BladeJunker

If you want better visuals than the original or just more of it there is always: Adventure 2 https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=334 Adventure Plus https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=145 Another Adventure? http://atariage.com/forums/topic/177363-another-adventure-yep/ Epic Adventure http://atariage.com/forums/topic/184924-epic-adventure/ EMR II - Evil Magician Returns http://atariage.com/forums/topic/201071-emr-ii-evil-magician-returns-upgraded-to-dpc/page-1 Hard to see anyone remaking Adventure1 on the 7800. I guess if Cafeman ever ports Adventure2 to the 7800 he could probably take those graphics and the engine to make the first game on 7800 with some ease. Then there's always the Lynx forum, they don't have Adventure titles as far as I know.

I actually missed what you meant too when you started this, you just want the original in a remix sort of way. No offense but that isn't very interesting, with Adventure 1&2 existing already it only seems logical to close a trilogy on the third Atari console.

Oh lol , yeah I guess that red slime does look like him.

Sorry I'm just a doodler not a coder, I can give it an appearance but I can't make it breath.

I experimented with Adv3 some but haven't had much time for it lately. -Evolved the square dude into a cube dude, while I think it was worth keeping him as a 2D square on 5200 to do the backgrounds so detailed I don't think it is required on 7800. -Wasn't sure what kind of control scheme would be best, dual wield with pause menu item shuffling, or Pickup/Putdown+Use Item button? -Would like more maps, I get lost even in the original game. -Probably some NPCs, inventory, and minor story based content would be a nice feature expansion. Didn't like the story in Pixa on iOS but I liked the method it used IE. bite sized chunks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W7kUSz3fN8

I hear you loud and clear, tangents occur but at least Tech Talk helps towards making "Games that should have been made for Intellivision" more possible with some discussion of how to marry the original games design with the INTV hardware limitations. I'm basically done talking about boring old text unless someone has more to say about it.

That bad huh lol? Well it sounds like a character can be both BACKTAB or MOB at the same time, so (BACKTAB, MOB, BACKTAB, MOB:repeat) seems possible with a character set. That's kind of the issue with multiplexing on INTV, where was it used in specific titles, how much is too much, what is the best way? While not ideal compared to staying within the limitations it has occurred here and there but seems ill defined despite long passage of time. Well the GROM font is a unique signature of the console but it is dated in style, in some ways I kind of wish it were more generic like most early home computer system fonts. I think I understand what intvnut did in the broad sense the way you describe it, small buffer pre-process to large image rendering. While I could see how that would generate an arbitrary picture well it seems odd for text to not use a predefined set when that is how it works best typically. I have a fair number of years practice at low res text legibility, the pitfalls, the strengths. Do you find legibility hard on INTV, to me everything is so big it is hard not to see every pixel? One problem I find on many early game systems is poor color pair selection when it comes to contrast, 2 colors so close in brightness level you can't separate them, annoying since it is entirely avoidable. Not my words "updating in GRAM constantly." but I think I get the gist of what intvnut was trying to do. I was surprised how much could be achieved through BACKTAB, they do similar stuff on the NES but it isn't as "transparent" as it is on INTV which has more solid color zones. I'll try to keep the BACKTAB option in mind more often to reduce MOBs or when a "moving BACKTAB" is required.

Had to ask, funny something antiquated has such strict copyrights surrounding it. Heard Keith talking about the ownership of it but even bitd there wasn't anything to stop programmers from taking it apart other than lawyers lol. You wouldn't happen to know what Keith means by "official INTV games", I mean how and why would you use the INTV EXEC now? I listened intently but I didn't understand much other than how to get sued. Funny you mention not being that interested in the genre, neither am I but I think for me it's just a matter of content style and a few nagging interface conventions to fix and then I'd like them. For example having a partial visual element increases my interest like the later day procedural rendered games on Apple II like King's Quest, Masquerade, or Mystery House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpg5vnhpEyI I think the Keypad offers a good input device for games like this, either through word shortcut branch construction or text parsing through a phone like character input IE. 2=ABC, 3=DEF etc.

