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It's actually great fun and has a bit of nuance to the gameplay that works well within the limited feature set (branching paths, railway cart sequences etc). More fun and less frustration than the Jag version of Pitfall Simplicity doesn't mean it isn't fun nor 'deep' in its own way. See Downfall for an example.

Pitfall on iOS. Starts as an endless runner side-scroller, then changes to a behind the back endless runner. Stylish and very good use of flat shaded polygons. Probably throws a few more polygons around than the Jag could but scaling down the complexity for something like this for a 320 x 240 game seems somewhat possible (given what Battlemorph and IS 2 throw around).

An interesting quote from the thread I linked to... Oppressor wrote: "And our preservation plan is far beyond anything your tiny mind could conceive so just go to EBay and pay $500+ for it already, mmkay? You guys created the situation, not us, so go wallow in it with the rest of the, um, hobbyists." I wonder what the 'preservation plan' is / was? What was the strategy? Could it still be done? Is it completely a moot point? This genuinely interests me, especially as the quoted lifespan for EPROMs is (apparently) 'only' 25 years... As for "You guys created the situation", I honestly and sincerely don't understand. But it was over ten years ago, so who knows...

Agreed. *But* it goes both / all / every way. Please read what I've read in the few posts I've made in this thread, including the one in response to Zerosquare. (a) I was 'there' (early on, 90s until mid 2000s), (b) my memory for what I was there for is like a trap (much better than now ) and © I hold no "allegiances" to affect or skew my objective observations (and can mostly back it up...even if I have to trawl 'Jaguar Interactive' or usenet...gawd, I hope I don't have to, I was a big(ger) doofus back then ).

This made me curious. A quick Google retrieved what you mentioned ( http://atariage.com/forums/topic/96687-anybody-want-a-battlesphere-gold/). Very odd. Quite an outlandish statement on their part. And not backed up by facts. As I said, I was active online in a lot of Atari (and Jaguar) related stuff from the mid 90s until the early 2000s when I lost interest for a while. I did notice some of the logic disappeared from anything BS related when I dropped out. This appears to be one of those "what!?" things I just missed. I don't dispute much of this. That said, they never claimed to be the official source of the Jag dev tools, documentation, encryption keys (I think I downloaded them on a 56K modem long before BS came out). Homebrew - no-one is suggesting they started that, I remember BJL and the like long before Y2K. I do remember them hyping up the JUGS thing when it wasn't "all that". Slower, more awkward (arguably), and harder to get hold of (definitely) than other solutions at the time. They were pushing it, which would've been great had the solution been more accessible to all. I do remember a discussion about USB being an option but they dismissed it out of hand due to regulations and price (oh, the irony). No arguments. In fact, I don't think you and I particularly disagree on much other than about minutiae and personalities. Absolutely, if it were more easily available, especially for network play (more Scatboxes or other solutions) it would be a slightly bigger footnote than the strange grumpy one it has ended up being. I *do* think people who have issues with the devs (be it online interactions or their approach to things) *has* tainted their view of the game. Yourself included from my reading of it. No harm, no foul, no angst, no disrespect. At all. (insert peace symbol here) I've managed to play the game and evaluate it somewhat objectively. I like it, and as a Jag game and mid 90s non-linear space shmup it's pretty damn good imho. It's somewhat embellished by my interactions with the devs - everything from friendly to testy to grumpy to borderline hostile (when I was chuffed to hold my own against some 'logic' thrown my way ). That's why I played devil's advocate earlier - the thread I found and linked to above (and in this one) shows some deep seated annoyance (understandable) that's brewed for ten years or more. I'm just trying to be objective having missed the ensuing middle few years of testiness while having been around for the first batch of five to ten years of BS (pun intended ). Edit: I forgot to add it was a very ambitious and mostly successful attempt at what they attempted. Deeper than almost any other Jag game (AvP, Battlemorph, Skyhammer are on par) - whether you like the gameplay or genre, on options and choices alone it does the business imho. I agree. Nor should they need to have to. Their toy, their game. It's amazing how much that thread I linked to covers the same ground with the same impressions (and a few of the same people commenting). I do remember them publicly ( I think ) rejecting other publishers, some who are still producing and selling Jag games.... I'm amazed how people who've never met yet share the same interests in obscure poorly selling hardware begrudge each other so much. I honestly wonder what would happen if they / we / us ever met in person - shuffling of feet while looking at the ground, running away, fisticuffs, or a genuine conversation about some cool if flawed hardware from a messed up and skint company..... What Sauron said....Very good words I reckon I was on that mailing list and I think I remember that coming up. Not that I said or did anything ever (that I'll admit to, I was more clueless then than I am now ).

