The Video Game Homebrew Crash of 2016

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Interesting read and I do not disagree at all. But this thread is not about (batari) Basic.

[FUBARofPittsburgh]

 

Don't know where you're coming from. But let me clarify; I have nothing against people using bB and making and releasing their own games. Good on them. Always admire people who make an effort. What I do think is killing the hobby is the 25 limited edition releases that cost $50 and don't offer any quality. It lowers the bar and discourages the production of quality product. I also see a number of what I'd term vultures who just churn out crap with dubious IP ownership solely with the purpose of making a buck at the expense of people who will buy just about anything because it's "limited edition" and supposedly scarce. The problem is these people who buy the things, and those people who prey on them. The cycle has to be broken, because it's killing the release of real quality games on the platform.

 

Sadly, there will always be vultures out there. And, there will also be collectors who do not spend their money wisely. Just look at the comic book industry in the 90's. However given the time, effort, and resources that go into making a physical game cart, I don't think we are, or ever will, see the same kind of "flood" of bad games like we saw in 1983. Thanks to the internet we now have a bit of a safety net to avoid these things (most of the time).

[Mayhem]

New homebrews have gone live in the store btw folks

[Fr0st]

New homebrews have gone live in the store btw folks

Cheers man! Boxed zippy ordered phew!

[SIO2]

I know people have said this thread is not about Batari Basic but some of the limitations in the Batari Basic standard kernel are related to the complaints that people make blocky low color games. I think RT pointed this out earlier but I wanted to take a second look.

 

I copied the following paragraph from a 2012 post by SeaGTgruff:

 

"The standard batari Basic kernel uses the 2600's built-in RIOT chip RAM to create screen memory for the playfield. But since there's only 128 bytes of RAM, which must be used for other things as well (the game's "user" variables, plus batari Basic's "system" variables so to speak, not to mention the stack), some compromises had to be made-- namely, there are only 12 playfield rows. However, the last row is actually "hidden" behind the score row, so you can't see it unless you scroll the playfield."

 

So with only 11 pixels in the vertical display, it is easy to see why games would be blocky.

 

Yes, I am aware of the other kernel options which also have their own limitations.

 

Right now my preference is to keep my games / programs for 2600 within the 4k limit. So I am using the standard kernel.

 

Many years ago I first played games on Apple monochrome monitors then later got an Atari with a black and white TV. So single color sprites are fine by me. It is just part of the nostalgia.

 

So, would a batari basic kernel that has two mono color sprites and two mono color missiles and better playfield resolution and still fits 4k be possible?

 

BTW, I understand that some people want to push the machine to its limits and have achieved amazing things. That is great if that is what you want to do. Not everyone wants to do that though. Also blocky or simple games can be great games (Edtris for example).

Edited November 23, 2015 by SIO2

[+Random Terrain]

So, would a batari basic kernel that has two mono color sprites and two mono color missiles and better playfield resolution and still fits 4k be possible?

You could use pfheights to get rows that aren't as tall, but it would shrink the screen.

 

People who play Atari 2600 games like to say that graphics don't matter, but they always come running with arms flailing whenever a game is released with exceptional graphics. Their drool and wild-eyed excitement betray them. They also soil their shorts over adequate to above average ports of beloved games. A batari Basic user should remember that when choosing a kernel and the number of banks to be used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm probably going to use the DPC+ Kernel from now on, even if it doesn't have enough variables.

[SIO2]

Lol. I looked just about like Kermit when I saw New Pac-man for 2600.

 

A while back I got some Atari 4k boards from a homebrewer that replaced them for his product. I don't feel bad about using the boards for my projects since many of the roms are dead. I am surprised by that actually since I rarely encountered dead production roms over the years collecting.

 

Looking at the board revisions has been interesting. Mostly rev E or F but I also got some others like O. If anybody knows where I might find a list of the 4k PCB revisions or any info would be appreciated. I just have to wonder why they messed with it so much

[Shawn]

A while back I got some Atari 4k boards from a homebrewer that replaced them for his product. I don't feel bad about using the boards for my projects since many of the roms are dead. I am surprised by that actually since I rarely encountered dead production roms over the years collecting.

 

 

Are you taking about 4k eprom enabled pcbs or 4k production rom pcbs you are rewiring eproms on and adding inverters too?

[SIO2]

Are you taking about 4k eprom enabled pcbs or 4k production rom pcbs you are rewiring eproms on and adding inverters too?

