Ghosts ‘N Goblins

[+5-11under]

16 minutes ago, san-d-2000 said:

Any updates on this, also would be nice to know if this board is being used for any of this year Club games before ordering

 

No update from me, yet. It's still on my to-do list, though.

For future club games, that depends on game size, in the least. I also anticipate the boards to be fixed at that point.

[omf]

2 hours ago, 5-11under said:

No update from me, yet. It's still on my to-do list, though.

For future club games, that depends on game size, in the least. I also anticipate the boards to be fixed at that point.

excellent, perhaps users would be able to buy a few fixed boards so if they are able they can fix their own cartridges that don't work, either by swapping the ROM chip to the new board or if the fix is minor apply their own fix to their current cartridge perhaps?

 

best of luck on finding the fix though, it would be of great benefit to all

[rwest]

I’ll chime in as well, when I first got my game, I tried it in my f18a modded console and I just got the green screen with or without an SGM.

 

Next I tried it in my console that had an console5 AV mod, but no other modifications. First try it had a lot of screen artifacts, but the game was there. I cleaned the contacts on the cart and the image improved, but still not perfect. Several weeks later I tried it several times and cleanings on this console and only got the orange CAPCOM logo, but no game. All of these where with and without SGM.

 

I emailed Toby and he said that I was welcome to return it for a replacement, but every one that came back had worked. Not wanting to waste anyone’s time or money, I decided to try a few other things including changing out my power supply. Nothing changed.

 

Like many of us here, I have a “sickness” and have about 6 more consoles I picked up cheaply to repair. I grabbed one that actually worked and had no modifications that I’m aware of and hooked it up to RF with one of those cheap adapters into the coax on my modern TV. It worked perfectly! I tried the RF output on my AV modded console and it still didn’t work.

 

The whole thing is weird, because all my other old games and homebrews work fine on the other consoles. There must be some odd circumstance that is off that GNG needs that other games don’t?

 

Rutager

[omf]

i also had better luck with my  french scart machine, but experienced game crashes after a while. i would use this machine more but there are vertical ghosting lines on screen which gets worse after a while changed the vdp and the video ram but still does its ghost lines....  but apart from that it as far as i know functions and plays all my other cartridges without issues or graphical glitches.

 

[opcode]

I typically refrain from commenting on others' games for ethical reasons, but I must acknowledge that this game is truly remarkable. Surpassing its level of achievement would pose an interesting challenge, not to mention serving as an additional motivator for any developer to strive for improvement. Whoever this Mystery Man is, he is good! 

[Dairladada]

Hello, I have a technical question: How come sprites are not blinking in this game. There are way more sprites than usual in the same horizontal line and yet no blinking.

I'm referring to the first video in the thread.

Is this running on a standard Coleco? And if so how is the non-blinking possible?

Thanks!

[nick3092]

3 hours ago, Dairladada said:

Hello, I have a technical question: How come sprites are not blinking in this game. There are way more sprites than usual in the same horizontal line and yet no blinking.

I'm referring to the first video in the thread.

Is this running on a standard Coleco? And if so how is the non-blinking possible?

Thanks!

According to the video description, it was played on a Phoenix. Which emulates the F18a hardware mod. And the F18a eliminates flicker. 

[Dairladada]

Oh that makes so much more sense. Is there a Rom file version of this game?

[Jess Ragan]

I saw footage of this on YouTube. It's janky and limited in that distinct ColecoVision/MSX way, but it aims pretty high for that format, and actually looks better than the Micronics NES version in some respects. At the same time, it does illustrate that the CV wasn't capable of keeping up with the gaming trends of the mid 1980s, particularly scrolling.

[opcode]

12 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

I saw footage of this on YouTube. It's janky and limited in that distinct ColecoVision/MSX way, but it aims pretty high for that format, and actually looks better than the Micronics NES version in some respects. At the same time, it does illustrate that the CV wasn't capable of keeping up with the gaming trends of the mid 1980s, particularly scrolling.

I agree that the lack of hardware scrolling is a significant weakness in the TMS9918 video chip. However, it's worth noting that it wasn't originally designed with video games in mind.

On the other hand, let's not forget the exceptional impact of the Famicom. It took the industry by storm, hardware-wise, due to its remarkable strength at an unmatched price point. At the time of the Famicom's release, no competitor in Japan could match Nintendo's price, not even Casio with their PV-1000. This leads me to believe that Nintendo was incredibly fortunate to secure a deal with a chip factory that was essentially idle, likely offering them an unbeatable deal. Under normal circumstances, the Famicom should have cost significantly more than its 15,000 yen price point (equivalent to less than $70 US in 1983!!!). Such pricing was exceptionally low for hardware of its caliber. Had the Famicom been priced closer to $200 US in 1983, the SG-1000 and ColecoVision would have been much more competitive.

