+remowilliams Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 No, no, we'd love to see it... your work looks fantastic thus far. What we'd hate to see is that you do all that work, end up getting a cease & desist letter, and the project dies. Exactly. AGG has done some great work so far, but in the grey area we often tread in the retro computing/gaming scene you have to be careful. I'm glad the A8 crowd is overall much calmer. Props to gorf for his great work on Gorf, but please don't mention the Jaguar 'scene'. Unless you want to point out a completely horrific example of how not to behave on retro platforms... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwhyte Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Rename it, and enter in the ABBUC 2010 Software contest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Props to gorf for his great work on Gorf, but please don't mention the Jaguar 'scene'. Unless you want to point out a completely horrific example of how not to behave on retro platforms... I second (and third ) that, except: on the E-Jagfest I've met some developers, Starcat and Matthias Domin, and the (former) developer Daniel Hericks (of Eclipse), that seemed far from being like the aggressive types dominating some forum. Thorsten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I for one would love to see Venture on the A8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I would definitely make sure that Pete Kaufman gives you rights permission - he still actively licenses his Exidy titles, I currently have a non-exclusive license for the use of 18 of Exidy's games for arcade usage. Meanhamster has a license for mobile platforms, so you really should go and check with him, otherwise as nathan said - change some of the elements and the name to something else. BTW --- Pete does troll arcade news groups, which are frequented by Atariager's, so eventually word will get to him over on the arcade boards... Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 (edited) Venture is one of my favorite arcade games. I enjoy playing the ColecoVision version as well, and even the Intellivision version isn't bad! But what I'd really like to see is something similar in concept but more geared to home play than a straight arcade port. I mean, the thing only has three levels. That could certainly be expanded. And the difficulty could be ramped differently -- specifically, starting much more easily and then progressing slowly to much more difficult than the arcade version. Also, Winky could easily go. How 'bout a man with a bow? And more trap-style rooms would be good. That is, rooms that require careful movement rather than just careful shooting. And then some mixed rooms -- maybe you can shoot a spot on the wall in order to disable the trap. Something along those lines. So, I'd like to see a Venture port for the A8 if it could be done just because of the features of that platform, but I'd prefer to see something more since, let's face it, anyone who wants to play Venture can already do so. Edited December 2, 2009 by Ransom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I can "license" my battle engine plus the 16384 different weapons... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Venture is one of my favorite arcade games. I enjoy playing the ColecoVision version as well, and even the Intellivision version isn't bad! But what I'd really like to see is something similar in concept but more geared to home play than a straight arcade port. I mean, the thing only has three levels. That could certainly be expanded. And the difficulty could be ramped differently -- specifically, starting much more easily and then progressing slowly to much more difficult than the arcade version. Also, Winky could easily go. How 'bout a man with a bow? And more trap-style rooms would be good. That is, rooms that require careful movement rather than just careful shooting. And then some mixed rooms -- maybe you can shoot a spot on the wall in order to disable the trap. Something along those lines. Well, if you can live with a ghost rather than a man with a bow, this game already exists . Thorsten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 1. Venture and most/all? of the Exidy game copyrights are now owned by Mean Hamster software and they are actively using them. They also frequent these boards and probably wouldn't be too pleased by this. That's interesting I had no idea MHS owned the rights to Exidy stuff. If an actual publishable game comes about I'd definitely contact John at MHS about it then. He is an awesome and easy guy to work with who has a real interest in retro gaming. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Just to add to what's been said, there is no harm in contacting the current copyright owners. It's far better to receive a straight okay now than a C&D later. At the moment I'm writing a Loopz clone for Windows and other formats. I have contacted Audiogenic for permission to create a straight port with updated graphics but received no reply - seems that Peter Calver has lost interest in the games industry as the Audiogenic site has been down for about a year and I received no reply to my letter. However, I'm playing on the side of careful and although the gameplay will be virtually identical there are changes being made to make it our own work as much as possible. Under copyright law, an idea cannot be copyrighted. That's the first thing to realise. It's only when something tangible comes from that idea that it's deemed capable of having copyright attached to it. On top of that, any work derived from another work can also have its own copyright, even though it may breach the copyright of the original copyright holder. That's why there are so many clones of certain games, such as Worms. Change the graphics, change the powerups, change the name, change the music and, so long as you haven't lifted the code from the original then you have a new game that carries its own copyright. Actually you may even be able to get away with creating a cover of the original game's music but that's a REALLY grey area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Meanhamster does not "OWN" the titles, they have a non-exclusive license, only Peter Kaufmann who founded and owns Exidy owns the rights outright to all Exidy games. Curt 1. Venture and most/all? of the Exidy game copyrights are now owned by Mean Hamster software and they are actively using them. They also frequent these boards and probably wouldn't be too pleased by this. That's interesting I had no idea MHS owned the rights to Exidy stuff. If an actual publishable game comes about I'd definitely contact John at MHS about it then. He is an awesome and easy guy to work with who has a real interest in retro gaming. