CompostCORNER
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Posts posted by CompostCORNER
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2 hours ago, Rosso said:
What machines are the best ones, I am looking for an assortment if possible
Ones that you win on.
For me, I prefer the 10p £2/£3 jackpot games from the 80s. Although the 90s brought us the Sp.Ace tech games which are my absolute fav. These were 20p £4.80/£6.00 jackpot games. As the jackpot value rose over the years, gameplay took a hit. The manufacturers inadvertantly cured me of my gambling addiction by creating games with less and less gameplay.
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Things have just got better. Theres a firmware update on the retrogames website that enables ADF files to be loaded into the A500 mini. Once installed, you can select multiple files (or DISKS) and load them into the A500 Mini. Simply download your files, bang them on to your USB, shove it into your A500 Mini, then from the A500 mini screen menu, select your files as before (from your USB stick of course) and if theres more than 1 file (as in more than 1 disk in a game), simply highlight the next file/disk, and using the joypad 'R' button, you can add multiple files. Start your game and if theres a prompt to change disks, its simply a matter of holding the 'HOME' button and pressing the 'R' (Right Shoulder Button) to toggle through the disks.
I'm still testing it out but the addition of being able to load ADF files into the A500 Mini means that all games, magazine demo disks,utilities, pretty much anything on the Amiga are now working on the A500 Mini. Big step forward I reckons.
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Very patient there pal. I'd have fisted the screen with frustration after 10 minutes of having to start all over again when I died. Actually, I tell a lie. I'd have fisted the screen, smashed a chair on my joystick and burned all the bogroll in my house...
Very entertaining vid by the way pal
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8 hours ago, serene02 said:
I found Amiga emulation a bit of a nightmare to set up back in the day, so if these things are literally plug and play then they are more appealing to me.
J
Very straight forward. It is pretty much 'plug n play'... Get yourself a 32GB USB stick, format it to FAT32, drag 'WHDLoad' onto the stick, WHDLoad is available from the 'Retro Games' site (the people that created the A500 Mini) then grab all the files you can that have .lha as an extention from whatever sites you can. Just google 'Amiga LHA games to download' (as i don't want to directly link from here in case it's frowned upon....)
Plug the stick into your A500 Mini, and it appears in the games carousel. Click on it, and click on the file you wanna load. It is simple and the guys who created the Mini promise regular firmware updates to combat those games that just won't load... 'Secret of Monkey Island'... lol
Just lacking the keyboard and lots of games use buttons in the main menu like 'SPACE BAR' and 'F1', 'F2' buttons ect... Especially the Pinball games to select tables and 'Jaguar XJ220' that requires you to press 'F1' for language.... The virtual keyboard built in to the Mini will get around most of this. Alternatively, remap the buttons on the gamepad to like F1, F2, SPACE ect... I'm thinking about getting a cheap keyboard just to make it a little easier.
I really loved the Amiga. Many fond memories for me. The only reason I drifted away from the Amiga was my power brick failed and it took 8 months for a replacement back in the 90's. I got playing again but the PSU packed up, couldn't get a replacement and the A1200 went into the loft (at the now ex's).
Probably still there with my Cartoon Classics pack and my old A600. I had a massive 20MB hard disk drive in that A1200
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Actually, this MINI A500 (cannot say Amiga OR Commodore) is not a bad piece of kit. Still struggling to get 'Secret of Monkey Island' working on this WHD Load thingy. I just get a black screen. Most other things run so I know it's not a USB stick issue or WHD Load issue. Lots of YouTUBE videos on the A500 Mini and one or two on how the Competition PRO joystick doesn't work. Initially, a fair few games didn't seem to work properly. Especially the pinball type games. But once you've figured out how to remap the joypad, or joystick in the case of the Competition Pro, and bring up the 'virtual keyboard', things start to work.
I've just rekindled my love for the game 'Benefactor'. And the missus is actually playing Lemmings and enjoying it. And check out the music on some of these Amiga games. I forgot how awesome the music was on this platform.
Looking good....
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On 11/04/2022 at 16:41, Altharic said:
I'll probably get pitchforked for this but I don't see the point of these mini consoles I got the PSX one for £20 when they were selling them off and aside from the controller I couldn't see what was any different to an emulator.
In the case of the Amiga Amiberry and a custom case would do surely?
For me, I have the emulator and have for years, and thats given me loads of games to sideload on to the Amiga mini. The downside with the emulator is that it's confined to the laptop. The other half simply won't play it unless it's on the telly. And If she doesn't play it, I CAN'T PLAY IT!!!!
