raindog
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Posts posted by raindog
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Every classic arcade gamer knows the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in NH.
They also have a pretty good 8-bit computer/console collection. None of it is turned on and the last time I was there it was a bit condensed to make way for about 30 more arcade cabinets, which is what I go there for anyway. But they do make a token effort to be a general video game museum (slash bowling alley, slash sports bar, slash ticket-game-capital-of-the-world).
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Why on earth would someone try to make an officially licensed 2600 game in 2011? How would Sega's blessing have made Turbo 2600 better, or would Thrust+ have been improved by a little "Approved by Superior Software's Successors And/Or Assigns" sticker on the box?
You're essentially asking lawyers to give you something for no significant benefit to their company. It's their job to say no to things like that. The answer is never going to be anything other than "no" unless there's some unusual situation where the rights reverted to the programmer and he isn't looking to monetize them, as with Randy Glover and Jumpman. The best you can hope for is that they won't bother wasting any time on you, since there are no real damages to be collected (even the most successful Atari homebrews haven't sold enough to have the royalties pay for one hour of a competent IP lawyer's time).
Even Halo 2600 is likely a "look the other way" situation with no lawyers involved; certainly Microsoft didn't make any announcements about it and Fries left there over seven years ago. If he "ran it by legal", he hasn't mentioned it and neither has Microsoft.
Better to just work on your game, put it out there with source code and if they slap you down, adapt (or let others adapt) the game into something more original. I say that after having been approached, fradulently, by someone who was once a member of this community (his account still exists, I just looked) and claimed to own the home console rights to Pac-Man. It put a bad taste in my mouth about doing Atari stuff for a decade, but at least my code and notes (for my hacks and the Boing and Ballblazer demos) were out there for other people to make use of them, and in at least two cases I know of, people did.
Thanks to the DPC+, there are all these new possibilities for 2600 adaptations that weren't possible 2 or 3 years ago while still having been within the realm of possibility during the 2600's original lifetime. The ones we actually get to play are going to be the ones whose authors release early and often and wait to be told they're wrong rather than seeking denial up front.
Be smart. Try to pick inactive trademarks, and realize that most lawyers are not gamers and don't know the difference between an Atari game that might make you 50 bucks and an iPhone game that'll make you a million.
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Saw this on 1up.com today. Youtube video here:
If I'd ever owned an Intellivision, I'd be preordering now, though I suspect that since it's getting more press now it might attract unwanted attention from Nintendo before it ships.
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I don't have MisfitMAME installed. dkongx11 works fine in my slightly out-of-date plain old MAME and is the same sadistic game I played at FunSpot/ACAM. Maybe the debian/ubuntu packagers enabled the misfit games at build time, I don't know, but since MisfitMAME is packaged separately I assume that's not the case.
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Awesome update, though I have to admit, the too difficult thing does apply, I was able to get through about 3 rooms without getting hit once, but it was still a challenge. Fantastic job, I look forward to seeing further updates on this game.
-Disjaukifa
The top and bottom entrances are hilariously brutal. I just sat there watching myself die 2 or 3 times a second when I used a bottom exit on a later level. But very, very impressive. Looking forward to trying it on the Harmony.
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Didn't see this thread till now for some reason, but I can confirm that dkongx11 works in MAME 0.142. Loaded it up on my laptop when going on vacation to New Hampshire last fall in preparation for playing Donkey Kong II at Funspot
(Didn't really help my playing, though
)Don't ask me where to find dkongx11; I'm sure I have no idea where one would find dkongx11.
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Congratulations, you might have found the first reason for me to dig out my 4-switcher and the selection of boxes that allows me to hook it up to the TV so I can try my Harmony cart for the first time
(Even without hearing the speech, it always amazes me when the 2600 version of an arcade game looks better than the original...)
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I don't understand the desire to lock this thread, is it simply because you don't like it?
This thread feels like one giant troll.
In short, it's "Look-- I made something. You can never have it. Well, you can if someone pays me an insulting price, maybe. But that doesn't guarantee that you'll have it anyway."
No kidding. I miss [stella] more and more every time another would-be Ebivision pops up. What happened to open collaboration?
