Gonna post these a few days early in hopes that bugs will be caught before I submit them. I haven't tested them on real hardware. NTSC only.
Star EvilA simple remake of the A52 game. I tried to make it faster paced and less glitchy, while still keeping some the original charm.
D-Pad: Move
A/B: Shoot
Start: Start Game
F-FFA basic racing game. Hit select on the menu to get 2p split screen.
D-Pad: Steer
B: Accelerate
A: Boost
Start: Start Game
Select: Enable second player (on menu)
Star Evil is interesting. I wonder how many people will miss it.
Edit: Beat it.
Star Evil looks promising. No bugs found at first glance.
I feel like I'm missing a lot of somethings. I can't evade or destroy the first blue square in Star Evil, and the game I get in F-FF is a lot more impressive than the preview image implies
Hint: the game has only begun when you think it is ...[]
FFF - I like the scanline effects.
Star Evil - As buggy as the original.
Edit to remove discussion about the car's drag redution mechanism.
Star Evil feels a bit postmodern.
I did find a genuine crash in it, too, but I have no idea how to talk about that without spoilering things.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
Star Evil looks promising. No bugs found at first glance.
Yeah, my first thought was "how can you even tell if it's a bug?"
Is the cheeseburger screen the real ending?
Punch wrote:
Is the cheeseburger screen the real ending?
Yeah. I was running out of space so that's it.
I did manage to crash Star Evil. The program counter was around $4000.
Both games make me want to play them more. Good work.
Jeez. Running either game in a debugger, with "break on bad opcode" is like looking into the abyss.
Setting a breakpoint on execution in $0000-$7FFF shows it jumping to PC=$2007 ??
FCEUX's execution logger shows this:
Code:
f1967 c58591625 i19216654 A:36 X:00 Y:44 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $8755:B1 12 LDA ($12),Y @ $0134 = #$07
f1967 c58591631 i19216655 A:07 X:00 Y:44 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $8757:85 36 STA $0036 = #$9D
f1967 c58591634 i19216656 A:07 X:00 Y:44 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $8759:C8 INY
f1967 c58591636 i19216657 A:07 X:00 Y:45 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $875A:B1 12 LDA ($12),Y @ $0135 = #$20
f1967 c58591642 i19216658 A:20 X:00 Y:45 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $875C:85 37 STA $0037 = #$8E
f1967 c58591645 i19216659 A:20 X:00 Y:45 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $875E:C8 INY
f1967 c58591647 i19216660 A:20 X:00 Y:46 S:FB P:nvUbdIzC $875F:20 6B 87 JSR $876B
f1967 c58591653 i19216661 A:20 X:00 Y:46 S:F9 P:nvUbdIzC $876B:A5 37 LDA $0037 = #$20
f1967 c58591656 i19216662 A:20 X:00 Y:46 S:F9 P:nvUbdIzC $876D:48 PHA
f1967 c58591659 i19216663 A:20 X:00 Y:46 S:F8 P:nvUbdIzC $876E:A5 36 LDA $0036 = #$07
f1967 c58591662 i19216664 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F8 P:nvUbdIzC $8770:48 PHA
f1967 c58591665 i19216665 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F7 P:nvUbdIzC $8771:08 PHP
f1967 c58591668 i19216666 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F6 P:nvUbdIzC $8772:40 RTI
f1967 c58591674 i19216667 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F9 P:nvUBdIzC $2007:00 BRK
f1967 c58591681 i19216668 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F6 P:nvUBdIzC $A620:40 RTI
f1967 c58591687 i19216669 A:07 X:00 Y:46 S:F9 P:nvUBdIzC $2009:00 BRK
That's the level loading code. It's probably trying to load an invalid level pointer.
What screen were you guys on? (you can PM me)
In this room, if you go through the right doors, and hug the lowest part if it (by pressing down + right as you go through) it will crash the game.
Oh, I see. I forgot to remove that hole.
Good find! Thanks. I'll put a fixed version in the OP.
star evil was really special and creative.
you'll probably get more eyeballs on your racing game if you post a more representative picture, it's pretty great too.
Pretty nifty stuff. I liked the way you did the bidirectional wavy title screen.
Didn't get all the way through Star Evil but I got a few things accomplished at least. Will try again.
I see lots of uninitialized memory accesses originating from $916D/$9165 in F-FF in NDX. Looks like a delay loop. Might cause interesting problems if the reads end up hitting hardware registers...
Quote:
Didn't get all the way through Star Evil but I got a few things accomplished at least. Will try again.