It's also important to remember that the SG-1000 remained in the market until 1986/87 in Japan, while the MSX1, utilizing a similar chipset, endured until 1988.

Edited April 20 by opcode

[Jess Ragan]

Legend has it that Nintendo studied the hardware of the ColecoVision very carefully before releasing the NES, which is probably why it seemed to address all the limitations of that system and the SG-1000. No more scrolling issues, no RAM bottleneck, no limitation of two colors per 1x8 line, etc. etc. They also finally killed that damn numeric keypad trend from the late 1970s and early 1980s, where every game system just had to have a touch tone telephone receiver built into the front. You do not need this abundance of buttons! You could make gameplay a whole lot smoother and less confusing just by using a better interface.

 

Er, anyway. Unlike before when I was a mere spectator, I'm actually looking at the ColecoVision from the inside. I'm in the process of making a game, and have done several demos. It adds perspective, and makes me realize just how involved it is to make games, and by extension artwork, for this system. Donkey Kong looks kind of weird and simplified in the ColecoVision version of that game, because the hardware necessitated those changes. I don't know what you did to get around this, Opcode... I'm assuming you pulled out a heaping helping of those "magic sprites" Nanochess talks about to fill in the color gaps?

[opcode]

4 minutes ago, Jess Ragan said:

Legend has it that Nintendo studied the hardware of the ColecoVision very carefully before releasing the NES, which is probably why it seemed to address all the limitations of that system and the SG-1000. No more scrolling issues, no RAM bottleneck, no limitation of two colors per 1x8 line, etc. etc. They also finally killed that damn numeric keypad trend from the late 1970s and early 1980s, where every game system just had to have a touch tone telephone receiver built into the front. You do not need this abundance of buttons! You could make gameplay a whole lot smoother and less confusing just by using a better interface.

 

Er, anyway. Unlike before when I was a mere spectator, I'm actually looking at the ColecoVision from the inside. I'm in the process of making a game, and have done several demos. It adds perspective, and makes me realize just how involved it is to make games, and by extension artwork, for this system. Donkey Kong looks kind of weird and simplified in the ColecoVision version of that game, because the hardware necessitated those changes. I don't know what you did to get around this, Opcode... I'm assuming you pulled out a heaping helping of those "magic sprites" Nanochess talks about to fill in the color gaps?

Yes, it's well-documented that they used the TMS9918 as their starting point, as Uemura himself mentioned in several interviews.

For those interested in technical details, grab a chair and let me explain. The capabilities and performance of a graphics chip are typically linked to its video memory bandwidth. The more bandwidth a chip has, the better graphics it can deliver. Surprisingly, the NES video chip (PPU) and the TMS9918 share the same bandwidth (and the same funny pixel clock as well). However, Nintendo achieved additional graphical capabilities through clever design choices. They relocated the sprite attribute table inside the chip itself, rather than in the VRAM. This optimization significantly reduced VRAM access during each scanline, allowing for better tile and sprite graphics.

On the other hand, the TMS still outperforms in some aspects. For instance, it allows VRAM access at any time during a frame, albeit with different timings, which isn't the case with the PPU. With the PPU, VRAM can only be accessed during VBLANKs, posing a significant constraint.

In our next magazine we should be discussing some of this for.... reasons....   Hopefully you will be helping us with that....

 

Oh, and by the way, still related to the CV, Sega was ready to launch an official ColecoVision for the Japanese market when they decided to scrap the deal with Coleco and pursue their own design, which turned out to be a clone. Consequently, after the ColecoVision, the video game world was inundated with ColecoVision "clones", one way or another. The TMS chip was the very first modern 2D video chip as far as consoles are concerned. And as much as I'm holding myself back from saying it, player-missile graphics leave much to be desired (aka suck).  

 

[+sramirez2008]

I just played a bit on my unmodded ColecoVision (S/N A1390777) and it played just fine. I did not try it with my SGM, I’ll try that next, when I have some more time. 

[Jess Ragan]

I'm old enough to remember a time when sprites were the deluxe package, rather than standard equipment on video game hardware. "Watch in awe as a small patch of graphic data is seamlessly moved across a complex background, without one affecting the other! It's like maaaaagic!"

 

(I remember back in 1996, when I was making shareware for DOS PCs, how distinctly irritating it was that there were no hardware sprites available. There were screen stamps, but they're not the friggin' same thing, due in large part to the lack of collision detection and the stamps polluting any graphics underneath them. It was 1996. 1996, and this hardware standard STILL didn't have sprites. The Commodore 64 had sprites! The TI 99 4/A had sprites! What gives, IBM?)

[Pixelboy]

4 minutes ago, Jess Ragan said:

What gives, IBM?

You kinda defeat your own argument there, Jess. When did anyone at IBM ever care about gaming? 

 

[+nanochess]

7 minutes ago, Pixelboy said:

You kinda defeat your own argument there, Jess. When did anyone at IBM ever care about gaming? 

