That's good progress. About the monsters' locations, do you mean that they "are in different places for each player" just at the beginning? Guess so, because, later on, the monsters should be in different places as the players go their separate ways. Anyway, congrats on getting the four players to use the same maze. It's kind of an ironic task because, often, we want things to be different for different players, but not in this particular case.
Played Monsta about 10 more times. L4 with four monsters is harder than I thought. I found myself hoarding clubs (though one could argue that one should only be able to carry one club at a time). And I even dropped a bomb once, though I still feel that they are not needed. By the way, I haven't experienced it on L1, but I occasionally get two players on L4, though one is probably a remnant after moving away but I'm not sure (I took a pic once but no video). And one time just after that happened, the console went to "la-la land" with a black screen of death that required a power cycle. I haven't tried L2 or L3 yet. I haven't caught on to when two players crop up, but I think that the first time that it occurred I had just slayed a monster with a club. Perhaps the decision to kill or not to kill opened up a parallel universe and one of me went one way and the other in another way.
At this point, I think a big improvement would be just to expand the maze a couple of lines. I'm currently fine with having a blue boarder around everything, but it'd be nice to have a maze that mostly filled the screen. Some of the messages may not be needed or could be done elsewhere. And it's a bit annoying when a message covers up the number of clubs, anyway, though, again, perhaps one should only have a single club at a time, in which case, the token for the player could indicate the possession of a club. But if holding multiple clubs is to be allowed, then perhaps icons on the wider right boarder could indicate that. Bombs, too, I suppose, if really needed. That is, instead of displaying a count of the number of clubs, you could display an icon for each club in one's possession (possibly limited at three clubs or so). I don't know if that's a good idea or not, though. The clubs aren't as essential as lives are in Pac-Man, for example, but they can be wielded to save one's life, so maybe. Anyway, the main thing is to make the maze bigger one way or another, whether that takes counts on the side and/or reverse video on a status bar = lower maze wall. Also, an overlay text panel could be used if needed, particularly at the end of the game, but it's probably not a good idea to permanently cover the maze.
Hey, you know what would be nice and perhaps more important than displaying clubs or bombs? Displaying the number of targets collected per round for EACH player and/or displaying the total number of targets collected for a game. However, the latter could be done after a round finished (and so could the former, but it might be nice to know as one played with others). Anyway, that presupposes that there would be multiple targets per round, which you have decided on yet. At any rate, it seems prudent to get everything else working before fully deciding on multiple targets, namely using the same maze for all players (which will be in the next version) and expanding the maze (and figuring out what to do with messages). By the way, I when I played those 10 games that I mentioned, by motivation was mostly just to have fun (which is a good sign), but it looks like I inadvertently did a little bit of play testing.
You've certainly come a long way already. It's like traveling: you've flown across the ocean, got your connecting flight and arrived at your destination city, but now you just need to get to the hotel. After all, this partly came out of your work on your game language. It's nice that you're using a bit of that work or experience and that you're up to speed on how to interface with the game console. If you need a break or other things are pressing, don't worry about the riff-raff up in the peanut gallery (namely me). What you've accomplished already is quite impressive.
I'll be looking at this over the weekend. I can't leave it with a bug. If I take time off from Monsta! development it will be after it is in a stable state.
Interesting. I was thinking of making a single-player version of Monsta! available for a Parallax board but it seems that Parallax no longer makes any boards with VGA and PS2. The closest you can come is a QuickStart board with a Human Interface Board plugged into it but even the Human Interface Board is on "Final Sale". A good option would be the Propeller C3 but that is no longer sold by Parallax although it might still be available from Andre' LaMothe directly. I find this odd because people are always talking about video being a big selling point for the Propeller.
Interesting. I was thinking of making a single-player version of Monsta! available for a Parallax board but it seems that Parallax no longer makes any boards with VGA and PS2. The closest you can come is a QuickStart board with a Human Interface Board plugged into it but even the Human Interface Board is on "Final Sale". A good option would be the Propeller C3 but that is no longer sold by Parallax although it might still be available from Andre' LaMothe directly. I find this odd because people are always talking about video being a big selling point for the Propeller.
Yeah, a real shame. You have to sortof roll your own... It's why I made my "Ventilator Computer" .. It has all the bells and whistles: VGA, TV, SD Card, SPI RAM, SNES gamepad, PS/2 Keyboard. If anyone wants to take it and make a commercial product based on it, that'd be cool :P
Also, yes, the C3 is still available: http://www.ic0nstrux.com/products/gaming-systems/propc3 But it has some problems: Mono sound, troublesome SPI muxing. (Also no built-in gamepad circuit/connector :P)
It costs about as much as I think I spent on parts for my board, which I think is fairly interesting.
