Bluey: The Videogame
Xbox Series X 2023@4340
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo Switch 2023@3991
The Pathless
PlayStation 5 2020@4352
Uurnog
Windows 2017@4355
Ballblazer
Commodore 64 1985@4329
Hot Wheels: Unleashed 2 - Turbocharged
PlayStation 5 2023@4354
Some games challenge the structure of this database. Different games and new platforms calls for changes in different parts of the database, some suggest new Systems, some suggest new types of relations between games.
An example of the latter is Digital Eclipse's Atari 50 collection that inspired the redesign of emulated game collections, where the collections contained a list of references to the games emulated, instead of having to recreate the emulated games for every collection that included them. This helped to keep information about a particular game in one page, instead of distributing it over several versions of the exact same game.
The same goal of keeping entries for the same game running on different platforms on the same page lead to the invention of the system category Multi-platform Computer Games. It captured that I was playing games such as Rogue and Nethack, which were essentially exactly the exact same game, but running in consoles on different platforms, be it Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. The platform differences seemed so pointless that I decided to create a new category for the terminal-based multi-platform computer games.
The Steam Deck is basically a handheld PC running a Linux variant. However, even though Steam OS is based on Arch Linux, it is still a separate OS. A similar situation is the Xbox One that runs a modified version of Windows. Like a console, the Steam Deck has well-defined hardware specifications and controls. I felt that playing the Steam games on the Steam Deck shouldn't be listed as playing them on Windows, which is just incorrect, and adding them as Linux games also seems wrong, if only because the games are running on a handheld system, which is very much not the traditional Linux gaming experience. So the Steam Deck got its own system category.
When new console hardware is released, a new System is created in the database. At other times, systems can be created for different, less obvious reasons. For instance, a new subsystem category can help to find games when the existing system has grown to be too large.
A good example of that is the Arcade games category. This was the second system represented in the database, but the sheer number of entries in the arcade category invited for subcategories, and some of the earliest subcategories were Capcom's CP System that played Street Fighter II and many other arcade games, as well as the Neo Geo, which existed as a home console as well. But with more than 300 games currently in the Arcade games category, it is at times too large to be able to get an overview of. In 2021, I was closely following the System 16 MiSTer core development, which enabled games such as Golden Axe, Altered Beast, and Alien Syndrome to be played on the MiSTer. Having those games grouped in an arcade subsystem category was very useful for keeping track of them. Later on, more arcade hardware platforms were added, such as:
Some platforms are defined by software, not hardware. As any computer scientist will tell you, though, there is no substantial difference between hardware and software platforms from the point of view of the software running on the platform. Two examples of software platforms are PICO-8 and Dreams. PICO-8 is a virtual console, with a predefined resolution and palette. It seemed like just as much of a games platform than any hardware-based one.
Dreams was published as a PlayStation 4 game, but it is mainly a very unique games platform, similar to the more commercially successful but less aesthetically appealing Roblox.
And now, UFO 50 challenged my thinking yet again. First, I considered having it as the same type of minigame collection as Atari 50, with all the games having their own pages, and Windows as a system. I didn't like that I would have these very unique 50 games floating around in the Windows category, so I started working on a different approach. I introduced a new feature for having custom named sections in the game log, to support each minigame having its own section. However, after writing a few notes for the UFO 50 games I had played, the UFO 50 page became incredibly long and hard to find anything in. Finally, I decided to make a new software platform for the UFO 50 games, similar to PICO-8 or Dreams, except the games are not created by users.
PCSX2 is Great - I was trying to get this to run in RetroArch with the LPRS2 core, but I had some bad texture bugs in the cemetary that I couldn't figure out how to get rid of. Now I installed the newest PCSX2, which seems like a very well-designed and user friendly emulator these days, even with RetroAchievement support. The game has no graphical issues in the cemetary, and runs at around 12% CPU with software rendering. I guess this is the way I play PS2 games from now on.
No Split-screen Campaign Unbelievably, this game is tagged as local coop on the store, and has a menu where you can enter a coop campaign, and even allows you to start it - but after a countdown, nothing happens. The split-screen campaign was never made! But the game pretends it's still there.
