#msxdev Compo 2014: two games published

Paragon (1908)

06-01-2015, 22:39

I was about to sit down and write up a newspost for this John, but you beat me to it I would like to add that Mr. Balloon shows that small games work just as well on a MSX2. (in regard to what people often say... "MSX 2 games take too much effort/time.. lets go for small msx 1 games"). I for one love the gfx/colors of it I hope, like Mapax, that this will inspire people to make more MSX2 games, regardless of size.

Some more news: As you can read on the #msxdev compo website, Numbers is still being worked on and will be released outside of the compo. So that is some nice additional good news

And then, about my own entry: I apologize to everyone who had high hopes for my game, for not making the deadline. I will see if I am able to finish it later.

btw small nitpick: maybe you could add an indication of the year (2014) to the title or newspost, for future reference

By Manuel

Ascended (15287)

06-01-2015, 22:47

I guess it lent the title screen?

Anyway, very impressive that our 8-bit MSX2 can pull this off!
But is it me or is there no way to start Pointless Fighting? Whatever keys I press or joystick buttons I press, it's just continuing with the demo... (or showing the title screen music).

As for Mr. Balloon: I really like the nice music and graphics. But I don't find the game play that interesting. It's really polished though.

By syn

Paragon (1908)

06-01-2015, 22:57

About PF: you need to press something before the title music ends

By mars2000you

Enlighted (5467)

06-01-2015, 23:10

Two nice new games. Probably Pointless Fighting is the most impressive, but indeed Mr.Balloon has also its charm, especially because I prefer puzzle/dexterity games.

Unfortunaly Mr.Balloon seems to use a feature that is not supported by blueMSX, so I will need openMSX to run the game. However, blueMSX has been very useful, I've already all the cheats and even seen the final screen .... what a nice surprise, music has been made by John Hassink and he's so talentuous!

Concerning Pointless Fighting, I will for sure change the keys with the blueMSX Input Editor, because keys 5 to 8 for keyboard 1 are not what I prefer. I will use CTRL - GRAPH - SPACE - CODE/KANA, i just need to check what's the best use of these 4 keys.

By Manuel

Ascended (15287)

06-01-2015, 23:15

Yes, pressing ; before the title music ends helps (Otherwise you have to watch through the whole demo.)

By Manel46

Champion (388)

06-01-2015, 23:25

Mr Balloon, it sure works well with BlueMSX.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (5467)

06-01-2015, 23:35

Manel46 wrote:

Mr Balloon, it sure works well with BlueMSX.

Which version are you using ? I've black lines in the puzzles and you lose a life really fast because of these lines. You can also see imperfections on the title screen and the pre-puzzles screens.

By Manel46

Champion (388)

06-01-2015, 23:30

Versión 2.8.2

By Manel46

Champion (388)

06-01-2015, 23:31

Emulating MSX2, MSX2 + and MSX Turbo R

By mars2000you

Enlighted (5467)

06-01-2015, 23:41

Manel46 wrote:

Versión 2.8.2

Thanks! I've just checked and there are no any problems with version 2.8.2 (or in the first 2.8.3 beta).

The problems I've mentioned are in unreleased 2.9 (that I use generally). So, we have found new bugs in this version!

By Latok

msx guru (3636)

06-01-2015, 23:36

Two awesome games. A great result for the #msxdev compo. Congratulations to the organizers And to the developers of course. I've been enjoying Pointless Fighting for the whole evening now. Amazing playability!

I'm really happy with these MSX2 games using its graphical capabilities. And especially Pointless Fighting with its 128kB RAM requirement and support of other hardware such as Moonsound and Joymega.

MSX is so much more than MSX1 and practically every active MSX user either has a very extensive MSX setup or has the knowledge to emulate the required setup in openMSX.

Thumbs up to #msxdev for recognizing this and for their persistence in organizing its compo. I'm sure it has a great future ahead. Let's all enter #msxdev15

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

06-01-2015, 23:53

just a curiosity. Anyone allready tested this on megaflashrom SDD + SD 512 KB?