The mini makes it easy for her to play Amiga games. They are easy to load, they look good on the 4k OLED, and we now have the makings of a computer night where she can load and practice and she actively wants to play Amiga games.
Taking turns playing 'Lemmings' is great. We could have done that on the emulator but the other half likes it on the big TV
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Got my Amiga mini today. Now I've done the Amiga emulator on the lappy trying to get the other half interested into what I was doing 30 years ago, (playing on the Amiga and NOT running my own MSN chatrooms lol) and unless I'm there to sort out the shite for her, It's back to Loose Women and that orange antiques bloke on the telly. But the A500 mini, this is pretty cool. I honestly can't stop looking at the thing. It's an A500 but mini. It just doesn't compute lol. It's like looking at a new born baby... It's soooo bloody cute!! I don't even have to worry about the stupid Amiga power block that cost £50 and was always out of stock at Special Reserve'...
First thing first... Theres a few good games bundled with the unit like Alien Breed, and errm... Alien Breed, in the Special Edition version but my Amiga life started off with Lemmings. And after a bit of faffing around (for the newbies, that is technical jargon for 'faffing around'), I got Lemmings running. Now I know that we have emulators with Kickstart roms and games but as a truly plug-n-play device, this is really good. I want my other half to be able to figure out how to load an Amiga game and play it. This is a woman who didn't even realise that out Vauxhall Zafira Tourer has a button to make the mirrors come in. And that Scooby Doo is a cartoon dog and not actually rhyming slang for dog poo. And she's done over 130,000 miles in the bloody thing. Not the dog likes....
Seriously, I have an extensive MAME collection but unless I have an actual video arcade cabinet, she just won't play great games like Defender, Dr Do, Boris is a See You Next Tuesday and Ladybug. Unless it runs from minimum effort, she doesn't want to know. And If she doesn't want to know, I have to watch effing crap TV like 'The Split', 'Killing Eve', 'Line of effing Duty', 'Naked Attraction (I hate it when the first half of the episode has a trans woman now a bloke looking for cock and the second half of the show a butch woman looking for cock). Statistically, that show should have 7 blokes and 7 women so there should be a good chance I'm gonna see some (as my other half calls it... some LADY GARDEN)
Anyway, I might do a full from the heart review of the Amiga mini providing I haven't been banned for my 'Lady Bug' reference...
Jesus... It's gone midnight and I'm in heaven playing Lemmings again.
#Viva Amiga
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29 minutes ago, woodsy said:
HEAVENS ABOVE MORE LIKE!!! i have recently been attempting to enhance wording using the brush tool, and trying to work out what noise reduction does and how best to apply it..
please have a look at the bones wording on caesers palace i released recently it took hours to get right and honestly i've developed a RSI on my index finger hahaha
i'm really novice level at present with photoshop i only started using it 9 months ago from scratch and there is only about 5 things i know how to use properly... apparently the pen tool is better than the polygonal lasso but it's just overwhelming the amount of options available.
my main issue at present with text is the font matching... i have no idfea how to do it, and the redraws i attempt are poor as i have never been good at shading, light balance and shadow on a area.. the way it has 5 types of colour of one colour to make it better than my solid colour area.
any help is greatly appreciated..
Caesars Palace looks pretty good to me. The bonus text is sharp and very readable on my shitty Lenovo lappy so you've done very well there. The high low reels look very sharp too. This stands out well. I never really scratched the surface on Photoshop and Paintshop. I learnt what I needed to learn to get by. I couldn't get my head around layers and transparency. To be honest, I don't think I have any right to have any opinion on new released layouts these days as I've not contributed at all layout wise for over 10 years. But any advice I can give, I'll do all I can.
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@woodsy Text can be a massive problem if the art is not so good. In the past, I've enlarged the text, then smoothed the edges by hand then shrunk it back to original size. I've done this on reel symbols too. It's a pain for not a massive gain. Been a few years since my last release. No desktop computer, slow laptop, no Paintshop, no Photoshop, plus I'm always busy. But when I had the time, I'd spend hours and even days hand sharpening images.
I did turn this grainy image into this sharp looking finished game....
EDIT Actually, that finished cab looks awful due to compression lol.
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6 hours ago, vectra666 said:
Make it a good one woodsy this maybe a challenge for you as afaik it uses quad lamps for the outer board
Your wip folder must be mounting up
I must have done half a dozen versions of 'Super Breakout' using the quad lamps. It's certainly a challenge to get all those segments looking genuinely authentic. A massive headache for me at the time and my first version looked truly shite. I did eventually get a reasonable version out there but Dave Pook has the definitive version for sure.
Check it out here:- https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2149-super-breakout-dx-jpm-impact/
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Instead of clicking the coin entry button with the mouse, try pressing the '0' button for £1 or try the '9' button for token/20p on your keyboard.
