freewheel

A "pretty crummy" game for the system - which we haven't seen many of - sells 100 copies.150 copies at best, if it's been a slow year. Getting much over the 200 hump is the exclusive realm of the top-tier games. DK sold a lot because it was a) fantastic, but more importantly b) came out when there were very few new homebrews coming out, and c) it's been around for years now, with several variants that bumps the sales figures substantially. 500 these days is out of the question unless someone really knocks it out of the park. I'd be shocked if even the GOTYs from the past couple of years have sold that many copies. The only easy way to sell 500 copies would be to make packaging and/or ROM variants. To the tune of 5 or 6 different versions of the package/game. Don't think it hasn't occurred to people

Not as strange as you might think I currently work for a company that goes by the premise "You're all smart people, so you can learn whatever tool you need. Use whatever you like, so long as you produce results". We standardize on programming languages and that's about it. Virtually no two people use the same toolchain for damned near anything. I could easily see the early 80s "wild west" atmosphere being similar.

Time and money, mio amico. I'm spending all my cash to see a once-in-a-generation eclipse next week, so PRGE got the short end of the stick. (Plus I've been too busylazy to get another game out for 2017, sigh.....)

Well, when you mentioned 1000 units of the CV expanded my jaw just about dropped. If I could consistently sell 1000 copies of a game, I'd probably do this as a full-time job!

Well, people are notoriously secretive about sales numbers for some bizarre reason. The BEST best sellers go well over 200, but that's certainly not the norm. Maybe people who track serial-numbered games can refute me - are there a lot of #4xx and up out there?

Anyone wants to bring a few copies to sell down there, let me know! Still a few left.

The I guess I misunderstood the "near obligatory" comment. No worries. In a market where 200 copies of a game is a best-seller, it's easy to be paranoid about market fragmentation.

You can change it to English menus. Click on the menu option "Ferramentas", then "Configuracao". Click the UK flag and then the save icon. The sprite editor is handy, but it seems a bit of a manual process to import into your code. Also it heavily relies on constants.bas, so those of us that know the bitmapping of the system are in for a learning curve Hm. It includes IntyBASIC and jzinty, but not constants.bas. That'll confuse a lot of people. Also its editor tries (has code coloring), but misses a lot of basic stuff (being able to tab-indent lines). Edit: don't get me wrong, this will be handy for many things. Man, but what I wouldn't give for the ability to edit bitmaps AND export to Intycolor with a single click!

I don't want it to fail, but I'd prefer if it doesn't become the de-facto standard for Intellivision gaming in the 21st century (at least, that's how I read your comment about the CV). For 2 potential reasons: 1. Those of us who enjoy programming to the original hardware will find ourselves with a non-existent market soon enough. Because everyone will just expect games to be written for the new unit. 2. People who don't buy the expansion unit are essentially "locked out" of new homebrew. Heck, half of the people buying Intellivision homebrew don't own an Intellivoice, and you can pick those up for $5 on Ebay. Same with the ECS. It's already easy to make a game that shuts out a large chunk of the market, and this with accessories that are essentially unlimited and very cheap. Fortunately most Inty devs write games assuming neither are present, so they're really just for extra effects for the people who can take advantage of them. What I fear is a segmentation of the market (those with and without the new module), or worse, it becomes "a new obligatory accessory". If it were part of new carts, at least everyone could play the new games. I realize this is a philosophical discussion. We already have things like RAM expansion in carts today - but to me this is more like bolting on an entirely new console to the unit. Plenty of people want that, don't get me wrong. It's not for me to dictate how people enjoy their games I just think we could lose something special if Intellivision homebrew essentially becomes an entirely new console target. Don't get me wrong - if Oscar whips up IntyBASIC support for it, I'll almost certainly write some stuff for it

This would be amazing, but it would also have to support the controllers.

Eric scared everyone away from releasing any new games!

For the record, and I mean this in the politest way possible, I hope this isn't where the Intellivision is going. I like programming to the hardware constraints of the old platforms. If I wanted better graphics, etc I'd just get into NES dev. So don't take this personally, but I hope this remains a niche item at best. It's hard enough to sell X copies of a game with this small community; cutting out the more casual gamers would just make it all the more difficult. And yes, these people do exist - it's not all hardcore AA fanatics buying modern homebrew! Woulda been cool if there was a cost-affordable way to package the new functionality entirely within each cart. I realize how impractical that would be though

Not having to worry about sprites per scanline is a far superior feature, from a development standpoint Sprite programming on the Intellivision is really easy.

There's always 2018. Or what I think we should plan for now - the 40th anniversary of the INTV, in 2019! Even people from Mexico are welcome

Any chance you have a vaguely common name? I find it very hard to believe someone would do that, especially from this forum. But I guess there are assholes everywhere. I always thought you had to show them the e-ticket or whatever. I've never just tried using my name - pretty crappy security if they allow that.

Are you going?? I'd hate to miss that

Yeah, I got a bit burnt out from the programming jam - so I've spent the past 8 months or so doing everything that has nothing to do with classic gaming. Plus I can't make PRGE this year, so sad panda

Yup - part of an unreleased SegaCD game.

Cool There's not a lot of places to pick people up in the desert. Nor get food. This one is MUCH better than the 2600 version. Proof here:

There are hotels in the USA with shared bathrooms? Aren't those hostels?

