Ghostbusters (Activision)

[fwibbler]

Just a thought...
You could have Goza there in the middle shooting the odd energy bolt at the men if they don't move out of the way...

[Cybershark]

Wanted to check out that stream action but I can not get a break trying to get past Stay Puft on the enhanced version.

I can do it on the standard, and I seemed to be able to do it on the previous version of the enhanced version, but I just can't get a single man through that door. It's more intuitive which bit of the door to aim for on standard but seems quite ambiguous on the enhanced.

[RobC]

I did it by sneaking up to the building on the right and then moving left until I was just out of reach of Stay Puff. Then I followed him as he jumped left and entered the right-hand door.

[ChrisB]

I did it by sneaking up to the building on the right and then moving left until I was just out of reach of Stay Puff. Then I followed him as he jumped left and entered the right-hand door.

Interesting - I have been going up between his legs. I'll have to give that method a try. The original from what I can tell gives no real indication of how you should get past him which isn't particularly fair and as you only get to have a go after completing the rest of the game I imagine caused a fair amount of frustration at the time - but I think very much in the spirit of the games of that era.

I think I'll look to relax the "win area" slightly (and make it work if you're facing either way) to make it a bit more reasonable.

[ChrisB]

The keymaster and gatekeeper have arrived.

This version introduces the keymaster and gatekeeper onto the map screen. Currently they simply wander round the map and don't affect the endgame - that's next to do. I haven't altered the win region for the marshmallow man either. I did however find some extra space and now the animation of the ghostbusters leaving GBHQ is present in the non SWRAM version as well.

gb.ssd

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[fwibbler]

I still havent managed to get past the Marshmellow man yet.
I've saved the state of the game at this point and I'll have a load of goes later.

Also, in the Spectrum version, you only go to ZUUL when the PK metre reaches 9999.
For me it started flashing at about 8700 or so. Is that suppoed to happen?

[ChrisB]

For me it started flashing at about 8700 or so. Is that supposed to happen?

Yes - this is deliberate.
https://youtu.be/ElJNQxgKZPw?si=2IeQKnt9RMAi9g5O&t=1746

[ChrisB]

Attached are two versions today. These comments apply to the SWRAM version. These versions have the gatekeeper and keymaster going to the zuul building to bring the game to an end as opposed to the flashing in the previous version. They will wander round the map until the end game threshold is reached then head for the building. One they reach there the endgame routines are triggered. I've also slightly increased the win region and recoloured the gatekeeper to red.

Version A gives extra money and reduces the appearance of zuul to around 2000 PK so can be used for end game testing. Version B has the proper values in it.

gb_a.ssd

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gb_b.ssd

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The only remaining item for the main game that I'm intending to add at this point is the sampled sound. Comments on gameplay/balance and whether or not you can reproduce the bug that Cybershark seems to keep getting are welcome.

[Cybershark]

Wow, ok, so I gave version A a spin and was able to complete the game!
PKE got to about 3500 and I was ordered to head to Zuul. I (wisely) saved states there, which was a good thing, as my first 3 guys all fell at the final hurdle. Reloaded the state and was able to march the first 2 straight through. Thanks for widening the "safe zone" as I swear I must've burned through 20+ state loads before I managed it on the last version!

And no crashes to report today!

Something I did wanna question was this:

Having inadvertently parked my first guy facing the wrong way - should that be allowed? Or should they automatically face the correct way when placed? - it seems a little odd to see his stream wrap around the screen. Minor aesthetic issue really.

More interesting was this part:

When I then moonwalked my back-facing guy all the way past his buddy, there was a little refuse left on screen. Bit of an edge case, I guess, so perhaps not worth your time to look into

[ChrisB]

Having inadvertently parked my first guy facing the wrong way - should that be allowed? Or should they automatically face the correct way when placed?

Yes - you should be able do do this. It can be useful if the ghost is in a particularly uncooperative position.

Let me look at the wrap, corruption and indeed when the two guys meet in the middle. This will all be possible in the SWRAM version but whether they get backported to the normal version will depend on how much space they take up. I could always remove the "exiting GBHQ" routine again....

[ChrisB]

"GHOSTBUSTERS!"

This version adds sampled sound for the SWRAM version. Only one sample in so far so you will get a "Ghostbusters" shout when you capture a ghost. The men dance speed is also increased slightly.

I haven't addressed the corruption issues mentioned above so will still need to look at that. I'll also probably look at reducing the volume of the other sounds so that the samples are more in line with them.