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Not so much a game but a demo. I got this and it's been shoved in the back of a cupboard. I've dug it out as sealed ones, as mine is, are on eBay for stupid money...
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I got an email saying it's been pushed back to early April. I love the emulator on the lappy but If Im ever gonna get the woman to see what the Amiga was all about, and swap shitty Emmerdale and Corrie for the likes of Valhalla, Zeewolf and Superfrog, I need the Amiga mini... My most anticipated game to show the other half? It has to be Lemmings on the TV and not on the lappy. I've downloaded a shed load of PD, Freeware and main game roms from 'RARBG' through Real Debrid all loaded onto an SD so I'm ready for this. Ironically, with the Amiga back in the 90's, I spent most of my time with the Shareware and Public Domain stuff. I'm looking forward to some proper nostalgia.
And I need to find 'Disposable Hero'
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I found it. 'Disposable Hero'.....
Apparently a Gremlin Graphics game thats now abandonware.
A very difficult game and a weird looking one too....
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Good video. I quite enjoyed that one.
Now being heavily into the Amiga, I can remember a similar side scrolling shooter that graphically was very odd. Now be forgiving, as this has to be almost 30 years ago so the old grey matter isn't performing quite like it used to... The game in question, I wondered if it was a clone of Apidya. Maybe even Project X. Thing is, the background was made up of ribs, flesh, blood, as if the ship was flying over or through a wasteland of dead flesh. It's been such a long time since I played it, the enemy that the ship is shooting could well have been bugs and viruses. I've tried in vain to see if i could find the game. I'm beginning to think it might have been a Public Domain game.
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I don't visit here as much as I once did and I've only just read about the channel being deleted back in December. Serves me right for not engaging with the people here, some i've known for over 20 years, I've known people across these forums longer than my other half. I watch so much stuff on YouTUBE though that my other half forced me to get a Sky Q mini box for the bedroom.
I did notice a lack of videos being released but just put that down to probably you just being busy in real life. The personal videos you've posted really resonate with me. I've been in dark places too due to gambling and fruit machines and I always found out about emptiers AFTER the exploit was patched and lost even more money... 'Patching an exploit...', the laymans term meaning a re-chip. I totally understand why you had to pull the plug but i'm so pleased your back pal.
Welcome back
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Wow! This has come along leaps and bounds. Even works on my basic Lenovo Ideapad 330S lappy although slightly slows down when I select a game to play. (CASH MATRIX....
SKILL will once again be doable if that's added ha ha)... Love the way that when you leave a machine you were playing, the reel symbols stay faithful to the last spin played.
How does anyone create such fantastic things in their spare time? Chris with the emulator, and John Parker with this. In my spare time, I just about get time to jet wash the the patio. And I even fucked that up, sending the soil from the gaps in the paving all over the french doors. The other half ain't best pleased.
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Andy Capp?
Stab in t'dark.... lol
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A great deal of heart and soul has gone into your post Reg. Very moving indeed.That must have taken hours to compile. Like others here, that post touched me too. I had a lump in my throat reading it. A year on, one word still runs through my head. And that is 'WHY?'
I've said before and I'll say it again. Chris saved me. His creation saved me. And I still look at his creation in awe and wonder how a human could create such a wonderful piece of software. My partner and step son tell me that they have a great life here with me. They upped and moved from Roundhay, Leeds to be here in Hull with me. God knows why.... None of that would have ever happened if I hadn't come across MFME and broke the addiction that drugs and meetings and financial difficulties couldn't do. I'll be having one for Chris this evening. I think he knew what his creation did for me. I suspect that him knowing how his MFME software helped me, and other people trapped in a cycle of addiction gave him the motivation to push on and on. I own him so much.
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That looks awesome!!! Any chance of a few pushers LOL!! Seriously, it looks fantastic.
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On 29/05/2021 at 12:56, Chopaholic said:
DOND Banker's Bonus for this one.
Never tried an emptier or method as I never got to know any but this one is interesting. It does indeed work. 123.6% and a -1175 drift. £3000 in, and £3696 out. Sure, a big profit of almost £700 but this took soooo many hours to reach PLUS I had the advantage of seeing what was in the DOND prize box so I could play to the advantage. So assuming in the wild, the DOND game was a game of chance, the player not knowing what is in the box. My best time playing was using the BANK IT, saving a single DOND, and busting and getting a single DOND game but with £70 in the box. 2 spins later and back on the feature board with a GO ALL THE WAY.... And the game was still buzzing... The ability to get the BANK IT does seem very difficult to achieve at times. What sort of time do people spend trying a method out? I guess simply not losing on a machine is pleasurable but to play the machine, gaining an edge has to be fantastic. Looking at how long it took me to get that £700, it seems like such a long time but putting it in perspective, it would work out at a gain of about £100 an hour.
