Gemintronic

At this point Wizardry, Dragon Quest and Rogue-like styles are tied. The Hive Mind (people who have posted) seems to consider a rogue-like to be do-able. Do-able is critical. Today I tried 4-way scrolling with the Nethack mock-up. It actually worked in SuperChip hi-res! For how long is the question. Once AI, level loading and interface code is in place it could go bonkers. I still have to figure out proper collision and tile loading. In a Windows game I used an invisible object to trigger the player collision events and let the end-user see a static sprite in the center as a placeholder for the character. Not sure if I have to go that far here (yet).

Fakie text mode looks kinda bad without color. Too bad each row only supports one color Good news is SuperChip allows a 5 x 5 grid with a space between tiles ..ooohh man! Dragon Crystal for the win! Wouldn't have to fake text graphic for that.

One of my possible game ideas for the next project is a RPG. Apparently this is a herculean task as other have failed. Some have failed hard enough to leave a bad taste in peoples collective mouths. So far I've broached the subject without injury. Just good folks with good advice so far. Here's what I've learned so far from community members: * Don't announce. Especially in a genre that's had disappointment and failure. * Design and do just for you! Popular style != Incentive to complete game. * Controlled randomness is key. 2600 forces less full motion video and more gameplay. Made a mock-up Treasure of Tarmin style which got some positive response. I've never programmed a 3D perspective engine so the prospect of coding further is scarry. I think a basic tile engine is in order. Whatever style I go for it seems to be needed. If I can sneak some more coding time in that's what I'll be doing.. let's see how good I am at sneaking such time in

A Rogue-like sounds actually do-able. ADOM wasn't built in a day. Some people actually take seven days http://www.roguetemple.com/7drl/ With the score area you could either display 3 stats |HP|HP Bar|MP|MP Bar|XP|XP Bar| Or six commands a button press away. Naturally, "kick the throne" would be icon #1 A Google search turned up negative for A.T.O.M. Atari Tunnels of Mystery

@Ben_Larson: Thanks for casting your vote and contributing some constructive feedback!. If you didn't vote, please don't think of voting as a sign of confidence in me. I know the history of home brewers and 2600 RPGs. I just want to know which way you would swing IF there was another Atari 2600 RPG out there. I mean, anyone can declare a project and even post screenshots. Doesn't make it real. I see a real problem with the 2600 resolution. If I wanted to make a Treasure of Tarmin homage I'd have to go SuperChip just for barely enough resolution. See what I mean below. Must be some really bad blood about the whole 2600 RPG subject. 170 views and only 6 votes for just discussing such a topic. Maybe I should prove everyone wrong (about 2600 RPGs) just to change the mood

I'm pretty sure I was at a Chuck E Cheese as a kid when I saw Pac-Land. The owners must have collected Pac related games as I also remember seeing Pac Man Plus and Baby Pac Man (The Mini Pinball/Arcade Game Thing) Didn't actually play the game until much later in life. Sadly, in my opinion, no big loss there.

Yeah, I thought about The Magic Candle II and others as a possible voting choice. I thought Final Fantasy was close enough without the complicated commands and grid based battle system. Ultima III for the NES ruined grid based battle systems for me

From some of your other posts it sounds like you are planning to do one. If so, I wish you luck. However, you should create it based on the type you enjoy most, not what you think would be the most popular. These things are very time consuming and if you are writing something you aren't really into it will never get finished. As far as CiE, take away from that that you shouldn't talk about it until you have something to show (a WIP for example). It just gets people worked up. As far as voting goes, I'm more old school than most of what you've listed and have already made a dungeon crawl similar to my favorite Telengard: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/127378-dungeon-2600-release-candidate/page__view__findpost__p__1590573 Haven't played Telengard much but I'll study it for sure. I'm no social butterfly - not that you said I was - I'm just fishing for ideas. What people like. What makes a good RPG. Sometimes what you like can come into focus from others input. I'm not announcing anything as I said in an earlier post in this topic. Right now I don't know what I want to do next. Leaning towards a shooter of some sort. Anyway, thanks for explaining your position in greater detail. I'll take it your informal vote is [*] Other: Telengard. (Seems like a Nethack/Rogue-like to me though)

Looks like s0c7 is leaning towards turn-based RPGs like the CiE he pointed to. I seriously doubt he was just trying to be negative. Seems like Roland P is leaning towards Zelda and SD Snatcher (which I will do research on). Thanks for the constructive input so far guys! Remember to vote when you can @Random Terrain: Your wish is my command! Consider controlled randomness on the top of the feature list!

@Roland P: Imagine the person that's gonna make it is competent enough to come through. I already asked around and all my feedback says developers shouldn't announce first. Did you vote? @s0c7: Looks like they were trying to make a turn based RPG. Too bad it fizzled out. What else should I take from that topic? More importantly did you vote?

