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Nathan Strum

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Nathan Strum last won the day on December 9 2021

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About Nathan Strum

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    Enjoying a sandwich
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    Seattle, WA
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    Scrabble, Solitaire

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  1. What sort of power supply are you using? It looks like you've bypassed the jack and hardwired something in. That would be the first thing I'd check. Looks like it's had a rough life... lots of hot glue and... toothpicks?
  2. That was my immediate reaction. Battlefield is a much more common term than Battlezone (former Atari IP notwithstanding). Paddlezone sounds just like a pun on Battlezone for the sake of being a pun. That would be okay, but it tends to tie the two games together, when they have nothing in common. The name Paddlefield is unique. Just try to get this song out of your head now: This is also a really good point - I hadn't considered the vastness vs. zone comparison before: The other reason I like Paddlefield (now that it's already been settled ), is that the game makes full use of the playfield, so it's a nice nod to that. - Nathan
  3. Well, you don't have to worry about Paddlezone infringing on any Atari IP. Paddle Battle would be another (surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet).
  4. Kinda digging that one. Could go with the early Sears naming conventions, like: Ball Ball II Ball Plus Ball Fun Ball Plus II Ball Fun II Ball Plus Fun II Ball Combat Ball Combat Plus Fun II Arcade Ball Video Ball Video Arcade Combat Ball Plus Fun II Space Balls (you just knew we were going to get there sooner or later... ) /nothelpful
  5. I'll let you know. It does appear to have a much broader base than the Gravis one did, so it looks to be much sturdier there. I recently 3D printed a replacement joystick for my Gravis (yep... still want to use it) that's hollow, so I can glue the end of a brass machine screw into it. Haven't put it together yet (needs rewiring), but the rest of the controller will probably break before the screw fails. I played my 2600 with a shortened joystick, using my thumb on the top of it. Weird, I know. But it made me a big fan of the dpad+thumbstick combo. Wondering if it's possible to make the opposite of this: https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1295 to use the CX-78 as a Sega-compatible controller on 2600s?
  6. I'll admit I haven't noticed this, since I'm still running Safari under Ventura, and they haven't made that sort of change (yet...). Give 'em a couple of days though, and I'm sure Apple will find a way to make it even worse than the other browsers.
  7. Thanks for the video - that looks great! I'll be getting one for sure (and hacking it to turn it into a right-handed controller - I've never been able to use a d-pad with my left hand). Question - is there any reinforcement inside the joystick shaft? It appears to be hollow. I've never had an original CX-78, so I'm unfamiliar with it. The reason I ask, is that I had a Gravis GamePad years ago (favorite gamepad ever) that used a plastic screw-in joystick, that screwed into a metal-threaded insert. The weak point was always at the top of the plastic threads (at the base of the joystick handle), where the handle would snap off. This was especially so if the joystick loosened up a little - causing more stress at that point because of the extra movement and reduced shoulder support. Gravis sold replacements for awhile, but I didn't stockpile them when I had the chance . Do you think Atari might sell replacement screw-in joysticks for this new one?
  8. Updates: 2-1-24: Turbo Arcade nominated for Best Graphics - 2600 Port, Best Music and Sound - 2600 Port, and Best Homebrew - 2600 Port for ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards. 2-24-24: Turbo Arcade won Best Graphics - 2600 Port, in ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards. 2-1-24: Elevator Agent nominated for Best Graphics - 2600 Port, Best Music and Sound - 2600 Port, and Best Homebrew - 2600 Port for ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards. 2-24-24: Elevator Agent won Best Music and Sound - 2600 Port, in ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards. Congratulations to Pat Brady! 2-24-24: Elevator Agent won Best Homebrew - 2600 Port, in ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards. Congratulations to John Champeau! 2-24-24: "Zombie Project (etc)" revealed during ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards as the Champ Games port of Rip Off. 2-24-24: "WIP It" revealed during ZPH's 6th Annual Homebrew Awards as the Champ Games port of Tutankham. As for the code names: "Zombie Project" should be self-evident, since we actually started Rip Off back in September of 2006. The last binary I have prior to the recent reboot was from March 2007. This is a complete ground-up rewrite, with all-new single-line resolution sprites. "WIP It" was because 1) Tutankham is a Work In Progress and 2) your in-game character is wearing a DEVO hat. For some reason. I really shouldn't have to explain it any further than that.
  9. Instead of "Greatest Hits" or "Best of..." compilations, just once, I wish someone would put out an album called, "Just the Crap".

