So I get back from vacation and discover that my main desktop has decided to commit suicide. On the bright side, its replacement has two important advantages. Firstly, it’s somewhat faster; and secondly it runs 64-bit code natively - in other words you can start to expect x86-64 to work at least as well as i386 does . Also it doesn’t overheat under a moderate load like the old one did either, which is nice.

Interestingly enough, on said new machine, the 64-bit version runs about 12% faster than the 32-bit version. That’s… pretty impressive actually.

On the Mac front, I’ve finally stumbled over the reason I couldn’t get it to work properly (It simply refused to become the active application, take key focus, etc) - apparently Cocoa really, _really_ wants to run inside an application bundle, and gets very unhappy when there isn’t one… At least now that that’s sorted I should be able to get the preliminary cocoa ui in real soon now.

So based on current scheduled items, you can probably expect 0.9 somewhere towards the end of July.

Changes

* Change FR bank handling to swap rather than using an index pointer. Actually slightly faster + simpler this way
* Fully integrate the SH4 instruction counting (enabled with ./configure –enable-sh4stats)
* Cleanup lots of compile warnings (not all yet, but getting there) that have been hanging around for a while
* Fix save states on x86-64 (and also fix compatibility with 32-bit saves)

Tileset 5 is here!

First results with it should show up end of this week, due to a minor health issue of the organizer, who is also doing the levels.


Desert-World Early-Mockup




Cave World - More Screenies

To help the raising german Dreamcast site http://www.dreamcast-germany.de we decided to give’em a bunch of screenshots from the cave world.

This time you can check them only there So head over to:
http://www.dreamcast-germany.de/2008...lusive-bilder/


Manual level converting…

…is a pain. The decision has been made to design newer levels from scratch. This is actually a LOT faster than adjusting old levels. It simply saves time and to be honest, it’s time for a release the next few weeks

More stuff:

* The bugtracker has been heavily filled tonight, mostly it’s just minor adjustment or detail workout, not any real bugs.
* The name for boss number one has been decided, unfortunatly it was not any of the given ideas in previous posts. Still thanks for all the suggestions, it was much appreciated.
* Set five (desert) was having a minor changes, our graphic artist is adjusting them the next days.
* There will be a sort of “semi-public” beta test for World 1 in a few weeks, for more details keep an eye on the blog. Only people who are trustworthy and followed the development for a while, will be qualified for this. Strangers who pop out of nothing now, wont have a chance to lay hand on it.
* world 5 / stage 1 and stage 2 are fully redesigned and ready for our official beta-tester

Fragments of a Memory

Search for message
capsules left
in the Ruins.


Client: solider
Quest:
A message capsule thought
to be from the Pioneer 1
Military was discovered in
Ragol's underground Ruins.
We would like you to
search for more.
Reward: ??? Meseta

# Minor script changes to accomodate GC scripting differences.
# Meseta. For some reason, Sega changed the quest reward system on BB to give miniscule amounts of Meseta. Why they did this, I don't really know since they already admitted Meseta's uselessness by creating Photon Drops. Regardless, the rewards have been scaled by difficulty again on the original Meseta stat system. The quest has multiple rewards depending on what you do, so here's the value chart:

Fail the quest via Ruins 2 timer or Ruins 3 ghosts:
Normal: 500
Hard: 1,000
Very Hard: 2,000
Ultimate: 4,000

Choose to quit after Ruins 1:
Normal: 1,000
Hard: 2,000
Very Hard: 4,000
Ultimate: 8,000

Choose to quit after Ruins 2:
Normal: 2,500
Hard: 5,000
Very Hard: 10,000
Ultimate: 20,000

Finish quest:
Normal: 8,000
Hard: 16,000
Very Hard: 32,000
Ultimate: 48,000

Fragments of a Memory

Search for message
capsules left
in the Ruins.


Client: solider
Quest:
A message capsule thought
to be from the Pioneer 1
Military was discovered in
Ragol's underground Ruins.
We would like you to
search for more.
Reward: ??? Meseta

After a great deal of work, I'm pleased to say that this quest is finally done. You might wonder how hard it could be to make it be "done" when it was only in Japanese, but there was a lot that needed to be fixed. FoaM is now available for BB, GC, and for the first time, DC and PC. I believe this is another first for Schtserv quest development, a BB quest that has been made fully compatible with PSO Ver.2.