If you're stuck at the umbrella part, here's a hint. It might help to have a friend.
thefox wrote:
I see lots of uninitialized memory accesses originating from $916D/$9165 in F-FF in NDX. Looks like a delay loop. Might cause interesting problems if the reads end up hitting hardware registers...
Good catch. It is just for timing, so I can replace it easily.
Finally got around to playing F-FF... and wow!!! I love it!
I'm usually selective with racers but this captures the fun. It also makes me wish i had part in it (like any good game does).
This game is very pure. Has a lot of style.
Only things i wish it had (it's not even nitpicks - it's a wish list from a fan):
-Three lives as not to scare away the easily discouraged.Maybe as easy/normal mode, with one life being hardcore mode. You'd still want to come back for a better score. This would help game owners encourage friends to dare play it if it starts at a casual level!
-And medals! With graphics (however small in size) that feels rewarding to see. or lacking that, just maybe differently coloured text on your lap times as to signal "try harder" "ok" "good" "great".
-Maybe an even more differently looking second player although i love they share a similar taste in cool shades.
I couldn't make heads or tails of Star Evil. I kept dying in different ways and nothing made sense. It seemed like it was supposed to be a parody of VVVVVV, but my impression was probably wrong.
IMO, this Star Evil is more of a postmodern homage to the 2600's Adventure.
I quite liked Star Evil. I enjoy its originality and weirdness, it's fresh. And I like puzzling, obscure, head-scratching games.
Finally getting around to playing some of the compo games this year, and gave both of yours a try.
F-FF was kinda cool - not a style of game you see often on the NES. The controls felt quite responsive.
Ii had a lot of fun with Star Evil. (Bet those are words that have never been said before this version!) I managed to get to the end after a few tries. There were a few good puzzles and the aesthetic really worked. The bomb thing was really cool, and the spots that triggered glitching were pretty entertaining. The checkpoints felt well-placed too - dying was unfortunate but never sent me back frustratingly far. Well done!
Star Evil got me
I wasn't aware of how "adventurous" this game was until Mtee told me "game over" screen is not the end.
Even so, I wasnt able to finish it.
The game seem to softlock randomly on AVS+Everdrive combo...(can anyone confirm?)...and the player character is animated regardless of what player is doing, and with seemingly incorrect tiles, which doesnt seem to be the case on FCEU.
Did anyone tried F-FF on AVS+Everdrive? Seems to crash after menu selection...
But I played on FCEU and seemed fine. I like how colorful palette seemed to be.
Really cool concept, not your everyday homebrew idea, haha.
EDIT:
Never mind, I updated AVS firmware and both games work fine now.
Both games working flawlessly on real hardware* using
Chris' MicroSD Cartridge.
na_th_an wrote:
I quite liked Star Evil. I enjoy its originality and weirdness, it's fresh. And I like puzzling, obscure, head-scratching games.
Same here, really fun and surprising game - I'd definitely play a lot more (part 2 please?)
* - bunch of old school / legit Famiclones (such as Pegasus) and Twin Famicom.
dougeff wrote:
In this room, if you go through the right doors, and hug the lowest part if it (by pressing down + right as you go through) it will crash the game.
on competition-version, no special care to where you touched edge of screen seemed necessary to crash game.
I ran both on PowerPak and they seemed to work fine, aside from the mentioned crash.
I'm wondering how that's the ending if it's accessible as the first thing you find…
F-FF is fun+hard and technically-surprising. (Dicey was the first I finished any lap on.) I wonder how much mapper trickery could improve the look to make real lines. (OBviously not for A53, but…)
Star Evil: My praise for this concept has already been stated. It did start to lose my interest in the later portion a bit. I especially enjoyed the envelope and flame interaction and the concentric circle maze. Graphically, I would have made a lot of different decisions myself, but I don't think they'd necessarily be better. The only thing visually that turned me off was the hand-scrawled "BK" tiles.
F-FF:
- Absolutely love the menu screen and the driver designs
- The title screen is visually impressive, but doesn't feel like it belongs with the gameplay or menu screen (perhaps color choice for the title screen could help?)
- It would have benefited from a visual indicator of the 2-player option. I don't feel there's any reward for keeping this mode hidden.
- Infinite respawns during 2-player mode. This really is a must for the game to be enjoyed by players of varying skill levels, and I'd say that since the modern NES market skews toward an older crowd, the second player will often be children, spouses, other non-gamers (But even if not, continuing to play after your couch mate has been killed isn't enjoyable for either player.) Moreover, the time lost from a respawn is enough motivation to keep it competitive.
- Is there any way at all to get varying sized sprites drawn instead of the arrow for the other player?