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Backgammon (Intellivision, 1980)

Mezrabad

Entry posted by Mezrabad

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Backgammon (Intellivision, 1980)

 

Sadly, I've been dreading having to play this game. Like most games I dread playing (sports, for instance) it's a great hinderance to moving forward with chronogaming.

 

So, tonight, I had a spare hour or so (family goes to bed before I do on most nights) and decided to get over this little hump in my chronology.

 

Boy do I feel stupid for having put it off. This is a well designed version of backgammon. The play field, like the play field for Roulette, is very easy to read. The keypad and disc is used to play. The dice rolls, use the disc to select a piece and choose the number on the keypad available from your on-screen die roll to move. When done, press "enter", and the game continues. Press "clear" to start the turn over. Press "8" to reset, if it just looks hopeless. It's a really simple and clean interface. My only complaint, is that when selecting pieces with the disc, you can only move around the selectable pieces clockwise (unless my disc is just busted). This is slightly annoying if you overshoot the piece you wish to select, otherwise, very easy to figure out what to do, even without an overlay or manual.

 

Seems whenever I have to play a backgammon video game, I have to relearn how to play the game itself. Took me half of the first game to figure out what the hell was going on, and then three more games to get the hang of it again. I finally won the fifth game, and I will say it was a simple, satisfying pleasure to do so -- somewhere between skipping a rock all the way across the surface of a pond and getting a channel tuned in perfectly just before a TV show starts (from back when that sort of thing was an appreciated art).

 

If you like backgammon, you should dig this version of it, which, as far as I know, is the last version of Backgammon to come out for a home videogame console... (someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, please, I'm pulling it out of my head and haven't actually looked that up.)

 

Backgammon is one of those games that has been around a very long time, and Supercat once pointed out something about the game that made me appreciate it more. It's all about being able to see the probability of getting the right dice rolls to position your pieces to lower the chances of your opponent to be able to advance. Okay, he didn't say it that way, he was explaining something about the doubling cube, but it lead me to that insight. I'm still not any good at playing it, but I no longer dismiss it.

 

Jeez, I don't even have my "left to play on Intellivision in 1980" list around... which means the next entry will be a surprise!

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thegoldenband

Very glad to see your blog back in action! I recently picked up an Intellivision II with a sizeable lot of games, and your reviews have been instructive, informative, amusing, and/or helped to confirm my impressions. I look forward to more entries.

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Nathan Strum

If the current year is 1980... why does the blog title say "Intellivision, 1978"?

 

I'm always glad to see another Chronogaming entry. I know how those kind of reviews are, where you're just dreading "having" to do them. I just got a few out of the way that I've been putting off for months.

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Mezrabad
thegoldenband said:
Very glad to see your blog back in action! I recently picked up an Intellivision II with a sizeable lot of games, and your reviews have been instructive, informative, amusing, and/or helped to confirm my impressions. I look forward to more entries.

 

Hey, Thanks! Words like that make my day and push me forward. My Intellivision adventures began with an Intelly II... I'm still not used to those side buttons! :)

 

Nathan Strum said:
If the current year is 1980... why does the blog title say "Intellivision, 1978"?

 

Ack! Fixed! Typo was due to the start screen for Backgammon actually saying 1978. Apprently this was one of the games they coded in 1978 but didn't release until after the platform was released nationwide in 1980. (It's like they coded a bunch of games, picked a few for the CA test marketing in 1979 and then release them in 1980.)

 

Nathan Strum said:
I'm always glad to see another Chronogaming entry. I know how those kind of reviews are, where you're just dreading "having" to do them. I just got a few out of the way that I've been putting off for months.

 

Thanks! Sadly, while I'm putting off Chronogamer, I also tend to say away from AtariAge in general. I need to be around more so I can keep up with yours and the other blogs I like to read. Often you and the others make me want to write more!

 

The irony of doing this for fun and yet dreading to do some of them paralyzes me like a deer brightened by headlights. "I must play this game to write about it, because I enjoy writing about games, but...I don't wanna play it!"

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Cybergoth
The irony of doing this for fun and yet dreading to do some of them paralyzes me like a deer brightened by headlights. "I must play this game to write about it, because I enjoy writing about games, but...I don't wanna play it!"

 

I always cover 5 games from each issue of my Power Play mags for my "Playing..." articles, so I'm usually just ignoring Sports/Simulation/Board games and Text Adventures. But those summer issues with only a dozen (mostly bad) games give me a hard time as well :ponder: :)

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Nelio

Yeap, best Backgammon game so far. I was sooo close to beat the AI on my first (and only) game! Bummer.

 

unless my disc is just busted

 

Nope. Same behavior on the emulator. Weird, I don't think there's any technical reason for it to be unidirectional.

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