Don't let that distract you from the Jaguar stuff Vlad Bill - don't ebay it, I'm sure someone here would like a Falcon if you don't want it anymore

At the age of 42 I'm beyond being the rage guy lol. I survived the Jaguar forums during 199x, I'm sure I'm fine. To spell it out yet again for those that don't get it (I don't put you in this category, you know your stuff) someone asked if it was possible to do the bonus stuff with the rotary. He eventually got it. Others don't seem to have. There's numerous options: - Rotary only (Yes, it works! OP acknowledged, others haven't, even though Minter posted about it online in 1994 when the original rotary hack came to light) - Rotary in port 1, normal in port 2 - Rotary in port 1, then juggle controllers in and out if you want (lol) Batman never responded, he didn't seem to understand.

Actually, no. I've posted twice on this thread (this page even) explaining how it's done. I'm not often overly obvious or even sarcastic on AA, but *seriously* it's not hard to read stuff on the same page that explains it all is it?.....

Playing devil's advocate...this could be long... This is / was their prerogative. I don't see any other post-Atari Corp. developers giving out updates on their game sales stats. I'm uninformed / unaware about what this actually means. Based on facts alone: it was their / T-bird's approaches to Hasbro that allowed the Jaguar to be released from any possible legal / copyright issues (re: software releases, encryption keys, use of logos etc.), which is where they offered up the diabetes / charity thing as a carrot. From what I could see this carrot wasn't necessary as Hasbro were quite happy to be done with anything Jag related (and Jag fanboy related I'm sure hahaha). However, due to the ongoing health issues and ultimate transplant that 1/3 of the Scatologic team faced, it was a noble act IMHO. At the risk of sounding obvious (because I've seen misconceptions arise) this only relates to the original BS release. Part of the reason I held back on not getting BS gold was simply because they could / should have been able to have this release out there on an ongoing basis. When they packed up shop I was rather annoyed that I missed out, but I was AWOL from here and JSII at the time so I was unaware of 'issues' that may (or may not) have made them rethink putting the time and effort into continuing production of BSG, the Scatbox etc. Personally I think keeping these two things trickling out would be an easy way to make (small) amounts of money, but I understand the margins and profit for effort expended (especially with the somewhat volatile community) may simply not have been worth it at the time. That said, with the re-sourcing of moulds, the different ways carts can be produced, the renewed interest in the system, and the increase in perceived prices, now would be a great time to produce a lot of 500-1000 of these, sell at them a higher price than a 'standard' cart / peripheral, put a percentage of the profits toward diabetes research, and still walk away with a $30+ US profit per piece. Boom, there's $15-30K profit right there (yeah, it's all ideal if it works out perfectly, not so much if it doesn't). This sucks, especially for those who legit want multiple copies to play. I've heard that this happened numerous times, but I never bothered looking to see if it was a regular thing, the names of the ebay accounts etc. Have they ever responded to these instances? Then again, it's their game to do with what they want, just as it's fine for us to criticise their practices. We probably wouldn't be talking about it if they didn't, nor would the prices be beyond the $150 mark. It's their prerogative to do so or not. As far as 'being aggressive', I can call it as I remember it. The team were blunt, called out factual errors, spoke their mind, and yes perhaps overhyped things, but hey - it was 'news' when the Jag's commercial tailspin accelerated. Plus, they engaged with fans online via newsgroups and forums - few other developers bothered or cared. This raised the profile amongst the fans. As far as aggressiveness goes, most of this perception was in their answers toward people who were bereft of facts or had poor logic and reasoning skills. I used to enjoy watching them rip into people who lacked the basic tenets of logical argument. About the time I got bored of the whole online Jag forum / newsgroup stuff (early / mid 2000s until about 5 years ago) I found that they were a bit more abrupt and sometimes rude. However, having to deal with the same stupidity, demands, entitledness (and sometimes hostile nature) of the Jag fan base for years and years, I don't necessarily blame them (although I always found one member of the team rarely if ever could concede they were even slightly wrong even if I could see he was from afar, which didn't help the whole 'them vs us' mentality that plagued the Jag scene forever). This is simply conjecture. Sure, it's based on what has occurred over the years, but I very seriously doubt they sit at home revelling in their Jaguar infamy. It's a footnote, an interesting one for sure, but I doubt they really give it much of a thought these days. Except when they happen across threads like this and probably laugh. Why don't they make more? My assertions are (a) they're done with it, (b) the margins vs the effort are so small, and © the Jag community is (somewhat, maybe not overall a true reflection) perceived as dismissive, entitled, and they some people don't like 4Play / Scatologic so why would they bother? Ego plays an inconsequential (albeit possibly present) impact on the situation. Where it possibly comes into play is the refusal to let others reproduce it under license (ostensibly due to quality control, or supply chain control, or whatever)...which I kind of agreed with ten years ago, but not now. Why do I think this? Hypothetical - License it to *someone*, get them to produce the cart (or Scatbox), approve the product at their high standards, let it sell for $130 a piece, collect their $30-50 per piece for doing nothing, reseller donates a percentage to charity, sell hundreds of the products, profit, go on a holiday and sip cocktails with little umbrellas by the pool, be happy that a good thing has been done and the handful of Jag fans are happy and get to appreciate your product for what it is rather than a semi-mythical tchotchke that it currently is. I could dream, but I'm in agreement that it's done, just for different reasons than some others who bring the online personas into it more than I do.

