Mezrabad

Actually I DID email him, two or three times I think and was ignored. I also uploaded my scanned Odyssey Manual to some site and the person running the site edited the pdf to have the site name on it. He admittedly did a better job of compressing the files size than I had, but his reasoning was "I want everyone to know the best place to get scanned docs!" Needless to say it gave me little incentive to upload other stuff. Makes me think I should have watermarked it or something. Not because I think I deserve credit for scanning it, but no one else deserves the credit either.

Ah, it's called a "Forget-me-not" : D

Thanks! Two weeks. One in Tokyo, one in Kyoto.

Wow, nice to see this! I never could get past those first two clues either. When I get to play it again I will probably use a walk through. I'm just really curious about it.

I just watched Bacon Day. I am filled now with a craving for bacon.

GREAT book I would recommend is Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton. He does a terrific job of talking about the early computer RPGs. I adore that book. lol, yes, I'm scheduled to finish all of this in about 4212 A.D., hopefully my cyber brain will arrive before my real one turns to mush.

hahaha. burning acid fire trucks on rampage! Yeah, I still twitch when I think about that system which shall not be named.

That's interesting! My first Black Jack video game was on the Atari 2600. Actually Combat, Space Invaders and Black Jack were the first carts we owned. Since that was one of three carts, I do remember playing the hell out of it. Something hypnotic about it, but overall, I don't find it "fun", it's more like meditating.

LOL sorry, that sentence must've been a big pain if English is not your first language. I apologize! Hmm, I think my son did play this with me. Shoot, I really should have been mentioning that whenever one of them played.

Hmm... I didn't comment on the fact this was the first cartridge based game? Wow, though maybe from the perspective of having played Odyssey (I know they weren't programmable, they were just circuits) which had cartridges, i don't know if someone back in 1976 would have been able to know the difference. Well, an 8 year old at least might not have known the difference. Hahaha, thanks for linking the Chicken video. Yeah, I saw those at county fairs while growing up. Smart to google it!

YES Jerry Lawson (R.I.P.) was a great interview! I remember him loving the "You Lose Turkey" hahahah. I try to skew away from talking about the technology so much because: A. I only really know some parts of it. Screen resolution, number of colors, etc. I mean, there's some programming bits about which I wish I knew more... for instance how one programmer found an "extra" memory buffer by reading one of the Channel F ports. I don't really go into the tech stuff because I'm certain I'm going to misinform someone. B. The idea is that I'm just "Joe Consumer" playing these things as he gets them, though I don't stick to that too strictly.

Yeah, that's a good point, though I think that the games now are extremely intricate and interesting on one level, the fact that there are so damn many games makes it hard for me to keep playing one for any amount of time. That and the fact that they're so easy to come by. Waiting to save up enough money to get a new Atari cartridge back in 1982, and then hoping for a ride to Sears is a lot different than getting on Steam and having access to so many games for (the equivalent of) pocket change. Onwards!

wow, that NEVER occurred to me, that the Odyssey 300's controls were not really 'advanced' as much as they were 'simplified' -- they only went up and down... an accurate statement would be "The Odyssey 300 system lacks horizontal controls for the paddle!" Since Odyssey 300 was my first ever system, I thought of it as "only natural that one could just move the paddles up and down".

Yeah, I don't have any experience with the 500. (though... hah, I'd forgotten I had a 400) I think the 500 actually had sprites or something. In regards to "Smash" I'm not sure, it was probably called something else on other systems, but I remember Jai-lai because I don't think I learned to say it correctly until my early 20s. heheh.

hahaha, actually a PBS version of this blog would be awesome. I'll have to settle for doing it in YouTube without a grant from the Public Broadcasting System. Hey, thanks for news about that link. Fixing!

Hahah, I LOVE that site. I think he and I actually had a conversation about him linking and using my scans or something. I don't remember, but it was an honor, 'cause I used to always go to his site for information. It's been a while though, I'm glad to see it's still up.

Hey, sorry about that broken link. I'll fix. And yeah, the four paddles just meant two players, with two paddles each.

Hey, he's good! Too often do videogame reviewers sound like they're yelling at me or seem to think they need to curse to keep my attention. He keeps it mellow and informative. He's also fairly well prepared so good for him. Thanks for linking to that one, Nelio!

hahah, whew, July 2019!? That's doable. xD

haha. happy belated birthday!

Yeah, the original idea was "buy it on ebay, play it, sell it back" with the only "cost" being shipping and handling. The true cost is time and dealing with eBay... and the currency is one's sanity.

Yeah, I really liked this game. I wish I'd kept a copy. Hmm... actually I may have. At the very lease I think I have a scan of the manual.

heheh, I gave up on the Flash programming awhile back. I'm sure it's an attention span thing... I have the manual scanned. I hope I can find it!

Hmm, the force field is not visible, it's just an abstract thing. If the ship collides with the other spot, it disappears. I think... again, too long since I played. I actually still have this game (I had three of them at one point which is funny because this game is apparently very rare) I'll get it out and make a movie of it when I'm trying to find an Odyssey that works. I don't remember where a player launches from.

Yes! the whole "non-video" aspect of this just kills it. Okay, kudos for them thinking out-of-the-box, but damn.