Action 53 volume 3

[Rahsennor]

More life issues have conspired to prevent me polishing up Wrecking Balls in time for the cart. FrankenGraphics and I have agreed we'd rather re-submit a completed version next time around, assuming the rules allow it, or just finish it in our own time. Feel free to drop it.

[tepples]

New stuff:

• Updated Cheril the Goddess to 1.3, Filthy Kitchen to 0284, JRoatch's toys to 03-28, Jupiter Scope 2 to today's build, Karate Kick to today's build, Nebs 'n Debs to 02-15, and Wo xiang niao niao to 1.3
• Updated screenshots for JRoatch's toys
• Added Zombie Calavera (Prototype) and Haunted: Halloween '85 (Mall Demo)
• Removed Wrecking Balls and the menu item for Forty-Two Melody
• Tools improvement: I've made a program to find runs of $00 and $FF in PRG ROM

FrankenGraphics and I have agreed we'd rather re-submit a completed version next time around, assuming the rules allow it

I've long planned a remix compo devoted to improvements and remakes.

[na_th_an]

Wow - there's a *BIG* goodie included

[M_Tee]

…[*]Figure out sections other than the current "Mojon" and "Not Mojon" [*]Title screen [*]Box art (front, back, sides, label) [*]Manual [*]If there aren't going to be enough games to fill the last quarter (256 KiB) of the ROM, figure out what to stick there: original music or whatever else [/list]

infiniteneslives and I have been talking over packaging. I've decided on a layout, so if the most recent build is the final list of games, I'll start on the artwork. If not, I'll wait until the game list is final to begin. Would rather not have to add / remove elements after starting.

A few developers have PM'd me regarding the art, but again, if anyone else has any input regarding the packaging, they should post here, in the packaging thread, or PM me.

As for sections? How about:

1. 2016 Competition Winners (the top x amount, ordered by place)
2. 2016 Runners-Up (the rest of entries, alphabetically)
3. Other Games (games not part of the competition, alphabetically. Could currently be titled Zombie Games. )
4. Toys

[tepples]

As for making the game list final, we still have 192 KiB free.

Rearranging the sections as described produces this:

• Winners
  1. Twin Dragons
  2. Nebs 'n Debs
  3. Filthy Kitchen
  4. Lala the Magical
     Cheril the Goddess
     Wo xiang niao niao
  5. Sinking Feeling
• Runners-Up
  • Brick Breaker
  • Flappy Jack
  • Jupiter Scope 2: Op. Europa
  • Karate Kick
  • The Paths of Bridewell
  • Rock Paper Scissors +
  • Spacey McRacey
  • Super Tilt Bro.
  • Waddles the Duck
• Zombie
  • Haunted: Halloween '85
  • Zombie Calavera (Prologue)
• Toys
  • 240p Test Suite
  • Button Logger
  • Musical Controller

[JRoatch]

Not at all comprehensive but here I go with another report of bug testing.

Karate Kick is missing!
Power pak reported that it has a "bad header" (0xff in places where 0x00 should go) so mabye the builder missed it because of that.

Haunted: Halloween '85 demo:
Can not successfully reset from most places after the Retrotainment logo, and will remain locked up on what I think is a ill defined mapper state.
Selecting Credits from options will freeze on a gray screen (but ironically avoids the first lock up bug described here).
Also being just a demo, should the whole soundtrack be available from the options screen?

Zombie Calavera:
"Lowercase t"? I'm very sure those are better described as grave markers or simply just crosses. I'm sure I could look over the descriptions for other games, but this one particularly stuck out to me as just being plain wrong.

Spacey McRacey:
This one is really baffling me. I didn't know anything wrong was going on until I watched RogerBidon play it on emulator. Apparently when played on Power Pak, (both as part of the multicart and by itself) there is no background music during gameplay! along with shaky scrolling. I'll try to spend more time on this to pin point the cause, and maybe even hex edit in a fix.

[Myask]

Action 53 Function Ceiling ⅓ (Action 53/3 for short)
[…54/3 = 18 = round(53/3)= ceil(53/3)]
Action 53…3…3…3…3…3…3…
Action 53 3: Too Hot For the Kitchen
JAN CTION PON 53
[hr]
Sounds like more bug testing and fixing is needed before production? We don't want to be Action 52; that's the entire point of this thing.

