Pinball Arcade gets iCade and 8-Bitty controller support.

It’s looks like after many requests for iCade controller support by the fans of the Pinball Arcade iOS app, last nights update includes this much welcome addition.

You’ll need to activate iCade support first, which is lurking at the bottom of the main menu options screen….it took me a while to find it!

With that done, you can now navigate the menus etc with your iCade.

The button mapping is pretty good too, the flippers are spaced on the far left and right of the iCade buttons (on mine it’s the bottom white and bottom red button) with tilt and extra controls using the middle four buttons. For those tables with a classic plunger, pulling down on the joystick will launch the ball.

And I’m please to find that the iCade support also extends to the 8-Bitty controller too.

Sadly the buttons are a little mixed up as the flipper buttons use the top left shoulder button and one of the standard red fire buttons (bottom left). It’s a shame that both top shoulder buttons couldn’t be used although after a while you do get used to them. I suppose there’s always Blutrol if you want to customise yourself?

I’ve not tried the iCade Jnr on my iPhone yet but I’d be pretty confident in guessing that it’ll work too.

The Internet is already displaying fan made iCade/pinball modifications using the Blutrol app, but having native iCade support means that you can mod away without having to Jailbreak your device.

I don’t think I’m wanting to drill into my own iCade just yet though but an idea is forming for my own pinball mod.

And finally, this latest app update also brings another classic 80′s table – Space Shuttle (Williams) with promise of more vintage tables to follow. My vote is on Meteor please.

Happy gaming.

Niknice’s collection of games for iPad and iPhone C64 emulator.

Got Manimo’s C64 emulator for your ios device and want a few C64 games to import?

Well, it sounds like you need Niknice Awesome-ness super flippin-well-fantastic, ‘woo that’ll save me some time‘ collection of C64 games!

Knowing how much time is required to configure the plist for each game, locate artwork, resize etc I can appreciate how much work has gone into this collection.

Just look at all this lot!

3D Ant Attack
Afterburner
Airwolf
Alien 3
Aliens UK
Aliens US
Alleykat
Armalyte
Arnie
Asterix
Auf Wiedersehen Monty
Automania
Barbarian
Battlezone
BC Tires
Beach Head
Beach Head 2
Bionic Commando
BlackWyche
Blue Max
Bobby Bearing
Bombjack
Bombjack 2
Bombo
Boulder Dash 2
Bombo
Bruce Lee
Bubble Bobble
Buck Rogers
Buggy Boy
Burger Time
Cabal
California Games
Cauldron 2
Cavelon
Chuckie Egg 2
Cosmic Bakery
Commando
Commando 2
Congo Bongo
Crazy Comets
Crystal Castles
Cybernoid 2
Devon Aire Diamond Caper
Dizzy Crystal Kingdom
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Atari
Double Dragon 2
Dragon Ninja
Dragon Skulle
Dropzone
Eliminator
Elite
Empire Strikes Back
Encounter
Entombed
Escape from the Planet of the Robots
Everyones a Wally
Exolon
Fairlight – A Prelude
Firelord
First Samurai
Forgotten Worlds
Fortress of Narzod
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Ghostbusters
Ghosts and Goblins
Ghould n Ghosts
Giana Sisters
Gorf
Green Beret
Gremlins – The Adventure
Grogs Revenge
Gyroscope
Gryuss
H.A.T.E
Halls of the Things
Head over Heels
Hellfire
Herberts Dummy Run
Hero
Highway Encounter
Howard the Duck
Hunchback
Hunchback 2
Hypersports
Ikari Warriors
IK +
Impossible Mission
Inspector Gadget
International Karate
Jet Set Willy
Jet Set Willy 2
Jr Pac-Man
Judge Dredd
Jumpman Jnr
Kikstart 2
Kong Strikes Back
Kung Fu Master
Leviathan
Manic Miner
Mario Bros
Masters of the Universe Super Adventure
Mega Apocalypse
Midnight Resistance
Mighty Bombjack
Mikie
Miner 2049er
Monty Mole
Monty on the run
Moon Patrol
Mr Do
Mr Dos Castle
Mr Heli
Mr Wimpy
Ms PacMan
Nebulus
Nemesis
Nightshade
Niosferatu the Vampire
Outrun Europa
Outlaws
Outrun
Panther
Paperboy
Paradroid
Parallax
Pitfall 2
Pitstop 2
Platton
Pole Position
Pooyan
Popeye
power Drift
Pyjamarama
Questprobe 1 – the Incredible Hulk
Questprobe 2 – Spiderman
Questprobe 3 – Fantastic Four
Raid over Moscow
Rainbow Islands
Rambo
Rastan
Renegade 3
Rick Dangerous 2
Robocop
Rodland
Roger Rabbit
Sabre Wulf
Saint Dragon
Salamander
Samurai Warrior
Smash TV
Space Tazi
Spike
Spindizzy
Spy Hunter
Soy vs Spy
Spy vs Spy 2
Spy vs Spy 3
Staff of Karnath
Star Raiders 2
Starquake
Street Fighter UK
Street Fighter US
Strider
Super Pipeline 2
Super Zaxxon
Tapper
Target Renegade
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
The Goonies
The Hobbit
The Neverending Story
Thing Bounces Back
Track and Field
Trashman
Typhoon
UN Squadron
Uridium
Wizard of Wor
Wizardry
Wizards Lair
Wizball
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Yie Ar Kung Fu 2
Zaxxon
Zoids
Zynaps

