Streemerz bundle

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Tom
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by Tom »

tepples wrote:Also, there is a request to add I Wanna Flip the Sky as #16. I can add it now if the author clarifies whether he needs royalties, but it can always go in volume 2.
I just wanted to make sure I understood the agreement between the game authors. So it sounds like this is basically a community fundraiser: the authors aren't getting any compensation (no royalties, no complimentary cartridges, etc), and the proceeds are going to fund things like the nesdev competitons.

So who's going to be in charge of money? Who gets to decide how it will be spent? (the authors, the buyers, any member of the bbs?) Are we only going to make 50 cartridges, or make more if there's demand? And it sounds like the ROM will be released as well?
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NESHomebrew
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by NESHomebrew »

Yea, regarding the 50 cartridges. Is there a way I can be added on the list asap? If Nintendoage catches wind, I have a feeling these 50 would go pretty quick.
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by tepples »

Here's the first public testing build. It should work in these environments: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to MAKE YOUR SELECTION NOW:
  • Tell me anything you find confusing about the launcher.
  • Tell me anything incorrect or unclear in the games' descriptions (press A).
  • Try to make any of the games fail.
  • Find the two games with "all your base" references.
I plan to make another beta including IWFTS once a planned revision to Driar is complete.

EDIT: Download withdrawn. I discovered a serious problem with the beta, affecting at least Pogo Cats and Lawn Mower.
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by tepples »

I corrected the mirroring in "lower half" games (all but Streemerz, Driar, and NES Virus Cleaner), resulting in beta 1a.
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thefox
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by thefox »

Very cool, seems to be working as advertised, tested it on PowerPak. Couple of things:

- I saw a small palette glitch just before the menu opened (wait for vblank before writing palette)
- Out of the games I tested (I didn't test all of them), Driar didn't go back to the multicart menu when I pressed RESET
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by infiniteneslives »

Tom wrote:I just wanted to make sure I understood the agreement between the game authors. So it sounds like this is basically a community fundraiser: the authors aren't getting any compensation (no royalties, no complimentary cartridges, etc), and the proceeds are going to fund things like the nesdev competitons.
That is how I've envisioned it. We can't have royalties if this is to be a fundraiser. I feel like Tepples and thefox have put in an exceptional amount of effort into the selling points of this cart and I think it would be nice to reward them with a complimentary cart. I'm curious what other people think about this though. In the future once we have fund built up it might be nice to reward compo entries with complimentary carts for *competeled* games (hello world/pongs don't count...) really these things are up for the community to decide. The best answer right now is probably just no complimentary carts for sake of argument/debate...

So who's going to be in charge of money? Who gets to decide how it will be spent? (the authors, the buyers, any member of the bbs?) Are we only going to make 50 cartridges, or make more if there's demand? And it sounds like the ROM will be released as well?
The only thing I ask is to be 'in charge' of the funds until I've made the money back I've invested to produce the first 50. I can maintain it beyond that if people would like. Otherwise the sum or most of the money could be put into a money order or something and kept under custody of a moderator or something. I'm open for ideas and input on this matter of maintaining funds.

I think the easiest way to decide how to spend the funds is just have a voted thread. Not sure what kind of limitations could be put on that (no newly created profiles etc.) to keep things from getting out of hand.

As for the 50 number. Under the current situation I'm willing to front the money and volunteer my time to make the first 50. Beyond that the funds collected from the first 50 could be used to purchase supplies for more carts. The other question beyond 50 is are we willing to pay for labor for assembly and how much. If we'd like to leave assembly for volunteer work I'd have to ask other trusted members to lend a hand. I understand the idea of myself making money on the labor of carts is somewhat of a conflict of interest. So I'd rather leave that up for other people to discuss and I'll give my input if requested.

I figure let's make these first 50 and see how it goes. We can make decisions on how to go about producing more carts afterwards. I'm willing to help keep them available for purchase beyond 50.

Unfortunately it looks like the weakest link right now is CICs. I'm working with jimscool right now trying to get this last bug figured out. Hopefully that is resolved soon, then we'll be able to know what to expect for delivery dates and final cost. Id like to have those details ironed out before trying to do reservations/preorders or anything. I think contributors should have a reservation by default.



