KevinMos3

I really like what you've got going here. I love how you can choose from different color pallets (costumes) so it can be a super hero game someone always wanted, but never got. Batman for atari... an alternate Superman... ever wanted Aquaman?, well you've got him... Flash Gordon, Wonder Woman, the long lost Incredible Hulk game. So many options. Just awesome. Anyway, only 2 things come to mind right now to change. One is the attack sound. The "chirp" doesn't really sound like an attack. I wonder also, do the playfield and background colors ever change? You said clues lead to stronger enemies. Maybe another option could be to either let the player choose from a couple of environment color options, (say, if we would prefer gray buildings and gray streets, or browns, etc.). That could give another level of tayloring the game to whatever superhero we want to imagine playing as. Aqua colors would be great to imagine playing underwater with Aquaman. Maybe brown and green for dirt and trees as an option. Maybe dark gray and some other color of gray or dark blue for Gotham, etc. Just brainstorming here.

When we were kids, my friends thought the Atari 2600 was 4 bit. We knew it as the generation prior to the NES (we'd never heard of the 5200, Coleco, or Intellivision), so it must be 1/2 the bits. So much was made of "bits" at the time, that's how we related to each system. We thought the bits determined the size of the pixels on the screen. I wanted to see if my Atari was really "4 bits", so I hooked it up along with my NES and compared the size of the pixels (I think I used Pitfall Harry for this). I remember showing one of my friends how the Atari had the same size pixels as the NES! It must be "8 bit" too! When I realized the 2600 pixels were basically the same size as the NES pixels, I started expecting much more from my Atari. I thought the reason we didn't have games like Contra and Blaster Master was because the programmers were lazy. They had such small pixels on some parts of the screen, so why not all of the screen? I didn't understand the reasons for the limitations until years later when I learned how the 2600 draws graphics (playfield, sprites, etc.). @dodge ramman yeah, you got a bit of crap for that question, but I say "thanks" for the quick trip down memory lane.

I'm not trying to be too critical, but I just stopped by to see how this was going and saw an awful lot of -- I'm not sure what to call it -- so I thought I'd throw out some constructive feedback. Feel free to take it or leave it. @Giles N You can reduce a lot of the clutter by editing your posts instead of posting again after a few minutes. All the above posts were made within an hour. I'm not sure if the editing limit is 30 minutes or 60, but the above posts could have been combined into as little as 1 (60 mins) or as many as 3 (30 mins) -- also, that's a lot of emojis. Please don't take this as an insult. It just looks like some might be getting a little frustrated and I'd hate to see your project fall apart from anyone getting burned out. Stuff takes time and ppl can go days or even weeks without being able to work on something, so posting so rapidly can seem pushy and turn a person off. I speak for myself a bit here: I can go months without time to work on something. I don't currently have time for much, so I just check in often to see what's going on and occasionally make a short post. I still have projects that are multiple years old that I plan to get back to at some point (one of them is approaching a decade... wait, a decade?... geez that seems like yesterday). I'm not saying this project should take years, but it probably should take months, realistically. I haven't used the editor, but I would assume it is for designing level layouts, meaning you are constrained to the sprite count and dimensions for what's in the Bentley game. Walter won't be able to work any miracles with this, he's just able to do what's essentially a graphics edit while arranging the layouts to make levels that are within the constraints of the original Bentley game. This still gives a lot of options and promise, but it's going to play like Bentley which is not a bad thing. edit: Just noticed your edit above. Maybe I'm a little late on the advice.

Just curious -- is the pre-order position being updated as well? It says there are 541 in front of me, so if that's still current, is it safe to assume mine would be coming from another distributor at some point?

I always liked the 2600 version, but struggled to get to the final mission (as a kid, I would usually run out of time or lives toward the end of mission 3). The graphics captured my imagination, wondering what the next screens would hold. At first, I was a little disappointed that it didn't play like the NES version, (you can't just walk up and start punching the enemies). The strategy I used was to stay in the lower left corner and kick, which took too much time and is why I would end up running out of time somewhere in mission 3. It wasn't until I started hacking the graphics several years ago that I finally learned the strategy of using the elbow smash to dominate the enemies. Now, I REALLY enjoy the game. Mastering the elbow smash opened up the game to learn other gameplay strategies to eek out more points. I like to taunt the enemies with a few kicks or punches before knocking them down with an elbow smash. On screens with a weapon, I like to do the same (kick or punch a couple times before I smack them with a bat or barrel. Knives are still more challenging to acquire). Any time I sit down thinking I'll only play for a few minutes, I end up getting hooked and play through to the end. I bought the 7800 version from Video 61 sometime around '94. I really liked the background graphics, but was turned off by the character sprites. The gameplay seemed more forgiving than the 2600 version, but I still found it too difficult to get very far. I don't remember how far I used to get back then. However, like with the 2600 version I became much better at playing the game when hacking the graphics. Also, like the 2600 version, I REALLY enjoy playing the game now, and easily get hooked any time I start to play thinking I'll just take a minute. The NES version was THE Double Dragon version among my friends, so I always wanted the Atari versions to be more like the NES one. Looking back at it now, I can appreciate how the Atari versions were more like the arcade, whereas the NES version was reworked to be more suited for a home console. I don't remember playing the SMS version as a kid, but when I finally did play it, I was turned off by the graphics. I think it's the brown character outlines that didn't appeal to me, so I did a graphics hack a few years back that changed the character outlines to black and tweaked the player sprite. Although it plays more like the NES version, I think I enjoy the Atari versions more. I always loved the Lynx version. I was really impressed with the graphics and gameplay. I love the large sprites and consider it a showcase title. I didn't notice until recent years that it seems to have the graphics of the Genesis version and it's missing some of the mission transitions to save ROM space. I haven't played the Amiga version, but I don't like the character sprites. I've not spent much time with other computer ports either, Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Commodore 64 (although I do own a version of this), etc.