Here’s the download link that Niknice has kindly provided.

http://www.mediafire.com/?8z16su4p0pi19xn

A huge thumbs up mate!

Zen Pinball – Star Wars

When it comes to Pinball sims on iOS (well,  iPad really as its all a bit fiddly on my phone) I usually lean towards The Pinball Arcade and their most excellent renditions of real life tables  rather than fictional tables, especially those that appear at various retro gaming events – Blackhole, Bride of Pinbot and Black Knight being particular favourites  However, when I saw the latest trailer for Zen Pinball and their latest Star Wars table, well I’m certainly keen to give them another look.

Although the 3D rendered stuff  looks great, I’m still on the fence about it as i guess it all depends on whether the novelty factor wears off and it become tedious  Still, i think it’s great that someone  is utilising  the advantages of digital pinball by adding features physically not possible on a real life table.

Zen Star Wars Pinball is available this month according to the www and also available for Android devices and the current crop of this gen consoles.

Check out more details (especially that uber-cool Fett table) at - http://www.starwarspinball.com/

Fingers crossed for a weekend release!

Yup, MAME is back in the Apple App store…but for how long?

Following on from yesterdays post < http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/mame-back-in-the-apple-app-store/ > I’ve been playing around this morning to see if I can side load Mame roms into the Gridlee app on my iPad.

I’ve used I-Funbox to browse to the app/documents/rom folder and dropped a couple of zipped roms from my iMame collection. After re-scanning the roms within the app, they all showed up on the game list. Also, no problems detected when dropping the files into this folder even though I’m running iOS 6.0.1.

Yay it seems to work! Go Frog.

I’ve added a few more roms but some appear not to work. I’m pretty sure it’s because my existing iMame rom set is quite old so I’ve since replaced them with a few examples from the .0139u1 set. This time, all appears to be working fine.

Awesome-ness – WWF Wrestlefest is now supported with this version of Mame and the iCade compatibility means I use can also use my 8-Bitty Bluetooth controller. I fear those few jobs I’d planned to do around the house might be put off for a bit

Got an iPhone/Ipad…download Gridlee on the app store right now….it probably won’t be around forever.

MAME back in the Apple App Store?

Missed iMame when it appeared briefly in the Apple App Store? Not got a jailbroken iOS device and want to play arcade classics? Eager to run arcade games on that iCade you received for Christmas?

Well, there might be a chance afterall with a new (free) game that’s appeared on App Store.

Gridlee is an arcade game that was originally designed for hardware designed by Bally / Sente. It’s an interesting looking game and well worth a look in itself, however the real interesting bit is that it uses a emulator wrapper to allow it to run….and that wrapper appears to be a version of Mame.

Although I haven’t tried this myself yet, it’s alleged that like Mame it has a Rom folder and if you use something like iExplorer or I-funbox and drop other game Roms into this folder and restart the Gridlee app, you’ll be presented with the familiar Mame games list including access to all the usual emulator options (including iCade support).

Even more interesting to those who already have Mame on their iOS devices is that this particular wrapper is based on Mame version 1.3 (.139u1) which is a much more feature rich version than the version of iMame that appeared on the App Store.

It stands to reason that Gridlee might not stay on the App Store for long, so head on over there right now and pick up yourself a copy ASAP.

