"No, my Teddy... That's it!"
This is a great game. One minor critique, and I'm really nitpicking here...
If you use a Video Blaster (clone of the Famicom Revolver) or an original Famicom Revolver with this game, cocking the pistol activates and holds the gun input, then releasing the hammer causes it to fire in back-in-the-day games such as Wild Gunman. These first party games shoot the gun on the release of the input (falling edge) rather than when it is first activated (rising edge, or reverse if using low logic) whereas most homebrews I have seen that read the zapper use the rising edge.
The Zapper trigger always is one quick shot and release mechanism so it doesn't make any differnce which edge of the pulse you read, but does affect the operation of the Revolver. I sent a message about this early in development (May 21st, 2016) but nobody responded.
"Hi. I've got somewhat of a technical question for you regarding Zapper trigger pull.
Most old school lightgun games count the trigger pull on the falling edge of the pulse. This was because the Famicom Revolver had the ability to cock the hammer prior to trigger release, just like a real pstol. In this state, the trigger is active, but not released. Pulling the trigger through the entire motion closes the hammer causing it to strike the barrel. This movement deactivates the switch contact in the hammer causing the gun to fire in game.
The NES Zapper was redesigned for the international market outside Japan to look less like a gun. The separate action of cocking the hammer prior to trigger pull was removed from the Zapper, resulting in the switch contact making and breaking the connection with every trigger pull.
I have a Video Blaster, which is an almost exact cloned replica of the Famicom Revolver, except in NES gray instead of black. I would like to use this realistic lightgun instead of the Zapper with your game, and it would be fun to cock the hammer (like a real pistol) prior to pulling the trigger as opposed to a single cock-and-release motion of pulling back the trigger.
For a 3rd party Video Blaster or the original Famicom Revolver to work properly in this capacity, the software needs to read the falling edge as the shot (ie shot fired when the physical switch connection is broken) as opposed to the rising edge (ie shot fired as connection is made).
If you could pass this info onto the programmer, I would appreciate it. Thanks..."
Again, it's such a minor quibble it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. For anyone using an NES Zapper or pulling the trigger on the Revolver without cocking it first, it's a non-issue. I played the game with my mom and fiance this afternoon and we had fun. We also shot the bottle and the cowboy (a couple times we got lucky and killed him before he returned fire). Also clever how he will sometimes respond by not spinning the chamber after subsequent actions by the player. This is a risky way to play IMO as it ensures someone will get capped by firing the chamber in sequence instead of random.
