Aardvark for Atari VCS/2600

[hizzy]

Stupid question, but how do you kill a spider?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Only by eating a queen.

 

You better hurry!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Against tough competition, Aardvark has won the Best WIP Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards!

 

The team is proud.

[+johnnywc]

Against tough competition, Aardvark has won the Best WIP Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards!

 

The team is proud.

Great job to you, Oscar and Nathan! Aardvark is an amazing game and I must admit it even got my vote for Best WIP Homebrew over my own Wizard of Wor Arcade!

 

Can't wait for the official release and congrats again!

[+sramirez2008]

Against tough competition, Aardvark has won the Best WIP Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards!

 

The team is proud.

Congratulations! Very well deserved. The team should proud. Can’t wait for the official cart release.

[+Nathan Strum]

(I voted for RoboMechanik. But I'm still really pleased Aardvark won. )

[Thomas Jentzsch]

(I voted for RoboMechanik. But I'm still really pleased Aardvark won. )

Exactly the same here.

[Arenafoot]

Hi guys.

 

Some months ago I was reading about the unreleased Anteater for Atari VCS/2600 and I decided to implement my own version called Aardvark, mostly as a way to at last learn playfield graphics, it was one of my weak points as Space Raid didn't have almost any PF graphics.

Congrats on winning the Best WIP Homebrew Game nanochess!!!!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Looks cool!

Edited February 25, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Dionoid]

Against tough competition, Aardvark has won the Best WIP Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards!

 

The team is proud.

 

Well deserved, guys!!! Are there any plans for a cart release?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Are there any plans for a cart release?

We are currently doing some final play testing and iron out the last bugs. In parallel we have started with packaging etc. stuff.

 

So: pretty soon I hope.

[marty]

I really love how cool all of these new homebrews like Aardvark look and I'd love to buy and play them. The thing is, I don't own or want to own vintage A2600 hardware - I'm strictly emulator. But I'm guessing no one wants to sell ROM files of new games for the A2600, since they'd be quickly pirated. So, am I out of luck?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Most ROMs are eventually made available. You just have to wait some months.

[Arenafoot]

I really love how cool all of these new homebrews like Aardvark look and I'd love to buy and play them. The thing is, I don't own or want to own vintage A2600 hardware - I'm strictly emulator. But I'm guessing no one wants to sell ROM files of new games for the A2600, since they'd be quickly pirated. So, am I out of luck?

Marty

I have links to thousands of homebrews and hacks for the 2600 on my Comprehensive List..... for the link to the list see my signature below.

[iesposta]

I was watching the replay of ZeroPageHomebrew James play for high score.

About 1hr into it he cleared a board.

He “button skipped” past the “bonus multiplier” screen.

His score on the next board was the same as at the finish of the previous.

 

If you let the Bonus Multiplier score play it adds bonus to the score.

It seems that if it is skipped the bonus is not added?

 

Is that what happened?

 

Now I went back to re-watch, and I cannot find it. Maybe I was too tired.

Edited March 27, 2019 by iesposta

[+Nathan Strum]

I was watching the replay of ZeroPageHomebrew James play for high score.

About 1hr into it he cleared a board.

He “button skipped” past the “bonus multiplier” screen.

His score on the next board was the same as at the finish of the previous.

 

If you let the Bonus Multiplier score play it adds bonus to the score.

It seems that if it is skipped the bonus is not added?

 

Is that what happened?

 

 

Pretty sure that bug's been fixed in the current version.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Pretty sure that bug's been fixed in the current version.

Yup.

[iesposta]

Excellent.

After that there was the glitch where the tongue was all retracted and the spider was still moving toward the center, but it just died like something touched the tongue.

I remember reading about that, and that should be fixed too?

 

Tanya read lots of Anteater and Aardvark facts.

The “Aardvark Cucumber” also called “Aardvark Pumpkin” was fascinating.

Underground fruit that relies solely on the Aardvark for propagation. Gives the animal water.

Aardvark are 130lb, 7ft long with tail, and eat mostly ants andtermites (over 200 locations per day), and Aardvark Cucumber.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I didn't know about the Aardvark Cucumber before. Else, maybe we would have found a place for it in the game.

 

That glitch should be fixed by now.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

What? I missed out on some tasty bonus?? Damn.

 

I was watching the replay of ZeroPageHomebrew James play for high score.

About 1hr into it he cleared a board.

He “button skipped” past the “bonus multiplier” screen.

His score on the next board was the same as at the finish of the previous.

 

The death/spider glitch happens at 1:21:02 but Thomas mentioned it should be fixed above now so you may want to ignore this one.

Direct link to time: https://youtu.be/lHGd_thW2Q4?t=4860

 

 

After that there was the glitch where the tongue was all retracted and the spider was still moving toward the center, but it just died like something touched the tongue.

I remember reading about that, and that should be fixed too?

 

[doctorclu]

I didn't know about the Aardvark Cucumber before. Else, maybe we would have found a place for it in the game.