As far as I can tell during gameplay there are only the "Ghostbusters" and "He slimed me" samples played on the C64. Can someone confirm/correct me on that?

gb.ssd

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[fwibbler]

I haven't tested this latest version yet (hopefully tomorrow).
Would it be a good idea to add some extra samples (to make the Beeb version better)?
Perhaps adding 'Lets go!' When the men leave GHQ and 'Zuuuuuul' (like when she opens the fridge in the movie) when the Key master and Gatekeeper reach Zuul?
Cheers!

[markoceans]

Well done, this is truly excellent! One of my favourite C64 games (my brother had one when we were kids).

[Cybershark]

This version adds sampled sound for the SWRAM version. Only one sample in so far so you will get a "Ghostbusters" shout when you capture a ghost. The men dance speed is also increased slightly.

Brilliant! That one little touch makes it seem so much cooler now

Couple of trips out in my station wagon in and I was crashing again. It's tied to me using the hoover on the car, for sure.

This time it actually took me away from the road scene and the music carried on playing. I took a savestate of it:

gbcorrupt.uef

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Went straight back for a second helping and just kept mashing the fire button the whole time I was out in the car. No music and no building this time:

gbcorrupt2.uef

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All tested with the SW RAM version, on Beeb Em 4.19

[ChrisB]

Yay! - I've managed to crash it! Will investigate.

[Cybershark]

Yay! - I've managed to crash it! Will investigate.

The best bad news we could hope for!

[ChrisB]

Hopefully a fix.

I have a "GOTO" routine to move various objects to different locations. One of the places this is used is the driving screen when dong the ghost vacuum. However - when the ghost first emerges it's position is wrapped below zero so the goto routine tried to move it upwards - to the point the plot routine had a fit and nasty things happened. Fortunately it was a 4 byte fix.

I've also reduced the overall volume of the sounds to better align with the sample and tidied up the dance section so the tune dosen't play in short sections.

Next will be the capture screen to add "He slimed me" and look at the corruption when the men get too close together.

gb.ssd

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[ChrisB]

"He Slimed Me"

Added "He Slimed Me" sampled sound. I've had to resample both samples to fit as the data is of considerable size. At the moment they take up about 10K so I've not got any intention to add to them. There is a sample that's played on the win screen but for the amount of time it's used I'm not sure it's worth another 5k.

This version also attempts to prevent the corruption from the men overlapping when firing the beams by preventing them from moving into each other.

I think this version is now complete from a gameplay and features perspective - I'm not intending to add more features or animations. Please let me know if you encounter any bugs or if you feel the balance needs adjusting.

gb.ssd

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The next job is to look at the title screen to do key redefinitions and add the theme tune lyrics.

[tricky]

Are you sorting 4bit or 8bit samples and how many different channels, as opposed to just playing all three at the same volume?
Do you also put the sample value on the printer port for the two people with home made resistor ladders (I forget the actual explanations name)? I don't know which bits mmfs uses on the printer port, but these could be left alone if necessary.
One of my sample experiments had a 8bit sample which looked up the three channel volumes and was used directly to send to the printer port - quality over quantity!
Still not tempted to support the speech chip

[ChrisB]

They are 4 bit samples at about 7Khz. All three channels being used for the same volume. "Ghostbusters" and "He slimed me" add up to about three seconds duration. These are conversions of recordings of the original samples - so there may be better quality to be had by starting again. And no - no printer port or speech chip.

[Dave_E]

Amazing work on this. I have been playing it relentlessly and have found three bugs so far in this latest build. I have attached some UEFs so you can load them into BeebEm and hopefully illustrate what's going wrong.

Ghostbusters-Ghost-Bug.uef
This has happened to me three times. When attempting to catch the ghost on the buildings screen, he can go to the top-right corner and get stuck in it. It's not game-breaking, but he just flits around there and you have to fire the trap to escape. Maybe if he gets stuck there in the future he could fly away?

Ghostbusters-Endgame-Bug.uef
You have to go through a few steps to see this one in action. So the uef is saved at the point where you need to get your Ghostbusters under the Marshmallow Man. Get two into the building then cross the streams. You will then be told you won and your account name is EDWARDS,DAVID and number is 31452400. End the game and start a new one, answer Y to "Do You Have An Account?" and type in the details. When you get to the car selection screen, choose car 3. You'll note that it's *already* equipped with quite a lot of stuff - traps are reset to zero but somehow the items are retained from the previous game and you don't have to buy them again. When you start the game, you'll see it "jumps" to a sort of random point near the end with lots of buildings flashing red and the city's PK energy already quite high, although your money will be low having had the car deducted. You can immediately now go to Zuul and get the Marshmallow Man again - you can even complete the game again and get some very confusing messages about making more than you started with. Basically, it seems that certain flags are not being cleared on the "Congratulations" screen and resulting in a weird half-crashed game.

