Arkyology - New prototype discovered - Finished Game!

[p.opus]

That looks absolutely great. I can imagine it is harder and harder on each subsequent day.

 

I wonder if there is an "end game". like releasing the animals or the something using the famous "atari rainbow". Only the developer can know for sure.

[Philflound]

It's amazing that games are still being unearthed and people get to experience them. A brand new 30 year old game

 

I am all for homebrew, but there is just something very different and much more interesting about the games actually made at that time period. No modern tools, forum feedback, emulators, etc. Just instinctual, raw programming.

 

I hope some kind of release agreement is made soon, I really look forward to trying this one out. I love Donkey Kong style games and the Noah's ark theme seems quite charming even though I am in no way religious.

I actually agree that it's great that games from that time period are still coming out of burial. The internet does wonders how you can find all this info on yourself from years ago. I look forward to a release if possible.

 

Phil

[AtariTexas]

Great stuff and thanks for sharing!!

[+save2600]

Love this kind of stuff!

[pwalters]

Looks great!! Great work programmers and special kudos to Barbara...it's got an Activision look to it, not at all like the typical offerings from a niche company.

 

Hey thanks, and a big thank you to all for the kind words!

 

We spent a lot of work on the gameplay. At one point I was having a problem with getting the game to be able to display 'Noah' climbing the ladders without throwing off the timing the video loop. Driving home from work late one evening I had a "eureka!" moment and came up with a an indirect pointer to an encoded table method that halved the machine cycles for handling the climbing animations and made them possible. Those were the moments that really made the work fun.

 

Barbara was great. She is a generation older than we were and brought a lot of stability to the table when we were working together. I wrote a program on the Atari 800 computer that simulated the 2600's graphics and let her create the backgrounds and sprite/ball images that would be recreated the same on the 2600. She used that tool to make the graphics for these games.

 

Of note: I may have just located her... I'm trying to confirm now but it looks good!

Edited September 10, 2015 by pwalters

[CrazyChris]

It has a Pitfall-esque look to it?

[pwalters]

It has a Pitfall-esque look to it?

 

Probably a little. We were all avid gamers and played every game out there. We would always try deconstructing the 'how' for both coin-op and console. It was fun talking through how the software must be organized to do what it did, how it used the available resources, and especially on coin-op how the hardware must be designed whether multi-layer, sprites, character or pixel, and how the audio was generated i.e. one of the popular audio chips like the '8912, or custom built.

 

So we played and talked through most Activision games because they were very good at getting the most out of the 2600's limited hardware. Pitfall and Keystone Kapers were high on our list of 'best' design to make the most of the resources.

[PacManPlus]

This is awesome that over 30 years later things like this still surface. I love it.

[CPUWIZ]

This is awesome that over 30 years later things like this still surface. I love it.

 

What is even better is the quality and a finished game, it isn't just another unfinished 4K turd.

[p.opus]

 

What is even better is the quality and a finished game, it isn't just another unfinished 4K turd.

Yeah, the video actually makes me want to play. Plus I want to see if I can get through 40 days, just to see if there is a special prize inside

 

The fact that it's a "Christian" video game is so 80's. There was a big charismatic movement in the 80's and you saw a lot of "Christian" this and "Christian" that designed primarily to fleece the flock. In many cases it was garbage, but that didn't stop people from eagerly taking money from those who wanted to keep their "Treasure In The Kingdom" and not throw "Pearls Before Swine".

 

A "Christian" title that actually had production values and people who care for the quality of the product is a rarity indeed, and it's worth a peek based on that alone.

Edited September 10, 2015 by p.opus

[pwalters]

I recorded a quick preview with audio. This is just a short sample starting on 'Day 3'. The alligators come out on day 3 -- I was trying to avoid the guy at the bottom!

 

Edited September 10, 2015 by pwalters

[LS_Dracon]

Really cool!

[p.opus]

I recorded a quick preview with audio. This is just a short sample starting on 'Day 3'. The alligators come out on day 3 -- I was trying to avoid they guy at the bottom!

 

 

Looks like you have your hands full. I recognize all the animals except one. I get the bird,and the porcupine raining quills (nice touch, that). Of course, the gator. But I couldn't pick out what actually did you in. Was that a rat?

[pwalters]

Looks like you have your hands full. I recognize all the animals except one. I get the bird,and the porcupine raining quills (nice touch, that). Of course, the gator. But I couldn't pick out what actually did you in. Was that a rat?

 

Haha, they were supposed to be 'turtles' but for how fast they move they must be 'super' turtles! The gator is very nearly un-jumpable -- I've seen it done before but has to be perfect. You have to lure him to one side or the other and then run up a level run over and down on the other side to get away from him.

[Stiletto]

Links of interest to at least pwalters:

 

- An old post from someone claiming to have come up with Moppet Video

 

<sigh> The internet is a wonderful thing but it's tough to prove something like this I know.