My gaming week #1

Here’s a new section for my blog (see I’ve even created a shiny new category for it on the right hand side) which will list some of the games that’s been keeping me entertained over the previous week.  I wanted to start something like this here at the beginning of January but, well with one thing and another, time just slipped by.

Most of the games listed will be pretty much from older computers and consoles as well as the odd  indie games, low-fi causal games and those from the homebrew scene for classic systems. I don’t really play any modern PC games or own any modern console hardware and much prefer those with chunky pixels as you’ve probably gathered if you’ve been catching some of my posts on my blog.

These lists aren’t  going to feature huge reviews or anything like because quite frankly I can’t spel Maybe a few words and the odd picture or video in the hope that you’ll want to investigate further via a proper website or indeed jog the old noggin into thinking about and old classic you haven’t visited in a while.

Right here goes.

Friday saw the release of  an update to Capcom’s Street Fighter X Mega Man game and if you missed it and  happen to be a NES Megaman fan then you’re in for a treat….a treat that also happens to be free as well.

http://www.capcom-unity.com/mega_man

Now I totally suck at Megaman games on the NES (in fact, is anyone good at these games?) and I remember the Nintendo Gameboy version getting quite a bit of verbal abuse back in the day.

Street Fighter X Megaman is just as balls hard as the originals and I’m finding that I’m not getting very far at it at all…..yet, I just can’t seem to put the thing down, it’s so addictive

Top tip, the level against Blanka seems to be a good starting point as this (and Blanka) is fairly easy to complete.

***********

Carmageddon – DOSbox/iOS

Still causing Max Damage with the re-released by GOG edition of the classic PC games as well as the updated  iPad edition. The first level is still the best and gruesome of them all

Pitch invasion!

*******

Nano Ninja – web

http://www.newcave.com/game/nano-ninja

A fun little flash game which uses just one control and with it you must guide your ninja left & right and try to figure out how best to utilise this one control to overcome  each obstacle.

Moon Buggy – Commodore 16

I’ve played so many versions of Moon Buggy and it’s numerous clones on many systems but am thoroughly enjoying the simple yet hugely playable version on the Commodore 16….and for a C16 game it actually looks and scrolls pretty damn smooth too.

Solar Quest – Vectrex

This plays much better on the real hardware with it’s analogue joystick but my Vectrex is tucked away at present so I’ve been messing around with Solar Quest via the iPad Vectrex app and my iCade. It’s a simple game where you shoot, avoid and collect your bounty all under the gravitational pull of the centre star.

******

Moderate Retribution – ZX Spectrum

A brand new game released for never ageing Speccy and quite a nice little shoot em up it is too.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0028022

My iCade Jr.

I received my iCade Jr today and have been having fun messing around with it this evening. You probably know what the iCade Jr is but for those of you who don’t – it’s a device for turning your iPhone/iPod into a desktop arcade machine complete with arcade style joystick and buttons. It’s bigger brother (which I’ll refer to as Snr) is for use with the iPad and it the best iPad addon you could ever wish for…in fact, go buy one now

Now I say they’re designed for Apple iOS devices but iCade supported Android apps are now becoming quite common place and as I’ve had success using a friends Android tablet on my iCade Snr, I would have thought that if it’ll physically fit the iCade Jr it should work just as well.

The Jr is a very similar in design to the larger iCade and it’s nice to see the front buttons in a classic diamond shape as opposed to ION’s other game controller the 8-Bitty.

My side art differs somewhat to that on the box (which sorta resembles iCade Snr). Kinda cool though in it’s black and blue paint job.

What I didn’t expect was to find four more buttons on the rear panel bringing the total number of buttons to eight. The rear buttons are great when holding the iCade in both hands i.e like a handheld console, especially on those games that only need buttons instead of joystick control. This also has the advantage of giving a clear view of the screen. Also, being out of the way, these rear buttons are also useful to remap in Mame as ‘Start’ and ‘Coin’ etc, leaving the four front buttons for your ingame action buttons.

Size wise, the iCade Jr is designed to fit the iPhone 4/iPod but there’s a little bit of room either side if your Android phone is slightly wider or you have a hard case wrapped around your iPhone. I measured the inside width to be 6.5cm.

Still plenty of room even with my iPhone case fitted.

Height wise, it will fit the iPhone 4 with a few mm clearance so if your device is 11.8mm or less it’ll fit and you’ll be able to close the little plastic lid at the top of the iCade. If your phone is taller you’ll have to leave the lid open but that’s no big deal as it won’t affect gameplay. Here’s Mrs StiGGy’s iPhone 5 which is way taller than my iPhone 4 but as you can see, it still fits pretty well.