Also, yes, the C3 is still available: http://www.ic0nstrux.com/products/gaming-systems/propc3 But it has some problems: Mono sound, troublesome SPI muxing. (Also no built-in gamepad circuit/connector :P)
It costs about as much as I think I spent on parts for my board, which I think is fairly interesting.
I don't mind the lack of a game pad connector since I mostly want to make text-based games. Also, the awkward SPI addressing is pretty easy to manage if you know how it works. The cache drivers for PropGCC support the C3 since it was our reference board at the time so I have some experience working with it. I tried to convince Andre' not to do it when he was designing the C3 but I guess it saved one pin.
Yeah, i figured not everyone needs a gamepad, that's why I put that in ()s.
The problems I have heard of regarding the C3's SPI bus have less to do with it being awkward or something (infact, it is a pretty good idea) and more with inexplicably corrupted SD card transfers.
Example:
I have had some issues with either the SD card routines or the SD card itself where sometimes it will read in garbage data, so for the game I have a byte checker for everything it loads off the SD card, except the game text. If you are playing and move to a new screen and the tiles look distorted and then go back to normal, that is the byte checker at work and reloading the broken tiles. I haven't worked much with SD card stuff on the Propeller so I don't know if it was the C3 specific code or not, but I do know that adjustments did have to be made for the C3 to read SD card data.
That never happens to me, with the "traditional" SPI bus, so either that bug was properly fixed at some point or the C3-specific code/hardware is to blame.
Anyways, I think if further discussion is desired, I think a new thread should be opened. Threadjacking: It's not just offensive, it's an offence!
I have had some issues with either the SD card routines or the SD card itself where sometimes it will read in garbage data, so for the game I have a byte checker for everything it loads off the SD card, except the game text. If you are playing and move to a new screen and the tiles look distorted and then go back to normal, that is the byte checker at work and reloading the broken tiles. I haven't worked much with SD card stuff on the Propeller so I don't know if it was the C3 specific code or not, but I do know that adjustments did have to be made for the C3 to read SD card data.
That never happens to me, with the "traditional" SPI bus, so either that bug was properly fixed at some point or the C3-specific code/hardware is to blame.
I suspect it's the C3-specific software not the hardware. Just a guess though.
Maybe this lack of boards from Parallax with VGA and PS2 is good news. Everyone who wants to play Monsta! Will have to buy a Quby console! I'm sure millions will be sold. Finally, a killer app!
Here is another version of Monsta!. This one starts with the same maze for every player and with the same monster positions. However, you'll notice that the monsters don't move exactly the same even if you don't move the player from its start position. This is because there is a random element to the monster's choice of direction and obviously each screen generates different random numbers. This version likely has the same bugs as were reported in the previous version. I'm going to try to track those down this weekend. Also, you'll notice that I've stopped using a one character border around the screen. The entire 40x15 screen is used for the game. This looks a little odd since there is still an unused column on the right because the game requires an odd number of columns to display the maze. It might be nice if there was a way to tell the video driver to insert some number of pixels at the start of each line to cause the character images to be centered. I'm not sure I'm up to trying to modify the video driver to do that though.
Edit: I forgot to mention that you change levels in this version by typing the digit corresponding to the level you want from 1 to 4.
Here's another version of Monsta! You can try. This one uses as much of the screen as possible but leaves out the status line. The maze is bigger but I'm not sure how to provide the feedback about number of clubs, bombs, and game info.
Edit: I added as much of the status line as would fit in the right column. I have to remove the bezel from my WordFire console to see it but it might work okay on the Quby.
Jim: Are the bezels on the WordFire console laser cut? Is there any chance you could cut bezels that expose the entire screen? How much would that cost me?
Jim: Are the bezels on the WordFire console laser cut? Is there any chance you could cut bezels that expose the entire screen? How much would that cost me?
It might be nice if there was a way to tell the video driver to insert some number of pixels at the start of each line to cause the character images to be centered.
Horizontal and vertical centering of lines (or characters) was on the list of change requests when I commissioned some changes to the video driver, but, ultimately, centering didn't make the cut, as it was agreed to keep things simple (or at least not to overly complicate things).
Is there any chance you could cut bezels that expose the entire screen? How much would that cost me?