-They mention multiplexing as an option but they don't go into any specifics other than titles that may have employed it. I know it's pretty slow on INTV but it seems as taboo today as it was in 1979 as far as information on it. On 2600 they have multiplexing threads for miles and miles. -Is it the limit of 64 characters you figure won't work, can I use the same bitmap for foreground and background at the same time or do I need separate bitmaps. As far as I understand cards it doesn't have much trouble repeating a bitmap as much as it takes to change to a different bitmap pattern. -Do you think the text width won't work because I could reduce it to 8 MOBs per line, or is the multiplexing top to bottom too much for the STIC? -You wouldn't happen to know what was updating in the GRAM constantly in intnut's code? Thanks for the example I'll try to read that. Thanks but I keep a PNG of all the characters along with the hexadecimal map on hand always for visual reference since I can't work a compiler. It's a pretty good set, plenty of patterns one could run into for any game. At the very least I know the built-in font works. Maybe if I stick to abbreviated statements it could work.

What about a Text Adventure, any benefit to using the EXEC to maximize text storage space? I remember some early computer games used something along the lines of the Dewey Decimal system to direct players to a printed text because they couldn't store the text volume on the disk capacity. Not a bad compromise but I'd rather have the written text in the cartridge. Well it was fairly rare for a console to have a system character set as that was usually reserved for home computers, I've just been thinking of taking advantage of the font built in which also has lowercase characters which were a luxury for that vintage of hardware. Only limitation in display has been scale mostly, at 8X8 in 159X96 characters are kind of huge where even moderate sentence length barely fits on screen. If I were to bypass the EXEC I'd likely use a 3X7 pixel font multiplexing the 8 MOBs for every second character just to squeeze in some more text if that would work. I know the add-ons add more text but wondered what the default system could do?

Oh yeah, I gotcha, I don't antialis ever with pixel art rescales. I tried 640X384 but much like 320X192 it wasn't exactly 4:3 in aspect ratio thus the 4:5X pixel inflation IE. every pixel becomes 4X5 pixels just to top off the height enough. Lol you'll laugh, I use MS Paint. There's just an elegant simplicity to it but I really should learn how to use layer based programs more. For rescaling I use GIMP.

Well it is kind of why I keep some SD-TVs around, I tend to get fussy about emulator options so I favor real hardware most of the time. Smoother animation too, hadn't considered that but it makes sense. I understand the upside of the EXEC and sometimes you can conform to it but other times you just can't.

Back near the beginning Janzl mentioned Bubble Bobble. GroovyBee figured even with background cards the amount of bubbles would be too hard. I was thinking maybe there could be a limit put on the number of bubbles per player to help with that aspect. It changes things adding another layer of gameplay strategy not present in the original but it might be fair compromise to make the player pop bubbles in order to launch another once the maximum limit is reached. -Lost a floor compared the arcade version, early arcade game makers sure were obsessed with vertical screen orientation lol. Pretty wide too that I couldn't figure out how much more floor to add. -Tried a couple wall tile designs, softer division versus harder border lines, not sure which would be better. -Bub & Bob use a couple layers, each color is offset horizontally but within 8 pixels width. Used a 8X16 block at double height, tried default 8x8 but it wasn't coming out very good. -Scores are color coded as I couldn't fit labels in, 1PL, HI, 2PL. Maybe the Hi-Score could be a vertical stack allowing some space for label tabs, idk.

I'll give that a try, I usually try for clean pixel inflation but I'll experiment with percentages. It's a tough resolution to display outside of the original hardware, the VIC-20 wasn't easy either, kind of varied in aspect ratio within PAL and NTSC regions for pixel inflation in emulators.

Well I don't compose at 640X480, mostly looking for a more impactful posting size, I guess 320 will suffice. 160 is just so tiny on modern LCD resolution I have to Save and zoom in to get a better look. Yeah the 159 aspect while real is not great for editing needs especially in rescale, a one pixel lie can be forgiven I would think. By the power of Grayskull! Funny according to what I read it only appeared on box once, without the crash it probably would have been seen more. Although I never saw the term "Blast Processing" outside of a Sega commercial when I think about it.

Do you mean the resolution I was just trying out something for website screenshot display? I'll stop doing them big if that is actually bad, the original was 160X96 which at 4:5X was 640X480 giving me the 4:3 aspect ratio, was trying to see what it would look like on a SD-TV as there is a fair amount of vertical stretch. Looks great, I see you add some "SuperGraphics" lol, I've been trying to see what I can do in the default resolution with sprites but I hit a project that looks terrible without more pixels. Yeah I have no idea how the brick system works in the arcade, only thing I could see was the pattern flows in clockwise manner with the corner tiles absorbing the tiling junction. Also not sure what the arcade does to crumble the wall or what the INTV can do to replicate it.