Oh. My. God...

To quote someone who posted about this exact same subject on AA in 2004 and to paraphrase what I wrote above a couple of weeks ago and what is relatively easy to find via the Googletron... "A&C act as up and down and the rotary controls right and left during the bonus levels. Pretty difficult to navigate using this setup but at least it (somewhat) works." No juggling required. No swapping pads required. Unless you want to. Or not as the case may be. The. End. (???)

Furrtek created a Lynx to TV project (and maybe others did too?). I don't know how many it sold and / or were constructed but not many I believe. I can see this sort of thing being 'cool' but it'd make a lot more sense (for example) to create a similar sort of cart that allows Megadrive/Genesis games to work on the Jag (utilising the 68000 perhaps). As much as I love the Lynx it really doesn't have the volume of games nor the pervasive interest by gamers to make it worth it to even consider breaking even.

Umm, 4Play/Scatologic *are* from the US. And comparing BS (essentially a three person team developing part time for much of the game's early life) vs WC3 (big team, actors, backed with millions of dollars at the time, one of the biggest and most expensive video game productions of the time) is a little silly. Sure, the BS gameplay and structure wasn't the norm (open vs mission based), but to the dev's credit they stuck to their guns, like it or not. And yes, I would have like to have seen big superships and even a more rigidly structured single player mission mode too, but it is what it is. The multiple modes of gameplay, mostly rock solid framerate, and extra value added features are miles above what was shoved out by most bigger teams with bigger budgets. If you want to get picky (and being objective), the colour depth, framerate, visible playfield on the screen, networking etc in BS each beat out WC3. And yes, the lack of distance to enemy indicator and green for enemies weirdness (fixed in BSG I believe) are both annoying to me. I'm in no way an 'apologist' for anyone / anything related to this game, but I've noticed a slight bit of somewhat revisionist dislike for the game in recent years (or maybe people are now just being more honest about what they think about the game, who knows) based on personal disagreements with individual(s). As far as the whole charity thing goes, *I believe* the statement about all profits being donated to diabetes research was only locked in place for the original release, not BSG. I'm also disappointed that with the plethora of developers and publishers out there these days that some kind of deal or arrangement has not been made to re-release it. I understand there's a number of reasons, but given the time since the game came out and the continued interest in the Jaguar, I hope one day this can be revisited with one of the existing publishers. I, unfortunately, don't think it will happen...but I'd like to be surprised.

Just in case it was missed, you CAN use the rotary for left and right, and A & C for up and down. And, if you have a switch on a rotary with a d-pad or joystick, you can flick it (I think, I've never bothered) on those instances when the bonus stages come around.

Many of the graphics / sprites still have black pixels around them. Sorry to mention it so many times, but it seems simple to fix yet stands out a lot, making it seem rather rough and unfinished. I hope the player doesn't have to hold left/right when on the logs. Can the frog have animation when moving rather than colour cycling. It'd gel better with the cartoon style graphics in the rest of the game.

