Shaggy the Atarian

Any idea as to how vectors could be handled in comparison to filled polygons? As it may just be a raster technique, would there be much of a speed difference in the end?

That would definently be a great project for the contest. Hacking would also be easier than starting from scratch for newbies.

Wow, that is great to see. The way it looks, you could probably do something like a simplified Cybercon 3 (the control scheme is too complex for a joystick though...maybe if it had video pad support). But I hope that you'll be able to continue to develop this. :wink:

I didn't even know that this game has an ending. I guess that means a no for me. How can you find out if you're close to the last gate or not? I don't recall there being any level or gate indicators...

I thought that these were sort of rare. From the way it's mentioned in this thread perhaps the red end label is more common than we think?

Well I got to play SD for the first time today thanks to this sweet catch I got off eBay that arrived today. Well after playing the game for over a half hour or so I have to agree with the general consensus that this is among the best games for the 5200. The gameplay is very addicting, and my controls work pretty well for the game scheme. It's hard to imagine that it has 99 levels, you could really spend a lot of time on this game if you explored every level all the way through. Now I just need to get Robotron for the 5200 to also use my new handle with.

It certainly was very close to it(being the first). Atari did call the 5200 the "Personal Arcade Machine" at one time though, even though the graphics weren't up to par with the arcade machines of the time...but it sounded cool nevertheless. Still, I think the 7800 has the best arcade conversions available for it on a classic home console. With Beef Drop that will become even more of a fact.

Wow, and I thought I was the only person who was thinking that perhaps it could happen again. It most likely won't with all the money involved in the industry, but there is too much shovelware out there. There are so many clones and sequel games that I've become slightly uninterested in 'modern' games. Granted there are a few that catch my attention and I buy and play them, but there have been some disappointments in games I thought would be better than they turned out to be (like with Fable). I guess that's why I mostly play classic games these days. They are always cool. I'm mostly sad to see the arcade go away...it would be great to see a revival in the arcades

That's some interesting information to know. I suppose it's that flexibility that allows it to pump out games with the quality we find in Ballblazer and Tower Toppler.

It's impressive to watch the progress of the 7800 version of the game since that first BIN was posted some time ago. So would you consider this close to done Ken?

I wondered why the power cord was so long and the joystick cord so short. I guess they wanted you to sit really, really close to your TV.

I just received my order in the mail (thanks BTW!), I have #58. I sat down and played the game for a few minutes and it turned out to be more addictive than I imagined it could be. I'm glad I was able to pick this one up. I also got Marble Craze...after playing I now will demand that all Atari 2600 games has music like that, but that's not realistic of course. Very cool game! I didn't have a chance to play Skeleton+ yet (it's a present I'm giving to a friend anyways), but the clear cartridge housing looks cool

The card I was using was the same one mentioned (Hauppauge PVR 250MCE) but the delays I was getting out of it seemed to be longer. I haven't had a chance to make those adjustments yet, hopefully I can do that sometime this week. I had wondered if it was MCE that was causing the delay, since it seemed tobe recording what I was doing at the same time, but when I set it up again I'll double check that.

Marble Madness would make a great title for the 7800. I agree that it would have been nice if there were a few games that supported the trackball for the 7800. To have made one probably wouldn't have cost Atari much...

It certainly seems like a game that could have an ending. I remember I made it to the last part once but I forgot what happened if it just counted down or what. It would be interesting to know if it was supposed to have an ending...

I'm also getting one. For my Christmas shopping I purchased Skeleton + (w/ clear case) Marble Craze (w/ clear case) Cabana EP+ Should be a great little game to have though. Perhaps after it's no longer available we can add a rarity # to it on the guide.

*cough* Realsports Baseball *cough*

It would be great to have a sort of converter that on one end it's the Atari 7800 PS adapter and on the other end it's a regular VDC adapter so you can easily plug in a regular power adapter to the 7800 without having to hack the 7800 PS (which I'm no good at). I imagine that such a tiny device would be simple to make...perhaps I should give it a shot.

I would love to see any type of networking brought to the 7800, whether it be a ComLynx module or built-in ComLynx port to the 7800 ROM boards. Then we could add Slime World BattleWheels Super Skweek Double Dragon (the 7800 can do better than what showed up on it, right?) Robo-Squash And then (non-comlynxable) Kung Food Pounce (haven't played it, but it looks like a decent platformer) Any RPG that was supposed to be released for the Lynx, whether it be Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Slayer, Distant Lands, they would be good to have.

I'll have to check that setting out and see what happens. I'll also have to take a digital camera as it may be a little while before I can find a data cable to transfer the pics from my phone. :wink:

Here at work we have a few of those new Windows Media Center PC's and I decided to bring in my 2600 to see if it would work. We have a nice setup here where a Media Center PC is connected to a projector and since it has media center, the machine of course has a TV tuner with a coax port on there, so I figured that I could hook up my switch box to it. I had to fool around with the TV settings so it would pick up channel 3 but I did manage to get it working on the projector. I found out that it's pretty futile to use a 2600 through Media Center though. For one thing the screen quality is horrible...and there is a 5-20 second delay that develops thus making it unplayable. Thought I would give it a shot though. So it's possible to do but not pratical. I'm not sure if anyone else has already tried this...if so I apologize for bringing up the subject again. But it was an interesting experiment (I did take pictures of the setup with my camera phone, but I don't have a data cable to upload the pictures to the net yet either )

Wow, that looks great in MESS. I imagine that on the real thing it's even better. This is a great tool It could make for some interesting projects, especially if you wanted to add a storyline to your game with pictures. :wink:

That game pictured in the demo is one fun game. Using this tool it looks much better on the 7800. Awesome work Schmutzpuppe!

I'll try and finish my label and have it in by Monday, although I'm not too confident about it. Oh well, these labels are fun to make.

Hmm, the 3D isometric view of a Pac-Man style game may have done well (and would have been fun). It certainly would have beat falling into numerous pits...