Compo 4 All - When Do We Get More MAME Games?


Kumaki

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Joined
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I'm looking for a few seriously good ones:

Aliens

Arkanoid

Berzerk

Bomb Jack

Bosconian

Burger Time

Centipede

City Connection

Crazy Climber

Defender

Dig Dug

Frogger

Galaga

Gaplus

Gorf

Gyruss

Joust

Jr. Pac Man

Juno First

Mad Gear

Millipede

Missile Command

Moon Patrol

New Rally X

Nibbler

Pang

Qix

R-Type

Roboton

Rolling Thunder

Sinistar

Super Pac Man

Time Pilot

Time Pilot '84

Wizard Of Wor

Yie-Ar Kung Fu

Zero Wing (all your base are belong to us)

And a few others which would also be a lot of fun

Alpine Ski

Mega Zone

Tapper
 
Problem right now is.. the existing c4a-launcher display is full! Got a few more to drop in from pmprog etc, but.. need to fix up the launcher first! .. few more days .. should have c4a-manager out soon (for now, just a profile editor, as separate pnd), and then work on c4a-mame clean up a little, then rewrite server and drop in some new features, add in desktop support, r-pi, etc... goodness!

jeff
guessing this might help, some times i read things wrong
 
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Skeezix has planned to rewrite the server side aspect of c4all due to the scope this project expanding so rapidly, so asking for lots of new games might not be on his urgent list at the moment (and that's when he actually has time in his real life to do any work on it) though I'm sure he'll get round to that as quick as he can, just play the existing games for a while and let compo4all evolve nicely :)
 
Because _wb_ was one of the first developers to jump on the bandwagon and adapt his game to the new system. an early adopter if you will...

Honestly Kumaki,  a new system has to be built one piece at a time. Quite often the most visible effects of the more important pieces are going to be things you have less interest in,  but they still need to be done first  in order to lay the foundation for features you *do* have an interest in.

- Neelix
 
Well, I thought it was just a matter of being able to get the scores...and folks have been giving files of scores of all sorts of cool games.

I do not understand the process, so forgive me my impatience to see the stuff I *want* to see.

It's just that the past few adds have been all games I have no real interest in.

I was *hoping* we could get some update with some stuff I *am* interested in.

I didn't mean to criticize or anything...just wanting to know why the cool stuff isn't in there yet.
 
Well, I thought it was just a matter of being able to get the scores...and folks have been giving files of scores of all sorts of cool games.

I do not understand the process, so forgive me my impatience to see the stuff I *want* to see.

It's just that the past few adds have been all games I have no real interest in.

I was *hoping* we could get some update with some stuff I *am* interested in.

I didn't mean to criticize or anything...just wanting to know why the cool stuff isn't in there yet.
That's the process : http://www.pandoralive.info/?p=185

It's time consuming. Please be careful before "demanding" stuff :) If it was straightforward you can imagine someone would have done it, right?
 
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Patience, I'm a huge fan of Comp4All, and willing to take quality over speed.  Hoping the new launcher is similar to the old, just maybe a scroll bar for the game list is all thats really needed.
 
Just remember.. coding is a lot of work; and this is something that started as a prototype, and has moved into something that peopel really like, so I've got to solidify and scale up a lot of the code. And I've got 3 kids, two of which are very small and often sick lately (babies, they do that), so I've not had even a pinch of free time the last two weeks :(

So it may not look like things are moving much, but trust me.. they are, in the time I have available; notice the two indie games are up (and as many more as want to join!); Iv'e got to add pmprogs decoded game or two there, and work on more.. but I also need to change c4a-mame launcher so it filters out the indie titles it doesn't know what to do with, fix the dialog box blanks, re-arrange the UI so it fits more games nmicely.. and also get out the stndalone c4a-mamager app (For profile maangement for indie games or other games that c4a-mame.. not eveyone wants to play mame, to get profiles for c4a anymore!)...

Theres a lot of directions f work, not just adding more games; need to fix quality of life :)

I also work on the firmware when I get time, and have some other projects on the go :)

Whenever you feel the need to ask for more (this isn't the first time ;) , remember this post .. I'm one of the buesit people (we all are, but I'm by no means un-busy :) , and I do what I can :) Once I get a certain level of maturity in the code and infrastructure (its lame a shell right now, but as I'm enjoying it, I'd like to keep working on it a bit more before I fully open it), I'll open it up, which may help.

oh, also, I'm trying to get r-pi builds of this stuff going, and integrate desktop and other platforms; redoing the server side to be more database driven, and handle all these platforms.. and update the sinterface for milkshake, so he can allow options so you can see the pandora/only version as now, or see pandora+desktop+r-pi in direct competition if you want to, or any subgroup you might like...

.. lots behind the scenes :)
 
OK.

I was just wondering WHY Pandora Microbes instead of something retro cool like the ones on my list.


*ow* this is a pretty harsh statement :)

- Microbes is awesome, by the way

- We do want to encourage more Pandora exclusives and homebrew!

- Your preference for retro does not mean everyone shares this world view*

- We do want C4A to possible grow up and be a pandora-wide (or other devices) crazy platform, right?

jeff

* okay, I'm mostly in for the retro crazy myself, but its important to serve your audience and not yourself when devving :)
 
Well, I thought it was just a matter of being able to get the scores...and folks have been giving files of scores of all sorts of cool games.

I do not understand the process, so forgive me my impatience to see the stuff I *want* to see.

It's just that the past few adds have been all games I have no real interest in.

I was *hoping* we could get some update with some stuff I *am* interested in.

I didn't mean to criticize or anything...just wanting to know why the cool stuff isn't in there yet.


