gliptitude

It would be cool if you could print the title on screen without splitting it up, along these lines or some other way:

The ball stopping is really exciting. It definitely gives a new prospect and intentionality to gameplay. It is also just cool to look at and think about. So the ball maybe keeps it's reflected trajectory in reserve until you release it. It works. Competitiveness-wise I won more games than I lost in ball stop mode and didn't have a problem with that. But it would be nice to see opponent doing it too. I miss exiting game on button press in the other modes. I don't miss it in ball stop mode because I have the ball stopping to do with the button. I see that game can still be exited, I think with going upper extreme with paddle and pressing button. Ball stop does not work for me in 2P vs game. As soon as 2P touches ball with bat the game freezes and balls start doing crazy things. Usually 1P can exit to menu and then resume the game, but the 2P freeze continues whenever 2P touches again. It is fun glitch to play with but I guess needs to be fixed. I had a couple other less dramatic game interruptions in ball stop mode. Some maybe to do with triggering the game exit accidently. Sometimes it would reset the game and other times just pause. If it is user error I think it is still something many will encounter in typical play. I think ball stop mode is very promising, perhaps answer to some biggest questions with the game. .. Now in that 2P glitch, one thing that happens is 2P is able to move the ball up and down with the paddle controller, endlessly. It is something to try out. There is something confusing to me now with the player/AI selection that initially it starts out with what looks just like the nudge-mode icon.

State Farm is one of the biggest companies of any kind in the United States. They are reasonably going to be targeted by Atari or anyone else who has any claim of IP infringement in one of their broadcast ads. I bet it will just be another negotiated settlement, like an insurance claim. I don't argue Atari deserves it or did anything to earn it or was significantly injured, but this advertisement is a major commercial enterprise and this is the risk of taking pictures without permission and using them to sell things. It is rightfully a bigger risk of being sued when State Farm does it.

I'm not qualified on TV tech like other ones giving input, but I have some basic questions and observations. To start, the Panasonic TV is peculiar in some ways. The coaxial connection being on a cable lead hanging out is mentioned. I had wondered if that was actually the antenna and the place you plug that lead into is really the connection, even though it is wrong gender. How ridiculous that suspicion was or not doesn't matter because I looked around about this TV model and found out it is wrong suspicion. The cable hanging out is what you would connect Atari to, as you have done. I believe I found the eBay listing for this TV, sold on Feb 14 and has the same 0184 sticker. That listing says "No Remote" but I am pretty sure I see the remote in one of your pictures, @kid_snz. Other search results on this Panasonic TV model indicate that the remote stowes inside that bottom front panel. It is another peculiar thing about this TV and the remote itself is pretty unique. So now, is it possible you do have the remote and didn't know it? Your picture: What the remote for this TV looks like: I see also in that eBay listing advertised that this TV displays video successfully. They do not give proof and neither do you. Maybe all they meant was the static shown. But maybe it doesn't actually tune accurately enough or at all to display any input. Did you try connecting another device, VCR, different console, digital tuner, etc? I have other basic questions and ideas but don't know what it is or where at really in the process, just simple variables that are not clear to me. I see two different consoles in pictures, a Vader and a Jr. I see the Vader set to channel 2. Did you try 3? On this TV? Did you try other console? Etc. Verify and show one thing or one combination of two things (a TV and a console) that IS working is something I'd need to see to really know, myself. But that's just me and I'm not one to convince. It just makes me nervous there are so many pictures and none show most basic things I want to know, that console works, which console it is, and that TV is compatible with ANYTHING. There are/were two TVs and neither works, not with anything? Something stinks.

One I discovered recently was Master Builder. I haven't spent much time and it is pretty difficult. But it has nice graphics, very original concept and seems to function.

This a top rated NES game in my estimation, top rated videogame for that matter. I don't know anything else that quite offers what Goonies II distinctively does. And besides gaming attributes, the movie tie-in is very original, clever and abnormal concept. As I recall the game is presented as a sequel to the movie, not a sequel to the arcade game, which is assumed to be forgotten or unknown. The many fantasy elements are so weird and intriguing and not directly based on movie. Winning the game is actually pretty doable without cheating if you keep your own paper record of the two maps, where all the portals are between them and boundaries and other things are located. That in itself is a wildly dynamic concept, two maps that mirror each other and swap back and forth. SNES Zelda Link to the Past gets tons of credit for it but Goonies II does not. Maybe they made some mistakes building it, some things are routinely unfair in it, but it is really a very ambitious NES game which largely succeeds at what was attempted. Among ones you don't often hear about, it gets my highest recommendation.

