no change to the results.

2 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

From my experience, it's not anything that I can change on the program's end. It appears to work flawlessly on tjat Concerto/Firmware combo, Dragonfly, and VersaCart.

Additionally, the program works perfectly under the Atari7800_MiSTer FPGA core.

3 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

That bums me out to hear.

Me too.  Thankfully, there are other options to play this wonderful port.

[Trebor]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:55 PM, darryl1970 said:

That was my first though when I noticed mine were not multi-colored. I figured the US got the less colorful variety.

Correct - the US (and all of North America) received the less colorful variety from Nintendo directly.

 

All official North American Super Nintendo controllers and console packaging had the lavender/purple color scheme, including the US Kiosk:

 

 

Japan, Europe, and many third party controllers sold in North America (often made elsewhere) had the multi-color scheme.

 

A choice between current implementation, 'closest to Arcade order', or 'follow SNES color scheme' would be a nice option, if possible:

[John Stamos Mullet]

7 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

I never upgraded from the .95 firmware on my Concerto, because it works perfectly with everything I want to play. I started getting issues reported with Pengo on the newer firmwares, which aren't present on the older version. It seems to happen when large object is being plotted in one zone.

 

I am guessing that it might be that the newer firmware doesn't like something.

 

From my experience, it's not anything that I can change on the program's end. It appears to work flawlessly on tjat Concerto/Firmware combo, Dragonfly, and VersaCart.

 

That bums me out to hear.

 

I rolled the bios back to 95 and it boots fine now

[+darryl1970]

10 hours ago, Trebor said:

Correct - the US (and all of North America) received the less colorful variety from Nintendo directly.

 

Japan, Europe, and many third party controllers sold in North America (often made elsewhere) had the multi-color scheme.

 

A choice between current implementation, 'closest to Arcade order', or 'follow SNES color scheme' would be a nice option, if possible:

Thanks for the information.

 

As for the MouseTrap control panel, it's really cool to see one. I only saw one as a child, and it was for a brief moment, at a Chuck-E-Cheese knock-off (Good Time Pizza). I knew of the game from the Pac-Man Fever album single, "MouseTrap". I tried the game. It wasn't Pac-Man and had extra buttons, so it wasn't worth my time.   I'd love to see one of those machines now! It's such a great twist.

 

I later played the game on my friend's ColecoVision. I appreciated it, but I still didn't "get" it.  It was years later that I really appreciated it through MAME. I would love to be able to incorporate the sampled sounds. It's such a unique game. I find it interesting that the game doesn't appear to have any hardware sprites. While playing with the invincibility cheat, I found that the mouse cannot eat cheese if a cat is covering it. The cheese is not present underneath the cat. It must be redrawn when the cat moves.

 

As for the 7800 control scheme, I am concerned about creating ANOTHER control scheme. That logic that is interpreted continuously in the background, making it available for all of the menus, etc. (That's how I am able to intercept it to add Pause on the SNES controller.) Adding another scheme option could slow the game in places.

 

HOWEVER, @Asaki sharing the Super Advantage controller got me to thinking. It would be the ultimate controller for the game for those who relate colors to the doors. That is tempting to toy around with, but it would be even more troublesome than it sounds. The "Doggie" button is always the standard joystick button. I only break off logic for the other buttons (i.e. Is it a joystick-button combo, or is it an SNES button.) Regardless the control, button-1 is always the "Doggie" button, and that also starts the game. It would be even more re-arranging to change the Doggie button to the "green" button.

 

6 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

I rolled the bios back to 95 and it boots fine now

@John Stamos Mullet Thanks for going to all that trouble to verify. If you notice, PentaGo runs better on .95 also. I use a GIANT blank "banner" sprite in the into. It masks the title. When I am plotting two large sprites (the actual banner and the mask), I am told there is graphic corruption with the newer Concerto firmwares. Plus, I experience very minor, if any, POKEY hiccups. I haven't had an incentive to upgrade.

 

[BrianC]

On 2/7/2023 at 10:41 AM, Asaki said:

Curiously, the Super Advantage had the colored BAYX buttons, but copied the purple power/reset buttons

I wish they would have copied the microswitched metal stick from its Japanese counterpart, the Super Ascii Stick. 

[Asaki]

On 2/7/2023 at 3:02 PM, darryl1970 said:

I remember being disappointed with it for fighting games, which was all I really cared about during the 16-bit era.

I don't have one, but I have an NES one, and yeah, not the best quality, but I'm sure it cut down the cost a ton to build them that way. I don't use it much because one of the buttons likes to stick when you press it down.
The joystick itself isn't bad. Not arcade quality, but not bad.

 

9 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

As for the MouseTrap control panel, it's really cool to see one. I only saw one as a child, and it was for a brief moment, at a Chuck-E-Cheese knock-off (Good Time Pizza).

We had it for 2600 before I got to see one in person, at a bar in Pentwater that used to have a big tree growing through the roof. Don't remember if I got to actually play it or not, this was probably the late '90s.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances the show will be moved to tomorrow (Friday) at 6PM PT/9PM ET. See below for updated day/time.

