itch.io

This sounds pretty interesting, I was also recently thinking how cool it would be to see some uniquely new titles based around the old gameplay style and mechanic.

One thing I found about these old games is some of them had an interesting risk/reward mechanic. For instance on Octopus you could choose to stick it out for a longer time standing next to the treasure chest collecting coins, but the longer you stayed, the greater the risk of losing a life, whereas if you chose a slow and steady collection rate there is less risk but also less reward. I think that this aspect needs to be included in games to make them truly fun.

What are the specs of the device you are trying on?

I got a reply back from the guy who posted the video and he did say that the pulsating is not visible in person, just a result of the camera frame rate vs refresh rate of the display.
You could perhaps include an option to disable the effect for true to life accuracy but I personally would leave the effect on as it looks great. I guess you could also try increasing the pulse frequency to a faster speed and that may still provide just enough flicker to be barely detectable to the eye but more true to life?

Guessing it was this video you watched? 

On the topic of the display pulsing/flickering, my guess is that this may be an effect that is really only evident in videos rather than seeing it in person, I suspect that the refresh rate of the VFD is different to the frame rate of the video recording and hence you see a flickering effect when viewed through the camera. I could be totally wrong of course, I've just asked the question of the owner in that video, awaiting a reply.

I had some type of submarine/battleship style game back in the 80's that had what was probably a VFD display and I don't really recall it flickering very much.

That being said, I really like the pulsating effect even if it does prove to not be totally accurate.

I only tried mind boggler on PC, will check on phone tomorrow as need to charge it.

That's quite a cool little game, have never seen that before. Basically the same style of logic as the physical mastermind board game but with more possible variations however you don't get a running record of your hits and near hits as you do with the board game.
The subtle little effects such as the pulsating display are what really make your creations stand out.

On the topic of displays, do these devices generally use a gas discharge display or a vacuum fluorescent display? I've started to do a little reading about both types.

Sorry for the delayed reply and thanks for the older version. Oddly the haptics are still not working on Galaxy S7 Edge even with the older build of Octopus. Did you ever release a prerelease version that didn't have the haptics adjustment slider by any chance or was that always there? The haptics vibrator does work for other functions of the phone.

I cleared all my Chrome cookies/cache etc. Also tried the inbuilt Samsung browser and cleared all the user data, still no go.

App does work fine on wife's Galaxy S10 though, just don't tell her I've been testing out old LCD games on it. ;)

Yes I think I'm using the same Chrome version as previously. I tried clearing my Chrome's cache but still no go. Also tried several of your titles that I hadn't previously tried. Do you have the older test versions available still by any chance, particularly the pre release Octopus version that you previously linked me to in one of your forum comments (file is now not found from that comment)? At least then I can see if its some issue with my phone or not.

I've played the public 0.9.8 releases of Parachute and Octopus and the haptics seem to be no longer working on 0.9.8 on my Galaxy S7 Edge.

The previous test versions had this working well on both those titles. I've tried pushing the vibration slider from left to right and middle and checked my phone settings to make sure haptics are enabled. I tried to access the older test versions just to make sure but you seem to have removed them (including the older Octopus you provided a link for me in a forum message.)

Yeah, tried sliding the slider to extreme left and right and Im getting no haptics unfortunately on the Galaxy S7 edge, something appears to have changed since the test builds as the haptics were working with the earlier Octopus and Parachute builds.

Nice to see that 0.9.8 has been released, thankyou. I did notice that the haptic feedback feature no longer seem to be working on my Galaxy S7 Edge (it worked in the test version previously). Anyone else getting haptic feedback when they press a button? I have only tried it on Octopus so far.

Awesome stuff thankyou, plays really well on Android. Certainly a trip down memory lane for that particular game and it has really good gameplay in terms of the risk/reward mechanism (grabbing the loot from the chest whilst staying in that position as long as you can). You don't get that same game mechanic with Parachute.

One more suggestion, it would be good if there was a solid black background available, the grey background is not quite dark enough to make the the gap between the phone screen and a black bezel seamless on some some screen ratios (and will vary between handheld simulations as well). You probably added the grey to create some slight contrast with the darker edges of some heldhelds?