Stock Atari 4k production boards that I add inverter to. It is maybe more effort than necessary. I am sure the guy I got them from replaced them with eprom ready pcb but I enjoy doing it myself as long as I don't make too many at once. Edited November 23, 2015 by SIO2

[+thegoldenband]

People who play Atari 2600 games like to say that graphics don't matter

 

Not me, they absolutely do matter. More accurately, it's graphic design that matters -- it's not a question of resolution or color count, so much as whether those elements are used to their best effect. It's possible to have a lot of colors and detailed sprites and still have a shoddy-looking game, and it's possible to have simplistic graphics that work perfectly for that kind of game. Smooth motion with responsive controls and well-calculated inertia can make a huge difference in how we perceive those graphics, of course.

 

Similarly, sound matters a hell of a lot. That's something that bB can do really well in some regards -- there's nothing inherent to bB which requires a game designer to have monophonic, out-of-tune, high-pitched square waves like Sneak 'n' Peek. Exceeding the music quality of almost all the classic-era titles should be no problem with the right composer on board. Maybe bB can't easily accommodate the high-level assembly trickery used to do wavetable synthesis or sample playback, but that's justifiably a "bleeding edge" technique.

 

To me, the gold standard for a game that nails every aspect of presentation is Man Goes Down. (Other games reach that standard as well, like Thrust.) Everything about the game -- its graphic design, its music, the tuning of its gameplay -- combine to create the impression of a beautifully polished, wonderfully playable game. You may like the game or you may not, but there's no sense that anything about is rushed or half-assed. And it's not even a finished game!

[SIO2]

Man Goes Down - and it's not even a finished game.

 

Well it was only started around 2004. Quality takes time you know.

 

I have to chuckle because I have a friend that says if you haven't looked at it, used it or worked on it in 30 days just throw it away. He is a neat freak. But the longer a project drags on the less likely it is to finish.

 

I hope MGD does make it to completion though.

 

Otherwise I may just have to make SQuare falls down - Lol. With Sneak 'n' Peek audio even.

Edited November 23, 2015 by SIO2

[Keatah]

The original purpose of BASIC was to encourage people to discover computers and how versatile they are.

 

In 1964 when BASIC was created most people had no idea what a computer could do and many were afraid of computers.

 

The name BASIC stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. So the name like the language was meant to say this is not hard and nothing to be afraid of. It is simple. Give programming a try.

 

It worked. Many people were encouraged to adopt computers. Many new applications were developed. Ordinary people could at last balance their checkbooks.

 

But today, the name BASIC sucks. Not only does it make searching the internet for tutorials or source code diuficult but it causes people to think that the language is the computing equivalent of Play Dough - something fun for children to play with and maybe useful for a quick model but not to be used for a serious purpose.

 

It is not so. BASIC can be quite powerful and fast. I first realized that when I tried Turbo Basic XL on the Atari 800XL. BASIC can also be used for serious projects as MS later demonstrated with Visual Basic.

 

BASIC was awesome to a kid. I loved it and learned a lot with it. I was writing BBS stuff and interfacing BASIC with M'L long before I was a teenager.

 

BASIC also gave me the confidence to get into computing in the first place. And today I use it to generate scripts for a diverse variety of applications ranging from scientific to data recovery to mirroring and leeching websites.

 

ALL HAIL BASIC!

[+thegoldenband]

I think I've just figured out one of the main things that bothers me about some of the new homebrew games I've seen over the last 5-7 years or so: they seem to be written in spite of the Atari 2600, not for it. Maybe this is utterly obvious, but hey, it just hit me.

 

In other words a lot of newbie ROMs -- and a non-zero number of games that have come out on cart -- feel like they're really trying to be a GameMaker game or maybe an early or low-end NES game. In these games it doesn't feel like the author wants to adapt to the Atari 2600 hardware, with all its quirks and unexpected strengths, but rather that he (or occasionally she) is forcing a pre-existing vision onto it, whether or not that vision is a good fit for the console.

 

There's a way in which bB is enabling that, for better or worse: by abstracting away the realities of the system, you can pretend it's a NES or ColecoVision; by throwing bigger and stronger helper chips at the problem, you can get away with knowing less and less about the underlying architecture. That's simultaneously a good and a bad thing, depending on your point of view -- either perspective is valid -- so please, no snippy comments about "bashing bB" or whatever. Everything is double-edged; every choice has a price; no discussion is honest without acknowledging that.

 

(BTW this is something fundamentally different from efforts like Boulder Dash and the Ballblazer and Castlevania demos. All are porting games from stronger platforms, but doing so in a very classy and er, "organic" way that seems deeply attuned to the realities of the VCS -- and in the case of the first two, Atari 8-bit > Atari 2600 is a very natural leap.)

