Tangentg

I don't know how to make a game that runs on an actual Atari yet (I read tutorials and could only make a very simple game) so I made several Windows games that imitate the style (and i aimed to be authentic) of the Windows consoles but many people say they only want games that actually run on the actual consoles. This was going to be part of a shooter game featuring Atari as a boss, or I might make this as a standalone game, but either way it'd probably be a Windows game. Some videos on the Atari-styled Windows games I tried to get an interest on:

OK so in the first link (v6) the commands don't work and in the second link (v7), the commands worked. So it was a version difference after all. Shame the music also pauses when the game pauses so I couldn't actually enjoy the music, and there doesn't seem to be a way to move the pill down faster without being an instant-drop. Moving it downwards faster to me is a much better option than instant-drop if I must choose between the 2.

Here's how I think a better version of Star Castle could have been attempted from back in the 80s: The Qotile, instead of just moving up and down, probably tries to move towards your horizontal position. The speed increases as the levels go up. Instead of the shields in Yars' Revenge, 3 columns of Circus Atari-like blocks. They move up and down, in opposite directions between the 3 layers. If a layer gets completely destroyed, it either gets renewed or the deeper layer replaces the "upper" layer. The Qotile shoots a clear shot at the Yar (or probably just horizontal) if there's an opening in its shields. The shot could re-aim itself in higher levels. The destroyer missile stays the same. Unsure if the Zorlon cannon should still be used or just have the normal shot for destroying the Qotile. These are part of an Atari fangame for Windows I've been having, but I might not end up making it due to lack of interest.

The keyboard commands you listed don't work. I got mine from Atarimania cause the atariage thread link expired.

So I tried out Dr Mario for the Atari 8-bit computers today. So pressing left and right moves the pill left and right, and the button turns the pill clockwise. Holding up turns the pill counter-clockwise and holding down drops the pill to the bottom of the column Is there anyway to move the pill down (i.e. speeding the descend up) without dropping it all the way to the bottom? And is there any way to pause the game? I think the music renditions were done extremely well (especially Chill) but i don't get to enjoy it from the menu screen or pause the game to listen to it.

Also, the fact that the regular zombies do not all move in unison prevents them from all overlapping eventually.

This is a (for now abandoned) mashup of Zombies!!! the board game and its expansions and Robotron I wanted to make as my video game based on Zombies after making other board game-based video games, plus seeing people request Atari zombie games played like Robotron. https://youtu.be/uz-tWXqedg0 As you can see, this game basically plays like Robotron 2084 but with a Zombies!!! theme. You move with the arrow keys and shoot with RDFG. In particular, there are several points of focus: - The zombies didn't have smooth movements aside from the Government-enhanced Zombies. This is to imitate the movement of the GRUNT robotrons from the arcade game. - There is a powerup you can get every 1st wave in a 5-wave cycle, based on the Event cards from Zombies. Luckily, the random number generator was generous enough to let me show 3 different powerups I had. The power-up you have is displayed at the bottom right corner and may be activated any time by pressing the Space bar. The 3 powerups shown here are: 1. adding a computer AI hunter that shoots in random directions. Once hit by an enemy, it turns into a regular zombie 2. you are given a temporary ability to shoot in all 8 directions simultaneously 3. A minefield that destroys/hurts zombies that run into the mines. - I found that since my keyboard doesn't allow you to hit more than 2 keys at the same time, the typical WASD keys do not work for movement + shooting (if I tried to press down and right, and W and A, all 4 together, it wouldn't let me). On the other hand, it works with RDFG, with the central F key marked by a little braille-like bulging bit on the keyboard. I suppose that signifies that those key let you press more than 2 at the same time or something, and when I tried it, I was able to do stuff like pressing down+right+R+D simultaneously. Therefore, I have RDFG as opposed to WASD for shooting. I know there would be keyboards, especially gamer keyboards, that work with WASD, but I just thought maybe with RDFG it'd work for more keyboards. - The Pages of the Book of the Dead float around and are removed from the screen if the leave the screen. I originally had the Govt-enhanced Zombies remove them too like in the original Robotron, but I think them being "blown off the screen by the wind" works well enough, especially after how the Govt-enhanced Zombies are now locked onto your position. - The "dog rabies vomit" don't travel in a straight path towards you, whereas the Clown zombies either move towards you or in a random direction, both based off of their respective counterparts in the arcade version. Here, the Clown zombies are a mix of the Tanks and Enforcers from Robotron. - The arcade game suffered from the problem of only being able to play like 2 sounds at a time or so. This here also works as a bit of an experiment on how it would have sounded like if all the sounds that needed to be played played at the same time (though without overlapping, i.e. no matter how many Clown bombs there were, only 1 Clown bomb sound played instead of it being louder the more Clown bombs there are). The only thing really missing from the gameplay is the ending level when you reach the helipad. It is going to be a race between some AI players with lots of zombies attacking from all sides. You lose if you let an AI player reach the helipad first (though the AI isn't smart enough to evade the zombies so there's a better chance that they'd get turned into zombies) or if you run out of lives. However I couldn't get enough motivation to complete this game, so for now this is what I have.

