All Uzebox Games Online! (Cuzebox and Emscripten)

[nicksen782]

Yes, lots of possibilities!

I just downloaded every rom listed on the games and demos page. I (or whomever) could add a column with a link to the online playable version.

As it stands now, you have the existing central authority and then you have mine. They should be kept in sync. Additionally, some roms are full games, some are wip, and some are just demos. I can set flags in the game manager record to indicate what type of game it is. I like the idea of at least categorizing that part.

If I could update my database from the wiki... or the wiki could update from it that would be nice. Honestly, this is only hard once. From this point on we are adding games individually. I really do not want to open my database to the world and would prefer it be guarded by a password or something. We can discuss that later?

All games can have online-play links! Link the world!

[D3thAdd3r]

I (or whomever) could add a column with a link to the online playable version.

Do you think it is better than having the link inside the individual game page(no ability to play a game without first clicking the page). Personally I prefer the columns idea as you proposed, anyone have reasons against it or go ahead? What should the column be titled, perhaps "Play Now"?

If I could update my database from the wiki... or the wiki could update from it that would be nice.

It seems even with multiple people having access to the wiki it still takes time, even years, to notice things out of date and miscellaneous issues that need to be resolved. Sometimes entries just end up on the wiki with no announcement of such(like UCC entries, or those shy forum members with a WIP) or 1 person is on vacation or such and misses the addition. Sometimes people just leave and the only one who knows the latest state never comes back.

So it is nice perhaps if there is an ability for multiple trusted members to be able to fix or update something. I do not know how the format you use is actually stored in the file and I barely know anything about SQL, so that makes the situation different from other things especially if this would entail access on your personal server. Per our previous PMs, perhaps we can continue the discussion on uzebox.net. Since that is Alec's domain to point where he wants, even if the existing New York server goes down in the future, I think that keeps the dependencies down and the ability to maintain up pointing to a new place.

This is just my 2¢

[nicksen782]

The individual game pages have additional game info such as controls and links to manuals. I personally would prefer that this data at least be made available to the player BEFORE they start playing my game. I say put a link inside of each individual game page.

I like the idea of access to the Game Manager being given to multiple people. It will need to be secured somehow. I have the write functions disabled when the Game Manager isn't being viewed from a specific server (my dev environment.) This could happen in other ways. At least now you can figure out the game id for each game.

[D3thAdd3r]

Very nice, seems a workable solution in it's current state. Maybe uzebox.net could mirror it or something in the future, but most importantly this all works right now which is exciting.

The individual game pages have additional game info such as controls and links to manuals.

It is a fair point there. I wonder if games should then also show the Cuzebox keymappings as well as the SNES pad, since IMO no matter what keyboard mapping ends up being used, it takes a bit of remembering to map up things with the particular keys versus the SNES pad.

Is it possible to directly embed the iframe in the wiki page, so as to not require opening a separate tab? The downside is that when many game tabs are open, there would be very high cpu usage potentially?

[D3thAdd3r]

I went ahead and added a link under the roms section for all games that are complete, but did not get to the WIP/Demos stuff yet. Check out basically any completed game on the games and demos list, and you should be able to rapidly play it.

I notice Vector Demo and Smokey and the Bandit(I will build this rom from source, TODO). Besides that I am sure you are aware there are a number of the roms that do not work, which I suspect is mostly a bad header in the .uze file(I can try to fix these and see if that is the only issue, TODO). I left alone Bugz and FoaD which already had links to Emscripten versions.

I will see if some of those roms will work with the header fixed manually. BTW Uze8 probably needs an SD image with some Chip8 roms on it to be much use. Perhaps UzeAmp could use a bit fuller SD card as well.

[nicksen782]

For UzeAmp I actually did include an audio file and it does work.

Some .uze roms are in fact missing complete headers. However, I detect these on the fly and make an adjustment to the in-ram copy of the file. So far, any game with the missing "UZEBOX" in the first 6 bytes works now. Of which I knew of somewhere around 15 and I used to detect and store this fact in the database. However, since I can fix it in JavaScript (without affecting the source file) I do that instead. The cuzebox-extras.js file has the code for that.