 

Also, on a related note, has anyone else ever gotten the sense that for some devs, they view the Atari 2600 itself as...kind of a joke? It's possible to make that joke with affection, like this Homestar Runner page, but it's also possible for it to have a snide, hipster-ish undertone where you're implicitly mocking the system. I dunno.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Those "bigger and stronger helper chips" can be used by both assembly and basic programmers and the idea of adding something to help the VCS out isn't new. The DPC+ chip used by homebrews is an update of the DPC chip used in Pitfall II. But I do agree with your point of trying to force too much game into the 2600. Sometimes it can lead to something mindblowingly amazing, but it can also lead to an unintelligible mess.

 

I'm not sure how many developers view the 2600 as a joke. I think it's pretty safe to say none that post to the AA forums do. But I have seen some games made by people who maybe didn't grow up with Atari or just aren't familiar with it for whatever reasons but stumbled across bB somewhere and tried to make a game. I sort of get the impression that they think their simple little games are all the 2600 is capable of, based on their limited exposure, and think it's funny that people used to spend their time playing games like that.

[iesposta]

In response to the last two posts.

I agree that many, even those that experienced Atari and moved on, can forget that games then and now are fun, challenging, entertaining, exciting, etc. and many may not have experienced what has been and is being created for it and think simple games with blips (a set up from Pong) is what the Atari 2600 does.

 

Good, original games that play to the 2600's strengths are hard to make and are rare. Seemo's games get this correct. They feel made for the system. "Lead", "Omicron" and "Palimino" all scream Atari 2600 fun to me.

 

But I am all for pushing for the next technique or hardware on cart that can allow more advanced graphics, sound music and gameplay, because it all still has to work with a normal Atari 2600. We are adding RAM and EEPROM and ARM processing in the cart, but we are not changing the 2600's processor, adding RAM, or a video card circuit.

 

If I design a game or dream of what an arcade game could have looked and played on the Atari, I look at the limited options the Atari has and how I can creatively use them.

I learned first about background, playfield, player 0 & 1, missile 0 & 1, and the ball, about the score routine and other creative reuse of the 2 player sprites, and learned about all the tricks and techniques that are used in great games. Only then can I start a mock up.

[+thegoldenband]

Just to be clear, I have no problem with chips being used to extend the capabilities of the VCS; there's tremendous precedent for it, and we owe some of our best games to it. What I find more problematic is when people use the firepower they supply as a way to avoid really engaging with the hardware. And that's sort of explicit in bB: as Random Terrain noted earlier, you have to use DPC+ with bB just to duplicate the kind of sprites routinely found in Activision and Imagic games. In other words, you're using a powerful chip to abstract and duplicate well-established techniques that can already be done on stock hardware.

 

The inefficiency of it vaguely bugs me, in the same way it'd bug me if a student wrote a piece for piano that required a helper for a few otherwise-unplayable notes, because they wanted to treat the piano like a giant MIDI instrument where they can write whatever they want without having to think about logistics or the number of fingers on the human hand. I guess I think to myself "If you don't want to actually write for a human pianist -- with his/her physicality and physical limitations in mind from the very first note of your piece -- why not just write electronic music?"

 

100% agreed that seemo's games are exemplary and utterly "Atari". I'm privileged, and proud, to have made some small contribution to a couple of them -- using bB, in fact!

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I didn't mean to imply that 2600 developers shouldn't push the hardware to new heights. I was trying to make more of a "power in the wrong hands" point.

 

Say someone decided to make a first person shooter for the 2600. If that person got hung up on the idea of creating an immersive, 3-D world using the 2600 playfield graphics. If they aren't careful, they'll end up making a blocky mess that detracts from the playing experience.

 

But, if they were to focus on the core elements of gameplay, they'd end up with something like Skeleton+, which is a great game.

 

 

The inefficiency of it vaguely bugs me, in the same way it'd bug me if a student wrote a piece for piano that required a helper for a few otherwise-unplayable notes, because they wanted to treat the piano like a giant MIDI instrument where they can write whatever they want without having to think about logistics or the number of fingers on the human hand. I guess I think to myself "If you don't want to actually write for a human pianist -- with his/her physicality and physical limitations in mind from the very first note of your piece -- why not just write electronic music?

 

Totally unrelated, but this reminded me of a singer friend of mine who wanted to start a band in college. He came up with a bass line using a keyboard without taking into account the difference between playing something on a keyboard and and actual bass. Parts of it were literally unplayable.