The iCade Jr is battery operated (no mains jack option like iCade Snr) and uses Bluetooth to connect to your device. Batteries (x2 AA) were included with mine, and they just slot into the compartment underneath the iCade after removing the battery compartment door.

Pairing to your device is a simple process, just hold down the red/white buttons at the front of the unit for a few seconds until the red light just below these is lit. It should now auto pair – no need to to enter a unique button combination like pairing the iCade Snr.

Incidentally, there’s no on/off button as such. If no control is used for a short period, the unit powers off automatically.

There’s also a hole in the bottom of the case that allows you to thread your charging cable and connect it to your phone so that you can recharge and play at the same time. This fits the iPhone charging cable (USB end) although I found it a bit snug and had to give it some welly to get it to fit through the hole.

Oh and another thing, the red joystick ball top unscrews and can be removed leaving behind a four directional thumb pad if you prefer that style of controller instead.

I’ve tried the iCade Jnr with iMame and it worked pretty, although I really did struggled to remap the buttons to use the front four buttons as by default the app uses the rear buttons instead. After much messing around I found that if you go into the Mame control settings (global) and clear whatever button configuration defaults first then it will allow you to remap. If you simply try to change an existing map to something else, it doesn’t work. A bit strange really and i didn’t experience anything like this on the iCade Snr but once you’ve got them set the way you like them, you shouldn’t have to change them again.

iMame – Aspect Ratio enabled hence the small menu.

Great for vertical games….

and horizontal too.

Sadly, something appears to be amiss with iMame as occasionally whenever I’m using the joystick and a button simultaneously, lets say moving and shooting, it doesn’t always shoot. It’s doesn’t do this it all the time but can be pretty annoying with games like R-Type where you really need to be on the stick and button together. At first I thought either I’ve got a faulty unit or a slightly iffy contact but when i tried it with other iCade supported apps, all appears to work perfectly.

Manomio C64 emulator supports the iCade and works really well in both portrait and full screen landscape. No control issues at all.

I’ve also tried Spectaculator (ZX Spectrum emulator) and the Vectrex emulator and all are work perfectly well, the latter being particularly fun. I’ve also tried a few iOS iCade supporting apps such as Velocispider, Atari Greatest Hits, League of Evil and Mos Speed Run without any fault whatsoever.

All in all, I’m damn happy with it. It a shame iMame has a few controller issues but Mame wasn’t the main reason why I brought it (it’s for project I’ve been musing over but more about that later on).

I probably wouldn’t pay the full retail price of $49.99 for thr Jr, but as I got it on sale for a bargain $9.99 it’s flippin ace. I believe Think Geek now have it listed at $24.99 if you want to take one for a spin.

If you’re thinking about getting one and have any questions, feel free to ask away and I’ll answer as best I can.

edit 18/1/13 Found this interesting forum post this morning re Mame and the front buttons mapping/simultaneous control issue and thought I’d add here.

http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?threadid=169393

Arcadie replacement

If you’re frustrated by the lack of Mame port for the iPhone Arcadie, check out the iCade Jr which is currently on sale for just $9.99 at ThinkGeek. If its anything like its bigger brother then it’ll be a great bit of kit and the Jnr gives you twice the number of buttons compared to the Arcadie and uses the entire iPhone/iPod screen including portrait and landscape modes.

Very tempting at this price considering that they’re usually $49.99.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f12f/

Although designed for iPhone 4/iPod, it does state it’ll work with the iPhone 5, just not with the lid closed.

Hey, you could you use the controls mechanism and rebuild your own case….woo, now that gives me an idea

Road Carnage.

Driving around this morning in the snow you had to have your wits about you as there’s some damn crazy drivers out there. If that wasn’t bad enough pedestrians seem to be jaywalking in abundance without any thought to their own safety and only attempting to flee at the last moment. Their screams ending abruptly as they hit my bumper and explode into wet chunks of red…..Yeah!

No I’m not some crazy psycho driver, twisted by years of exposure to pixel violence brought up on Mortal Kombat, Doom and Grand Theft Auto despite warnings that these titles would bring about the end of civilization.