[tepples]

Karate Kick is missing!
Power pak reported that it has a "bad header" (0xff in places where 0x00 should go) so mabye the builder missed it because of that.

It turned out that there was a stray space: it was trying to load "kkick_2017-03-31.nes ", which didn't exist. But thanks for catching that. Now we're down to 160K free.

Haunted: Halloween '85 demo:
Can not successfully reset from most places after the Retrotainment logo, and will remain locked up on what I think is a ill defined mapper state.

This being the first BNROM entry, I'll have to investigate what's going on in the builder.

EDIT: Fixed in my tree. Exit patching now always defaults to the last bank.

Selecting Credits from options will freeze on a gray screen (but ironically avoids the first lock up bug described here).

Greg and I noticed that this morning, and I fixed the credits freeze in my tree.

Also being just a demo, should the whole soundtrack be available from the options screen?

I think I already released much of the OST in .ogg format when trying to defend it from comparisons to Hummer Team.

Zombie Calavera:
"Lowercase t"?

For "time to leave" (South Park S05 E12). Also to parody the cross ban during the NES's commercial era. (TCRF is down for April Fool's Day, or I'd link more details about the cross ban.)

I've attached the current builder config file; feel free to suggest diffs to the descriptions.

[Myask]

(TCRF is down for April Fool's Day, or I'd link more details about the cross ban.)

Only the front page is in its "new" layout, which does in fact link to various pages in its wiki (albeit with scripting rather than forms, boo). Search works just fine.

p.s. †

[mikejmoffitt]

I don't know what Select is supposed to do in Lala the Magical, but it changes the floor color until I fall through it and run out of time.

[na_th_an]

That's because silly me let the debugging code on. I can produce a new version tomorrow, but I'm afraid we are long past the deadline.

[tepples]

The deadline was soft anyway, just something not to let it slip indefinitely like the first two volumes did. Critical fixes are still OK. There's one in the pipe for the credits of HH85, for instance.

[infiniteneslives]

Anything that the community wants to toss in to try and fill up the 1MByte rom space is fine by me. Starting to get to the point where any further additions may not get reflected in the artwork though. M-Tee is about to start working on the artwork with plans to submit the file for printing by the end of April. I'm planning to assemble the first batch of cartridges in May. I don't plan to start flashing the carts with the final rom till late May/early June. That's really when the rom has to be finalized by. If everything goes well with all that we'll be on track to release by the end of June.

I've been discussing the plan with printed materials with M-Tee on the sidelines. We've got a rough plan together but still waiting on a quotation for printing of traditional boxes.

Current hope is to have a modest print run of traditional boxes instead of ordering excessively too many like we did last volume. If/when we run out of traditional boxes and the volume is still in print we can shift to bitboxes which I'm able to print the inserts in house in small batches as sales flow in.

M-Tee had the idea to create a poster instead of a more traditional multi page manual. This seems more fitting since we don't have entrants provide a manual page with their entry. The poster will cost a couple dollars to print each one, because of this I feel it's more fitting for the poster to be paired with the CIB option alone. That way people who like spending a couple dollars more for fancy printed materials can, and those happy saving a few dollars can cut the box and poster with the loose cart option.

We'll keep the manual simple just like last volume which itself is generic enough to be used as is. That way I'm able to print them in house and the cost is negligible, so the manuals will be included with CIB and loose cart. I'm planning to print the labels in house as well to help keep costs down and avoid the impossible decision of deciding how many to print before release.

[tepples]

We'll keep the manual simple just like last volume which itself is generic enough to be used as is.

Which in my opinion makes it even more important for entrants to suggest improvements for the descriptions within the menu.

[infiniteneslives]

We'll keep the manual simple just like last volume which itself is generic enough to be used as is.

Which in my opinion makes it even more important for entrants to suggest improvements for the descriptions within the menu.

I think we should try to make this write up part of the blurb for compos moving forward to make production tasks like this simpler.

Speaking of, it's prob about time to start a discussion on anything that we're looking to change or implement for next years compo. I don't think there's much that needs changed, so hopefully it'll be a quick process copy pasting most rules/guidelines from last compo.

One other thing I kind of forgot to mention is that I'm planning to release this volume in both 60 & 72pin versions. I've got all the parts needed to do so. The main thing to sort out is handling of printed materials for famicom vs NES releases.