    1. Show previous comments  7 more
    2. GoldLeader

      GoldLeader

      Our bassist in one band I was in once suggested we put out a "Greatest Misses" album,  but suggested the cover of it be the scene of a bad situation in a truck stop bathroom...Like someone "missed" and got it everywhere (except in the toilet)...Thankfully we didn't run with that idea.

    3. GoldLeader

      GoldLeader

      Also we once played a show with a band called The STDs,  and they only had one album out.  It was called their Greatest Hits. (Let that sink in for a sec).

    4. MarcoJ

      MarcoJ

      another compilation i'd like is all the B sides of their singles. Many times the B side of a single doesn't make it on the Album, or any compilations.

  10. I was debating answering this. I still am. We'll see if I hit "Submit Reply" at the end of it or not. Speaking (unofficially) on behalf of Champ Games, these games are made on our own time, published at our own expense – and please read this part carefully here – there's absolutely zero guarantee of selling a single copy. Nobody is paying us to develop these. Nobody is paying us to publish these. This is not a commercial enterprise. This is a hobby, paid for out-of-pocket. All of the production costs must be paid for, in-full, up front. Circuit boards, cartridge shells, and printing are all bought and paid for, before a single order is ever taken, whether we end up selling any of it or not. In the case of Champ Games, all of that cost comes out of John's own pocket, with, again zero guarantee of making a penny of it back. Once we start selling the games that we've produced, then and only then do we (and I really mean "he" – since John is Champ Games – I just help out with the art stuff) begin to earn back some of the money that's already been spent. But even reaching break-even is an iffy proposition - especially with our older titles that have been available for years, where most of the market is already tapped-out. Up until last summer, Champ Games wasn't publishing our own games – AtariAge was. Once AtariAge decided to no longer carry those games, we could have decided, "Well, so much for that" and not gotten into publishing. But the reason we make games is because we love making games. This is not a commercial enterprise. It's a hobby. And we decided to take a shot at publishing them ourselves. This was not a trivial nor inexpensive task, nor a decision that was made lightly. But we did it because we wanted people to still be able to play the games we worked so hard to make, and play them on original hardware. Also, publishing games for the 2600 is pretty-much childhood wish fulfillment. For the both of us. Any "extra" money that happens to come in from the sale of homebrews – if we break even – will go right back into publishing our next batch of games, and other expenses like PRGE (which itself is a giant money-suck with no guarantee of breaking even either). We do have a pretty-good idea that there's an established market for our games, and that we will likely sell some minimal number of copies of them. But how many is always a guess, and it's also not sustainable. Sales will hit a maximum threshold pretty soon after release, then fall off rapidly. Please read Al's comment above carefully, then consider this additional fact: the "when" in this case is "never". Anyone who thinks that it's possible to earn an actual living programming 2600 games in this day and age is at best ill-informed. Some homebrew developers make and sell limited-edition games like you describe. But those are intended to be limited editions, built in small numbers typically to sell to collectors. That was certainly more the norm for homebrewing 25 years ago, when technology to reproduce the games in physical form was scarce and the process much more difficult. But publishers/resellers like AtariAge, Packrat, Good Deal Games, Songbird and others are more the norm now. That said, everything is limited, because resources are always limited. Publishing games to a broader audience in a less limited manner does *not* make them any less homebrews. Atari is a corporation, with (presumably) offices, employees, payrolls, etc. So yes, they're a commercial entity. They exist to try to make money off of commercial products. They have shareholders, board members, investors, and paid employees to answer to financially. They have to prove they can be a sustainable commercial entity, in order to convince retailers they're worth the risk of carrying their products. They pay people salaries in order to keep the company producing commercial products. They are absolutely commercial. AtariAge, now owned by Atari, is a commercial entity by extension. But the developers creating the games that AtariAge publishes? Homebrewers. To my knowledge, nobody developing homebrews presently sold by AtariAge are salaried employees of Atari or AtariAge. So those are still homebrews. Nobody is quitting their day job to develop 2600 games full-time for Atari or AtariAge. (At least, none that I'm aware of. If you are... call me! ) Audacity made their singular release effectively the same way other homebrews are made. At home. In their spare time. Self-published. Assembled by hand. They chose not to call themselves homebrewers, likely because those developers did work as professional 2600 programmers back-in-the-day, and it would probably seem strange to them to adopt the "homebrewer" moniker in light of that. So it's by their own choice they aren't considered homebrewers. However, if they had decided otherwise, they certainly would've been eligible and welcomed to have their games considered as homebrews. But again - their choice. Yes, Champ Games has a website. And it has an online