"In order to improve and accelerate ongoing live service development, and to better address player feedback and quality of life updates, we have reallocated studio resources and are no longer working on local campaign split-screen co-op" - 343 Industries, quoted from IGN 2022-09-01
My brother set up a virtual Windows machine that can actually run games, and invited me to Parsec in and play. I played for a few minutes with mouse and keyboard, driving a Jeep and shooting some dudes. It worked flawlessly and felt incredibly responsive. What an incredible era we live in where I can play an action game on a virtual machine through video streaming software and barely noticing that I'm not playing on my own local machine.
Console Clapperboard I came up with an efficient way of recording videos of console games with discrete runs. Before starting the video recording, I go to the dashboard where the current time is visible, note it down on my laptop, and start recording before I go back to the game. When the game is done, I note down if it was worth editing or not. Now I have a recording time and a note about the recording, and I can quickly discard bad recordings when I'm editing.
I have a nostalgic fondness for first-person maze games, and all-but-dead genre that saw its heyday in the late 1970s to the early 1980s. You walk around abstract nondescript corridors, slowly and methodically exploring a maze.
The actual game mechanics of these games vary - in common is the tile-based movement and 90 degree rotation, but apart from that you might be shooting monsters, picking up items, activating devices, communicating with NPCs, or simply perform the absolute essence of the genre - find your way out of the maze.
The graphics (or lack thereof) play an interesting role. Firstly, the first-person perspective immediately places the player in the experience. Unlike most games from the era, players do not have to make abstractions to place themselves in the environment, they are just there. However, at the same time, the graphics are so incredibly simple that they most often convey the bare minimum of lines or flat-shaded surfaces to imply the 3D space that you are in. So while players become immersed, they still need to use their imagination to fill out most of the experience.
What are the walls made of? What is the lighting in this maze? What ambience can be heard? Are we in an underground structure or in Cyberspace?
Other genres such as traditional Roguelikes also require players to use their imagination also because the graphics is represented in a highly abstract form using ASCII art and the like, but in first-person maze games, the graphics exhibits a unique combination of being easily immersive while still being highly abstracted.
I have started a list of Street Fighter games that are fun and balanced for casual players such as myself in single-player.
The short list of highly recommended games:
- Street Fighter Alpha 2 - diff 2/8 - 8 rounds
- Street Fighter 6 (PS5) - Arcade mode CPU level 5
- Street Fighter: The Movie (PSX) - Street Battle (12 fights)
More can be found on the Street Fighter Series page.
Inspired by how cool this collection is, I decided to redesign how game collections are represented in this database. For pinball games, I had a nice solution where I would have a page for the original game itself, and then references to collections that emulated the game. For instance, Black Hole is currently emulated in 4 different games, such as Visual Pinball for Windows and Pinball Arcade for PS4.
For emulation packages with video games, I used to have a page for each emulated version of the game, so Street Fighter II would have a separate page for
I think the ports require a separate page, because they might be very different from the original, but the emulations are less unique and less deserving of their own page.
I have reorganized most of these Game Collections with emulation references to the original games, and moved entries that used to belong to the specific emulated games to the original game as well, to gather them in one place. The only downside to this structure, is that the entries from emulated games should probably mention which game collection I'm playing the game in.
I have now gone through the Digital Eclipse collections:
And other collections:
And even Street Fighter 6 which contains a rotating roster of Capcom arcade games.
Pinball collections were already represented this way:
Including, of course, the Farsight Studios' 'Pinball Hall of Fame' series:
In the 1970s-1990s, the standard aspect ratio for games was 4:3. On modern TVs and many PC monitors, the aspect ratio is 16:9. When developers write emulators for old games, they have to make a choice how to handle this discrepancy. The considerations for emulated arcade games and emulated home console games are different.
The worst solution is to stretch the 4:3 image to 16:9, ruining the proportions of the graphics. On the other hand, if we retain the 4:3 aspect ratio and scale the image, we will have a quarter of the screen area unoccupied.
For example, on a 4K display, the native resolution is 3840 x 2160
. If the emulated 4:3 display takes up the full height, its width would be 2160 / 3 * 4 = 2880
. The unoccupied area would be 3840 - 2880 = 960
, which is 960/3840 = 1/4
of the full display.
If the emulated display is centered, we will have borders on both sides of the emulated display. And what is done with these borders varies among emulator developers.
Often, real arcade machines have artwork around the display, which is referred to as a 'bezel'. Commercial arcade emulators such as Atari 50 will often reproduce the bezel of the original arcade cabinet on the sides of the emulated display, which ideally makes the experience of playing the emulated arcade game closer to playing on a real arcade machine.
