Zombeaver

Back + R3 (right stick click) or Numpad minus + Numpad enter. The controller mapping overlay has also been updated to reflect the new functions. This information is in the update post.

They wouldn't be viewable via the right-click > view manual option even if they were in LB's manuals folder because 95% of them are not in .pdf format. They're .cbr. You could make scripts to launch them in CDisplay and then add those as additional-apps, if you were really adamant about it. That would be fairly redundant, however, since the manuals are all immediately accessible when you're going to actually need them - while playing the games. Yes, follow the instructions in this post.

Blog post for v0.35 on Zomb's Lair Download C64 Dreams version 0.35 Download local magazine module (optional) Download Torrent Download v0.35 Hotfix 2/6/2021 Game Details Spreadsheet Version 0.35 of C64 Dreams is now available! It features 500 new games (for a new total of 2500!) and a ton of improvements and new features. This update has been an absolutely monumental undertaking. This will likely sound ridiculous but I can say in all earnestness and without exaggeration that nearly all of my free time over the past 3 months has been poured into this project (and sporadic work in the 6 months before that). It ended up becoming a much more significant endeavor than I remotely anticipated going into it, not because of the new games that were added this go round, but because of a number of peripheral elements that ended up exploding into a huge project all to themselves. The most significant of these was the development of a new system which allows you to quickly toggle back and forth between the game and the manual. I had to write the code to make this happen, which took a fair bit of experimenting (and a bit of additional coding help by Launchbox users @jayjay and @JoeViking245, thanks again for that!) but finally came up with something that I'm quite happy with. Manuals have become a thing of the past these days, but they were once an integral part of the experience. Very often the background story was entirely relegated to the manual. In some cases - like some Infocom games for example - vital information for the completion of the game was contained in the manuals, along with artwork, maps, all kinds of wonderful treasures. So the single most significant addition in this update is incorporating as many manuals as possible in as high a quality as possible. This leads to the largest task of them all - sourcing the manuals to begin with. I scoured many, many, resources, and even got some additional help in this undertaking by @TimberlAndRE and Smiling Spectre of the eXoDOS project (thanks again!). Then, just to make things more difficult (because why not) and go the extra mile, I went through the process of converting nearly all of these from pdf to cbr format to improve the experience. There are several reasons for this - the most obvious is that they simply display more cleanly in the incorporated viewer (CDisplay) but this also allowed me to clean them up, divide them up in order to make them more easily readible, and add additional materials (maps, reference cards, etc.) into one combined document. All of this entailed a huge amount of by-hand work, but I think it's absolutely been worth it in the end. The current grand total is 1068 manuals incorporated into the collection, which means that 43% of the games have toggleable manuals. This is actually much more than I ever anticipated when I began. All of this was the outcropping of an earlier goal for this update - to show some love for text adventures. I know that these are not everyone's thing. I get it, I really do. That's why I wanted to see what I could do to make the experience a little bit more enjoyable. Manuals are definitely a huge part of this - especially in the case of Infocom titles which would regularly have extensive and extravagant documentation - but another issue is that many of these games are entirely silent. The thought occurred to me - there's an ocean of user-made SID music out there... why not try to incorporate some of that and help make the experience a little more atmospheric. The first task was figuring out how to even implement that, but after a fair bit of digging and experimentation I came up with a pretty nice end result which incorporates sidplayfp and mpg123 (depending on whether the music is in native .sid format or .mp3). The next task was finding music that was actually appropriate which ended up being a lot more difficult. I listened to thousands of tracks in the High Voltage SID Collection and on Youtube to find things that actually fit the tone that I was looking for. Low-key atmospheric/ambient music isn't exactly something that's typical for a lot of SID music, even though the chip is completely capable of it. I ended up finding a decent number of tracks that were what I was looking for, though I'm certainly not done on that front. There are some games that I have on the agenda to add some music to that I just didn't find anything I was quite happy with, so I'm still on the lookout. That said, I think you'll be happy with what I've come up with. In the vast majority of cases I've arranged the music into playlists of similarly-themed music that would be appropriate for the game they're assigned to. Each track loops infinitely until you tell it to change to the next. I did this essentially to allow you to change things up if you get tired of a given track. You can see an example of both the custom music and the manual features in the video below: With new features come the necessity for new controller and keyboard mappings. You can see the updated controller reference here (all existing notes overlays were updated accordingly): Updated keyboard controls: 8456 on the numpad = Up, Left, Down, Right Left Alt = Fire Left Ctrl = C= Key ESC = Runstop Numpad asterisk = swap joystick ports Numpad minus is the combo key Numpad minus + Numpad 0 = Eject/Insert Disk Numpad minus + Numpad 9 = Next Disk Numpad minus + Numpad 8 = Previous Disk Numpad minus + Space = Fast Forward (can also hold down PgDwn to activate warp mode) Numpad minus + Numpad plus = toggle controls/notes display Numpad minus + Numpad return = toggle manual Numpad minus + ESC = Quit Numpad minus + F2 = Save State Numpad minus + F4 = Load State Numpad minus + F7 = Next State Numpad minus + F6 = Previous State Numpad minus + Up arrow = show info on current custom music track Numpad minus + Down arrow = show info on current custom music track Numpad minus + Right arrow = play next custom track (if in playlist) Numpad minus + Left arrow = play previous custom track (if in playlist) On top of all this, I made a very concerted effort to improve the media and metadata in Launchbox. I upgraded hundreds of covers, added tons of logos, screenshots and other images, and filled in as many gaps as I could. Incorrect matches have been fixed, genre and production info added, and alternate names implemented (Coil Cop / Thing Bounces Back) for quite a few titles (so searching for either will display the corresponding game). It's still not perfect, but it's significantly better than in the previous version. I also created close to 700 3D boxes and unified the 3D box format across the collection. 