Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

stardust4ever,

 

Thanks for your post.

 

I did kind of have a rough idea that the VCS had 128 bytes of RAM and even a vague notion of what a MMOG is because I've being doing it for a little while now. And I did a little research before hand, in this very thread about the market size.

 

Not to worry, my game idea is history.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Supergun,

 

That's why I asked and I'm glad at least someone responded. The scene here is very new to me, not really sure what you all are all about. I don't really want to spend a few months work for nothing, or worst insulting this community. So thanks for saving me that.

 

It's not just your post. I've been reading a lot of other threads since my last post and know the community a little bit better. I kind of came to the same conclusion you stated clearly. So I thank you for that.

 

However, as far as ruining the VentureVision series...you have nooooooo idea what kind of game this next game would have been. None, zero, zip. Couldn't conceive of even a fragment of what this game could have been I know this for a fact because I have nooooooo idea what this game would have been. But you do! You don't trust me to come up with an appropriate game for my own games????? Fell free to cram that.

 

I thought market managers were narrow minded.

 

Glad you like the 1980's games. Glad you liked some old stories.

 

However, with 30 years more programming experience than I had back then and with the new tech like Melody it just wouldn't be possible for me to do yet another 1980 game. I'm not right for the job. I withdraw my game concept.

 

-Dan

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

I have a basic design for my next VCS game and I want to launch it at AtariAge. The working title is Channel 3 and will be developed by VentureVision and be the next game in the VentureVision series.

 

My inspiration for the game came from this community and all the other Atari historical sites and emails I've been reading the past few days.

 

Back in the day we never had a clue about our audience and I'd like to take advantage of being able to communicate with potential players to design this game specifically for them. Involve players into the process even before the game is done.

 

This will be a MMOG VCS game, but light on the "massively".

 

Players will be able to play as a team on either "side". This will not involve connecting the VCS to the net in any way and instead be more like D&D, more manual, more 1980. Players can communicate via phone or over the net.

 

Plan for selling the game...

I also wanted to take advantage of 2 other things I didn't have available back in the day. Collectors and Melody carts being one offs.

 

Sell the game for a limited time. Say 1 week. And then maybe 2 week period for shipping and confirmation. But the cart won't play without a code. At a pre-announced date/time the code will be posted so all players can start at the same time. There will be levels to get thru and codes needed to proceed but in between different more standard play type play.

 

As people accomplish goals they will be given codes from the game which they will post or communicate to each other so everyone can get thru together to the next level. First person to post a code will be immortalized for all time. I'll make sure everyone can keep playing until almost everyone is caught up. But some players may just have to be left behind. War is hell.

 

The game will also be playable in single player mode. I think after the initial launch people could chose to set up the same type of thing using a web where they post a launch date/time and a code would be issued, etc. The difference is on the first wave no player will have ever been able to have ever seen the game.

 

A question I have is whether game sales should be limited to a single week? Does anyone think there is any collector value in doing so?

 

I would then like to learn from the first game and tweak another in the series that would be very similar and repeat the launch of the next title. As far as I know nothing like this has been done and I don't know if that seems desirable? Instead of the next version being a huge change, just some small changes, like missions, some new levels.

 

Pre-launch backstory...

As part of the game research I would like to start a thread ASAP somewhere on AtariAge in the voice of 2 characters in the game. Members would be encouraged to join in if they wish and post whatever they wanted. Members would use the thread as they wish. The 2 game characters would interact to learn about features people like and don't like in a game and get ideas. I would use this process to design the actual game.

 

I have no idea what direction this would go or whether it would even work. I'm looking for a way to role play in a thread and then use that thread to produce a game. That this thread would in fact be part of the total game experience and the cart only be the end of the "game". People who only played the cart would be playing Channel 3 while people who read and/or took part in the thread AND played the cart would have The Channel 3 Experience, C3E.

 

I expect that thread would last about a year because that's how long it would take to finish my current project. Then cart development would take however long but the thread would continue right up to the cart launch date. I expect development to take a long time because Melody has so much space and my plan would be to use all of it.

 

I would need to limit my time in C3E to I'm thinking 2 hours per week and that limit would be part of the story. But anyone else could post whatever, whenever.

 

Permission...