For many arcade games, I personally think the bezels take away from the immersion. If I'm playing a real arcade machine, I try to focus all my attention on the screen, trying to ignore everything around me, including the physical arcade cabinet. The bezel and the rest of the cabinet artwork might attract me to the game, but once I put in my quarter, I don't want to be reminded of the cabinet anymore. Perhaps an ideal emulation would show me the arcade cabinet including the bezel, and then, when the game starts, the bezel could fade away, leaving only the emulated 4:3 display visible.
On the other hand, the artwork that is part of the display itself, such as backdrops and colored overlays, is key to the experience, especially in games from the 1970s and early 1980s, where these optical illusions were designed as part of the games themselves. I'm reminded of classic games such as:
Commercial emulators of console games such as the Mega Man Legacy Collection will oftentimes have artwork in the space next to the emulated display, similar to bezels. But this doesn't emulate anything related to the original game.
The closest equivalent to arcade bezels for a home console game would be photographs of the borders of popular TVs from the era. Only few commercial emulators go for this option.
Having artwork on the side of the screen for a console game doesn't make any sense to me. It is not emulating any part of playing the game on the original console. The best choice is borders in a neutral color, and ideally black. It's easy to ignore, and easier to immerse yourself in the game itself, which is what I want out of an emulator.
Sometimes, I don't understand what made an old game a success. Crystal Castles is quite famous. Through a period of 6 years it was ported to 8 home platforms. The Atari ST port got an almost perfect score. I don't get it.
The game is a maze game like Pac-Man from an isometric perspective. That's cool, I like those. It is one of the first isometric games, only preceeded by Congo Bongo, Q*bert, and a few more. It has a quite different style from those, an abstract, almost cyberspace-like look, and several levels have big letters as part of the geometry. It's weird, but neat. The bear and trees and other stuff populating these levels don't really fit that well, but it's OK.
However, as a maze game, the level design isn't that great, it commits the maze game sin of double-wide paths with dots in many levels. But the worst part is the controls. It is played with a trackball, and unlike Marble Madness, where you are rolling a ball freely over open surfaces, here you are constrained to the cardinal directions in most cases. A trackball feels really awkward for this, and to make it worse, the game is insanely fast. It feels messy and frustrating. I don't understand what people like about this game.
Malu and I were discussing how to play this game in coop. The game doesn't have a split-screen mode, and it only runs on PS5. We only have one of those, so I needed an other option. I ended up buying it on Steam, which I already know should work with cross-play. The first time you start the game, you are forced to sign in to a PlayStation account. Signing in to my own PS account was scary, what if the game didn't support cross-play with yourself? The first couple of times we tried joining each other it didn't work, but eventually, it did, and we can play together, two syltefars against the universe.
Today we were playing on the couch with my laptop as screen, doing remote play with my workstation. I kept the joypad connected to the workstation for minimal latency (inspired by Stadia).
This is embarassing, but I never managed to find any of the super secrets. Tonight I couldn't sleep - still jet lagged from GDC, I supposed - and started to investigate.
I didn't stay completely unspoiled, I knew that there were codes hidden in the environments and should be input in a normal key code area, that the codes might be longer than 5 inputs. I had seen a hint image with 5 symbols on it, that seemed to indicate the numbers 2-5 and a diamond shape. I knew that one of the codes was hidden in the sounds of a reflecting shield in Sun world, and I thought I knew one was hidden in some red grooves in the columns in Cloak world after 29% (the red groove count from left-to-right being 35124), and one on the pipes of the pipe puzzle, possibly encoded as little bumps on the pipes. However, I think those last two might have been dropped during development.
I couldn't get the pipe puzzle code to make sense, and I tried to input the one I spotted in the columns (35124) many times in every key code input without any luck.
I looked at the hint image and scrubbed through a playthrough video and found the symbols along with two more symbol rows in the secret area around 84%.
The diamond shape looked different than the others, which I interpreted as it being a 0. I decided that symbols represented the side count of the symbol polygons, which is the way I normally remember the codes - 0, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The symbols then spelled out the code:
2 3 0 5 4
0 5 2 3 4
3 2 4 5 0
I tried to input the full 15-digit code in every key input in the game, all failing.
What was wrong?
Frustrated, I watched a few seconds of a hint video on YouTube. After seeing 3 code inputs in the video, I quickly realized that my interpretation of the symbols was wrong. The code in the video started with the sequence 2,3,1 when counting the inputs from left-to-right!
