New 7800 Homebrew: Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest

Started by TL, May 17, 2012, 14:22:56 PM

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TrekMD


Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

That is utterly superb! Gorgeous use of colour, impressive parallax scrolling and appropriate music.

If only the Atari 7800 had this game at retail in 1986  :20:

TrekMD

Quote from: "The Laird"That is utterly superb! Gorgeous use of colour, impressive parallax scrolling and appropriate music.

If only the Atari 7800 had this game at retail in 1986  :)

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

Quote from: "TrekMD"
Quote from: "The Laird"That is utterly superb! Gorgeous use of colour, impressive parallax scrolling and appropriate music.

If only the Atari 7800 had this game at retail in 1986  :)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the only additional hardware that this game used was a POKEY chip?

TrekMD

Quote from: "The Laird"
Quote from: "TrekMD"
Quote from: "The Laird"That is utterly superb! Gorgeous use of colour, impressive parallax scrolling and appropriate music.

If only the Atari 7800 had this game at retail in 1986  :)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the only additional hardware that this game used was a POKEY chip?

I believe it also takes advantage of the extra memory offered by the XM and the Yamaha chip.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


Shadowrunner

Looks like a fun game! Love the music too  :)

TrekMD

Laird, I just confirmed the reason for the XM with this game is sound-related.  Here is what Bob posted on AA:

Bentley Bear is still an XM game for the sound.  The 256K boards are for the bank-switching.   They can be used with or without the XM, depending on their application.  (i.e. Bentley Bear wouldn't be able to use the RAM on the XM because I'm using that area - $4000-$7FFF - as ROM for the sprite graphics).

Bob

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TL

Just sound then, so it could actually play on a normal machine if it had a POKEY cart like Ballblazer or Commando, very impressive.

TrekMD

Quote from: "The Laird"Just sound then, so it could actually play on a normal machine if it had a POKEY cart like Ballblazer or Commando, very impressive.
Except sound also uses the Yamaha Chip.  POKEY alone won't handle that.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


PacManPlus

Thanks for the kind words, guys :113:

Actually, the only thing I will be using from the XM is the Pokey at $450.  As stated above, I can't use the memory (don't really need it here anyway), nor will I be using the HSC or the Yamaha.

Synthpopalooza is doing an excellent job converting the music for this, and we only have background music for 3 levels and the 'defeat boss' music left.

I may release a NON-XM version, which has sound effects, but no background music.

I'm actually working on another arcade port at the same time...
Bob
[size=80]Charge... attack... shoot... kill... destroy...[/size]

TrekMD

Cool!  Thanks for the update.  How about releasing a cart that looks for POKEY and provides the background music.  Something like what was done with Beef Drop?

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


PacManPlus

Hey!

You mean between to choose TIA and Pokey?  Unfortunately, I have about 32 bytes left in ROM code space. (Nor would I have any space left in the banks after all of the Pokey music has been added).

Having two sets of sound drivers + data  for them would require much more space than I have. :(

Bob

TL

Quote from: "PacManPlus"Hey!

You mean between to choose TIA and Pokey?  Unfortunately, I have about 32 bytes left in ROM code space. (Nor would I have any space left in the banks after all of the Pokey music has been added).

Having two sets of sound drivers + data  for them would require much more space than I have. :(

Bob

Great to see you hear Bob.

I think what Trek is saying is - would it be possible to release a version that just has a POKEY chip in the cartridge like Ballblazer, Commando or Beef Drop?

TrekMD

Actually, no.  What I'm saying is something like Beef Drop VE.  The cart uses TIA sounds but the games does search for a POKEY chip.  If there is no POKEY, TIA is heard.  If the POKEY is detected, then POKEY sound works.  So, the Beef Drop VE carts should work with the XM because of that functionality.  Not being a programmer, I have no idea whether or not this is an option for Bob.  Rather than do two releases (XM and standard), could one release be done that would recognize the presence of the POKEY chip on the XM.  If I understand what he says, though, this can't be done because there isn't enough memory left to do it.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


Greyfox

This was released right? or is it still in production? , Just browsing through some old posts today and had a keen eye on this to see if it was out?