The Total Replay compendium of Apple II games is a marvel of retro-computing engineering that brings together the efforts of 4am and qkumba to showcase not only the games, but also their box art, and graphics in an easy to use front end that has a fabulous attract mode, provides insight on how to play the game, and can provide cheats if desired.
While 4am concentrates on cracking games & developing the front end, and qkumba concentrates on porting the games to ProDOS, there are a few other pieces of the puzzle that take time to create and spreading the load with the help of others will bring the state of "completion" forward sooner. Who knows, but perhaps this creates time and space for other things to come...
While many in the Apple II community are aware of Total Replay, the opportunity to contribute to Total Replay may not yet have been offered to you. This is an initiative to change that. There are things you can do to help and now you will know what and how. Please follow along to learn more.
[[I have some original Apple II games->Game Collection]]
[[I have some time I can contribute->Time]]Original games provide the foundation for the Total Replay compendium. It is important to 4am that the games are both 'clean' - ie that there is no crackscreen present - and 'complete' - ie that nothing has been removed. Starting from the original disk ensures that both of these aims can be achieved. 4am starts with original game disks or flux images and cracks them to remove copy protection.
~~There are several games that are on a wishlist for inclusion in Total Replay or other initiatives for which an original disk has not yet been found.
~~
Original games came in packaging which often has interesting cover art and contains instructions for how to play. Unfortunately the packaging was often discarded or separated from the game disks, and so has become hard to find.
Total Replay can include a super hires image of the cover art and a help page for the game if we can obtain the content.
[[Check for missing Cover Art->Check Cover Art]]
[[Check for missing game help->Missing Game Help]]There are several tasks to be performed that take time. Some require some skill with understanding program execution, others require only some basic searching in a web browser or simply testing the games in the collection.
[[I know how to investigate program execution->Code inspection]]
[[I like testing->Ctrl-Reset]]
[[I can read manuals->Create game help]]Please check your collection of titles to see if you have any box or sleeve cover for a title that is in Total Replay that does not have any cover art.
The list of titles that needs a cover art is https://a2.click/gamecoversPlease check your collection of titles to see if you have any instructions for a title that is in Total Replay that does not have a help page.
The list of titles that needs a help page is https://a2.click/trgamehelp
If you do have instructions, the community would really appreciate access to a scan of the instructions at https://archive.orgOne feature of Total Replay is the ability to turn on a cheat mode. There are many games that don't yet have a cheat available. Inspection of the code will be necessary to understand the game enough to determine what locations in memory are controlling behaviour.
List of game titles without a cheat is https://a2.click/trcheats
If you've determined an interesting location that could be used for a cheat, please raise a ticket on the 4cade project with the details and someone from the team will get in touch with you to discuss further.The Total Replay front end tries hard to remain in memory so that it can be re-entered when a user hits ctrl-reset from within a game. However, sometimes this is not possible and ctrl-reset will be set to deliberately reboot the machine.
The reset vector is often highly protected by the game code to prevent access to the game code in memory. While the team tries hard to set the reset vector correctly, there may be certain execution modes of a game where the reset vector is not set to re-enter the front end. If you find a title that does not appear to behave as you would expect, feel free to add it to the list with note as to be able to reproduce the issue.
The titles that need ctrl-reset effort: https://a2.click/trgameresetGame help is designed for someone who's never played the game (or hasn't played for decades) to get enough information about the game and its controls to have a first-run experience that's less frustrating than "mashing keys until you die."
There are a number of titles that do not have any game help. Creating a help page is something that anyone can do with text editor.
The list of games that do not currently have any game help is https://a2.click/trgamehelp
Use your internet searching skills to find a manual on e.g. archive.org or asimov, or MobyGames cover art.
Scan & upload a manual if you have it.
Create a help page for a game using an identified manual.