Two Player Simultaneous Missile Command

[Dones]

I wonder what the resident atari programmers think of this. Is it possible? Can the 2600 do it? What limitations or changes would have to be done in terms of gameplay?

[kisrael]

I wonder what the resident atari programmers think of this. Is it possible? Can the 2600 do it? What limitations or changes would have to be done in terms of gameplay?

I'm not sure what the RAM usage is on Missile Command, but if you had 2 bytes for an extra X,Y and didn't mind flickering between one player's position and the other on alternate frames, it doesn't sound like it would be that hard.

[supercat]

I'm not sure what the RAM usage is on Missile Command, but if you had 2 bytes for an extra X,Y and didn't mind flickering between one player's position and the other on alternate frames, it doesn't sound like it would be that hard.

966972[/snapback]

 

I don't think Rob Fullup's Missile Command would be very well adaptable for two-player simultaneous action. The difficulty would not be with having two cursors, but rather having a playable game given the limited number of simultaneous shots/explosions. Letting each player have three simultaneous shots/explosions would cause unbearable flicker; having three shared among both players would lead to incredibly frustrating gameplay.

 

Something like SDI might be better suited to the challenge. That game allows up to 31 simultaneous missiles/explosions (at present it's a 1K minigame, so player shots aren't drawn/animated--just the explosions therefrom). Two players firing madly could overflow the game's limit, but a reasonable firing-speed control could prevent that while still being quite generous (e.g. one shot per player every 1/4 second)