Well that is the power of emulation, multiple virtual machines. I didn't split the controller in my first idea, 2 people just hold one controller on the top and bottom. Also the keypad wasn't used, just the Disc and side buttons. Problem was it would uncomfortable as hell for 2 of the 4 players. Well when it comes to 4 or 8-way input you only need 4 technically at least in a D-pad. With a INTV 8-way you'd lose some precision but you would still retain the mechanical functions of the Disc, but you like you say that would be 2 competing matrix inputs. Mostly in my design it was the reduction method of adding more players, you lose control variety but you add more players.

I hear you, that is true. I was thinking casual 4 player games seem to get some party play though, my cousin's friends don't play much but you throw on some Mario Party or similar game and they'll play along with some beer too lol.

Mocked up an alternate 4 Player Controller. -9 pins/2=4 pins per player. -Mode switch. -Mode#1 is a 4-way D-pad and Mode#2 is Left&Right+Fire1=Fire2. Got to thinking of a competitive maze game and how to make it more comfortable. Guessing it would be some kind of race to capture the flag or powerup. Limited but paddle games on 2600 couldn't do a lot either. Mode#2 has a few uses like Platforming games where Up and Down aren't used at all. Space Invaders and a lot of early arcade games had Left and Right buttons rather than 4 or 8-way joysticks. Games like Gyruss or Tempest pretty much only rotate left and right around a central spoke path so games like that could work.

How about Zoo Keeper? Mocked up a possible layout on INTV. I'm not that familiar with the game so I'm not sure if a smaller pen would affect the gameplay. Thought maybe a scrolling engine might work as in 1/4 of the pen visible at a time, again idk may hurt gameplay even if it expands play area. *Tried a 4:5X pixel expansion, seem some 320X200 shots but those aren't 4:3 exactly. Mostly trying alternates to 159x96 tiny screenshots.

How common are those units, certainly a consideration worth using regardless? I was just thinking the less buttons, more players approach using the defaulted 18 pins could be enjoyed by anyone with an Intellivision. Oh I see, there's a little hatch you open and plug them into, neat. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/169018-replacement-controller-ideas/

Anything is possible with the right adapter and alternate controller but I don't see how 4 players could play at the same time with 2 default controllers. The only thing I could think of was a 4 player maze game where 2 people hold either end of one controller with one person navigating with the Disc while the other using the Fire buttons to steer. But with only 3 true buttons you'd need a shift trigger button to toggle between Up&Down or Left&Right 2 button groups, I already feel bad for the button players lol. It's funny how Mattel seemed to like making hardware but didn't consider controller peripherals more, like how the the 2600 had paddles and Coleco steering alternates. I like console keyboards just fine but smaller cheaper options existed outside of the Keyboard Component even bitd.

Cute units, impressively small. I've been looking at tiny buttons lately, there's a point where only small children can operate them if you go too small.

Sounds like you have a lot on your plate, sorry to hear about your troubles. It always amazes me how many people with so many life demands also run businesses at the same time, I really don't think I could do that, my Dad got sick and I just fell apart. I didn't mean any harm with my questions, I just found your webpage odd compared to other online stores I'd seen, fine if you know exactly what you want but light when it came to general browsing that I was concerned your sales would be effected in the broad sense. I hope things improve for you and you don't have to do this alone so much. Appreciate the diversity of consoles you sell for, a lot of homebrew can get so isolated with one fanbase even though we are all in the same boat. Still new to buying homebrews so I wanted know how your site was from others here since I'd never tried it. Don't usually have the means for much homebrew but next month I intend order something, as long as you ship to Canada you got my business. Appreciate you dropping by to say hello. I do like the higher res box covers a lot on your site, most websites don't take advantage of that clicking option. Take care.

My only stipulation for selling any homebrew is please continue to sell them, don't have several year gaps (5+ years) with no new copies for sale, do a survey, get some preorders, do what you got to do to make some more. That's what I like about ROM sales, no manufacturing so no reason for not selling it continuously. I have money sometimes lol but I can't keep up with limited time windows, what are you Disney and you're putting it back in the vault after selling it for a "limited time"? I'm not suggesting anybody give away games for free, I just want to be able to buy more consistently any time. In this sense a steady stream of flash carts are needed more so than individual cart production, easiest route to wider spread on-hardware gaming. Other than that an emulator and maybe more INTV USB controller production at least.