Ghostbusters-Glitched-Map-Bug.uef
This one is sort of a continuation of the Endgame one, so fixing that may well also fix this. What I did to get this was, well, I just kept playing. After 'succeeding' and getting the "Congratulations" screen a second time, I bought car 4 and pressed Space to start again. The city's PK energy went to maximum, the screen crashed, I didn't get the map graphics, the keymaster went even crazier than Louis Tully does in the movie and pressing any key took me to a 'crashed' building without a ghost.

The game itself is nothing short of brilliant now. I will probably spend hours and hours playing this so may I be the first to say Very Well Done! (Or maybe not the first but anyways...)

[ChrisB]

Thanks for the feedback.

Stuck in the top corner.
This defiantly needs looking at. The ghost should eventually fly away in any case - but it's not ideal.

Endgame weirdness.
Will also take a look. I thought I had the reset routines correct but some late changes may have broken these.

[ChrisB]

This version updates the intro screen. This adds sample and tune playing and key redefinitions. I've changed !boot to be a small machine code routine with a mode 7 screen by Steve Horsley. No lyrics as yet. Given the sample routines and memory constraints I'm not looking to do the sample during the tune.

gb.ssd

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Edit: Forgot to mention - This version doesn't address the issues Dave raised above.

[fwibbler]

I've played this through a few times now and not encountered any problems or bugs.
Finally worked out how to get men past the Marshmellow man and won the game.
I think its great.
Thankyou for this great conversion.

The only slightly odd thing is that if I load the game in BeebEm configured as BBC B with sideways RAM enabled, the game only loads the standard version, not the enhanced one with the speech. (It works fine in B+ and Master mode)

[RobC]

Love the mode 7 intro screen - really nice touch.

This is looking very polished now, you've really done an excellent job

[ChrisB]

Now with Lyrics.

This version adds timed lyrics to the menu screen. The tune that I have doesn't actually include the bridge passage in the song so this isn't included. Press a key to move to the main menu - or wait until the end of the lyrics.

Also I found a corruption issue that might have caused the failures on restart - I've also made the reset slightly more robust. It appears to work for me - please let me know if there are further issues.

I've introduced a very slight drift towards the centre of the screen on the ghost capture screen - hopefully this will prevent the ghost being "caught" in the corner. In order to do that I had to make some more space so I have moved the random number generator into the Cassette filing system workspace. Since that gave me a bit more than I needed I've changed the scroll routine to use self modifying indexed absolute addressing instead of offset addressing which is 2 cycles faster per byte. This means it will be slightly smoother and cause less slowdown when there's lots going on.

Next would seem to be the bouncy ball and any remaining issues people find.

gb.ssd

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[Dave_E]

Just played it through again twice - all the bugs seem to be fixed - whahoo!

The only other two things that I thought of aren't really bugs but just standard features. Usually most games allow COPY to pause the game and DELETE to restart. Likewise, whilst I personally could listen to the instrumental Ghostbusters tune forever, some people might find an option to turn it off useful (S for Sound FX, Q for Quiet). Although, because you have a redefine keys option, you might also need to allow people to redefine such controls to avoid keyboard clashes.

This enhanced version with the sampled sound really feels like a A+++ release now. Maybe you could get Retrosoftware to do you some big box disc sleeves and do a print run of a few physical versions. I'd certainly buy one.

[Cybershark]

The only other two things that I thought of aren't really bugs but just standard features. Usually most games allow COPY to pause the game and DELETE to restart. Likewise, whilst I personally could listen to the instrumental Ghostbusters tune forever, some people might find an option to turn it off useful (S for Sound FX, Q for Quiet). Although, because you have a redefine keys option, you might also need to allow people to redefine such controls to avoid keyboard clashes.

Both worthy suggestions, and both could be toggled with just one key each. But, rather than allowing every game control to be redefined, simply rule out S/Q/COPY/DEL from being selected

[ChrisB]

Reasonable suggestions - I usually go f0/f1/f2 or thereabouts as they are "unpopular" keys for general use. I'll look at that along with the bouncing ball.

[ChrisB]

Added a bouncing ball for the lyrics. To be honest I feel it needs a bit of refinement - possible exiting/entering the screen between rows.
This version also adds a pause (for the sideways ram version only - not enough space for the standard version). Press f0 to pause then - whilst paused:
f1 Continue
f2 Tune on
f3 Tune off
f4 Sound effects on
f5 Sound effects off

gb.ssd

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There are a couple more items that I'd like to address.

• Add the Master specific keys to allow these to be selected
• There is a "missed interrupt" causing the screen to flash when I run the game as a BBC Master
• Provide a NULA Palette. This is actually slightly more complicated that in first appears as I've used blue for dark grey - so I's like to keep the sky blue which means making them different colours.
• Edit: I also want to look again at the main game samples to see if I can improve the quality.