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 If the goal is to reproduce (and sell) the original game, perhaps you should do what GR8 Software have done for Hobgoblin: they had the permission to make the game, make it freely available for download and sell a limited number of cartridges (70). Otherwise you could do what GR8 Software has done with Bomb Jake. I also agree with Ramson. I love Venture, but with your great skills you could do an enhanced version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Meanhamster does not "OWN" the titles, they have a non-exclusive license, only Peter Kaufmann who founded and owns Exidy owns the rights outright to all Exidy games. Curt Ah ok. Thanks for correcting me. I knew it was something like that. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 I will be going forward with Venture programming within the next couple of days. Our goal is to fit it into a 16k cartridge and be able to run on a 16k machine. Venture is uses a portion of self modifying code. I know on machines with less than 64k, a customize NMI vector routines are not available for faster VBI/DLI routines. It would have to detect if the ram is available under the OS to take advantage of it, or just use the OS locations. This is done for cleaner player/missile multiplexing for up to 8 sprites on the screen. Venture compresses the information to draw each room to about 150 bytes per room. We probably will also be using these same routines for an Role Playing/Adventure Game Engine and be designing games to run from an 128K AtariMax cart with hundreds of possible screens, multicolored sprites, and full music sound tracks. Would like to do something on the level of the first Nintendo Zelda. Might be possible to make a game to take advantage of VBXE if its detected on the client computer. We plan to release our own game before opening it up to others. I know there is interest for both projects and we do need support for future projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 I will be going forward with Venture programming within the next couple of days. Our goal is to fit it into a 16k cartridge and be able to run on a 16k machine. Venture is uses a portion of self modifying code. I know on machines with less than 64k, a customize NMI vector routines are not available for faster VBI/DLI routines. It would have to detect if the ram is available under the OS to take advantage of it, or just use the OS locations. This is done for cleaner player/missile multiplexing for up to 8 sprites on the screen. Venture compresses the information to draw each room to about 150 bytes per room. We probably will also be using these same routines for an Role Playing/Adventure Game Engine and be designing games to run from an 128K AtariMax cart with hundreds of possible screens, multicolored sprites, and full music sound tracks. Would like to do something on the level of the first Nintendo Zelda. Might be possible to make a game to take advantage of VBXE if its detected on the client computer. We plan to release our own game before opening it up to others. I know there is interest for both projects and we do need support for future projects. Sounds good. I wish you luck with this and future projects. Stephen Anderson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Meanhamster does not "OWN" the titles, they have a non-exclusive license, only Peter Kaufmann who founded and owns Exidy owns the rights outright to all Exidy games. Curt Ah ok. Thanks for correcting me. I knew it was something like that. Tempest Read post eleven. Unless I am reading it wrong John says his company owns the rights. Sounds like there is some confusion or maybe it was sold since then. http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/99659-exidy-games/page__p__1346423__hl__Mean%20Hamster%20software%20exidy__fromsearch__1&?do=findComment&comment=1346423 Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Now I am not sure if people want me to complete Venture or not. Progress is going way slower than I want because I am working full time and cannot spend much time working on it. One thought that was bought up is taking these routines I developed for Venture and rework it into RPG/Adventure game engine. This is a possible project after Venture is completed. I do not want to make overly complicated RPG/Adventure games that requires you to read a 50 page manual. Make it primarily use the joystick and occasionally the keyboard. We finally completed Venture and hope it will be available within a month. What caused some delays was I decided to add a challenger mode option that has more monsters in each room and runs faster in the lower levels. I had some problems getting this challenger option to run on the 400/800 systems. When the game boots, it checks to see if the OS ROM can be switched off and use a custom NMI Vector routine that are shorter and faster than the native OS version. Is also able to hold the VBI one frame if the prior VBI is incomplete, I set up a flag that is set to non-zero at the start of VBI and 0 right before the RTI. If OS-B is detected, it uses the native OS-B NMI to jump to VBIs and DLIs. As I stated before I am taking the programming for Venture and converting them into a RPG/Adventure game engine, some of you probably have tried it already. This is going to be more my original work not based on a game ported from another system or arcade. Going to have a character navigate from screen to screen looking for treasures while fighting multiple monsters. I am looking to spin 2 or 3 adventure type games from this engine. It already has some major differences from Venture already because to changed or added a few things. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Nice one Peteym5, looking forward to seeing it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 yes Yes YEs YES! Cant wait to see it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Great - looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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