Let me look into this request, which is one that I saw coming from a mile away. Although a lot of the files for that console version are on my broken desktop, I think that I have the files that I gave to the laser cutter on a USB stick, as I delivered the files in person.
Hopefully, you guys would be doing your own gluing and any painting or staining of the bezels (and top piece), such that they could be sent out flat, cutting way down on the shipping cost. That would save me time, too, as just getting new bezels designed, cut and shipped will take me a few hours of work. Anyway, when I get free tomorrow, I'll look for the design file and get back to you.
The maze is bigger but I'm not sure how to provide the feedback about number of clubs, bombs, and game info.
I loaded up both versions. I definitely like using the whole screen. Good job on that. As for the status line, it seems like it would be best to put in on the bottom wall in reverse video. As for having stats and messages on the rightside, I don't think that works so well. And it might be better if that rightmost column were rendered in the color used for the walls (even though there would be little "holes" in the corners).
As for having successive goals appear, how 'bout this instead: Could you place, say, three goals at the beginning of each round, all at the same places for each player? Then each player could obtain the goals in any order, with the first player to obtain all of them being declared the winner. A status message at the bottom could say, "First Place," "Second Place" and so on, or, at the end of play, perhaps the status line could give the order "1st East, 2nd North" or similar.
Perhaps the message that appears when slaying a monster is not needed. It kind of seems like a distraction Anyway, again, I think messaging can be done at the bottom in reverse video, even though those characters wouldn't have the corners clipped like the wall characters. Have you tried that to see how it looks? And perhaps some of the messages could be temporary, being replaced by regular wall characters after an interval elasped.
The following is low priority, but if memory allows, you might consider redefining a dot character such that is centered. But I'd rather see redefined characters for the other tokens first. Meanwhile, changing the color of the dots (trail of periods would be neat). And if you made a rule where a player could only carry one club at a time, then the token representing the player could indicate possession of a club.
I think I would eliminate the bombs. I don't think they add any enjoyment to the game and just tend to clutter up the screen. This would also help reduce clutter if you changed to having, for example, three goals. And there's probably not a need to show the level using letters if at all (as the number of initial monsters tells one this). So perhaps status messages aren't needed.
Speaking of the number of monsters, when playing on L4, I once got five monsters, but one of them was dead (not moving). But there were definitely five M's on the screen. Also, I got that screen full of '@' symbols again, but it didn't crash the system and I was able to quit and start again without a power cycle.
By the way, I'd still like to try playing where one moves just one space at a time (with no possibility of jumping over the monsters). Perhaps one could select whether to move one or two spaces at a time, but I think one space would be more intuitive and make the maze seem bigger. But maybe the downside is the need for more typing and hence noise. Still, I'd like to try moving that way.
Which leads me to think: if you switched to deploying, say, three goals instead of just one, rather than killing a player and knocking him or her completely out of the game, you could just delete one of the goals. That way, if there were still at least one goal left, he or she could continue to play along with any other players. And even if there were no goals left, one could still wander around the maze just for practice while waiting on the other players. Anyway, having multiple goals also beneficially reduces the amount of luck in the game. For example, at the beginning of a round, if a player hits a randomizer and materializes near a goal, it wouldn't matter so much, as there would still be other goals to get.
In summary, I really like the larger maze. As for changes to consider: Messaging could be done at the bottom in reverse video; status messages could be cut back on or eliminated; the rightmost column could be done in white (pity that an extra column can't be stitched in somehow); multiple goals could be deployed; and, some color could be added.
Thanks for adding the "reward" where the whole maze appears on getting the goal. That's listening to the (admittedly small) user base! Perhaps the color of the maze walls could change to another color when doing that to really make it pop (but that might depend on what you do with color in general). And that way, even if one had already fully or mostly exposed the maze walls, the change would really be obvious. Okay, that's my two-and-one-half cents for this post.
Yes, I am fine with uncolored flat package, I am able to replace the bezels and thereby destroying (or upgrading?) one of the rare WordFire consoles with food tray.
But I could at least claim it is a upgrade from the original manufacturer thus making it even more valuable as in rare, in the future.
And, yes, please include a top-piece, I need to keep the original one intact.
I am aMAZEd about @"David Betz" Monsta. Very cool. Sadly I have no playtime to program for WordFire,/Quby right now, but I am looking forward to it.
I would actually be happy if the top was solid without an opening for the snack bowls. I hadn't realized I'd have to paint the bezels myself. In that case I'd probably just make them all the same color like on the Quby or maybe even leave them their natural color.
