Nostalgic
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Posts posted by Nostalgic
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Originally posted by twit:I see another pretty big hole in the 2600 library:goodPuzzle Games.
Very true... but probably because the puzzle genre really didn't come into vogue until the original Tetris, which was at the end or after the days of the 2600.
The problem is in coming up with something remotely original. Tetris and its variants have been endlessly done and redone. Now there's games that are similar to Puzzle Bobble but change only the shape of the playfield (like putting the balls in a spiral).
Mr. Driller is the closest I can think of to being a new and different puzzle game...
I guess we're stuck in thinking of puzzle games as "match colors to eliminate pieces". There has to be more than this available to us...
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If you roll the score over (at one million), the difficulty drops back to the easiest (orange shield) and then starts going up as you score more points.
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What will the nature of these remakes be? Will they be subtle ones, enhancing graphics and adding a few new elements, such as with Activision's Asteroids? Will they change the gameplay significantly and keep only the name and a couple of characters, such as with Galaga?
At any rate, I agree with all the calls for HERO and River Raid. I'd also add Seaquest as another possibility, as it is a compelling action game. Perhaps Barnstorming and Stampede could be considered since they are rather unique.
In the end, I definitely want to see the Atari 800/5200-only second level of Pitfall II.
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While wandering a local Best Buy yesterday, I found two new remakes from Infogrames (thus the Atari connection) in the PC game racks: Dig Dug Deeper and Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze (I think).
The screen shots of Dig Dug Deeper look at first like a graphically souped-up world-based version of the original, but there is a 3D board there, so there might be some scary deviations in store. The new Ms. Pac-Man looks to be much the same as Pac-Man: Adventures in Time, with primarily 2D boards with a 3D perspective.
Has anyone tried out either of these two games?
(Strangely, despite Atari distributing the Dig Dug arcade game many years ago, Infogrames did not put the Atari brand on Dig Dug Deeper.)
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Originally posted by wi1ykat:Would you be offering 2 different version of the manual for the Euchre game? One for the experienced player, and one with a For Dummies book included for the new player?
*laugh* No. I figure the manual will be short enough that experienced players can browse through it. However, they'll still want to read it to learn how to play the 2600 version - the rules won't be different, but there will be instructions on how to use the paddle controller within the game.
I'll probably model the manual after the Backgammon or Video Chess manuals.
[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: Nostalgic ]
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I opened up the paddle again, moved some wires around, scraped off a bit of what looked like corrosion, and then tried to put it back together. I had some difficulty putting the paddle trigger back in the right spot. In the end, I got the paddle working again, and celebrated by scoring over 7000 points in game 1.
I'm not sure what I did right, but thanks for your suggestions!
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Originally posted by StanJr:I'm looking forward to both, although I don't know how to play Euchre (my Uncle played it a lot with my Dad and friends) so an instruction manual is in order!
Fear not... I will be putting together a manual to go with the game.
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The right-player paddle in one of my sets of paddles just stopped working yesterday, right in the middle of a game of Demons to Diamonds.
It had started acting up a couple of days before. It felt as if the knob itself was coming loose and the player would stop moving briefly, but if I gently pushed the knob back down, the paddle would work again.
I did unscrew the paddle to look for something amiss, but I didn't notice anything. Then again, I wouldn't know what to look for.
Maybe it's just age - I've had this set of paddles for almost 20 years - but I'd like to revive them if possible. (Someday I do want a four-player game of Warlords! )
Does anyone have any suggestions? Please keep them in layman's terms, as my experience and skill with electronics is nil.
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I have no experience with hardware, so I may be way off the mark - forgive me in advance.
You couldn't easily do a universal pause since each program's kernel - the code responsible for refreshing the screen many times a second - is vastly different. If you were to stop execution entirely, you'd end up with a blank screen. I suppose this would be ok.
I'm not sure how you'd do it, though you'd definitely have to modify your 2600 to make it happen.
Maybe we should just encourage all the homebrew artists to use the color/BW switch to allow pausing.