3D boxes are now the default view for games. It creates a nice clean look. Thankfully the process is quite quick and simple so I can create more or upgrade existing ones quite easily, assuming I have something appropriate to use as the cover. All of this work combined became quite the grueling slog but will make things easier going forward. None of these things would have been overly taxing, on their own, if they were only required for new additions - it's the fact that so much of the work encompassed the entire collection - all the manuals, media, and metadata in one sweep. Phew! It was well worth it in the end though, and I'm quite proud of the result. It should be noted that all of this has had a very tangible impact on the filesize of the collection - the previous version was about 5GB without the local magazines and 10GB with them. It's now about 13GB / 19GB! I want to thank -Archivist for agreeing to host C64 Dreams on the-eye.eu and @eXo for pointing me in the right direction on that front! As a quick update on the progress of the collection itself, I've made it through 46% of Gamebase64, parsing through 19,575 out of 42,718 screenshots in that collection. I'm currently making my way through "K". While I certainly still have a long way to go, determining that I'd made it through almost half of GB64 made me realize that I was actually further along than I initially thought. That combined with the newly implemented manual and music systems in this update drove the decision for the larger than normal version bump this go round. In the last update I included a list of my favorite new additions to the collection, but since I focused more heavily on text adventures this time than normal, I thought I'd take a moment to provide some recommendations since this is a genre that I know many are mostly or entirely unfamiliar with and don't know where to begin. The most obvious answer is "anything by Infocom". There's a reason why they were so famous in this arena, and it's well-earned. You can't go too wrong with any of those (though I certainly prefer some over others). That said, so as not to be a complete cop-out, I'll provide some specific recommendations (and not limited to Infocom). If there's a single game that I can emphatically recommend as the best starting point for anyone new to the genre, however, it's Zork I: The Great Underground Empire. It's wonderful; and very easy to get into even if you're not a text adventure aficionado thanks to the excellent parser that makes the experience about as frustration-free as it can be. The single greatest difference between a good text adventure and a bad one is the quality of their parser and how that interacts with the puzzle design. Some games are extremely strict about what they'll accept, both in the method to achieve your goal and the specific way in which you phrase that method. Something that Zork manages better than many others is making all of that feel natural. You try something that seems like it might make sense and it often works and, if not, you'll at least usually get a humorous response that shows the developers already anticipated what you tried to do. I really can't recommend it enough as a great introduction to the genre. If it's something that's totally foreign to you, I would just encourage you to keep an open mind. Read the manual and try to immerse yourself in the worlds that they've created. And remember to examine everything! I'd recommend taking a look at this page too if you want some general pointers on how text adventures typically function if you're a beginner. Once you've dipped your toes in and want to go looking for more, these are some other recommendations: The Curse of Rabenstein Eight Feet Under Enchanter Escape from the Shire Federation Hibernated 1: This Place is Death Jack the Ripper Jewels of Darkness Kayleth The Lurking Horror Silicon Dreams Starcross There's a lot of other great ones out there (and some not so great ones, to be fair). I created a new playlist entirely for all the text adventures in the collection, so check that out as well! So, with all that out of the way, let's get on with the full changelog. It's a doozy. New: Added a new category for Diskmags, with 25 associated mags Added ability to quickly swap between the game and manual for many games - these are listed on the details spreadsheet in the new Manual column; can switch by pressing Numpad Minus + Numpad Enter or Back + R3 on a controller; manuals can be navigated with keyboard (arrow keys to navigate and -/= keys for zoom), controller (right stick to navigate and LB /RB to zoom), or mouse (scroll wheel to navigate and ctrl + scroll wheel to zoom) Sourced and converted to .cbr format (and often cleaned up, adjusted, and split into separate pages) over 1000 manuals for use with the new manual feature. Phew! This means that 43% of the games have a toggleable manual (which is better than I initially anticipated). Thanks to @jophran, @TimberlAndRE, and Smiling Spectre for helping find some of these! Added custom SID background music with libsidplayfp (and occasionally mpg123 when the .sids don't loop properly) to a number of text adventures (and a few other games) that oridinarily have no music or sound, detailed on the custom music tab of the game details spreadsheet Added some configuration options for custom SID background music to Configurator, including the ability to disable it if so desired Enabled new autowarp feature for games that use TrueDrive wherever possible (cases where it doesn't cause issues) - this dramatically reduces load times and can be particularly useful in games that have very frequent "short" loads but no audio/music (because it mutes the audio when it activates) - a perfect use scenario for this are certain text adventures that have graphics for each area that under normal circumstances might take 10 seconds to change locations and are now essentially instantaneous (games like The Brew are a good example of this) Added a new generic (not game-specific) bezel with three variations, accessible via the Configurator; V1 is now the default Reshade support is now included, accessible via the Configurator; once enabled it can be toggled with Numpad / and the Reshade menu can be toggled with Shift + Numpad /; note that it does increase hardware requirements and startup times slightly Added a new shader (selectable via the Configurator) that only makes color correction adjustments in case you want to disable shaders altogether but still keep the color corrections (I would recommend using Esper though if your hardware supports it) Added an alternate SuperCPU version of Rescue on Fractalus (right-click / additional apps menu); highly recommended! Enabled mouse support for Cabal, Deja Vu, and Uninvited (with separate launchers via the additional apps menu) Created custom joystick controls for Ultima II Created custom joystick controls for Jungle Trouble Added a new dynamic playlist for text adventures (any game in the collection with the "Text Adventure" genre tag) Created separate xmls which can be imported into Launchbox (overwritten) to change the default launch behavior for magazines - the xml that is used by default uses the web versions as the default launch. If you install the local versions and want to use those as the default launch, simply copy the xml from C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Magazines\!XMLs\Default Local and replace the one in C64 Dreams\Data\Platforms\ with it. If you ever want to change it back just use the one from the Default Web folder instead. Version Updates: Asterix and the Magic Cauldron - replaced with +7DHG Easyflash version by Excess Bucket Wars - updated to v1.3 Card Sharks - replaced with Easyflash version by Excess Combat School (Boot Camp) - replaced with +3D version by Lurid & Tricycle Crack Down - replaced with Easyflash version by The Joker Creatures II - replaced with +10DFIR Easyflash version by Nostalgia Creatures - replaced with +10DFIR Easyflash version by Nostalgia Curse of Rabenstein, The - updated to v11 by Laxity Dig Dug - replaced with Remember version Dominator - replaced with Easyflash version by Master Empire of Karn - replaced with +DMW version by Hokuto Force Frightmare - replaced with +3DG version by Hokuto Force Infiltrator - replaced with Infiltrator Collection (Easyflash) version by Nostalgia Infiltrator 2 - replaced with Infiltrator Collection (Easyflash) version by Nostalgia Italy '90 Soccer - replaced with "New Version" by Fantastic 4 Cracking Group Knight Games - replaced with Easyflash version by The Joker Mayhem in Monsterland - replaced with +10DFIR Easyflash version by Nostalgia Shinobi - replaced with +3D Easyflash version by Mayday! Spy vs Spy - replaced with Remember version Turbo Outrun - replaced +8DHF version by Excess Dark Side - replaced with The Dominators version Chance in Hell, A - replaced with a Super CPU version and included an altnerate standard C64 version with added music Driller - replaced with 2000 A.D. version Dracula - replaced with West Coast Crackers version (has all 3 parts on 1 disk) Down at the Trolls - replaced with GB64 version (by Elite) E-Motion (The Game of Harmony) - replaced with +3 version by Triad Changes/Fixes: Updated Retroarch to 1.9.0 Updated to latest version of the core which now supports, among other things, per-pixel horizontal and vertical cropping, an updated SID engine (ReSID-fp), and automatic load warp for TrueDrive enabled games. Thanks to @Pixelpiper for the work on his BC core which prompted the per pixel-cropping implementation. Added or adjusted custom cropping for 2000 Kung-Fu Maniacs, Abyssonaut, Alcon, Alien Syndrome, Another World, Ballblazer, Bangkok Knights, Bear Essentials, Beyond the Forbidden Forest, Brainway, C64 Snail Maze, Delta, Dominion, Donkey Kong (Oxyron), Draconus, E-SWAT, Forgotten Forest, Fortress of Narzod, Game Over II - Part 1, Gemini Wing, Genesia, Ghostbusters II, Hans Kloss, Harrier 7, Heatseeker, Hyperion II, Interchange, It's Magic, It's Magic II, It's Only Rock n' Roll, Kobo64, The Last Fight, Mega Phoenix, No Mercy, Outlaw, Paperboy, Phobia, Planet Golf, Powerglove, Run Like Hell, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Tiger Claw, Turbo Outrun, Wizball, Wolfling, Worm, and Zolyx. Now everything involving cropping is handled through core options - Retroarch's video output settings are untouched. This means that no manual adjustment should be necessary regardless of your monitor's resolution or aspect ratio! Woohoo! Adjusted the vertical and horizontal crop settings on Frogger Arcade Corrected the horizontal crop settings on Jars' Revenge (uses horizontal overscan space) Made first overlay image for Ballblazer transparent as the game is zoomed in (and the bezel would cover it) Made first overlay image for Jars' Revenge transparent as the game uses the horizontal overscan space (the overlay was disabled entirely previously, but now you can still access the control overlay while the bezel image is unused) Switched to new ReSID-fp audio engine (more accurate) Replaced Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles with correct game (was the Coin-Op) Dragon Ninja and Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja are the same game, removed "Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja" Coil Cop and Thing Bounces Back are the same game, removed "Coil Cop" Guardian and Stargate are the same game, removed "Stargate" Changed "Daley Thompson's Decathlon" to "The Activision Decathlon" in LB, as it was matched incorrectly previously Renamed Summer Games to The Games: Summer Edition and Winter Games to The Games: Winter Edition, and added in Summer Games (1984) and Winter Games (1984) Renamed "Ice Palace" to "Ice Palace (K-Tel)" because "Ice Palace (Creative Sparks)" was added Renamed "BC II - Grog's Revenge" to "B.C. II - Grog's Revenge" Renamed "Dan Dare II" to "Dan Dare II - Mekon's Revenge" and "Dan Dare 3 - The Escape" to "Dan Dare III - The Escape" Renamed "Demons Kiss" to "Demon's Kiss" Renamed "Judge Dredd" to "Judge Dredd (Melbourne House)" because "Judge Dredd (Virgin Mastertronic)" was added Renamed "Deadline" to "Deadline (Visualize Software)" because "Deadline (Infocom)" was added Renamed "Frankenstein" to "Frankenstein (Zepplin Games)" because "Frankenstein (CRL)" was added Renamed "Haunted House" to "Haunted House (Alligata Software)" because "Haunted House (Planet Rock)" was added Renamed "Boom" to "Boom (567 KByte)" Renamed "Bomb Jack 2" to "Bomb Jack II" Renamed "E-Swat" to "E-SWAT" Renamed "Cyberworld" to "Cyber World" Renamed "3D Golf" to "Hole in One" Renamed "Castle" to "Castle (LK Avalon)" Renamed "Sinbad and the Throne of Falcon" to "Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon" Renamed "Earth Orbit Station" to "Earth Orbit Stations" Renamed "Experimental Traxter 7" to "Experiment Traxter 7" Renamed "Bignose's USA Adventure" to Big Nose's American Adventure" Renamed "Captain America and The Doom Tube" to "Captain America in The Doom Tube of Dr. Megalomann" Renamed "The Catacombs" to "Catacombs" Renamed "The Game of Harmony" to "E-Motion" (European title) Renamed "Boot Camp" to "Combat School" (European title) Renamed "F40 Pursuit" to "Crazy Cars II" (European title) Duplicated all the game overrides and option files into the x64sc folder so that that core can be used instead if so desired. It should be noted, however, that this requires a mass find and replace in the game .bats to change the references to a different core - this is easy enough with Notepad++ (or equivalent) though. There is a possibility that x64sc will be used by default in the future, but in my experience the benefits are minimal while the drawback is higher hardware requirements and slower warp/fast forward speeds. Changed default frame delay value to 0 and a few other backend settings to help with lower end hardware performance Corrected Black Magic, Combat School, Cycle Knight, Drag Race Eliminator, The Great Escape, Jack Attack, Kikstart II, The Pit, and V - The Computer Game to use port 1 Changed F1 GP Circuits filter mode from 2 to 1 Fixed an error in the Steel Ranger [commercial] .cmd Removed -autostart x64 from .cmds as it's no longer necessary; this also helps facilitate easier swapping from x64 to x64sc if so desired Added some additional code to .vbs files to help with rare focus issues Configured NTSC games to use custom palette settings; default settings are way too dark, Colodore looks better than the default for NTSC but it's still too dark and looks terrible for PAL (saturation is way too high) Reduced contrast of CRT-Easymode-Halation-C64 shader slightly because it was unintentionally turning very dark greys solid black (the trainer menu for Alienworld is a good example) Replaced BZRPlayer with libsidplayfp for standalone SID tracks as it's significantly more accurate and sounds much better in a number of cases Moved CDisplayEx to Utilities folder and updated magazine .bats accordingly Added addditional map overlays for Alternate Reality - The City, Alternate Reality II - The Dungeon, The Legend of Blacksilver, The Magic Candle, Pirates!, Ultima I, Ultima II, Ultima III, Ultima IV, Ultima V, and Ultima VI Changed Kayleth to use the SuperCPU core running at 48% speed (100% is too fast; crashes RA if below 48%) because the animation sequences make the game run very slowly (making typing difficult/slow) which can be resolved with the SuperCPU - this also has the added benefit of making area changes/loading much faster Added alternate launch options for A Chance in Hell, Dark Side, The Eidolon, Koronis Rift, and Rescue on Fractalus to use the SuperCPU to make them run faster Increased deadzone slightly for