I've found the the star background works best at the moment to hide any gaps around the game.

iOS playback on iPhone 8 is suffering badly with the last few updates (I think the attempt at a sound fix created some major performance issues). Might work ok on new iPhones but probably best to get some feedback from other iPhone owners on that topic.

There are two things which will add even more realism. (not sure if I mentioned one of these previously)

1) I notice that when rotating the viewpoint of the game around with my finger that you have a light source and this reflects off the surface at different angles depending on the view, it certainly adds a lot of realism.

What if you were able to access the gyro sensor of the phone/tablet in play mode so that adjusting the physical tilt of the phone affected the lightsource direction and hence gave you some simulated changes in lighting as you tilt your phone up/down/left/right. The full screen view would still be locked into place but just the illumination would change and trick your brain into seeing a bit more 3D depth.

2) I've seen some apps on phones such a labyrinth, pinball etc. which fill the screen but adjust the view angle in realtime depending on the tilt detection of the gyro sensor. If you look carefully at the following video you will see what I mean, notice how the viewpoint changes very slightly when they tilt the phone. So when you tilt the phone to the right you would see slightly more of the right side of the buttons for instance. Tilting the phone upwards would allow you to see slightly more of the top edge of the buttons. Perhaps getting a bit complex but something to consider for maximum realism (with ability to turn the feature off). For example, see 

This build is getting so close to reality on my Galaxy S7 that it's almost tricking my brain into thinking I'm playing the real deal. The haptics really add to the experience and ability to resize and lock is great.

I would recommend adjusting the transparency on the pause/play button when playing so that it's barely visible as that's about the only thing that takes me away from the simulation a little. It might even be worth adding a settings option to hide it completely, but still make the top left corner clickable to reveal the menu, once people know where the button is hiding it they should be able to remember where the menu activation area is. Not sure if others would agree?

I also wonder if any of these two button games originally had an auto key repeat if you held the button down? I notice that you do mimic key repeat on games with a DPad.

Can't wait to relive the Octopus experience on my Android phone. Thanks again for all your efforts, you have some amazing skills.

There does seem to be some advance with the iOS sound issue, sounds now play for a short while albeit a bit distorted but then it goes quiet again shortly after, gameplay also seems to be a lot less responsive with newer version in iPhone 8.

I did find an easier way to get fullscreen on my iPhone without needing to add your website to my homescreen. Load the game's page in portrait mode but before pressing the play button to load the actual game, scroll up slightly on the page and the toolbar should hide, then press play and game will load into full screen mode with no URL or toolbar.

I also tested on a 7th gen iPad and it seems to go to fullscreen in safari but has similar issues with audio after a little while of play, it also has same issue with regards to game graphics popup menu being mostly offscreen and impossible to reach the buttons to change those settings.

Android seems to be the best way to play so far.

Thanks for your efforts... it's all very impressive even if there are iOS issues.

I just tried Parachute on an old Galaxy S7 and it runs really well, fills the screen better too compared to the iPhone's 8 aspect which doesnt quite match the aspect of the game when you click the zoom button. I'm transported back in time and feel like I'm looking at the real thing.

Would it be possible for you to access the phone's vibrate feature so you could feel some tactile feedback every time you press a button? That would add an extra level of immersion.

I'll be away travelling for most of July into early august so may not be able to give any feedback during that time.
I think the audio issue link you mentioned is only in relation to Safari on Mac, doesnt seem to apply to iPhone as those options are not available.

With Parachute, it attempts fullscreen on launch, but still has the browser's URL and toolbar visible. Pressing the "aA" icon in the browser's toolbar allows you to hide the toolbar but it still shows a very narrow strip at the top with the URL.
After doing some reading this seems like a Safari limitation on iOS (at least on my iPhone 8, unsure about newer iPhones). See https://forum.unity.com/threads/fullscreen-webgl-mobile-on-ios.476006/

A solution mentioned in that thread is to save the website address by clicking safari's icon that looks like a square with arrow pointing upwards (share/options icon?) and choosing the "Add to homescreen" option.

