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A while back I wrote an Uno card game in Atari Microsoft BASIC (see here) . Here are the original blog game instructions. More instructions are in the short Uno manual in the .ZIP. To Play: the bottom 4 lines are the letters for your cards segregated by color; red, yellow, green and blue. last line is Spl which is the change color cards. the types of cards beside the colors are 0-9 D=draw 2, S=skip and R=reverse. under Spl are C=change color and F=draw 4. when the human plays you choose SORT, PLAY and TAKE. SORT just sorts your cards. TAKE will take a card from the pile. PLAY will play 1 of your cards. in Play you type the card you want to play by following the prompts. the game plays a standard game of Uno except; Uno call is automatic and has 1 in 12 chance of 'forgetting to call a Uno' penalty which is also automatic. The original version was the simple standard rules of the game. But the real fun of Uno is the various versions of the game that one can play. So I went back to program and added several of the additional game versions to spice up the game, and a little sound too. This is the opening menu choices for the versions. Note that you can load and save your profile choices to disk or just play a default game. I added six new versions of game play: 2S as pick 2? - this version has the 2 card as aTAKE 2 for ALL players. Play a 2 and all the other players will have to take 2 cards. 7S swap cards? - Play a 7 and you can swap your cards with any other player. Take till play? - when you have to take a card you must KEEP taking cards until you get to one that is playable. DRAW4 only? - you can't play a DRAW4 until it's the only card playable. Good Take must play? - When you TAKE a card, if that card is playable, you must play it. NOTE: If TAKE card is playable you get a beep then the game rolls you back to the SORT, PLAY, TAKE screen. The other 3 computer players play a very good game. I programed in that sometimes they will mess up, but not often. I found I win about 1 in 4 or 5 games, which is a good average. I want to also mention that Atari MS BASIC was such an under-rated BASIC. I gotten to really like. It's greatest strength is it's similarity to other 8-bit BASICs of the time. The game disk auto-boots the Atari MS BASIC which in turn auto-boots the Uno+ game. Anyway, enjoy the game. HLO UnoPlus.zip

So I got home and while I was in the garage, I noticed my Odyssey 2 games sitting on the floor in a box and I thought to myself, "I should hook the thing up and see if it still works." It had been sitting in the hot pantry while the temperature outside got to a toasty 117 degrees. So that made me wonder even more. I plugged it in after fighting with the rat's nest of cords the power cord it became entangled in. I turned it on, and there was a little bit of static. You can hear a little bit of static while my Odyssey 2 is on. When before there wasn't any static at all. Oh well. The important thing is it still works. Which is good because this one has no stiff controllers. But then I got an idea. I had plugged it into an NES cord. So I unplugged the NES cord from the VCR and plugged in the Odyssey 2 cord directly into the VCR. That worked. No static at all. Which brings me to this: I have decided I want to begin work on a new Odyssey 2 project. It had been a few months since I finished my last one (ZipZap). But there's a problem: I have no ideas for one. What would you like to see on the Odyssey 2? Give me some ideas.

I have been working on Upmonster for the Odyssey 2 a lot today. Here is a screenshot of the most current version: I noticed some things when I returned to working on this. First, the platforms seemed to be all grouped together and not going to the left very much. So I spread the pit out wider. Yes, the upmonster can jump from one edge of the pit to the other if he needs to. I also made it (IMO) easier to control by lessening the amount the upmonster moves when it's moving. I also put in my new intro in it. It works well. Too bad I can't put it in ZipZap. I tried again and it just didn't like it. So I gave up. Version 24, an older version (and by older, I mean earlier today), is on the Odyssey 2 part of the forum. I fell asleep shortly after writing the blog entry I wrote at 1 a.m. and didn't wake up until about 1 p.m. I was just laying on my bed because I was sleepy, but not expecting to sleep, but I did anyway. But sleeping for 12 hours, I didn't think I was that sleepy.

I am beginning to make a collection of games where the main idea of each is to press fire. The fire button will be the only button used. No joystick movement, either. Right now I've been working on the first game, which is a version of everyone's favorite arcade game. I did a version of this a long time ago, but now I want to make a version that actually works. Actually, for it being 102 degrees outside, it doesn't feel it in here. Must be the A/C. Anyway, I've been working on this all afternoon (it's 1:30 p.m. now.) It can't be completely centered (due to bB specs, I guess). I have two more ideas for one-button games: One is a scrolling game where the guy must jump over stuff (kind of like a cross between Flappy Bird and Super Mario Bros.), and the other is a port of the old homebrew Odyssey 2 game "Air Assault." (I wonder what happened to Revival Studios.) So that's what I'm doing to beat the heat: Not go out in it. Outside is evil. It has bees that sting you. I hate bees because they sting.