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fultonbot

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Posts posted by fultonbot

  1. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

     

    I think this misses one huge fact: many games are being made strictly for VR and are not just VR versions of other games. There is a lot of room to create new VR-only genres, and I think that is where success will come.

     

    I think social and VR is huge growth area. Not social networking, but shared play experiences with people in the same room. We are working on game in genre right now.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

     

    Jeff Bell, Atari coin-op

    Jeff Bell worked for Atari Games for 31 years. He stated in 1973 as a Pong inspector, then moved to the engineering department, specifying requirements for parts. He worked in IT and system administration, and did other jobs in his more than three decades with the company. He also ran the Itsy Bitsy Bulletin Board System.
    This interview took place on November 7, 2015. In it, we discuss Bob Stahl, whom I previously interviewed.
    Teaser quote:
    "People say Atari died in — what? — 1983? Didn't happen. Didn't happen. We were in Milpitas making video games. We made great video games."

     

     

    Wow. The guy who closed the doors and turned the lights-off at Atari. That's powerful stuff. Great work on this one, as always.

    • Like 2

  4. Posted

    I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

     

    I got my original 5200 on a summer day in 1983. I had just graduated 7th grade. That day I went to see Return of the Jedi for the first time. It was fantastic. Directly after that I went to K-Mart to buy my dream game system.

     

    You've never seen someone so happy to be playing Super Breakout.

     

     

    Very cool story. I'm the same age, and did pretty much the same thing...except my brother and I chose to buy a Vectrex at Fedmart instead of the 5200. We were considering all the next gen systems, and the Vectrex won out because of MineStorm and Star Castle. I think we felt that 5200 had too many of the "same" games we had played on other systems, but the Vectrex was a bright open field of "newness" I was so sure it was going to be the best game system ever. It was a fine system, but I think we still felt we had "betrayed" Atari by getting it. It made getting an Atari 8-bit all the more important.

  5. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    If you're interested in some more homebrew, check out my profile ;)

     

    Will do. I've looked at CC65 in the past, but I've never seen a good tutorial on unraveling it's mysteries. This looks fun and it's mostly C code, which takes me back to my first jobs. There are many levels of nostalgia wrapped into home brew. I just have to crack the first nut.

  7. Posted

    It is one of my overall favorite games on the lynx and I have posted about it often on this forum. I often switch to using my index and middle finger, one for each button for firing the shot and the laser. I just comlynxed it recently for the first time, it was really fun as a multiplayer title. I also did a score challenge contest for the first level, and I want to encourage like-minded homebrew programmers to get in touch so we can create a spiritual successor on the lynx :)

     

    Hmm. Lynx Home brew? I had no idea there was such a thing. Do you need to write 65C02 Assembly, or are there any good C Compilers out there that can target the Lynx?

  9. Posted

    Zolar Mercenary is one of my top-3 favorite Lynx games. I think the biggest problem with it though is that you need to press 2 fire buttons with hand that only has a one thumb available. I just re-discovered it on my RetroPie, and it's much easier to play with an X-Box 360 control pad. Still, I think it's stand-out game that shows off the power of the Lynx.

  10. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    I sooooo wanted a 5200 in 1982. I tried so hard to win one in that summer 1982 McDonald's contest. I can still smell the McDonald's garbage my brother and I searched through, looking for tickets. However, the stories in EG about the controllers, the massive size of the console itself, and size of the carts seem weird. We lived in a tiny house, and the idea of something "bigger" was not going to work, especially at a time when most electronics were getting smaller and smaller. Then I read that the 5200 was "just an Atari 400 without a keyboard" (I know now that's not exactly true) and it just reinforced my want of an 8-bit computer instead of next-gen video game system.

  11. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

     

    I just wish more people who choose the easier way (or have to use the easier way because of learning disabilities) would use some of the time they are saving to polish their games. For example, there shouldn't be glaring bugs that people notice soon after they start the game. A programmer doesn't have to be a perfectionist, but he or she should have some standards and maybe some ideals or guidelines.

     

    It's the standard race to the bottom. It's why developers move from platform to platform to platform trying to make a living. I know for fact that current push for VR has less to do with developers actually liking to work in VR and more about the fact that there are barriers to entry and they hope to make living before the masses rush is.

     

     

    But should it be the same with home brew? Isn't it about celebrating those old platforms, sharing knowledge and building a community?

    • Like 1

  15. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    I totally regret throwing away my 5.25" floppy disks from my Atari 800 that had all the BASIC games and programs I had written. Technically I sold in 1986 them to help fund an Atari ST, but since they were just personal disks, I'm sure they guy who bought them erased them all so he could put his own pirated games on them, so I might as well have thrown them away. Three years worth of all my formative computer work from age 13-16. The first games I ever wrote, database utilities, animations, lots if pinball games made with Pinball Construction Set, and save files for Ultima IV and 7 Cities Of Gold, among many others.

    How I wish I could right that one mistake.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    Well, I'm sure that somebody will chime in and say "Bah, you don't need those kits anymore! Just get an Arduino! It does everything for you ... just slap on a shield, link in some libraries, download some code, and you're done!" I disagree. Kits like these are still useful learning tools if you really want to understand electricity and electronics, as opposed to piecing together completed parts created by somebody else without having to understand how they work or why. They let you experiment with discrete components, without the bother of buying the components separately or soldering them together yourself, and they typically come with a decent collection of experiments that you can use as a starting point, complete with assembly instructions.

     

    I agree. I have multiple Arduinos and Raspberry Pis sitting right next to me at my desk, and many of them are attached to protoboards with basic electronic circuits. The 50-in-1 300-in-1 kits are good ways to learn all the stuff that those mass market MCUs don't do for you.

    • Like 5

  21. Posted · Edited by fultonbot

    Mike Kennedy and Steve Woita are how old? Retro gaming to them, should be the Atari VCS, Intellavision, Odyssey 2, Colecovision, etc - that kind of 8 bit gaming.

     

    Steve Woita was involved in making NES and Genesis games as well as Atari VCS, PS1 and PS2 games, so you really can't nail down his "retro era" to any one console life-cycle.

    Here is his bio. https://stevewoita.wordpress.com/games/

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