Speaking of the number of monsters, when playing on L4, I once got five monsters, but one of them was dead (not moving). But there were definitely five M's on the screen. Also, I got that screen full of '@' symbols again, but it didn't crash the system and I was able to quit and start again without a power cycle.
Yes, I know there are still some bugs. I think some have to do with not erasing an item being moved from its old location leaving behind a shadow. There may be others too. I'll try to stamp those out before I add any more features.
Okay, I believe that I've located the file that I gave to the laser cutter for your current bezels. I measured my prototype and everything matches up. Below is a quick sketch showing the overall dimensions of the bezel and its cutout, as well as the distance from each side to the cutout (30 mm on the left, top and bottom, and 27 mm on the right).
What I'd like to get from you guys is how much you'd like to shave off on each side of the hole (or the hole's overall dimensions and location). While this may vary from side to side on the console due to variations in the fabrication (routing and so on), I hope that you each can come up with a single set of dimensions that will work for all four bezels (but it's okay if your sets of dimensions don't match each others).
I'm only planning to cut and ship these replacement bezels once, so if some portions of the silver metal bezels of the LCD screens show up on some sides or if text on the borders is still obscurred, you'll probably have to live with it (or maybe find a domestic laser cutter).
So how many millimeters do you want taken off on each side of the cutout? Looking at my prototype here, it looks like the right and top sides of the hole need the most material removed. However, I'm not sure if that's the case for your consoles. Also, please let me know whether you want rounded corners for the cutout or square corners. The current ones are rounded with a corner radius of 2 mm. But that will likely slightly obsure the text in the four corners. Originally, the bezels were made out of acrylic and these corners were rounded to alleviate stress in the corners, but I don't think that's really necessary with this MDF wooden material.
By the way, if you want to see the drawing for the screens themselves, you can search on "AT070TN90 V.1" for the PDF. That shows the exact dimensions (within tolerance) of things like the "visible area" and so on. However, I don't think that it's strictly necessary for you to consult that document. I think you can eyeball it to some extent, as things are fairly close now. And you might want to make a dummy bezel out of cardstock and test it in place to see if you're reasonably satisfied with your dimensions ON ALL FOUR SIDES. You may have to compromise a bit to get one set of dimensions that works reasonably well for everything.
Let me know what you come up with and I'll draw things up and take the order to the laser cutter. By the way, I'll take care of cutting and shipping these at my own expense since you guys have both done some console development (driver updating and game development). But it would be nice if I could ship everything across the ocean to just one of you and let that person ship the other person's half (incidentally, my shipping cost to both coasts is the same). But if we can't work that out, then I'll ship separately.
Edit: You can specify things in tenths of millimeters if you want, such as 28.5 mm.
Thanks for offering to make the bezels but I certainly don't expect to get them for free. I'm happy to pay. Also, I'm willing to have you ship all of them to me and have me send Mike's to him if that helps. I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to make the measurements though. I didn't realize there was variation between units. I figured you would know what size opening was required to expose the entire viewable area. In fact, I'm not that concerned about seeing a little of the metal frame. I'd rather that than having some of the viewable area obscured.
I figured you would know what size opening was required to expose the entire viewable area.
In fact, I don't. Although the LCD's PDF gives the viewable area of the screens themselves, the underlying head frame of each console was hand routed using a jig. And even with a jig, there is some variability in the routes and hence the dimensions, not just from console to console but from side to side (for the four sides). Unfortunately, I'm not a human CNC machine. And the fact is, the console was designed under the compromise that the bezels would partially cover the border pixels of the screens. As such, re-cutting the bezels now to fully expose the screens goes beyond the tolerances of the method used to fabricate the console head. So, there's no way that I can measure things here myself and guarantee that things will fit properly on your ends (no obscured pixels and no exposed silver metal).
Hence, I'm making what I consider to be a reasonable request that you provide measurements, and then I'll get the bezels cut to your specifications. Based on past feedback, I am almost certain that I'll get complaints no matter how I decide to cut the new bezels. And if getting new bezels is important to you, I would think that you'd be willing to "roll up your sleeves," as it were, and take some measurements. Designing and building stuff can seem so easy until one does it oneself. So, I'm leaving the measurements up to you guys. I'd say that the laser cutter does a pretty good job of cutting to specification, probably within a tenth of a millimeter. But I can't guarantee that the bezels will glue together with well-formed corners while also exposing the screens perfectly.