Then launch your website from that new homescreen button. You need to make sure to then rotate your screen to landscape before pressing play to load the game. It seems if you don't rotate first before doing this, then the Safari toolbar is still shown onscreen.

Another bug on my phone is that the audio doesn't work with this game,  also when pressing the graphics detail button, the popup appears mostly offscreen at the bottom and to the left side of the screen so I cant change detail or background image, I can just make out the word "detail" and the top of the menu box (cant see the menu at all if the Safari toolbar is onscreen.

Regarding Popeye, same issues with no sound, I can see the fullscreen expand icon but it doesn't seem to do anything (app is already semi fullscreen I guess but with the safari toolbar showing). Same issue as above when clicking graphics setting button, cant see menu at all.

Additionally, even if I use the "Add to homescreen" method for Popeye, I cant get it to launch in true fullscreen as the safari menu is still there.

Popeye screen info size says 375x667 iPhone.

I tried parachute on my Android tablet and it works well in fullscreen with sound but I first needed to get it to load the mobile site version as it defaulted to desktop page loading.

Some other suggestions:

Hide the game's menu away when playing, or have it accessible so that it pops up by pressing a single ghosted icon.

When clicking the zoom button, perhaps have an option to "fill screen", "fill height" or "fill width". Or automatically check to see if a particular game is wider than it is tall, if it is wider then expand the game to fit screen width. If the game is taller than it is wide (donkey kong dual screen for instance), make the game fill the vertical space instead.

It could also be good to be able to play in portrait mode for games that are taller than they are wide, it seems to currently automatically switch to landscape mode even if I launched the app in portrait orientation.

Awesome news.

I'm using an iPhone 8 and unable to go full screen in Safari in landscape orientation even after selecting the "Hide Toolbar" option after clicking the "aA" button in Safari (it still leaves a small thin URL bar at the top). Does anyone know of a way to get it fullscreen without any bars or is it something that Itizso needs to look at fixing?

Awesome, sorry I didn't get back to you earlier with the button mapping for Xbox, hopefully goodolvic has supplied what you needed?

@goodolvic , assuming you have one of latest gen series X Xbox as well as the controller?

If you get a chance, could you please test some of the games in the Edge browser on your Xbox Series X and see if you can run them fullscreen in HD mode? On my older Xbox One X I need to reduce the detail to medium or low definition on some of the games to get them to run without crashing webgl at 1080p

Xbox One controller doesn't have an analog switch unfortunately but that's not a big issue.

My comments regarding Edge were in relation to attempting to play on my Xbox One X (not on PC).

Edge browser on Xbox uses a few of the controller's buttons and joysticks for browser navigation purposes however you can override this when your game starts up to some degree (I think you need to hold down the menu button to switch controller mode to "Use game controls" rather than the usual browser controls.

One issue is that when you need to remap the controller buttons in "Use game controls" mode, you cant of course move around the game's menu system as the joysticks no longer work for controlling the mouse cursor so you need to plug a mouse into the Xbox to enable you to select the menu items. If you attempt to remap buttons whilst the controller is still in browser control mode then most of the controller buttons come up as unidentified.

A further issue, when I finally managed to remap the start and select buttons to controller using the mouse method above, it seems to remove the keyboard mapping and simply marks the original keyboard key settings as unidentified under the keyboard column, which is a bit strange. This also causes a problem with game control as this unidentified keymapping seems to want to press the start and select buttons whenever you press any other button/joystick in game.

I think for gaming on Xbox Edge, you would need to create a mapping preset at your end and give the user the ability to select that as the default mapping.

On my Xbox One X I can only play fullscreen (at 1080p) if I select the low definition mode in game. Higher definition crashes the game and browser needs to be restarted due to webgl crash I think (cant simply reload the game page, need to close browser and restart it).

Tested in Chrome on PC with Xbox One controller and it works well, although I needed to manually add the extra buttons for start and select as they weren't in there by default. The left joystick is also set up as the default control method and need to manually change to D-Pad keys if you want to use that instead. You can only have one or the other though, not both control methods at same time.
I also tested on Xbox One and there are some issues there on Edge Browser. There is an option that pops up to use controller buttons for gaming rather than for browser navigation, this gets around the issue of when you press B button it would usually jump to previous browser page.
However when I tried to map keys for start and select to the controller buttons they seem to come up as unidentified buttons.