* Script changes made to allow the quest to function properly. JPBB quests are strangely coded... It seems likely that on JPBB the server interacts with the quest to allow the actual quest to be coded less fully. Thus, when you try to play the quest on a server without the extra crap on JPBB, it doesn't work. It could also be a problem with our editor, but either way the problems are fixed.
* A little debug junk left in the quest by Sega has been removed so the quest is a bit smaller.
* Spawn points of players and positions of the warpers in Ruins fixed to be in the correct positions.
* The solider next to the main teleporter was moved to the side so the green gem player isn't hugging him when returning to Pioneer 2. >_>;
* If you've played the quest on either BB or GC, you might be aware of the "missing warps" problem in Ruins 1 that occured on one version of the quest. After analysing the quest, it turns out that Sega intended to have a warp roulette in Ruins 1. The three warps which you see send you to different locations in Ruins 1 every time you play the quest. After a great deal of work, this has been fixed. Ironically, it took me trying to create my own, simpler roulette to figure out how to make Sega's work. Though a lot of work went down the drain, Sega's is far better anyway so it was worth it. It was easiest to get the roulette functioning on DC/PC, but making it work on GC/BB was a major pain. I was about ready to give up and release a somewhat crippled version of Ruins 1 for GC/BB so the stupid quest could finally come out, but thanks to Lee the roulette has been fixed on GC/BB as well. It only took a lot of head bashing, hex editing, and FTPing, lulz.
* Enemies. While testing the quest at one point, Shadowfox mentioned that the quest had only Dimenians. I hadn't noticed, but it was true. Why exactly this is, I don't know. If the quest has only Dimenians on JPBB, I also don't know. Considering how apparently quickly the quest was made due to the little tweaks necessary and the fact that every enemy type is used extensively (except for Bringers, boo), it seemed like perhaps either 1) Sega didn't code the Dimenians properly or 2) JPBB would make them La or So types through server interaction with the quest (assuming Sega didn't actually want no La or So Dimenians to appear in the quest...). Since we had no idea what the quest would be like properly, it seemed like greater variety was a better option and likely to be correct. However in case Sega did want you to be fighting the same type of enemy all the time, the enemies are divided by area. You'll fight Dimenians in Ruins 1, La Dimenians in Ruins 2, and So Dimenians in Ruins 3. (This was also the easiest to do from a development standpoint...).

# Minor script changes to accomodate GC scripting differences.
# Meseta. For some reason, Sega changed the quest reward system on BB to give miniscule amounts of Meseta. Why they did this, I don't really know since they already admitted Meseta's uselessness by creating Photon Drops. Regardless, the rewards have been scaled by difficulty again on the original Meseta stat system. The quest has multiple rewards depending on what you do

# Significant script changes to accomodate Ver.2's different script system. Thankfully, this quest does not have any elements significant to the quest's gameplay that are unsupported by Ver.2. All changes made are, I believe, merely aesthetic.
# The Pioneer 2 map was imported from a Dreamcast quest and modified to be mostly the same as the GC/BB Pioneer 2. (I didn't edit a few of the NPCs IIRC, like the Tekker lady.) Ver.2 doesn't like BB Pioneer 2, when you talk to the bank and shop NPCs the camera zooms to the wrong location, and if you talk to the Guild you RSOD. tongue.gif Using a Dreamcast Pioneer 2 fixes these problems.
# The scrolling timer messages in Ruins 2 have been removed. While it might be possible to create similar messages, I don't know how and it wasn't really worth figuring it out.
# The "AWOOGA" siren in Ruins 2 has

Multiple changes has been done in the Pad support.
The internal SPU plugin has been updated to the 1.7.0 version.
The iso support code has been rewritten.
The MDEC decoder has been rewritten.
A new version of the Pete's Software Plugin is included.
The XA/CDDA support has been worked in this new version.
Many things have been fixed in the cd-rom decoder and the core.

I was unable to figure out any "smart" method of dumping E-VMU BIOS, so I still need to find the correct entry point to the BIOS procedure I want. Unfortunatelly the only way to do this is a brute-force exhaustive search of all 16384 combinations. Trust me, I've tried out quite a few and the conclusion is: the code in English-based VMUs has been shuffled by the linker and it's layout is completly different from any J-VMU I've seen.

Long story short, if you people hope to get English BIOS for VMU emulation (AFAIK noone has ever dumped it) you better help me I will continue my search anyway but it'll take weeks to months. It's not really required you know, Japanese BIOS will work just fine, but without it the simulator would appear somehow... incomplete.

Here's a list of things you need to have to help:

(1) Dreamcast
It's only required for the initial VMU programming. You might need it few more times if the VMU becomes corrupted, but that's it. Any region console will do.

(2) Spare E-VMU
It's a VMU that uses English to communicate via it's LCD. I'm not aware of any other types of VMU but J- and E- ones, but if you know better please tell me.
Important note: that VMU will be completly erased. Backup it first if it contains mini-game or saves you'll want to use in future.

