Mystic Searches beta, playable now

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tepples
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by tepples »

tokumaru wrote:
Erockbrox wrote:I'm trying to beta test the game and the current emulator that I have is FCEUX 2.2.2
Any reason why you can't download another emulator, or even a more recent version of FCEUX?
I don't know what OS Erockbrox uses, but last I checked, the version of FCEUX in the Ubuntu LTS repository was still 2.2.2. Anything newer needs to be built from source, but I have a walkthrough.
tokumaru wrote:
Erockbrox wrote:which from what I understand is supposed to be a petty good NES emulator to use.
Actually, it leaves a lot to be desired when it come to accuracy, and accuracy is a pretty important aspect when beta testing a game.
In my opinion, FCEUX is accurate enough for testing game logic but not for testing raster effects.
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tokumaru
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by tokumaru »

tepples wrote:In my opinion, FCEUX is accurate enough for testing game logic but not for testing raster effects.
Yes, but sometimes developers mess up and try to access the PPU at the wrong times and things like that. FCEUX is not very good at evidencing those kinds of problems.
Erockbrox
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by Erockbrox »

I downloaded FCEUX 2.2.3 and everything is working. Thanks guys. :)
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rainwarrior
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by rainwarrior »

lidnariq wrote:For the moment, change it to mapper 2.

The only difference is whether the hardware is supposed to support self-flashing.
Flashing isn't the only extra feature. Mystic Searches also relies on 32k bankable CHR-RAM, so mapper 2 is not quite sufficient, I believe?
tokumaru wrote:Yes, but sometimes developers mess up and try to access the PPU at the wrong times and things like that. FCEUX is not very good at evidencing those kinds of problems.
The default "Old PPU" does miss some common cases but I think the "New PPU" setting is actually pretty good at showing up "messing with the PPU outside of vblank" problems. I've actually caught many errors of that type in FCEUX without having to resort to hardware testing (e.g. one such error from Nebs and Debs).

Since some more recent versions, I've actually found it accurate enough for developing raster effects, even. I always verify against Nintendulator and ultimately hardware tests too, but I can't think of a case where it was actually insufficient for my needs in the past year or two. There are some test ROMs it still fails, but for every raster effect I've actually wanted to use it's been (surprisingly) good enough in recent times. (Though... I also use development builds of it, so e.g. I was using 2.2.3 improvements for a long time before 2.2.3 was released.) It's not what you should use to work out complicated horizontal-blanking timings, etc. but it's plenty good for a lot of "normal" raster effects.

The "New PPU" has improved significantly in the past few years. (e.g. the damning TASVideos NES accuracy test scores are 7 years out of date at this point).

...not that you shouldn't test on other emulators or hardware, just I think some of FCEUX's bad accuracy reputation is no longer relevant.
Erockbrox
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by Erockbrox »

Okay guys I'm stuck. I made it all the way to the mine cave in the game. I learned 1 song, but I don't understand how to play it. The song is Rukh Lullaby. I simply don't understand what buttons to press. In the song menu there are some arrows and button names, but it gets confusing since there is a down arrow, but then there is a down arrow with a small circle on it. What ever happened to just simple direction and button letters. There is also this one cave entrance which has a force field of some kind blocking some path. I tried to use the song on this, but again I don't know how to actually play these songs in the game since the button sequences are too cryptic for me.

My biggest complaint is the lack of invincibility frames upon getting hurt. If you are in a situation where you are constantly touching an enemy you die almost instantly. This should be fixed.

Other than this and a few other nitpicks, its a nice game engine. Would love to make my own game using this engine when the development tools are released.
Bavi_H
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by Bavi_H »

Erockbrox wrote:In the song menu there are some arrows and button names, but it gets confusing since there is a down arrow, but then there is a down arrow with a small circle on it.
The manual really needs to be easier to locate. When I first read this thread, it took me a while to finally find the manual here: mo-manual-5.pdf. The dot means to hold SELECT and press the button indicated.
Erockbrox
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by Erockbrox »

^ Thanks a lot for that post. I totally forgot about looking in the manual :roll:

But I must say, that notation is totally illogical. When you look at the NES controller the only thing that has a circle shape is the A and B buttons. So having a circle symbol and an up arrow together should mean press A/B and UP not select and UP. How would anyone think of this without the manual? The select button is a long rectangle like shape so it should be a bar and an up arrow not a circle and an up arrow.

I honestly would have just stuck with UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, A, B and not even bother with introducing the select + button combo. Try not to make something more complicated that it needs to be.

Also I would like to add that when you actually do this song and press select with other button combinations its very awkward. For instance if I need to press UP & Select then I use my left thumb for Up and my right thumb for Select, however when I have to press Select & B then my left thumb goes on Select and my right thumb goes on the B button.

In other words, I'm constantly switching my right and left thumbs for pressing the Select button making it tedious and complicated to pull off. I again would encourage the developers to just stick with Up, Down, Right, Left, B, A for playing the songs. The select button over complicates things and I don't find it to be fun trying to pull off this awkward button combination in the game.
Erockbrox
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Re: Mystic Searches beta, playable now

Post by Erockbrox »

I made a beta test video a long time ago and just finally uploaded it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etTSXQ- ... e=youtu.be
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