MultiPlay MX4 Expansion

[TotO]

Great. Just missing 3 friends!

[GUNHED]

Great. Just missing 3 friends!

They hang over there with these four cute girls and ... just miss you! 


BTW: Maybe it's time to have a DIRectory / folder / something somewhere to collect MultiPlay supporting games.

[zhulien]

@TotO what is involved in adapting this to work on the zx spectrum?

[TotO]

Address decoding and may be the joystick wiring to be compatible with the existing.

[SyX]

Because the new release of RVM emulator has added support for Multiplay, I published a few more games patched for using this mouse interface.

You can find them here.

Any feedback in real machine is more than welcome. Enjoy!

[GUNHED]

Great piece of work SyX! Thanks a lot! 

Would be nice to have more MultiPlay for our CPCs, maybe even with a switch for Amiga / ST mouses. 

[GUNHED]

Well, there are USB mice adaptors from Bryce and Duke. They allow a USB mouse to be added to the CPC in a joystick compatible way. Dukes version supports pretty much everything USB.

Now... Would it make sense to have an adapter to connect an USB mouse to the MultiPlay?

Amiga (and Atari ST) mice are hard to get, 40 Euros (including shipping) at a minimum. And they have balls instead of LEDs.

But we all have an USB mouse somewhere.

So....... what's about having an adapter to make an USB mouse running with MultiPlay?

Yes, there are adapters for the Amiga, but do they work with the MP?

[TotO]

You can use an USB to Amiga adapter for that.

[Skunkfish]

I'm already using such an adapter to connect my Microsoft Business mouse to the CPC via the Multiplay - works like a charm but they're not cheap! (I needed one for my Amiga anyway so it's shared between the two).

@SyX Thank you so much for these patches, I will be sure to check them out! Is there much work involved in patching a game to use a mouse, or does it vary from game to game?

[TotO]

When the Multiplay was released in 2015, it was easy to find new and cheap Amiga mouse at the different online shops (amigakit, amigastore, ...). So, the idea was to allow to be able to connect two DB9 peripherals (joystick, gamepad, mouse) to the CPC.

[SyX]

@SyX Thank you so much for these patches, I will be sure to check them out! Is there much work involved in patching a game to use a mouse, or does it vary from game to game?

You are welcome @Skunkfish!

Well, it depends if you want a fast hack or something more elaborate.

For example, Classic Axiens is a fast hack because I didn't change the menu.

In the case of Batty, you can see that I changed the menu text,  everything is controlled by mouse, two players can play simultaneously, and I even fixed a few bugs in the original game (both players fire buttons are interchanged in the original game).

In the two Command games, I replaced the Kempton mouse support for Multiplay, set Multiplay as the default control and fixed the control menu text, everything directly in the original protected dsk.

With respect to patching the control generally, it is not hard. My process is: First, I discover the read player input code and replace directly with my mouse routine; or I find some empty place for putting my mouse code (a dozen of bytes) and patch the game to jump to my code. That it is always the same.

Second, the game specific code, I find the variables for player coordinates and update the code for support the mouse, that can be trivial or more complex, but I didn't find any game that I could not patch yet and there is few more games in the workbench, included racing games.

The biggest problem is the lack of testing in real machine. Sure, we can test now in emulators, but the control is optimized for the only and wonderful person that help me with the tests in the real machine. But need more tests for adjusting the speed and acceleration for the typical user.

Because that, I published two versions of the Command game, where the mouse goes at different speed; or in games like batty or arkanoid, you can press the key 3 or 4 in the menu, for changing the mouse speed (I call this the Metr mode, for people can discover how Mr. Metr or Quicksilver or Flash feel the world XDDD).

[zhulien]

i love that it supports 2 mouses - so 2 player mouse games can be played properly

[TotO]

The concept was to be able to run 2-player games with gamepad or mouse on the same controller port, like the Amiga does. Expecting that some games like Lemmings, Shufflepuck Cafe, North & South will be early patched.

It was first designed for Megablasters to have no input conflict when running at 50Hz.

[GUNHED]

Did Megablasters already get patched for the MultiPlay?

[TotO]

Megablasters support the MultiPlay natively since its release in 2015.

[GUNHED]

Sorry, mixed that up with Odiesofts game. The question was about Odiesofts Megablasters.

[TotO]

No worry. In this case, I don't know. Probably not.

[GUNHED]

Me neither, will ask Odie when I see him in autumn. Maybe he got the sources still, so it should be easy to be done.

[Xyphoe]

I would love to see LEMMINGS patched next! Great work @SyX!

[kawickboy]

Me neither, will ask Odie when I see him in autumn. Maybe he got the sources still, so it should be easy to be done.

In that case maybe a few sprites refresh should be done.

[SyX]

Hi again,

Because ACE has added support to Multiplay, I am going to upload a floppy with a few arcades supporting the mouse. You can find the usual: Arkanoid 1, Batty, Classic Axxiens and Operation Wolf (128 KBs). 

The only "new" game is a beta of Arkanoid 2 (128 KBs), the game can be finished and everything works fine, even hi score saving. In fact, it must be the best mouse game for multiplay in this moment, the game feels really smooth because is running at 25 HZ. 

It is a beta because I have patched a lot of the bugs in the original game; since the annoying screen corruption when you reach a new section; until changing the palette and graphics for reducing the flickering during the raster split between scores and game zone... 

Although I continue fighting with that annoying flickering, it is going to need extensive changes to the game engine for fixing a minor detail that most people doesn't care while they are playing, in fact the original game flicker a lot more and I never read any complain about it. 

This patch has been rotting in my multiplay folder for years. Aside of tat annoying cosmetics bug, the main guilty is that I haven't time for finishing the level editor and the porting of Arkanoid 1 levels to this game engine, a much better one with no slowdowns.