Addendum. There's a bit more you can do to "prove" your driving acumen: In Desert Bus, there are occasional bugs that will hit the windshield. Write down the odometer when you hit them, and keep track of which leg of the journey you're on. Hint: there are several bugs, more than 2 but fewer than 10. Also, in Desert and Arctic, there are transitions to dusk and then night. Keep track of the odometer when those transitions happen, again with which leg of the trip you're on. If you can give accurate (+/- a mile or 2) details about those, I'm much more inclined to believe that you've actually driven

Awesome! I figured those jerks had forgotten to send it to you. It's a small thing, but a neat little souvenir from PRGE 2016

I hereby offer my unreleased games in an exclusive licensing deal to AtGames, so long as I can release 30 copies of them at PRGE this year. Seriously though, this is cool beans. I really hope they add a few homebrews to this!

After months of delay, here it is - the official Desert Bus endurance contest! What is it? Well, I'm a sadist. I want to torture people into enduring my horrific creation for as long as possible. So here's the deal: you have to play Desert Bus. Not just try it out, not just drive a few miles. I mean actually PLAY. To extract the maximum pain, there will be 3 objectives, and 3 prizes: Objective 1: Do a round trip of Desert Bus. Drive to Las Vegas and back to Tucson (drive time 16 hours). Prize 1: a set of DB buttons, an extra air freshener, and a limited-edition Desert Bus! Yes, the actual Matchbox buses that only the first 10 serial numbers came with. factory-sealed with official Desert Bus livery. There were fewer than 20 of these made and this is your last chance to get one! Objective 2: Do a round trip of Arctic Bus. Drive to Dawson and back to Whitehorse (drive time 16 hours, with ice). Prize 2: a set of the buttons, an air freshener, the limited edition bus, and one each of the cardboard promo cards (one of the game box, the other is the "George" ad from PRGE). Objective 3: Do both - that's right, 32 hours of total driving. Prize 3: the buttons, the air freshener, the bus, one each of the promo cards, AND the one-of-a-kind Desert Bus promotional banner that was at PRGE. This thing is HUGE - 3'x4' - printed on high quality vinyl, and grommetted in the corners for easy hanging. The ultimate collectible item for any Desert Bus or Intellivision fan! Now, how do you "win"? How do you prove you've driven 16 (or 32) hours? Well, there are no completion codes. But at the end of each 8 hour trip, there is a sign displayed for a bit. These signs are unique to each city - look at page 2 of the manual for what the Vegas sign looks like. You're going to need to plan for this. The signs are displayed for only a few seconds. So be ready with a camera (ideally have a friend nearby). Keep an eye on your odometer (360 miles for Desert bus, 532km for Arctic Bus) so you know when you're close. And take the picture, quick! Or have someone recording video for the last few miles. I don't care how bad the quality is, so long as it's recognizable. Now I know this is a bit hard, so if necessary I'll also accept a detailed written description of what you see - please make it as detailed as possible. Colors, overall graphics, any words on screen. The more detailed you can be, the more likely I'll believe you Just saying "there was a sign for Tucson" won't cut it. THIS IS IMPORTANT: send your results to me - via private message, email if you know how, or any other way. JUST DON'T POST THE ACTUAL PICTURES/DESCRIPTIONS HERE. We don't want other people benefiting from your hard work, after all! Minor details: 1. Shipping for the prizes is free. Even internationally. 2. To keep things fair, you can only win one prize. So if you win the big one, you're ineligible for the other 2. 3. In the event that multiple people complete an objective, the first person to send the proof to me will be the winner. I'll do everything in my power to announce once a prize has been won, so that people aren't wasting time (also so that people can consider trying for another prize, if they haven't been tortured enough). 4. I reserve the right to disqualify anyone for any reason, at my sole discretion. I also reserve the right to award prizes as I see fit, in the event that no one manages to fully complete things. Also, anyone involved in the game's development (testers, etc) are obvious ineligible for this contest. This is supposed to be for fun, so let's keep it that way. 5. The contest will be open until either a) all 3 prizes are won, or b) everyone gets sick of this in a few months and can't be bothered. At which point I keep the loot for myself. I'll post some pics of the prizes in the next day-three. I'm just slammed with work this winter, but I wanted to get this moving before the next PRGE There is a "4th prize" here, for the community - once this contest is done, I'll be releasing details of the various cheat/easter egg codes I've embedded into the game (apparently no one's found any?!). So that everyone can experience the whole thing without actually having to drive for 32 continuous hours. I have no idea if anyone is insane enough to take me up on this. But it's a chance to win some truly unique collector's items, so hopefully we have at least a few masochists out there. Any questions? Ask them here or via PM. Now start your engines!

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but someone reminded me that people might not think it's serious, so... For the month of April, Desert Bus is on "sale" - the price has been reduced to $40 per copy. Now, "sale" is in quotes because I'm not actually reducing the profit margins on this. I have found a *mysterious benefactor* who is willing to top up the extra $10 for any remaining copies that sell this month. And no, it's not cmart This will still keep money flowing into the charity at a good clip, while giving folks a chance to get a cheaper copy. So if you've been on the fence about it, or just haven't decided about that spare "backup" copy, now's the time to buy! Head on over to http://fwgames.ca/desert-bus-ordering/ and get your copy(ies) today! We've put over $2500 into Child's Play so far, so let's keep it up