I PM Albert what I'd like to do to make sure it was OK and/or work out details. I have since found the "Forum Guidelines and Rules" and see this would break several rules. The forum is about discussing games and this would be more like role playing, but to me you would be "discussing a game", just in a different way maybe.

 

I also wanted one of the characters to be a bit rude and curse, but having read the forum rules think the cursing probably isn't such a good idea.

 

What do you think? Is this even appropriate for this forum?

 

What forum section could something like this be in? None seemed to jump out at me. Maybe "Contests"?

 

Thanks

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

I seem to keep ending up there.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Wait a minute...Tempest, is AtariProto your site?

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

The timeline would be right imo. Ban would have been hired at Apollo say Jun 82. Knocked out Wabbit say Jul-Aug 82. Jumped to Micographic with other Apollo people and had Solar Fox ready by Sept 83. That's impressive in my book. And her port of Solar Fox was well reviewed to boot.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Solar Fox. I found it at AtartProtos.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Speaking of Apollo, do any of these games look familiar or were they all done after you had left?

 

Kyphus: http://www.atariprot...phus/kyphus.htm

 

Pompeii: http://www.atariprot...eii/pompeii.htm

 

Squoosh: http://www.atariprot...osh/squoosh.htm

Don't know any of those.

 

Apollo hired a bunch of people just before I left. One was an ex-air traffic controller from the 81 strike. I assume he did Final Approach.

 

Squoosh, Looks pretty darn good to me.

 

While Googling around I saw Wabbit. I see the programmer credited is Tran Ban, who if I have the right person, is a Vietnamese woman. I Google some more to try and confirm that but didn't find much. I'll use the name Ban for the woman I'm thinking of and hope I have it right. Any Facebook users out there might be able to get more info?

 

Our office faced the parking lot and we could see interviewees parking and walking up. Ban was extremely attractive and when she walked by there was a rush into Ed's office begging him to hire her. And we kept walking by his office trying to crack him up. It's not like we required any experience anyways. If you could spell 6502 you were in. But I think there was little expectation Ban would become a game designer because she was not a nerd in any sense of the word.

 

Ban came up with a game idea really fast, the only one in the new group I remember doing so. It was an extremely intense concept. Made Night Trap look like a bedtime story for kids. 20 years ahead of its time and way too intense for the VCS. And she was explaining it like it was a picnic at the beach. So pretty quick the stereotype started to fall.

 

Lots of people mailed game ideas to Apollo which we looked thru. The idea for Wabbit came from two completely different letters from different people. It was freaky because both ideas were almost the same. Ban was given the Wabbit idea and her idea I assume was placed into a time capsule and removed years later, toned down and became Grand Theft Auto.

 

Wabbit looks impressive to me considering zero experience and the state of Apollo at the time which must have been a mad house with all the new people and platforms. The player graphic is really good, and female, which also makes me think Ban is the woman I'm thinking of. In the letters the players were male farmers I believe. And she went on to do 5200 stuff.

 

Not too many VCS games were done by women so that's pretty cool...if I have it right.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

First of all, I want to second any positive comments about Telepathy. It's very good, especially for something whipped up for the Mindlink controller. Who did the sound?

Thanks. I assume I did the sound. The Product Manager was very active on the development and he could have gone out and found an audio engineer, had them do the audio and just handed me some files and so I wouldn't remember if something like that happened.

 

I was not into audio. I could do somethings, but I wasn't good at audio. If there's any music in Telepathy I'd be pretty sure that would have been done by someone else. I don't believe I ever created any music myself. Don't think I'd have a clue how to.

 

I don't know if this is common knowledge or not but most game programmers I met back then were either into audio or visual arts. I forget where but several us were sitting around shooting the breeze and someone said something about playing an instrument and someone else said that they also play an instrument. Pretty soon we realized everyone there played a musical instrument or been a painter. I remember it being a little freaky and us all being surprised. We kind of wondered if that was why we all did games.

 

Have you heard of Power Lords? You never brought it up, so I assume you didn't have anything to do with it. But it does look like a game made by someone from Apollo. (The score display looks the same.)