By Manel46

Champion (388)

07-01-2015, 00:13

Daemos:
Mr Balloon, perfect in MegaFlashROM SDD + SD 512 KB

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

07-01-2015, 07:57

Quote:

Mr Balloon, perfect in MegaFlashROM SDD + SD 512 KB

Sorry I meant pointless fighting.

By valkyre

Champion (399)

07-01-2015, 11:25

Great games, well done both teams.
I have a couple of questions regarding pf.
1- on the mfr all is well until i get to england. The screen turns green and i am unable to control my character. Anyone else experienced this?
2- are more characters unlocked as the game progresses?

By Manuel

Ascended (15287)

07-01-2015, 12:02

Don't forget to use the ASCII16 mapper for PF when flashing it...

By ericb59

Paladin (828)

07-01-2015, 15:41

2 great games.
Congratulation to both authors.

By ray2day

Champion (444)

07-01-2015, 20:57

cool

By barroidh

Master (163)

07-01-2015, 21:11

I tried flashing PF on a Megaflashrom SCC . I use OPF PFIGHTIN:ROM , but I keep getting the error ´ MegaFlashrom not found ´ . The game that I put on the Megaflashrom before starts up when booting the computer though.

By syn

Paragon (1908)

07-01-2015, 22:00

Which version of the MFR are you using? keep in mind the game needs 2MB or more (so at least a mfrscc+sd).

By barroidh

Master (163)

07-01-2015, 22:40

I am using the MFR SCC with 8Mb .
Maybe I should try OPFX.COM ?

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

07-01-2015, 22:42

yep try opfx.com or if you have the sd version opfxsd.com

By barroidh

Master (163)

08-01-2015, 14:44

Tried OPFX.COM pfightin.rom , it only writes boot , the stops .
OPFX.COM goon.rom does work well though.

By Imanok

Paragon (1142)

08-01-2015, 15:35

8 Megabits = 1 Megabyte

So, the MFR SCC with 8Mbits is not enough... am I wrong?

By Manel46

Champion (388)

08-01-2015, 16:07

Imanok:
The MFR, has a capacity of flash memory 64 megbits, equivalent to 8192 kbytes = 8 megabytes

By Imanok

Paragon (1142)

08-01-2015, 17:48

The size of the MFR SCC+ (without the SD interface) is 8Mbits. I didn't know the size of the MFR SCC+SD was 8MBytes... I think that's what could be a little bit confusing

By Manel46

Champion (388)

08-01-2015, 17:51

Sorry, but the pdf of MFR, said to be 64 megabits. I loaded roms lists that exceed 1 megabit leftovers.

By Manel46

Champion (388)

08-01-2015, 17:53

Ok Imanok.

By barroidh

Master (163)

08-01-2015, 21:45

OPFXSD PFIGHTIN.ROM on Megaflashrom + SD does flash the game automatically as ASCII 16 , but the game doesn´t work well . It starts, but I can´t move the character , and it only shows one character.

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 02:09

I don't like the Title Screen on "Pointless Fighting". It could be better call it "MSX Fighter" and make a good title screen like old betas of this game had. It's an impressive game and work ... except on the new title and title screen.

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 02:20

Mr.Balloon it´s a great game also ^_^ (including a beautiful arcade-like title screen )

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6150)

09-01-2015, 09:39

spl wrote:

I don't like the Title Screen on "Pointless Fighting". It could be better call it "MSX Fighter" and make a good title screen like old betas of this game had. It's an impressive game and work ... except on the new title and title screen.

Copyright problems for sure...
Anyway I agree that the current opening screen spoils the overall coolness of the product...

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 12:49

ARTRAG wrote:

Copyright problems for sure...
Anyway I agree that the current opening screen spoils the overall coolness of the product...

Hope this title screen will be changed, Artrag

By Konamito

Paragon (1027)

09-01-2015, 13:02

Pointless Fighting? This name is ridiculous... And the opening screen spoils all the good work in the game.

I think that changing the name would have been enough to avoid copyright problems (if there were any). Not need to ruin the game with a crappy and ugly name and opening screen...

I love Mr. Balloon, great game

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 13:44

Yes, this game IS NOT POINTLESS... Why this crap title and this crap title screen? And why the original GFX works haven't been used?

And why "BAKA"? Baka is idiot in Japanese... Thanks for "ruining" this great game and project.