I can also foresee that you guys might even need to put in a shim or two of some kind to get ideal alignment of one or more screens. And, heaven forbid, you might even have get a knife out to trim the recess of the head frame. I don't want to have anything to do with that (I feel that I did my part already). But part of the reason that I redesigned the console recently was to simplify the fabrication and reduce the number of ways that things can go wrong. But even the latest-and-greatest design has some "slop" in it in terms of how well I can fabricate things. Hopefully, you guys can see that it's quite a bit harder to maintain alignment for four screens at 90 degree angles to one another than to align a bezel for a single screen. So, all I'm asking is that you guys put some skin in the game by making some measurements and/or decisions and taking part of the risk, wherein I'll be glad to do my part on this end to get things fabricated and shipped. If that's asking too much, I don't know what else I can do other than rebuild the head frames from scratch, which ain't going to happen. And there will be no additional charge for this because you've both done some nice software development and because, frankly, I can't guarantee that the new bezels will turn out to your satisfaction.
Thanks for offering to make the bezels but I certainly don't expect to get them for free. I'm happy to pay. Also, I'm willing to have you ship all of them to me and have me send Mike's to him if that helps.
Thanks for being willing to help out with the shipping, David.
I hadn't realized I'd have to paint the bezels myself. In that case I'd probably just make them all the same color like on the Quby or maybe even leave them their natural color.
Okay, although I was hoping to avoid detailing the bezels, I guess I could get some more spray paint and go up on the roof of my building to paint them the same color as for Quby. And I can stain the top the same as Quby, too. But I'd prefer not do the rather time-consuming five-color paint scheme that I did before. After we get bezels measured and cut, you can let me know whether to paint and stain the bezels or not.
Edit: Of course, nothing prevents you from re-painting them after I paint the bezels. But it is easier to mask things off if you paint them before gluing them together. That's assuming that you leave the edges dark like I did (or think I did on your consoles). I like how the dark edges provide some contrast.
I would actually be happy if the top was solid without an opening for the snack bowls.
Thanks, but I'm going to assume that you want the top to have a cutout for the snack bowl just like the existing bezel cap does. It won't really add much cost to the laser cutting (maybe 10% more or so), so it's probably worth doing. Anyway, that will be my working assumption unless you tell me otherwise. That is, if you definitely want a flat top without a cutout for the snack bowl, then be sure and tell me before I get things cut. I realize that Quby has a flat top without a cutout, but its head is quite a bit smaller and it doesn't have a snack bowl. But maybe you want to set things on top or something, so if you don't want a cutout, just let me know. But don't let cost be a factor in your decision making because, again, the cost differential isn't much and it's going to take me the same time either way. Oh, and any increased laser cutting cost may be offset by a reduced shipping cost.
Okay, although I was hoping to avoid detailing the bezels, I guess I could get some more spray paint and go up on the roof of my building to paint them the same color as for Quby.
I think you misunderstood my statement. I wasn't expecting you to paint the bezels. I was just thinking I might leave them whatever the natural color of the wood is and call it good enough. Don't get any spray paint for my sake. I'm happy to just have the bezels cut to the new opening dimensions and sent as-is. However, I may not get a chance to make the measurements soon. Maybe we should just forget this request entirely. It seems to be more complicated than I had anticipated and I can always just remove the entire top on my console if I want to see the full screens. Don't worry about this. Just concentrate on selling lots of Quby consoles!
I wasn't expecting you to paint the bezels. I was just thinking I might leave them whatever the natural color of the wood is and call it good enough.
In your saying "I hadn't realized I'd have to paint the bezels myself," I took that to mean that you did expect them to be painted on this end by someone and that you were willing to pay for it because, obviously, the bezels got painted somehow. But I was just hoping that that "someone" didn't have to be me. Again, the five-color painting scheme was rather time consuming.
By the way, just now, I was trying to find a link for a PDF in case you wanted to know the precise active area of the screens. But I'm having a bit of difficulty, as all of the PDF's I just found were for a version of the screen with slightly smaller bezels. The screens that I use are ~165x100 mm (the width might be 164.9 mm but that's pretty close to 165 mm). However, I believe that the LCD panels are probably the same, hence the active area is probably the same. But I don't want to post those numbers because things just might differ. The PDF for the screens I used is on my crashed computer, but it must be somewhere online. Anyway, regardless of the dimensions of the active area, the cutouts for the bezels will still depend on the alignment of the bezel cap with those screens as installed in the head frame. Hence the reason that I think it would be better for you to take a look and tell me what dimensions you want things cut to.