Never heard of it until now.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Dan, I noticed yesterday a yellow sticky next to my computer with your name on it. I was doing some research a few months ago on a game that was shown at CES in 1984 called Snowplow. It was presented by Sunrise Software which was located in the Dallas area. I wrote the president, Terry Grantham and he did not remember the game or who the programmer might be. One theory I had was that maybe one of the Apollo programmers created it. Does this ring any bells? Do you know of any programmers that did work for Sunrise Software?

I don't remember Snowplow but Sunrise Software does ring a bell. Seems like I remember seeing their booth at Jan 1983 CES. Small booth like ours. But I Googled their logo and that's not what I remember. I remember a multi-colored rainbow type sunrise. But I could be completely mistaken.

 

Googled Terry Grantham who's name sounded familiar and found that Sunrise was connected to VSS which was ex-Apollo people. VSS was started Nov 1982 so they could have been at CES. I think I remember Terry from Apollo.

 

If Sunrise was at 1983 CES that would put 3 booths related to Apollo employees. Apollo, VSS/Sunrise and VentureVision. This may seem strange but there were no reunions.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Reading on Atarimania all 3 VentureVision games were treated as a trilogy, was this meant to be?

I'd say yes, having recently re-read some material. Robert Hesler the head of the company wrote all the back story and he tied all 3 games together.

 

But each game was created first and then the back story was added. The idea for Innerspace was developed while I was working on Rescue. And Solar Defense was totally Robert Weatherby's creation.

 

But there could be a quadrilogy...or more

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Thanks for the link.

 

That timeline seems to mesh. Nintendo ready to roll mid 83. Tramiel takes over Atari July 84 so Nintendo would be looking for titles for the 85 launch N American. The meeting I saw must have happened July or Aug because we were all in Monterey by early Sept.

 

My guess is they would have been looking for Atari programmers to do the conversions because if it was just licenses they were after I assume Tramiel would have been happy to sell licenses all day long. He had no plans for them. I don't know NES very well at all, but I don't know of any Atari games ported to NES at least in 85.

 

Now I'm wondering if the reason programmers were marched thru the meeting was to just show Nintendo that Tramiel hadn't fired every programmer. Basically we would have been meat on the hoof. And that might also explain why Tramiel had kept some VCS programmers around for a little while. Just in case they could make some money off of them.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

The account of that Atari/Nintendo meeting syncs up perfectly with what is generally known about the whole situation. Namely, that Atari was just using stall tactics on Nintendo to keep them out of the market.

Do you have any links about this stalling thing. Be an interesting read.

 

I wouldn't say the Tramiels were stalling. I assume they wouldn't have cared at all if Nintendo did anything in games. Pre and Post Tramiel were two entirely different companies. They had less than zero interest in games. For example they owned all these titles and I don't remember anyone ever suggesting we should port anything to the ST for the release. They just didn't see value in software, Apple did. Just before I left Atari I'd written a kind of Finder rip off for the ST and a Switcher with the help of the OS guys. Tramiels thought GEM was as good as Mac. Good luck with that. Loved the ST, but thought it deserved better software.

 

As far as the Rescue Terra I competition goes, I wouldn't feel too bad. That sort of thing was somewhat common back in those "frontier days" of gaming. I remember a couple of computer game companies that were infamous for this stuff (Crystalware, Level-10/Dakin5), and I believe a few companies in the UK pulled these sorts of stunts as well. All part of the charm of the era, I say!

Thanks.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Maybe VisionVision should be the game title?

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

How about a trilogy cart, Rescue Terra 1, Innerspace and Solar Defence (with permission)

You'd have to check with Robert Weatherby about Solar Defence.

 

The rights to Innerspace are owned by Imagic as far as I know. I sure don't have any rights.

 

Rescue Terra I, no idea. I don't own it.

 

Since I don't have any ownership of any of these I give my full permission to use them as you like. And you can borrow my neighbor's car too anytime you like.

 

Tonight I was working on a story treatment for a new game that involves tying at least Rescue Terra I and Innerspace together. I'd been reading the box and manual and see there was a common theme. So I'll keep that going.

 

I'm also wanting to work in a lot the history I've learned here and in the community the past few days. Kind of an insiders game since all potential players seem to know a lot about game history. Easter egg city, but easter eggs as part of game play.

 

Reading the old boxes was like seeing a picture of myself from 1983 sporting a mullet...not fun to see. But it started to grow on me. Those 1980 campy story lines were part of the VCS I kind of like now.

