Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store  

j.m.ratkos

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    28

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by j.m.ratkos

  2. Posted

    Time Phantoms

    Much like every weekend for the past 3 months, Kyle Christensen ignored the beautiful warm weather and found himself once again huddled over a stack of musty scrolls, tomes and piles of notes.

     

    Tucked away in Professor Elrick's office at the back of the University's library, he continued putting the finishing touches on his thesis which would link the Mayans and Aztecs back to the Egyptian Dynasty. Unaware that he, himself would play a major role in the facts and myths that he had been collecting and attempting to tie together for the past 18 months.

     

    Midday brought a much needed break in the form of Jonathan Kouward carrying a rather battered and sun-bleached parcel. Kyle and Jon had met and become fast friends in Professor Elrick's classes, each trying to show-up the other in an almost sibling-like rivalry.

     

    With the Professor on sabbatical for the past 4 weeks, Jon knew exactly where to find his roommate and that the package he now carried would pose enough of a mystery to tear Kyle away from his work, if only for a few minutes.

     

    After examining and opening the package, the scholars found a pair of plain wooden boxes and a note which read:

     

     

    My Dear Professor Elrick:

    My time grows short and I can only hope that the contents of this package will find its way safely into to your hands at the University where it can be hidden away from prying eyes.

     

    Enclosed in this parcel you will find a pair of rather unusual pocket watches. Guard them with your life for they hold a power greater than any man has ever laid eyes upon. DO NOT, under any circumstances, attempt to unlock and use them for personal gain, for to do so would bring down the wrath of the Gods!

     

    Sincerely your trusted colleague

    Professor Alek Von Heisizer

     

     

    Amazing and perplexed, the men stared at one another, mentally attempting to comprehend the hastily scrawled warning that the note contained. Then after several moments, care gave way to curiosity as they took out the boxes and opened them. Resting on a plain piece of soft white linen, a pair rather nondescript tarnished pocket watches were found. In fact, other than opposite face colors (one in white, its twin in black), the watches appeared indistinguishable from one another. Kyle immediately noticed that rather than the typical '1' through '12' to mark the hours, each watch featured several tiny values scattered unevenly around the watch fact, ranging from '000' through '2000', with a slender golden hand resting 2 tiny, but distinct notches from the '2000' mark.

     

    Pulling up the pin to wind the watch, he accidentally pulled the pin to its 2nd position and with a quick winding motion, rotated the golden arm backwards. Then, in a blinding flash of light, disappeared leaving Jonathon staring in shock and horror! No more than a single gasp had escaped Jonathan's mouth when a 2nd flash quickly engulfed the room and then receded leaving Kyle standing at its epicenter.

     

    “What the heck just happened?!” exclaimed Jonathan to his bewildered looking roommate.

     

    “One instant, you were standing there. Then this flash of light blinded me and you were gone but before I could even react, you re-appear just as quickly as you disappeared!!”

     

    Kyle looked at him unsure.

     

    “What do you mean I was only gone for a mere instant? You'll never going to believe this, but somehow... somehow after the light subsided, I found myself in the year 1900.”

     

    “I've just spent few hours as the local townspeople celebrated the opening of this University's library!!”

  3. Posted

    I think that everyone is in agreement that the zelda-type games are truly "action/adventure" with rpg elements. however, the term RPG does extend to cover many types of adventure type games in addition to the standard turn-based genre.

     

    I hope that what kroogur and I have been hashing out will appeal to a good portion of the audience here.

  5. Posted

    thanks to both of you. I mainly wanted the documentation so that I wasn't attempting something that was completely not possible to begin with.

     

    since I'm not really familiar with the system at a hardware level, even simple things like screen resolution modes, the number of colors for the sprites, sprite size limitations, etc. this should help me to determine what can and can't be done before putting on my rose colored glasses.

  6. Posted

    I'm back in the land of the living after a serious bout with the flu over the past few weeks. I'll try and get with groovey bee and kroogur to continue firming up the plotline and present it to the forum for feedback and go from there. welcome aboard jrok (any and all help are much appreciated :)

     

    in the meantime, can anyone point me in the direction of any documentation for the 7800 so that I know exactly what our limitations are for graphics, max no. of sprites on the screen, sprite sizes, etc?