Getting the scores is just ther first step; it can be time consuming (getting a game working, getting a hi score in it several times and collecting the files together.. it takes a little time; doing it for many games, really asdds up.) But its still the smallest piece of it; actually writing the code to support those games (decoding and encoding the scoring information) is more work (and I also need to add more types; right now we're doing score-attack single-score type entries, or high score tables; I need to support stage+score titles one of these days too, and some other game types .. as is, theres whole classes of games we cannot support yet)

So yeah, Asmo and so on sending scores is a _big help_ .. I just don't have time to play games much (sigh), so this lets me get direct to the coding in the time I get.

Sadly, not enough time lately.

(I admit, I'm also designing an 8bit gaming system, of my own, retro style in pure old school digital electronics. But that doesn't take as much time as my coding projects.. I'm waiting on parts that have multi-week lead times, too. But I also have an RPG game in the works, and a strategy title.. but those are on hold until C4A matures a bit more..)

jeff
 
As to launcher.. I'd like yo fully rewrite it, with a more graphica  presentation (something like Minimenu; game list on the left, screenshot on the right, or info panel on the right.. but graphicalyl driven. Be cool to make it with accleration kinetics too, scrolling speed and such, but no time for such frivolity..) .. but thats way down the road :)

For now, the ghetto launcher will likely remain, just tweak it (not overhaul it, due to time) to get it better for our current needs.. but baby steps, all things in time :)
 
OK.

I was just wondering WHY Pandora Microbes instead of something retro cool like the ones on my list.


*ow* this is a pretty harsh statement :)

- Microbes is awesome, by the way

- We do want to encourage more Pandora exclusives and homebrew!

- Your preference for retro does not mean everyone shares this world view*

- We do want C4A to possible grow up and be a pandora-wide (or other devices) crazy platform, right?

jeff

* okay, I'm mostly in for the retro crazy myself, but its important to serve your audience and not yourself when devving :)
ROT = RETRO Online Tournament.

All the same, thanks for letting us all know what's going on that we CAN'T see...and please, please, please, get some more cool retro games next!!

retro retro retro retro!!  Retro = The only way to go!!
 
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too all the coders/porters/devs not sure on all terms and the list of names is too long i know you hear it all the time(a lot by me) but

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE TIME AND HARD WORK and i wish you all the best

ps been thinking you all should just take a few weeks off :)
 
(So, who wants to buy a home-made retro-styled game console, that has no games avaiable for it, but anyonme can code for? ;)

4K fast-RAM, maybe 12K of 'slow RAM'

(programs can be flashed/cartridged up to 64k .. so RAM is RAM not storing all the code

multicore .. one for cpu, one for 'gpu' that drives a VGA display

An absolutely mighty 240x180 display, with 64K framebuffer! (bow before our might 240x180 display!)

(no hw double buffering yet, until I get a supplier for the chips I need, without paying an arm and a leg!)

- two bit colour + 2 bit brightness! (RRGGBBII 8bit colour) for 'truecolour' mode, or RGB888 paletted mode

- todo still working on: GPU with basic options (not yet coded); hw panning, hw light/darkening, hw sprites (8x8 for first firmware cut)

- todo .. cartridge support ;)

So you too can have an 8bit machine, with less RAM than a C64 and no audio support (well, maybe I'll get some SID chips to drop in there :p )

Anyway, months of work yet to do, to get this working right ;)

The RAM chip I need is $25-$50 per chip (and need 1-2 per machine) .. funny the cpu costs like 80c, and the RAM chip for 'slow RAM/framebuffer' is like 50x that :)

Anyway, no, I'm not selling any, still just working on my prototype (its just a big mess of wires, like 300 jumpers on a giant breadboard.) But if it actualyl starts working right, I might actually etch out a few and manually assemble a couple, for lulls. Ghettos machine ever :)

jeff
 
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Another idea.. if anyone wants to work on a launcher, thats fine by me! The protocol to communicate with C4A is trivial and IC an document/publish it, but a lot of it is already known with the stuff I've published for the homebrewers.

No reason I can't keep a 'reference' ghetto launcher, and someone else can write a fancy one!

Hell, someone coudl just take the minimenu source, and hack it all to hell (not too big a deal) and make that into a launcher (I may do this myself; stil be ghetto, but time efficient and easy to handle scrolling and such.) But if someone else wants to do a launcher, that lets me focus on the server-side which woudl mean much more rapid updates.

Food for thought ;) Let me know if you want to jump into the fray, just as milkshake has done by taking over the web frontend, someoen else can take on the launcher/client!

jeff
 
All the same, thanks for letting us all know what's going on that we CAN'T see...and please, please, please, get some more cool retro games next!!

retro retro retro retro!!  Retro = The only way to go!!
way to slip that in there thought this was going to turn into another kumaki vs ??. wasn't there when i posted or i might not have in such that way.

wish i could help but can't code at all
 
okay, sickest idea of the last week..

- port ZXDunny's zxbasic to run on sed machine, and thus have native BASIC (lol); add keyboard support to the peripherals, not just joystick like now..

- add ZXBasic to C4A, with lines of code as the score metric, or perhaps program-size (ignoring DATA statements.)

jeff
 
Another idea.. if anyone wants to work on a launcher, thats fine by me! The protocol to communicate with C4A is trivial and IC an document/publish it, but a lot of it is already known with the stuff I've published for the homebrewers.

No reason I can't keep a 'reference' ghetto launcher, and someone else can write a fancy one!
I'm interested! My Tower Defence project is getting me down at the minute (The more I look at it, the more I realise I'm just writing a clone of somebody elses game, which I can already play), so I'll be up for some menu system.

Edit:

- add ZXBasic to C4A, with lines of code as the score metric, or perhaps program-size (ignoring DATA statements.)
Interesting idea, but don't count lines of code, anyone can write dozens of lines of code that do nothing.
 
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