c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[zorkiii 11]

Awesome! For some reason Shamus has this huge nostalgia effect on me, I remember getting that one in a batch of copies from a friend in the mid 80's and being super drawn to it. The title music cracks me up too. Plus the Synapse logo and tones that play when it show up are great.

Do you know the parameters that need to be used to run a specific game using NTSC rather than PAL? I know the majority of games were PAL but growing up in the USA I experienced most of them on NTSC and the music being slower (with PAL) just kills the feeling for me on some of these. I changed the core in retroarch to run on C64 NTSC but it seemed to switch it for everything. Would it be something in the ..\..\Retroarch\Retroarch.exe -L "..\..\Retroarch\cores\vice_x64_libretro.dll" "Game-Name.cmd" line to add in? 

 

[Zombeaver 1,829]

No, it's done through the core options. If you change it there, it will change it for anything that doesn't have an existing core option (.opt) file for them. To change it per-game, you would change the value and then use the top option in the list to save a core option for the currently loaded game only. This creates an .opt file that's named after the game in config\Vice x64. These essentially work as overrides except they're specifically for core options.

Be aware, however, that the vast majority of these games are designed for PAL. The only games that are setup to use NTSC are ones that specifically require it (few and far between). In some cases it will work for both, but I can't guarantee it.

[Zombeaver 1,829]

It should also be noted that if you're going to do that, you should make sure you use the update that I posted a couple pages back, because the core options changed (because I'm using @Pixelpiper's core now). This is what's going to be used in all future releases so it would invalidate your new option files if you tried using then after updating to the next version.

[Zombeaver 1,829]

Alright y'all, I've been busy working on individual game releases for Zomb's Lair lately but I'm currently gearing up to resume work on C64 Dreams.

Something that I thought might be helpful for the project would be for me to list the games that I've added as I go, preemptively, so that anyone that will be working on media/metadata for the DB can work on that beforehand rather than after the fact. I work on the Launchbox side of things as the last step of the process, so that would make things easier for me as well since I could just scrape the DB after the updates had already been made. I currently have 150 games picked out with the goal for the next version being 500, but not all of those 150 have been tested yet so I don't want to list them until I've done that (because they might turn out to be crap and end up getting removed). 67 of them are actually done though, so those are good to go. I'm sure that some of these have DB entries with media/metadata already, but I just figured doing it this way would make things easier for everyone. @Z3R0B4NG I don't know how involved you are with that side of things, but if there's anyone specifically you think I should shout out for that, just let me know.

Spoiler

2438 The Return
Ace of Aces
Adventures of Tronic
Age of Heroes, The
Alien Bleed
Aviator Arcade II
Birdie Bird
Bobby Bearing
Centric
Cybo-Cop
Deadly Thunder
Death Battle 2200
Drol
Dungeon of Rott
Escape to Murky Woods
Forever Extending Hungry Snake, The
Game of Harmony, The
Ghost of Genghis Khan, The
Ghost Town 64
Golden Pyramids, The
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
Hades Nebula
Hagar The Horrible
Halcyon
Halloween
Halloween Police
Halls of Death
Hammer Boy
Hercules - Slayer of the Damned
Jumpman Junior
Kobo64
Left 2 Die
Left 2 Die Part 2
Magical Girl Mary vs E.V.I.L.
Mancala
Mega Tank Blasta
Mirage
Old West World, The
Outlaw
Project FX-64
Ring of Power, The
Rudy Hammer
Sizzler
Sooper Froot
Space Mission
Space Swarm 64
Stellar Wars
Storm Chase
Summer Games
Survival Messenger
Tai-Pan
Toilet Paper Stacker
Winter Games
Zambeezi

I've also setup a Discord server for Zomb's Lair which includes a C64 Dreams channel for discussing the project, if anyone's interested. You can find it here.

[Z3R0B4NG 45]

Sorry ...i got nothing.  

...and the 3D Box stuff i wanted to do for C64 all pretty much went nowhere.  

I just did a huge pass on SNES that took me 2 months and i really had to force myself to finish it, i do not feel ready to jump into the next big project just yet, i need some time off from the LBDB.

[Zombeaver 1,829]

That's perfectly understandable. Trust me, I know.

I'll just post them in here as I go and hope for the best. If people see them and use that information to update the DB, great; if not, it'll just be business as usual regardless.