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I was a big fan of Scorched Earth back in college and could usually rustle up a friend or two to join in the fun. I really liked the interesting weaponry and the variety in computer opponents.
I'm glad to see something of this sort pop up on the 2600.
Joystick control should be fine - left and right to change angle, button to fire, and up/down to change weapons (if such an option will exist).
Also,Ben is a brave soul tackling physics in assembly language.
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I like the enthusiasm for the Atari (and classic gaming in general) that people show here. It's sometimes difficult to find like-minded individuals passionate about niche hobbies. Few of my friends appreciate classic games and I am certain none still have their 2600 hooked up to a TV and playable.
This is also a rather friendly community. Unlike many listservs in which flame wars erupt on a regular basis, most everyone here is nice, polite, humorous, and not out to be negative.
The news on classic gaming material is complete and timely. I know I can come here to find out what I want to know.
I also like seeing the regions everyone hails from... particularly to see how many members there are from Michigan.
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Originally posted by Zeptari:Tempest 2000 on the Jag and Tempest X3 on the Playstation!! Some updates do work out. [...] Ohh and I did like the updated Asteroids on the PSX too.
What I believe made the Tempest and Asteroids updates good games to play, far more so than most of the other updates, is that they held close to the principles of the original games. Asteroids remained a 2-D, single-screen game. There were new enemies, power-ups, and updated graphics, but at the score the "feel" of the game did not change. The same was true of Tempest 2000. You are still circling around the edge of a geometric playfield, shooting at enemies that include the originals, avoiding spikes, and have similar weaponry.
One of my favorite series of updates is the Namco Classic games that appeared in the arcades a few years back. Six games (Pac-Man, Rally X, Dig Dug, Galaga, Mappy, and Xevious) were updated to "Arrangement" forms, with fancier graphics, two-player simultaneous modes, and a few new features. However, they still played much the same as their ancestors. Pac-Man is still about eating dots and evading ghosts in a 2-D, non-scrolling world. Galaga is still about a single-screen (except challenging stages) battle against invading bugs, with the chance to win powerups by sacrificing a ship.
What's strange is that these updated games might be fine with us if they didn't carry the identity of games we enjoyed years ago. Would we accept the new Galaga if it hadn't been packaged as Galaga? Possibly, although the game might not be good on its own. However, with the name Galaga comes expectations of a Galaga-like experience. If a game Galaga does not play like Galaga, then it is Galaga in name only.
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My vote is to allow the player the choice of how he or she is to be represented - flat square, cube, humanoid figure, AtariAge avatar ...
A few games from the olden days offered this possibility - Ghost Manor, EA's Gladiator, EA's M.U.L.E., and Gauntlet all come to mind.
Although this would deviate from the original spirit of the game, perhaps the player could transform between shapes during play, needing to find objects to "learn" how to transform. This is a bit of a reach, though...
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2600 Connection issue #62 had an interview with David Crane. David mentions that when Pitfall II was ported to home computers, two different programmers made the conversions to the C-64 and Atari 800. The one who wrote the C-64 version started over. The one who wrote the 800 version reused David's code, just rewriting the display routines. Both got to beta around the same time, but the C-64 version had a number of bugs, so the 800 programmer had enough time to add the extra level.
This is a long-winded explanation for this suggestion: if you can find and disassemble the 800/5200 code, you might be able to pull out the chunks that form the extra level and new features, graft on 2600-style display code, and create a Pitfall II part 2 from it.
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My Combat box is also like that. It's from a Combat that came with a six-switch 2600.
The box has a copyright date of 1978 on it, the older-style font, a picture of a joystick on the back, and the Warner Communications Company logo in two places on the back and one on the front.
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One thing that always disappointed me about the 2600 version was that you could not stand on the top of the POW button. I often used that strategy in the arcade version.
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I tried to reach the Hozer Video Games web site yesterday and this morning, but was "greeted" by this message:
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You don't have permission to access /~hozervideo/index.html on this server.Did Hozer move or close its site, did they run out of bandwidth quota, or something else?