Awesome thankyou. It works well on Xbox One Controller on my PC. By default the D-Pad is not active and it uses the left joystick instead. Easy to remap to D-Pad in game but you can only have one or the other, not both it seems.

The start and select buttons are also not mapped to any controller buttons by default, but again easy to map to controller buttons 8 and 9 as shown in your screenshot.

I'll also try it out on my Xbox One using Edge browser and get back to you with results.

If you have an Xbox One, some of the games run ok in Edge with a controller after some fiddling around. See my thread below and also Itizso's response regarding remapping: https://itch.io/post/7713776

Loving the new additions. I especially like the Dick Smith branded edition of the VTech CreatiVision given that I'm Australian and Dick Smith Electronics was a big part of Australian electronics back in the 80's (Australia's answer to RadioShack).

I thought the Balloon Fight screen showing the background through the screen was a bug at first. Then realised it was a feature, havent seen those models in the wild before.

Thankyou. :)

Not sure if you received my email a couple of days ago?

Thanks, will do shortly.

You need to edit the purchase info regarding the steam key as your text show conflicting info at present with the top section showing Steam key offer has ended but lower down on page it still says:

"In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $1.63 USD. Your purchase comes with a Steam key. You will get access to the following files:"

Maybe a easy mode would good, but the idea of a challenge is good too. He is only 10, but very good at solving a Rubiks cube so has a good mind for spatial puzzle solving, I think he wanted to get back to playing Sea of thieves so Subcube could only hold his attention for so long... haha.
One suggestion (and I could be missing something that already exists in the game as I have only played it a couple of times so far), at the start of the level it tells/shows you what you need to create, however during a longer level you may want to double check what the goal is so it would be nice to be able to show the goal again in case the player forgets. This could also be useful for when a child is playing and they call on a parent to help out midway through the level, it would be good for a parent to see the goal if they missed it at the start. One method would be to press a key to bring up the goal overlay again or have a smaller version of the goal visible in a corner of the screen at all times.
Thanks again for a great gift.

Fantastic effort thankyou. I'm not sure of there is already a workaround, but one of the things I noticed is that I'm a little too tall (6 feet) to play some of the machines up close without the marquee getting in the way of my vision.

It would be great to be able to scale the room size or the cabinets to suit individual height of player. Perhaps a temporary hack might be to set the quest floor level a little higher, this might sink me into the floor a little, not sure as haven't tested that idea yet.

Lastly, do you have any plans to add a shader for scanlines? I think that would really help add to the realism if the quest is up to the task performance wise. Some additional CRT effects might also be nice down the track, bloom, RGB colour distortion etc, you are no doubt aware of this but thought I'd mention it, https://docs.libretro.com/shader/crt/

Edit: I just noticed you have a damage shader already that has CRT effects...  I'll check it out.

He did, he only stopped when it got too hard for him.

I've only had a quick game but liking what I see so far. Reminds me of a cross between the game Edge by mobigames and a form of 3D Tetris. Well done and thankyou. My son is into Rubiks cubes so will likely also enjoy this one.

You could set them up on your bedside cabinet (I seem to remember a little wire stand pops out from the back of some of them to prop them up), batteries lasted forever so would have made a good alarm clock for kids. I don't think I ever used to wake up to an alarm as a kid though, but handy to check the time.

I have a strong memory of my dad becoming a bit addicted to my Donkey Kong dual screen when I was about 12, one day I left for school and he was sitting up in bed playing it, and when I got home he was still playing and shouted at me to not disturb him as he was getting a high score... haha.

Further to my Xbox One X observations, I thought you might like to know that I tested on Quest 2 today using the Quest's inbuilt browser. I only tested Donkey Kong dual screen, and it ran ok but did not accept any input from my bluetooth connected Xbox controller even when I attempted to remap the controller buttons in the game settings. It may work with a bluetooth keyboard connected, but I dont have one for testing unfortunately.