[Zombeaver 1,829]

45 new games since the last batch:

Spoiler

720 Degrees
Archon II
BC's Quest for Tires
Curse of Ra
Flax
H.A.T.E.
Hangman's Hazard
Hans Kloss
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 Mission III
Hawk Patrol
Hawkstorm
Head Start
Head The Ball
Head to Head Karate
Head-On (Compute)
Headache
Make My Day
Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird - One on One
Rambo III
Sector Patrol
Shamus
Side Arms
Super Nova
Sword of Fargoal
Temple of Apshai Trilogy
You Had One Job

Current full list of new titles (112 games total):

Spoiler

2438 The Return
720 Degrees
Ace of Aces
Adventures of Tronic
Age of Heroes, The
Alien Bleed
Archon II
Aviator Arcade II
BC's Quest for Tires
Birdie Bird
Bobby Bearing
Centric
Curse of Ra
Cybo-Cop
Deadly Thunder
Death Battle 2200
Drol
Dungeon of Rott
Escape to Murky Woods
Flax
Forever Extending Hungry Snake, The
Game of Harmony, The
Ghost of Genghis Khan, The
Ghost Town 64
Golden Pyramids, The
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
Halloween
Halloween Police
Halls of Death
Hammer Boy
Hangman's Hazard
Hans Kloss
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 Mission III
Hawk Patrol
Hawkstorm
Head Start
Head The Ball
Head to Head Karate
Head-On (Compute)
Headache
Hercules - Slayer of the Damned
Jumpman Junior
Kobo64
Left 2 Die
Left 2 Die Part 2
Magical Girl Mary vs E.V.I.L.
Make My Day
Mancala
Mega Tank Blasta
Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird - One on One
Mirage
Old West World, The
Outlaw
Project FX-64
Rambo III
Ring of Power, The
Rudy Hammer
Sector Patrol
Shamus
Side Arms
Sizzler
Sooper Froot
Space Mission
Space Swarm 64
Stellar Wars
Storm Chase
Summer Games
Super Nova
Survival Messenger
Sword of Fargoal
Tai-Pan
Temple of Apshai Trilogy
Toilet Paper Stacker
Winter Games
You Had One Job
Zambeezi

 

[Zombeaver 1,829]

50 new games since the last batch. This brings the current total to 2160 (I removed 2 games from v0.20 that were duplicates with alternate region titles - Coil Cop and Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja).

Spoiler

Aliants - The Desperate Battle For Earth
Beer Belly Burt's Brew Biz
Brubaker
Chameleon
Heavy Metal - Modern Land Combat Vol. I
Heavy Metal Deluxe
Hektic
Hektic II
Helden
Heli Rescue
Hell for Leather
Hell Zone
Hell Zone II
Hellfire
Hellraid
Helsings Hunt
Hero 2020
Hero Quest
Hero Quest II
Hero Time
Hero Time II
Heroes of Midgard
Hideous
Hideous Bill and the Gi-Gants
Hidihood
High Frontier
High Rise
Highland Games
Highlander
Highway Encounter
Hillsfar
Himalayan Odyssey
Hit and Run Baseball
Hive
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Hobbit, The
Hobgoblin
Hockey Mania
Hocus Focus
Hole-in-One
Holiday Cops
Human Killing Machine
International Ice Hockey
Slam Dunk
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

 

[Zombeaver 1,829]

Aaaaaand the sweep through the GB64 H folder is done. Phew!

17,761 screenshots parsed between # and H...

[denmiclaw 11]

Thank you very much for your work on this, it's great!

[mordroc 0]

This is truly amazing what you've done.  Thank you for sharing all your hard work.

I've got this working  very well on my W10 PC.  Although I have Launchbox running, I've kept this separate to make it easy to run on its own.  So great to play Jumpman again.  I added your Jumpman Jr file as well.

I have a couple questions on the magazine part.  I've downloaded your full zip file of the magazines.

1.  In LB, I can see that for each magazine it's pointing to the .url link you've set up.  I can see the .bat and .vbs there.  Looks like they call up the actual magazine file (if it's there).  If I put the magazine files in the same folder structure, how do I tell LB to launch the vbs instead of the url?

2.  I am running C64 Dreams off my C drive.  I'd like to put the magazine files on my D drive.  Can you instruct me how to fix the launch links to each magazine in LB?

Thank you for the help.  Again, and thanks for sharing this.  I'm already making my own LB playlist of my favorites!

[Zombeaver 1,829]

On 10/22/2020 at 8:35 PM, denmiclaw said:

Thank you very much for your work on this, it's great!

1 hour ago, mordroc said:

This is truly amazing what you've done.  Thank you for sharing all your hard work.

You're very welcome!

1 hour ago, mordroc said:

1.  In LB, I can see that for each magazine it's pointing to the .url link you've set up.  I can see the .bat and .vbs there.  Looks like they call up the actual magazine file (if it's there).  If I put the magazine files in the same folder structure, how do I tell LB to launch the vbs instead of the url?

Yeah I make the web version the default since the magazines are now a separate module. If you download the local versions you can right-click on an entry in LB and choose [Magazine Name] (Local) to launch them. If you wanted to make them the default launch, that's easy enough to do. You can do this on an individual basis by editing them, going to additional apps, selecting the local version and choosing "make default". If you wanted to do this en masse, you'd probably want to use something like Notepad++ and then open up C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Data\Platforms\Magazines.xml and do a find and replace all for " (Web Version).url" with ".vbs" Make sure you include the space before (Web Version). I would recommend backing up your .xml before doing this to be safe.

1 hour ago, mordroc said:

2.  I am running C64 Dreams off my C drive.  I'd like to put the magazine files on my D drive.  Can you instruct me how to fix the launch links to each magazine in LB?

You would need to again open up C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Data\Platforms\Magazines.xml in Notepad++ and do a find and replace of: 

<ApplicationPath>C64 Dreams\Magazines

with

<ApplicationPath>[your new path]\Magazines

Everything is setup with relative paths so the Magazine folder will work unaltered so long as you've got everything included (i.e. everything in the folder including !CDisplayEx, the .bats, etc.). In other words, just make sure that you move the Magazines folder in its entirety (not just the .cbrs by themselves).

[Zombeaver 1,829]

I had an interesting idea the other day while talking about text adventures on the Zomb's Lair Discord - many of them have no sound or music, so the thought occurred to me that maybe I could sortof pipe in my own appropriate background SID music to help set the mood a bit better. I found a nice tiny SID player that runs directly from CMD called libsidplayfp so I can basically start this as part of a game's .bat, tell it to start a specific SID track (which loops), use an AHK script to watch for Retroarch to close and then close it and the AHK script. I already have this working, at this point it's just a matter of getting tracks picked out. I've found four so far that I like and would be appropriate (below). I'll be looking for more and am open to suggestions. I want stuff that's 1) relatively slow and low-key/atmospheric and 2) are original compositions not from game soundtracks. If anyone wants to help look for more and make any suggestions, a good place to start is the Unepic SID Channel which has over 50,000 SID tracks (!) uploaded, which you can go through in a single playlist if you go here.

Stars Are Us by Jammer

Stolen Properties by TDM

Ghosts by SIDwave

Neon Haze by The Solution

[mordroc 0]

Thank you for the advice.  I used Notepad++ to made those changes (not forgetting the space before " (web version).url", which worked successfully.  I checked and double-checked the new .xml and everything was updated to the .vbs.  Unfortunately in LB the launch link is still the URL.  For some reason even though the .xml has been updated, LB still wants to point to the .url.  I am going to just fix the link for each magazine manually one by one in LB, which I know will solve the problem.  No big deal.  A small amount of time to take compared to the 1000's of hours you've clearly spent setting this up.  And I actually just finished.  Took about 10min.

[Zombeaver 1,829]

7 minutes ago, mordroc said:

Thank you for the advice.  I used Notepad++ to made those changes (not forgetting the space before " (web version).url", which worked successfully.  I checked and double-checked the new .xml and everything was updated to the .vbs.  Unfortunately in LB the launch link is still the URL.  For some reason even though the .xml has been updated, LB still wants to point to the .url.  I am going to just fix the link for each magazine manually one by one in LB, which I know will solve the problem.  No big deal.  A small amount of time to take compared to the 1000's of hours you've clearly spent setting this up.  And I actually just finished.  Took about 10min.

That's strange because I tested it and it worked fine here. Glad you got it sorted at least.

[mordroc 0]

26 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

That's strange because I tested it and it worked fine here. Glad you got it sorted at least.

Thanks.  Yeah I tried it three times with a fresh .xml.  Checked and doublechecked after replacing the text.  There were still other instances of "(web version)" left over in the xml (not with the .url part), so I wondered if that might have something to do with it.  But it worked for you so who knows.  Maybe in a future update you could include an extra .xml with the changes done (calling it something like  "magazines.localvbs"), so someone could just rename the current one to ".old" and name "magazines.localvbs" to "magazines.xml".

[Zombeaver 1,829]

Found some more tracks that are appropriate for text adventure background music. It still doesn't quite cover everything I want, but between these and the previous ones it's a good start anyway.

Astral Travel by G-Fellow

Catalyst by Jammer

Downward by Kruthers

Illbient by Jammer (can't find a video of this one)

Lighthouse in a Storm by Mibri

Lost in the Night by MCH (I really love this one; added it to The Curse of Rabenstein and it's just so much better)

Street of My Soul by Jammer

[dampchimp 0]

Hi, I have an issue where everything is running really slowly when using your set-up.  Standalone in a separate install, I get full speed without any problems.  Isn't a performance limitation on my machine (I have a Ryzen 5 3600, so shouldn't be a problem running this).  Any suggestions on any settings you are using in your emulators that might be causing my frame rate to run slowly?

 

[Zombeaver 1,829]

Read the performance section of the opening post.

[ransom2211 2]

I have nothing but respect for the time & effort that went into this project. This is quality at its finest and will keep the c64 Alive for years to come.

I have come to the party late but intrigued and exciting for the times ahead with this project.

Thank you Zombeaver 🙏