 

That glitch should be fixed by now.

 

Hey Thomas, I tried to send you a PM on here but looks like your mailbox is full. Can you please send me a message?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Try again, please.

[mika]

so I had a chance to play the demo rolling 5 level version thanks to the tournament hosted in A2600 section and as a casual gamer all I can say is this is actually one of the best games I ever played for VCS. well done guys, super impressed, and already a strong contender for a number of atari 2019 awards.

 

i know it wont be a popular opinion on this forum, but I am not a fan of most of games for the system - unforgiving game mechanics, unattractive visuals is what usually puts me off, and that includes the homebrew games too. Its not a complaint per se, I just understand that most of these games are for experienced arcade gamers, and for someone like me the nintendos of this world were made.

 

However - saying all that - Aardvark stands out. Visually attractive, with slow learning curve it is perfect for a casual gamer - something that the console library is missing. ok, you may argue that this means the game is too easy (and I realise we are talking about demo version, with the programmers stating above in this very topic, that final release would present tougher challenge in the later levels) - but I hope that the first five levels stay as they are now.

 

for those 5 levels the tactic is relatively easy - all you need to do is train your ants. in practice for me this meant:

-clear two top rows, come back up.

-clear top four, come back up

-clear five-six, come back up

-start clearing bottom rows, kill one of the queens, stay low

-finish off bottom rows, kill second queen in the meantime for bigger bonus.

 

no idea if I was clear describing my tactic, but what it means is that you order your ants to come out in order, so you kind of prepare the ants to come out one by one, row by row. It worked for all five levels, just assuming that full version will be bit harder to beat. btw. working this tactic means that spider is absolutely no threat to you, so I never worried about the night time - I am just too low by the time he comes out, so he never has a chance to get to me.

 

I dont even know why I wrote all of this, haha - just probably my way of saying its a brilliant game and I love it - dont remember last time I was so fixated on the game tactic that much.

 

Brilliant work guys, honestly.

 

Just one more thing - if you plan to increase the difficulty please dont fall into easy trap of making the controls harder. I actually sometimes thought that tonguing down the next hole could be maybe even slightly more responsive, because there was couple or a few times that I got stuck during todays session. nothing serious, so it may stay as it is, but if you plan to increase the challenge in the future dont do so at the expense of almost perfect controls.

[+nanochess]

so I had a chance to play the demo rolling 5 level version thanks to the tournament hosted in A2600 section and as a casual gamer all I can say is this is actually one of the best games I ever played for VCS. well done guys, super impressed, and already a strong contender for a number of atari 2019 awards.

 

i know it wont be a popular opinion on this forum, but I am not a fan of most of games for the system - unforgiving game mechanics, unattractive visuals is what usually puts me off, and that includes the homebrew games too. Its not a complaint per se, I just understand that most of these games are for experienced arcade gamers, and for someone like me the nintendos of this world were made.

 

However - saying all that - Aardvark stands out. Visually attractive, with slow learning curve it is perfect for a casual gamer - something that the console library is missing. ok, you may argue that this means the game is too easy (and I realise we are talking about demo version, with the programmers stating above in this very topic, that final release would present tougher challenge in the later levels) - but I hope that the first five levels stay as they are now.

 

for those 5 levels the tactic is relatively easy - all you need to do is train your ants. in practice for me this meant:

-clear two top rows, come back up.

-clear top four, come back up

-clear five-six, come back up

-start clearing bottom rows, kill one of the queens, stay low

-finish off bottom rows, kill second queen in the meantime for bigger bonus.

 

no idea if I was clear describing my tactic, but what it means is that you order your ants to come out in order, so you kind of prepare the ants to come out one by one, row by row. It worked for all five levels, just assuming that full version will be bit harder to beat. btw. working this tactic means that spider is absolutely no threat to you, so I never worried about the night time - I am just too low by the time he comes out, so he never has a chance to get to me.

 

I dont even know why I wrote all of this, haha - just probably my way of saying its a brilliant game and I love it - dont remember last time I was so fixated on the game tactic that much.

 

Brilliant work guys, honestly.

 

Just one more thing - if you plan to increase the difficulty please dont fall into easy trap of making the controls harder. I actually sometimes thought that tonguing down the next hole could be maybe even slightly more responsive, because there was couple or a few times that I got stuck during todays session. nothing serious, so it may stay as it is, but if you plan to increase the challenge in the future dont do so at the expense of almost perfect controls.

 

The game becomes really harder in next levels, the sun is speedy giving you less time, the enemies are faster, the enemies change direction more often, etc.

 

Don't worry, the controls keep responsive and if you feel like the game is pretty easy, you can start in a more advanced difficuly level (the demo only has medium difficulty mode).

 

I think you will be pretty satisfied.

 

Thanks for your comments!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Thanks for the very kind words.

 

You will have to change your tactics later on and in some variations even from the beginning.