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Originally posted by StanJr:I too had these concerns, therefore the vampire hunting game that I am working on (which will be much in the vein of another popular vampire hunting game *cough-Cstlvn-cough*) will simply be called "Vampire Hunter."
Better watch out for the makers of "Vampire Hunter D", then.
Seriously, I've been thinking it would be good to have some legal guidelines posted as an FAQ for homebrew artists. For example, if you give yourself an imprint (i.e. "Nostalgic Games"), do you need to incorporate with yourself as an employee? What is the proper wording of a "there is no warranty implied and I am not responsible for damage" statement? What about taxes on royalties earned, both if the game is distributed through Hozer and if the game is self-distributed?
Are there any lawyers out there among the Atari fans who could do this, either here or in the Stella list?
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My vote is for the early Ultima games, specifically the second trilogy. Those had a very rich game world, unique objectives (obtain virtues, uphold them after they are twisted, and embrace a new culture), an advanced conversation system, excellent supplemental material, and had the right balance of detail to bring you into the game but not overwhelm you, allowing your imagination to fill in the gaps.
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I definitely would like to connect a "new" 2600 directly to a TV without a switch box. I either have to keep a small, old TV around or try a hardware mod (which I don't have the skills for) to keep playing.
I'm not so sure I'd want an updated joystick, although having select, reset, and the difficulty switches nearby would be nice. I find more and more that with arcade-style games, a real joystick is much easier to work with than a d-pad. My performance at games like Gaplus on the PlayStation is much worse than Gaplus in the arcade because I can't move quickly enough with the d-pad.
$5 per game would be fine as it costs that much to find a game with box and manual now these days. Plus, with the smaller cartridge, a portable might not be far behind!
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You could have some screens be asymmetrical, though, which would allow for more physics-correct mazes (the ones in Adventure don't tile properly).
I'd actually like to see this characteristic remain. Part of the challenge of Adventure is that the rooms cannot be laid out on a flat map without drawing extra pointers from certain spots. You also have rooms (like in the White Castle) that seems like many more because of all the different ways you can get into them, but some paths are blocked by walls.
Having non-symmetrical rooms would add to the challenge, although technically some in the 2600 version are not symmetrical, as some "walls" are not true walls but missiles being used as such.
As for the shape of the hero, I like the idea of being able to select a shape at the beginning of the game. That way those who want a person get a person and those who want the square get a square.
I'd suggest not allowing the player to carry multiple objects except with special objects (such as the magnet) or by using a power-up (extra strength). It will keep the game more simple (a virtue of most 2600 and "classic" games) and be more in line with the original. Compare Pac-Man Arrangement to Pac-Man Adventures in Time for an idea of how little enhancements can add to a game, but deviating from play too much can hurt the game.
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While watching an old Star Trek on Sci-Fi Channel tonight, I got a grin from the commercials being aired for a movie.
You see big rocks tumbling toward earth. A missle platform slowly turns in space. Sean Connery's face pokes out briefly. All the while, you hear alternating, low blip sounds, gradually increasing in speed.
The film: "Meteor". The sounds: an homage to "Asteroids".
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I hope there's a 400/800 version in the works as well... I don't have a 5200!
Anyhow, to get around the problem of more than four sprites on the screen at one time, you can reuse sprites in much the way you can on the 2600. By inserting display list interrupts into the display list, you can change the horizontal position and color of any of the four sprites.
Read some of the technical explanations regarding Miner 2049er at Big Five Software for some inspiration.
I'm glad to see Adventure living on in yet another form!
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Atari 2600 Message Board Subdivisions?
in Site and Forum Feedback
Posted
I have occasionally wanted to see the 2600 board broken into sub-boards, mostly because there are sometimes an awful lot of "poll" questions (i.e. "which do you like better, A or B"). These are things that commonly inhabit listservs as well as bulletin boards and could be moved to another section or even off-site.