Thanks, everyone.

When I search about the games online every site seems to lump the 8 bit computers together stating they are "similar enough". So what exactly are the differences between the Atari 8-bit computers?

Oo nice, thanks. I'd personally exclude clones that aren't arcade ports, or at least list them with a remark like an asterisk or "(clone)" or something after it. Like I think Bomb Jakef or example I'd remark it cause it's not an official port nor does it share the same name with the original game.

Oh actually I got around the problem by mapping "left" to mouse hor move and down to mouse vert move now.

That doesn't have its own dedicated topic and I didn't see their names following the post. Anyway just helping. I see no harm from it. Millipede with TB hack: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/178563-why-cant-the-atari-2600-display-better-graphics/page-9?do=findComment&comment=3331213

I've been trying to play Planetary Defense on the Altirra emulator. At first I tried to use the mouse relative setting but left and right are flipped, and setting the horizontal movement to "invert" didn't do anything. So I tried to use the pad position (absolute) settings for the koala pad, but the annoying cursor that shows where your mouse cursor is keeps distracting me because it's different from where the in-game cursor is. I tried adjusting the position but I couldn't sync the two. Is there a way to hide the cursor when you set up Koala Pad as the input? Thanks.

Pretty sure people would be happy to know they finally have what they were trying to find regardless of the time.

Oh never mind, I found the way to enable the graphic. Had to have special settings.

There's a bug I noticed... When you hit the inchworm, instead of just the bugs going slow, your trackball movement also seems to be slowed down. This doesn't happen in the original version.

Unsure if you guys have noticed but, there's a nice version of Millipede hacked that uses a trackball which can be emulated well. The only bug is that when you shoot the inchworm, your speed is reduced too, instead of just the enemies. I do better with the digital controls in the 2600 version though. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/178563-why-cant-the-atari-2600-display-better-graphics/page-9?do=findComment&comment=3331213

Nibbler Also is the 2009 version of Night Driver found on the web? I saw a video of it containing the car graphic but I don't see the ROM/xex.

Is it really "real trak-ball control" though? Cause I'm pretty sure the original cart didn't have analog control. Nonetheless, I think the transition of both it and Missile Command to the digital control was really good (unlike say, Crystal Castles) and I don't feel like I lost that much on the Atari 2600 port. A really good thing with the Millipede cart is that there's a continue feature. You can restart the game after you die at the second last bonus life mark you reached so that it pushes you up further and further (the difficulty increases the more points you get so if you aren't able to get it in 1 run you could gradually continue on to get to the higher levels), but at the same time you can't abuse it cause you start at the second last bonus life mark, so if you get a lower mark or just hit reset repeatedly you would instead keep dropping your score, pushing you to really get good at the game. And unlike Centipede, you can't set up the trap for the centipede that just causes it to run straight down as soon as it enters the screen and just sit back and shoot at the centre as soon as a new chain appears.

How about Kaboom! ?

I never knew the Atari had commercials in Hong Kong (I was born in 1995) so I was really happy to find videos on them on Youtube. This here is a compilation video. I'm happy to see that the Atari song that was used in the Berzerk/Yars' Revenge commercial got a full Cantonese adaptation, and the signature "Have you played Atari today?" became a rhyming motto "(Hai) Atatlei, sam tsung yau nei", meaning "At Atari, we have you in our hearts". Also, the Basketball and Bowling commercials basically say "I'm no match for my dad at Bowling/Basketball, but when it comes to Atari video games, I own him at them." and towards the end, the father says "Our family is full of sportive spirits, right?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0LJzKyXKcQ From this commercial, I learnt that Asteroids and Combat became packed with the console at one point.

Video Game Music, yes.

I don't see any. Any links? And I'm talking about VGM-exclusive videos, as in, videos that feature nothing but the music piece.