By Konamito

Paragon (1027)

09-01-2015, 13:53

Totally ruined...

By bigjaac

Expert (81)

09-01-2015, 14:00

msx forever

By AxelF

Champion (333)

09-01-2015, 14:07

If you don't like it, why don't you create a better intro screen.
Maybe they will use it in the final version ?.

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 14:12

This title screen was created, and it had another title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Usc0UeTGo&app=desktop Just some respect to the original coder and the graphist who made the original title screen.

By AxelStone

Prophet (2641)

09-01-2015, 14:17

syn wrote:

I was about to sit down and write up a newspost for this John, but you beat me to it I would like to add that Mr. Balloon shows that small games work just as well on a MSX2. (in regard to what people often say... "MSX 2 games take too much effort/time.. lets go for small msx 1 games"). I for one love the gfx/colors of it I hope, like Mapax, that this will inspire people to make more MSX2 games, regardless of size.

Totally agree, I think we need more products for MSX2, there is too much MSX1 projects . I've recently started to learn MSX programming and I have clear that I want to make games for MSX2, I'm not interested in MSX1.

Konamito wrote:

Pointless Fighting? This name is ridiculous... And the opening screen spoils all the good work in the game.

And totally agree too

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 14:18

RUiiiiiiined.

Well, you could always get the original code from before baka-yo! ruined it and make your own non ruined version, it shouldn't be that hard, I mean, it was already mostly done wasn't it?

By Konamito

Paragon (1027)

09-01-2015, 14:23

boblet wrote:

RUiiiiiiined.

Well, you could always get the original code from before baka-yo! ruined it and make your own non ruined version, it shouldn't be that hard, I mean, it was already mostly done wasn't it?

Sorry, I don't feel like to make an MSX game now...

I have the right to critize whatever is done for MSX. I'm tired of giving good comments to every game made for MSX. If it looks like crap for me I don't care, I say it's crap. And I don't have to work on a certain game to make it look better... It's not my business.

By dracul

Master (154)

09-01-2015, 14:40

I'm impressed by 'Pointless fighting' ... opening screen could have been/should have been better. Nice graphics and nice gameplay though! Cheers!

By Latok

msx guru (3636)

09-01-2015, 14:44

A title screen doesn't ruin the complete game.

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 14:51

You seem really angry about this.

That is kinda pointless.

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

09-01-2015, 14:57

Quote:

Well, you could always get the original code from before baka-yo! ruined it and make your own non ruined version, it shouldn't be that hard, I mean, it was already mostly done wasn't it?

do not underestimate the complexity of the code.

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 14:58

Yeah, I heard it was really complex.

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

09-01-2015, 15:01

Quote:

Yeah, I heard it was really complex.

Ah so you think it can be fixed easily. Send Norakomi an email. He will happily send you the sourcecode without the copyrighted stuff in there offcourse.

By ericb59

Paladin (828)

09-01-2015, 15:02

There is certainly a reason why they changed the title screen ?
What say the authors ?

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 15:04

Without the copyright stuff? It'd just be a blank screen without the Capcom artwork.

By tonigalvez

Champion (280)

09-01-2015, 15:48

By tonigalvez

Champion (280)

09-01-2015, 15:50

By tonigalvez

Champion (280)

09-01-2015, 15:51

spl wrote:

This title screen was created, and it had another title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Usc0UeTGo&app=desktop Just some respect to the original coder and the graphist who made the original title screen.

I am the man responsable of the Street Fighter title logo animation in the BETA version, they could ask me for something NEW and ORIGINAL, I should make it, but they decided to make this "wonderful" title screen with this "magnificent" fighters.
Wrong choice.

The rest of the game is awesome, very good game.

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

09-01-2015, 15:57

Quote:

Without the copyright stuff? It'd just be a blank screen without the Capcom artwork.

I see you have great knowledge of coding and have deep insight in the source code. Care to join in on a big project? We could speed up alot and make SF2 the way it was intended

By Grauw

Enlighted (7961)

09-01-2015, 16:25

"Ruined". Lol.

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 16:41

How did you get that I have a great knowledge of coding from that statement, perhaps my typing is hard to understand, it must have been ruined.