  7. Posted

    an appropriate atari sounding name without actually using a real name of course. ;)

     

    Anyone have any suggestions?

    I'd suggest Fuji, but then I'd keep waiting for him to provide genuine Saskatchewan sealskin bindings. :)

    how about "Goishi" (this is what a full set of Go stones are called) or "Yunzi", the composite material that Go stones are made of?

    either would give us an Atari tie-back reference

  8. Posted · Edited by j.m.ratkos

    My scenario did not win the poll but I am still very interested in this project and in an effort to help move it along I will start a new thread this weekend with a basic plot outline in the spirit of the winning scenario it would be awesome to not only have the winner of the poll help but it would be great to have the rest of the community chime in and help this along.

     

    More to come this weekend :)

     

    I've been away from the forum for the past few weeks due to my current work load and the fantastic fall allergies but am back now. I'll get with kroogur next week and maybe we can brainstorm on some ideas that will help make this scenario appeal to the masses.

  12. Posted

    I received mine yesterday as well (and spent a good hour or so playing it immediately :)

     

    I almost had a heartattack when the game first started because I accidentally had one of the difficulty switches set and everything was moving a such a blinding speed, I could barely control jr. through the twists and turns of the mazes.

     

    beautiful job bob!

     

    a side note. damn r-f video looks like crap on the newer lcd televisions. welcome to blur-a-rama.

  13. Posted

    hey bob,

    if you're looking to do darker colors, you might want to consider something like the rit dye. it soaks into the plastic, vinyl, rubber (whatever you're painting) and impregnants it, lasting a lot longer than paint and isn't as subjective to scratching like normal paints. my neighbor just spraying the rubber boots on his honda 3-wheeler, and you'd swear that the were brand new from the factory now.

  14. Posted

    A Zombie Zelda game? I call Midnight Mutants 2 on this! A minor flashing out of the sotry and it's obvious.

     

    Dr. Evil, not being one to take risks, also left an artifact that, when touched by someone, would bring him back from the dead again (just in case that kid and his grandpa did kill him).

     

    You've even got the bloodline thing mentioned in the first game, allowing the main character to be of the line of the hero from the first game. Sequel city. Plasmic Pumpkin enemies are a must.

    was my pitch the premise for an existing game? if so, I had no idea (I'm not one for plagiarism). I merely run ideas around my head and jot down a few words and then see how I can throw them together and make a decent story out of a few ideas.

  15. Posted

    and finally:

     

    scenario:

    you and a colleague stumble upon a set of magic pocket watches that allow you to teleport through time. unfortunately, your colleague

    decides to use one of the watches for personal gain and starts traveling back in time altering the course of history.

     

    premise:

    using knowledge of major historic events the player must travel back and forth between present day and the past, to right events and

    objects that your friend has caused.

     

     

    this one is rather sparce in details, but I wanted to try something different from the typical sowrds 'n sorcery rpg model. the time travel element from this idea could be used for something else as well ;)

  16. Posted

    I'm rather bored today, so here's another one for consideration:

     

    premise:

    while mining, a band of explorers unearth an [talismen] artifact that causes a rift between the planes of the living and the dead.

    these gateways allow the undead to pass into our land and ravage the countryside. a legion of undead capture the miners (along with the

    talisman) and drag them back into the netherworld.

     

    the player must journey throughout the land, gaining information from the towns people and drive back hordes of the undead and closing up

    each of the portals they uncover, that lead to the netherworld. conversations with the townsfolk will drive the storyline and open up new

    areas to explore.

     

    goal/story:

    players can choose from the following classes: paladin, priest, wizard

    gameplay elements [story/actions] change based on the player class chosen. the storyline is interwoven and intersects over the course of

    the game (based on the character class chosen). playing through as all three classes, reveals the [whole] story and unlocks a [bonus]

    dungeon that can be played as any of the three character classes.

  17. Posted

    Posted something about this a couple days ago but it got lost in the server problems.

     

    A western style RPG better represents what would have naturally landed first on the 7800 if it were more competitive in the 80's. So I can see what the earlier poster was saying about that. It's like using Chevy parts to build up a Ford.

     

    But that's not important really. People should do whatever everyone is most fired up to work on.

     

    Linear Japanese story-oriented RPGs aren't my favorite thing. I'd prefer a more open western RPG like Ultima.

