mika

impressive! my favourite game of all time being ported to 2600, can't wait to play it but the enemies look even tougher than NES version, even you keep losing your hearts regularly in the above video. Consider making it N*ntendo hard, not frustratingly hard

impressive! Wen game?

still very buggy, but i like where you are heading with it, thera are enemies now, and the sprite is animated. but when i hit fire i just keep flying and very soon i have ended on the screen with a lock, where i couldnt go neither direction. if you polish the controls, and get rid of all the bugs it can turn into a good game!

cool! not exactly sure what i am doing, as i fell into the cave and ate some powerups which dont seem to do anything, but i like it as a concept. Jumpman will be animated at the later stage of development, correct?

I know it's early version, but just wanted to say that the game keeps giving me VOICE all the time since second puzzle. So now i basically guess at first try every time. Or am I simply THAT GOOD?

i'm a bit SCART of where it would lead us to

I have sent you a message with some more thoughts. Other than that just wanted to say it's a really great game, I love the visuals (is there space to add some female characters, they were always big part of pokemon franchise), and the exploration element, all the different locations and characters. Surprised it doesn't get more recognition, just pure concept of 'how would Pokemon look if it was developed 15 years earlier' is exciting enough! Hopefully as the occasional bugs get eliminated and the game gets polished it will become more popular. I will closely follow the development, may not have time to spend too many hours to playtest, but will try to give it few hours from time to time!

i thought the problem was with my HP MAX never leveling up. I already had a common cure, which could cure my HP by something like 14, but my MAX could only go up to 10 anyway, so it was a bit of a waste. I was starting the fight against two pandas and had my 10HP, registered a hit on one of them for 2, but then on their first turn fire panda just killed me instantly. it happened multiple times as i was resuming - same with a doggo. that surely means their hit ability is higher than 10, so it looked like i couldnt have done anything to defend myself. but maybe i am just missing a trick?

also, and I don't know if it's just the demo - I have basically beat all the wicked slime and horrid slime on the map, beat R.O.U.S. with my Wetnas (whose stats in the meantime went up to ATT4 DEF6, but HP MAX stayed at 10. when i then caught the fire Grizzard (sorry, forgot it's name), its stats went back to standard ATT4, DEF4. Any time i try to fight the doggos and pandas i just get beaten pretty much first turn. I can't see how I could build up to have a standing chance against doggos and pandas?

also, when I cycle down thorugh my attacks early in the game, it looks like I have 4 attacks available, and after it goes to Run Away it loops back to Kick dirt. However when I cycle up through my attackes I suddenly get an access to Great Mojo, Burnt Edges, Double Flares, Stomp Down, Sure Splash etc. I'm only on my third combat, so i'm sure i didnt aquire these yet?

sorry, in the nosave demo that i downloaded I play with Dirtex, but the manual gives me descriptions of attacks for Aquax. Am I missing something?

will there be some 'dumbed down' option for the beginners and less advanced players? looking at the goals you set yourself I understand that we still are somewhat far from the final version, but wouldn't it benefit the game if it allowed for some bad moves on the lower difficulty setting? or even programming various 'computer opponents' into it and letting the player either compete with super performance grandmaster or starting easy against chess club Joe. really enjoyed the show yesterday, btw! the game itself looks great

looking great! are you planning to release WIP rom so we can give it a go?

well, one thing we know is that it won't happen on 8-bit Atari

I spent more time playing 2600 games, and what I have noticed that as often as there are some amazing technical advancements in homebrew programming community, the fluffiness of controls is quite often missing. i don't know if that's also the case in 8-bit homebrew scene. the good examples would be 2600 ports of Mappy and Aardvark. Panky the Panda would be the opposite for me. As cool as the game was, the way character controls is... rough (hey, 'rough' is an antonym of 'fluffy'!) the C64 port of super mario is perfect in terms of controls fluffiness - I have spent looooots of time with NES original, so except from obvious issue of no joystick second button the plumber behaves the same - there is the same joy of controlling him on the screen, the port is very succesful in replicating this. that's my interpretation of what fluffy means. definitely not the word I would use, but pretty clear (I think? unless I got it wrong haha)

yes, I can confirm that there is quite a lot of flicker in NES, as I've played it yesterday. It also limits number of screen enemies (it may be max.4 at a time, or something like that) it's actually quite a handy "feature", cause you can utilise this to your advantage in later levels when you are chased by Bullet Bills - just don't lose them while they are following you, and tougher enemies will not appear in front of you.