Anyway, maybe Mike will chime in later and we can decide whether to go ahead at another time, though I'm ready when you guys are. And if just one of you is interested, I can get just one set of bezels cut. There's no hurry to decide. But if both of you are interested, I'd like to get both sets cut at the same time to save time on my end and some cost.
In your saying "I hadn't realized I'd have to paint the bezels myself," I took that to mean that you did expect them to be painted on this end by someone and that you were willing to pay for it because, obviously, the bezels got painted somehow.
Well, if you had said they would arrive painted that would have been nice but I wasn't expecting you to do anything you hadn't originally expected to do. Really, I'd be happy to find a way to get these pieces cut myself. There is a Maker Space near me and I'm sure they have laser cutters. I guess I could just measure the ones on my console and enlarge the openings a bit and print them locally. That wouldn't require any action on your part and would get around the issues of international shipping.
Comments
At this point, I think a big improvement would be just to expand the maze a couple of lines. I'm currently fine with having a blue boarder around everything, but it'd be nice to have a maze that mostly filled the screen. Some of the messages may not be needed or could be done elsewhere. And it's a bit annoying when a message covers up the number of clubs, anyway, though, again, perhaps one should only have a single club at a time, in which case, the token for the player could indicate the possession of a club. But if holding multiple clubs is to be allowed, then perhaps icons on the wider right boarder could indicate that. Bombs, too, I suppose, if really needed. That is, instead of displaying a count of the number of clubs, you could display an icon for each club in one's possession (possibly limited at three clubs or so). I don't know if that's a good idea or not, though. The clubs aren't as essential as lives are in Pac-Man, for example, but they can be wielded to save one's life, so maybe. Anyway, the main thing is to make the maze bigger one way or another, whether that takes counts on the side and/or reverse video on a status bar = lower maze wall. Also, an overlay text panel could be used if needed, particularly at the end of the game, but it's probably not a good idea to permanently cover the maze.
Hey, you know what would be nice and perhaps more important than displaying clubs or bombs? Displaying the number of targets collected per round for EACH player and/or displaying the total number of targets collected for a game. However, the latter could be done after a round finished (and so could the former, but it might be nice to know as one played with others). Anyway, that presupposes that there would be multiple targets per round, which you have decided on yet. At any rate, it seems prudent to get everything else working before fully deciding on multiple targets, namely using the same maze for all players (which will be in the next version) and expanding the maze (and figuring out what to do with messages). By the way, I when I played those 10 games that I mentioned, by motivation was mostly just to have fun (which is a good sign), but it looks like I inadvertently did a little bit of play testing.
Yeah, a real shame. You have to sortof roll your own... It's why I made my "Ventilator Computer" .. It has all the bells and whistles: VGA, TV, SD Card, SPI RAM, SNES gamepad, PS/2 Keyboard. If anyone wants to take it and make a commercial product based on it, that'd be cool :P
It costs about as much as I think I spent on parts for my board, which I think is fairly interesting.
The problems I have heard of regarding the C3's SPI bus have less to do with it being awkward or something (infact, it is a pretty good idea) and more with inexplicably corrupted SD card transfers.
Example: That never happens to me, with the "traditional" SPI bus, so either that bug was properly fixed at some point or the C3-specific code/hardware is to blame.
Anyways, I think if further discussion is desired, I think a new thread should be opened. Threadjacking: It's not just offensive, it's an offence!
Edit: I forgot to mention that you change levels in this version by typing the digit corresponding to the level you want from 1 to 4.
Edit: I added as much of the status line as would fit in the right column. I have to remove the bezel from my WordFire console to see it but it might work okay on the Quby.
Oh yes, I would be interested too.
Mike
Let me look into this request, which is one that I saw coming from a mile away. Although a lot of the files for that console version are on my broken desktop, I think that I have the files that I gave to the laser cutter on a USB stick, as I delivered the files in person.
Hopefully, you guys would be doing your own gluing and any painting or staining of the bezels (and top piece), such that they could be sent out flat, cutting way down on the shipping cost. That would save me time, too, as just getting new bezels designed, cut and shipped will take me a few hours of work. Anyway, when I get free tomorrow, I'll look for the design file and get back to you.
I loaded up both versions. I definitely like using the whole screen. Good job on that. As for the status line, it seems like it would be best to put in on the bottom wall in reverse video. As for having stats and messages on the rightside, I don't think that works so well. And it might be better if that rightmost column were rendered in the color used for the walls (even though there would be little "holes" in the corners).
