Poll Closed - Additional Free-For-All entries now posted

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:15 pm

Wow, awesome entries! Thanks to everyone for working on all these! And great ideas, shiru! Good job everyone.

mbrenaman · Post by **mbrenaman** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:16 pm

I just tried out the entries with my PowerPak, and I'm impressed.

Thwaite: This one was really challenging. I only made it to the end of the second night. But I had alot of fun. I look forward to seeing where you take this project.

FHBG: Very unique, though, I think something is wrong with the collision detection. The player's character kept getting stuck on the walls

LAN Master: I really enjoyed this one. I managed to plow through all fifty levels in about forty minutes. There where some issues with the ending screen though. The music didn't play at a steady rate, and there where several flickering sprites on the right side of the edge of the screen.

Lawn Mower: This one was also very enjoyable, and very challenging. I didn't have any issues with this one on real hardware.

I look forward to purchasing the multi-cart and supporting the competition. Great job guys!

NESHomebrew · Post by **NESHomebrew** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:01 pm

mbrenaman wrote:
LAN Master: I really enjoyed this one. I managed to plow through all fifty levels in about forty minutes. There where some issues with the ending screen though. The music didn't play at a steady rate, and there where several flickering sprites on the right side of the edge of the screen.

I also had this problem with an earlier revision of the rom. The newer one worked fine in an emulator (shows a scrolling message), but I hadn't tried it on hardware yet.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:11 pm

It always worked in all the emulators. If the problem was visible in an emulator, I'd fixed it long ago. It is also second time when none of emulators shows a problem that is present on hardware.

I'll try to fix it when I find someone with PP to test my fixes.

Post by **tepples** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:02 pm

Bad news: Some of the 16 KiB games were linked at $8000-$BFFF and some at $C000-$FFFF. This means the fixed-$8000 mapper used for my last multicart won't be so helpful.

Good news: The NMI handlers of Thwaite and Lawn Mower are identical, so they can share a bank.

Code: Select all

nmi_handler:
  inc nmis
  rti

And I should be able to hijack FHBG's NMI handler to act as the NMI handler for the menu code itself.

So the most likely candidate mapper for making this multicart is probably #34 BNROM. Here are a few sources of BNROM compatible boards:

Deadly Towers was released on BNROM.
AOROM games can be rewired to BNROM.
SGROM, an MMC1 board, has a BNROM-like mode.
BNROM and SGROM compatible boards are available from RetroZone.
Memblers made UNROM and GNROM compatible boards; I guess he should be able to make BNROM.

Oh, and NovaYoshi sent me a revised copy of FHBG, after he did some intense debugging on the hitbox placement.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:13 pm

Why not ask for a recompiled version of the 16KB games?

Post by **Memblers** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 8:32 pm

I made a BNROM-type board, prototyped it almost 2 years ago and never ordered more because I hadn't needed it yet. It was that unpopulated yellow one I brought to the MGC show. It can go up to 512kB. It says "Garage Cart" on it, unless we want to pay $80 to get the design changed (I'd just as well not, it'll be in a case anyways

).

We'll probably have a lot of space for music (if not, we could use tokumaru's CHR codecs, heheh). Would be cool to get the space filled up with some interesting music, if we use NT2 I have some stuff, tepples has some great stuff too (that Mouser remix seems suitable here, heheh). If given the chance, I'd also nominate Neil Baldwin to make something.

I thought it was fun with Garage Cart, for the menu music on there there is a default song when you power it up, but when you reset it plays a different song depending on what game you played last (but you can change it with the controller anytime also).

Post by **tepples** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:08 pm

Memblers wrote:I made a BNROM-type board [...] It can go up to 512kB.

Then that settles it: BOROM (#34, 256 KiB PRG) it is, despite that it's a slight waste of ROM space. The games put together total 96 KiB PRG and 40 KiB CHR. But at least this way, each game will get its own 32 KiB PRG space with its own vectors, even if half that space is covered up by other games' compressed CHR.

We'll probably have a lot of space for music

Someone compared one of the entries to the Action 52 games. Action 52 opens with the "Yeah! Woo!" sample from "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins. How hard would it be to recreate that drum line in NT2?

(if not, we could use tokumaru's CHR codecs, heheh).

I was already planning on using the same codec I used for the MGC cart. The fixed version of FHBG uses only about 6.5 KiB of its PRG after Nova stripped out a bunch of dummied-out code, and I'd bet at least two games' compressed CHR (if not three) would have fit in the remaining 9.5 KiB if we were still using 16 KiB banks.

Are there any official graphics to be used? The MGC cart used the logo from the MGC web site.

mbrenaman · Post by **mbrenaman** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:45 am

It always worked in all the emulators. If the problem was visible in an emulator, I'd fixed it long ago. It is also second time when none of emulators shows a problem that is present on hardware.

I'll try to fix it when I find someone with PP to test my fixes.

I'd be more then willing to help you get it fixed, especially if the fix can make it on the mutli-cart. PM if you're interested.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:39 pm

mbrenaman, I'm actually PMed you few hours before your post, and still got no answer.

Anyway, I made an attempt to fix the problem. Those who both have PowerPak and know the passcode to the final cut, please download updated version, check it, and tell me if the problem is still there.

Edit: as mbrenaman reported in a PM, the ending screen problem is fixed, but there is other one, when you continue the game using a pass code, a part of the cursor is missing. I made another fix that needs to be tested, download link is the same.

NESHomebrew · Post by **NESHomebrew** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:05 am

tepples wrote:Are there any official graphics to be used? The MGC cart used the logo from the MGC web site.

I hadn't thought about it. I suppose I could whip something up unless you already have something in mind.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 12:14 pm

The bugs in Lan Master were fixed with help of mbrenaman. Both the game and source code available on my website. I think it is good idea to update it on the compo site too.

Post by **tepples** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:39 pm

Thanks. Now I have an improved FHBG and an improved Lan Master. Now I just have to coax my menu software to boot the ROMs with 32K bankswitching.

For the multicart, I'll need 64x56 pixel screenshots and 32x32 pixel icons. Here are the pictures I came up with. If you think you can do better, go ahead (limit 4 colors, one of them black).

NESHomebrew · Post by **NESHomebrew** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 3:54 pm

Looks really good Tepples.

I'll update the rom on the the competition website for you as well Shiru.

Also, if anyone wants me to link their name on the nesdevcompo website to a profile/website anywhere let me know. Who knows, someone might want to track you down or get ahold of you somehow.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:12 pm

Meanwhile, I was reported about a rare, but nasty bug in Lawn Mower. Haven't fixed it yet, need some time to figure out how it happens (misaligment of the lawn mower on the screen and in memory if you pick the fuel at the moment when it runs out).

Edit: it is fixed now, files are updated (there was a minor change in Lan Master by tepples request as well).

Poll Closed - Additional Free-For-All entries now posted

Should we post the roms?