Conrad Barski Interview - Creator of FlipOut! & worked on Dante's Inferno

[Adriano Arcade]

Conrad Barski Interview - Creator of FlipOut! & worked on Dante's Inferno

 

In our latest Jag related interview please enjoy my lovely chat with the creator of FlipOut!, the addictive and larger than life puzzler! He also worked on the mythical unreleased Jaguar title Dante's Inferno. He also talk about his love of programming and much more!

 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/conrad-barski/

[Isgoed]

A nice read, thanks

[+save2600]

Really nice, thank you!

[Lost Dragon]

Fantastic work yet again.

 

I really loved the guys honesty throughout the interview and the info on Dante's Inferno was superb.

 

Your doing sterling work for the Lost Jaguar Games community.

 

Flipout took some flak at review, Game Pro describing it as looking so 8 bit it could of been done on the Game Boy ( an absurd comment as puzzle games rarely rely on flashy visuals as a selling point, unless your talking something like Phear/Tetrisphere), EGM were also not that impressed by it and the VideoGame Critic gave it an F grade, but once your aware of how limited it's development environment was and how inexperienced the people behind it were, you tend to be a bit more forgiving of it.

 

They were hardly likely to come up with something like the Jaguar equivalent of GB Tetris or Lynx Klax were they?.

[Pete5125]

I mean, yeah i feel for the guy, but stil no excuse for a game that could be polished more before release.

 

Its not a bad idea but it does play like the video game critic described which is a puzzle game with your cat coming over and stepping on the pieces, yeah intresting idea, but when you play having aliens sitting on a piece you want to move is frustrating beyond belief.

 

Grafix, same problem all Jag games sufferers from they either look like very colorful snes games, or 32bit this lookd 16bit, but it is a puzzler so who cares.

 

The issue is this game ran around 50 bucks selling new, a mediocure puzzle game for 50 bucks makes nobody happy, lucky for flip out, atari released several dozen gamed worst than it on the jag, so it ranks prety much in the middle of the pack, take the aliens out of the picture and it would of been an ok game

[Lost Dragon]

The price of Jaguar games was a bane for myself as well.

 

I bought Cannon Fodder on Jaguar a good while after buying it as a present for my Brother in Law as a birthday present for him, on the Amiga.

 

Same game only this time lacking mouse support and it did not feel like great VFM to be honest.

 

 

I never picked up any puzzle games on the Jaguar as there simply wasn't anything that took my fancy.

 

I think with Flip Out, the games creators knew it still needed work, but that's no excuse for the press to claim it could of been done on the Game Boy, that's just lazy jurnolism and i used to see a lot of it in UK Press when they covered 2D games on the Saturn and Playstation, saying they could of just as easily been done on the SNES or Megadrive.

[+madman]

They were hardly likely to come up with something like the Jaguar equivalent of GB Tetris or Lynx Klax were they?.

The Jag equivalent of Klax has already been developed by the greatest Jag coder of all time, sadly it is unreleased.

[Isgoed]

...... take the aliens out of the picture and it would of been an ok game

But if you do then, where is the challenge?

[Adriano Arcade]

Fantastic work yet again.

 

I really loved the guys honesty throughout the interview and the info on Dante's Inferno was superb.

 

Your doing sterling work for the Lost Jaguar Games community.

 

Flipout took some flak at review, Game Pro describing it as looking so 8 bit it could of been done on the Game Boy ( an absurd comment as puzzle games rarely rely on flashy visuals as a selling point, unless your talking something like Phear/Tetrisphere), EGM were also not that impressed by it and the VideoGame Critic gave it an F grade, but once your aware of how limited it's development environment was and how inexperienced the people behind it were, you tend to be a bit more forgiving of it.

 

They were hardly likely to come up with something like the Jaguar equivalent of GB Tetris or Lynx Klax were they?.

Thanks my friend, always appreciate your feedback and I agree with your points.

[Lost Dragon]

I simply appreciate the fantastic work you constantly put in for the community.

 

Your a legend

[Jagosaurus]

Will give this a read soon. Have a soft spot for this title. There's also a DOS port if anyone wants to run it/test out on PC. Interested to see if that version is mentioned. Thanks!

[Adriano Arcade]

I simply appreciate the fantastic work you constantly put in for the community.

 

Your a legend

Thank you! (blushing face!)

[Adriano Arcade]

Will give this a read soon. Have a soft spot for this title. There's also a DOS port if anyone wants to run it/test out on PC. Interested to see if that version is mentioned. Thanks!

I hope you enjoyed my good friend!

[Lost Dragon]

Found the team defending Flip Out:

 

A couple of items in defense of FlipOut!:

 

1) Replay Value: You can always go back to an earlier level that you prefer once you've past it.  If you've made it to the Fluffy Encounter, save your game and play the Planet Pigskin level for a while on
Psychotic.  

 

You'll be able to try different strategies since the Aliens are chosen randomly.

 

 

2) Ease of play: An interesting historical note is that Cheese Level 11 on Psychotic Mode was originally the first level.  Also, your mileage may vary depending on how well you pick up the game play.  Many people do not immediately get past cheese level 11 on Normal.

 

 

 

3) Low frame rate: Well, it was only a two meg cartridge.  What can ya do, really?

 

And...we could say that for FlipOut perhaps 40% of the code was not written fora ny processor at all (it was instead used to include the graphics into thep rogram).

 

 It's a lot of code on paper, but that doesn't mean that if we" optimized" that code that it would make a whit of difference to thep erformance of the game.

 

Edited November 30, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lynxpro]

On 5/17/2019 at 12:34 PM, madman said:

The Jag equivalent of Klax has already been developed by the greatest Jag coder of all time, sadly it is unreleased.

 

What's it called? I love Klax. Almost as much as Atari Games/Tengen Tetris. I'd love to see that on the Lynx and the Jag. Call it Not Tetris or something.

[Lost Dragon]

14 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

What's it called? I love Klax. Almost as much as Atari Games/Tengen Tetris. I'd love to see that on the Lynx and the Jag. Call it Not Tetris or something.

Put it out on a yellow cart and call it..

 

I can't believe it's not Tetris :-)