Arkyology - New prototype discovered - Finished Game!

[Swami]

This doesnt play on my Portable Atari and I presume its because its 8 ROM. Will it plan in the Retron 77?

 

How is everybody here playing it? Stella?

 

It works in Stella and on my Harmony cart on the 2600. If your talking about the Flashback portable, it needs to be formatted for it (hacked).

[alex_79]

 

What's an F8 cartridge?

F8 is one of the bankswitching methods used in 8k carts.

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/Atari%202600%20Mappers.txt

[lazzeri]

I´m sorry to hear that things went south with the physical release. Hope things improve and the game get released. I would love to buy a copy BTW.

 

Thank you for the ROM, pwalters! Appreciated!

[Nukey Shay]

This doesnt play on my Portable Atari and I presume its because its 8 ROM.

 

Standard 8k (F8) bankswitching is natively supported on the portable. The problem is the timing issues that the portable's imperfect emulator generates when doing multiple register writes within scanlines. As mentioned, the game would need to be hacked to put some cycle time between writes.

[+sramirez2008]

Excellent game.

 

Arkyology (1983) (Sparrow - Enter-Tech, Rick Harris, George Hefner, Paul Walters, Barbara Ultis) (Prototype) ~_4.png

 

Very addictive and well made.

 

Love all the different animals and the intermeZZZo.

 

 

Wow 8K is a really good score. I've been playing for close to 2 hrs. and can't get near that score. This game is addictive!

 

Here's my best score...

[+sramirez2008]

I finally made it into day 5. I'm done for now...

 

[Shawn]

I finally made it into day 5. I'm done for now...

Arkyology HS.jpg

 

35 days to go. Or that is what the "source material" says

[pwalters]

 

Standard 8k (F8) bankswitching is natively supported on the portable. The problem is the timing issues that the portable's imperfect emulator generates when doing multiple register writes within scanlines. As mentioned, the game would need to be hacked to put some cycle time between writes.

 

One of the 'tricks' I had to implement on this game is the 'tubes' at the top of the ladders. I'm using the same 'Player' object for both the left set of 2 and the right set of 2.. just redeploying that object twice on the same scan line. I wonder if that's causing the problem on the 'Portable' ?

[hizzy]

the game screen shakes in stella, and I'm having a hard time getting off the ladders. What would account for the jumpy screen? Thanks!

[Supergun]

I finally had enough free time to build myself a cart & I played it today for the first time. Its challenging, no doubt. The hit detection for those black hammers (latches) to open the doors of the Ark is unforgiving. The animal feeding is a tad bit less difficult. I only played it for about 15 minutes, but I definitely enjoyed it. And I will play it some more & no doubt get further along, soon enough.

 

Thanks for releasing the game to our community. And regardless of whatever transpired between you & Whiz, its impossible for us (the community) to get involved and/or take sides. Reason being, Whiz is an integral part of this community & its history. His contributions over the years are immeasurable. And you came in here & gave us historical information about your game, as well as the game itself. So were thankful to you as well. So we are torn here by this. Or at least, I know I am.

 

Either way, I guess in the shadow of a religiously themed game, it just feels wrong to have had this scenario as the outcome. Maybe time will tell.

[pwalters]

I finally had enough free time to build myself a cart & I played it today for the first time. Its challenging, no doubt. The hit detection for those black hammers (latches) to open the doors of the Ark is unforgiving. The animal feeding is a tad bit less difficult. I only played it for about 15 minutes, but I definitely enjoyed it. And I will play it some more & no doubt get further along, soon enough.

 

Thanks for releasing the game to our community. And regardless of whatever transpired between you & Whiz, its impossible for us (the community) to get involved and/or take sides. Reason being, Whiz is an integral part of this community & its history. His contributions over the years are immeasurable. And you came in here & gave us historical information about your game, as well as the game itself. So were thankful to you as well. So we are torn here by this. Or at least, I know I am.

 

Either way, I guess in the shadow of a religiously themed game, it just feels wrong to have had this scenario as the outcome. Maybe time will tell.

 

Hello Supergun, thank you for your kind words.

 

Please know that I have no ill feelings toward Whiz, I wish him all the best and I will not now, or ever denigrate him. I also certainly don't want anyone to feel they need to take a side. This is merely a business disagreement that will be resolved and efforts in that direction are in the works.

 

I have been hands-off on building the cartridge as I am seriously busy running a couple of companies and now starting a third. I had always planned on releasing the ROM binary, but wanted to do that after the cartridge came out. It's been just about 3 years since the creation of the cartridge started. I felt that was more than enough time and decided to go ahead and release the ROM binary to the community -- which does not preclude a cartridge. As original developer and copyright holder, that was within my right to do so. In retrospect it would have been kinder if I had forewarned Whiz instead of surprising him -- so my bad there.