store. And a logo. And literally anybody can set those up themselves, to sell whatever they create. This means nothing. They're still homebrews. We can't suddenly make more games on-demand whenever we run out of something. There's no bottomless pit of money we can just draw from to re-publish games. In order to make publishing even remotely cost-effective (which is not the same thing as profitable), we have to gang-up multiple titles together and hit certain minimum quantities, otherwise the cost per game would be so high that nobody would want to buy them. And we have no interest in selling to the collectors' "limited edition" market, either. Our entire purpose in going into publishing last year was to make our games available for people to play and enjoy on cartridge again. Once we deemed that possible, only then did we go into production. And it took months for us to sort all of that out, with no promise of any financial return. For circuit boards and shells, we don't have a big warehouse full of them that we can just dip into when we need more. We have to pay third-party suppliers for them, who are also homebrewers doing this stuff on the side. That includes shipping costs, plus whatever up-front expenses are on their end that they have to try to recoup. The advantage of circuit boards and shells is: they can be used in different games (mostly), so we don't have to be so precise with quantity. We still have to buy unique boards for Elevator Agent and Turbo Arcade, but the other Champ Games use the same board that's interchangeable. That helps to spread out the costs, so if one game sells more than another, we aren't sitting on a bunch of unusable boards. But again - we still have to pay for everything we want to use up-front, and hope we guess somewhat right. Guess too low – we run out. Guess too high – we're sitting on games that we may never sell. Then there's printing. Printing is EXPENSIVE. Here's some fun homework: Take any complete-in-box game from Champ Games or AtariAge (or Audacity, or even an Atari game from back-in-the-day) into a local print shop, and ask them what it would cost to reproduce the following full-color printed materials: Box (with custom die-cut) Labels (front and end labels, with custom die-cut) Poster (10"x14", folded) Manual (5"x7" finished size, folded, collated and saddle-stitched, assume 12 pages as a starting point) Have them add a UV (glossy) coating to the box, label and manual cover for good measure. We'll skip the insert for holding the cartridge. But that would have to be custom die-cut too if you wanted one. Not an off-the-shelf item. Use your imagination for quantity. Ask them to quote for several different quantities, since that makes a huge difference in the per unit cost (most of the cost of printing is in setup). Then take into account this is per game. Champ published 12 different games last year. Ask them how much *that* would cost. And also, figure out how you're going to produce the artwork for the packaging in the first place. That's going to take someone's time and talent. You're either going to have to pay for that, do it yourself, or rely on someone doing the work for free. So no - there is no such thing as "NO LIMIT". It's all limited. Crunch all you want. But we're not Frito-Lay. Again - there is no profit motive in homebrews, because there's no guarantees enough of any game will be sold to cover the costs of publishing it. If someone enters into homebrewing expecting to make a profit, they need to find another hobby. Homebrew authors are not paid to develop their games. They do it because they want to make those games. They can put in hundreds of hours developing them, on their own time, whenever they can find the time between work, family, and everything else life throws at them. Call it a passion, obsession, curiosity, challenge... but it's still a hobby. At least among the developers I know. If, on the other hand, someone is being paid to develop a game by a commercial entity such as Atari, then that is a commercial game – not a "homebrew". They're paid under contract to develop that game. It's a job. If someone develops a game as a homebrew, independently, without pay or promise of publishing it, and later on they're paid by a commercial entity to publish it, then the line becomes a little blurrier. I'd say in that case it's still a homebrew, because that was the intent behind it when it was developed. It may gain some measure of "official" status if licensing is involved, but if the original author still defines it as a homebrew, then that's what it is. If they'd rather redefine it as a commercial game, then that's their call. (I'd also amend that to say that if they're paid to substantially re-work the game, the end product is a commercial game.) For some, developing homebrews is about the technical challenge. For others, it's to see their favorite arcade (or other) game playable on another platform it never existed on. Everyone has their own reasons. I've yet to work with someone where profit was the motive. This is a spare-time, "I think I'll sit down and work on this for awhile this evening because I had a real cool idea today" hobby. Even Audacity has stated their goal wasn't profitability. They knew the market going into it. They wanted to make their game because they could. As for "AtariAge-licensed homebrews", to my knowledge that would be Boulder Dash and Lode Runner. I'm unaware of AtariAge having officially licensed any other properties (although some ports have been developed with the permission of the original games' authors, and some games based on Atari IP have remained in the AA store, but that's not licensing as such). And while AtariAge has published original homebrews on behalf of developers, I