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There was a recent discussion on this here (now locked) :-
Wow, sure am glad I don't follow the Colecovision and Intellivision homebrew scenes anymore. At least we have Atariage already set up to make quality carts for the 2600, eliminating much of that "OMG I CHOSE TO SPEND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON MY HOBBY AND THUS AM ENTITLED TO A RETURN" issue.
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As for the "why"..why not? I love the idea of a cart that does its own thing and just uses the console as a video card. How about..showing atari that if they would of got their heads out of their asses they could of saved their company.
I think the only way I'd want to try to improve on what the Compumate already did would be to add a DPC+ chip or something into the mix, allowing more flexibility in the "use the console as a video(/audio) card" concept. But I'm definitely no hardware hacker.
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Our basement flooded so badly last night that the shelving unit I had most of my P'n'P collection on tipped over (70s-era buoyant plastic shelving = epic FAIL), and I'm pretty sure I lost my NIB FB2. Still got my AV-modded 4-switcher and Harmony cart, but to be honest, that's kind of a pain to set up even with A/V. Whipping out my phone is a lot easier.
Ouch. Let it dry out, it may still be playable. Be careful with the power supply, they don't dry easy. Sorry to hear about this mishap. You still have neat hardware, though. I'd set up the 4-banger and keep it set up
Yep, drying out is the plan, and already being implemented. As for the 4-banger,I have a 4-port switchbox on our TV... PS2, Wii, Xbox 360 and DVD player. At some point I am going to lose the DVD player, and if we don't end up getting a PS3, the Atari would be a contender. But I'm too old to sit on a hardwood floor in front of the TV... unless I pick up development again or acquire some wireless 2600 controllers somehow, I don't see myself using the Atari on a regular basis.
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Let's face it, the only discriminating consumers are us, where we demand pixel perfect emulation and authentic controls. For everyone else, even an iPad's touchscreen is sufficient.
I may not be "everyone else", but I'm really pretty happy with my Samsung Epic running Stella and tricked out with the "Dark Rosewood" skin from DecalGirl and the Game Gripper. Yes, it means I'm controlling Atari games with a Nintendo-style d-pad and buttons, but it's not like a Legacy-developed portable is going to have those big, chunky, blister-inducing sticks we all love. All I'm missing so far is the paddle.
Of course, I'd buy another Legacy AOAC product if the price weren't too far out of line with the others they've produced or other entries in new Atari market segments they pursue. Our basement flooded so badly last night that the shelving unit I had most of my P'n'P collection on tipped over (70s-era buoyant plastic shelving = epic FAIL), and I'm pretty sure I lost my NIB FB2. Still got my AV-modded 4-switcher and Harmony cart, but to be honest, that's kind of a pain to set up even with A/V. Whipping out my phone is a lot easier.
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I wouldn't make an assumption that authors (like me) who work for hours / weeks / months / years on a project are going to just give their source code away for free.
While Mr. Atari has some other netiquette lessons to learn, and the attitude on AtariAge may be a little more mercenary than it was on [stella], it's never, ever inappropriate to inquire about source code in a homebrew discussion forum unless someone has already said they weren't releasing it in a place the poster could reasonably have been expected to see (e.g., on the same thread).
Especially when the project involves something that might someday incur a C&D letter.
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I hope the anti-aliassing isn't 'too fancy'.
I don't think I'd call it "fancy" so much as "groundbreaking".
At this rate it might end up looking better than the C64 version
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NOTE:
seeing the wonderful hacks and homebrew games that have been "baked" in the last years and more I wonder why there isn't still a "full version" of DK ! I know it could certainly be better, or at least more arcade-perfect, even than the ColecoVision's !!!
I think there are a couple reasons we haven't seen as many attempts to improve Donkey Kong as there have been for Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
1. The original 2600 Donkey Kong is very playable, and looks and plays more like the arcade version than I'd have expected possible on the 2600. Yes, we were underwhelmed in 1982 by the missing screens and animations, but we still played it like crazy, unlike Pac-Man. It's an amazing feat in 4K, and I think Garry Kitchen should be proud. Almost 30 years later, the sound effects he made are still being used as generic video game noises on TV all the time.
2. Nintendo enforces their trademarks more ardently than Namco or Taito.
Nonetheless, I've seen some graphics demos that look even more impressive than your mockups (the one I was immediately able to find in my collection was Ivan Machado's) and someone's already put out a ROM of the elevator level based on the Coleco version, albeit not playable.