 

I still cannot understand how I enjoyed at the time Burgertime, Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Columbia Invaders, Double Dragon, Space Quest, and others!

 

And I'm talking about CGA 4 colors and only the internal speaker sound! I was in awe!

 

[Jess Ragan]

Fair. There's a part in the BBC film Micro Men where Clive Sinclair actively expresses contempt for video games. "My lifetime of accomplishments has been reduced to Jet Set Fucking Willy!" That contempt for video games is further expressed in the ZX Spectrum hardware, which is hella cheap and completely unsuitable for video games. No sprites. A single channel buzzer for sound. Colors are kept a safe distance apart at all times, like dancing couples at a Mormon prom. I don't even think that system has a joystick port by default; you have to go out and get a Kempston adapter or some such. It's like whoever designed the internals of the ZX Spectrum cackled madly to themselves and shouted, "Just TRY and make this thing play games!"

 

Challenge accepted. There are thousands of ZX Spectrum games, and thousands of Generation X nerds in Britain who grew up with this machine, and still have fond memories of it. When there's a will, there's a way. People would (and have) gamed on a calculator, after all.

[opcode]

2 minutes ago, Jess Ragan said:

Fair. There's a part in the BBC film Micro Men where Clive Sinclair actively expresses contempt for video games. "My lifetime of accomplishments has been reduced to Jet Set Fucking Willy!" That contempt for video games is further expressed in the ZX Spectrum hardware, which is hella cheap and completely unsuitable for video games. No sprites. A single channel buzzer for sound. Colors are kept a safe distance apart at all times, like dancing couples at a Mormon prom. I don't even think that system has a joystick port by default; you have to go out and get a Kempston adapter or some such. It's like whoever designed the internals of the ZX Spectrum cackled madly to themselves and shouted, "Just TRY and make this thing play games!"

 

Challenge accepted. There are thousands of ZX Spectrum games, and thousands of Generation X nerds in Britain who grew up with this machine, and still have fond memories of it. When there's a will, there's a way. People would (and have) gamed on a calculator, after all.

Ha, this is funny. Clive Sinclair complaining about people using his machine for video games. What was he expecting? Serious applications? With that "keyboard"? You're correct, Jess, it is completely unsuitable for video games. But then it is completely unsuitable for anything else! Lol

[nick3092]

4 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

I just played a bit on my unmodded ColecoVision (S/N A1390777) and it played just fine. I did not try it with my SGM, I’ll try that next, when I have some more time. 

Afaik this does not take advantage of SGM at all. So you won't see any difference. Infact, if I have my SGM attached when I power on the Coleco with the cart, about 50% of the time I get a red screen at the capcom logo and it freezes up. Have to play reset roulette till it boots properly. 

[nick3092]

On 4/19/2024 at 10:28 AM, Dairladada said:

Oh that makes so much more sense. Is there a Rom file version of this game?

If you are a member of the CollectorVision club, it is most likely in the rom vault. Unfortunately, if you aren't, membership for this year closed April 1st. 

[Jess Ragan]

Do I dare ask what the hell is a Collectorvision club? I know about Opcode's thing, but Collectorvision is doing something too? There's like two competing ColecoVision game distributors? I greatly under-estimated this market...

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

Do I dare ask what the hell is a Collectorvision club? I know about Opcode's thing, but Collectorvision is doing something too? There's like two competing ColecoVision game distributors? I greatly under-estimated this market...

Indeed, both publishers have their club (and probably for the same reason I won't detail here). ColecoVision owners are rich apparently. 🤷‍♂️ It's weird to me as well but I've seen stranger things in the realm of retrogamers (like people "collecting" Analogue Pocket models).

[Dairladada]

10 hours ago, nick3092 said:

If you are a member of the CollectorVision club, it is most likely in the rom vault. Unfortunately, if you aren't, membership for this year closed April 1st. 

Does anyone has a backup?

[Dairladada]

14 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

I just played a bit on my unmodded ColecoVision (S/N A1390777) and it played just fine. I did not try it with my SGM, I’ll try that next, when I have some more time. 

The biggest difference should be sprite blinking.

[opcode]

11 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:

Do I dare ask what the hell is a Collectorvision club? I know about Opcode's thing, but Collectorvision is doing something too? There's like two competing ColecoVision game distributors? I greatly under-estimated this market...

 

Jess, it's been that way for quite some time now. We even had a third major publisher until recently (Pixelboy). But I don't really see myself as a "publisher" per se, at least not in the sense of publishing others' games, just my own, especially in the ColecoVision realm.

Those ColecoVision clubs pretty much do the same thing, you get a membership and games with them. But there are some differences as well. We announce the games beforehand, whereas CollectorVision keep  theirs under wraps until shipment. Both options offer great value if you're into the games they offer.