(3) CR2032 button cells
You'll need some of those to power the VMU in standalone mode. Actually, if you have two able hands you can just connect two wires to the contacts (using sticky tape for example) and power it from external battery pack or even power supply. That's what I'm doing. Anything from 5V to 9V is fine, so a 4-pack of AA or AAA cells or one 9F22 battery will do. There is a diode inside the VMU to protect it in case you get the polarity wrong but be careful about that. And in case you decide on a power supply, make sure it's a quality one. The cheap "wall cubes" with unregulated output have a strong ripple which can go as high as twice the nominal voltage!

(4) Free time and some patience
This whole process is quite boring, really. You'll be repeating the same thing hundreds of times and it's important that you do it throughly. Good news is you can pause and continue at any time.

Interested? If so, please download this small package and follow the instructions below. It contains CDI ready to be burned and a binary file for people who would rather use a serial cable or BBA for uploading executables.

- I'm assuming you know how to burn CD-Rs for your Dreamcast to boot. Google it if you don't. The CDI in the archive is self-bootable, but I've also included the unscrambled binary file in case you'd want to make your own CD with a proper dummy file.

- Boot the disc, or upload it via cable, whatever works for you. Your console should be hooked up to a TV, PAL/NTSC mode will be autodetected. In case you need to override this, keep X pressed during boot/upload to force PAL, or Y to force NTSC. VGA box is another story - I'm pretty sure it'll detect and use proper mode but in case it doesn't use X+Y together. Keep in mind this will not work if normal TV cable is attached.

- You should be using standard Dreamcast controller, although anything that has VMU slot will probably do. Any port will do but I'd stick to Port A and slot 1 just in case. After the application starts you should see this:

VMU blind dialer 1.0
Press A to begin, or B to quit


- If you haven't already, insert a VMU into your controller and press A button. Let me repeat this one more time: AT THIS POINT YOUR VMU WILL BE COMPLETLY ERASED. The screen will change and eventually read like this:

Detecting... found VMU @A1
[Version 1.005,1999/10/26,315-6208-05,SEGA Visual Mem
ory System BIOS Produced by ]
Writing to VMU FLASH memory, please wait...
Processing block 256/256
Done


Take note of the version being displayed. If you have VMU version below 1.004 please contact me, as there's a chance it's different from newer models.

- Once you see "Done" you can pull the VMU out. This procedure is so straightforward that you don't even need to use the TV; just wait a few seconds for the CD to boot and keep pressing A until the exclamation (!) icon on VMU LCD shows up. Then wait for it to go away and it's ready.

That covers priming the VMU. You can produce more then one, give it to family/friends
Now, for the important (and boring) part:

- Turn on the VMU
- Set up date/time if you're asked to
- Select mini-game mode, press A to run
- This will appear on LCD:



There are 4 hexadecimal digits here.

Minor status update!

* Our coder is ironing out bugs and also codes a bunch of enhancements for the game.
* Our pixel graphician is (still/again) busy with his paid job - he promised to have the tileset for the desert world done by friday.
* Our musician alex is currently finetuning his tracks and composing a few new ones, as the soundtrack is yet not fully complete.
* The organizer is frustrated, due to slow graphic artists
* The beta-tester is bored, as he doesn’t have anything to do…


World 1 - Boss enhancement!

Our coder has tweaked the first endboss this night. Overall it’s slightly more difficult than before, but considering there are dozens of chances to gain extra lifes before, it should not hurt too much.

Concerning some critism from Fusion_Power about the “layout” of the boss area, we have adjusted it. A before after check will be posted the next days. It’s really just a MINOR change, but it was probably really required.


World 1 - Boss enhancement - Comparison

Old:



New:



The silver pipe has disappeard and everything is a bit more matching now. There is another significant change, the boss has an energy bar now, so you can see how long you need to fight.

SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced that PictoImage, a fun and challenging party game that will sharpen wit and drawing skills is coming to Nintendo DS. PictoImage is a pick-up-and-play puzzle game scheduled for release in August 2008.

PictoImage enables up to eight players to take turns drawing the image of a word generated from a large database while competitors race against the clock to guess the word first. Featuring eight multi-player game modes, players can compete against each other in a variety of party games including Picture Pass, a mode where a subject will be passed from player to player in an image and the last player has guess the subject based on all the drawings. In multiplayer mode players can also create a personal library of words to use when they square off against other players.

PictoImage will also include a single-player and two-player mode where players must guess an image from a library of 300 drawings created by people of all ages. The tutorial mode teaches players how to draw a variety of different images from four main categories (Animals, Objects, Food, and Other).

KOEI, recognized worldwide as the premier brand of strategy and action games, announced today that the company is bringing Warriors Orochi 2 to North America. The game will be available for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system in September 2008.