I tested putting an iframe inside of some random pages

JavaScript in Chrome Dev Console:

Code: Select all

var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
iframe.setAttribute('src', 'http://www.nicksen782.net/a_demos/Emscripten_Uzebox_Gamechanger/CURRENT/?gameid=207');
document.body.appendChild(iframe);

... By the way... I did this from the ISP search page that appears when you type an invalid URL... kinda neat putting the iframe right there.

This works when loading an http iframe from an http document. It only works if both are http or both are https. I could put an iframe there no problem if html code can be used on the wiki.

So, could something like this be put into each wiki game page? I would seriously suggest some kind of "press here to enable content" button since someone may not want to have the whole thing load each time.

Code: Select all

<iframe src="http://www.nicksen782.net/a_demos/Emscripten_Uzebox_Gamechanger/CURRENT/?gameid=207" style="	width: 1080px; height: 730px;"></iframe>

In the Game Manager I'll start categorizing the games to the best of my knowledge (production, demo, wip, etc.)

It's pretty cool to see these working play in browser links on the wiki game pages!

Border graphics?

[D3thAdd3r]

It's pretty cool to see these working play in browser links on the wiki game pages!

Yes, no one would have imagined this a few years back!

I tried a few games of 2048 just to see how the EEPROM works, and it does so as expected. Naturally since you say each one loads a new iframe and reloads the files, the EEPROM is not preserved across plays. I don't know if it's good or bad, but is it technically feasible to update the EEPROM and save it on the server? Maybe it would be neat to have some sort of high score competition, maybe for some games this would be bad(Holey Moley for instance). Random thought.

I was thinking on those border graphics when I ran into Jubatian's FoaD Emscripten Cuzebox version here. That is pretty sleek, just being dead simple black. Since there is a data base, could it be possible to show the controls per game as in the FoaD link? I will try and "make" some graphics for games where there is stuff readily available.

[D3thAdd3r]

This is probably not the size/format you need, so I may need an example such as the placeholder that I can lay the new graphics over;just so I know exactly how many pieces and what sizes are required.

For the classic arcade games, there is the huge advantage that high resolution scans of the marquee, side artwork, and bezels may be available. Then one can chop and splice these things together to work. For DK, something like this was easy to come by and slightly modify:

dk_shrunk.png (129.41 KiB) Viewed 6025 times

With an example to overlay, I will at least do DK, Frogger, Alter Ego where I know such graphics exist and are within my skill to modify.

[nicksen782]

I fixed a few little things:

• Rewrite of getGameList(). Similar functionality but able to handle status values better.
  Assigning statuses to all games.
  Added 2 Chip 8 games to the Uze8 folder.
  A check has been added to updateGameInfo() to make sure a game is loaded.
  Selecting a game on either menu (DB or Emulator views) will select the same game value in the counter-part menu. This is helpful if you are testing a game and want to make a data change to it because it will already be selected in the DB view.
  Fixed permissions issues (403 errors.)

So, borders. Presently there are 4 borders (top, right, bottom, left). The right and left will resize if the emulator iframe grows (such as switching to debug mode or from it.) The top and bottom remain the same. I could make them different dimensions if need be but I would like for all games to use the same dimensions for their borders.

left/right - Default (not debug mode): 90x456
left/right - Debug mode: 80x560

Also, for the categorizing of the game statuses. I did my best but I may have wrongly assigned a couple of games. Do the list and categorizations look okay?

[D3thAdd3r]

So the images should be 90x546 for the sides, and it will resize automatically for debug mode, or there needs to be 2 different versions of everything? The top and bottom resolutions I was not able to determine from the page source.

When you get a chance please post the source images you use for the current frame, just so it is more clear how everything fits/where the screen starts/etc. I don't think there is anything wrong with the current resolution, and it should be no issue to make them all the same size. I have Frogger pieces ready to go, and will just resize to fit what your current images are.