I rewrote the codes with diamond as a 1:
2 3 1 5 4
1 5 2 3 4
3 2 4 5 1
I went back to 24% and tested it out and it worked!
I think my knowledge of development stuff and my own memo technique for the key inputs had confused me needlessly. But now I understand, and I just have to find those symbols in the rest of the game.
My understanding is that every code is in the world where the corresponding key input is, which should make it slightly easier.
I'm currently not producing enough videos to keep up the insane pace of releasing one video per day on YouTube, which I've been doing for years, resulting in almost 3000 videos on my channel. I've decided to start releasing fewer videos, and try to improve the presentation instead. My first step towards this is to add little bumpers with text with some basic info about each game. Getting this to work was quite a journey, where I had to learn how to generate text and concatenate clips using ffmpegs filter_complex
option (which is quite tricky). I now have a script where I can run a few scripts to generate clips with info text, and concatenate clips, as well as crop and scale them correctly based on game platform. For reference, here is the ffmpeg command-line I had to generate for my first Phantasy Star II video:
ffmpeg -y -ss 00:00:00.000 -t 00:00:06.000 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/text-intro.mkv -ss 00:00:01.516 -t 00:00:39.328 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/4K60_S+_004_001.mkv -ss 00:02:50.783 -t 00:14:31.533 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/4K60_S+_004_001.mkv -ss 00:00:00.000 -t 00:00:06.000 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/text-grinding.mkv -ss 00:00:23.916 -t 00:08:20.298 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/4K60_S+_004_002.mkv -ss 00:00:05.996 -t 00:34:19.664 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/4K60_S+_004_003.mkv -ss 00:00:00.000 -t 00:06:15.331 -i Genesis/2024-03-10/4K60_S+_004_004.mkv -filter_complex " [0:v:0][0:a:0][1:v:0][1:a:0][2:v:0][2:a:0][3:v:0][3:a:0][4:v:0][4:a:0] [5:v:0][5:a:0][6:v:0][6:a:0]concat=n=7:v=1:a=1[outv_unscaled][outa]; [outv_unscaled]crop=1216:920:(iw-ow)/2:(ih-oh)/2,scale=iw*2:ih*2[outv]" -map "[outv]" -map "[outa]" -filter_complex highpass=f=20 -acodec flac -c:v libx265 -crf 20 -preset ultrafast upload/mister-gen-phantasy_star_2-1-2024-03-10.mkv
I was in Las Vegas for the DICE awards, and Erwin and I took a trip to the 'Pinball Hall of Fame', a wonderful place for anyone who likes old pinball machines and arcade games. I spent $20 in a couple of hours playing as many machines as I possibly could.
This table was so cool for a huge Simpsons fan like me. Great colors, many details, and voice samples from the series.
I've been thinking about how games with hexagonal grids and tile-based backgrounds work together. Home computer strategy games has had hex grids since 1979, but it's more rare in console games. Rendering a hexagonal grid on framebuffer-based hardware isn't very complicated, but doing it using tiles is less trivial. I noticed that certain strategy games of the 8-bit and 16-bit generation such as 'Nobunagas Ambition' (1986) which was ported to everything had hex grids on home computers but rectangular tiles on consoles where every other horizontal tile is offset half a tile. This implies the same neighbor relationship as with a hex grid, but is much simpler to implement on tile-based hardware. This game and Master of Monsters are early examples of nice looking hex grids on a console that only has tile-based backgrounds and no framebuffer.
I investigated the VRAM tile data in Mednafen, and it seems like the maps are not made using hardware tiles, but rather, the whole screen is directly represented in VRAM, emulating a frame buffer. When the hexagonal tiles are drawn as an overlay, they are drawn to the VRAM tile data. Implementing a frame buffer for a strategy game where the background is rarely updated makes sense.
When the grid lines are being drawn, it happens over several frames, and you can see individual lines being drawn.
'Justice League: Task Force' is a DC Comics fighting game for the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo, a spiritual predecessor to Injustice: Gods Among Us, if you will.
The game itself is less interesting than the story that seems to emerge from the credits listing. That story involves two famous developers working in parallel on two games with the same title and concept, with the involvement of a publisher that went bankrupt before the game came out.
Both developers are legends of the game industry, and they would undergo a big change the year after this game came out.