right-stick to arrow keys, this helps prevent erroneous inputs either by straying diagonally or by stick release flipback Changed Boom (Brainstorm Amazing Software) to use SuperCPU (supported by the game natively) Added autoloading savestates to multi-game Easyflash carts so that the correct game is loaded on start rather than loading to the game selection menu - this had already been done previously for games that didn't require any in-game saving but wasn't used in cases where in-game saving was possible because doing so would (at the time) break those saves - this has since been patched! Added alternate name data to Launchbox (typically for alternate region titles ex. Coil Cop vs Thing Bounces Back) for about 70 games Miscellaneous: Updated and cleaned up Automator code a bit Added additional notes in the Config Editor Audited all per-game core option files to correct any instances of incorrect (legacy) values for SID resampling or missing values for color adjustments due to core updates Created a startup watchdog app that waits 15 seconds for Retroarch to start, and if it hasn't started by then it closes any running scripts/apps that were launched - I thought this was prudent since there are a number of scripts and apps that are launched in conjunction with Retroarch now to facilitate the manuals and music - these ordinarily close upon Retroarch closing but, in the event that something weird happens and for some reason Retroarch doesn't start to begin with, they don't have that trigger and will otherwise remain open; the watchdog is essentially a failsafe for this so that you don't have a bunch of stuff still running in the event that Retroarch doesn't start correctly for whatever reason; if Retroarch is open once the 15 seconds are up (and it certainly should be, that's plenty of time) the watchdog closes itself; in case your PC is just an absolute potato and it takes it longer than 15 seconds for Retroarch to start, I've included an alternate version that waits 30 seconds in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Retroarch\!Startup Watchdog - it takes about 2 seconds on my PC and it's about 7 years old now so I can't imagine many/any people needing this but you never know. I've also included a StopAll.exe in C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams which kills everything instantly just for good measure. Created clear logos for Diskmags, Magazines, Best Of Vol. 5, and Text Adventures Created nearly 700 3D boxes and unified the format for all 3D boxes in the collection. 3D Box is now the default view for games. Thanks to @Z3R0B4NG for assembling a collection of the boxes to point me in the right direction and to @marcoooo and @edgemundo for their contributions in helping to create many of the other 3D boxes in the collection. Changed CDisplayEx versions to one that's completely portable (previous version wrote some settings to an external local path) Lots and lots of media and metadata additions/cleanup in Launchbox; it's still not perfect (and realistically never will be) but it's significantly better than it was in the past Submitted several tickets for various core issues, all of which have been resolved thanks to the excellent support of sonninnos, the core maintainer: Remember Current Disk When Loading a State For Multi-Disk Game Per-Content vicerc Loading Toggleable Virtual Device Traps Core Option Make [Quick Menu > Restart] Revert to First Disk in .m3u Specify PRG When Loading From .m3u Manual Warp Not Working When Automatic Load Warp Is Enabled Stereo SID Support Savestates Break Easyflash Saving New games with multitap (3-4 controller) support: Hockey Mania New custom note overlays: Alternate Reality - The City Alternate Reality II - The Dungeon Angel of the Hell Asylum Ballblazer Below the Root Bushido - The Way of the Warrior Centauri Alliance Evil Prince, The Fall Fallen Galleon, The Garrison Hydrax Jonny Quest in Doctor Zin's Underworld Jungle Trouble Kayleth Maniac Mansion Omega - Neural Cybertank Design & Simulation Questron Questron II Shadow Over Hawksmill Shamus Case II Spelunker Tangled Tales - The Misadventures of a Wizard's Apprentice Ultima II - The Revenge of the Enchantress! Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders I also created a couple generic note overlays that apply to multiple games. One of which is a note that you need to press F1 to start the game. This has been added for the following games: Big Trouble in Little China Bop'n Wrestle Devil's Gallery DragonHawk Ghostbusters Jetboys Juice! Pastfinder Pitfall II - The Lost Caverns Zenji Zeta-7 Another generic overlay was created to cover the saving and loading procedure for all Infocom games. This has been added for the following games: Deadline Enchanter Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Lurking Horror, The Moonmist Planetfall Seastalker Starcross Suspended Zork I - The Great Underground Empire Zork II - The Wizard of Frobozz Zork III - The Dungeon Master Zork - The Undiscovered Underground New games: 2438 The Return 3-D Skramble 720 Degrees Accolade Comics Ace of Aces Adventureland Adventures of Tronic Age of Heroes, The* Aigina's Prophecy Aliants - The Desperate Battle For Earth Alien (Argus Press Software) Alien Bleed Amazon (Telarium) Andy Capp Archon II Army Moves Around the World in 80 Days Aussie Games Autoduel Aviator Arcade II* Avoid B.C.'s Quest for Tires Balakon Raider Beer Belly Burt's Brew Biz Birdie Bird Bobby Bearing Book of the Dead Breakthru Brubaker C64 Snail Maze Centauri Alliance Centric Chameleon Chomp! Crush, Crumble & Chomp Curse of Ra Cybo-Cop Darkhorn Davy - King of the Wild Frontier Deadline (Infocom) Deadly Thunder Death Battle 2200 Death Saw Challenge Declem Demon's Winter Destruct Drol Dungeon of Rott Elevator Eric Enchanter Endless Escape to Murky Woods Ewe Woz 'Ere Eye of Horus Fall Fallen Flax Forever Extending Hungry Snake, The Frankenstein (CRL) Game of Harmony, The Garrison Gateway to Apshai Ghost of Genghis Khan, The Ghost Town 64 Golden Pyramids, The Greystorm Guild of Thieves, The Gun City Gun Runner (Mnemonic Productions) Gun Runner (The Power House) Gunboat Gunfighter Gunfighters Gunfright Guns 'n' Roses Gunslinger (Datasoft) Gunslinger (Virgin Mastertronic) Gunstar Gutt Blaster Guzzler H.A.T.E. Hades Nebula Hagar The Horrible Halcyon Halley Mission, The Halloween Halloween Police Halls of Death Halls of the Dwarven Kings, The Halls of the Things Hammer Boy Hangman's Hazard Hans Kloss Happiest Days of Your Life, The Happy Gardening Happy Hacker Harald Hardtooth Hard Work Hardsync Harrier 7 Harrier Attack Harrier Combat Simulator Harvey Smith Showjumper Hassle Castle Hatchet Honeymoon Haunted Hill Haunted House (Planet Rock) Haunted Inn Haunted Mansion Havoc (Players Premier) Hawk Hawk Mission Hawk Mission II Hawk Patrol Hawkstorm Head Start Head The Ball Head to Head Karate Head-On (Compute) Headache Heavy Metal - Modern Land Combat Vol. I Heavy Metal Deluxe Hektic Hektic II Helden Heli Rescue Helicopter Mission, The Hell for Leather Hell Zone Hell Zone II Hellfire Hellraid Helm, The Helsings Hunt Hercules - Slayer of the Damned Hermitage, The Hero Quest Hero Quest II Hero Time Hero Time II Heroes of Karn, The Heroes of Midgard Hideous Hideous Bill and the Gi-Gants Hidihood High Frontier High Mountains, The High Rise Highland Games Highlander Highway Encounter Hillsfar Himalayan Odyssey Hit and Run Baseball Ho! Ho! Ho! Hobbit, The Hobgoblin Hockey Mania Hocus Focus Holiday Cops Holiday Games Hollywood or Bust Hollywood Squares Holo Holocaust Hong Kong Phooey Hook Hopeless Hopper Copper Hopping Hoodlum, The Hopto Hostages Hot Pop Hot Shot Hot Wheels Hotel Alien House Case House of Usher