Things are looking good with the rom Tepples. Testing out in my CPLD/PCB now and everything looks to be working well. I did notice similar to what thefox was saying most games reset to the menu vice the game. Not sure if that's expected/planned but would be nice if it were consistent. Does stuffing several smaller NROMs in a single slot make this a difficult? In that case I guess having as many reset the game only would be preferable IMO.

I wonder if we can come up with a better saying than 'make your selection now!' something more homebrew/video game oriented? IDK, just a thought.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by tepples »

thefox wrote:I saw a small palette glitch just before the menu opened (wait for vblank before writing palette)
I thought I was. It must have stopped working once I changed something in the transition out of the title screen.
thefox wrote:Out of the games I tested (I didn't test all of them), Driar didn't go back to the multicart menu when I pressed RESET
You appear not to have tested your own ;-)
infiniteneslives wrote:I did notice similar to what thefox was saying most games reset to the menu vice the game. Not sure if that's expected/planned but would be nice if it were consistent.
Essentially what's happening is that the cart conceptually has an "A" side and a "B" side, much like old LP records or Compact Cassettes. The "A" side is one big BNROM (256K, vertical mirroring) containing most games, and the Action 53 menu normally reset-patches games because BNROM's startup bank is unpredictable. The "B" side consists of Streemerz, Driar, and NES Virus Cleaner, and the "A" side is everything that was part of Action 53 0.03, plus a stub of a few dozen bytes in Pogo Cats's bank that starts the "B" side games.
infiniteneslives wrote:Does stuffing several smaller NROMs in a single slot make this a difficult?
Oh, you mean the "submulti" thing, where I turn two NROM-128 games into one CNROM game. Yes, that's the big obstacle to resetting back to the game itself. Consider, for example, where Donkey Kong Classics (CNROM) or Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt (MHROM, a GNROM variant) resets. I won't need submultis anymore for NROM-128 once I refactor the builder for mapper 28 instead of the shoehorning that I currently use because mapper 28 is so new.
infiniteneslives wrote:I think contributors should have a reservation by default.
So that'd be two carts shipped to me: one for me (menu, Thwaite, CRoom, Roulette, ZapPing, and the Zapper toys) and one for my cousin (FHBG). What about team efforts such as Driar (David Eriksson and Stefan Adolfsson) and Streemerz (Arthur Lee and thefox)? Should PinWizz get a cart for Zooming Secretary because Shiru is already getting one for LAN Master and Lawn Mower?
infiniteneslives wrote:I wonder if we can come up with a better saying than 'make your selection now!' something more homebrew/video game oriented?
My plan was to have at least one Action 52-parody game in each of the four volumes. That's why I put "Action 53 Function 15 Volume One" on the title screen.

Also, is the text description in the menu correct for each of the games?
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by Mr. Podunkian »

Arthur Lee here (haha, the formality!), thefox let me know about this project and I'm giving you guys my thumbs up for STREEMERZ.
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by thefox »

tepples wrote:
infiniteneslives wrote:I did notice similar to what thefox was saying most games reset to the menu vice the game. Not sure if that's expected/planned but would be nice if it were consistent.
Essentially what's happening is that the cart conceptually has an "A" side and a "B" side, much like old LP records or Compact Cassettes. The "A" side is one big BNROM (256K, vertical mirroring) containing most games, and the Action 53 menu normally reset-patches games because BNROM's startup bank is unpredictable. The "B" side consists of Streemerz, Driar, and NES Virus Cleaner, and the "A" side is everything that was part of Action 53 0.03, plus a stub of a few dozen bytes in Pogo Cats's bank that starts the "B" side games.
I can make a special build of STREEMERZ that goes back to menu when reset is pressed (I've already got reset detection code in there so it's not a big deal).
Also, is the text description in the menu correct for each of the games?
I would maybe change "jump" to "boost" in the STREEMERZ description.
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by infiniteneslives »

