MEGA-Challenge #01: Ball Quest

Ladies and gentlemen: we've got him! The first entry to the MSX Resource Center MEGA Challenge has been submitted. In their first MSX project, ZX Spectrum developers Alone Coder and Shiru teamed up to develop an MSX version of Ball Quest. On YouTube you can watch the Spectrum version of this game in action, over here. This tricky dexterity-platform game will keep you entertained for hours on end. The goal is to guide a bouncing ball through a course of floating platforms, collecting items and evading the bad guys as you go.

www.msx.org/downloads/screenshots/868_1.png

In the MSX Resource Center MEGA-Challenge you can win a brand new One Chip MSX computer by submitting either an MSX2 game, a history-themed game/demo or a game/demo that only uses 64x48 pixels. You can find out all details on this challenge right here. You can send in your entries to mega@msx.org until June 27th, 2007, 23:59 CET.

Relevant link: Ball Quest

Comments (42)

By dvik

Prophet (2200)

17-06-2007, 08:42

Nice to see the first finished entry in the compo Its a very hard game. Don't know what I would do without emulators and save states

Great job

By snout

Ascended (15187)

17-06-2007, 11:09

It's a tough game indeed, but I like it a lot! It takes quite a bit of practice to get going, but worth the efforts. Great idea for a game: simple, original and addictive. Kudos!

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

17-06-2007, 11:21

Really nice and addictive! Any chance to see it on Matra's Shockware? (btw, what has happened to Matra's website???)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

17-06-2007, 11:23

That's "Smurfs v2.0"

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

17-06-2007, 11:31

Very original game, but seriously tough!

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

17-06-2007, 12:01

Reached stage 2...

By jltursan

Prophet (2619)

17-06-2007, 13:27

Great game!

(btw, what has happened to Matra's website???)

Closed while re-styling...

By Xan0ri

Master (181)

17-06-2007, 14:14

Wow, that screenshot looks impressive.
I'll have to test this ASAP.

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6976)

17-06-2007, 14:19

it does not work with openmsx 0.6.1 !
strange!

BTW great work! technically excellent! well done!
My sole note:
some color choices maybe reflect too much the ZX...

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

17-06-2007, 14:27

frustaration galore !

excellent music

By Manuel

Ascended (19677)

17-06-2007, 14:27

It works fine in openMSX 0.6.1, I just tried it... I do recommend to use the latest version always, so please upgrade to 0.6.2.

The game itself: very unlike anything I've seen so far, very smooth scrolling! But indeed, it's a bit tough. It takes some practice

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6976)

17-06-2007, 17:25

Fixed !
it needs "pixel accurate mode" in order to work in openmsx
sorry, my fault

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

17-06-2007, 18:30

I'm not a sportsman, but this game is really really tough! Only69 .. a map please!

By PingPong

Enlighted (4155)

17-06-2007, 20:16

Excelent! does work on a real msx2 also?

By Gakubuchi

Expert (106)

17-06-2007, 21:02

Is the original ZX-Spectrum version running in an standard spectrum? I've seen the video and the graphics doesn't look like a typical spectrum game!

By PingPong

Enlighted (4155)

17-06-2007, 21:35

It's not a standard zx, but a super zx, without color clash, 2 psg,and a faster z80 cpu.

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

17-06-2007, 21:46

Great work, big thumbs up! Hope to see more (ports) in the future!

By flyguille

Prophet (3031)

17-06-2007, 22:11

original??? WTF????

it is a classic game in cellphones, the tipical bouncer game...

also there is lots of flash-games like that...

now if you mean ORIGINAL in MSX world... ok, it is original.

By dioniso

Champion (479)

17-06-2007, 22:21

Very good job. Quality everywhere. The music is really really good. Congratulations!

By KdL

Paragon (1485)

17-06-2007, 23:56

Very nice!!

@dvik: with blueMSX and Z80@3,5MHz it's Ok! LOL!
@dvik: with blueMSX and Z80@10MHz doesn't work.. ;(

but, over 1chipMSX @10MHz it's Ok!