House, The How to Be a Complete Bastard Human Killing Machine Human Race, The Humanoids Hummdinger Hunchback - The Adventure Hunchback at the Olympics Hunt for Bubber's Bathtub Hunt for Red October, The Huntress of Midgard Hybrid Hydra Hydrax Hypa-Ball Hyper Active Hyper Circuit Hyper Space Warrior Hyper Viper Hyper-Hen Hyperbowl Hyperion II Hyperrace Hyperspeed Hyperthrust I Play 3D Soccer I Play 3D Tennis I-Alien I-Ball I-Ball II - The Quest for the Past I-Wizard I-Xera Ice Island Ice Palace (Creative Sparks) Ice Temple, The Ice-Mania ICUPS Ihanpaska Ikari III - The Rescue Ikari Warriors II Ikarus Iketa Ikkiuchi Illgen Illusions Imagination Imaginator Imperium Imperoid Implosion Impossible Game, The Imshi Incredible Laboratory, The Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade Indoor Soccer Indoor Sports Indy Heat Inertiania - Land of Motion Infection Infinite Inferno Infinity Worlds in the Space Infodroid Ingrid's Back Inheritance, The Inheritance, The - Chaos in Scotland Inheritance, The - Panic in Las Vegas Inherits of the Throne Inner Space Inner Space Plant Attack Insanity in San Francisco Insects in Space Inspector Gadget Institute, The Interceptor Base Interchange Intergalactic Cage Match International 3D Tennis International 5 A-Side International Basketball International Ice Hockey International Ninja Rabbits International Speedway International Sports Challenge International Team Sports International Truck Racing Interview Into the Nature Intrigue! Intruder - The Game Intruder - The Space Quest Invader Invasion Invasive Action Invasor Invert Invest IQ Iron Horse Island of Dr. Destructo, The Island of the Dragons ISS - Incredible Shrinking Sphere Issuar It's a Knockout It's Only Rock n' Roll Italy 1990 Iznogoud - The Grand Vizir Jack and the Beanstalk Jack Bullet Jack Charlton's Match Fishing Jack Nicklaus Championship Golf Jack The Ripper Jackal (Imagine) Jackal (Konami) Jackal II Jahangir Khan Squash Jai Alai Jail Break Jail War Jailbreak (Michael Lalonde) Jam It! James Bond JANI JANI 2 Jara-Tava - The Isle of Fire Jasg Jason of the Argonauts Java Jim in Square Shaped Trouble Jaws (Box Office Software) Jaws (Outlaw-Emix Software) Jaws (Screen 7) Jax Jed's Journey Jeep Command Jeep Command II Jeffy Jessy the Worm Jet Power Jack Jet Set Willy Jet Set Willy II - The Final Frontier Jet-Boot Jack Jetan - Martian Chess Jetboys Jetsons, The Jewel Thief Jewels of Babylon Jewels of Darkness Jihad - Raid Over Baghdad Jimbo Jinks Jinn-Genie Jinxter Job Race Jocky Wilson's Darts Challenge Jocky Wilson's Darts Compendium Joe (CP Verlag) Joe Dick - Private Investigator John Elway's Quarterback John Lowe's Ultimate Darts Jolly Roger Jonah Barrington's Squash Jonathan Jonny Quest in Doctor Zin's Underworld Josh Journey to the Centre of the Earth, A Judge Dredd (Virgin Mastertronic) Juice! Juke Box Julius Caesar Jump Machine Jumpin Jack Jumpin' Jimmy JumpJets Jumpman Junior Jungle Drums Jungle Jack Jungle Patrol Jungle Quest Jungle Raid Jungle Trouble Junkyard Junkyard Jalopies Juno First Jupiter Mission 1999 Jupiter's Electrician Kabura Kacper Kaiv Kami-Kaze Kamikaze Duck Kangarudy KAOS Karamalz Cup Karate Champ Karate Chop Karnov Karting Grand Prix Kat Trap Katapult Kayden Garth Kellogg's Tour 1988 Kennedy Approach Kentilla Kernal's Chaos Kettle Key Finders KGB Agent KGB Superspy Kick Box Vigilante Killed Until Dead Knax Knights of Legend Kobo64 Last Fight, The Left 2 Die Left 2 Die Part 2 Lord of Dragonspire, The* Lurking Horror, The Macbeth Magical Girl Mary vs E.V.I.L. Make My Day Mancala Mars* Mask of the Sun, The Maxwell Manor - The Skull of Doom Mean Streets Mega Tank Blasta Metal Dust* Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird - One on One Mini Golf Mirage Moebius Moebius - The Orb of Celestial Harmony Monopoly Deluxe Moonmist Muncher Eats Chewits, The Munsters, The Muppet Adventure - Chaos at the Carnival Neptune Lander Elite Newcomer Nightwalker Ninja Rabbits Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less Old West World, The Omega - Neural Cybertank Design & Simulation Outlaw Over The Net Phantasie Phantasie II Phantasie III Pilgrim Planetfall Project FX-64 Puffy's Saga Quest of the Space Beagle Questron Questron II Rally Speedway II Rambo III Ring of Power, The Robin of Sherwood - The Touchstones of Rhiannon Robots of Dawn Rogue Rudy Hammer Run Demon Run* Saracen Seastalker Sector Patrol Sentinel Worlds I - Future Magic Shadow Over Hawksmill* Shadows of Mordor, The Shamus Shamus Case II Side Arms Silicon Dreams Silicon Warrior Sizzler* Slam Dunk Slurpy Snake-A-Space Snap Snake Soko-Ban Sooper Froot Space Mission Space Swarm 64 Standing Stones, The Starcross Stellar Wars Storm Chase Successors of the Throne, The - War for the Crown II Summer Games Super Nova Survival Messenger Survival Messenger Adventure Suspended Sword of Fargoal Tai-Pan Tangled Tales - The Misadventures of a Wizard's Apprentice Tau Ceti Temple of Apshai Trilogy Test Drive Test Drive II - The Duel To Be On Top Toilet Paper Stacker Uchi Mata Ultima I - The First Age of Darkness Ultima II - The Revenge of the Enchantress! Ultima V Ultima VI - The False Prophet V.I.O.S. Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego Windwalker - A Tale from Moebius Winter Games Wizard's Crown Wolfman You Had One Job Zambeezi Zombie Party Zork - The Undiscovered Underground Zork I - The Great Underground Empire Zork II - The Wizard of Frobozz Zork III - The Dungeon Master Zork Quest I - Assault on Egreth Castle Zork Quest II - The Crystal of Doom *these games are still commercially available so the roms are not supplied New Magazines: Zzap!64 Issues 51-60 Commodore Format 26-34 New Demos: 5 Shades of Grey by Lethargy Diagonality by Genesis Project Dream Travel 100% by Samar Productions In A Hurry by Padua Nothing But PETSCII by Genesis Project Out of Contex by Artline Designs Pagan's Mind by Dream Remains by Booze Design Rocketry by Chorus Snakepit by Delysid New Diskmags: Attitude 15-20 Dawn 1 Propaganda 25-29 Recollection 1-3 Vandalism News 61-70 New SID: Ain't Seen Nothing Yet by Shinobi Bomba by Flex Cold War Generation by Linus Danger Dawg by Steel & Stinsen Ed in His Lib by Jammer [with SFXExpander/YM3812 support] Electric City by Flex [2SID] Elusive Groove by Flex Empty by Jojeli Foregone Destruction by Jammer Hawkeye 2018 by Flex I Dug Some Graves You'll Never Find by Linus Keine Music by Taxim La Mer by LMan Les Cathedrales by Shogoon Lundia by Flex Mainstream Lamestream by Mr. Mouse Midnight Kisses by Mibri [with SFXExpander/YM3812 support] Mini by Fegolhuzz Miss You! by Juzdie Mission Solaire by Flotsam Mutants Revisited by Jason Page No Conocida by Zardax Odyssey by Jammer [2SID] On The Waves by psycho858o Player by psych858o Rastaline Dub by LMan Red Herring Caught Red Handed by Jammer Robot Sensuality by LMan Smile to the Sky by Geir Tjelta Snowcial Distancing by Fegolhuzz Sockerbeat by Qdor Something Squared by Xiny6581 Spacebar by MCH Squad Signal by Dave Stay Strong, My Friend by Jammer, chuinho, GH, LMan, MCH, Mibri, psych858o, Shogoon, and Wiklund Stomp by Jammer Thus Spoke the PC Speaker by lft Turbo Killer by Noplan Vandal by Heart by TDM Vortex by LMan Finally, I just want to once again thank all the people that helped contribute to this update in various ways. Thanks again, I appreciate the support! sonninnos @Pixelpiper @Z3R0B4NG @edgemundo @marcoooo @jayjay @JoeViking245 @jophran @TimberlAndRE Smiling Spectre The folks at The Museum of Computer Adventure Game History and the Ultimate Tape Archive Everyone who contributes time and energy on improving the LBGDB with media and metadata! So, that's it for now. I'm in dire need of a nap. Have fun!

