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Psionic

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Posts posted by Psionic

  1. Posted

    On 10/23/2019 at 3:49 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    Alex gives credit to two other people who helped him with the code: Alex Nevelson and "Bob". Maybe someone has an idea about the names.

     

    BTW: I noticed that "Roklan" has no Wikipedia entry. 

    This game has a complicated development history and was supposedly at least started at Bally, although apparently Roklan and CBS may have had a hand in it at some point.  Alex Leavens, Alex Nevelson, and Bob Curtiss were members of a group working on 2600 games at Bally in Chicago, at least initially.  Tom DiDomenico and another programmer named Bob Fisher/Fischer (sp?) were also members of this group.  Bill Adams, who worked on several coin-ops including Kick-Man, was their manager.  Bill told me he lost several programmers to Roklan, including Curtiss and Leavens, but I don't know the specific details of their leaving and how it might've affected the development of this title.  Given the date, it's hard for me to believe this was actually developed at Roklan despite what it says but who knows.

    Roklan does not have a Wikipedia entry, but you can find info on them here...
    http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Roklan
     

    On 10/23/2019 at 5:29 AM, Rom Hunter said:

    BTW: I have also Richard K. Balaska credited for Kick-Man.

    Dick Balaska worked for CBS in Greenwich, CT.  He told me that he went out to Chicago at some point and put some "finishing touches" on the game, which might have been something as simple as the fixes that Thomas applied to this game or possibly something more complex like removing the Pac-Men and replacing them with something else.  Either way that was the extent of his involvement, which is why this game wouldn't be on his list of credits on his website.  This game was originally supposed to have been published by Bally themselves and was only acquired by CBS later on, so if this version came from Bally or Roklan it probably wouldn't have any of whatever changes Dick may have made to the code.

    In any event, it's nice to see this one finally surface.

    • Like 2
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  2. Posted

    What about people who didn't pre-order the game?

     

    I placed an order back on October 2 for one copy each of Knight 'n More and Muncher Mouse.  Within a few hours, I received two separate automated (I presume) emails saying that one or more items I had ordered was currently out of stock.  Is this order eventually going to be filled or am I out of luck?

  6. Posted

    On 9/28/2019 at 10:02 PM, Supergun said:

    Activision’s versions of their 2600 games on other systems were indeed improved graphically if & when it was possible to do so. And even massively upgraded as well; such as was the case with Pitfall II : Explorers Edition for 5200 & 400/800.

    The expansion of Pitfall II did come about somewhat by accident.  Tim Shotter was having a bit of difficulty porting the game to the Commodore 64 but Mike Lorenzen was able to complete the 400/800/5200 conversion very quickly and simply chose to use that extra time to his benefit and did something constructive with it.  It wasn't originally planned though, and the management supposedly wanted Lorenzen to remove the extra world but he left it in as an Easter egg.

     

    On 9/28/2019 at 10:02 PM, Supergun said:

    And in some cases, it just wasn’t necessary to make any major changes because the gameplay itself was what made the game so good. Say for example Kaboom; where it’s all about hand-eye coordination. Graphics are barely relevant.

    If the story about the extra content in Pitfall II is true, then it can be assumed that they mostly felt the games were good enough as is and didn't want them altered significantly on different platforms for marketing reasons.  Also keep in mind that most of the ports weren't coded by the original programmers and some of them were actually done outside Activision on contract, which is all the more reason they wouldn't have wanted anyone messing around with the game too much (apart from some basic graphical enhancements).

  8. Posted

    Emtombed was developed by Western Technologies.  Steve Sidley programmed the game but the finished product apparently used a simplified version of a more complex maze algorithm that had been developed by Paul Allen Newell (programmer of Towering Inferno).  Newell had assistance from Duncan Muirhead, a fellow WT programmer and math grad student from UCLA who I'm told spoke with a thick Scottish accent, smoked like a chimney, and would code in long marathon sessions before disappearing for days at a time.  Muirhead wasn't around WT very long (most employees weren't) and seems to have left to pursue an interest in sailing vessels.  He'd probably be the one to talk to but he may be difficult to get a hold of.

    Relevant reading for those interested...

    http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/paul_allen_newell/interview_paul_allen_newell.html

    https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/51724/2016-1090-09.pdf

    • Like 2
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  10. Posted

    16 minutes ago, Tempest said:

    I wouldn't say they told them to make a lazy port on purpose, but I can see them not wanting to spring for extra space or give them enough time to try and fit in extra screens.  Those seem to be the two main reasons why home ports stripped out levels and features. 

    There was definitely an emphasis on getting games done quickly as opposed to getting them done well.