don't believe AtariAge is licensing those properties from any of them. The homebrew authors still retain the rights to those games, and can do with them what they please, provided they haven't signed their rights away. As for "commercial releases" - that would be Atari, because presumably, Atari is paying for the development of those games. Also included would be Audacity, because that's how they choose to define themselves. The costs financially are significant, but the costs in time are effectively incalculable. Not just for publishing, but developing. I don't know of any homebrew developer who tracks the time they spend on a given project. It would probably be depressing. I certainly don't track my hours, since it's a hobby and I work on it at my leisure and for my own enjoyment. There are no billable hours. Just hours. A little encouragement goes a long way. A little discouragement can also go a long way, the wrong way. It was nice to win the award for best graphics for Turbo this year. John and I put insane amounts of work into that game, and it's nice to be recognized for it. We enjoy that recognition as much as anyones else does who wins - and we do not take it for granted. But when I start reading comments implying that somehow it's unfair Champ Games keeps winning, or we're cheating by using the ARM, or maybe we should be marginalized to some other category, or whatever, it just sucks the fun right out of it. This is a hobby. It's supposed to be fun. We do this for fun. The Homebrew Awards are given out by hobbyists to other hobbyists as a means of appreciation. These aren't industry awards. They aren't "official" since there's no official homebrew governing body. James does this because he loves homebrew games and because it's a really nice thing to do. It draws attention to the games and gives recognition to those who work on them. As far as the whole ARM thing - nothing is preventing anyone else from using the ARM chip for their games. Some do. Others choose not to. If winning an award is someone's end goal, maybe they should re-think their approach. If it's about making the game, then whether someone else uses an ARM or not should be irrelevant. Our end goal is to always make the best game we can. And if we can use the ARM chip to do that, that's what we do. It's not about awards. It's not about sales. It's about moments like this: The ARM chip doesn't magically make games better or easier to program. Champ Games are excellent games because of John's obsessive commitment to make every game the absolute best it can be, and fully applying his insane talent as a programmer. Go back and look at the original Lady Bug or Conquest of Mars for proof of that - and those were just his first two games. The possibilities of developing using the Melody board and its ARM are what enticed John to return after a 10-year hiatus. It made 2600 development interesting to him again. The fact that Champ Games have won a lot of awards is because of John's ability to program, and also that he's so prolific that he manages to knock out two games in a year at times. It's not the technology in the cart that makes a game great. It can make a great game better. But it all starts with the programmer. As for the "easier" aspect, I've created graphics for dozens of homebrew games, and Turbo Arcade was – by far – the most difficult game graphically that I've ever worked on, and I believe John would echo that. We had to develop an entirely new means of working together to get the graphics into the game, including John having to write (and re-write) custom tools for importing the animation. I probably put more time into Turbo Arcade than every other game that I've worked on combined. Nothing easy about that. If anything, the capabilities we were able to tap into due to the ARM made the graphics harder. It might be if there were any. It's already fair. It's fair because James has decided it's fair. If he chooses to change it further, it will still be fair. Programmers are free to use whatever chips, bankswitching schemes, tools, extra ROM or RAM they want. They could even program multi-load SuperCharger games on cassettes if they wanted. But to accommodate all of the variables to fully level the playing field – how much would the categories get fractured to the point where there's just one or two nominees in each? At that point, you risk giving everyone an award just because they made something that didn't fit into an easily-definable category... From my standpoint, I'd love to see the Packaging awards split to cover "Special Editions" and standard editions, since it's really hard to compete with games in custom wooden boxes or that include fancy extras. But there are already enough categories, enough awards, and if I really wanted to compete that badly, I would've put a free Hot Wheels in with each copy of Turbo Arcade, and maybe an autographed greasy spark plug. But I won one for Mappy, and given the level of talent that's creating homebrew packaging, I'm happy with that. (And David Exton should get a Lifetime Achievement, BTW. Just sayin'. Hint hint.) John still owes me a cheeseburger. - Nathan (Oh, what the heck... I spent this much time writing it, might as well hit Submit Reply. Apologies if this is too off-topic James. Feel free to delete it.)
  11. It'd be nice if Atari would allow you to restore the original look of the awards, back to using the Fuji logo...
  12. My comments weren't meant to be critical of what you did - just commenting on the artwork within the labels themselves. No offense intended.
  13. The first two are pretty terrible, although Hobo is so blurry it's really hard to tell. They lifted the tank from Battlezone:
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