Nostalgic

Thank you for all the fun I had with it when I was younger!

Yes! That's the one! I think I downloaded it from some local BBS. I don't remember typing it in from a magazine.

There was an Atari 8-bit computer game that might be suited to the "track" idea. You draw lines of bricks from one wall to another. The blank areas don't get filled. There's a rotating happy face bouncing around the arena, destroying the bricks you lay down. If it contacts a line as you're drawing it, you lose a life. You move on to the next level by filling in a certain amount of the board. It felt like something out of Analog or Antic, but since I can't put a name to it, I can't easily find it. I do remember it being written in Basic. Something like this, the 2600 could do...

I enjoyed Flag Capture as a kid. I still break it out once in a while, though I do wish the 1-player mode was a little more compelling.

Let's not forget Howard Scott Warshaw, who gave us the blistering Yars' Revenge (consistently rated among the top 2600 games) and the eminently puzzling Raiders of the Lost Ark, taking adventure gaming on the 2600 to a new level. On top of that, he does documentaries and commercials!

I'd also love to see I, Robot for the 2600... or any home platform, for that matter. It's a sadly underrated and underappreciated game. I agree with Inky. A top-down version would be fun if the rest of the gameplay remained intact. Changing the playfield from one color to another while handling sprites might be a bit taxing, but perhaps you could collects dots or fill in holes instead.

I first encountered Oystron back in '98. I didn't buy a cartridge then, but I did record a WAV file to a cassette. I never did quite get the hang of the game. I cashed in some Euchre royalty money to buy Oystron just before Hozer closed up. I'm very happy that I did. Now that I read the manual I understand the game a bit better, but I've still yet to pass the second level. I keep trying, though. It's a solid action game, with just the right pace - careful movement followed by a very brief respite, all with some planning. It's the same addictive quality that Pac-Man has. Oystron is a must for anyone interested in homebrew games.

Othello is pretty tricky, at least to me. I haven't quite gotten the hang of it. Usually I find myself doing reasonably well, even with the computer or slightly ahead, and then the computer makes some impressive moves and shuts down any hope I have of winning. I don't think it's just limited to the computer, though. I don't win at Othello much in real life. I do enjoy it anyway, though. I wonder if the man on the box cover is supposed to be Shakespeare... He's got the beard for it. As for the game variations, 1=beginner, 2=intermediate, 3=expert, and 4=two-player.

I sat down for a couple of games of Oystron today. While the game was running through the attract mode cycle, I caught the copyright date: 1997. The homebrew scene has been around for six years?!? It's probably longer, but I don't know much from before that time. Still, it was just amazing to think that it's been going on and growing for so long... When would you say that the 2600 homebrew scene got started? We have to have a 10th anniversary coming up in the near future...

(another duplicate post removed - I got "General Error - Couldn't get mail server response codes", so I kept submitting my post, not knowing that it had been posted)

(duplicate post removed)

This, of course, is very nice to hear! As for my family, my parents were never into video games. We had Video Chess - I still have the same cartridge - that my dad would play occasionally. My mom enjoyed Codebreaker and Flag Capture, and while she wasn't into playing Adventure, she often liked to watch me play it. I also had Atari 8-bit computers while growing up; while my mom liked the idea of the murder mysteries Witness and Murder on the Zinderneuf, she never got into playing them. Even now, the only games they play on their two Macs are card games and the like. My dad does have chess, golf, and Flight Simulator and breaks them out now and again, but not with any regularity.

Sorry... pronoun trouble. What I meant to say is that the graphics of Pengo and Elk Attack are very similar. I remember a game by the name of WireBall that appeared in Antic Magazine. It was one of my favorite type-ins. Was it a clone of an existing arcade or console game?

Take a look at the screenshots for Pengo Prototype, Pengo Release, and Elk Attack. They're quite similar! Plus, both games were programmed by Mark Hahn. Think some code from Pengo could be lurking within Elk Attack?

What is the last Pac-Man screenshot on page 3 from? I recognize the arcade, Atari's original, and Better Pac-Man/Pac-Man Arcade.

River Raid II is definitely a tough one. I didn't stand much of a chance until I read some tips in a thread from a couple of months ago. I still can't advance past the second bridge. Marble Craze is also difficult. Once there aren't any walls, my poor marble just goes flying all over. Level 6 is my best, rather low compared to those who raved about the game when it first came out. I also agree about Gravitar. If I play with gravity, it's quite hard to make any progress. If I play without, it gets dull very quickly.

Well, I was hoping that something would materialize while I was working on it. I have no aptitude with electronics, so I certainly wouldn't try one myself. I wonder if the 2600 flash cart that Cupcakus is working on is compatible with a 7800... Cupcakus: if you read this forum, please let us know!

Ah, Dave Exton labels... always a good thing. Cupcakus: do you plan on releasing an advance binary either here or on Stella to give interested folks a chance to try the game and/or test it?

I had wandered through there. I may not have understood how to use the validation key generator. It sounded like you'd have to run it every time you recompiled your code, which isn't appealing. It's quite possible that I misinterpreted things. If so, I'll feel sheepish. I wasn't aware of this. However, I found it invaluable to work on an unmodified 2600 when I was creating Euchre, so I can't see not wanting to run a 7800 game on the real thing during development.

I looked into it for a little while. I did get quickly discouraged by the number of obstacles in the way. The first was the encryption - while the code has been cracked of a sort, the only ways I could gather were to either modify a 7800 (no way!) or graft some code onto the binary each time it is generated. Ick. The second was displaying images. While you don't have the same difficulties as with 2600 programming, the 7800 has its own weirdness. Images are often stored such that each row is one page apart rather than one byte. You have to construct display list headers and display list lists (really!) to tell the 7800 where the images are and how to draw them. (By the way, "display list" is completely different than the type used in the 5200 and the 8-bit computers.) The third, of course, is the lack of sample code. For the 2600, you have plenty of source code for completed homebrews and some skeleton code to use as a starting point, like Nick Bensema's "How to Draw a Playfield" and "Guide to Cycle Counting." For the 5200, you could probably adapt a lot of what's been published by Antic, Analog, and Compute! about the 800 series. For the 7800 - not much at all. You'd still have to compile it so that it can be run, which requires dealing with encryption, bringing you back to the first obstacle.

This one does look like a fun way to spend some time. I'm looking forward to playing the game!

I'll nominate "Misadventure." It reminds me of the same dry sense of humor that brought VGR to name the fourth dragon Disgruntle in Indenture.

I'm certainly happy to see another card game (or at least card-like) make its way to the 2600. I'm also glad to hear your grandfather is doing better.

Hopes for 2003: - That Euchre will be sold for longer than six weeks this time around - That I'll settle on an idea for another game and start it - Everyone will receive the Thrust+ and Qb that they are waiting for What's coming in 2003? - I'm looking forward to Bounce, Big Dig (a proposed Mr. Driller clone), Robot City, and the Flash Cart - A couple of amazing homebrews that will dazzle us like Thrust and Marble Craze did - Even more national-level publicity about the homebrew movement

Here's some scans of the 256-game version.