    Charlie Kulas was interviewed last year and told a story about how he missed his initial deadline for delivering the Atari 8-bit port of Up 'n Down.  His boss (probably Bob McCaslin or Steve Meadows at McT) brought him into his office and yelled at him, telling Charlie he was costing Sega about $10,000 per day for every day he was late in finishing it.

  11. Posted

    51 minutes ago, Tempest said:

    I don't know, all the home cartridge versions of Congo Bongo seem like pretty lazy ports to me.  Then again, maybe that's what PB told them to do.  AFAIK all the disk ports were done by Sega themselves. 

    I don't know who PB is, but I can assure you that neither Sega nor any other company ever instructed people to make lazy ports on purpose.  I don't know why some people continue to believe that.

    As far as Congo Bongo goes, Sega published most versions themselves but none of them were actually developed at Sega.  Most of them were done by Beck-Tech and A. Eddy Goldfarb but the ColecoVision port was likely done elsewhere.

  12. Posted

    Some member here (maybe CPUWIZ?) had one complete in the box years ago.  They're rare but I can't imagine paying over $500 for one of these in today's market, even in the box.  I assume you're planning to flip this eventually as opposed to keeping it for your collection.   Either way, make sure you test it, since Gemini systems had the same flaky build quality as the ColecoVision.

  14. Posted

    The ColecoVision version of Root Beer Tapper is missing the punk rock bar.  I'm sure Up 'n Down is missing levels from the coin-op but I couldn't tell you which ones off the top of my head.

     

    13 hours ago, Tempest said:

    None of the cartridge versions of Congo Bongo had the log platform or Rhino levels.  Only the disk versions had them.  I'm guessing it was either a space thing or just lazy porting.

    I doubt it was laziness.   I'm sure they would've crammed them in if possible since disk versions were developed that had all of them.

  15. Posted

    Well, the game does appear to work but I don't see why it wouldn't.  You might want to take some better pics of the game in action.  You should post a formal ad in the Buy/Sell/Trade section of the Marketplace, since people are less likely to see this current thread in this subforum.

    https://atariage.com/forums/forum/6-buy-sell-and-trade/

    You should also post in the AtariAge group on Facebook for more exposure if you haven't already done so, since it gets a lot more casual traffic from gamers that may have an interest in Atari but may not necessarily take the step of signing up for an account here on the forums.  I'm not sure where else would really be worth posting since the pool of buyers for such an expensive niche item is limited.  This will either sell right way or take quite a while to move, depending upon several factors including how much you expect to get for it.

    Wanting to exchange the game in person makes sense from a perspective of safety and security, but it's probably an unrealistic request for most people.  What part of the country are you located in?

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    It says Vanguard is available on backorder, which makes sense since it won't be shipping until the end of October.  I noticed that Side Trak is also listed as being available on backorder but are there plans to actually produce more copies of that one?  I was going to try to purchase it with my last order but held off.

  17. Posted

    1 hour ago, Cafeman said:

    Wonder why Wimpy was cut? ROM space? Seems odd.

    It is odd.  Especially since he barely moves at all in the coin-op and is a completely static graphic in the other versions that do include him, so how much ROM space could he really have taken up?  You would expect the NES port to be more accurate than the home versions that preceded it.  But of course NES Donkey Kong is also missing the conveyor belt screen that was present in the A8/C64/ADAM versions, so go figure.

    Maybe whoever was porting these games to the NES was using the earlier console versions as a reference instead of the coin-op and the exclusions were a conscious decision?  Or just laziness and they figured no one would notice.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    11 hours ago, lushgirl_80 said:

    ColecoVision version is also better because it has Wimpy while the NES version doesn't.

    The computer versions (A8, C64, TI99) all have Wimpy also.  His omission from the NES port is another thing about that version I didn't realize until recently (the different ladder orientation in the first stage being the other).

  20. Posted

    44 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

    If this topic doesn't interest you, I suggest looking elsewhere!

    Another poster asked what happened to the listing and I answered him.  You in turn expressed skepticism that it sold, so I produced evidence which appears to show that it did in fact sell.  Simple as that.  Beyond that I really have no interest, since I know that a seller that's legitimately interest in doing business will price an item accordingly, otherwise they're just seeking attention.  I generally pay no mind to people that seek attention but feel free to carry on.

  25. Posted

    It's worth several thousand but it's been so long since one has sold that it's a bit hard to put an accurate value on it.  It's an incredibly rare item but the pool of collectors that actually will have the cash available to purchase this is quite small.  The fact that the manual is missing will hurt the price since the chances of finding a spare one for sale are close to nil.  Out of curiosity, where was this found?

    As far as offering it up for sale, eBay is always an option as well as selling it here through the forums.  If you plan to do the latter, some feedback and references would pretty much be a requirement given the price of the item and the fact that you're an unknown.

    • Like 1
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