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

09-01-2015, 16:51

Quote:

How did you get that I have a great knowledge of coding from that statement, perhaps my typing is hard to understand, it must have been ruined.

Ill leave the awnser up to you.

By boblet

Master (188)

09-01-2015, 17:07

I wouldn't want to hold you back, I mean, you've been doing z80 for years, I'm sure you'll make something unique.

By dracul

Master (154)

09-01-2015, 17:49

tonigalvez][quote=spl wrote:

The rest of the game is awesome, very good game.

Absolutely! Great work!

By fernando.collazo.5682

Master (236)

09-01-2015, 18:50

I simply don´t care about the title screen because the whole game is totally fantastic!!! I never saw a game for MSX2 with amazing graphics, musics and superb playability. You guys are genius. Thank you so much for the time disposed to bring to our small community this timeless classic.

By fernando.collazo.5682

Master (236)

09-01-2015, 18:54

And about Mr Ballon I loved the game, so much fun. But still needs some work on the playability. Excellent graphics!

By GhostwriterP

Champion (494)

09-01-2015, 20:17

The feel I get from PF is that it could really have used a little more color. I understand very well it is very difficult as two characters can have different colors that on their turn should also be independent from the background. It is quit the struggle to find a good compromise between number of shared and free colors.
Perhaps a different drawing style (cell shaded) could have helped here a lot. Naturally that would involve a lot of re-styling and drafting instead of a 'simple' conversion, but the overall result might be more tuned to the max (screen 5) capabilities. And adding a few screen color splits might have done wonders.
But other than that the speed performance is top notch!

Mr Ballon is way too difficult for me, have not even completed the first level yet!

By spl

Paragon (1461)

09-01-2015, 20:45

tonigalvez wrote:

spl wrote:

This title screen was created, and it had another title. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Usc0UeTGo&app=desktop Just some respect to the original coder and the graphist who made the original title screen.

I am the man responsable of the Street Fighter title logo animation in the BETA version, they could ask me for something NEW and ORIGINAL, I should make it, but they decided to make this "wonderful" title screen with this "magnificent" fighters.
Wrong choice.

The rest of the game is awesome, very good game.

You're right :)

By Manel46

Champion (388)

10-01-2015, 11:53

With the new opfxsd, works perfectly PF real MSX with SD MFR

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6150)

10-01-2015, 14:48

GhostwriterP wrote:

The feel I get from PF is that it could really have used a little more color. I understand very well it is very difficult as two characters can have different colors that on their turn should also be independent from the background. It is quit the struggle to find a good compromise between number of shared and free colors.
Perhaps a different drawing style (cell shaded) could have helped here a lot. Naturally that would involve a lot of re-styling and drafting instead of a 'simple' conversion, but the overall result might be more tuned to the max (screen 5) capabilities. And adding a few screen color splits might have done wonders.
But other than that the speed performance is top notch!

Nevertheless it does not look bad compared to Atari ST ports that share similar color limitations.

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (109)

10-01-2015, 16:04

Finally today I have been able to play PF, in few words simply awesome. Thank you for this guys! And for those unhappy with the final result, please put away the criticisms, this only adds discouragement to the few people who develop for the MSX scene. Of course I also would like a more complete game but it's enough. A revolutionary work for MSX never seen before.

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6150)

10-01-2015, 17:50

I fully agree, opening screen apart, it is a true coding gem.
If I were the coder I would have hidden the right opening screen somehow e.g. with a key sequence or enabling it once you complete the game.

By valkyre

Champion (399)

10-01-2015, 23:41

Just tried with new opfxsd. Its a true masterpiece.

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (109)

11-01-2015, 15:27

For those unable to beat Mr. Balloon, it has a trick to play all the stages. If you discover it keep the secret!

By ray2day

Champion (444)

11-01-2015, 18:28

At the Mariënberg MSX club, we've discussed and played both compodev games yesterday; Several people had problems with unpacking the .lzh files (on pc, mac as well as on real MSX). This for both games.

Mr. Balloon
Cool game. Very difficult. Nice MSX2 graphics. Too bad the same level and bonus level repeat, repeat and repeat. Really ashame for such cool developped MSX2 game! We want more (levels), we want more (levels)!!