No problem. The way Retroarch handles combos isn't via two buttons/keys mapped to one function, it's via enable_hotkeys (in this case that's assigned to the back button) which functions as the combo button which you have to hold down in combination with any other hotkey. In this case the "exit" and "next overlay" hotkeys.

Sorry, it's got a static path that's supposed to be relative. Open Reshade.ini (it's in the main folder next to Winmugen.exe) and change CurrentPresetPath= from X:\Winmugen\.\ZombsReshade\Dark.ini to .\ZombsReshade\Dark.ini

Alright, here it is. If you want to enable Reshade, go into the ZombsReshade subfolder and start "Enable.bat". "Disable.bat" turns it off. It's setup to use my own bezel which is designed for 1920x1080. If you're using something else you'd want to disable the overlay and the aspect ratio passes. It has a "Loading..." intro when it starts but you can skip it by pressing Esc. Be aware that the first time you start it, it will take a while to load to the title screen because it has a lot of data to cache. It will seem like it's frozen but it's not. It should start quickly on subsequent launches until you restart. You select characters by moving up and down the character selection screen to different categories and then pressing left or right. Until you press left or right, it'll select a random character if you press a button. Once you've pressed left or right to see characters in a section, you'll need to move back to the starting position (it circles around whether you go left or right; when it starts flipping through characters randomly you're back to the starting position) before moving up or down to a different category. This may seem a little odd add first but you'll get used to it. The alternative to this is what you see in a lot of M.U.G.E.N. setups - a gigantic grid of characters that's a complete mess with tiny character icons. I much prefer this.