The easy way would be to develop a library of universal routines and port them to each platforms basic. The hard way would be to rewrite Commodore BASIC for each platform http://cbmbasic.sourceforge.net/

So, I see a lack in RPGs for Atari 2600. DragonStomper and, er.. I don't see much else. Treasures of Tarmin never came out. What should the next Atari 2600 RPG look/play like? Can't decide? Choose more than one!

I've had thoughts but lack of parser experience has led me to think differently. Two ideas: Create a non-programmer friendly GUI drag-n-drop environment that has templates for Batari BASIC and BasiEgaXorz (Genesis BASIC compiler) code. Just as Batari masks complexity (i.e. kernel design and bank switching) so too would this game engine. Another idea is a meta-BASIC that could be broken down into platform specific BASICs. Believe it or not, there are choices for video game consoles: Batari BASIC (2600) nBasic (NES) DragonBASIC (GameBoy Advance) BasiEgaXorz (Genesis) Why not include QB64 for PCs? One BASIC to rule them all? Maybe..

I never knew the name of the game. Good work hunting that down! I vaguely remember being irritated by a turn limit/time limit but it's been a LONG time. We're talkin' Tandy 1000 long time! Wasn't my favorite but not bad by any means. Somehow or always got put back into the disk drive

Almost "family vacation" time. Hopefully will be Flea Market hopping for great justice. At night I intend to open up a laptop and code. I'm still torn between starting a simple project (Knightmare clone) or striking ground on a Atari 2600 RPG. The Knightmare clone project was continuing my trend of releasing simple games to learn Batari BASIC. Maybe I should start learning BB by making the game I want in the first place. As usual the AtariAge community has been awesome. Even caught a fresh copy of the Batari manual thanks to Random Terrain. Wish me luck getting stuff done!

Casual gaming is just another trend. It's an attempt to get new market share - they already have us. I personally think there is nothing wrong with simple game/lower price tag. Every console generation production costs go up and reason to innovate (take risks) go down. Snack sized games will (hopefully) allow developers to take risks again. "Casual Gaming" is not a new thing. Games have simply wandered away from pick-up-and-play. I have a friend who hasn't touched a joystick in years but played Fairchild Channel F day in and day out. The games were as simple (if not more) than anything "casual" today but he played like a "hardcore" - invested serious time and money. Unfortunately, just as I think casual games are a good thing the pay to play and pay for parts thing is lame. The (corporate) dream is to have everyone pay monthly and pay extra for added features or using features. Heck, Kindle books and Android apps can be remotely TAKEN AWAY. That's right: It's not bought-for property anymore. Hopefully the market (i.e. us collectively not buying stuff from badly behaving companies) will sort these issues out. In the meantime I see nothing wrong with the "hardcore gamer" or the one who wants snack sized games.

When the TV on the "master" outlet turns on everything else gets juice. I picked APC as an example as I've had good luck with their UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply).

Thanks Batari, Philsan! Downloaded as HTML and PDF for my reading pleasure. Gosh, 2 votes for just the manual? Is this a hint? I knew posting my source was a bad idea *joking*

Any chance GPS trackers are small enough to fit inside an Atari cart? We could combine the Jaguar VR headset with Google Maps for the ultimate Chase H.Q. remake!

Taking a week haitus from work. Bringing along laptop. Don't expect much Internet. What would one bring for effective Batari BASIC programming? Of course Stella, BB and VisualbB are a must. Anything extra that would be handy?

One issue I had with MorphOS is that there was no full disk encryption and no passwords for user accounts. Is there any security features or software for Atari ST compatible systems? Something like FireBee seems nice but security through obscurity only goes so far.

I know not to trust goodwill in men but could it just be misplaced? Put in the wrong box at the end of the night? What about security cameras? If the last siting of the cart is known maybe video will show something..

me and you both! Wha? Was it called Holycopter and you had to shoot down Ps for Pagans?

In a different programming language I think the technique was to have a vspeed variable that determined the upward velocity of Mario. If the player is still pressing JUMP (a.k.a. FIRE) then vspeed = -5 else vspeed = -3 or something. In other words, if the player stops pressing fire his upward leap is less. UPDATE: I think this thread on acceleration could help: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/139926-horizontal-friction-and-acceleration/

Well, my third 360 hasn't toasted but it's only been a week. Not buying Microsoft again. I may consider it if modding it becomes easier. I loved XBMC. See, I can understand the first batch going toasty. First runs always have unexpected failures in the real world. But my second toasted box was way past first generation board design. No excuse there except cost cutting design decisions. The verdict is still out on the slim, but I don't think MS learned their lessons. I'll be happy to eat my words if the slim design succeeds.