This game was published by Acclaim Entertainment, a prolific publisher that started in 1984, publishing games of varying quality for the NES, and was shut down in 2004 due to securities fraud. However, this game was published in 1995, when they were still going strong.
On the title screen, we find a copyright notice by Sun Corporation of America, the US branch of Japanese company Sunsoft. Sunsoft developed and published a bunch of games that included the DC Comics license, such as Superman for the Genesis, the two good NES Batman games, and several more.
However, even though the credits list staff from Acclaim, noone from Sunsoft is present. I started wondering what their involvement had been.
According to segaretro.org, the game came out early 1995. The timing is interesting, because Sun Corporation of America went bankrupt in February 1995 after having lost millions on golf course investments in Palm Springs. So, around the same time as the release of this game.
A possible explanation for the Sunsoft name being in the game could be that they had the original publishing rights, which Acclaim could have bought after Sunsoft saw the writing on the wall. Of course, this is pure speculation.
On the title screen, it says 'Developed by Condor, Inc.', a name that wasn't immediately familiar to me. As I was first researching the developer, I noticed that there was a SNES version that came out at the same time - with the same publishing credits, but a different developer. The developer was none other than Blizzard Entertainment. In fact, the SNES version has many key developers in common with WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, which came out the year before, sharing producers, artists, and composer.
So, after learning that Blizzard was involved, I was even more curious about who 'Condor, Inc.' were. I could never have guessed that 'Condor, Inc.' was the previous name of Blizzard North! In fact, this version of Justice League was created by developers from the Diablo team, including programmer David Brevik, art by the Schaefer brothers, and music by Matt Uelmen.
So we have the Warcraft team on the SNES Justice League game, and the Diablo team on the Genesis Justice League game.
Condor, Inc. was purchased by Blizzard the year after this game came out. Condor was based in San Mateo, California, and the company that would buy them was in Irvine, California, a 7-hour drive away.
A closer look at the SNES and Genesis games reveals something surprising: one is not a port of the other, as I would have expected. Rather, they are different games!
The concept is the same: a Justice League fighting game, but that is where the similarities end. The two games have different sprite art, different backgrounds, and different gameplay.
So, Acclaim would have these two California-based teams working on two different games with the same title and game concept, without ever hooking up and sharing a single sprite or background.
Making new fighting games is hard, I don't know how this seemed like a good idea for Acclaim.
I would love to hear the full story, it has all the elements for great business drama: a well-known license, two legendary companies, bankruptcy, and the mystery of two different games with the same title.
Some of the games give me trouble because of the weird N64 controller layout. My main problem are the 4 C-buttons, which are next to A and B on the right side of the controller: they don't map well to any controller with 4 buttons on the right side. I searched a bit for USB N64 controllers and adapters, but think I found an even better solution:
The 'HORI Fighting Commander OCTA for PS5' works with fighting games on the PS4/5 and has 6 buttons on the right side. This might just work well for emulating a N64 controller, as I can map △/○/R1/R2 to the C-buttons, and it has more or less the same D-pad and joystick configuration as the N64 controller. We'll see if it works.
I got the HORI now, put it in PS5 mode (PC mode didn't work on MiSTer), assigned the buttons, and it seems to work very well for the Nintendo 64. The controller feels good, the buttons are precise microswitches, the D-pad is great, and the joystick feels good with a nice smooth octagonal gate. I'm proud of my solution to the N64 controller problem, and the HORI should come in very handy for playing fighting games on the PS5 as well.
My SanDisk Ultra 256 GB SD card seems to have died recording this game. It's been used a lot, so it's fair that it's retiring now. I will order a new one.
When using headphones plugged into the PS5 controller, the PS5 doesn't output audio to the TV, which means I record no audio on the Elgato. Mission 9 recording was lost due to this mistake. I think this game is cursed.
I never played a SG-1000 game before. This is the predecessor to the Sega Mark III, also known as the Master System outside Japan. The games on this system have a similar look to them due to a fixed 256x192 resolution, a fixed 16-color palette, and 32 monochrome sprites. The ColecoVision MiSTer core both emulates the ColecoVision and the SG-1000, due to these two systems sharing the same CPU (Zilog Z80), same video display controller (Texas Instruments TMS9918), and same sound chip (Texas Instruments SN76489, also used in both the Master System and the Genesis). The original MSX computers also shared Z80 and the TMS9918 video display controller.