 

I'm going to use VentureVision as the company name. The trademark was abandoned in 1984 and not in use so I'm picking up the common law trademark on it until a suit tells me to stop.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Wow! As an early NES/Famicom history geek, this really caught my eye. Do you happen to remember any more details of this meeting? Was the console you were shown an AVS (slick grey unit with keyboard and wireless controllers) or a standard Famicom (small red and white toy-like console)? Do you remember any of the games that were shown (probably would have been Donkey Kong/DK Jr., Popeye, Mario Bros., etc,)? Also, do you have any other recollections of Atari's dealings with Nintendo at the time? This has always been a sort of murky subject, so any first-hand account would be fantastic.

As far as I remember some of us were ushered into the conference room and there was a mess of equipment all over the table including the box shaped NES. The shape of the unit, the specs they said and that the people there were from Japan is the only reason I even think this was Nintendo. I don't remember anyone telling me it was Nintendo.

 

This happened like 7 or 8 pm at this building on the 2nd floor. I remember it being dark outside.

 

The other programmers may have been more interested and played some games. I wasn't interested even a little. I figured video games were done forever. I'd make a great fortune teller. The other programmers I can remember who were probably there were Jim Eisenstein, Matt Householder, Dave Staugas and maybe Dave Getreu and Landon Dyer. So they might have more info.

 

The Tramiel boys were all there so it was a high level meeting. I hardly ever saw Sam or Gary.

 

To me what it looked like is they'd been in a meeting for a long time and this was the end, no one was sitting. Seemed like they just brought us in as a kind of a courtesy to Nintendo or whoever this was. You know, feign interest. The Japanese back then were way into a certain social procedures. I don't think the Tramiels were interested even a little bit because they didn't want anything to do with games. But this was too big a company to blow off.

 

We were asked a few questions in the hall when we were ushered back out "What'd you think" was about as in depth as it got and they didn't seem interested in our answers. That was that.

 

I don't have any memory of reading or someone saying this was Nintendo. But I've always thought it was Nintendo. I don't remember any programmers talking about it later. We were focused on the ST.

 

One other question: Do you have any memories of the supposed $5000 contest that was to be held in Dallas for Rescue Terra I? Did any of that ever actually take place? (Sorry if that subject has been covered here before, by the way. I couldn't find anything, but I'm new here.)

Yes I remember the contest. Pretty sure Bob Hesler, who started VentureVision and was in charge came up with the idea to promote the game. He was a serious game player, VCS and Intellivision (I think), and played the heck out of Rescue Terra I.

 

OK, so I'd been researching tonight for a new game and was looking thru my RTI box and there was one of the contest fliers. I just read it and it's a lot more involved than I'd remembered. I thought it was just a whoever had some set high score first would collect the prize. I'd forgotten (conveniently) there was suppose to a drawing and flying people around, etc.

 

My memory is Bob saying something like "don't worry, no one is ever going to reach Terra I" in response to his partner not wanting to do the contest. It couldn't have been a week later and we got a few screen photos of people at Terra I. Bob was real quiet. You have to know that this money was coming right out of Bob's pocket and Bob was no millionaire by any means. Until now I'd always hoped that first photo was paid as the winner. But now looking at the rules, there was no drawing, no flying of anyone to Dallas, no local competition. I know Bob would have loved for the game to have sold well enough to have had the contest. He was/is very honest as was his partner.

 

So now I'd have to consider the contest a sham I'm ashamed to say.

 

We were off by maybe 2 weeks. Had 10,000 sold which would have been maybe $50k clear, enough for the contest.

 

You hear about entrepreneurs and I've met many. But these two guys were the real deal. Put it all on the line. And they pulled a lot off. They had zero experience in this type of stuff and they were getting press, suppliers, manufacturing, got us to CES.

 

If I wanted to spin it I could say there weren't enough entries. I only saw 2 I believe and the contest needed at least 4. But that would be spinning it imo.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Oh yeah, major fan. Have you seen the new season from last year, Red Dwarf X? It's really good.

I had to go to Wikipedia to remember Lister's name and saw they're still producing the series. It's been many years since I've seen it. I'm sure going to look for it though. At Go during a lay off I cut out a cardboard H and stuck it to my forehead.