As for having successive goals appear, how 'bout this instead: Could you place, say, three goals at the beginning of each round, all at the same places for each player? Then each player could obtain the goals in any order, with the first player to obtain all of them being declared the winner. A status message at the bottom could say, "First Place," "Second Place" and so on, or, at the end of play, perhaps the status line could give the order "1st East, 2nd North" or similar.
Perhaps the message that appears when slaying a monster is not needed. It kind of seems like a distraction Anyway, again, I think messaging can be done at the bottom in reverse video, even though those characters wouldn't have the corners clipped like the wall characters. Have you tried that to see how it looks? And perhaps some of the messages could be temporary, being replaced by regular wall characters after an interval elasped.
The following is low priority, but if memory allows, you might consider redefining a dot character such that is centered. But I'd rather see redefined characters for the other tokens first. Meanwhile, changing the color of the dots (trail of periods would be neat). And if you made a rule where a player could only carry one club at a time, then the token representing the player could indicate possession of a club.
I think I would eliminate the bombs. I don't think they add any enjoyment to the game and just tend to clutter up the screen. This would also help reduce clutter if you changed to having, for example, three goals. And there's probably not a need to show the level using letters if at all (as the number of initial monsters tells one this). So perhaps status messages aren't needed.
Speaking of the number of monsters, when playing on L4, I once got five monsters, but one of them was dead (not moving). But there were definitely five M's on the screen. Also, I got that screen full of '@' symbols again, but it didn't crash the system and I was able to quit and start again without a power cycle.
By the way, I'd still like to try playing where one moves just one space at a time (with no possibility of jumping over the monsters). Perhaps one could select whether to move one or two spaces at a time, but I think one space would be more intuitive and make the maze seem bigger. But maybe the downside is the need for more typing and hence noise. Still, I'd like to try moving that way.
Which leads me to think: if you switched to deploying, say, three goals instead of just one, rather than killing a player and knocking him or her completely out of the game, you could just delete one of the goals. That way, if there were still at least one goal left, he or she could continue to play along with any other players. And even if there were no goals left, one could still wander around the maze just for practice while waiting on the other players. Anyway, having multiple goals also beneficially reduces the amount of luck in the game. For example, at the beginning of a round, if a player hits a randomizer and materializes near a goal, it wouldn't matter so much, as there would still be other goals to get.
In summary, I really like the larger maze. As for changes to consider: Messaging could be done at the bottom in reverse video; status messages could be cut back on or eliminated; the rightmost column could be done in white (pity that an extra column can't be stitched in somehow); multiple goals could be deployed; and, some color could be added.
Thanks for adding the "reward" where the whole maze appears on getting the goal. That's listening to the (admittedly small) user base! Perhaps the color of the maze walls could change to another color when doing that to really make it pop (but that might depend on what you do with color in general). And that way, even if one had already fully or mostly exposed the maze walls, the change would really be obvious. Okay, that's my two-and-one-half cents for this post.
Yes, I am fine with uncolored flat package, I am able to replace the bezels and thereby destroying (or upgrading?) one of the rare WordFire consoles with food tray.
But I could at least claim it is a upgrade from the original manufacturer thus making it even more valuable as in rare, in the future.
And, yes, please include a top-piece, I need to keep the original one intact.
I am aMAZEd about @"David Betz" Monsta. Very cool. Sadly I have no playtime to program for WordFire,/Quby right now, but I am looking forward to it.
Mike
What I'd like to get from you guys is how much you'd like to shave off on each side of the hole (or the hole's overall dimensions and location). While this may vary from side to side on the console due to variations in the fabrication (routing and so on), I hope that you each can come up with a single set of dimensions that will work for all four bezels (but it's okay if your sets of dimensions don't match each others).
I'm only planning to cut and ship these replacement bezels once, so if some portions of the silver metal bezels of the LCD screens show up on some sides or if text on the borders is still obscurred, you'll probably have to live with it (or maybe find a domestic laser cutter).
So how many millimeters do you want taken off on each side of the cutout? Looking at my prototype here, it looks like the right and top sides of the hole need the most material removed. However, I'm not sure if that's the case for your consoles. Also, please let me know whether you want rounded corners for the cutout or square corners. The current ones are rounded with a corner radius of 2 mm. But that will likely slightly obsure the text in the four corners. Originally, the bezels were made out of acrylic and these corners were rounded to alleviate stress in the corners, but I don't think that's really necessary with this MDF wooden material.