For a while now, I've been using a custom MiSTer video filter with interpolation and subtle horizontal scanlines. Everything looks great, but I realized that arcade games with vertical monitor orientation should have vertical scanlines, not horizontal ones. I never really looked for this, but confirmed it with YouTube videos of the real arcade hardware. I have now made a corresponding vertical video filter for games like Space Invaders.
The CRT display is mounted facing upwards, reflected towards a semi-transparent mirror, behind which is a plastic cutout of the planetary surface. The reflection of the CRT appears over the cutout, serving as a backdrop. The CRT had colored overlays on the display itself, to add color to the black and white image. Thus, both the colors and background of Space Invaders are non-digital optical effects. Also note that the actual CRT image is mirrored to appear correct in the reflection.
(Photo by dbrainjr on ebay.com)
The host of this site was down between June 10th and today due to a hardware failure. I felt a bit homeless in this time, because this and other of my websites were down, but the main problem was in my work, where we use this host as a production server for our company. Now it's back up and I can log that we have been playing and enjoying the early parts of Diablo IV a lot, and we are now around level 25. I'm playing Beastor, a druid were-bear that destroys everything in its path, and Malu is a sorcerer, freezing and burning enemies with powerful magic. The game is great, character building is complex but well-explained in a way that reminds me of Magic: the Gathering - I'm particularly impressed with how well-designed the skill tree is. The game also seems well-balanced on World Tier II, it's mostly easy, and then, once in a while, the challenge makes it feel exciting. The graphics is amazingly detailed, and sound design and music is very satisfying.
The final campfire rotating disc puzzle was too annoying to solve, so I employed brute force Ruby scripting:
# Final camp puzzle # Positions are triples [inner, middle, outer] # - adjusting left is negative, right is positive start_pos = [0,0,0] target_pos = [2,3,4] # relative to start_pos moves = [ [" in ->", 1, 0,-3], ["mid ->", 0, 1,-4], ["out ->",-1, 1, 1], [" in <-",-1, 0, 3], ["mid <- ", 0,-1, 4], ["out <-", 1,-1,-1] ] puts "Moveset:" moves.each do |m| puts m.inspect end def do_move(pos, move) # rotate 'pos' as specified by 'move' [(pos[0]+move[1])%10, (pos[1]+move[2])%10, (pos[2]+move[3])%10] end (1..5).each do |move_count| print "." (0..10000).each do |t| # retries pos = start_pos movelist = [] (0..move_count).each do |m| # try 'move_count' random moves move = moves[rand(6)] movelist.push(move) pos = do_move(pos, move) if (pos == target_pos) then # solution found! # Moves correspond to vector *addition*, order of moves doesn't matter movelist.sort!{|a,b| a[0] <=> b[0]} puts "solved in #{move_count} moves after #{t} retries. " + "pos:#{pos} target_pos:#{target_pos}" puts "start #{start_pos.inspect}" pos = start_pos movelist.each do |solution_move| pos = do_move(pos, solution_move) puts "#{solution_move[0]} #{pos.inspect}" end exit end end end end # solved in 5 moves after 1110 retries. pos:[2, 3, 4] target_pos:[2, 3, 4] # start [0, 0, 0] # in -> [1, 0, 7] # in -> [2, 0, 4] # in -> [3, 0, 1] # mid -> [3, 1, 7] # mid -> [3, 2, 3] # out -> [2, 3, 4]
I received my no-name NES controller, which according to the packaging is '100% Quality'. It actually feels good, I played a bit of Mega Man, and it works as expected.
For the first time, we used AI to help us solve a puzzle. The game had a puzzle that included solving the (very simple) equation:
x-100+10+1=1810
I asked ChatGPT to solve it:
x-100+10+1=1810, solve for x
and it gave me the correct answer, 1899.
I received the Retro Bit SEGA Mega Drive 6-B - my first official Genesis hardware, new in box - and set it up on the MiSTer. The controller feels exactly like my old 6-button Genesis controller, it feels good and responsive, and the cable is nice and long.
I'm setting an Everdrive-style shortcut Down+Start for the OSD.
I considered using the MODE button for OSD. This button was added to the 6-button controller to be able to switch the controller to a backwards compatible 3-button mode during game startup in the few games that didn't support the 6-button controller, but as it turns out, the MODE button is a normal button, and several games use it for in-game functionality, so it should be mapped correctly on the Retro Bit.
