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Another Galaga thread


discotronic

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  • 7 months later...

It is likely that it is a very long wait until real progress on a real conversion - is what the situation is.

There is a programmer interested in working on this conversion - who has a real love for the coin-op game - but he is already tied up with various projects.  So you're in for a long wait.  I can't say anything more, than this obscure comment.

 

Harvey

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

I did nearly everything in parallel by restricting the A8 to only using the first 16K as RAM and not using the O/S. Then it's the same with a few bits of conditional code to handle the controllers/keys differently.

 

Scramble was released on the 5200 first because I'd spent a long time play testing/tuning parameters in NTSC to get to a point where I was reasonably happy with it. I'd not done any play testing in PAL, only sanity tests to make sure the graphics were OK and that it didn't crash. However the game felt very different under the slower PAL frame rate and I couldn't face going through all that play testing again so soon. I released the 5200 version (as it's NTSC only) and thought I would take a break and do something else, maybe return to do the PAL play testing at a later date if there was interest in an A8 version but unfortunately it didn't work out that way.

 

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Paul Lay @playsoft, you have really knocked it out of the ballpark (how ironic I say that during the middle of the MLB postseason at that!!!) with these builds of Galaga, these are far better than that "Galaga" titled game that is currently circulating around the 8-bit community right now. TWO BIG THUMBS UP!!! Now more than ever these builds have gotta be worked on to completion!!!

 

Now also, if @Thelen can come up with that improved version of his brilliant 2009 work "Yar's Strike" he wanted (and that my review on it inspired him to come up with, as I love it for Big Sexy, as it has become one of my favorite games on her) to do (and for you to port it over to the 5200, I'm sure you two can team up on it, that's up to you guys on that one) in which you ported for all of us 5200 owners, that would be the icing on the cake for the XEGS and then it's just "wait and see" if the Mean Hamster lineup of titles (and all the other 5200-only homebrews also) will ever be ported over and also if Keithen Hayenga will ever make Tempest available for the XEGS but at least I also own a 5200 to play those on as well.

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On 10/5/2021 at 5:35 AM, playsoft said:

Just GREAT !!!

 

Already better-looking than C64, better color, very fluid (NTSC), and very convincing audio (arcade-like) on game-start !

 

If this keeps going like this, it will be a TOTAL hit!!!!!

 

 

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On 10/5/2021 at 5:24 AM, playsoft said:

I did nearly everything in parallel by restricting the A8 to only using the first 16K as RAM and not using the O/S. Then it's the same with a few bits of conditional code to handle the controllers/keys differently.

 

Scramble was released on the 5200 first because I'd spent a long time play testing/tuning parameters in NTSC to get to a point where I was reasonably happy with it. I'd not done any play testing in PAL, only sanity tests to make sure the graphics were OK and that it didn't crash. However the game felt very different under the slower PAL frame rate and I couldn't face going through all that play testing again so soon. I released the 5200 version (as it's NTSC only) and thought I would take a break and do something else, maybe return to do the PAL play testing at a later date if there was interest in an A8 version but unfortunately it didn't work out that way.

 

Alright; I had thought the A8 version of Scramble was just converted -- when things were spurred on by Homesoft doing a 5200 -> A8 conversion (obviously before you had a chance to finish up your already-in-the-bag A8 version). I guess people get a little impatient, especially when it comes to high-quality productions like these.

 

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On 10/5/2021 at 8:44 AM, Jaden (JRH) said:

You might be interested in this. For inspiration, maybe.

Inspiration? No, sir, but it does mean that the Atari has to have Galaga now. I know that the Atari can do better in terms of sound effects (the awful SID sound effects just can't match up to the POKEY or even TIA), and graphics too. They 1-uped us before with Super Mario Bros, and we have demos of both Mario and Galaga for the A8 - just need them to be turned into real games. The demos for both look and sound amazing, almost as good as the source material, with Galaga even one-upping the 7800 version.

Edited by NoBloodyXLOrE
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On 10/5/2021 at 4:35 AM, playsoft said:

Excellent work here.  Looking forward for the finished product.

 

Your work on Scramble was excellent btw.  Thanks for all your contributions to the Atari community.

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2 hours ago, NoBloodyXLOrE said:

Inspiration? No, sir, but it does mean that the Atari has to have Galaga now. I know that the Atari can do better in terms of sound effects (the awful SID sound effects just can't match up to the POKEY or even TIA), and graphics too. They 1-uped us before with Super Mario Bros, and we have demos of both Mario and Galaga for the A8 - just need them to be turned into real games. The demos for both look and sound amazing, almost as good as the source material, with Galaga even one-upping the 7800 version.

With all respect to Sid, Pokey is better for its 4 channels although the first one has more technology in mixng sounds. Anyway, Pokey rules because its sound is clearer. Pokey rules !!!

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Having played both the 8-bit/5200 and 7800 versions this one is far superior to the 7800, but if you guys think this is something else then check out Galagon for the 2600 that @johnnywc and the folks at Champ Games put out for the 2600, it'll amaze you what they were able to do with that one, I even reviewed it on the 2600 Edition of The Atari Report in a previous episode. I'll post the link and the video for it later on on this thread.

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I've not done anything with the demo since it was originally posted, other than to include the music posted by Jaden and Synthpopalooza. I had planned to investigate what I could do for the expanding formation but ran out of time as I wanted to complete Runner Bear for the 2020 New Year Disk. After that I totally lost interest in 5200/A8 programming, it seemed to become a chore rather than a rewarding pastime. Later, Darryl got me interested in the 7800 after seeing what he had achieved with Popeye. I've enjoyed looking at different hardware and have started a couple of 7800 projects.

 

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