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Gremlins may be my new favorite game


Scumdogg

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I finally got my 2600 set up again post-move (3 months later...), and got to dive into the stack of games i've acquired since then.

 

I have to say, above everything else i gotten recently, Gremlins just really blows me away for some reason. I stop being able to catch the Mogwai with any effectiveness around the 3rd or 4th wave, but i'm better at the Gremlin-shooting screens. I played it a handful of times and hit around 75,000 points.

 

Anyone else play this game? Any tips i might be missing out on, or does it eventually just hit the impossible mark?

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I don't have a 5200. :( They're incredibly rare around here, for some reason. Like finding a sack of diamonds in the street rare. I have no idea why.

 

But yeah, as soon as i get one, i will definitely be hunting down Gremlins for it.

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I spoke with Scott Smith awhile back and he had this to say about 2600 Gremlins:

 

They gave us a copy of the script for the movie. I was supposed to read it and then come up with a game. The cover letter said that this movie would be "just like ET" (which, as you know, was a huge hit). I read the script and considering how violent it was, I was skeptical. If you saw the movie, you know it was a) violent and b) not the hit Gremlins was. Anyway, I can't think of any huge inspiration; I just made it up. They then had us fly out to Burbank and meet with Spielberg and Chris Columbus. They heard the ideas, liked them and gave final approval. I remember thinking Spielberg was pretty intense. When he focused on you, it was clear that nothing else in the room mattered. I don't remember what he said, just the intensity of his focus.

 

I had about 3 months to do it. Figuring out how to write the kernel (that's my remembrance of what they called the code that followed the beam down) was really hard for me. I remember someone who sat down with me one day and finally got the light to turn on. I remember giving him $1K of my bonus (for completing Gremlins) and him being not too appreciative. I don't think I used his kernel, but I wouldn't have gotten the game done without him. I believe the kernel I used was a modification of the one he showed me.

 

Once I understood how to do the kernel, I don't think there were any major problems except doing the PAL version. I remember Mimi and I working on it. Mostly I was just eliminating scan lines (common practice to produce the PAL version was to simply blank the "extra" scan lines). Mimi and I were on the second floor of one of the Atari buildings working on the PAL version when a 6+ earth quake hit. I told my wife it was the first time I had felt the earth move when I was with a woman. She was not amused.

 

Tempest

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Cool bit of info there, Tempest. Thanks. :)

 

The process of game development (especially for a license) in those days never ceases to interest me. I can't imagine getting a movie script and having to boil it down to "Mogwai + Sandwich = Bad....yeah....that's the ticket!". I have a lot of respect for anyone who can make a decent game out of a movie *today*, and much more so for anyone who could accomplish it on the hardware of 25-30 years ago.

 

 

Even though "Fast Food" has elbowed its way into the spotlight on my system, i still can't seem to stay away from Gremlins. The game amuses me to no end, and i'm getting consistently better at it. I'm all excited to get a 5200 now, if that version is better than this one.

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I had about 3 months to do it. Figuring out how to write the kernel (that's my remembrance of what they called the code that followed the beam down) was really hard for me. I remember someone who sat down with me one day and finally got the light to turn on. I remember giving him $1K of my bonus (for completing Gremlins) and him being not too appreciative. I don't think I used his kernel, but I wouldn't have gotten the game done without him. I believe the kernel I used was a modification of the one he showed me.

 

How many Atari games and protos use the multi-resp trick? Gremlins' use of the trick is not as sophisticated as Galaxian's, but it's interesting nonetheless.

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I had about 3 months to do it. Figuring out how to write the kernel (that's my remembrance of what they called the code that followed the beam down) was really hard for me. I remember someone who sat down with me one day and finally got the light to turn on. I remember giving him $1K of my bonus (for completing Gremlins) and him being not too appreciative. I don't think I used his kernel, but I wouldn't have gotten the game done without him. I believe the kernel I used was a modification of the one he showed me.

 

How many Atari games and protos use the multi-resp trick? Gremlins' use of the trick is not as sophisticated as Galaxian's, but it's interesting nonetheless.

 

I don't know but Mark Ackerman, who used it in Galaxian, actually got a patent for the idea.

 

Tempest

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I don't know but Mark Ackerman, who used it in Galaxian, actually got a patent for the idea.

 

Did any games prior to Galaxian ever do a multi-resp on the Ball? There's a transistor in the TIA whose sole function is to make the Ball appear immediately when it's triggered (instead of a scan line later); I wonder why it's there?

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