ok, I cannot delete my topic, or change its name. sorry, maybe got too excited - only because I love original SMB, and i really think it's cool that c64 version was created. just thought it's quite big news (judging from the reactions on the web), that somehow borders on relevance also on this forum. but I also now understood from emkay's post, that this kind of port would not be viable for 8bit Atari. I didn't fully realised this real sprite difference, so thanks for explaing this. and for all those irritated above - sorry. i didn't have intentions to annoy anyone, but now see how I did. edit: also, please note that the topic name was meant to be ironic.

well, not just 'another' - historically it's the most important of them all. landmark, really - in videogaming. that's why it doesn't bring a shame to any platform to be able to run it's port, even if technically illegal.

sorry, not meant to upset anyone and the last thing I would want to do is try to push folks to get over to c64! honest jealousy and wish that someone ported SMB to 8-bit Atari instead of them doing it on commodore.

just as I was green with envy 30-something years ago, i'm green with envy now.

bummer :/ well, at least I can put the cartridge on the shelf, as the artwork looks really good.

ok, so I sat to it tonight again, and in case you were wondering what happens when you get to 1 million points in the demo version here is the video: https://youtu.be/l2yVGxvHDOc

sorry if it's a stupid question, but will Mappy cartridge bought in Atari Age store work on Retron 77? if not, what are other options to play it if I don't have original A2600. Any Flashback console with a cart slot?

Submit unverified high score in Dragster

so I had a chance to play the demo rolling 5 level version thanks to the tournament hosted in A2600 section and as a casual gamer all I can say is this is actually one of the best games I ever played for VCS. well done guys, super impressed, and already a strong contender for a number of atari 2019 awards. i know it wont be a popular opinion on this forum, but I am not a fan of most of games for the system - unforgiving game mechanics, unattractive visuals is what usually puts me off, and that includes the homebrew games too. Its not a complaint per se, I just understand that most of these games are for experienced arcade gamers, and for someone like me the nintendos of this world were made. However - saying all that - Aardvark stands out. Visually attractive, with slow learning curve it is perfect for a casual gamer - something that the console library is missing. ok, you may argue that this means the game is too easy (and I realise we are talking about demo version, with the programmers stating above in this very topic, that final release would present tougher challenge in the later levels) - but I hope that the first five levels stay as they are now. for those 5 levels the tactic is relatively easy - all you need to do is train your ants. in practice for me this meant: -clear two top rows, come back up. -clear top four, come back up -clear five-six, come back up -start clearing bottom rows, kill one of the queens, stay low -finish off bottom rows, kill second queen in the meantime for bigger bonus. no idea if I was clear describing my tactic, but what it means is that you order your ants to come out in order, so you kind of prepare the ants to come out one by one, row by row. It worked for all five levels, just assuming that full version will be bit harder to beat. btw. working this tactic means that spider is absolutely no threat to you, so I never worried about the night time - I am just too low by the time he comes out, so he never has a chance to get to me. I dont even know why I wrote all of this, haha - just probably my way of saying its a brilliant game and I love it - dont remember last time I was so fixated on the game tactic that much. Brilliant work guys, honestly. Just one more thing - if you plan to increase the difficulty please dont fall into easy trap of making the controls harder. I actually sometimes thought that tonguing down the next hole could be maybe even slightly more responsive, because there was couple or a few times that I got stuck during todays session. nothing serious, so it may stay as it is, but if you plan to increase the challenge in the future dont do so at the expense of almost perfect controls.