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lapetino

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Posts posted by lapetino

  1. Posted

    Hey, Skarro.

    Thanks for the check-in. Things are moving slowly but surely with the potential publisher I mentioned in Nov. Still can't talk about it since nothing is final, but everybody is feeling good about it as we go into the official proposal part of the process. Not much more to say, but we are making progress. Will definitely keep you guys updated -- with a publisher vs self-publishing, the timeline is a bit longer, but I'm fine with that. Want to do this right. :)

    More on this as soon as I can talk about it.

    • Like 1

  2. Posted

    HI,

     

    I see people selling or trading their pre-orders. Just want those who do this to know that I will contact you when your order is next in queue to ship, if you've sold your XM pre-order, you'll just provide the name & address and email of that person its going to and they'll get an email with the tracking # and the order will ship to them. I've been at the XM now steady every night addressing things and I have a major update to send to GroovyBee shortly for his review. Still on track for THIS SPRING to release, no more delays, XM's ship this spring.

     

    Again, those who want to buy one, I'm sure you'll see the buzz here and elsewhere as people get them, post about them and so forth. I will make announcements of the general purchase date, I am hoping to also work with Albert to also make the XM's for sale directly on AA as well as my store so that people will have multiple places to buy.

     

    Lets keep the vitriol down to a minimum and lets keep the positive vibes going, I'm back and fully recovered and really jazzed about the XM's being finished and going out, thanks.

    Great to hear, Curt! Glad you're excited, as I am too. This is going to make a wonderful addition to the 7800 and its eventually-larger library. Thanks for all the work!

  6. Posted

     

    That was my guess. If the game didn't look like Pac Man then the box art sure needed to!

    Not sure if that was their motivation, but it definitely hit people over the head with the simplified Pac-Man. But I wish they would have given consumers more credit for know the original was Pac-Man, since it IS plastered all over the box as well. And I just love the creation of that more spherical Pac-Man. The artist really took things to a new level, with a freedom to interpret that companies like Namco would NEVER allow today.

  10. Posted

    I can shed some light on this, as I interviewed the artist for the Art of Atari book we're working on, and for a Pac-Man exhibit we're putting together for the soon-to-be Museum of Video Game Art (http://www.playmova.org). He originally created another piece of art for the 2600 Pac-Man version that management and Namco folks felt was too scary. (This has never been published, but we'll be showing it when the museum's online collection launches.)

    So, the next version he created is the full-bodied Pac-Man that you see on the 2600 labels and PAL box. But higher-ups were concerned that consumers wouldn't connect the dots to the familiar screen version of the character, and wanted a more literal, flat version of Pac-Man, so this change was made, and that 2-dimensional rendering (done by the same artist) was dropped right on top of the original art. It was apparently too late to make the change on the manuals and labels. He also created the 400/800 version with the castle maze, which has a lot of similar design elements, like the sneakers and skinny legs.

    For what it's worth, this 2600 version of Pac-Man is one of my favorites. I love how much freedom they had back in that time, to re-imagine a licensed character like Pac-Man, to fit Atari's needs. That would never happen today, in this world of licensing guides and strict key art that must be used.

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    Just dropping in for a *bump* and some public encouragement for the folks at Atari to get behind this project, and continued best wishes for all those involved in making it happen.

    Thanks for the bump, EM.

     

    The update is that we are still working on the book, and have begun proposal stage and talks with a different publisher. This is probably on a longer timeline, by virtue of the publishing cycle in this area, but I will keep everyone posted.

     

    Appreciate the interest. We are working to do something awesome here, and this actually will spin off into something else (see my signature line) that we are working on as well. I'm not quite ready to talk tons about it, but it's coming! :)

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

     

    One would think that a museum would have an accurate take on the history of a game. There's an article earlier in this thread that show the change over time. (Although I have seen Super Pac-Man bezels still using the term "Monsters", leaving Atari's Pac-Mania as the odd ball arcade game). Anyway, the generation that cared is probably long gone. Pac-Man is now just a mascot, and ghosts have become popular. It'd be interesting though.

     

    Well, I am the Exec Director of the soon-to-launch museum. We're focused on the art, design, illustration, and industrial design of classic video games. The evolution of the in-game character has been well-documented, but all of this is more about the marketing and the character evolution beyond the screen. I will go right to the source on this one, and see what Namco folks say.

  13. Posted

    I know some people at NAMCO Entertainment through my work at the Museum of Video Game Art. I should ask what their take on this monsters vs. ghosts issue is!

    Oh, and BTW, this game is wonderful! I didn't think anyone would go beyond Dennis' Pac-Man 4K. Great work!

  20. Posted

    Well, at the very least, this statement here is actually false:

     

    “...The whole SwordQuest project was terminated by Atari before we could even start on the art..."

     

    Because there are 3 samples of Airworld artwork on the Atarimania listing of the game.

    I talked to the artist who did a lot of the artwork for Atari games (including SQ Waterworld) and that piece for Airworld was just a rough sketch and color study. It wasn't finished, but he said he thought someone else did some work on it to move it forward in that image. The bottom image on the mentioned Atarimania page (http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-swordquest-airworld_20304.html) that he calls a poster is not from Airworld. It was a promo piece created by comic book artist George Perez to be used on the AtariAge magazine, as the cover. It doesn't specifically represent Airworld.

  21. Posted

    Hi, any news about the book? :)

    Progress being made on some fronts, but not much I can talk about officially yet. Atari didn't like the licensing side of what we were proposing, but we still have some ways to put this book together without their licensing/ overt participation. Because of that, the overall style of book is shifting a little bit, but for now that seems to be a good thing, as it has opened up possibilities with another publisher we're talking to. But plans are still for it to be an informative, beautiful art book with lots of in depth info on the topic.

     

    That's a little cryptic, but I'll share more soon. Thanks, everyone, for the support.

     

    And Eyeball Mural, I owe you some messages. Sorry! Trying to dig myself out of a hole after a busy business trip.

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