Midnight Synergy

It would be neat to know who did what - esp. if someone like Ralph McQuarrie was indeed involved. Vanguard has great art - also the flying snake in the instruction manual. Other fav artwork (for me) includes Slot Racers (too bad the game sucked), Demon Attack (because I owned one of the toys and thought it was neat that they just painted it silver for a game cover), Adventure (reminded me of my edition of The Hobbit) and Yars' Revenge (just cool!). Other wonderful Art includes the Galaxians poster with the armies of winged fighters and the Star Raiders version for the Atari 400/800 that had a ship that looked like a Cylon basestar as envisioned by Ancient Egyptians on it. My absolute favourite, though, is not from a game - its in the Atari Catalog for their "Adventure" section. I always wondered when a game based on that illustration would come out. Link: http://www.atariage.com/catalog_page.html?...;currentPage=26

Agreed... the game was interesting because of the real-life backstory (i.e. the never-fullfulled promise of cash by Thompson) but it wasn't really much fun to play. Pressurecooker - glad you got the games, hope you enjoy them (let me know if you do).

This oughta keep you busy for the weekend. http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_...ic_id=25943291# Someone (not me) on GameSpot has compiled a list of dozens and dozens of 2007 free game releases, including indie experimental games, retro remakes, and commercial freeware such as C&C and Sands of Time. Each game is listed with a screenshot and short description. Lots of very interesting looking projects. Let the downloading begin!

The real thing, if possible. There's just something about holding that Atari joystick in your hand.

Very nice... I assume mostly PAL? You have some nice rare titles there. Here's a pic of mine (NTSC). Fairly decent, nothing too rare, though. I like it.

I don't remember this, I played Ultima III on the Atari ST - perhaps this was a feature on a console version? ("Guy on a Throne" also sounds like Lord British - who was a character who did appear in Ultima, and yes, you could fight him, but you'd always lose )

Competition is now closed - congrats to the winners (you should have an e-mail waiting for you if you won).

You can watch as often as you wish (no way we can check how often you did, anyhow ). Write them down in order, but don't fret if e.g. you missed one in the middle and hence your numbers are off by one - that doesn't matter. Oh, and obviously please do not post answers here.

Hi all, we're running a little (unofficial) 30th Anniversary Atari 2600 Competition in our newsletter. I figured enough people here might be interested in it... plus you can win free games! Link: http://www.midnightsynergy.com/newsletter/issue012/page8.htm Entries are due this Saturday, so better hurry. (BTW, the reason we do this is that our own games have a very heavy retro feel to them - many of our players are in their 30s and beyond, and so we run a regular Retro Game Spotlight as part of the newsletters. It's nothing too serious, all for fun.)

Ah, thanks!

Sorry if this has already been answered elsewhere... Are the Indy 500 controllers functionally the same as the regular paddles, except the "Stopper" has been removed? (for 360 turning) If so (or if not), can one play Paddle Games (Kaboom, Casino, Warlords (with fewer players) etc...) with driving controllers? I assume playing Indy 500 with regular paddles is not possible.

Ah, thanks. So now I'm curious - I assumed the AtariAge database would be pretty complete by now. Are there a lot of prototypes out there not yet listed in it?

I just picked up an old Starlog magazine at a garage sale. The back cover is a Parker Brothers ad for Astro Chase (for the 5200) - at the bottom there's a line "coming soon for the Atari 2600". No Atari 2600 version is listed on AtariAge - does that mean it didn't even make it to a prototype?

It's really pretty hard to play Tron with ANYTHING but the original setup. Before WinXP, the best option was the Logitech Wingman Warrior, but Logitech refuses to continue support for serial joystick in XP. Nowadays, when I play, I find I can get by with using my trackball for the spinner, but it's not really the same. Thanks for the reply - I take it then that none of the X-Arcade Joysticks have spinners, correct?

I'm thinking about getting the X-Arcade Joystick for Mame emulation. I noticed that their official literature lists Tron as one of the games to play with the stick, but none of the versions seem to have a dial control. Does anyone have any experience with this? Do you just end up using two buttons to rotate e.g. the tank turret, or does the actual joystick twist?

Oh my - I can't believe what I'm reading. Pitfall 2, Berzerk, River Raid, Kaboom, Demon Attack as overrated??? That's half my Top 10 Best Ever list! Pitfall 1 on the other hand - bleh.

(I posted this in the international section in German as well, but just in case:) I'm looking for an old Atari disk-magazin called "ST de Luxe". It only appeared for a few issues around 1991/92 - it contained two disks in each issue. I had programmed a game for them ("Colony" - we later moved to PC development, see http://www.midnightsynergy.com), and would love to have an old issue with that game on it for my collection. Anyone have a copy (or know about this mag?) Cheers!

Hallole, Ich bin auf der Suche nach einem altem Atari Magazin (deutsch). Ich bin Hauptprogrammierer bei Midnight Synergy (http://www.midnightsynergy.com). Bevor wir auf PC Spiele umgestiegen sind hatten wir Spiele fuer den C-64 und den Atari ST programmiert. Eines der Atari Spiele war ein Stategiespiel namens "Colony" das von dem Disketten-Magazin "ST deLuxe" aufgekauft wurde. Ich weiss allerdings leider nicht, ob die Ausgabe je erschienen ist, da ich zu dem Zeitpunkt nicht mehr in Europa war. Hat jemand noch alte Ausgaben dieses Magazines? Ich wuerde liebend gerne eine Ausgabe fuer meine Privatsammulung finden, kann aber nirgens Informationen ueber das Magazin finden. Danke im Voraus! Patrick