Think that'll work on my car?

Nice score! I've always thought those would be really cool to have. Like you, I would have assumed the batteries would be shot, (which I'd assume are NiCad), and that they'd need replaced with more modern NiMH. But, that's pretty impressive that they work after all this time. Hopefully they continue to serve you well since you caught them still holding a charge. I bought a rechargeable pack for the GameGear a few years ago and it was long since dead, so I replaced the NiCad internals with a NiMH pack intended for R/C cars. Anyway, thanks for sharing the video. I've only ever seen it in a Lynx ad pamphlet and had no idea it attached with that custom battery cover.

Looks great. I LOVE what you've got so far. I'd suggest to not worry about keeping it within 256KB though... since Karri's boards hold 512KB.

Correct. Just title screen. The end game is the same as the title screen music.

Thanks for posting it here. AtariAge is the only “social media” I keep up with. I got in on the founder’s edition and even my wife is really looking forward to it. She’s a big fan of video game music and got to meet you at a Video Games Live concert last year. I think all that combined is what got her interested in this. I’m really hoping it will help her and I to play more games “together” since I’m more Atari era and she’s more SNES.

Put me down for a cart! Not poking fun at anyone in particular, but thought I’d make the joke before ppl actually start flooding the thread with those posts. But seriously, if you did decide to make the port, that would be quite exciting. I won’t be able to check this out for several more days, but I’m interested to see what kind of lemming killing you’ve got here.

Looks really good. I like the presentation. Won't be able to browse it over dialup anymore. I'll kinda miss the ol' site though. Looked the same for as long as there's been Songbird... or internet, really.

There was a car named Marauder in Demolition Racer.

I really love the Turbo Sub music.

Of course. But I currently have almost no free time and spend most of my time away from home, so I have to be very careful what I allow myself to get distracted with. There are so many projects I’d like to do but not the time. I expect life to change in the fall. I should be much closer to home with more free time. But we’ll see.

Very nice start. I like your graphics and gameplay ideas.

After much digging, I FINALLY found my invoice. 20 Sep 2010. There ya go. 🙂 Order Number: 2009874 Date Ordered: Monday 20 September, 2010

Awesome. Sounds like I need to either dig out my old hard drive, or setup my current system to be ready for the hacking. 🙂

My situation is pretty much identical. I have a 32" Seiki that it does NOT work properly with (sound issues discussed), but a 24" Seiki that it DOES work perfectly with. Yes, as long as you get the signal to reset by unplugging/replugging, changing TV input or some other way, it will work, but only until the Flashback resets the signal in some way, (like going back to the menu, loading a game, etc.). Then the sound stops and I need to unplug/replug again. For me, unplugging/replugging is faster than messing with input or power off/on of the TV. I agree it's something I can "live" with too. I really wish AtGames could fix the issue, but I still love my Flashback 9 and 9 Gold and would highly recommend them to people.

I think I like your options 2 and 3 (as long as we're stuck with 3 colors). Just need the turning sprites to match.

Interesting that they recommended updating the firmware on an "8" Gold. That's only been officially supported on the HD "9" models (8s were android, 9s are linux and have an SD card slot for updates and roms). I've also had issues with sound on my living room TV and the Atari Flashback HD models (8 and 9). If I unplug the hdmi cable after a game is loaded and replug it, the sound will work. Then it will cut out again after returning to the menu. Basically, I have to unplug/replug my hdmi cable every time I want sound in a game or menu. The Genesis Flashbacks did NOT have this problem. Unfortunately, there's no way to update your firmware (although you can add/remove games with a mod), and even if you could update your firmware with one from the AtGames site, it would not fix the issue. I've got the latest firmware on my Flashback 9 and 9 Gold and they still have the sound issue with some TVs.

It's quite nice for the older Activision artwork style and captures the action very well. Although, I always preferred the more detailed artwork/labels of some of the later Activision releases (H.E.R.O., Beamrider, Pitfall II even though it was mostly brown, etc.). But, I'm very excited for the game regardless of the packaging. The original Keystone Kapers was/is one of my favorite games even though the cart just had the blue & white text label when I bought it. I do hope this one gets a nice label with artwork rather than the plain screenshot label, but like I said... I'm excited for it regardless.

You better hang in there for at least 90, bud!

I did a mockup around 3 years ago (not the latest rom) of Pokey music by rockman_x_2002 (who did amazing work). YM music would be an even more impressive upgrade for use with the XM. I'd still love to see a standalone pokey cart at some point. I love this version of the game. It could be better with more enemy sprites, but in my opinion, is already the closest to the arcade of any 8-bit version and would definitely stand out with Pokey and/or YM music.

Press "SELECT".