Pointless Fighting
We all agreed Pointless Fighting is, especially togheter with use of Moonsound, a very impressive MSX2 masterwork! Indeed all of us agreed on the ugly intro screen also (sorry). The game itself: Very cool graphics, sound and coding!
We discovered a bug; when choosing the first character and played with the game 'hangs' we think it is after defeated two enemy's / or choosing England (tested with MFRSD on a Philips NMS8245 and Panasonic Turbo-R).

Both developpers congradulations with these great entry's and submissions. Thank you. Keep up the good work!

By syn

Paragon (1908)

11-01-2015, 19:01

Ray2day: For PF, did you use the new version of opfxsd.com posted in that other topic?

By Daemos

Paragon (1669)

11-01-2015, 19:04

Quote:

Several people had problems with unpacking the .lzh files

Try winrar. I have a very good experience with winrar concerning lzh files.

By PAC

Guardian (5087)

11-01-2015, 19:06

Hi, about Mr. Balloon some clarifications... The game idea was just making something for MSX2, to participate in the #msxdevcompo was somehow a coincidence. After 20 years of inactivity, Manel (the coder) came back to the MSX scene again and he wanted to develop a game for MSX2. Why 32Kb only? It's a good starting point to learn and is a good way to encourage people that not only small games can be done for MSX1. Just take into account that only the graphics eat half of the memory space, a reasonably explanation about why the levels are so similar. No gfx packing method has been used, even we are not sure if an unpacking routine could be possible with this reduced space.

By Grauw

Enlighted (7961)

11-01-2015, 19:16

On Mac, I usually use Keka, but extracting Mr. Balloon didn’t work for some reason. After browsing around a bit I found “The Unarchiver”, also free, that worked fine. Also supports PMA, apparently.

By mars2000you

Enlighted (5467)

11-01-2015, 19:33

Bandizip can also decompress LZH and PMA archives :

http://www.bandisoft.com/bandizip/en/

The Windows version is freeware, it does not seem the case for the Mac OS X version...

By iamweasel2

Champion (503)

11-01-2015, 20:46

Well, I feel it is up to the developer to decide what he wants for the title of the game and the initial screen. I thought the title was funny.

I think PF is an amazing game, it is something that many said it couldn't be done in MSX, and here we have it. I can only hope the developers complete the game by adding what is missing (other characters etc) and maybe one or two MSX only features (It would be cool to have Young Lee as a secret character. ).

By Manuel

Ascended (15287)

11-01-2015, 23:32

use lhasa, which can also uncompress PMA. Quite useful.

By turbor

Champion (416)

19-01-2015, 23:54

I finally got around uploading my first play of PF. There is a nice glitch at 07:10. Unfortunatelly I don't think a player can pull off this trick voluntarily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJGshW0DdGk

I'm still wondering why they replaced the nice animation they had for the beta with the final kindergarten-like image.
Especially since they kept all the other copyright infringing stuff (music,gfx,gameplay).

As for Mr.Balloon: Nice game and I second the request for more levels :-)

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6150)

20-01-2015, 07:21

You have found a teleport glitch :-)

By syn

Paragon (1908)

24-01-2015, 01:11

Turbor why are you playing pf at 50hz and without moonsound?

Anyway i hope someone brings pf to nijmegen so we can battle

By Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

24-01-2015, 20:42

seen it ad tni tafel ad nijmegen

By turbor

Champion (416)

25-01-2015, 21:34

Syn, for MSX2 I always emulate the Philips NMS8245 since that is the machine I own in real life (actually I own a VG8235 with double sided disk modification). I didn't find an option to switch to NTSC in the game, is there some keycode to activate it ?

By syn

Paragon (1908)

25-01-2015, 22:31

oh I see. I just thought it was odd since you are emulating.. i always run emulators at 60hz. because I associate 50hz/pal with slow music and squashed image

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (109)

25-01-2015, 23:10

syn wrote:

because I associate 50hz/pal with slow music and squashed image

I do, too. And with uneasiness on the eyes.

By spl

Paragon (1461)

18-02-2015, 22:50

Have you tried to flash PF using Megaflashrom SCC+? I'm unable to flash the game...

By syn

Paragon (1908)