[Coding Motivation]

Awesome post!

 

When a programmer is inspired to add a cool feature or a creative interpretation to an Atari 2600 game, it really shows and the game shines when you play it -

 

Defender II is awesome but Defender shines with it's outrageous orange and blue building scene and colorful laser bursts instead of the mountain range from the arcade and the alternate greyscale palette, you can tell the programmer was inspired and feel the creativity playing the game.

Space Game is similarly inspiring, because it is different.

 

Video Chess is another awesome example - the 70's mood ring "endless screens of color" effect the programmers added coupled with a decent engine make the game shine.

Andrews recent excellent Chess game shows similar inspiration with the creative addition of "endless colorful language" and the atarivox peripheral.

 

Use of peripherals is inspiring on it's own because it conjures imagery of 300 baud modems, dot matrix printers and disc drives, and the expansion module. 

 

  

[Comitoid (SnailSoft/Greg Zumwalt)]

Greg is an incredible and inspiring programmer whose been writing awesome video games since the 70's! Greg sent me the source code for the final edition of The Parlog Building, one of my text adventures from the 80's when I couldn't find it.

 

fwiw bitd programmers were friendly, fans wanted our autographs and everyone smiled - some of the newer programmers on AtariAge could benefit from this mindset; it goes well with the retro games!

 

[I'm no longer semi-poor]

Glad to hear it RT, supplements and food - are you an athlete or in training?