 

Hey CRV, astrp3, how's it going. (Yes, CRV, I finally located this thread. )

 

That USENET post actually comes from a prankster on KLOV: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=1361

I've pointed him to this thread but I doubt he'll respond, hehe...

 

pwalters, great info, thanks for responding.

 

- Stiletto

- http://www.mamedev.org | http://mamedev.emulab.it/undumped

- http://www.vogons.org | http://twitter.com/stilett0_

Edited September 11, 2015 by Stiletto

[darthkur]

I recorded a quick preview with audio. This is just a short sample starting on 'Day 3'. The alligators come out on day 3 -- I was trying to avoid the guy at the bottom!

 

 

That looks like a challenging and fun game. You did a great job with it. Very much looking forward to trying it out.

[Stiletto]

(With reference to the ggdb.com reference by pwalters... FYI, arcade-history.com is probably the place to go these days. Hardly anything updates faster, with the exception of sites like Wikipedia. KLOV.com/arcade-museum.com tends towards being inaccurate and outdated in comparison, and ggdb.com has few vastly populated entries...)

BTW, pwalters, there's a weird comment in the Arcade-History.com entry for Tugboat:

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=tugboat&page=detail&id=2987

The concept for the game tug boat was originally created by two African American pre-teens Richard Evans and Michael Craig. The idea was submitted to Atari in the early 80's. The two kids received a letter from Atari basically blowing them off, only to make the game anyway and not credit or compensate the kids.

 

Sounds like this can be debunked, or at the very least, disconnected from the Tugboat (arcade) entry, no? You programmed Tugboat yourself, and Atari has nothing to do with Enter-Tech. But it's one of those claims for game "concepts", so IDK... I'm not sure what Tugboat-like game was made by Atari...

[pwalters]

...

Sounds like this can be debunked, or at the very least, disconnected from the Tugboat (arcade) entry, no? You programmed Tugboat yourself, and Atari has nothing to do with Enter-Tech. But it's one of those claims for game "concepts", so IDK... I'm not sure what Tugboat-like game was made by Atari...

 

Yes, this even on the surface is a stretch of a claim. Atari and Enter-Tech weren't affiliated. Nobody at Atari talked to me while the team and I were developing Tugboat. In the game development business, it's not like we and other companies were sitting around without any ideas waiting for mail from teenagers (not knocking teenagers here, at 20 years old, I was close to teenage when I started there). We had way way more ideas, and requests from customers, than we had time.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if some kids did send Atari a letter describing a game they would like, what would surprise me would be if anybody at Atari actually read such a letter, and it would knock me off my chair if such a letter would make it to engineering for resource allocation.

Edited September 11, 2015 by pwalters

[Stiletto]

 

Yes, this even on the surface is a stretch of a claim. Atari and Enter-Tech weren't affiliated. Nobody at Atari talked to me while the team and I were developing Tugboat. In the game development business, it's not like we and other companies were sitting around without any ideas waiting for mail from teenagers (not knocking teenagers here, at 20 years old, I was close to teenage when I started there). We had way way more ideas, and requests from customers, than we had time.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if some kids did send Atari a letter describing a game they would like, what would surprise me would be if anybody at Atari actually read such a letter, and it would knock me off my chair if such a letter would make it to engineering for resource allocation.

 

Excellent, I'll see about getting this fixed, erased or relocated at Arcade-History.com

[Tempest]

 

The concept for the game tug boat was originally created by two African American pre-teens Richard Evans and Michael Craig. The idea was submitted to Atari in the early 80's. The two kids received a letter from Atari basically blowing them off, only to make the game anyway and not credit or compensate the kids.

 

I'm also not aware of any Atari arcade game that has similar gameplay to Tugboat.

[ieure]

This is so great. I had no idea that Moppet/Enter-Tech had anything going on in VanWa. pwalters, if you have any other stories/photos/art/manuals/anything from the old days, I'd love to see/hear it.

 

I'm lucky to have a Pirate Treasure machine. I got it complete / non-working and repaired the PCB. Knowing that it was a clone of Leprechaun which was a clone of Pot of Gold, I was able to use the schematics in the GPI Pot of Gold manual to figure out what was wrong and fix it. I also have a Tugboat marquee and PCB I need to repair.

[Rom Hunter]

Thanks for sharing, pwalters.

 

[high voltage]

Is it up on Atarimania yet?

[Rom Hunter]

Is it up on Atarimania yet?

Not yet.

 

Will make a page for it.

 

[pwalters]

One more post on Moppet Video. In the later games we used to put our names and other things embedded in empty ROM space. I just downloaded the Noah's Ark ROM set from one of the MAME repositories and dumped U9.bin, posted below:

 

We also, George, Rick and I put our favorite 'saying' of the time into the ROM. You'll see the three sayings a little after the names.