 

I suspect a big part of that is because 2600 coding isn't done for financial gain anymore. I've only made enough from Medieval Mayhem, my remake of Warlords (and one of the more popular homebrews), to make a few car payments.

You're right of course about taking money out of the equation changes things.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Dan just said he's making a Red Dwarf game, awesome!!

Yeah, I need the BBC on my case.

 

Dan, also of note is that people are making Homebrews that use the Sega Genesis controller so they can have two button support. The Genesis has three buttons but I don't know if all three have been used. Don't ask me specifics because while I'm not as cool as Cat I'm about as smart when it comes to programing. I just wanted to give you a heads up so when you do make a game you can make use of the Genesis controller as well.

I don't think I'd consider the Genesis controller just on principle. Have to draw the line some place and I don't think I can afford to limit my market.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

You'll see some homebrew programmers using illegal opcodes that have been found to be stable. For example you could use a normal BIT as $24 to skip one byte or $2C to skip two bytes. On the other hand, you can also use some illegal NOP's such $04 to skip one byte or $0C to skip two bytes, and preserve all your flags at the same time. There is also an immediate mode ($80) for the single byte NOP skip, so it only takes two cycles instead of three! The Batari Basic kernel uses illegal NOP's as well as the SLEEP marco found in vcs.h

 

 

Other useful illegal NOP's (that are stable) include LAX, SBX, SAX, DCP, and ISB.

I did run into a few web sites that documented these to a degree. And I'll be reading as much code here as I can.

 

I've got tons more to learn. Funny, that was one of the pluses of programming the VCS, there was hardly anything to learn. We had a small pamphlet about the the VCS and like a hundred 6502 instructions. Took a few hours to start writing code.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

All I want to say is... Dan, good luck on your future 2600 (or 5200/7800) projects, I would LOVE to buy a physical cartridge of any new game you make (being that it is within my ability to play [2600/5200/7800/even jaguar lol])

and just remember, you don't have to throw all your ideas into ONE game! Feel free to make several! Hell, even a series or trilogy would be amazing!

 

Go for it! I'll be here waiting to support and enjoy when it's finished. =)

If I can it will certainly be a long time from now. I have at least 6 months on my current project and I've been saying 6 months for a very long time. But that gives me time to research and think of a game.

 

But thanks for the support.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

The border thing is kind of weird. Never really saw my games at the same time as I have the past few days.

 

I'm starting to make a list of things to do and not do in my next game.

 

Melody would allow a game to use the whole screen. I wouldn't have to fill dead space with score panels. Maybe do away with using digits as scoring and use something like sand filling something. Then at the end display a digital score so players could compare results. Something different anyways.

 

The target audience would be really experienced with other games but also joystick, paddle use. So maybe really hard bits, but don't make them go back to the beginning. Maybe you could get around hard bits or go thru.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

I just Googled ".byte $2C" and dang if it didn't pop up. Yeah you're absolutely right. Thanks. Never heard of such things.

 

It does make sense to use these ops now. And in Wozniak's case the CPU and code would have stayed together so why not.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Dan, just let me know when the pre-order page comes up :-)

You know my buttons.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Looks like most of the info I'm looking for is in the headers. That'll have to wait until/if I set up a development system. Cool as heck though.

 

I'm just going to approach this as if I took a short break (30 yrs) from programming the VCS while the hardware world marched on...because that's what happened. I hope I can find some time, but I have some products I'm working on now and can't get distracted so I'm going to have to leave VCS development for now. Amazing stuff. Thanks for all the info.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

SpiceWare, I'm reading the Harmony DPC+ programming thread you posted. Good info, thanks.

 

So batari changes ARM code to change how DPC+ works, bus-shuffing and who knows what else. Seems like the 6502 code is almost being interpreted by the ARM. The 6502 starts to execute an instruction and the ARM steps in and decides to do something else, changes the instruction/data and the 6502 finishes doing something entirely different. Like microcode?

 

That's why you guys are discussing bus-stuffing driver specs? You're tring to figure out how best the feature should work and btari implements it in the ARM?

 

This Harmony thing is freaky. And supported by Stella too! You guys are doing some amazing work. Not just technical, but in everyone working together. That's really rare.

 

Keep seeing ".byte $2c". Maybe I have to go back and check links you already posted. Looking to start further back in time.