Let's help Skeezix & b_o_b add games to Compo4all MAME

[Kumaki]

Here's a little inspiration to get some stuff added!!

 

[Asmo]

I have that CD - with it's signed Pac Man guide inside!

Going Berzerk is great.

 

[Kumaki]

Yes it is.  I have all the songs on MP3

I had the original vinyl long ago, but it got lost or ruined or something in my many cross-country moves.

 

[Asmo]

Bagman (bagman.zip)

Commando (commando.zip)

Donkey Kong 3 (dkong3.zip)

Madgear (aka Led Storm) (madgear.zip)

Space Duel (spacduel.zip)

Wizard Of Wor (wow.zip)

Major Havoc (mhavoc.zip)

PanMameSaves11.zip

 

[Kumaki]

NICE!!! Mad Gear and Wizard Of Wor!!

 

[klapse]

Thanks Asmo for Space Duel.

 

[skeezix]

Note: Each byte of the high score stores the score visually correct, but not digitally. ie, a value of "25" in hex does not equal 19, it actually equals "25". Below is my default hiscore file

look up BCD .. this is what you're seeing; binary coded decimal

It was very common early on.

jeffquick

Ah, I see someone said that I've been tempted to make c4a take a config file to describe the format of hi-files, so people like you could add games as well, but not figured out a good way to consistently describe them yet. That said, a lot of games do fall into simple patterns... score is BCD and 3/4/5/6 bytes or nibbles long, for instance; if not BCD, coudl just be binary. Occasionally you see an oddball one that is offset by one, or some other encoding entirely.

the name encoding can be messed up.. theres a few common ones ("A" as 0, or ASCII, or "A" as 17 ("11" in hex), or a few others.. but many games are just their own unique encoding.)

Still, all we _Really_ need to get working is the _Scores_.. the rest is nice to have, and helps the decoder get accuracy.

But we could make a 'heres a simple config file, that works for the following games' sort of config file; it would not work for all games, but could at least work for some, in the rudimentary way, and then pmprog or whomever could add some games.

As you can see, decoding hi-files is often not too hard, it just takes time; usually about 15-mins to figure out the hi-file and add the code for me, but getting scores in to test it, and fiddling with the server and tesitng and such.. a good half hour turn around. Just getting a few hours for me, is tough right now

But if you like, dumping specs here as you've done above, I can add those pretty quick.. astill takes testing though, but that cuts my time from 30misn to 15 for the above..

Tomorrow is pretyt busy, playing catch up with RL, but I should be able to add those this week

 

[Ethelif]

I know I lurk 99.9% of the time but I think ill help out with getting Gradius on once I get home from work.

 

[pmprog]

But we could make a 'heres a simple config file, that works for the following games' sort of config file; it would not work for all games, but could at least work for some, in the rudimentary way, and then pmprog or whomever could add some games.

How about something like this:<game>
<c4a_id>chasehq</c4a_id>
<engine>MAME</engine>
<mame_settings>
<rom_file>roms/chasehq.zip</rom_file>
</mame_settings>
</game>

<record occurances="1" description="Non-score related save data">
<binary length="4" />
</record>

<record occurances="10" description="Top 10 high scores">
<bcd length="3" byteorder="MSB" key="score" />
<binary length="3" />
<ascii length="3" key="name" />
<binary length="6" />
</record>
Chase HQ doesn't actually have a 4 byte padding at the start of the save file, I just thought I'd add that to show how you could real with it with this format.
You could then read the file using the "record" nodes looking for the score and name keys (or at least the score key). If we found a save that used ROT13 ASCII on the player names, you could extend the "ascii" node type to have a "rot13ascii" node type which decoded the rot13

 

[Asmo]

Nemesis (aka Gradius)(nemesis.zip)

Konami GT (konamigt.zip)*

*(wildcard driving game, pity pole position 1 or 2 don't seem to record scores as they work well with d-pad despite having pseudo-analogue controls!)

PanMameSaves12.zip

 

[Kumaki]

Ninja'd.

I was gonna say Gradius does not work, you have to use Nemesis.

 

[Kumaki]

Not to put on pressure, but when do we get more games on C4A??

 

[skeezix]

Hopefulyl within a few days; the little time I had last week I instead worked on getting the ability in for non-mame games to come on board .. adding 'single score' score-attack type games to C4A now is no effort on the server, just work for the porters/devs in their own pnds, and a conf-file on my side. (I also need to update c4a mame to not show them in the mame launcher, but thats easily done..) -- so I'm hopeful over the next week we'll start seeing milkshakes page showing a few of our indie games and ports in C4A, and then add in pmprog's mame score details .. should be a good week, with luck.

jeff

 

[Kumaki]

What's the chances on Crazy Climber, City Connection, New Rally X and Burgertime being among the ones added in the next week?

 

[b_o_b]

A few more done, same as before - zip has both vanilla high score files and ones with my score entered, also text file with the relevant info.


Defender (defender.zip)


Mappy (mappy.zip)


Amidar (amidar.zip)


Galaga (galaga.zip)


Final Fight (ffight.zip)


Ladybug (ladybug.zip)


Asteroids (asteroid.zip)


The New Zealand Story (tnzs.zip)


There are a few others I tried with odd results - Robotron works (ie it keeps my high score) but creates no file of any kind in the hi folder...

I think all my favorite mame games are in this list  

 

[ptitSeb]

A few more done, same as before - zip has both vanilla high score files and ones with my score entered, also text file with the relevant info.


Defender (defender.zip)


Mappy (mappy.zip)


Amidar (amidar.zip)


Galaga (galaga.zip)


Final Fight (ffight.zip)


Ladybug (ladybug.zip)


Asteroids (asteroid.zip)


The New Zealand Story (tnzs.zip)


There are a few others I tried with odd results - Robotron works (ie it keeps my high score) but creates no file of any kind in the hi folder...

I think all my favorite mame games are in this list

Pretty much yes Maybe also RType (already posted I think), SlapFight, Wardner, Xain'd Sleena and Exerion woud be great.

 

[gotwake424]

DEFENDER!! DEFENDER!!!

Now how do I transfer my high scores from "The real deal" to my pandora?

 

[Asmo]

Simple, replicate your high scoring game!

Do you own the worlds only backwards defender cab or did you shoot the pic in a mirror?

 

[gotwake424]

Simple, replicate your high scoring game!


Do you own the worlds only backwards defender cab or did you shoot the pic in a mirror?

Webcam picture, Let me grab a better picture 

 

[skeezix]

Billiards table and Defender == well done Thats my goal too .. got a new place with more space .. once the little rugrats grow up a bit, I'm nabbing a full size pub billiards table from a clearance auction..

jeff