I might try and sideload another browser to the Quest 2 such as the Chrome apk version and see if that works any better with a controller.

Edit: I managed to sideload Chrome apk, but results are even worse with regards to controller, still no ability to remap Xbox controller buttons after connecting it with bluetooth, but sadly also lost the ability to press the buttons on the game itself with my Quest controllers (which I can do with inbuilt Quest Browser), I can press the play and other menu buttons with Quest controller, and grab and rotate the device but can't press the onscreen buttons on the game itself. Oh well... hope this helps someone else attempting to do the same.

Just had another thought, is anaglyph 3D on your radar at all? Some of these devices would look particularly interesting in 3D with anaglyph glasses, particularly the tabletop and panorama models. You could even pop them out from the screen a little for extra depth and have them float in front of you. As well as anaglyph, it might also be useful to produce side by side 3D for 3D TVs.

Hi again, thanks for tips.

In relation to Xbox:

Changing the Xbox button assignment does allow me to change the jump key to "Y" button or shoulder buttons althouth I think it marks the key as unknown but still works. Cannot assign to A or X buttons, can also assign to B button but this causes a conflict as its also used to back out of a webpage.

Changing to SD mode on Octopus does allow the game to run in fullscreen mode (in 1080p at least, unsure if this would also work in 4K screens). If I switch it to HD mode it will flash between the game at full screen and a black screen for a few seconds and then crashes webgl (sad face icon in top left corner of game) and then requires a restart of Edge to get webgl up and running again.

I also tried snoopy tabletop and that works in SD fullscreen but not HD.

Donkey Kong Jr. does not work in any resolution setting even in non full screen mode and just keeps reloading back to the opening title page (I think it crashes webgl eventually but would need to check again). I am wondering if this is perhaps something to do with the mirroring effect method used?

I don't suppose you have any future intention to add "Dragon" by Tiger (also branded Orlitronic in some countries, 1982)? That's one of the more obscure games I had in the 80's and there doesn't seem to be much info on it online, took me a while to even figure out what the game was when I was searching recently as I could only remember the gameplay description and not the name or manufacturer, I did recall that the casing was orange though so that helped a bit and I recognised it when I saw an image online. http://handheldempire.com/game.jsp?game=2560

This is some high end stuff indeed, many thanks. I was even able to get some of them to run on Xbox One X using Edge browser although there were some issues as described below (at 1080p resolution).

I tried Donkey Kong Multi Screen and it worked really well even in full screen high detail (1080p tv). The xbox controller also worked for DPad control however there was no button assigned to the jump control. To get around this issue I moved the mouse pointer over the top of the jump button and then was able to press the A button on the controller to jump, whilst using the DPad for the controller for movement.

The second one I tried on Xbox was Octopus, this worked fine with Xbox controller as just needs DPad for left and right however when switching to full screen mode it seems to crash webgl on the browser and need to restart Edge to get it working again. Works in non fullscreen mode.

I then tried Wildfire which took me a little while to figure out how to switch the game on (switch is on the side of the device above the right flipper button). I think this game worked ok in fullscreen if I remember correctly, but need to use the same method as donkey kong to launch the ball with controller (place mouse over launch button and use A button).

Lastly I tried Donkey Kong Jr. Panorama screen, this title seemed to crash webgl even without changing to full screen and I didnt get to even see the game device at all.

It's pretty amazing that these games can be even played at all on Xbox in the browser, but hopefully my feedback helps. If you are interested in having me test any more titles on Xbox One then let me know.

That would be fantastic, hopefully you consider the gyro suggestion as I feel that would make it even more realistic. Well done again on a fantastic release. :)

Wow... just stumbled in here today and glad I did. These are amazing thankyou.

If you ever decided to make this or your Retrofab emulator work correctly on phones and tablets, it would be very cool if you could somehow tap into the gyro so that the orientation of the handheld could change depending on the angle of the device, ie; tilt the device to the right and see more of the left side of the handheld, tilt to the left and see more of the right side, up/down etc. There are a few phone and tablet apps over the years that have done this with pinball games and also Labyrinth games. Check out this labyrinth game from 13 years ago to see what I mean.