I think it's great, all of it, although also potentially terrible. And @johannesmutlu is right to credit Nintendo with such meaningful sleights of hand in the design, engineering and fundamental presentation of video games. The ones he cites are only a few examples among many others. But on these game console robots.. Just yesterday I did some private idea peddling, which I call idea jerking off, involving an Atari 2600 robot. An Atari programming tutorial, which is generally incomprehensible to me, specifies that joystick ports are "I/O" although really only ever used for I, they can be specifically programmed for O on each pin. Possibly one could program it to display graphics on an LED array. I would program it to control a physical robot. Maybe some joystick port O is programmed for the AtariVox device? I don't trust a robot to play a game with me or be my buddy like the Nintendo one was presented to be. And it's too much to expect qualified people to spend so much effort building for that purpose. But the basic function of a little clockwork guy who celebrates game events with a dance or other kinetic display would be really neat. That's kind of what AtariVox does in some minimalist applications, just chimes in occasionally with speech to commemorate an in-game achievement. I consider it an excellent reward. Why do it for 2600 instead of elaborating on what already exists for NES? These Atari guys are brilliant and they get stuff done. Expectations are unreasonably high on NES and only very rarely met with homebrew projects. Original Nintendo games are major productions. Atari homebrews have repeatedly and vastly exceeded the original Atari games in quality, and are often the work of a single insightful person, sometimes accomplished in weeks or months, not years. There are several really compelling ones in progress and safe bet to be completed and fully realized, right now as I speak. Also about Atari, not everything has to be a platformer or driven by character sprites and scrolling. Whole environment and paradigm is closer to basic origins, users are accustomed to it, tell a TV what to do using this very restricted pallette and variables. Other concepts of 2600 robot, think of it as the actual display of what is the game program, as opposed to the TV. User controls with joystick. Robot has directional movement and performs one action, such as jump. Might not meet many peoples' competitive gaming demands, but no one would be totally unimpressed by it. I think of it in scale as like the "white knob" wind up toys that used to be ubiquitous, 3" tall. And maybe something that already exists could be adapted for the purpose. Could be like a miniature RC toy. Or I think of ancient concept of "automata". It means it is enduring idea, not just a pop culture craze or modern tech hysteria. Hundreds of years ago they have animated statues for serving people tea. Nobody worries about them taking over. It is just an unbelievably amusing machination. Now, why not to do it on Atari? Well it is kind of ridiculous and probably very few people would care much about it for more than a few minutes.

Well having another try I think some comments are misguided. Sorry about that. Opportunity to nudge depends a lot on board selection. When there is time to do it it does seem like it goes up and down and is useful.

I was referring to steering. I think user wants to know and take for granted how it works, or else be able to learn. Currently, at least the quick impression and expectation I think, is that paddle turn in one direction is up and turn in the other direction is down. User chooses. After user finds out that maybe it isn't that way, they never really come to another alternate understanding. Or they settle on it that it just isn't as simple and intuitive as they had expected. In the universe of 2600 games, users (me anyway) are kind of accustomed to stuff not necessarily working, being a compromise or possibly being an obscure trick they'll figure out in the distant future. We know that it can't always work perfectly in an Atari game. The nudge is always going to be a sneaky fringe thing I think. It's part of what is fun about it, and currently moreso than what is useful about it. How it works maybe you have to "cheat" or misrepresent it in the particular program implementation. Most of the ideas I'm giving are from a mentality of "push the button give me feedback", as a first principle. Then gameplay consequences are accounted for afterwards, perhaps used to choose which push-button-for-feedback scheme among several candidates is the one that is really plausible. Like you say, some potentially kill the game, and they are not plausible even in theory. Now I'm thinking maybe paddle controller function is a major hurdle that I won't understand. It isn't always going to be centered when you want to do a ball move. How does program know not to do a ball move right away in cases where ball is bouncing off a bat at one of the position extremes?.. Recalls how you earlier described menus and reading paddle like a joystick press. But here the user doesn't have time to be so articulate with the control input. Referring to ball move as "steering" suggests it is some kind of direct positional control by spinning the controller rotary switch. I think it isn't really that way, maybe couldn't even conceivably be that way, but it's desirable impression to keep in mind or how hopefully users can be made to feel or believe it is what's happening - steering. Reading paddle position for bats and for balls simultaneously, how it works, or how it could work differently, IDK. (Refers to circle movement) I have noticed the circle move at the core of your other mentioned game Pas De Deux, and it is part of the argument in favor for Paddlefield. The circle move seems like a brilliant trick for faithfully drawing a circle shape in this graphics environment where directly representing a circle image is impossible. That is thrilling. Other ways of thinking about it, if it goes like an airplane doing a loop-de-loop. The loop, if uninterrupted by collision, concludes with the ball in the same or similar spot it was at the beginning of the loop and on the same trajectory as before looping. Let's say now user does not really have positional control of it. They execute loop up or down (ascend/dive) and the loop proceeds. Either it completes the loop and will have had no gameplay consequence, or it hits a cell and bounces off on bounced trajectory. Maybe you can only do it one time like within current nudge restrictions. Maybe it only goes up and according to any direction controller input. Or maybe if restrictions are lessened and multiple nudges are possible, first nudge is loop up, next nudge is loop down, alternating. Doing full loop midair would be useless in game competition. But it is thing user can see clearly and test, probably enjoy, and then know what the function is moving forward. It's also kind of thematically rewarding. Going with basic sneakiness of nudging at all - that is made up fantasy physics - ball is not acrobatic airplane it is ball - like in Video Pinball there is no such thing as directional nudging or balls hovering in air - but it is excellent fantasy. It also reminds one of a Bugs Bunny "curveball", what any kid imagines a curveball might be, which is absurd exaggeration of the real thing, funny and a kick. .. Reworking the full screen horizontal ball move idea: Ball becomes bullet. When user chooses, the choice is to shoot. Ball breaks trajectory and goes straight right. //This one is just brainstorming alternatives. Not the most compelling one. .. Whole other idea, addressing analog switch input on ball, maybe it controls ball speed in some alternate mode. Maybe it is always a switch position read and it functions as accelerate, positive and negative. It would have to be a mode without paddle/bats. But that would seem like a very pure implementation. I don't know if it would be fun or not or if it would be at all competitive. User control test might be useful - an entry point where there are no cells and no competition or timer. Just balls and bats that take input so user can see.

