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I got asked this question on Patreon but I thought I would do a video about it instead. I always like sending a little love towards AtariAge William Morrow asks: Do you play any AtariAge homebrews, hacks, and or reproductions? What is your opinion of these games? The Immortal John Hancock (SWLOVINIST here on AtariAge) helps me answer this question by showing you some of his amazing boxed AtariAge 2600 and 7800 games! Games shown: Atari 2600 Space Rocks Halo 2600 Boulder Dash Princess Rescue Zippy the Porcupine Starcastle IXION Turbo Atari 7800 Dungeon Stalker K.C. Munchkin! Frenzy / Berzerk Armor Attack II

Part I: Who's Your Daddy? I was going through my e-mail archives today looking for a particular topic, when I inadvertently stumbled upon the actual birth of Christmas Carol! It's a conversation I had with Joe Z. during December 2010, while working on my port of Pac-Man. We were commenting on the colour limitations. It's funny how things turn out. It started out as a quick-and-dirty distraction and it ended up taking over my life for a significant period of time. Notice those fateful words at the end of the first message, "I'll continue with Pac-Man after Christmas." Well, I've seen that movie and I know how it ends! Anyway, below is the full conversation, at least those pertaining to the Birth Of Christmas Carol, which occurred at noon on Sunday, 19 of December, 2010. Watch the story unfold and read how the characters came to life. I've included the different versions of the ROMs as they were sent throughout the conversation. Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:55:22 -0500 On Dec 19, 2010, at 11:44, Joe Zbiciak wrote: > You're using color 13 (light blue, which is a bluish purple). Is color 12 > (pink) too close to red? Exactly. Color 13 was the only one that worked for Pinky. #12 looked more like bright Fuchsia than Pink, and so was too close to red--at least in jzIntv. > As for the eyes... yes, low res is a pain, isn't it? Tell me about it! *sigh* dZ. P.S. I decided to take what I have of Pac-Man right now and transform it into a quick and dirty game with a Christmas motif by changing the sprites and the maze. This is just as a "treat" for the guys on the list. I think I can pull it off in a couple of days, since it's mostly graphics changes. The logic will be just stupidly scripted antagonists moving around. I hope to have enough time to even include Arnauld's tracker playing a little Christmas ditty. It should be cool! I'll continue with Pac-Man after Christmas. dZ. Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:29:12 -0500 On Dec 19, 2010, at 11:55, DZ-Jay wrote: > P.S. I decided to take what I have of Pac-Man right now and transform > it into a quick and dirty game with a Christmas motif by changing the > sprites and the maze. This is just as a "treat" for the guys on the > list. I think I can pull it off in a couple of days, since it's mostly > graphics changes. The logic will be just stupidly scripted antagonists > moving around. > > I hope to have enough time to even include Arnauld's tracker playing a > little Christmas ditty. It should be cool! > > I'll continue with Pac-Man after Christmas. Here's a first test. I just redrew the background and re-configured the maze. Right now it's just blue blocks (ice cubes?), but I plan on changing it soon. The ghosts are there for testing, they will go away soon. Pac-Man will be replaced by a little elf sprite. The antagonists will be two: one ghost and an evil snowman. The power-pellets have turned into magical snowflakes. The fruit will be a wrapped present. The game is called "A Christmas Carol: The Ghost Of Christmas Presents". Yes, that's "presents," as in gift Here's the premise: An evil snowman has stolen Santa's Christmas presents and hid them away in a cave near the North Pole. The cave is haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Presents, who enjoys very much the company of wrapped packages and will not easily let them go. Santa has sent Elvin the elf to hunt down the snowman and bring back his presents. You must avoid the Ghost and retrieve the package from the cave before the evil snowman returns and kills you. There are four magical snowflakes strewn around the cave which, when touched, will temporarily make Elvin invincible. dZ. cc_test1.zip Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: Joe Zbiciak To: DZ-Jay Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:24:23 -0600 dZ, Cute! I think everyone will love it! BTW, I played around with it for a couple minutes and found a couple minor bugs. In the first screen shot, you can see that I managed to get PM to stop at a "dead end" at a half-card boundary (ie. I turned at the right spot, and I think the cornering logic did something funky, since you have some wide-open spaces that it's not accustomed to yet). In the second, PM is stuck. Once he hits the indicated spot, he stays stuck. --Joe Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:13:07 -0500 Regarding the half-card boundary, that was by design, but admittedly a stupid idea. I thought it would