-side note, what they should have warned us gamers about was the horror of E.T on the Atari 2600 or….and I’m too scared to even bring up these memories again- Double Dragon on the Commodore 64 Arrrrrgh.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Vlad seems to be a little stuck up ahead, throttle down, I’ll give him a gentle push

Nope, Carmeggedon, the classic chaos racer is simple arcade fun on a VDU and not real life…although it’s really tempting when someone cuts you up on the road eh? Mwah ha ha ha.

When Carmeggedon first game out in the mid 90′s I didn’t play that much of it as it was one of those games that really required a beefy PC (unless you could get hold of the 3DFX patch) and my poor DOS PC ran it so slowly it was unplayable. I didn’t really give it that much time until I picked it up again on sale for the original Sony PlayStation where the advanced chips on the little grey box could kick those pixels round at a descent framerate. It was sorta left in the back of the pile though as titles like WipeOut, Ridge Racer, Destruction Derby and Tekken tended to be on my play list back then. A shame really, as going back to it today, it such a fun game!

Getting it to run on more modern PC equipment can be a little bit tricky but thanks to the chaps at Good Old Games , they’ve made this a very simple process and have include a host of patches to run under DOSbox. Unfortunately , on my ageing (non dual anything) PC using the Glide wrapper plugin, the game looks great but runs way to slow – Even Carmegeddon is an old game, running under emulation with smooth 3D graphics will require a much more beefier PC.

However, all is not lost as simply running the patched Carm95.exe under Windows (XP/7) using compatibility mode (set to Win 95) it runs in software mode and although it looks a little chunky, you’re still getting silky smooth fullscreen fun. All of these shots below are captured in this mode.

A mis-timed jump on level two see me flipped and bouncing toward the unsuspecting cows…it got very messy!

Lined up on ‘Maim’ Street ready to begin the first ‘race’. That flag man looks nervous!

Races are won by one of three methods. Either, the traditional way by becoming first after completing a set number of laps, ensuring that you drive under each checkpoint dotted around the track (the map screen helps here if you get lost) until reaching the end. Alternatively you can repeatedly crash into your opponents to inflict so much damage that their engines explode and cannot continue. And finally, a bit more tricky, hunt down and plow into every pedestrian on the track. Can you find them all, there’s an on screen ticker that will indicate how many are left standing.

Take a detour on track one and head into the stadium to disrupt the local football game.

Pitch invasion, run for your lives mwah ha ha haaaaa!

As you mow down the pedestrians of wipe out other race drivers, you gain dollars. These can be used to repair your car on the fly or level up your cars offensive/defensive capabilities between each race. There are also many pickups to be found around each track in the form of colour barrels. Some will aid your race providing temporary speed boost and instant handbreak stopping power but other will work against you with hilarious consequences such as bouncy mode and unruly suspension.

Each track is huge and offers plenty of different routes to explore as well as ramps and jumps to perform a multitude of stunts (which btw earn more dollars).

Carmegeddon might look a bit old these days but, it was certainly revolutionary in its day and hats off (finally) from me to SCI for producing one damn fine sand box racer.

Now is the time to pick up a your own copy of Carmageddon as it’s on sale at the moment at GOG for just $4.99 including the Splat Pack expansion too. As always, GOG have done the release proud by adding additional content to the package including manuals, artwork, music and, papercraft – (yep, there’s an Eagle motor on my desktop right now).

I’ve also been having fun with new the iOS port on my iPad too with improved visuals and touch screen controls which, despite my initial apprehension for touch screen driving controls, actually work really well and take minutes to get used to before you’re able to put up a good fight.

It’s also interesting to read that the Max Carnage and chums could  be coming back to PC screens again, via Carmegeddon Reincarnation. That’s one I’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on.

…but until then, I’m off hunt down that flag man who seems to have done a runner

 

Finally, Vectrex Regeneration.

Yep, I know it’s been out for quiet sometime, but after that initial hiccup with the first release, (namely, it not working on jailbroken iOS devices) I kinda lost touch with it during the run up to Christmas and knowing I had some new iCade joystick tops heading my way for Christmas, I held of downloading Vectrex Regeneration….until now.

I won’t go into a full review here as there’s been so much said already about this utterly brilliant Vectrex emulator and besides, it a free app (with Mine Storm) so go check it out…although I’m sure most of you already have!

On the iPhone, its not so great, although not the faulty emulator, it’s just that the iPhone screen is way too small to be able to play some of the Vectrex games. It’s much better on the iPad and coupled with an iCade it’s pretty darn close to playing on a real Vectrex.

