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Is there ANY possibility of a Boulder Dash Re-issue


p.opus

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Yes, but that hasn't stopped some games from gettings bits snipped or added when making their way across the Pacific.

I got the game from Japan and it is identical to the U.S. Version with only slight changes to the title screen. I never really played the game much in the past, but I will say that this version is really fun and cheap!

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First star is very quick to reply to emails! Should the original programmers want to re-release the game in some way First Star asks that they contact them. I can only imagine what they want in cash for the release, but a nice woman named Diane says she would be happy to talk to either the programmers or Albert.

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First star is very quick to reply to emails! Should the original programmers want to re-release the game in some way First Star asks that they contact them. I can only imagine what they want in cash for the release, but a nice woman named Diane says she would be happy to talk to either the programmers or Albert.

Hooray! :D

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First star is very quick to reply to emails! Should the original programmers want to re-release the game in some way First Star asks that they contact them. I can only imagine what they want in cash for the release, but a nice woman named Diane says she would be happy to talk to either the programmers or Albert.

 

What? Let me get this straight, you asked the programmers or Albert for permission to contact First Star, correct?

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I asked if they had any thought of releasing games like Boulder Dash for old consoles like the 2600, and they said that the programmers and AA should be the people to handle any such release. If both parties are mutually interested and can come up with a deal, that would be nice. If not, then I guess I'll keep my eye on ebay.

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Sounds a bit different to their previous answers to us. But maybe that's just a misunderstanding.

 

 

Problem is, I am not interested (or even talented) to handle legal business. And Andrew has left the scene. And I doubt Al has a lot (if any) of spare time. So most likely the negotiations would have to be handled by someone else, who gets our permission. No clue how this would work.

 

 

Also I have no idea if we are talking about a free or a payed download here. The latter would be something completely new. Which may required quite some work on Al's side. Maybe even more depending on the deal requirements.

 

 

So we now need someone who is willing to invest his spare time into this. He (or she) has to be 100% trustworthy and dedicated, because I wouldn't want to annoy FSS and ruin any existing chances.

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FSS is kind of a unique company in that I get the impression from hearing people talk about them and reading things online that they don't care so much about making games for older systems but making sure their copyrights are protected and kept. They are a hard company to deal with, requiring a lot of back and forth talking and negotiation, and a set amount of money in order to give the rights for X number copies of Y game for Z system to anyone and they have to look serious about it. As far as they are concerned, they made their money on the 2600 contract and it would be up to the 2600 people to approach them about re-doing it for the rights to do a second one, which no one involved in the project is eager to do. To be fair, this game WAS available for quite a while before it sold out. It sucks to anyone who is trying to buy homebrews now that they can't get it without paying a huge amount of money on the third market, but that happens with a lot of games for a lot of systems. And again, since FSS is still a active company, they can't just give out the ROM either.

 

This is quite an accurate analysis.

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There's just no way of making everyone happy here; but we have stuck to our word and have not re-released.

FSS is not to blame, and I don't think Thomas or I are to blame. We gave a promise. We have kept that promise.

Move on, nothing more to see here...

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There's just no way of making everyone happy here; but we have stuck to our word and have not re-released.

FSS is not to blame, and I don't think Thomas or I are to blame. We gave a promise. We have kept that promise.

Move on, nothing more to see here...

 

Andrew I think the best solution is on the thread you shared in our programming discussion the other day - a BoulderDash engine to allow games of similar genre to be developed:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/62704-flicker-free-large-sprites-sample-mpg/page-3

 

You don't have to write a BASIC to go along with it, or at least not right away - just put together some docs and an API for the engine and you've got the RUNTIME.

 

People could use the RUNTIME to build games in asm right away while you work on the compiler, or you could interface it to bB or Gip-Gip's c compiler.

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What about selling the final version rom to FSS who in turn can licence it to ATGames for however and whatever they want? It would definitely be a highlight of a future version of the Flashback.

Then again, lawyers will eat your souls as part of the process but then the people that want to play it would have an option

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I am perfectly happy to open source the engine code, and assist/advise in understanding it. Just need to remove the FSS copyrighted stuff, which is essentially the graphics and game logic.

 

That would be a cool construction kit to release, programmers can add logic and graphics for a variety of games of that genre.

 

Same here.

 

Actually Andrew and I had started to convert the code into a better, much more flexible ROM format. And separating copyrighted stuff during the process. Unfortunately RL interrupted this.

 

That is a good reason to release it in the existing format and make the cleaner version the next release candidate.

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