If you open up retroarch.cfg you'd need to change the following: input_exit_emulator_btn = "4" to input_exit_emulator_btn = "nul" and input_overlay_next_btn = "6" to input_overlay_next_btn = "4"

It's funny for this to come up out of the blue since I randomly added some stuff to it a couple months ago haha; mostly as an excuse to mess around with using Reshade to see how well/if it would work with it. Took a fair bit of fiddling to get them to cooperate the way I wanted. I'll upload the current version to my Google drive and link it in here. It might be tomorrow. It's about 14GB uncompressed.

Finished "S". 92% through the collection. 412 front covers / 349 back covers / 668 3D Boxes created / 1053 total manual count Almost there.

They do not. Video snaps aren't usable with the free version of Launchbox so they're not a high priority. That said, the plan is eventually create those as well once everything else is essentially done. I recorded about a hundred very early on but as I said it's not a priority currently. Emumovies does have video snaps for C64 but generally they're low quality and seemingly all in the wrong aspect ratio; and game coverage is sporadic.

All the slots are taken for the upcoming update but I'll add it to the to-do list for the one after that. Another quick update: 84% of the tape archive complete - 366 covers / 309 back covers / 642 3D boxes created / 1033 total manual count

Just to provide a quick update, I've finished pulling out and processing media from the tape archive for 60% of the collection. I've gotten 238 covers (the archive already includes separate images for the covers, but a lot of times they aren't cropped all that well so I usually end up having to crop them from the original complete inlay anyway) and 203 back covers, compared those against the ones that were already in the collection and replaced where it was an upgrade (which is most of the time), and made 3D boxes for many of those. The current count of 3D boxes that I've made is 556. In addition to that I've created manuals from the inlays for about 230 games, about 70 of which were entirely new and the rest were upgrades/replacements of existing manuals. The current total manual count is 983, and I anticipate this will surpass 1000 by the time it's all done. The process is slowed down by the fact that many of the manuals are in a format that's really not ideal for viewing in the manual viewer by default. For example: So what ends up happening is I have to cut these up into separate images for easier viewing: You can, of course, always zoom in on any of these, but I want to have them formatted in such a way that by default that isn't really necessary. Any given page should be relatively easy to read as-is without doing anything (other than changing from one page to the next). Sometimes it's a relatively straightforward change like the above, other times not as much. Original: Edited: Original: Edited (editing the image so that the language order matches the first page): ...all this crap ends up taking time. But, as I said, I'm 60% through at this point so that's pretty good progress for a week I think. Just gotta keep on trudging through it.

For anyone interested @Z3R0B4NG sent me this link which contains the files in question, and do indeed include the inside scans. It's uh... pretty eye-watering. Gonna have to dive deep into this over the weekend. What a treasure trove. https://ia801709.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/18/items/Ultimate_Tape_Archive_V2.0/Ultimate_Tape_Archive_V2.0.zip

Not familiar with that one either, I'll take a look. For reference, the primary sites that I used for manuals were: https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?thelist=2 http://69.60.118.202/commodore/games/ https://archive.org/download/Commodore64Manuals https://www.gamesdatabase.org/list.aspx?DM=0&system=commodore_64&manual=1&sort=Game https://www.c64games.de/phpseiten/spielesuche.php http://www.c64sets.com/boxed_sets.html http://infodoc.plover.net/manuals/index.html http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/greybox.html These generally weren't great for tape manuals though. http://69.60.118.202/commodore/games/ has a decent selection in the tapes subcategory, but generally these sites focused more on separate manuals, i.e. not ones that were included as part of the tape cover. The other thing to keep in mind is that oftentimes manuals for 8-bit PCs were cross-platform, and are oftentimes sites only have them listed under one (that isn't C64). The most common crossover is between ZX Spectrum and C64, but in some cases you might see Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, and Atari 8-bit all sharing one manual, and have it only listed under one of those platforms on the site they're uploaded to, so that complicates matters.