I got my Joy-iT gamepad in the mail, and tested it out on the MiSTer. It kind of feels like a SNES controller, but the D-pad is really mushy and it doesn't feel good. The original controller has the same problem, but I think it's even worse in this clone controller.
I also realized that it's quite annoying to not have a OSD button on the controller (opens the MiSTer menu to select a new core/game). In the MiSTer menu, you can set up a button combo for OSD, and I want to use an Everdrive-style shortcut Down+Start for the OSD.
I ordered a bunch of USB retro controllers for playing MiSTer games. I don't know if they are good quality or not.
I hope they work, but if they don't, they weren't that expensive.
After having recorded a lot of games for YouTube, including games from 50 years ago, and even VR games, it feels almost strange that I can't capture the experience of playing Doom in 120 FPS at all. Right now, Doom can only be seen in 120 FPS if you are physically in front of the appropriate hardware. I guess that's the way it always was before the 2000s.
The company bought a PlayStation VR2, and I tried going through the setup process. The eye tracking was amazing to try for the first time. The calibration tool has little dots that you can look at to trigger sounds of different pitches. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was playing an instrument with my eyes, a fascinating experience. I played a bit of Resident Evil, it plays more or less like RE7 in VR. The 3D audio was very effective, I clearly heard the direction of the blinking light from the car. In the first house with the spooky werewolf sounds, I noticed another PSVR2 feature - the headset rumble, which was used very efficiently to anticipate a loud sound.
I played a little bit on RetroArch on my phone and got a few RetroAchievements. I might be addicted to RetroAchievements.
I'm not proud of this. Easy RetroAchievements, though.
This ... game ... fits right into my current interests of getting RetroAchievements and games with cool dinosaurs. Mindlessly buttoning through and selecting white for every surface is probably the quickest way of getting all the RetroAchievements.
I colored all dinosaurs and got all RetroAchievements.
I played both the Japanese and Western releases of this for RetroAchievements. It's fun, except that I can't get the 'play without doing X'-style achievements to work. The Japanese version is much easier to deal with, because you can spam the punches extremely quickly compared to the Western version.
Controls from page 4 of the manual:
I learned that you can emulate a joypad on the MiSTer by setting up keyboard keys in the system menu and then pressing ScrollLock
or NumLock
to switch modes when a core is loaded. I set up the keys like I normally do, ASDF
for directions, JKL;
for face buttons, and UI
for shoulder buttons. Thus, key mappings for console games will work like I expect them to. However, for mapping this to an 6-button arcade system is less obvious. I ended up setting up the same mapping I would have on Super Street Fighter II on SNES, which I think of as the canonical fighting game console port.
This game doesn't have a CPU or ROM memory, and the rocket graphics is actually represented directly on the board as diodes. The art for the space ship are clearly visible in both the schematics and the physical board:
Thanks to the Retrogame Deconstruction Zone for finding this example.
This is a test of my new text rendering, SylteMarkup, based on Markdown. For now, you can make references:
Game links: [Fire Power](@746)
Fire Power
Year links: [1987](year:1987)
1987
Images: ![Fire Power screenshot](/images_full/firepower_amiga.png "Description text")
Apart from these special links, it has the usual Markdown stuff, such as bullet lists:
In MiSTer OSD: Mount disk 0: NEWDOS*.DSK Mount disk 1: [game disk] List game files: DIR 1 Example files: APSHAI/JCL <- chain file (script, like a BAT file) SWAMP/CMD <- binary STUFF/BAS <- BASIC program Starting APSHAI/JCL: chain apshai Starting SWAMP/CMD: swamp Starting STUFF/BAS: basic runstuff/bas
I immensely enjoy playing and recording the game. This is turning into a problem.
In the last 22 days, I have recorded over 33 hours of elden ring, which ends up around 1.5 hour / day. While I'm slowly uploading edited videos to YouTube and waiting for them to process, I have currently a nightmarish 1.2 TB of raw Elden Ring footage on my SSD, slowly filling up the 2 TB.