For just £4.99 you get access to every Vectrex game and a collection homebrew games – including Thrust which is absolutely superb.

Loving that fact that you get digital representations of the coloured overlays…although these can be turn them off if they’re not to your liking.

Hmm, that gives me an idea, the iPad screen is about the same as the Vectrex

Side by side, Vectrex and Vextrex Regeneration. Pretty damn close if you ask me.

When I’ve got a little bit more free time, I want to explore the apps files a little closer to see if I can figure out how to add more Homebrew games. If anyone has a copy of VeCaves/Rom dump, do you fancy submitting it to the Vectrex Regeneration chaps to see if they can seek authors permission for an official release?

Any-ho, Fortress of Narzod awaits

New bat tops for my iCade

How’s everyone’s Christmas going? All good here after a very busy Christmas day and before we head out to a boxing day party i though i’d take stock my swag from Santa including a little stocking filler I brought myself a few weeks ago.

The ball top joystick handle that’s supplied with the iCade is great, but a year on after buying my iCade I find that it’s always coming loose – just when you least need it to!

So, as the iCade uses standard arcade parts, I thought I’d buy myself a couple of bat style joystick tops (with deeper thread) from my fav arcade parts supplier – Gremlin Solutions

I couldn’t decide on a black top to match the iCade case or red to match the original stick so in the end, got both.

Sanwa LB-30n bat top with thread adaptor (needed on the iCade and other Sanwa sticks).

The fit seems nice and snug having a deeper thread so hopefully they shouldn’t come loose like the original.

This is the second addon to my iCade, the first was replacing all of the noisy microswitch buttons for quieter leaf switch switches. All I need to do now is swap out the joystick switches and my iCade amendments should be complete. Unmodified, the iCade is great but with a few parts swapped out for superior arcade parts, it makes gaming so much nicer.

Just got a spare half hour before me need to head off…I’m thinking R-Type should do nicely.

Retro Gaming Weekend at Derby – Saturday

Phew, a very looooong day today but one that has seen many, many laughs and a whole bunch of retro gaming goodness with friends old and new.

A cold, dark, wet and very  early start for the RCM admins as we needed to meet up at HQ early enough to pack up around 30 computers/consoles, associated games, attachments and monitors, transport them all to the event in Derbyshire and have anything set up  before the doors opened at 10am.

We must be getting good at this after all these years as we soon had everything organised, loaded up and ready to roll within record time. Who says bloke’s aren’t organised!….o.k, I got slightly lost on the way to the venue because I’d forgotten the postcode

We were met on arrival by our hosts Chris Snowden & Shaun Bebbington and got stuck into to setting up the three rooms with everyone’s favourite gaming gear.

Yet another TV for the pile Jim.

 

In this room we had the MB Vectrex, C64, ZX81, Atari 2600, PC Engine, Amiga 1200, Commodore 64GS, Atari 800, Nintendo Gamecube…

…and not forgetting the VIC-20

Into one of the areas linking the next room we had the BBC Master, Nintendo N64 and a Sega Megadrive/Sega CD setup and Karls Everdrive SD cart playing a rather funky looking port of Angry Birds…on a Megadrive!

I didn’t get chance to take a good look at this today but will certainly be giving it a try when I’m back there tomorrow.

The next room housed an Xbox 360, Nintendo Virtual Boy (was being a bit stubborn at the beginning due to a loose mains cable but we managed to get it going in the end), various  hand held electronic games, SNES, NES, Sony PSX, Atari Jaguar and Chris’ iCade with Mame and various emus.

Finally, we had one of the smaller rooms housing a Sega Dreamcast, PS2 with twin steering wheel setup (I rather enjoyed a spot of 2-up rally action with Jim this afternoon), Amstrad CPC 664 and a Sega Master System.

There was also, various Commodore C16/Plus 4 hardware set up from Chris  humongous collection. All in all i think that there was something here for everyone and so with the doors opened and a few eager retro gamers ready to get going, we had a coffee and got cracking.

As the event was being held on the outskirts of Derby City centre and only a stones throw away from where Core Design had their   office, I thought ‘When in Rome’, I’d re-play some of the games they produced including Lara Croft – Tomb Raider, Chuck Rock and the AGA-Tastic Banshee. The latter is  a game I didn’t really play a great deal when it first came out but had since rediscovered it a few years again. It’s certainly one of the finest looking Schmups on the Amiga.