TxK exists in VR but won't be released (afaik). Blame (faux)Atari and their lawyers. Llamasoft are working this. Out soon There's more video of the game out there too

cjameslv - That's twice you've asked for "good quality ports" or the "list of titles i'm waiting for" without stating what they are. Very classy AND informative. LOL. I personally haven't bought any of the ST ports yet (and I'm a completist so would like them one day) simply because I have to prioritise what I want (and I have many of them on arcade compilations or stand-alone on other consoles or have them on ST or Amiga already etc). Do you see me (or others) spitting the dummy out of the pram because it's NOT WHAT I WANT!?!?! Do I specifically want to see Obsession Pinball, Starball, Andes Attack and some other ports on Jag? Yes, indeed I do. Have I mentioned them in passing before? Yes, and I now have again Do I have a rude rant when they haven't emerged? No, not yet... ...SMH, so many Atari Jag fans online - lacking in grace, considered writing, reading social cues, and constructive comments since 1994... I'd suggest you seek that free hug offer and take up the first person who offers it in your general direction.

Yeah yeah, haha, fair enough. But the fact remains, with all the various people involved and cart design implementations and seemingly good inventory of parts to produce games, there's no real impediments to physically producing the carts again. Time, unwillingness, more important things in their lives, can't be bothered, annoyances with the 'Jag scene' etc are perfectly legit reasons to never produce the game ever again. My point was, being completely selfish, it's a shame that it's not being produced. Although the reduction in inflated reseller values isn't a selfish point of view, but this would definitely amuse me...a lot

Wouldn't moving the frog with the logs be something like: if (frog_obj touches log_X_obj == TRUE) { frog_obj._x += log_X_obj.speedVar } Obviously that's just pseudocode, I don't know RB+ from a bar of soap...yet. Graphics wise: maybe I've been a photoshop user for too long, but wouldn't 'cleaning up' the images take about 5 minutes per graphic, especially given that they're tiny? Fair enough if you'd rather save that until the end though...the possible bad thing about that is that you'll miss something obvious and the release version will have an ugly graphic or two. I'm all for diving in and experimenting, but released products should have a plan...which you seem to have. Jeff Minter (my favourite game programmer / designer ever) often experiments with ideas to come up with what he wants. This should be encouraged... ...BUT - having a complete handle on the programming language structure is probably best to have first once you've 'played around' IMHO. And I say that as someone who's old enough and crusty enough to now struggle with learning any new programming language and environment (there's a reason why I haven't played with RB+ yet, haha). It's coming along well enough though, hopefully it'll evolve into a fun and unique game of it's own

I like scripted / level based space flying games AND ones with more freedom. Back in the day I appreciated his opinion that things like RL, Colony Wars (PS1), and even Darklight Conflict (PS1, I *love* this game, Scott liked it but didn't like some things about it IIRC) but I didn't completely agree. I bought one of the original run of BS for ~$100 US. I stupidly (my opinion of my decision) didn't buy BS Gold (or the Scatbox). For the system it's on, for what they achieved with a small team, the personal little touches, and even the 'questionable' aspects of the game (I don't love every part of it, some bits annoy me)...it's a fantastic and mostly very polished achievement that has a lot of longevity in my books. Some people are bored with the gameplay, which is fine. Take Super Burnout - almost every Jag fan loves it and I think it's a bit...just okay. It's a great technical achievement and rather fun to play, but it's a bit simplistic overall imho. I probably should try it again sometime BS is not worth the money it goes for these days (duh!). I understand some of the reasons for not pursuing or allowing production by other legit companies (Songbird or Telegames etc) *but* as a gamer and collector (who hates artificially inflated prices with a passion) I think the rarity vs desirability of the game still sucks over 15 years later. I hold the occasional skerrick of hope that BS Gold will have an officially endorsed production run again that will allow everyone who wants to play it legally at a not so stupid price can do so. I doubt that will ever happen, though I'd love to be surprised and proved wrong...