I have 3 options:
Bio Hazard (JP PSX March 1996) Resident Evil (US PSX March 1996) - Censored cutscenes for violence - Disabled auto-aim - Less ink ribbons Resident Evil: Director's Cut (PSX Sept. 1997) - Seems like the best version! - Adds ADVANCED and TRAINING mode - Standard gun has random crit chance - Difficulty should be like original Japanese version - Adds auto-aim Resident Evil: Dual Shock Ver. (PSX Aug. 1998) - Maybe avoid this one! - Analog controls - Bad soundtrack credited to Mamoru Samuragochi (although he didn't write it) Resident Evil (GC 2002) - Complete remake Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (NDS 2006) Resident Evil (PS4 2014) - remaster of GC 2002 version
As the PSX MiSTer core is maturing rapidly, I started looking at the prospect of having a complete collection of PlayStation games on it. PlayStation games are on CDs, up to 700 MB and there are almost 8000 games for it. A complete collection is not practical yet, so I had to find a reasonable subset.
The 'Redump' collection of US-released PlayStation games is 500 GB, packed with 7-zip. Extracted, it will take up maybe 25% more, around 630 GB. My old MiSTer SD card has 256 GB total. I needed some new hardware.
I bought a SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I 1 TB for 1000 DKK and did a clean MiSTer install. I can copy the games from the old SD card, and will still have plenty of space for all the US PSX games and even a few Japanese and PAL exlusives.
After 30 years of playing RTS games, I have realized something about myself: I don't like story-based RTS campaigns.
To be clear, I love many elements of the RTS genre:
However, what I don't like are campaign missions where a story is told through scripted events on an RTS map, where you move a small group of units around, learning to use their abilities, defending bases, rescuing units.
I don't like that many of the missions will have sequences where the gameplay boils down to moving a single unit or small group of units around and activate their abilities once in a while. When I realized that this is the part I don't like, a question came to mind: Moving a unit using a mouse cursor and activating timed abilities is exactly the gameplay of action RPGs like Diablo. I like Diablo. So why is this type of gameplay fun in Diablo-likes and not in RTSes?
Firstly, the production time spent by a developer on a single hero unit is obviously going to be limited by the number of other units in an RTS. Thus, we wouldn't expect the controls, abilities, and animation to be as sofisticated as those of a Diablo character. Usually the RTS unit will have less refined controls, less abilities, and less detailed animation. So, from the facts of game development, the part of an RTS that plays like Diablo is going to be less refined than Diablo, where this part is the entire game. The Diablo-part of an RTS is going to seem like a 'cheaper' version of Diablo.
Secondly, I think games like Diablo keep your attention by leveling up your character and making them more powerful as you play, making earlier enemies easier to defeat, and enabling using new loot. These elements are rarely present in RTSes, and even if they are, they will be pretty shallow. The progression in these sequences are then mostly based on getting through a mission, rather than empowering your character.
Most story-based RTS campaigns don't reinvent the wheel, but fall back on these types of missions pioneered by games like StarCraft. Many players seemed to enjoy this type of campaign in 1998, and RTS developers retained these tropes since.
I don't enjoy playing this type of campaign anymore, and I might resign to just focusing on skirmish modes, where you just play matches against AI enemies.
I wish that RTS developers would focus on making a simple but effective metagame such as conquering world maps or leveling up your units. The missions themselves should be based on the core gameplay that make RTSes unique: building bases and commanding groups of units.
I recently published the 1000th video on the OCDgamer YouTube channel, an account that I created in 2006. I was fascinated with the idea of recording videos of games and putting them online, and the first game video uploaded to my channel was from the weird PS3 game Noby Noby Boy, which had built-in YouTube upload support. I recorded 50 seconds of weird snake creature tangled around a rotating thing from a friend's PS3, and uploaded the video on March 28th, 2009. I looked at the metadata for the video, and learned that the filename uploaded from the game is
o----o.mp4, an adorable little ASCII Noby Noby Boy worm.
The second video I uploaded was more exciting, it was an input recording from March 2010 of me beating the original Mega Man for NES. The final 10 minutes of the game included a difficult boss rush and a final boss fight. The emulator supported recording my key presses, and I could replay the input and record an .AVI after having beaten the game. I uploaded the result to YouTube.
These kinds of videos were fun, but I didn't have a good general way of recording from Xbox 360 and PS3 games. However, that didn't stop me, and in 2011 and 2012, I recorded a bunch of videos with a laptop camera pointed towards the TV. The games I have horrible quality videos of include Uncharted 2, Gatling Gears, Transformers: War for Cybertron, and Gears of War 2.
December 2013 I bought myself a PlayStation 4, and a few months later I used the built-in video recording and uploaded a difficult boss fight in glorious 720p 30 FPS of the PS4 Strider game. This was the future of game recording: built-in recording in the console, with a button for capturing a video of a number of minutes of gameplay back in time.