By ro

Scribe (5057)

18-06-2007, 08:11

Congrats!

Haven't seen, let alone play, it but euhr.... ain't this a Trail-Blazer clone?

By dvik

Prophet (2200)

18-06-2007, 08:23

@KdL: It doesn't really say much if it works at 10MHz in one emulator and not in another. I'm not sure how your 10MHz OCM works but in bluemsx, its only the Z80 that is clocked at a higher speed. the rest of the components are running at the same slow speed they always do. My guess is that there are some differences between the ocm in when certain status bits or ints happens. But this doesn't tell which one is behaving as if you took a real MSX and overclocked the Z80.

By Huey

Prophet (2696)

18-06-2007, 11:32

Great work!
I played it yesterday. It's a dificult game.

Hope to see more MSX releases from Alone Coder and Shiru!!!!

Thanks

By snout

Ascended (15187)

18-06-2007, 12:17

ro: no, it ain't!

By Prodatron

Paragon (1856)

18-06-2007, 21:25

I love this game, sinced I played a similiar one the first time on my old Nokia Communicator. The Scrolling on the MSX is unbelieveable, when you consider the background... How did they do it

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

19-06-2007, 13:57

pity there are only 8 levels, and no enddemo/text or something

thanks god for savestates

By snout

Ascended (15187)

19-06-2007, 15:18

Poke: edit your own levels, you lazy sod! :P

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

19-06-2007, 15:53

as if I'm capable of even remotely programming anything haha !
it's insanely difficult, let me state that. Whoever is sick enough to
complete it (and it's trial and error a LOT later on) should be
put away safely.
I did however take the effort to record the ingame tunes, since they're
whack & dope and all that, some stuff I never heard on the msx (psg wise).
Got em all zipped, so...whoever wants those...

By Edwin

Paragon (1182)

19-06-2007, 20:08

Cool game! I find the design especially interesting. Completely different from anything you'd expect from regular MSX coders. Nicely done.

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

19-06-2007, 22:00

I reached level 4 (without savestates, of course).

pity there are only 8 levels, and no enddemo/text or something
Only 8 levels? I thought that it would have dozens of levels!!!

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

19-06-2007, 22:03

It is a very good game, though. The ball has ultra-smooth movements

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

19-06-2007, 23:12

hehe I reached 4 too without savestates, 3 was a lucky one go (bouncing right into the exit),
then things got hard... and I thought screw that, cheat time

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

19-06-2007, 23:28

Reached level 4 too, damn, really addictive

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

19-06-2007, 23:33

Reached level 4 too, damn, really addictive
Yeah, once you get used to the movements of the ball it is not as hard as it seems. But add more levels and ending scenes please!

By only_69

Hero (565)

20-06-2007, 03:22

Hey Wolf. Snout just told me about your request. I will give a try and let you know if it is feasible.

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

20-06-2007, 23:40

Reached level 5!

By Imanok

Paragon (1200)

21-06-2007, 08:58

Nice and hard game! ... it's a pity the graphics had been converted directly... they could have been far better if the creators had taken profit from MSX2 graphical capabilities.

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

21-06-2007, 14:47

Graphics are good enough imho.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

21-06-2007, 14:58

They're not bad, but there could certainly also be improvements here and there. A slightly better palette springs to mind.

By Imanok

Paragon (1200)

21-06-2007, 16:39

They could be OK for an MSX1 version, but for an MSX2 game, for example, they could have used a fixed part of the palette for the ball, platforms, etc... and a variable part dedicated to improve each background.

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

23-06-2007, 18:51

'probably because they converted spectrum images directly to the msx port.
I guess they could have used the real background images that they used,
and redo them for msx instead of porting straight from speccy.
Then again, what do I know

By Ivan

Ascended (9371)

23-06-2007, 19:54

I'm stuck in level 5. Collected the two keys but don't know how to reach that exit on the left

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