atari2600land's Blog

8bitplayerswillriseagain · July 4, 2014

Oh, man! I like SO MUCH that people are active in this "retro" site, and all of the other sites dedicated to emulators, articles, and looking back at this era in the computer/digital age! I actually have a former co-worker that has a son around 8 years old, that I have promised to re-make some B.A.S.I.C. programming tutorials that I once narrated on a Commodore 64 emulator! I once was a student at University, that had founders of the Computer Science curriculum, that had their students programming in ASSEMBLY as one of the classes! I thought that was brilliant, because there is NO WAY that a "noob" being taught Object Oriented Design could appreciate and understand how it evovled tothat, without having some intimate knowledge of the bare bones functionality of a computer on the Binary level, and then see how it goes to hexadecimal, then a language like Assembly, then something like Pascal or B.A.S.I.C. and then into C++ and C#.

This causes me to say that there is a HUGE academic need for us "old folk" to keep the knowledge ALIVE!!

You know that in World War II, the Allied Forces used freakin' NAVAJOE as a medium of communication, because apparently there wasn't a SOUL ALIVE in Europe, who had any access to archives or such, that could learn the language!!

Maybe is some weird, future scenario, us "retro old folk geeks" may communicate over the Internet using files that only make sense to an emulator, to communicate with each other!

Who knows?

BUT back to your original plea:

I may say if you dig enough for a game either on the Odyssey 2, or any other 1980's console, that people had at least ONE complaint aboutm and then re-make the game with that complaint ADDRESSED!!

Like for Asteroids Deluxe, I hated that the shield did not recharge over time! It's one thing to not give it indefinitely on demand, but another to have a FINITE supply, and then just run out! You're guaranteed to DIE, no matter how good you are.

What about making a pumped up, but still "retro look" (vector graphics) of Asteroids Deluze, that allows the player to re-charge the shield, if they play for a good while, WITHOUT using it???

maybe the longer they wait, the longer the shield lasts?

OTHER IDEA:

I've only played Asteroids Deluxe on an emulator made for Windows 98 (that came with some AWESOME Nolan Bushnell interview footage), and saw the FINITE shield "problem". BUT I did have Asteroids for the Atari 2600! I remember (I may have to crack open my old manual) that you had:

(Defense Weapon #1:) Hyperspace (basically a teleport, to hopefully get you OUT of the spot of four giant asteroids closing in on you, and into an empty pocket of space).

(Defense Weapon #2:) Shield (hold it down for too long andthe ship EXPLODES)

(Defense Weapon #3:) Thrust (use it to propel the ship out of the path of an upcoming asteroid)

...and any others, I have forgotten!

I think you always had thrust, BUT you had to CHOOSE between Hyperspace OR Shield.

(If I am not mistaken; I'll have to Google the manual and come back and edit this post if I am mistaken...)

But, dude!!!!

Make a variation of ANY game that you liked back then, BUT with some kind of perk that won't make you 100% invincible all of the time, but a rational way to sparingly use a resource (shield, deflect, stronger bullets, etc...) that can make a GOOD player last a decent amountof time longer, than they would have in the original!

Hell, narrate some screen capture footage of your desktop and the ACTUAL code that you used for this new incarnation of the game, and post it on YouTube as a tutorial to barebones programming concepts!!

You know aboutthat YouTube video that showed Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg (sp??) getting young kids to learn some introductory bare bones concepts??

Remember that after Ashton Kutcher got RAVE PRAISE at the teen's choice awards, where he called himself a PHONY, and said that being SMART is sexy, and that life's opportunity is disguised as WORK?? That dude EARNED TEN LEVELS more respect from me, than had he done ANYTHING else!!!!! He mentioned on his Facebook that he was trying to get MORE "common" people (as I prefer to personally say, the "non-nerds") to CODE, yes to ACTUALLY PROGRAM, and the HE HIMSELF did 99 lines of code (or something tothat effect!).

HELL, dude!!! Start with your "game" just being a BLOCK, like the player in Adventure (Atari 2600), and narrate the FULL code, LINE BY LINE, to show EXACTLY what the code DID, call that "Game Embryo Level 1", and then when you add a feature, like the ability to move in 8 directions, call that "Game Embryo Level 2", and go over EACH LINE of code, and narrate THAT version with the screen capture footage AS WELL!!!

Break it DOWN, Homey!!

MAKE kids today LEARN and use that BRAIN MATTER!!!!