    Japanese artwork doesn't bother me as long as it isn't stupid. As long as the eyes don't turn into fireballs (because he's mad) or a character starts crying like an infant, then I don't mind if they just have green hair.

    I don't see that being an issue with any 8-bit machine. Japanese RPG's didn't *really* bug me until Lunar on the Sega CD.

     

    I think it's been decided that's going to look like Zelda but we haven't figured out how plays yet.

    actually, I think that the playstyle of the game will be like zelda (top down map, sideways sprites, action based combat vs. turn-based, but that's all for now. groovybee is still waiting for more people to submit ideas so that we can then vote on what would be a "good" plot line / premise for the game.

     

    I'll try to come up with one or two more and throw them out for everyone's opinion for the holiday weekend.

  18. Posted · Edited by j.m.ratkos

    ok, here's one pitch that I promised:

    a great feast is taking place in the palace of the king when a storm brews up and suddenly in the blink of an eye with a loud thunder clap, all light [and color] are drained from the world, allowing the demons of the underworld to spring forth the netherworld and start ravaging the countryside.

     

    premise:

    as the hero, you must journey throughout the land to determine the cause of the inbalance and restore peace [and light] to the kingdom.

     

    goal:

    defeat each of the 7 wizards to release their hold on the colors, and restore the world back to order. defeating each wizard, brings back one of the 6 colors back into play of the game (red, blue, yellow, violet, orange, green)

     

    the game would start out a muddied world of grays and browns (like darkness), with details being made visible as each wizard is defeated. after the 6 lesser wizards are defeated, the hero must then descend into the depths of the netherworld to defeat the grand wizard.

  19. Posted

    Thought it might be the channel, as I used channel 4 with the Intellivision. But I tried the 2600 and the 7800 on channel 3 and only the 2600 worked completely.
    I recall having issues with one of my intellivision systems with regards to the channel. I needed to use channel 4 as well (channel 3 was either really fuzzy or didn't display at all).

  20. Posted

    I've got a sony 46xbr5 (1080p) set and have no issues with my 7800. I'm using one of those rca-75ohm convertors and I don't recall having any issues with video and/or sound. however, a friend of mine did have issues with black/white video with his westinghouse (720p) set.

     

    how are you connecting your 7800, directly or through a vcr?

  21. Posted

    I picked 'zelda style' as well from the standpoint that it would be easier to manage one player controlled sprite, vs. a dragon quest style caravan train of characters following each other.

     

    and seeing as I'm not familiar (at all) with the graphic and horsepower limitations of what the 7800 can or cannot do in terms of scaling stuff (ala a 3D dungeon master type game), a top-down map/sideways sprite title might be much easier to work out.

     

    I'll dig up some 7800 technical spec stuff to brush up on what we're dealing with and try to throw together some ideas and pitch them by the end of the week.

  22. Posted

    I've been really more of a lurker here than a full-on member, but I would love to help out any way that I can in the following areas:

    graphics, level design as well as plot, background story, characters etc.

     

    and since I've never properly introduced myself to the forum, I'm j.m. RATKOS and I used to do freelance and have authored about 20 or so videogame strategy guides, starting with chaos strikes back and dungeon master 2 for ftl games and interplay (respectively) before moving forward about 10 years and authoring and tiling for prima during the playstation, game boy color/advance and nintendo 64 days.

     

    feel free to let me know what I can do to help out. :)

  24. Posted

    correct me if I'm wrong, but the hardware isn't region specific (FFE didn't manufacturer a PAL vs a NTSC model of its wildcard products).

    also, they are still available (along with the disc dual cases) direct from FFE (I just received mine about 3 weeks ago for a friend and myself)

  25. Posted

    I hope I didn't anger anyone... It got awfully quiet... I went into this thinking I would need the RAM because of the double size of the play field. It wasn't until Saturday that I finally wondered if it could all fit with stock RAM. It was a major pain to get it all to fit.

     

    It seems to work on both 7800 systems I have and the CCII.

     

    Anyway, thanks for helping me test.

    Bob

    anger anyone? why? the amount of effort that you've put forth (along with the help of the members here) has been nothing short of amazing. fingers crossed that you'll produce another batch soon! :)

AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2021 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...