Edited November 24, 2015 by KaeruYojimbo

[Omegamatrix]

To me, the gold standard for a game that nails every aspect of presentation is Man Goes Down. (Other games reach that standard as well, like Thrust.) Everything about the game -- its graphic design, its music, the tuning of its gameplay -- combine to create the impression of a beautifully polished, wonderfully playable game.

Yeah, that game hits every strong point well. And it is well polished.

 

 

Definitely the best 2600 game never released, and it's better then a lot of released ones too.

[Keatah]

I'm not sure how many developers view the 2600 as a joke. I think it's pretty safe to say none that post to the AA forums do. But I have seen some games made by people who maybe didn't grow up with Atari or just aren't familiar with it for whatever reasons but stumbled across bB somewhere and tried to make a game. I sort of get the impression that they think their simple little games are all the 2600 is capable of, based on their limited exposure, and think it's funny that people used to spend their time playing games like that.

 

I wonder if the gaming challenges the VCS offers are simply alien to many of today's console and smartphone gamers? And what they don't understand they diss and make fun of?

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I wonder if the gaming challenges the VCS offers are simply alien to many of today's console and smartphone gamers? And what they don't understand they diss and make fun of?

I dunno about mobile. While there are parallels to early VCS games (extremely simple games like Flappy Bird for instance), the gist of it is Mobile games = uninspired developer + unlimited resources whereas Atari = creative developer + extremely limited resources. I mean, the bulk majority of Atari games prior to 1982 were 4k ROMs and stuff. On any platform, there's not a whole lot you can do in 4k.

[SIO2]

I guess I think to myself "If you don't want to actually write for a human pianist -- with his/her physicality and physical limitations in mind from the very first note of your piece -- why not just write electronic music?"

This is not specifically a response to what you said here but your thought triggered my thought: If someone wants to write a copy of a game that was designed for a more powerful platform why not use more powerful hardware or tools that extend the less capable system?

 

I love the arcade conversions, etc. that have been done. I understand that the programmer enjoys the challenge of bending and folding that game into the tiny VCS. Props to everyone involved there. Just understand that some people are not going to get why anyone would want to spend ten to twelve years creating a game of any sort let alone one that already exists on the hardware it was designed for and can be played freely through emulation.

 

Everyone chooses their own path. Some people spend years building a ship in a bottle. Some people knock together a little plywood and have a day at the lake. Others just buy a boat and complain that it would have been a better boat if they had built it.

 

Choose your own path but don't try to force people to follow yours or ridicule their efforts or lack of.

 

Again, this is not a reply to any specific person. Just saying that is the way things ought to be.

Edited November 24, 2015 by SIO2

[Keatah]

I've seen some guests come over and be afraid of VCS games. I was playing Turmoil and they recoiled in horror that the action was too fast. Same thing with Dragster trying to shave off the last few hundredths. By the time I got into some arcade games and shooters they were cowering under the table.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Keatah

[Mr SQL]

We are adding RAM and EEPROM and ARM processing in the cart, but we are not changing the 2600's processor, adding RAM, or a video card circuit.

 

 

Yes we are changing the processor by adding the ARM: from 8-bit to 32-bit + 8-bit. And we are adding 4K of RAM to go along with that, and even a software driven video card circuit a la bus stuffing.

 

bB and vwB add software driven video cards with enhanced graphics options with extra RAM enabled using legacy enhancements available in the 80's.

 

Anyone know if DPC+ bB is limited to the features of the Pitfall II chip, or is it using the ARM for additional routines?

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

But I am all for pushing for the next technique or hardware on cart that can allow more advanced graphics, sound music and gameplay, because it all still has to work with a normal Atari 2600. We are adding RAM and EEPROM and ARM processing in the cart, but we are not changing the 2600's processor, adding RAM, or a video card circuit.

I am for doing both, games closer to the originally available hardware and games pushing the limits with modern hardware.

 

Personally I am more in favor of the original specs, because that's a pretty well defined playground. I left 80x86 assember after realizing that the target is constantly moving.

 

But if people are pushing with modern hardware that's fine by me too. And after Harmony even faster will hardware become available, e.g. an ARM with 140 or even 700 MHz (vs. the current 70 MHz) and more RAM (1 MB, why not?). The only current bottleneck is the TIA (and the kernel using 650x assembler), probably even that can be more and more eliminated. Maybe someone develops an overclocked TIA. And so on...

 

If the results are still Atari 2600 games is completely subjective.

[Cybergoth]

Fun thread. It's been almost 15 years since we first tried to establish an Activision like quality branding for homebrews to separate our hard work from cheap and crappy cash-in releases. Nothing has changed...