itch.io

Thank you! An extended version will hopefully be released at some time in the future. (This was originally started as a 16KB cartridge game project some years ago, and a scaled down version was created for this year's Craptastic compo.)

Thanks, Richard! Best of luck to you too! And I think it's very cool that we both are still creating these tiny C64 games, 20 years after the "MiniGame" compos!

That's great news! And thank you for the new video - it's very cool to see the game being played on an actual MAX Machine!

Thanks for creating the video! The screen corruption/artifacts seen here might be the same problem as described in this discussion thread in the Lemon64 forum. The pin-outs for a MAX Machine cartridge differ slightly from a standard C64 cartridge (a loopback between two pins is required).

I assume that you have tried connecting the joystick to both ports? This game expects the joystick to be in port two, but I'm actually not sure if that is the left or the right port on the MAX.

Thank you for testing again, and for providing all the details of the process you use. I see nothing wrong there.

I've verified that the output file from the cartconv command you mention is binary identical to the ROM file I used when creating the .crt file, so the crt header/format seems to be correct.

A new version v1.2 is now available, where I've made some further adjustments (e.g. removed a PAL/NTSC check, which means there will be a little sprite glitch near the left border on PAL C64s. But the MAX is NTSC only anyway.)

But I fully understand if you don't want to spend any more time on testing this game on MAX, though.

OK, thanks for testing! If the screen just remains black, I guess that means that no cartridge code is being run at all. (The first thing the cart code in v1.1 does, after making sure the VIC-II chip is enabled, it to set the border color to blue, and then it changes the color several times during the initial startup sequence.)

At least it's useful for me to know that although a cart image works as it should in the VICE emulator (with "MAX Machine" as the selected Model in Settings), that doesn't mean that it will work on an actual MAX Machine. (I'm assuming that everything about the physical cartridge itself, and the pinouts, are appropriate for the MAX in this instance.)

Not sure why Wave Hero will not work, when Old Mine Hoist does. They use mostly the same startup code (for initializing I/O etc.)

If you want to give it another go, I've attached a v1.1 .crt file above. This version sets various border colors during the startup sequence, so it should be possible to determine if any cartridge code runs at all.

Thanks for testing this on an actual MAX Machine! Very cool that it works!

It should be possible to create a physical 16KB Ultimax cartridge based on the CRT file, but that will require some extra hardware, of course. I haven't been able to verify that solutions like EasyFlash and Kung Fu Flash are actually compatible with the MAX Machine (or even some of the early C64 boards).

There's a discussion in the Lemon64 forum about an issue with EasyFlash 3 and some older boards, including the MAX. I don't know if similar issues apply to e.g. Versa64Cart and Kung Fu Flash.

I guess you would have to acquire the required physical cartridge hardware, extract the ROM (8192 bytes) from the CRT file (e.g. using the 'cartconv' tool from the VICE emulator), and then "burn" the ROM file using an EPROM programmer. Probably not worth the effort for such a simple game, though.

There's no difference, except that it loads and runs directly in C128 mode. (Someone asked for such a build of "Old Mine Hoist", so I decided to add it for two other games as well.)

You're welcome! As a little "bonus", I've also added native C128 builds of my previous Craptastic games "Wave Hero" (2018) and "Rainbow Edge Run" (2020). The latter will probably have some glitches in the rainbow when running on NTSC, though.

Sure! I had to re-arrange the memory layout slightly, but I've now added a download with a native C128 build. Please note that I don't have any Commodore 128 hardware to test this on myself, but it seems to work just fine in the VICE C128 emulator.

Thanks! There's no real physics (i.e. math) going on here, though. Just fairly simple code and lookup tables.

Thanks, Roy! I'm looking forward to finally get some time to play your "BrumBrum" game this weekend!