 

A good start to the day

I don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere remotely close to the type of scores that Jackie was racking up on Drop Zone on the Atari.  A real pro in action! Note the cartridge in the the C64GS…it’s a  port of the classic C16 version of Kickstart.

Max was kind enough to show me his (wip) port of Cosmic Ark to the C64. Damn well addictive, can’t wait to see the finished results.

Well, my score on Mayhem on the ZX81 is improving, but my 51 is no match for Stu’s 65. The challenge has been set for tomorrow

After lunch and getting to know a few other folk that arrived this morning and then the now obligatory Soul Caliber tournament  on the Sega Dreamcast. I was also looking at some of the emulators running on the DC, and noted the how well they ran from CD and in particular with VGA box, how crisp they looked. Mental note to investigate further on my own setup.

Checking out some homebrew games for sale. Mmm Commodore games!

Andy sampling a bit of Commodore Plus/4 homebrew gaming with Adventures In Time

Impressive (but unfortunately not complete) this next game plays and looks very similar to Amalyte on the C64 and has an amazing  soundtrack thanks to the use of the SID chip addon cart that Chris has for his Plus/4. I forget the name of the game (X3no, Xe3o?) so I’ll take another look tomorrow and capture some footage.

One system that I don’t really play a lot on is the Atari Jaguar. Apart from the odd game of Tempest, I rarely sit down to explore some of it’s other titles and RCM has got quite a few so I thought I’d take a look at some of them this afternoon. I was certainly impressed by Power Drive Rally, Cybermorph and the conversion of Syndicate so that’s another note to take a closer look into the Jag.

More homebrew and I spotted a few new cartridges for the C64/C64GS including one of my favourites, the truly bonkers –  Quod Init Exit. <see previos blog post - http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/c64-homebrew-quod-init-exit/

That pretty much wraps it up for day one. As always, bags of fun when the RCM chaps get together and nice to meet and chat with a  few new people. Bring on day two!

Oh and one last thing..Beam Rider on the ZX81 – That little black box continues to surprise.

Awesome-ness!

8-Bitty joypad arrives

This arrived just in time for the weekend.

8-Bitty joypad, a Bluetooth controller for iPhone, iPad, Android and PC devices.

On iOS deviceswhy he 8-Bitty uses the iCade SDK therefore any supported apps will work with it…including, most of all, those wonderful old school console emulators by Robert Broglia, MAME, Final Burn and Manomio’s Commodore 64 emulator…and I’m sure, a ton of others too.

There’s no mistaking which classic controller the 8-Bitty is styled on so maybe a new  label is in order as the first gen iCade artwork isn’t exactly great.

Quick n dirty photoshop mock-up

You’ll note that there are two shoulder buttons on the 8-bitty similarly to the Snes pad. Personally I would have gone with Snes pad style modelling as its a much better controller to handle with its rounded corners as opposed to the NES brick that the designers of the 8-Bitty decided to go for. Still, there’s mistaking it’s retro appeal.

The first thing I noticed when unboxing the pad was the physical on/off slider button on the back. A nice feature which should prevent accidentally switching it on and draining the (aaa x2) batteries when it’s in your pocket.

It’s quite a light controller and does feel a bit plasticky. The buttons seem responsive but the d-pad is very cheap looking and appears to be be on a rocker rather than individual contacts. I say appears as until I crack this open I won’t be sure. Who knows how well it will handle complex commands like Street Fighter 2 super moves.

Connecting to my iPad was a breeze, hold the pads two middle buttons together for four seconds activates the pairing mode.

…and it simply works……..really REALLY well!

There’s no lag, its responsive and when tested, the d-pad actually works better than it looks including pulling off those special moves.

For supported emulators/apps just pick the iCade controller option and away you go. You can, of course remap any of the buttons to your liking with most emulators.

At only $29.99 the 8-Bitty is a must for tablet owning retro gamers longing for a physical controller to play their favourite classics on the go. Can we have a dual stick version next?

Black Knight Pinball emulation.

After getting hooked very quickly on Black Knight pinball table at Play:Expo a few ago I’ve been itching to get it up and running in Visual Pinball. Of course, nothing comes close on the original Williams table but until the next pinball event (or indeed if a Black Knight pinball machine just so happens to appear on eBay and at a budget that suits my pockets) emulation will be more than enough for that BK fix.