Good video Degsy. I quite enjoyed trying to replicate your method.
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Plenty of us guys here were sucked in to a world of fruit machine addiction. I myself have many a time where I got paid, spunked it through the fruit machines in the local arcade and then having to ring my partner to say I've lost my wallet and I haven't got money to get home, as my excuse for wasting the family budget.... My addiction was once so bad I'd even punt my bus fare home. No bus fare, meant a 3 mile walk home. And not an ordinary walk but a truly dejected walk of shame back home. Trying to think of ways I could explain away to my then partner how I lost my money. Mugged..... for the 3rd month in a row? Lost my wallet.... that happens sooooo many times.... Those 3 miles got me thinking about suicide. Doing myself in. And the way I was feeling at that time, it wouldn't be all that difficult to follow that through. That was the early 1990's
That walk leaves you with some strange stuff going through your head. How can I explain away how I've come home with no money on pay day.... I let my family down and most of all i let myself down.
These days I work in North and North East Lincolnshire. That covers Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Scunthorpe and Immingham. In Cleethorpes, I see families who clearly have saved lots of money for some time for their 'Grand Day Out'. Wasting their cash on machines and pushers. Their kids watching and learning.... Future addicts...
Covering Immingham, theres no arcades there. The working class, poor pensioners, people on benefits, those not living comfortable lives are chasing their dreams a different way. I kid you not, I've seen a young mum or dad, get their benefits from the post office, only to exchange a rather large sum of money for National Lottery scratch cards. This seems to be the new gambling sin and you don't even need to go to the seaside. Have you seen the odds on these scratch cards? Claims of 1 in 4 is a winner... thats correct if you were to consider a 'money back' win as a win. I think it's more like 1 in 9 to actually win more money than the scratch card cost. But those win your money back, the WIN £3 but the scratch card cost you £3, you've not made anything on that gamble.
Scunthorpe is the same. People buying scratch cards... Not just the odd card but buying £50 plus on the things... After they have drawn their benefits or pensions.... (I've seen this stacks and stacks of times in Ashby Scunthorpe and in Immingham).
All forms of gambling are easily accessible to all including those least able to afford it, the most vulnerable. Searching for that win, that dream, that life changing event...
But the whole gambling industry can shake off their responsibilites where they ruin lives by saying...
WHEN THE FUN STOPS....... STOP!
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I've not been a massive contributer of resources although in the early days, I did venture out with the camera getting decent photos of fruit machines in the wild. I've also chipped in for group machine buys in the past. But even resource gathering can be spirit breaking....
Some years ago, I was approached via a PM from someone on the scene who had obtained the roms for a machine that I considered one of my top 5 games of all time. This person knew I had a massive hard-on for this game. The game was one that the scene needed and was often asked to be emulated. I was so excited that they had emerged. It hadn't been emulated and I knew how to create classic layouts. Dare I say that I felt a great deal of excitement that I could bring this game to the scene. My 5 minutes of glory... I was told that for £40 I could have the rom dump. I presumed that this is what you had to do to get rare roms dumped. And to be honest, i thought getting these roms was worth the money. I transfered the money, got the roms and set about creating the layout.
Shortly after I released the game, it became apparent that I was not the only person who had these roms. Not only that but someone else on the scene, a highly respected member who has contributed much more to this scene then most of us, and certainly me, had these roms and was going to release this game himself. The whole episode was distressing for me. How could have I gone from feeling fantastic that I had brought this game to the scene, to total shock that I had messed up big style by standing on the feet of someone else whom unbeknown to me, had the roms and was to bring the game out himself. I still don't know wether i was deliberately misled and scammed out of £40 just to piss someone else off, or wether it was a genuine cock-up that led to me pissing someone off.
Even today, that episode still leaves a bad taste.
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Very good...
Went to ASDA earlier and I think Aladdin is doing his big shop...
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Credit Challenges etc
in Emulator Chat
Posted
Happy RAM file challenges were the best. Whats happened to those? Posting a RAM file for a game thats off its head and way under percentage just ready to pay and pay and pay, and we'd have a challenge where we'd try to see what we could get from that happy RAM file with say £30.
Those were fun as the game would also open up features that are only reachable when the game is way under percentage. played the machine at the right time.
Some of the ACE (Sp.Ace) games would do a decent streak if you played them at the right time. Would love to play a few happy ram files for those games as they are about to streak.