I'm familiar with c64sets (which has nice scans but a pretty limited selection) and retrocollector; the latter of which, in rather cancerous fashion, puts a nice big watermark on everything, so I refuse to use them. To add insult to injury they have some extremely rare media there that I haven't seen anywhere else, yet have the audacity to hamfistedly slap their shit on it like a video rental store out of the 90s. The preservation of tangential media like covers and manuals, while not quite as important as the preservation of the games themselves, is still important; and behavior like that actively damages that effort. /rant I haven't seen c64tapes before though, and it looks like they have some nice scans of some of those inside covers that I mentioned, so thanks! That should help.

There's some good stuff in there @Z3R0B4NG! I don't suppose the source for those also had scans for the reverse sides of any of those? The reason I ask is it was common - as demonstrated by those images - for games released on tape to include the manual on the tape cover itself. Sometimes this spanned onto the flip side of the cover, sometimes it didn't. I've gotten several new manuals out of what's there already, so that's awesome. I break them up into separate pages, combine them into a .cbr, and we're good to go. They're missing the inside scans for some of them though - Code Masters did this quite a bit. I've found some of them on Mobygames and combined them together (since the existing elements from your set are generally higher quality). If your source for these has scans of the inside covers, I would be very interested in getting them.

I'd be interested in taking a look but that link doesn't seem to be working for me. That's just taking me to my own Mega account page when I click on it. Filling in missing screenshots is actually going quicker than I thought. I'm about 75% of the way through those.

Alright, so that was a fun little rabbit hole. @edgemundo sent me a bunch of boxes (thanks again!) and I ended up making / remaking a bunch (383) myself as well. Turns out marcoooo's boxes are a modified version of Mr. Retrolust's arcade boxes so, with some fiddling, I made the modifications to the template/PSD actions/bats from there to recreate the same format that he used; and now the process from beginning to end is super quick and easy, and I can create/update the boxes as needed over time. As an added bonus, I ended up finding some better covers for some games while working on these as well. If anyone wants to upload any of these to the LBGDB, they are welcome to do so. You can find them here: 3D Boxes.zip I may end up creating a few more here and there if anything grabs my attention but by and large my sweep through the collection is complete. Everything's looking nice and snazzy now. Minus the ones that are currently just a screenshot, of course, but I can live with that for the time being. The metadata cleanup is complete (or at least as complete as it's going to be for the time being). Everything that I could match I have, any incorrect matches that I've found have been fixed, anything that was already matched but had additional metadata on the db but not in the collection has been updated (that I found), and every game has, at the very least, a genre tag. The last thing I'm doing is auditing to see what needs to have screenshots added and adding them as much as I can (this is basically only remaining for games that have no db entry at all and need screenshots added manually). I may or may not finish that, it just depends on whether or not I get too tired of it haha After that, all I need to do is make two versions of the Magazines xml for import (one for default launch with web versions and one for default launch with local versions) per @mordroc's request a while back [edit: done], update the Import and XML insert text files [edit: done], do a bit of testing with importing the collection into my main LB setup, and then some backend tidying.

No idea on this one, never experienced that. You should probably talk to Frode about that. I'm not sure what that would be in reference to. It's always worked fine for me.

Yes, each game is setup with its own instance of Windows 95/98. The game is then added to the startup folder so that it starts on launch. They can be started and imported into Launchbox like any other Windows game. There are multiple examples of this on my site. Just search through the Index for any games that use PCem. https://www.zombs-lair.com/

Okay, so I've finished sorting through the 3D boxes for the entire collection. @edgemundo has been a real champ working on 3D boxes to fill in the gaps. This does not account for the games that have no cover whatsoever, however, that will need a fanart box created for them. If anyone has any desire to help with those, I've attached a zip of the screenshots used as covers for the relevant games. There are 430 of them. Temp-Screenshot.zip At this point I'm just going to let edgemundo do his thing while I work on backend cleanup and some final testing. We're almost there!

Well I think the idea is ostensibly that those platforms will be emulatable at some point. And while this is of course true for PS5 as well, it's even further off than it is for those platforms (which are pretty far off). All of this stuff will make sense in LaunchBox eventually. But as it stands it's not the type of thing that really should be much of a priority because there's not much you can actually do with it at this point. Meanwhile, there is plenty of media and metadata missing from games that are perfectly playable right now. There are actually a lot of websites out there that are specifically designed around making lists of various stuff. Ones that would be quite a bit easier to utilize than Launchbox for purely that purpose too. Functionally, the way Launchbox is designed is in such a way that you're supposed to import something (a rom, a disc image, what-have-you) which you can subsequently play. And the DB should generally reflect that.

It's actually not. That's why it's not called ListBox. It's called LaunchBox because it's designed to give you a nice, pretty, organized list of things that you can then launch. You're welcome to put whatever you want into it, and call it whatever you want. You could make a platform for your favorite deli sandwiches if you wanted to. There's nothing stopping you from doing that, but that's not what what LaunchBox is actually designed for, and as such the value to having PS5, deli sandwiches, what-have-you, in the db are limited at best. I don't think the DB should have an XB1 or PS4 platform either, honestly, although I do know that some users have rigged up ways to get Launchbox to start things on their physical console so hey, shrug emoji.

I've sorted through the 3D boxes for the first 1650 games (66%). I'll upload a new set of the missing media once I've made it through the rest. @edgemundo was gracious enough to offer to help with some of the missing 3D boxes as well so yay for that! ?