...close view of the screen on the back of the box
That does look sweet. The score and bonus on screen at the same time will probably not be possible without flicker. It could actually be possible to improve Donkey Kong's sprite, or at least the parts of it that aren't on the same scanline as any playfield stuff, since he's quad-width anyway. I seem to remember the Colecovision version flickering when Mario was on the same level as him, so maybe it's okay to flicker Mario's player to give him a lighter tan face/ears, chest and feet, and maybe even give him blocky little whites in his eyes by making clever use of the playfield as well. On the first level, the ladders pretty much have to be the same color as the slanted girders, or the bottoms of the ones at the lower end of each girder will have to be drawn using something else, making a pretty complicated kernel. The oil cans have to either be the same color as the playfield, or not occur on the same scanlines as other playfield items (an alternating line thing here would be fine for me, don't know about others), or be made out of a player, which will create flicker when Mario and a barrel/fireball are on the same level as one. I'm sure there are other practical issues as well but those are what jumped out at me.
I think it could certainly be more playable than the Colecovision version given the same space (16K) or even less. But if I were to try it (and I did get as far as starting work on a kernel for the girder screen a few years back; that or Moon Cresta would probably be my next 2600 project now that someone else came up with a Ballblazer that makes my demo look dumb) it'd be from scratch, and I probably would be trying for something like "Congorilla" or, I don't know, "Super Pick-Axe Pete" rather than "Donkey Kong Arcade". Doing something that takes comparatively little work and getting more attention than people who actually write brilliant stuff... been there, done that.
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The game wouldn't be much fun without a HUGE data library to make the game replayable. Who's gonna spend all that time entering reams of data when something like "Wheel Of Fortune" is so much simpler (and without Jeopardy's goofy "the question IS the answer" theme)?
While the project itself is dead (as is the site), the OpenTrivia data files are still out there. They don't have the wrong answers necessary for multiple choice, but they're a start. (They do have some pretty low-quality user-submitted questions toward the end, but there are 2000 questions -- the latest You Don't Know Jack has only about 700, so even if you threw out half of them it should be way more than you could use in an Atari game.)
http://replay.web.archive.org/20070806032841/http://opentrivia.com/download.php?category=movie (and 10 other categories)
I really don't think the 2600 is a very appropriate platform for a trivia game, myself, and what the OP is proposing seems like Jeopardy only in name. But we did play a pretty ancient coin-op trivia game at the American Classic Arcade Museum last fall. It was sort of fun once we moved our brains back to 1980 or whenever the thing came out. Still, even the disk-based trivia game I had on the C64 had a thick question and answer book.
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If this was 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be a millionaire!!
Amazing stuff!
If this were 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be making about 15 bucks an hour and told 8K was too much for Pac-Man.
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For my work on Stella over the past 10 years, all the contributions I've received probably add up to equivalent of 1/2 a weeks wages
And I do appreciate every donation that's been made. But if you do something in this area, it has to be because you want to, not because you expect to make a fortune (or even minimum wage) doing it.My own little Atari projects have provided me with the means to acquire probably 4 times the number of other people's homebrew cartridges than I'd have been able to with only my own disposable income. All my Atari income stayed in the Atariage ecosystem as store credit (and has long since dried up) but that's more than I'd ever have expected from such a niche hobby. I roll my eyes whenever people start talking about market analysis and potential profits... either you're compelled to write a 2600 game as a passion project or as an artistic or scholarly statement, or you're embarking on a quest which you've already failed. Hardware is a more complex issue, but 2600 accessories haven't been an industry in about 28 years and it's not going to just spontaneously come back to life now. It gets created when there's an itch to be scratched, and someone figures out how to scratch it without having to win the lottery, like the need for one-off portable 2600s with tiny paddles, or a RAM-loaded, flash-enabled 2600 cart with a coprocessor.
I have both a Cuttle and a Harmony. I've never actually tried the Harmony because I have no more TVs with antenna inputs and can't find either my old VCR or AV-modded 2600; my life has been chaos for over half a decade now. But I look forward to finally, after all these years, being able to have every variation of every homebrew ever made -- hell, almost every game ever made including Pitfall 2 -- on a single cart with a nice menu and 5 bucks worth of SD card in it. I'd guess that the Harmony's continued production alone means that there are more out there than there are of Cuttle Carts.