tepples wrote:Would it be too hard if I made a Python program that filled in the serial number and made SHA-1 hashes of each build?
Forgot about this in my last post... Actually just a list of the checksums for all 50 numbered carts would be sufficient. I think it's crc32, I know it's the same format that bootgod uses. It's actually less work for me to fill in the cart number by hand. Otherwise I'd have to reload the file for each rom, not a big deal, just a bunch of clicking and not being sure of which number is currently loaded. My programmer software appears to allow me to change the rom image by hand before flashing. I'll have to verify this for myself though. So placing it in an easy to find location would be beneficial (beginning or end perhaps?)
So that'd be two carts shipped to me: one for me (menu, Thwaite, CRoom, Roulette, ZapPing, and the Zapper toys) and one for my cousin (FHBG). What about team efforts such as Driar (David Eriksson and Stefan Adolfsson) and Streemerz (Arthur Lee and thefox)? Should PinWizz get a cart for Zooming Secretary because Shiru is already getting one for LAN Master and Lawn Mower?
Maybe I'm wrong I thinking that 50 would be plenty to allow all the contributors that would like a cart can get one and still leave a fair number (more than half) available for people who order/pay for a cart in the first week of release. If I'm wrong I'm more than willing to work with people and ensure that contributors have an opportunity to purchase a cart. If someone is more concerned about this than myself I'd suggest starting a 'wishlist' for people to sign up if they'd like to purchase a cart. No ones responded to my proposals to the price point so I can't say how much they'll be. Perhaps such a list of expectant buyers would help us decide on a price point. By the looks of the rapid progress Tepples has made it sounds reasonable that I'll be able to start production before the end of the year assuming CIC issues can be resolved as well. Worst case can use CIClones if need be, but that's $3+ per cart we loose unless they were to give us a better deal.

thefox wrote:I can make a special build of STREEMERZ that goes back to menu when reset is pressed (I've already got reset detection code in there so it's not a big deal).
Actually that would be high unpreferred for a game like streemerz. Can't remember what options you have in the start menu, if you can actually reset back to beginning of streemerz it would void my argument. But I imagine getting tired of playing in one mode and wanting to just hit reset to get back to streemerz menu. I can always cycle power to get back to the multimenu. Why not let the two separate buttons (power and reset) have two separate functions when possible?
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by thefox »

infiniteneslives wrote:
thefox wrote:I can make a special build of STREEMERZ that goes back to menu when reset is pressed (I've already got reset detection code in there so it's not a big deal).
Actually that would be high unpreferred for a game like streemerz. Can't remember what options you have in the start menu, if you can actually reset back to beginning of streemerz it would void my argument. But I imagine getting tired of playing in one mode and wanting to just hit reset to get back to streemerz menu. I can always cycle power to get back to the multimenu. Why not let the two separate buttons (power and reset) have two separate functions when possible?
Yeah STREEMERZ pause menu does indeed allow quitting the game and going back to the (STREEMERZ) menu. I just think the behavior should be consistent. Maybe I wouldn't have even noticed unless I was testing it on PowerPak (so powering off meant reloading the entire ROM).
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by tepples »

Apparently Driar is NROM-256 now, using about half the NES's RAM for self-modifying code to animate the nametable. This means I can ditch the A-side/B-side structure of the ROM and just run everything but Streemerz in oversize BNROM mode (mode=$02, regsel=$81).

EDIT: Someone has reported a crash bug in Driar. I'm holding off on beta 2 until this is investigated.
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by infiniteneslives »

thefox wrote:Maybe I wouldn't have even noticed unless I was testing it on PowerPak (so powering off meant reloading the entire ROM).
Actually I neglected how the behavior I was hoping for would impact people on the powerpak. Reloading the ROM from onto the powerpak to select a different game would be a bummer...
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by rainwarrior »

Running it on a powerpak would be running a multicart within a multicart though. Wouldn't it make more sense just to put the individual games on your powerpak? Why do you need to concern yourself with this case?
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Re: Streemerz bundle

Post by tepples »

Would it be too difficult to add another option to the main menu to "QUIT", which would copy code to RAM that resets the outer bank and jumps to the reset vector?
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