Tempest Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 After playing with Elevator Action a bit I discovered some interesting and fun bugs in the game. Ride To Nowhere - On the level where you start (on top of the building) try going to left or right and push up like your riding an escalator (go to where one would be if it existed). You'll ride an invisible escalator up to the next level and see a whole bunch of garbled graphics, you'll also be trapped up there. Look Ma I Can Fly - We all know that you can hover indefinetly by pushing up, but did you know you can also fly? Try pushing left or right when hovering, you can go through a whole level without touching the ground. Unbreakable - Here's a fun little invicibility trick. When you get shot push up (to jump) before your death animation finishes. If you do it in time you won't die. This trick won't work in elevators so be careful. Trick Shooting - You can get your bullets to do some strange things by standing next to the edge of the screen and shooting constantly. If you keep shooting your bullets will appear to hover around your body and once you stop shooting your bullets will wrap around and come from the other side. Also, sometimes when you shoot at a level when on the elevator (aim just so your bullet skims the level) your bullet will sometimes turn large and blocky. A Shot In The Dark - I've seen a glitch where a bullet will suddenly appear to come from a door with no enemy there to shoot it. Watch out. Lights Out - I don't know if this was covered in the manual, but it is possible to shoot out the lights. It just takes alot of paitence and careful aim. If You Wait, It Will Come - For some reason the elevator at level nine on the first board takes forever to appear. I've waited five minutes before it finally came. This doesn't seem to happen on later levels. This game is really great, has anyone thought about finishing it? Does Dan Hitchens (programmer) know if theres a later version out there? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidbrit2 Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 He he, it sounds pretty cool. Do you have any screen shots or (not likely) a ROM dump yet? I would love to see this game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Stilphen Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 Hey Temp, I beat ya to the 'wire' on a few of these Check out my post on DP.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 I found a ROM dump of the game, but it doesn't seem to work properly through Stella (It gives an illegal instruction after the title screen.. and I have no other emulators to try it in. It's possible this is a bad dump, but I have no way of telling) I heard of a good solution for the long elevator wait: Let yourself get killed on that floor, and when you come back to life, the elevator will be on the floor below you on it's way up. --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyXB Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 Where have you found this ROM? Please tell us the Link, so we can try other Emulators. Thx Matthias @ Alex have you answer? I have seen your name in the start screen of this board, but here is no reply. If you have an answer, please reply again. Something must be wrong with this post. Matthias [ 08-16-2001: Message edited by: MattyXB ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 16, 2001 Author Share Posted August 16, 2001 Darn it, I thought I actually found something first for once. Oh well... Is it just me or is the game still way too easy? Maybe it's because it's hard not to cheat a little with the inviciblitiy thing. I'm actually amazed at how well it plays on the 2600, I can't wait to see the 5200 version John found. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyXB Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 Argg, I have found the ROM, but no Emulator will play it. I have try these: StellaX v 1.1.3a Pcawin v 2.4 Pcatari v 2.1 Z26 v 1.4 and 1.38 but no one will play it. Only the Titlescreen. Know someone an Emulator which will play the ROM? Here is the Link for the ROM: Prototype ROMs Matthias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutchman2000 Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 I believe this is a bad dump. I am hoping that some one will release a quality dump of this game so we can ALL try it. It might be the fact that this game could possibly be 16k. Anyone know for sure? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 We're working on it. It may be a good dump that just requires something specific from the emu. We do have the cartridge and a dumper, so we can redump it if necessary. I'm working with one of the emu authors on functionality, we'll let you know when we have something. Same story with Thwocker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted August 16, 2001 Share Posted August 16, 2001 How about a dang screenshot!? I got ZERO replies to my original post about it... We wanna see!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 Okay, but here's all I can give you: --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 I've just tried the dump that was posted earlier in the thread on my Cuttle cart and 7800 Dev system Ram cart. The both do the same thing as the emu's, they crash at the title screen. It looks like it may be a bad dump. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wntermute Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 Is it just me or does that title screen look similar to the one they did for Mario Bros.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 17, 2001 Author Share Posted August 17, 2001 That's because they were done by the same person (Dan Hitchens). He also did Gravitar, SQ: Earthworld, Berzerk, and a few others. Tempest [ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Tempest ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+johnnywc Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 Does anyone know how to get a hold of Dan Hitchens? I wonder if he would be interested in finishing up EA - it's so close to being a GREAT game. It's a shame he had to stop when he did - or maybe he has a later version... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 17, 2001 Author Share Posted August 17, 2001 As far as I know, this is as far as he got before the project was canceled. I think John Hardie told me that he got it from Dan himself. I don't know his e-mail address, but if he's anything like the other Atari programmers I've met he's far too busy to finish this game. It would take alot of time and effort to finish and usually they have high level jobs that keep them from taking on projects like this. I think it would be nice if some Atari fans finished EA. The bulk of the game is there, it just needs some minor tweaks which I think a few homebrew authors could do in a couple months. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+johnnywc Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 Tempest - thanks for the info. That would be great if one of those homebrew authors could pick up the torch where Dan left off... Does anyone know why EA was cancelled? Was it the fabled 'crash'? If so, I wonder why Atari didn't finish it during the 'rebirth' period from 86-90. They would have certainly had a winner on their hands. I was playing my copy of the proto at CGE and everyone that came by was REALLY impressed with the graphics and gameplay - we even had some fun with the obvious bugs that were there. I must say, though, that I didn't have the patience to wait for the last elevator - it took forever!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 17, 2001 Author Share Posted August 17, 2001 Yeah I don't know why it was cancelled either. The copyright date says 83 and I know games were being made into 84 so I don't think the crash killed it. Maybe Dan left the company or got pulled off to do another project? There are a few really good protos from around 83 that never got finished and I can't figure out why. If homebrew authors are going ot finish the game I think they would need to get the programmers permission first (or at least they should). Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackjax Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 just to confirm it with you all, the Macintosh version of Stella crashes at the title screen as well... probably gonna be a bad dump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted August 17, 2001 Share Posted August 17, 2001 quote: Originally posted by JohnnyWC: Does anyone know why EA was cancelled? Was it the fabled 'crash'? If so, I wonder why Atari didn't finish it during the 'rebirth' period from 86-90. They would have certainly had a winner on their hands. It's unfortunate that so many of Atari's games never saw the light of day. There's a ton of great arcade games that had sitting around that never got released, or were released in only small amounts (Am I the only one who likes I, Robot?). Some of their unreleased stuff sucked (*cough7800pitfightercough*), but a lot of it was pure gold. --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted August 18, 2001 Share Posted August 18, 2001 quote(Am I the only one who likes I, Robot?). No, I likle I, Robot too. Awesome game by Atari. The arcades in JOliet Illinois were never known for getting unusual or rare games, but the Aladins Castle (R.I.P)at the Louis Joliet Mall had this one and I remember chucking numerous quarters into it/.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted August 18, 2001 Author Share Posted August 18, 2001 I never got to play I Robot in the arcades, but I do play it alot on Mame. Maybe it's time to go diving for the 500 they dumped in the Pacific. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wntermute Posted August 18, 2001 Share Posted August 18, 2001 I like I, Robot also.. am I the only one who wasted a quarter on the grafitti mode on it just to see what it did? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted August 18, 2001 Share Posted August 18, 2001 I never got a chance to play the arcade one, but I have speant many a MAME quarter to mess with the doodle mode Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted August 18, 2001 Share Posted August 18, 2001 Quick update - we dumped our own EA cart, and it goes to the second screen and you can move the character around, but the screen is garbled. So it looks like the dump that's been floating around is bad. We still have some tweaking to do to get it to run, but we're on the right track now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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