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Anything with dots + Nukey = epic win. (Should that be "winning" now?) Thanks for revisiting my old hack; you made it much better.
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Not exactly hard to find, anyway... just not on AtariAge.
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Still, thought it would be nice if people respected homebrew developers and helped protect their rights.
Well, it'd be nice if people didn't cut you off in traffic or talk in movie theaters too, but it'd be about as effective to lament those practices here as it is to lament piracy of homebrew software. It seems unlikely that any significant portion of the ROM-distributing communities out there is here on Atariage, especially when it comes to things that aren't Atari-related. For the most part, you're preaching to the choir; few communities hold homebrew authors in as near-universal high regard as we do.
Nonetheless, trying to prevent piracy -- especially on a shoestring budget -- is spitting into the wind. The best you can do is to put a personal appeal out there directed at the people who are buying your game, get them to feel like they're on your side and don't want to hurt you. 2D Boy accomplished this masterfully. I'd defend those guys till the end of time, and so would many other gamers. I've literally bought World of Goo three times. But it's still all over the usual places you'd find pirated software. All it takes is one copy to get posted to Usenet or a torrent or file upload site, and whether you've convinced one person or a thousand to not share, it's all for naught. If you use some kind of watermarking, you get that threshold up to two copies.
Bill Gates has tried it both ways -- from a letter trying to guilt people into not sharing his software in 1976 to millions spent on enormous, byzantine anti-piracy measures in the last decade -- and he's done about as well at preventing piracy as your friend has. He got rich anyway.
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A few seconds of Googling reveals that it's out there on Usenet and torrents as well, so it's in the wind. If it hasn't already been, it'll be added to one of the lists of known NES ROMs, and will be a part of every NES collection torrent and "NES flood" on Usenet from now till the end of time. Reporting one site at a time is like trying to put out a forest fire with a dixie cup. If the legal teams for several multi-billion-dollar industries (and Harlan Ellison) can't keep things out of circulation, you may not have much luck doing it vigilante style either.
I'd never heard of the game till now either, but NES stuff interests me less than Atari/Vectrex stuff so I'm not surprised to have missed it.
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Sweet! Since the NES was after my time, I'd never have thought to look at a Castlevania post....
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I've searched the forums and googled it without being able to find any reference to it: where's the 2600 Marble Madness thing?
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Which Vectrex Multicart?
in Vectrex
Posted · Edited by raindog
For what it's worth, I've been playing my Vectrex for almost 25 years without overlays. We got it the xmas of its release, and then the following summer all these games in Ziploc bags with manual and overlay but no box showed up in Acme Surplus (we lived in western Massachusetts, where Milton Bradley was, so a lot of their stuff showed up in surplus stores... Coleco too, I got a lot of spare CV controllers for a quarter each back in the day and some even worked). Then I went away to college and when I came back, all the stuff that had been in my desk had gotten packed away. My Vectrex was just a Minestorm machine, and stayed that way for 15 years until I got my first multicart. I never got around to searching the crawlspaces for them. My mom's gone now, and my stepdad is looking at selling their house, so we've been cleaning out the crawlspaces over the last year. They still haven't turned up, but almost my entire Odyssey2 collection did, as well as my dad's original Odyssey.
My Vectrex and Richard's multicart (and Sean Kelly's, and this one I got from a guy on ebay that requires you to choose games using jumpers) are here in my office now. I think from time to time about trying to make my own overlays using a color laser, transparency stock, masking tape and white spray paint (don't laugh, did an unrelated project that way 10 years ago and it came out great), or just ordering some from someone who makes them, but honestly, we almost never used the overlays "back in the day", just like we never bothered with those slide-in controller overlays on the Colecovision. I can always fire up MESS for the whole overlay experience, though emulation didn't have that "electron gun leaking into the speaker" sound last time I played them and an Xbox controller isn't quite a Vectrex controller.
So, still tempted, but I've been playing without them for my entire adult life. Knowing it would cost far more to make a whole set than it did to buy the multicart means I might never get around to buying them, but if someone ever finds a way to mass-produce them cheaply, I'll be all over it.