Zomb's Lair - Reviving Old Classics

[Zombeaver]

DxWnd is okay, I've used it before.

Blade Runner has a normal (non-stretched) aspect ratio in fullscreen for me though...

[plutonick]

8 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

DxWnd is okay, I've used it before.

Blade Runner has a normal (non-stretched) aspect ratio in fullscreen for me though...

Do you have black bars on the sides of your screen? Mine doesn't. It gets stretched all the way and people look funny and/or fat...

[Zombeaver]

19 minutes ago, plutonick said:

Do you have black bars on the sides of your screen?

Yep. Like I said, it's the correct aspect ratio.

You could try running the game with the compatibility setting of 640x480 resolution. That's the game's native resolution. I'm not using it and it's correct for me though.

[roy1975]

8 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Just as a little tease:

Hmmm...The Last Ninja, Project Firestart, Supremacy? The other one looks very familiar but I can't place it...

[Zombeaver]

2 hours ago, roy1975 said:

Hmmm...The Last Ninja, Project Firestart, Supremacy? The other one looks very familiar but I can't place it...

Times of Lore

[Zombeaver]

Okay, so I'm gonna call this a beta version of the LB Import package. I'll be doing a standalone version that uses Launchbox, but I'd like to hear how well this works out for others first.

There's a README.rtf file included that you need to read - you don't need to read the entire thing, but you do need to read the first section (CCS64 Notes) at least as you do need to do one thing before starting. You should also read about the control binds as well, at least.

Installation should be fairly straightforward - you just extract the contents of the "Launchbox" folder in the zip into your Launchbox folder. It will then appear as a new platform named "C64 Dreams".

The final version is also going to include some "Honorable Mentions" that aren't included in the default list but can be added in if you so choose. Don't worry @neil9000, you'll get your Dizzy

Download Link

It's 128 of my favorite C64 games. It was not easy to narrow it down to that, let me tell you  I ended up swapping things in and out multiple times. I'm pretty happy with it in the end.

Anyway, I'm curious to hear how this goes for people and what you think! Let me know!

[DOS76]

well since you had to change games out that just opens Pandora's box for volume 2

[Zombeaver]

Yep, that was actually something that I thought of working on this. I probably shouldn't even go there, but I kept thinking "Well maybe I'll just tentatively call this 'volume 1'..."

[Lordmonkus]

Nope, no going back now, you're stuck.

[Birmm]

@Zombeaver Amazing. I've been looking for a working version of Chasm: The Rift for AGES, and the patch that supposed to fix low fps did not work for me at all. And here you are!  Thank you so much for this!

Edited March 16, 2018 by Birmm

[plutonick]

I am at work right now and I can't download this, but I am so curious to see what is included in this. I had never downloaded any C64 games (although there were some that I always wanted to play) mainly because I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of downloading more emulators (as if I didn't have enough already). The fact that this can be easily imported in launchbox is an added bonus!

[Zombeaver]

5 hours ago, Birmm said:

@Zombeaver Amazing. I've been looking for a working version of Chasm: The Rift for AGES, and the patch that supposed to fix low fps did not work for me at all. And here you are!  Thank you so much for this!

No problem man! Happy to help.

[Zombeaver]

So after all this work with the C64 thing, with some more fiddling last night and this morning I think I may rework it to use the DOS version of CCS64 instead. The current version should mostly work, but I think converting to the DOS version would be an improvement.

The Windows version has some... quirks... that have always kindof annoyed me. It has some oddities when running on modern versions of Windows. Most of the time it's fine, but other times, seemingly randomly, it just does weird stuff like launching minimized or unfocused. You can exit and start it again and it can be fine and then some time later it'll do the same thing; again, randomly. It's strange. Sound syncing has always been sortof irksome for me as well - you can sync it to your monitor rate which will pretty much invariably make it run way too fast as the C64 ran at 50.125hz (so if it's running at a speed of 60hz it's super fast) or you can set it to either "auto" or forced 50hz (both of which are basically the same thing) but while that's close it's not perfect because as I said the C64 ran at 50.125hz, not 50hz, and you get some occasional pops as result.