It's interesting that this thread popped up again. I was reading on the weekend for 'research purposes'... Back in the mid 90s (20 years ago! Wow!) I made my own Jaguar arcade stick by hacking a controller. I didn't have any instructions as such, other than the freely available rotary stuff. I used a 2600 driving controller which is fine ergonomically but the resolution of the rotary encoder sucks. The two switches on the left/right of the pause and option buttons are for enabling the rotary (easy) and for auto-fire on button B. I tried to create my own circuit diagrams for auto-fire but never implemented it unfortunately...and my electronics-fu is very weak now, so I'd need to find a working circuit design to copy if I were to ever get it working. The soldering of the wires is very logical and easy (pad and button points) and I *highly* and *strongly* recommend implementing the pro-controller layout by soldering to the number pad. It's easy and well worth the time and effort to do so (much easier than acquiring a pro-controller or hacking one, even though I have at least two of them floating around ). Here's a photo. It's falling apart, and my wiring used the thinnest and weakest wires (what was I thinking!?) but it still works! I do plan on putting it into a proper box at some stage in the future and fixing my wiring / soldering, plus I'll see if I can retro-fit a decent rotary encoder and finally implement auto-fire *fingers crossed*. I *could* get these professionally built with brand new parts. I have a possible professional manufacturing partner (because I simply don't have the time to do it myself). There are four main problems though (in addition to a few smaller issues): - Time is lacking - I'm not sure if the manufacturing partner is on-board just yet (I shouldn't give that away, but in the context of being fully open, why not) - A Jaguar pad would have to be sacrificed for each one (maybe, see below) - The price would be at least $200 a piece (AU or USD, it's still pricey), it could cost more, and shipping from AU to the rest of the world for a 4kg professionally made piece is not insubstantial. There is a possibility that it could be made without sacrificing a Jag pad and simply plugging it in, but the science of doing that hurts my brain. I do have 'people' that could make this a possibility and have done similar in the past (with modern consoles and their controllers), but the time invested in working it out could be more than it's worth. I know people have done it, so it's definitely an option that in the long run could be easier. Oops, I wasn't going to talk about this again unless it happened. But there you have it...

It's looking more polished and less "let's try everything to see what works". Kudos. A couple of things from the videos: - Numerous graphics still have a smattering of black pixels around them (snow, leaves, logs). If you're not going for a cel-shaded cartoon look where it's on everything (hard to do nicely at low resolution on the jag) this could / should be cleaned up. - On the credits screen there's no mention of RB+ and the various creators of the various modules (unless I missed it)....nor a weblink to it. I don't know, but if you're using their tools and advice and suggestions, the done thing would be to credit them wouldn't it? A number of tweaks that have been implemented have come from the AA community...it'd be nice to credit the AA forum members in general (but not necessary I guess). This might not be 'cool' for the narrative that some people espouse, but who'd have thought that the people here are actual nice, not just some evil globular entity.... - +1 for the turning of the frog...though simple animation of the frogs' legs (rather than the colour cycling) when moving would be even better. - I still note that the frogs don't get 'carried' by the logs. Having taught game design / programming for years, it's a pretty simple task to do (one of my students made a Frogger clone a year or two back). Maybe half a dozen lines at most IIRC. I hope that gets put in...moving your frog along with the logs would...not be cool. Now that it's working what *I'd do* (and what I often get my students to do if they're ahead of the curve with planning and simple implementation of their games) is to work out on paper how level progression would work, what objects / enemies would come in (and when), what assets and code modules you'll need for each feature etc etc. That last 5 or 10 % that takes most of the time as others have mentioned.

Hi Ted! As others have mentioned, your name is definitely well known from those of us who were Atari fans in the 90s. This 1000x over. As my primary university research field is now about videogame/software preservation (from a cultural more than technical position), I cannot abide by the hoarding or 'one-upmanship' mentality that permeates some of the console collectors scene (not so much the computing scene oddly enough)...and the Jaguar collector approach hasn't been immune to this either (although, despite occasional dissenters, the Jag scene is generally more open and sharing these days). I do hope whoever gets it plans on sharing some stuff as much as legally possible in digital form, plus via purchase (if some things are 'complete' enough). I very much look forward to what comes of this

I would love if someone with this (and the IS poster) to scan them (difficult given the size) or otherwise reconstruct them from hi-res photos. It'd be great to be able to reproduce them even if smaller, in addition to the obvious preservation reasons. With the original artwork in a fan's hands, I'm holding out hope

IS2 and Battlemorph are both amazing. HS:UL is okay I guess. Lots of the freely available homebrew also works on burnt CDs too.