 

Whiz will not be left holding the bag, in the past I've offered to buy out the boards he's made, and that offer still stands. There will be a resolution and a boxed cartridge will be available one way or another.

 

In the mean time, it thrills me to see so people enjoying the game that I've been holding for 35 years.

[Rom Hunter]

the game screen shakes in stella, and I'm having a hard time getting off the ladders. What would account for the jumpy screen? Thanks!

Which Stella version do you use?

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I see a roll when switching screens, but besides that the game seems stable.

 

Make sure to use DirtyHairy's fixed version to avoid non-initialized variables.

[chas10e]

A few days ago (at this post) Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements posted another video of Moppets "Tugboat" , I have yet to come a crossed one myself but will keep my eyes peeled

 

[KevKelley]

This game looks amazing. Nice original gameplay. It is a shame it was never released but it is truly an amazing addition to the Atari legacy.

[Swami]

A few days ago (at this post) Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements posted another video of Moppets "Tugboat" , I have yet to come a crossed one myself but will keep my eyes peeled

 

So are these Moppet Arcade cabinets all half-height, as in, made for "moppets"?

[pwalters]

A few days ago (at this post) Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements posted another video of Moppets "Tugboat" , I have yet to come a crossed one myself but will keep my eyes peeled

 

 

That's a very nicely restored TugBoat.. haven't seen one that clean in a very long time.... Watching it brings back the memories of when we developed that game.. Desert Race was on the same platform, pretty much identical to TugBoat but the graphics were changed and the course was modified a bit.

[stupus]

Wonderful to see this game shared!

 

It sounds like artwork has already been created but if not my family owns all the artwork used on the Canon bible programs for the GE phonoviewer. They had some great art and there was a Noah program. I would be happy to have the art used for free if it was desired. It's from 1967.

This is what the front looks like for the noah program. I also own all the original art boards for the entire library. Although some are damaged....hopefully not the noah ones.

 

[Swami]

I wonder how far Sparrow got with mock-ups for the box and manual. Nothing says there would be one, but considering Sparrow's other 2600 game, The Music Machine, was sold on the shelf in a cellophane sealed box, it seems quite possible they had similar plans for this game and David and Goliath and could have made the mockups for the box and manual by the time the game was almost finished.

 

https://atariage.com/box_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=321

 

Sparrow Records was big in the inspirational community but still pretty small, and from Paul's recollections, the video game section was short on money, so "Sparrow Games" may not have been able to multitask like that. Also, The Music Maker did not sell well, so it's possible these games would have been mail-order instead, to save money. Anyone know anyone from Sparrow games that might have kept these?

[stupus]

The fact they already had the music machine as a well known album and an artist that had done the album art probably made music machine a lot easier to complete and market.

Would be interesting if the same artist had done any mockups for the other games. Imo his art is fantastic.

[Swami]

artist that had done the album art probably made music machine a lot easier to complete and market.

Would be interesting if the same artist had done any mockups for the other games. Imo his art is fantastic.

Mark Pendergrass

[pwalters]

The fact they already had the music machine as a well known album and an artist that had done the album art probably made music machine a lot easier to complete and market.

Would be interesting if the same artist had done any mockups for the other games. Imo his art is fantastic.

 

Yes, as I recall the head (wish I could remember his name) had mortgaged his house to pay for the development of these games.

 

It's a long story not relevant to this forum, but he and I had a conversation about faith one time over lunch. As a young adult I was struggling with some faith based issues, and it really struck me how kind, caring and non judgmental he was in our discussion. That was new to me and I still appreciate his words.

 

I've tried searching for any link to him and any of the other principals that I remember, but haven't found anything. He wasn't 'Billy Ray Hearn' who is listed on Wikipedia as the founder of 'Sparrow Records'.

 

I had one contact with him a few years later. The hardware engineer from the Unitronix project (odd coincidence I thought at the time) was working with him to release Arkyology -- this was probably 1986(?) as I had the equipment and source code from the EnterTech bankruptcy auction. They had some concerns about the timing when it ran in their prototype hardware cartridge. That was the last contact I had with any of the principals and the last time I heard about Arkyology outside of my copy.

[+Atari_Warlord]

Mark Pendergrass and Paul Annan are credited for the artwork on the Music Machine Album. A quick google search says they are still both around doing art.

[Swami]

Mark Pendergrass and Paul Annan are credited for the artwork on the Music Machine Album. A quick google search says they are still both around doing art.

Just so he doesn t Get pounded with messages, Ill let you know I just messaged him to ask about it.

[Swami]

Mark Pendergrass and Paul Annan are credited for the artwork on the Music Machine Album. A quick google search says they are still both around doing art.

Mark said he doesn't remember working on Arkyology or David and Goliath, specifically, but said his work often got reused for different projects.