By the way, if you want to see the drawing for the screens themselves, you can search on "AT070TN90 V.1" for the PDF. That shows the exact dimensions (within tolerance) of things like the "visible area" and so on. However, I don't think that it's strictly necessary for you to consult that document. I think you can eyeball it to some extent, as things are fairly close now. And you might want to make a dummy bezel out of cardstock and test it in place to see if you're reasonably satisfied with your dimensions ON ALL FOUR SIDES. You may have to compromise a bit to get one set of dimensions that works reasonably well for everything.
Let me know what you come up with and I'll draw things up and take the order to the laser cutter. By the way, I'll take care of cutting and shipping these at my own expense since you guys have both done some console development (driver updating and game development). But it would be nice if I could ship everything across the ocean to just one of you and let that person ship the other person's half (incidentally, my shipping cost to both coasts is the same). But if we can't work that out, then I'll ship separately.
Edit: You can specify things in tenths of millimeters if you want, such as 28.5 mm.
In fact, I don't. Although the LCD's PDF gives the viewable area of the screens themselves, the underlying head frame of each console was hand routed using a jig. And even with a jig, there is some variability in the routes and hence the dimensions, not just from console to console but from side to side (for the four sides). Unfortunately, I'm not a human CNC machine. And the fact is, the console was designed under the compromise that the bezels would partially cover the border pixels of the screens. As such, re-cutting the bezels now to fully expose the screens goes beyond the tolerances of the method used to fabricate the console head. So, there's no way that I can measure things here myself and guarantee that things will fit properly on your ends (no obscured pixels and no exposed silver metal).
Hence, I'm making what I consider to be a reasonable request that you provide measurements, and then I'll get the bezels cut to your specifications. Based on past feedback, I am almost certain that I'll get complaints no matter how I decide to cut the new bezels. And if getting new bezels is important to you, I would think that you'd be willing to "roll up your sleeves," as it were, and take some measurements. Designing and building stuff can seem so easy until one does it oneself. So, I'm leaving the measurements up to you guys. I'd say that the laser cutter does a pretty good job of cutting to specification, probably within a tenth of a millimeter. But I can't guarantee that the bezels will glue together with well-formed corners while also exposing the screens perfectly.
I can also foresee that you guys might even need to put in a shim or two of some kind to get ideal alignment of one or more screens. And, heaven forbid, you might even have get a knife out to trim the recess of the head frame. I don't want to have anything to do with that (I feel that I did my part already). But part of the reason that I redesigned the console recently was to simplify the fabrication and reduce the number of ways that things can go wrong. But even the latest-and-greatest design has some "slop" in it in terms of how well I can fabricate things. Hopefully, you guys can see that it's quite a bit harder to maintain alignment for four screens at 90 degree angles to one another than to align a bezel for a single screen. So, all I'm asking is that you guys put some skin in the game by making some measurements and/or decisions and taking part of the risk, wherein I'll be glad to do my part on this end to get things fabricated and shipped. If that's asking too much, I don't know what else I can do other than rebuild the head frames from scratch, which ain't going to happen. And there will be no additional charge for this because you've both done some nice software development and because, frankly, I can't guarantee that the new bezels will turn out to your satisfaction.
Edit: Of course, nothing prevents you from re-painting them after I paint the bezels. But it is easier to mask things off if you paint them before gluing them together. That's assuming that you leave the edges dark like I did (or think I did on your consoles). I like how the dark edges provide some contrast.
By the way, just now, I was trying to find a link for a PDF in case you wanted to know the precise active area of the screens. But I'm having a bit of difficulty, as all of the PDF's I just found were for a version of the screen with slightly smaller bezels. The screens that I use are ~165x100 mm (the width might be 164.9 mm but that's pretty close to 165 mm). However, I believe that the LCD panels are probably the same, hence the active area is probably the same. But I don't want to post those numbers because things just might differ. The PDF for the screens I used is on my crashed computer, but it must be somewhere online. Anyway, regardless of the dimensions of the active area, the cutouts for the bezels will still depend on the alignment of the bezel cap with those screens as installed in the head frame. Hence the reason that I think it would be better for you to take a look and tell me what dimensions you want things cut to.
Anyway, maybe Mike will chime in later and we can decide whether to go ahead at another time, though I'm ready when you guys are. And if just one of you is interested, I can get just one set of bezels cut. There's no hurry to decide. But if both of you are interested, I'd like to get both sets cut at the same time to save time on my end and some cost.