give the sprite a bigger range of motion, but it just ended up being weird. The other bug (screenshot #2) was real: That tile had a an open exit toward the wall, so as soon as Pac-Man enters the block, he can't get out. I fixed that. I also removed the half-card movement, so the Pac-Man can only move within the center of the paths, as you would expect. Can you try it now, please? dZ. cc_test2.zip Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: Joe Zbiciak To: DZ-Jay Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:23:16 -0600 dZ, Yep, the one hanging location is fixed. I did find another... --Joe Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:28:53 -0500 Gosh, I saw that one, sorry. I think that's all of those. The "maze" is defined as an ASCII map with exit attributes. What you are finding are those boo-boos such as this: ........ .######. ........ #......# ...^.... #......# ........ #......# .....>.. #......# ...v.... #......# ........ #......# ........ .######. Where a tile has an open exit pointing to a wall. I think there aren't any more. I'm working now on a simple Auto-Pilot script to move the Ghost around the maze. That way I don't have to worry about AI (at least not for the ghost). dZ. Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: Joe Zbiciak To: DZ-Jay Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:36:02 -0600 On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 8:28 PM, DZ-Jay wrote: > Gosh, I saw that one, sorry. I think that's all of those. Cool. > The "maze" is defined as an ASCII map with exit attributes. What > you are finding are those boo-boos such as this: > > ........ .######. > ........ #......# > ...^.... #......# > ........ #......# > .....>.. #......# > ...v.... #......# > ........ #......# > ........ .######. Ah yes, that makes sense. You can make similar sorts of "inconsistent world data" in Space Patrol by placing rocks and craters too near each other. Leads to some fun graphics glitches. > Where a tile has an open exit pointing to a wall. I think there > aren't any more. I'm working now on a simple Auto-Pilot script > to move the Ghost around the maze. That way I don't have to worry > about AI (at least not for the ghost). Coolness! :-) --Joe Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:54:43 -0500 OK, got the script ready! The Ghost goes on a pre-determined pattern, and your goal is to avoid him. Right now, collisions are not being checked, so it's just visual. Collisions are detected easily with the Pac-Man engine: it's a matter of comparing the virtual tile coordinates of the sprites after every move. Attached is the latest build with the Ghost script. In case you are curious, I have attached the script file. I also include the maze source file, in case you feel adventurous and want to play with the configuration (or search for more inconsistencies). I can honestly say that this silly, simple game is about 80% complete! dZ. cc_test3.zip Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:01:00 -0500 Oops! There's a rather big bug: When you eat an energi^H^H^H^H^H^Hmagical snowflake, the ghost disappears after flashing white. I went cleaning up the code that loops through four ghosts at a time and I may have messed up something there. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Talk to you later! dZ. Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: Joe Zbiciak To: DZ-Jay Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:02:34 -0600 I was just about to report that. Guess you found it on your side. :-) Yeah, the AI state machine stuff can be easy to mess up in unique ways. I remember having some weird crashes in SP when trying to get ships to exit, for example. Subject: Re: Pac-Man auto-pilot test From: DZ-Jay To: Joe Zbiciak Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 06:42:53 -0500 OK. I fixed the frightened color issue. Although in this mini game, the frightened mode should just make the elf twinkle (for invincibility) instead of changing the ghost. I also altered the script to introduce pauses every so often, where the Ghost looks around. Sometimes he does a "double-take" before moving It's all definitely non-random, but my focus is to use my already existing assets, and I don't have any AI or random elements pre-fab. I'll spend some more time in the maze (my wife wants me to add Christmas trees), and then I'll start working on collisions. Oh, and a slight change of title. The game is now "Christmas Carol vs. The Ghost of Christmas Presents." Carol is the elf, you see. (Please don't kill me dZ. cc_test4.zip

Reggie brings over a stack of NES & SNES home-brews, reproductions & hacked games including one that stars him! These games are very cool and created in limited numbers by fans. Games Shown: Star Fox 2 (SNES) Clock Tower (SNES) Moon Crystal (NES) Fix-it Felix jr (Genesis) Magical Pop’n (SNES) Megaman & Bass (SNES) BS ShockMan (SNES) Zelda The Legend of Link (NES) Flying Hero (SNES) Reggie’s Radical Adventures (NES) Is there a re-production scene for Atari 2600 games? Seems like a fan-made version of Air Raid would be a popular seller... I'd consider buying one...