(super nudge): The only time you cannot nudge is when a nudge is already in progress. Perhaps menu selection icon is something like an inverted recycling symbol ♻, with arrows pointing out, or whatever else works. I called this super nudge. Could be called anything else or not named. Or for an experiment and to avoid adding a mode, it is how existing nudge-only mode works, temporarily. Maybe gameplay becomes too easy or too crazy. My suggestion, Do not solve that problem, for now. Try it out for the sake of providing a dynamic ball move and observing it. So that you can play with it and see what it is. *Maybe what you find by doing big unreasonable experiment is another more practical idea that hasn't come up yet. Currently I expect ball to go either up or down, and systematically so, according to clockwise or counterclockwise turn, respectively. That's what I expect and think is intended but I can't really tell it is what's happening. More ideas and crazy, if you want, in alternate modes, the ball can move in a small complete circle with paddle turn, in one or the other direction. Or ball moves all the way across screen left and right, at will. Now I have tried Video Pinball. The nudge is less strong, yes. But it is also very responsive and articulate. The player feels they have direct control of it. It is clear and evident how it works. Hold down fire button and push joystick in desired direction of nudge. It completely works and completely as expected. You are almost able to make the ball hover. You can't do the exact same thing with paddles. But it is something I can refer to that exists.

I am not seeing a title screen at all. Shrinking paddle is neat and seems to work, adds some dynamism. Visually gratifying and also makes landing the paddle much more meaningful and consequential. Major variables appear changed besides ones mentioned include the omission of the checker board, which I miss, (chiefly because it best demonstrates the color reflective paddle graphics effect that I really admire). I do like what I think are two new boards which both look and function different from others. In AI vs AI games ball breaking through all the way and hitting opponent's wall does not win the game, in my repeated trials. Doesn't seem right. I noticed and appreciated the increased nudge effect in previous update. But I can't tell for sure if it is right or helpful. I still feel like nudging is underrepresented in the game and doesn't give what it could. One idea is Super Nudge mode, a nudge-only mode where the restrictions don't apply and you can always do it. A previous comment favors the nudge and compares to Video Pinball. I haven't played it but reading descriptions it looks like the player has quite a bit more control nudging in that game. Can't do it exactly the same way for reasons but I wonder if it could otherwise be a model somehow. Naming the game has been the most collaborative engagement so far. Maybe other parts of the game can get similar treatment somehow, (if that is desired).

Tango-Paddle-Chroma TV Color Bleep and Bloop Color Blip If it is Paddlefield or Paddle-anything, could be first in a series, next up Paddlequest or whichever lends to a viable concept. I can see avoiding Paddle in the title for various reasons. But it is irresistible novelty with the names that keep coming. I don't want to call a game Gravity Pong but I do want to play it, like you might imagine it working, (another game).

Paddlefield Pit Paddle Tele-Versus 275K

Paddle Ball Wars Ping Pong Breaker Ball Breaker Pixel Break Boardgame Countdown/Breakthrough 256 Game Paddle Break Powerball Paddle-force Volley Wars Pixel Volley Prevail A Long Time Ago.. Beforetime Video War Electronic Battlefield Deflection Light vs Dark Array Territory Potentiometer Wars

So cell countdown is not a selected variable. It is always a way to win. And it differs in number according to speed selected. This makes enough sense. I originally thought the double triangles configured speed but got confused, by the game outcomes as mentioned, but also the double triangle visuals and how they alternate when selected. Now I know. An opinion on a not terribly significant detail but I think it could be more intuitive. It looks like it adds up to ten speed variations and it looks like fewer than ten corresponding cell countdown variations. Or if they are different they are imperceptibly slight differences. Could be done differently. I also wonder about score indication. Counts down to zero for left player, but counts up for right player I think? Triangle points to current leader, that is very clear. But when dark side is winning you have to remember or guess what is starting cell number and what is double that number, in order to know the score and how close the end is. Could be different and more clear or more symmetrical. All minor points. Hopefully based on accurate observations.