After downloading and configuring Visual Pinball/PinMame and all the requisite files, I’ve actually used up my user account downloading limit for today at http://www.vpforums.org/ so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to try some of the full screen HD tables However, I’ve found a few early Black Knight tables on another website which you’ll find screenshots below. They’re not as graphically stunning as some of the FS Black Knight tables but all of the same game mechanics are here.

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So, can I beat my meagre highest score achieved on the real table?

516,670.

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Black Knight is a such a great table to play because it’s not overly complicated, there’s plenty to shoot for and great opportunities to increase your score with different target groups, multipliers and bonuses. The top level table (which I read Black Knight was the first pinball to introduce this feature) provides two more flippers and more scoring chances. Also, if the ball lock has been previous enabled on the lower table, shooting the top left area three times will activate multi-ball mayhem and a huge reward if you can keep all three balls going.

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Another feature of Black Knight is the Magna Save. When activated a magnet stops the ball from falling down the left/right out lanes which, as you can imagine, is damn useful if you’re about to loose a ball. You’ve got to be quick on the buttons to activate it though as the feature isn’t lit for very long. On the real table, you have two buttons next to the flipper buttons, but in Visual Pinball it’s just two keys on the keyboard so I’ve remapped these to be close to hand.

…and the bit that first drew me to this table in the first place, that 80′s retro voice of the Black Knight! So cool and this VB tables has them all included.

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Here’s a shot of the original table – apologies for the crappy image, my iPhone isn’t the best camera in low light.

..and here’s the altered table – missing a few texture though.

After about an hour of playing, the best I could do was just shy of my high score but after a one particular game where I was down to my last ball and hady 420,000 on the scoreboard when i got multiball and managed to keep all three balls going until just under my high score. The last ball kept going and so i was able to get multiball again and at the end i’d surpassed my personal best.

I’ve also been playing the awesome creation of the Black Knight table on my iPad thanks to the Pinball Arcade app – http://www.pinballarcade.com/. I brought table pack no.4 which also includes The Creature from the Black Lagoon which is another table i enjoyed at Play:Expo

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The only problem I have with this version of Black Knight is that the top left flipper is almost hidden from view and so I often mistime it’s use…which is a shame as its this particular flipper that you’d use the most to access multiball.

Still, it looks great and apart from that minor quibble, it plays really well with the touchscreen controls and iPad tilt to tilt feature.

Black Knight – iPad.

Once I’ve picked up the HD tables tomorrow I’ll try it on that mini pinball table project I’ve been working on.

Until then, I’ve got a score to beat!

8-Bitty – Retro wireless controller for iOS/Android.

I just ordered one of these from ThinkGeekafter missing the first batch of stock and have been waiting for them to appear again (on sale this time too!).

8-Bitty

Basically it’s, as you can see a classic styled joypad but this one is Bluetooth and can be connected to the iPad/iPhone/Android devices. It uses the iCade SDK so all current supported games should work perfectly with it.

Don’t get me wrong, i love my iCade to bits but sometimes you just want something small and portable to carry around which will also provide physical controls instead of touchscreen stabbing. With this and my iPhone, I got a pretty good portable Commodore 64 gaming system

For those games that aren’t iCade compatable, i’ve been checking out an iOS app called Blutrol which enables support for a greater number of games. The only caveat for iOS devices is that Blutroll is not available via the Apple app store but via and so your iOS device needs to be Jailbroken. Also, it will only work with games that have touchscreen controls that remain in the same place onscreen. Games that require swipe gestures or control by touching any part of the screen are unsuitable.

I thought I’d check out Blutrol before my controller arrives and so i’ve tried the new Street Fighter X Tekken game on my iPad- a game without iCade support to see if I can get it to working with my iCade.

To setup –

Play the game you wish to convert and take as screenshot of the game in action by pressing the iOS home and power button together.

Exit the game and launch Blutrol.

Click on ‘the ‘+’ button to add a new game configuration.

Select the game from the list of installed apps.

Click on either the landscape or portrait button to suit the orientation of your game. For example i’ve select landscape for Streetfighter X Tekken.

This will open your photo gallery, so browse to the screenshot you took earlier and select it.

Click on the control button (again, either landscape or portrait).

Drag the iCade controls over the top of the games controls. You can pinch and drag the joystick icon to match that of the on screen game joystick area.

Click ‘done’, connect your iCade, relaunch the game and hopefully you should now find your physical iCade controls will now work.

Happy to say that this worked perfectly.

I’ll be back with more when my 8-Bitty arrives through the mail.