 

ZeroPage Homebrew is celebrating our 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY tonight with a special bonus stream and playing the EXCLUSIVE FULL WIP of RatTrap on tonight's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us with your party hat on!

 

Fri Feb 10, 2023 | LIVE @ LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• RatTrap (2023 Exclusive Full WIP | 7800) by 20th St Arcade / Darryl Guenther @darryl1970

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hm, where is the stream? Did the show not happen?

[+darryl1970]

4 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Hm, where is the stream? Did the show not happen?

It did not. I got a quick message that the show had to be canceled. I believe the plan is to reschedule for tonight. If all goes as planned, James should be announcing that for tonight, but at an earlier time.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

10 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Hm, where is the stream? Did the show not happen?

 

5 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

It did not. I got a quick message that the show had to be canceled. I believe the plan is to reschedule for tonight. If all goes as planned, James should be announcing that for tonight, but at an earlier time.

 

That's correct, Tanya was not feeling well last night so we moved the show to tonight (Friday). The date and time has been updated in my post above.

 

- James

[+darryl1970]

UPDATE: 02-11-2023

Here is the version from last night's ZPH stream, with the addition of a slight control tweak.

 

When playing a 4-direction game with a diagonal pad, given that the player's character can travel both directions, one of those dirctions must take priority. Prior to this demo, Horizontal was the dominant axis. This meant that the player could be pressing down and right, with the intention of going down, yet the mouse would continue right. Given the way the mouse glides, the player would need to reverse quickly and press down to course-correct. This became natural to me, but it's not obvious to somebody just picking this up.

 

My solution was to NOT choose a direction. If the player is pressing UP and RIGHT, and both paths are clear, the mouse will pause until the player releases one of those directions. This gives the player an indicator, instead of silently choosing horizontal. As I was testing this concept, I decided to check to see how the 2600 version handled this. Coincidentally, that is exactly how the 2600 handles such a situation. Maybe this will feel familiar to some!

 

As for updates since the previous demo:

1. Added Title music, inspired by the "MouseTrap" song.
   1. Added cheat code to title screen, in order to unlock the debug mode. Once unlocked, see "Settings Menu".
2. Added sound effects
   1. Each door has a unique sound effect
   2. Hawk sound
   3. Single bark, which fires after the dog eats a cat
   4. Warp sound effect
   5. Game Over sound effect
3. Settings Menu (This was a big one)
   1. Game Name: Mouse / Rat
   2. Door Pause: This is for single joystick control. Pauses mouse when right button is held
   3. Cheat: Mouse is invincible and Select clears the level. Once this feature is "unlocked" on the title screen, it saves to a high score device and can be selected in this menu
   4. Credits: Repeat of the credits, and dedication to my father, who passed away December 17th, 2022. He had lived with me for the past 8 year. He was my biggest supporter in these games. He couldn't wait to see a boxed copy of Popeye with the manual. Sadly he didn't get to see that. His passing inspired me to relax and just toy around with the 7800. RatTrap was just going to be some 320 mode testing. One thing led to another, and it started to become the game. It was the first time that I'd had the time in a while, so I binged on this.
   5. Clear Scores This menu is a little different. I wanted to use the 320 Mouse and Dog sprites, so I use the mouse as a mouse. Pressing the doggie button while not highlighting an option, will display the dog sprite. Pressing the button while hovering over an option will select that save state to delete.
4. Game play additions
   1. In the previous demo, the door could close on the mouse and cat/dog, without having any effect. Now, the doors will slam the mouse, dog, and cats into the nearest corridor like the arcade. This actually took 3 days to figure out how to do this properly. I think I solved some of this in my sleep. After 3 quirky attempts, I woke up to a solution. Unlike my previous attempts, this solution was easy to apply to the cats.
   2. Updated Hawk logic
   3. Better balance in game difficulty. (There was some quirky behavior in higher levels too.)
   4. Added the button "hold" for two-button sticks.
   5. Control tweaks (Pause to decided in diagonal situation.)
5. SNES Modes
   1. Standard: I find this easier to remember. Y, X, A are Red, Yellow, Blue. This matches the pattern when controlling with dual joysticks. B & Start are doggie, just as down is doggie in dual stick mode.
   2. ColorBtns: This is specifically for any SNES controllers with colored buttons. Green is doggie, like the arcade. The button colors correspond to the door colors.
   3. Select pauses. Why not start? Because the doggie button starts the game!

 

I verified the cat scoring this morning. I used MAME (MouseTrap version 4 and version 5), and the cat scoring is: 100, 300, 500, 700, 900, 900, 900.......

 

RatTrap_Demo_02-11-2023.a78

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

8 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

My solution was to NOT choose a direction. If the player is pressing UP and RIGHT, and both paths are clear, the mouse will pause until the player releases one of those directions.

I would suggest something different:

1. allow using diagonals: e.g. if the player moves right and presses right and down, then the player will continue to move right and corner down when possible. 
2. automatically align: e.g. if the player moves right and is close to a down corner and then presses down, continue to move right until the player is over the corner and then start moving down

I would suggest testing other maze games and see how they solve the alignment and diagonals problems. The game is great, just the controls need some more improvement.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch