c64 C64 Dreams (massive curated C64 collection)

[MacGuyver]

Hi Zombeaver, thanks for the update, and I can't wait for the next installment!  

An expansion on my request for "M.U.L.E." which it sounds like you've just added, my dream is to be able to play the 4 player mode with my kids, using 4 controllers.

ON the 4 player mode on the C64, M.U.L.E. uses the keyboard for players 3 and 4:  

• Left Keyboard Player: "Q" key = up, "Commodore" key = down, "Q" + "Commodore" = Fire

  Right Keyboard Player: "Up Arrow" key = up, "=" key = down, "Up Arrow" + "=" = Fire

I wonder if there is an easy way you could map these keyboard commands onto controller 3 and 4?  (I'm also using XBOX 360 controllers).  

Thanks ever so much!   (Also, how are you responding single spaced on the forum?)  I can't seem to sort that out.

Edited May 8, 2019 by MacGuyver
Found more accurate information

[Zombeaver]

I did get it working with 2 controllers; I wasn't sure what the keyboard controls were supposed to be though so I haven't tried that yet but will try with those keys tonight. It should just work as-is. It's not a game I played much as a kid so I kindof have no idea what I'm doing haha.

2 minutes ago, MacGuyver said:

 (Also, how are you responding single spaced on the forum?)  I can't seem to sort that out.

Hold shift then press enter.

[MacGuyver]

12 minutes ago, Zombeaver said:

I did get it working with 2 controllers; I wasn't sure what the keyboard controls were supposed to be though so I haven't tried that yet but will try with those keys tonight. It should just work as-is. It's not a game I played much as a kid so I kindof have no idea what I'm doing haha.

M.U.L.E. is actually my favorite C64 game of all time, and you have to play with a group to truly get a feel for how great the competition aspect of the game really is.

Having said that, it's nearly impossible to have players 3 and 4 use the keyboard at the same time comfortably so I would love to find a way to map those keys onto controllers 3 and 4.  The part I wasn't sure about was the fire button being two keys together.

And thanks so much for the shift tip on the forum replies ?

[Zombeaver]

Okay so, I don't think I have a reliable way to get players 3 and 4 onto a controller, but I have done some finagling to change them to something more coherent.

Left keyboard player:

W = Up
S = Down
D = Fire

Right keyboard player:

Up arrow = Up
Down arrow = Down
Right arrow = Fire

I've attached it below if you want to try it out. Drop them into the C64 Dreams folder and merge, then start the game with MULE.vbs.

MULE.7z

[MacGuyver]

Thanks very much for adjusting the keys on M.U.L.E.   Zombeaver!  Really looking forward to testing this.  

 

[MacGuyver]

Hi Zombeaver, a BIG thanks for adding M.U.L.E into your super slick C64 Dreams setup, and also the work you put into customizing the keyboard.   It works fantastic!  I even tested the 4 player setup and it's definitely a better keyboard layout.  I can't wait to play this with my kids, I've been talking about this game for years.

BUT, I've been thinking a little more about the 4 controller setup, because I'm not going to give up on this!   I know that my copy of retroarch sees my xbox 360 controllers # 3 and 4 when I turn them on because I see a status update from Retroarch when it detects them.   However I realize that the VICE core in retroarch normally allows only 2 controllers for input as far as I know.  So I have  2 theories of ways this could be bypassed to finally allow full 4 player controller support on MULE.  I have yet to test either of these, but open to your feedback.

Method #1 - Don't use VICE to interpret the 3rd and 4th joysticks.  Instead use something like Joy2Key to read controller 3 and 4 and convert them into the W, S, D and up arrow, down arrow, and right arrow keys.  

Method #2 - Use a specially modified version of C64 M.U.L.E which was re-coded to read signals from a 4 player joystick adapter.  Of course, the actual hardware adapter is for a physical C64 made by Protovision, but I understand that VICE has a special user port mode that can emulate this adapter called CGA mode.  Details here https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39013&sid=02011793d92a367b12679b878453b371
And here is the link for the specially modified 4 player version of M.U.L.E.:  https://csdb.dk/release/?id=101455

Interested in your thoughts!

 

[Zombeaver]

6 hours ago, MacGuyver said:

Method #1 - Don't use VICE to interpret the 3rd and 4th joysticks.  Instead use something like Joy2Key to read controller 3 and 4 and convert them into the W, S, D and up arrow, down arrow, and right arrow keys.  

There's no way to do this in such a way that you can statically assign X and Y controllers to only joystick 3's keys (WSD) and 4's keys (Up, Down, and Right), and even if you could, there's no way that this would hold true universally for everyone that played it because everyone uses different controllers. I use Antimicro as an intermediary between controllers and Retroarch to add additional functions - in 99% of the games this entails assigning the right stick to the arrow keys, but in a few one off instances it's to create custom joystick controls for a game like in the case of Spellbound Dizzy, a game that, on its own, doesn't actually have joystick controls. It assigns these controls to any controller that you connect, not specific ones (this is a good thing, because it means I don't have to anticipate every kind of controller that people will use, and I don't have to rely on any kind of arbitrary numbering system). With Autohotkey you can assign specific keys to specific controllers, but the problem there is that the way it delineates them is purely based on Windows' internal joystick numbers, and there's no way to ensure that what it's calling joystick 3 doesn't end up being considered say joystick 1 in Retroarch; in which case you'd be screwed because now you have one controller trying to do two conflicting things.

What I can do is assign WSD to the dpad and Up, Down, and Right to the right stick. This would be universal for all controllers connected, which means that technically everyone could control the third and fourth players.

Controller 1 =
Their own normal controls
Player 3 on dpad
Player 4 on right stick

Controller 2 =
Their own normal controls
Player 3 on dpad
Player 4 on right stick

Controller 3 =
Their controls on dpad
Player 4 controls on right stick

Controller 4 =
Player 3 controls on dpad
Their controls on right stick

If you think that would be an improvement, I could do that. This means you're dependent on the honor system though.

6 hours ago, MacGuyver said:

Method #2 - Use a specially modified version of C64 M.U.L.E which was re-coded to read signals from a 4 player joystick adapter.

This is interesting. The Retroarch core does have an option for the Protovision adapter, but I've never tried it. I'll mess around with it and see how it goes. I only have 3 xinput controllers at my disposal, but presumably if it works with 3 it will work with 4.

[MacGuyver]

11 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

There's no way to do this in such a way that you can statically assign X and Y controllers to only joystick 3's keys (WSD) and 4's keys (Up, Down, and Right), and even if you could, there's no way that this would hold true universally for everyone that played it because everyone uses different controllers. 

Thanks for the super detailed explanation, which made me realize the complexity of this idea.

11 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

What I can do is assign WSD to the dpad and Up, Down, and Right to the right stick. This would be universal for all controllers connected, which means that technically everyone could control the third and fourth players.

<snip>

If you think that would be an improvement, I could do that. This means you're dependent on the honor system though.

 I thought about this and I think that ultimately it would be too easy to mess up the other person's game.  So I don't think it's worth pursuing but I do appreciate the inventiveness of the solution!

 

11 hours ago, Zombeaver said:

This is interesting. The Retroarch core does have an option for the Protovision adapter, but I've never tried it. I'll mess around with it and see how it goes. I only have 3 xinput controllers at my disposal, but presumably if it works with 3 it will work with 4.

I do think that this is the best way to do this, if you're able to make it work.   And yes, if it works with 3 controllers it should also work with 4  I'm happy to do any testing and very appreciative! ?

 

[Zombeaver]

Good news! It's working with 3 controllers! It should work with 4 as well.

Here's the updated version. This includes both the original version (MULE.vbs) and the 4 controller version (MULE (4 Controllers).vbs). I'll have both as options in the right-click menu in the next release.

MULE (4 Controllers).7z

I'm at 1170 games now, so it shouldn't be too far off.

[jophran]

Hi Zombeaver. I've been testing this collection and it's great, thank you for the great job and for sharing it!

I had a little problema at first, I have a 1600x900 monitor and I had to make another generic vice config file for that resolution based in yours from the other resolutions, tested it with some games and adjust perfectly. I attach the file in case you want to use it.

Greetings

VICE x64.cfg

[Zombeaver]

Perfect, thank you! I'll add that as an additional option in the next release.

If you'd like to help with formatting the custom resolution configs to 1600x900, that'd be much appreciated as well. Some of them are fairly minor adjustments (like Alien Syndrome), others more significant. In the case of It's Magic, It's Magic 2, and Mega Phoenix, a large portion of the screen is cut off at the top and bottom with the normal settings. Literally about 99% of the games are spot on with the default settings, but a handful of them make weird use of overscan space that most games left blank. I can provide some with and without screenshot comparisons if need be, but the issues are generally fairly obvious. The configs in question are for:

Alien Syndrome
Another World
Bangkok Knights
Cyberall
Draconus
Heatseaker
It's Magic
It's Magic 2
Mega Phoenix
No Mercy
Phobia
Tiger Claw
Wizball

Obviously if you don't want to, you don't have to, but it's not something I'm able to do myself (otherwise I'd do it) since I'm using a different resolution monitor.

If anyone wants to help do this for 1440p or 4k, that'd be appreciated as well.

The good news is that the base settings are now covered for 1600x900, 1440p, and 4k (and of course 100% for 1080p) so that still covers 99% of the games for the most common resolutions.

[jophran]

No problem! I'll check those games and try to adjust them.

 

[MacGuyver]

On 5/10/2019 at 6:19 PM, Zombeaver said:

Good news! It's working with 3 controllers! It should work with 4 as well.

Here's the updated version. This includes both the original version (MULE.vbs) and the 4 controller version (MULE (4 Controllers).vbs). I'll have both as options in the right-click menu in the next release.

<snip>

I'm at 1170 games now, so it shouldn't be too far off.

Holy smokes, what a treat!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!
This is the ultimate way to play C64 M.U.L.E.   Wow, 4 player simultaneous gameplay on a Commodore 64 game, how incredible!  It was really nice of you to take the time to figure this out.

Now that you've got this 3 & 4 multiplayer sorted out, you might want to consider setting up Bruce Lee Return of Fury the same way!  It just got released as freeware a few months ago and looks incredibly slick, plus it allows 3 player simultaneous play!

https://megastyle.itch.io/bruce-lee-return-of-fury

 

[Zombeaver]

I've actually got Return Of Fury in the upcoming set already. I'll set it up to accept 4 controllers.

I've got a few other games that are compatible with the adapter too, so I'll add in support where applicable.

[MacGuyver]

1 hour ago, Zombeaver said:

I've actually got Return Of Fury in the upcoming set already. I'll set it up to accept 4 controllers.

I've got a few other games that are compatible with the adapter too, so I'll add in support where applicable.

Sweet!   Can't wait.

[Zombeaver]

Alright, version 0.16 is now available. The download link in the opening post has been updated. 200 new games have been added as well as a number of other changes. Everything should be working, but admittedly this did involve a lot of find and replace work as I made format adjustments to... basically everything. If anyone has any issues, please let me know. The good news is that from this point on additional updates should basically just be drag and drop.

• All games, demos, SID tracks, and magazines updated to use visual basic scripts (.vbs) so that a command prompt is no longer visible when starting; all paths updated in Launchbox

• Version Updates:

  • Atomic Robo Kid - replaced with Easyflash version by Master
  • Bop'n Wrestle - replaced with 2019 Hokuto Force version
  • Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom - replaced with 2019 Hokuto Force version
  • Cabal - replaced with 2018 Easyflash version by Nostalgia
  • Cauldron II - replaced with 2018 gold version by Fairlight
  • Caverns of Khafka - replaced with 2018 Onslaught version
  • Hammerfist - replaced with 2019 d81 version by Master
  • Psi-5 Trading Company - replaced with 2019 Easyflash version by Mayday
  • Wrath of the Demon - replaced with 2017 Easyflash version by Master
     
• Other Changes:
   
  • Bugbomber - added support for 4 controllers
  • Space Lords - added support for 4 controllers
     
• Misc:
   
  • Cleaned up Zzap!64 issues 1 and 21 which had some duplicate/extraneous pages
  • Best of Vol. 3 playlist created, though it's currently only 51 titles - will be expanded as more games are added to the collection
  • Added 3 new overlays: Black Tiger, Retrograde, and Supremacy. These three as well as Project Firestart (default) can be swapped between by going to C64 Dreams\C64 Dreams\Utilities\Overlays and starting the .bats that correspond to each.
  • Added 1600x900 base config that, like the other options, can be activated via C64 Dreams > C64 Dreams > Utilities > Screen Resolution Adjustment. Thanks @jophran!
     
• New configs that use custom dimensions:
   
  • Bear Essentials, The
  • Brainway
  • Dominion
  • Game Over II: Part 1
  • Wolfling
     
• All games with multitap (3-4 controller) support:
   
  • Bruce Lee: Return of Fury
  • Bugbomber
  • Frogs
  • IK+ Gold
  • M.U.L.E.
    • Players 3 and 4 can use either controllers or keyboard; see game details spreadsheet for more info
  • Mashed Turtles
  • Shotgun
  • SNAFU '64
  • Space Lords

New games in v0.16

8bit-Slicks
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragons of Flame
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: DragonStrike
Algol
Aqua Racer
Aquaplane
Argos DX
Arhena the Amazon: Special Edition
Astex 64
Atom Heart
B-Ball
Balloon Flight
Barbie
Beach Bar
Bear Essentials, The
BinTris
Blastopia
Blok Copy
Border Blast 2
Border Blast 3
Brainway
Bruce Lee: Return of Fury
Bulbo and the Lizard King
Chef Quest
Chilly Willy
Conflict in Vietnam
D.I.S.C.: Damned Into Space-Craft
David's Midnight Magic
Demigod
Demon Stalkers
Demons of Dex
Denarius
Deneb
Denga
Denniffia
Desert Hawk
Desert Trader
Desolator
Destroyer
Destroyer Escort
Devil's Wheel
Di-Art: Moebius II
Diamond Mine
Dick Tracy
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die! Alien Slime
Digiloi
Digital Tangram
Dino Wars
Dinorace 64
Dioroid
Dip Diver
Discovery
Dive Bomber
Dizzy - Down the Rapids
DJ Puff's Volcanic Capers
Django
DNA Warrior
Doc Cosmos
Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror
Dodgeball II
Dodgy Geezers
Dodo's Deep Doo-Doo
Dogfight 2187
Domain
Dominion
Donald the Hero
Donald's Alphabet Chase
Donkey Kong (Atari)
Doomdark's Revenge
Doriath
Double Dare (Alternative Software)
Double Dare (GameTek)
Double Digger
Double Dragon
Double Dragon 2
Double Dragon 3
Double Dribble
Double Lizard
Doughboy
Down at the Trolls
Down, Down, Down
Downhill Challenge
Dr. Mad vs. the Topsy Turvy Moon Men of Mars
Dracula
Dracula's Castle
Drag Race Eliminator
Dragon
Dragon Breed
Dragon Hunter
Dragon Ninja
Dragon Spirit
Dragonfire
DragonHawk
Dragonriders of Pern
Dragons Cave
Dragonworld
Drak
Dream Team Basketball
Dreamcars
Drip
Droid
Droid Dreams
Druid
Dustin'
Electric Warrior
Enigma
Everyday Tale of a Seeker of Gold
Exploding Fish
Exterminator
Firefighter Mario
Floyd of the Jungle
Forbidden Forest
Frantic Freddie II
Frogs
Galaxy
Game Over
Game Over II: Part 1
Game Over II: Part 2
Gauntlet: The Deeper Dungeons
Gyruss
Head Over Heels
Hero of the Golden Talisman
Hibernated 1: This Place is Death
Honey Bee
Howard the Coder
IK+ Gold
Jars' Revenge
Jupiter Lander
Killer Bees
Knight Lore
Lala Prologue
Let's Invade 2
Lords of Midnight
Lotus Espirit Turbo Challenge
Lumberjack
M.U.L.E.
Magic Candle, The
Mario Bros (Atari)
Mario Bros (Ocean)
Mashed Turtles
Maze of Death
Memory
Metal Gear
Miner 2049'er
Mission Impossibubble
Moonshadow
Neutron
Newzealand Story
Nucleo 447
Oil's Well
Panzer
Pharaoh
Pharaoh's Curse
Pharaoh's Revenge
Pit, The
Planetoids
Pogo Joe
Pool of Radiance
Rock Maze
Rogue Burger One
Scooby & Scrappy Doo
Secret Tunnel
Seven Cities of Gold
Shadow Switcher
Sheep is a Key
Shotgun
Sidelines
Slipstream
SNAFU '64
Snokie
Stacker
Starfysh Remix
Sub Hunter
Super Bonkey Kong
Super Galax-I-Birds
Super Toboggan Challenge
Survivor
Tank Blasta
Tenebra Macabre
Tombstones
Tower of Rubble 64
Transporter
Trolley Follies
Ultima III: Exodus
Vegetables
Vortex Crystals
VVVVVV
Warhawk
Wizard of Wor
Wolfling
Worm
X Force
Xerons
Zagor and the Fortress of Smirnoff
Zap Fight 2: Special Edition
Zig-Zag
Zilspleef
Zombie Calavera Prologue
Zone Runner

[mattdawson75]

Thanks Zombeaver!!

[jophran]

Great! Thank you Zombeaver!.

[MacGuyver]

Wow, what a lot of work and detail you are putting into these updates!   BIG thanks!!!!  

[Zombeaver]

Thanks guys!

I've already started work on the next update. I'll probably release it at 1500 games. I'm going to try to work in some new demos, SID tracks, and magazines this go as well. It will probably be a couple weeks.