Neither of these issues seem to be present running the DOS version in DOSBox. Doing so requires a significant amount of rework since I have to:

1) Create DOSBox .confs for each game, directed to the appropriate rom
2) Rename my roms to 8 characters or less because of DOS character limits
3) Alter my ahk scripts to be directed to the .conf rather than the rom
4) Create new .exe conversions of those ahk scripts

Another concern is that the hotkeys for changing to the next and previous disks aren't present in the DOS version, but I've come up with a way to mostly get around that. What will happen is you press the combo that I've used previously for "next disk", it will then send an Alt+8 input, then a Ctrl+[letter that the game name starts with], then down the appropriate number of times to go to the next disk, then F4 to select it. Pressing the previous disk button will do the same thing but down the appropriate number of times for the previous disk. This will only work for games that are 2 disks, however, as I don't know how to make it know if you've pressed the next/previous disk hotkey previously, so it'll just go up and down a set number of times for the first and second disk. Luckily only 2 games in the set are over 3 disks, and I can still have the next disk function pull up the selector, and go to the appropriate spot for the first disk - you'd just need to press up or down arrow to get to whatever disk you want and then press F4. Obviously doing this requires a lot more manual work since I have to custom-tailor the AHK scripts for the multi-disk games to move to the appropriate slot for that game...

I must be mental...

[Porl Hendy]

41 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

I must be AWESOME...

 

Spell check lol

[Zombeaver]

Okay, a metric buttload of work later... here's the new import version of C64 Dreams. I'm considering this the release candidate. If anybody has any issues, please let me know; otherwise I'll be working on finishing up work on the standalone version.

The install process is the same - just take the contents of the Launchbox folder and put them in your own Launchbox folder.

The Readme has been updated. Some things have changed and a number of things have been added. Please read it.

Download Link (newer version available)

EDIT: Oh, and the "honorable mentions" aren't in this yet. The only thing in there currently is IO because I swapped in GI Joe in its place. I decided that I had quite a few shmups already, and IO was my least favorite of the bunch because of the extremely punishing difficulty; and I felt weird not putting GI Joe in there.

[Zombeaver]

Here's a controls reference sheet:

[Zombeaver]

I made one quick little change here - swapping between the 360 and Xbone mappings is now easier. I created .bats which copy out and overwrite the mappings and added these as "games" at the very bottom of the list. You can swap between them simply by starting one or the other - you start one and it's then setup for a 360 controller; you start the other and now you're setup for an Xbone controller. The only difference between the two is the hotkey for Enter/Return (Right Trigger). The label for this input is different between the two controllers, so you'll want to use the correct one based on the type of controller you're using. The Xbone mapping is used by default.

The readme has been updated and the mapping reference image has been added. The link above has been updated with the new version.

[plutonick]

9 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

Okay, a metric buttload of work later... here's the new import version of C64 Dreams. I'm considering this the release candidate. If anybody has any issues, please let me know; otherwise I'll be working on finishing up work on the standalone version.

The install process is the same - just take the contents of the Launchbox folder and put them in your own Launchbox folder.

The Readme has been updated. Some things have changed and a number of things have been added. Please read it.

Download Link

EDIT: Oh, and the "honorable mentions" aren't in this yet. The only thing in there currently is IO because I swapped in GI Joe in its place. I decided that I had quite a few shmups already, and IO was my least favorite of the bunch because of the extremely punishing difficulty; and I felt weird not putting GI Joe in there.

Will download it once I get home. I admit the previous release was hard to use. Mainly because I was unfamiliar with the emulator and didn't really know how C64 worked. Also, it was messing my display everytime I switched windows. 

In case you release a second C64 pack, may I suggest 
http://www.mobygames.com/game/vera-cruz
http://www.mobygames.com/game/sydney-affai

I used to own them for my Amstrad 6128 but never really played them because I was young and murder mysteries confused me. I always wanted to try them again but never had the time to learn how to use another (amstrad) emulator

[plutonick]

1 hour ago, plutonick said:

Will download it once I get home. 

I couldn't resist and downloaded it while at was at work. 
Cauldron!!! What an awesome game. I loved it at first sight. The boxcover artwork is awesome. Same for Cauldron II (which is sadly missing from the collection ). Kudos for the Last Ninja collection. Always wanted to try this.

[Zombeaver]

1 hour ago, plutonick said:

I admit the previous release was hard to use. Mainly because I was unfamiliar with the emulator and didn't really know how C64 worked.

Please read the readme. It should cover just about everything.

1 hour ago, plutonick said:

Also, it was messing my display everytime I switched windows.

That shouldn't happen with this one. That's one of the things I didn't like about the Windows version of CCS64.

48 minutes ago, plutonick said:

Cauldron!!! What an awesome game. I loved it at first sight. The boxcover artwork is awesome. Same for Cauldron II (which is sadly missing from the collection ).

I love the first game. The second one is okay but it's not nearly as good, in my opinion. It's a very different game from the first, and it's fairly difficult to control.

49 minutes ago, plutonick said:

Kudos for the Last Ninja collection. Always wanted to try this.

I love the Last Ninja games. The first one is the only one that I had as a kid, so it's the one I'm most nostalgic for, but 2 and 3 are very good too; quite difficult though (like most games on C64 haha).

Let me know how it goes!