 

000006A0 18 FF 43 4F 50 59 52 49 47 48 54 20 31 39 38 33 .ÿCOPYRIGHT 1983

000006B0 2C 20 45 4E 54 45 52 2D 54 45 43 48 2C 20 4C 54 , ENTER-TECH, LT

000006C0 44 2E 50 52 4F 47 52 41 4D 4D 45 44 20 42 59 3A D.PROGRAMMED BY:

000006D0 20 20 50 61 75 6C 20 4D 2E 20 57 61 6C 74 65 72 Paul M. Walter

000006E0 73 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 s

000006F0 20 52 69 63 6B 20 45 2E 20 48 61 72 72 69 73 20 Rick E. Harris

00000700 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 41 A

00000710 6E 64 79 20 53 2E 20 54 65 61 67 75 65 20 20 20 ndy S. Teague

00000720 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 47 65 6F Geo

00000730 72 67 65 20 42 2E 20 48 65 66 6E 65 72 47 52 41 rge B. HefnerGRA

00000740 50 48 49 43 53 20 42 59 3A 20 20 20 20 42 61 72 PHICS BY: Bar

00000750 62 61 72 61 20 4A 2E 20 55 6C 74 69 73 53 54 4F bara J. UltisSTO

00000760 52 59 20 4C 49 4E 45 20 42 59 3A 20 20 52 6F 62 RY LINE BY: Rob

00000770 65 72 74 20 48 61 6D 62 6C 65 74 6F 6E 56 65 72 ert HambletonVer

00000780 73 69 6F 6E 20 32 2E 30 2C 20 4A 75 6E 65 20 32 sion 2.0, June 2

00000790 2C 20 31 39 38 33 FF C5 B9 94 F9 F7 E2 AD FF 5E , 1983ÿŹ”ù÷â.ÿ^

000007A0 E5 5E AF FF E8 FA F7 B6 E5 5B E7 FD C9 76 EF CE å^¯ÿèú÷¶å[çýÉvïÎ

000007B0 01 FD FF BB 06 7E F7 AD 89 C7 FF FC 81 FE 6F 8F .ýÿ».~÷.‰Çÿü.þo.

000007C0 59 7D EF F7 E7 D0 CF FF A4 9C EB EF 72 F4 9D DD Y}ï÷çÐÏÿ¤œëïrô.Ý

000007D0 D3 F7 FE 9D 3A 8F 7B DA 85 D7 89 BF E9 6F F5 7F Ó÷þ.:.{څ׉¿éoõ.

000007E0 2F 56 2F FE 79 FF 3F FD 63 C0 7B FF 2B 26 F7 FF /V/þyÿ?ýcÀ{ÿ+&÷ÿ

000007F0 07 B0 FF FB CB BD EB FF C3 9E CD 8C 09 E8 7F FF .°ÿû˽ëÿÞ͌.è.ÿ

00000800 E7 B6 55 7F 80 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 54 ç¶U.€ T

00000810 68 65 72 65 20 61 72 65 20 32 20 74 79 70 65 73 here are 2 types

00000820 20 6F 66 20 70 65 6F 70 6C 65 20 69 6E 20 74 68 of people in th

00000830 65 20 77 6F 72 6C 64 3B 20 74 68 6F 73 65 20 74 e world; those t

00000840 68 61 74 20 64 69 76 69 64 65 20 70 65 6F 70 6C hat divide peopl

00000850 65 20 69 6E 74 6F 20 32 20 67 72 6F 75 70 73 2C e into 2 groups,

00000860 20 61 6E 64 20 74 68 6F 73 65 20 74 68 61 74 20 and those that

00000870 63 61 6E 27 74 20 64 69 76 69 64 65 21 2E 2E 2E can't divide!...

00000880 2E 2E 2E 49 74 27 73 20 68 61 72 64 20 74 6F 20 ...It's hard to

00000890 73 6F 61 72 20 77 69 74 68 20 65 61 67 6C 65 73 soar with eagles

000008A0 2C 20 77 68 65 6E 20 79 6F 75 20 77 6F 72 6B 20 , when you work

000008B0 77 69 74 68 20 74 75 72 6B 65 79 73 21 2E 2E 2E with turkeys!...

000008C0 2E 4C 69 66 65 20 69 73 20 61 6E 20 65 6E 64 6C .Life is an endl

000008D0 65 73 73 20 73 65 72 69 65 73 20 6F 66 20 70 65 ess series of pe

000008E0 72 70 65 74 75 61 6C 20 61 6E 64 20 70 72 6F 67 rpetual and prog

000008F0 72 65 73 73 69 76 65 20 62 75 6D 6D 65 72 73 21 ressive bummers!

00000900 21 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E 2E !..............

We also had our initials in the high-score table as the default names...

Offset(h) 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

000005B0 50 4D 57 41 53 54 52 45 48 42 4A 55 4B 49 44 24 PMWASTREHBJUKID$

As I recall, "KID" was for George.. he used to use that on video games when he'd put in a high score.

Edited September 14, 2015 by pwalters