Chronogamer

I remember borrowing that card from a friend. Never tried it on a color TV, so I didn't notice the colors in bowling. Doing correct scoring would not have been difficult--even electromechanical machines could manage it. All it takes is two bits which I call spare and strike.

 

Every time a ball is rolled, score it triple if both spare and strike are set, double if one is set, and single if neither is set. Then copy the strike bit to the spare bit and clear it. If the ball rolled was a spare, set the spare bit. If it was a strike, set the strike bit.

 

At the end of the tenth frame, if spare or strike is set, reset the pins and roll again. If spare and strike were both set, score 2x, else 1x. If all pins are cleared, reset them but do not adjust spare/strike. If strike had been set, roll one last ball (scoring 1x).

 

A little more code, but not unreasonable. RAM would be a total non-factor.

 

BTW, try selecting a number of players that isn't 1-4. Zero I think was interesting.

The O2 basketball! looks horrible.The ball is not even dribbled,good thing they did not have fouls/freethrows.Nothing beats the Atari version(from this time period anyway).

I remember borrowing that card from a friend.  Never tried it on a color TV, so I didn't notice the colors in bowling.  Doing correct scoring would not have been difficult--even electromechanical machines could manage it.  All it takes is two bits which I call spare and strike.

 

Every time a ball is rolled, score it triple if both spare and strike are set, double if one is set, and single if neither is set.  Then copy the strike bit to the spare bit and clear it.  If the ball rolled was a spare, set the spare bit.  If it was a strike, set the strike bit.

 

At the end of the tenth frame, if spare or strike is set, reset the pins and roll again.  If spare and strike were both set, score 2x, else 1x.  If all pins are cleared, reset them but do not adjust spare/strike.  If strike had been set, roll one last ball (scoring 1x).

 

A little more code, but not unreasonable.  RAM would be a total non-factor.

 

That seems pretty simple, and I would assume storing that information between turns among multiple players would be just as trivial (two bits for each player, right?). I guess it was a design call and for whatever reason they thought it would improve the game to simplify the scoring. Not the last time this would happen I imagine.

 

I guess I need to stop assuming limitations on the part of the console when a game design seems a bit off to me. Decisions get made and implemented, right or wrong, that may have nothing to do with the console's limitations.

 

BTW, try selecting a number of players that isn't 1-4.  Zero I think was interesting.

 

Cool!!! For those of you who can't try this at home, if you select the number of players outside the given range for Bowling you get a black screen with the basketball timer on it, counting down from 5 minutes. You get the letters "LAYIORS" in the middle of the screen and you get a falling basketball which appears to wrap around from top to bottom and accelerate. It also changes colors (between white and purple) and occasionaly flashes a dollar sign. I'm surprised the programmers didn't check for input! Of course, I didn't think of putting in anything but what they were asking for, but I would think they'd have some error traping/checking habits, being programmers and all.

BTW, try selecting a number of players that isn't 1-4. Zero I think was interesting.

 

OMG that was so awesome! Better than the games! LOL I actually looked at the effect for 30 seconds, until it looped. Twice!

 

Indeed, there's a surprisingly number of bugs in the Odyssey 2 games so far. I don't recall finding nor reading about bugs in the other platforms. I guess testing wasn't Magnavox's thing. Maybe they still dreaded the original Odyssey.

 

Oh, and Basketball... such an unfinished game...